Takuto Maruki

Takuto Maruki is a non-playable character and boss from Persona 5 Royal.

Appearances

 * Persona 5 Royal: Major Character; Consultant Confidant, Final Boss

Design
Takuto is a bespectacled young man that has brown, short unkempt hair and wears a blue suit with a blue checkered tie along with a white coat. He also wears light brown slacks and sandals.

In the Metaverse, Takuto has his hair long and slicked back. He wears a white formal suit, gloves and shoes.

When fused with Azathoth or Adam Kadmon, he wears a golden priest garb with a cylindrical mask, a white cape and holds a staff.

Personality
Takuto appears to be a counselor who cares about the students in the school and sympathizes with Suguru Kamoshida's victims. As a counselor, he is quite friendly to those who reach out to him. He is also highly clumsy, quirky and is prone to messing up in comedic situations, unlike most of the the other teachers who have no-nonsense, regular personalities. He is quite popular with the Thieves and even Yusuke from Kosei High School comes to Shujin to take his counseling, effectively making him a popular figure among students and one of the Thieves' greatest sponsors. However, he does not like Kobayakawa due to him using the students for profit. He also appears to be a skilled cook.

In reality, Takuto is a therapist with the magical power to warp cognition thanks to his Persona, who reached out to him because of his extreme grief of losing his ex-girlfriend and he used this ability to cope or neuter crippling mental illnesses by granting things that they wanted that would cancel out their depression, although if he is requested to transform a person into another, the subconsciousness of that person will interfere with the cognitive overlay, causing inconsistencies in their behavior.

Eventually after understanding what the Phantom Thieves of Hearts wanted, a combination of repeated failures in his cognitive research and the Day of Reckoning removing all wisdom from his Persona has caused him to become a madman with only fragments of his former self. He conducts his experiments after Yaldabaoth's fall, taking his place as the world's savior, unaware that his actions would lead to the revival of Mementos and make it impossible to remove, as well as making him no different from Yaldabaoth himself. Despite this, he genuinely wishes to make people happy. Instead of forcing his view on the Phantom Thieves, he tries to persuade them several times to accept the reality he created of their own will, only using force if he absolutely has no other choice.

It was heavily implied that his personality prior to the Day of Reckoning is his genuine personality, and he used to only utilize his powers to cure crippling mental conditions instead of for complete stagnation. This holds true even for Sumire Yoshizawa's transformation. His "Salvation Plan" also used to be validating his cognitive psience research and saving lives with it by preventing depression and other mental illnesses, and not anything as seen in the Third Semester. His deluded savior complex during the winter terms is merely a distortion courtesy of the Day of Reckoning driving his Persona berserk combined with multiple personal and professional failures, causing his beliefs to be distorted into the form seen in-game. It is also implied that Yaldabaoth's advance might have engineered his insanity, as his palace never appears in Oodaiba prior to Kunikazu Okumura's death.

Persona 5 Royal
During his past, the entire family of Takuto's ex-girlfriend, Rumi was murdered, leading her to fall into a catatonic depression. While he was already researching cognitive psience by then, this further motivated his research so he could help. When he was in extreme grief, he manifested Adam Kadmon as a Persona and made a deal with it. After the deal is made, Rumi fully recovered from her depression, but has also got her memories shuffled and consequentially forgotten about him completely. As to not remind Rumi of her grief, Takuto cut his ties with her.

His research was met with swift rejection by his university due to it being completely original and unprecedented, and his lifelong dream of opening a Cognitive Psience research center in place of a stadium in Oodaiba was crushed, as the fundraising was stopped midway because of a complete lack of proof of his research and it was seized by Masayoshi Shido, although the researchers do not know what they are dealing with his research. Therefore, his dream never came to fruition and he left university as a result. This further motivates him to investigate deeper in his research so he can validate that his own brand of work was true.

Eventually, his research reveals that use of cognitive psience might be dangerous. While at first terrified, he continues to use his cognition warping powers from Adam Kadmon to assist people and make a better world and opened a clinic, eventually using his power on a girl known as Sumire Yoshizawa, gaining an understanding that she lost her sister Kasumi and wished to live as her, transforming Sumire into Kasumi via his cognition manipulating powers as she requested him to do so. This has proven to be an effective halt on her suicidal tendencies even after the events that happened less than a year later, allowing her to regain her sanity back after interacting with the protagonist once her cognitive overlay peels off completely.

Takuto later become the student counselor at Shujin Academy and one of the protagonist's Confidants. Takuto is hired by Kobayakawa in order to improve the students' mental health after dealing with the exposure of the Kamoshida incident. When he is presented in the auditorium, he makes a clumsy speech before being pushed aside by Kobayakawa to end the assembly.

Since then, he regularly meets up with members of the Phantom Thieves and has encountered all of its members save for Akechi. His goal is to collect information of the desires of students from Shujin in order to present an essay to his professor, who he was determined to prove to that his original research was true.

Takuto will leave Shujin on November 18th, during which he gives a speech for the students to avoid pain and negativity and live strong. He then personally bids the protagonist farewell.

On the 24th of December, he published his final essay to his professor, who chides him for trying to stop the powerful Masayoshi Shido alone and kicks him out of his room while Yaldabaoth's control plan began to appear. Yaldabaoth's activities accidentally causes Adam Kadmon to corrupt and manifest as Azathoth who tells him to carry out his plans. After Yaldabaoth's fall, he erects his Palace and was partially taken over by Azathoth, transforming him completely into a madman that is merely a shadow of his former self. Azathoth also began to ignorantly unleash mass salvation by warping the very cognition of humanity, even going as far as outright reviving the dead instead of projecting them as mere cognitions.

Takuto was later revealed to be the main mastermind of the Third Semester events, where it was revealed that he is a Persona user who was delusionally attempting to end all of their pain by granting them eternal happiness. When approaching him in his Palace, he warns Joker, Akechi, and Kasumi not to approach him or they will see the pain of reality.

As the party ignores his multiple warnings, he decides to play back the accident to Kasumi to let her fully recollect her memories and experience pain in an attempt to make the party reconsider their actions. The shocking revelation results in Kasumi transforming back into Sumire. After Joker and Akechi deny his reality, he takes Sumire via a Shadow and orders it to attack, transforming it into Hastur. After the confrontation, he requests them to see how the rest of the Phantom Thieves' lives are in the reality he created in hope of changing their minds and come back on Janurary 9th.

When the duo come back to meet him on Janurary 9th, he offers them a deal to allow the protagonist to accept the reality. Should the protagonist refuse, Sumire will be in full denial of the mass awakening and fights him alone as Kasumi due to Akechi backing off in fear that he would kill her. Once this gets through, Takuto will separate Cendrillon from her and make it go berserk, forcing it to attack the party. Once it is done for and Kasumi reverts into Sumire, he realizes that all speaking is worthless and tells the party to change his heart as he deeply realizes the errors of his ways. He then changes Sumire back into Kasumi just to allow the party a fighting chance, and tells them to meet him on Febuary 3rd.

Should the protagonist accept any of his offers to accept his reality, regardless of directly or indirectly, it will trigger a new bad ending where Takuto's spell kicks in full effect as the Phantom Thieves celebrate Setsubun at full content, with Sumire's name reverting into "Kasumi Yoshizawa." After the celebration ends, the protagonist is allowed stay at LeBlanc until he graduates in Shujin by his parents. Makoto and Haru graduate on the 15th of March, where Takuto gives them a photoshoot as the protagonist still senses something is wrong as he was the only person who was not fully affected by Takuto's spell. The credits displays the Thieve's desires being fulfilled and all of them content with happiness, and ends with a snapshot of them partying at LeBlanc with Akechi and the protagonist looking towards the camera. The snapshot then burns and fades, spreading out from the protagonist, Akechi and "Kasumi's" direction afterwards.

It was revealed by Lavenza that as he meets the Thieves on consultant sessions, he has realized what they actually want and the thoughts had increased his powers, to the point that he began to fill in the gaps of Yaldabaoth and revives Mementos for his own use. If he is not stopped within a month, this new Mementos will completely fuse into the real world and become impossible to remove. By her persuasion, the Thieves made up the desire to defeat Takuto once and for all.

The deadline for the infiltration of his palace is 30 days; If the party fails to meet this deadline, the next day Takuto will consult the protagonist and tell him about his pain and sleep forever. When he wakes up, his phone runs out of battery, his room is ridden with cobwebs, he has no motivation to do anything and even Lavenza fails to contact him.

After locating his treasure, the Phantom Thieves decide to let the protagonist send a calling card to Takuto on his own. The date is locked at February 3rd regardless of prior completion. Once the date comes, he will personally pay a visit to the protagonist, in which he insists that his methods are correct and reveals that Rumi is living happily in the reality he is in. As Akechi comes in, he also claims that the current Akechi is a fake he created based on the protagonist's regret. If his claims were true or were merely a trap to set up the protagonist for accepting his reality was left unclear, as Akechi warned of a setup by Takuto once the party reaches Eden and his claims are contradictory to his method of reviving dead people via reality warping. Takuto then tells him to meet him at his Palace for a final fight. Once he leaves, the protagonist will have another chance to accept his offer on his own accord; Accepting it will result in a double confirmation by Akechi. Should he confirm the decision, it will result in the same bad ending as Takuto's direct offer.

He then invites the party to battle him on top of the Garden of Eden, in which he manifests his Persona Azathoth to attack the party as well as making him nearly invulnerable. His Persona manifests behind him consistently and must be destroyed in order to end the fight. To further compound this, he has three tentacles that constantly buff him or render Azathoth invulnerable. Once Azathoth is defeated the party escapes the collapsed palace while holding his treasure, a torch, only for him to combat the party again by transforming Azathoth into Adam Kadmon. He fights the party on foot, then fuses himself into Adam Kadmon and renders himself invincible until Futaba located his weakness. All of the protagonist's party members help fend off Adam's final attack while the protagonist targets its head and destroys it. His Palace then collapses, although he is still capable of using a cable to pull down the protagonist and in disbelief of his salvation plan, he confronts him by fist, as when a Palace collapses the Metaverse cannot be used anymore.

Takuto was outmatched by the protagonist in a fist fight and slowly drops to his death, although Joker rescues him by holding his hand. Both Takuto and the protagonist leave Oodaiba via Morgana's helicopter form afterwards.

Due to the destruction of his incredibly powerful cognition warping powers, all are reset to normal; The protagonist is now in Juvenile Hall making a testimony against Shido, with all of his maxed confidants (Including ones that he maxed on the third semester) supporting his release, Akechi vanishes as he is presumed to have indeed died (alongside Futaba's mother and anyone else who was alive due to the palace's existence) and Sumire no longer has Kasumi overlayed on her.

His treasure is a fire torch that represents the wisdom that he uses to restore Azathoth into Adam Kadmon. Once in the real world, it reveals itself to be actually a newsletter about the murder of Rumi's parents. It was picked by Sumire near where his Palace was and handed to Futaba, and the protagonist keeps it as a memento with him.

At the end of the game, he is shown to have become a taxi driver and assists him and his friends to drive the protagonist back to the train station while the others are distracting the agents following the protagonist. Takuto reveals that he decided to face his life head-on like the protagonist and his friends are before bidding him farewell.

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Strategy
Before battle, be prepared with any accessories or passives that can prevent fear and/or dizzy because these will be the greatest threats in this fight. Unlike Yaldabaoth, he mainly attacks with Nuke, Bless and Physical attacks with Almighty attacks as finishers, so Sumire and Makoto should be in the team at all costs as they prevent him from dealing serious dents to the party. Haru's Life Wall also helps a lot in addition to greatly reducing the odds of party members being affected by fear or dizzy, although she is weak to Nuke. For the same reasons, avoid bringing Akechi as he has the same effective profile as Sumire, but his elemental affinities makes him highly vulnerable to Gun Repel or Bless.

Takuto and Azathoth is consisted of five parts; Takuto himself, Azathoth and three tentacles. If either Azathoth or Takuto's drops to a quarter or below for the first time, the boss goes into its second phase; Defeating either one finishes the boss fight.


 * The frontmost one protects Azathoth from taking anything more than 10 damage from any attacks, including Almighty attacks. Defeating this is mandatory for targeting Azathoth.
 * The second one heals Takuto by 800 HP per turn. Destroying this is mandatory for targeting Takuto as he heals himself every turn with this if it's present.
 * The third one will cast buffs on either Takuto or Azathoth. It is also recommended to destroy this if possible, although not as mandatory as the others.

Takuto will also regenerate any fallen tentacle instantly during his final move in a turn.

As Azathoth cannot heal itself, it is strongly recommended to ignore Takuto and aim solely for Azathoth. All of the tentacles have weaknesses and can be downed for one mores, although they can block or repel some elements, so crowd control might be dangerous to use bar Almighty Skills such as Morning Star and Megidolaon. The party member's ultimate personas block the respective types they use, making them highly desirable for mass removal. Baton Pass is strongly recommended to be used in order to allow high damage output on any targets that have to be removed or damaged. While it is recommended to remove all of the tentacles, occasionally only the one protecting Azathoth can be removed in order to save resources and continue the flow of offense.

Once the party drops either Azathoth or Takuto's HP to a quarter once, he will enter his second phase and use more tentacles to make Azathoth bigger. He can also limit various movements in a semi-random order starting from prohibiting magic for a turn, although he will do this rather sparsely, leaving huge windows where the party is allowed free movement. Baton Pass or Physicals will be prohibited for the second time he does this, healing will always be prohibited during the third time, (This includes all skills or items that recover HP, SP or Status, so the protagonist low on health when he does this is very likely lethal.) prohibits guarding on the fourth and items/support skills on the fifth.

Azathoth's tentacles now switch weaknesses, so be prepared to scan them. If an affinity has been changed from weak to a question mark from a tentacle, it indicates that the tentacle now blocks or repels that affinity, so be prepared to switch tactics or use a regular attack on a less important tentacle weak to it so it can be downed for a Baton Pass.

Azathoth will also begin attacking twice per turn and will spam Evil Smile frequently; If he gets any one mores he will follow up with Evil Smile as well. Fear and Dizzy can make damaging him very difficult and every turn wasted on healing aliments is wasted damage output. At least Sumire should be able to block fear completely if the protagonist can, since that would allow the party to still do sufficient damage in case if fear affects the others. The protagonist can also equip one or more personas with Salvation in order for a quick getaway. Maria is recommended as it can recover aliments and even revive fallen party members completely.

Once his HP drops low enough, a message might appear on the top of the screen dictating that a party member is being specifically targeted. Have that member guard at all costs, since he will target that member with a multi-hit almighty attack that will most likely instantly kill them. If his HP drops to a critically low level, he can also concentrate for a turn, then use a hard-hitting Almighty attack. Unlike the aforementioned attack, most party members should be able to tank this if their HP is high enough.

Defeating Takuto will instantly end the fight. If the party defeats Azathoth, Takuto will be completely incapacitated with 1 HP left, allowing a single attack to end the fight.

If Azathoth or Takuto are defeated, he will move to regenerate it into its true form Adam Kadmon. Any HP or SP depleted in the previous fight will be fully restored. This phase is much easier than the previous as he merely has one attack; A party-wide almighty attack that hits for approximately 300 damage on average. Any damage on Takuto will be significantly reduced, so cast debilitate on him and prioritize physical attacks. Once his HP drops by a quarter, he will drain the party's HP and use it to heal himself fully once using Adam Kadmon, then proceed to take normal damage. From this point on if the buffs and debuffs are still on, he can be taken down quite easily.

The final phase will involve the party confronting Adam Kadmon directly. While the party functions as usual, all three of Adam Kadmon's targets will take only 2 damage. Despite debuffs and appropriately powerful attacks will allow the party to damage him as usual, the HP for all three targets appear to be impossible to deplete completely. While he will attack with a highly powerful Almighty attack every other turn, the party will always endure this at 1 HP even if the damage for the attack goes way over 1000 unguarded. Once he repeats the process twice, the battle ends.

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Confidant
Takuto's Confidant is enacted after his speech in the Shujin auditorium. He can be met at any time after school and does not require a matching Persona, although he will not be available past rank 5 prior to the 19th of September. Additionally, the final rank is automatic on November 18th should the protagonist advance his Confidant to Rank 9 prior to that date. His Confidant mainly unlocks bonuses in combat and increases the protagonist's max SP every time he consults him. Maxing this confidant unlocks Vohu Manah and is required to play the Third Semester events.

Music
"Ideal and the Real" plays in all of his counseling sessions, including the one with Sumire in his clinic.

A remixed version of this theme, "Ideal and the Real -end version-" can be heard during the credits of the third semester bad ending which happens if the protagonist decides to accept his version of reality, regardless if he directly offered it or not.

"Throw Away Your Mask" and its instrumental version, "Keep Your Faith" plays during the final fight with him, with "Keep Your Faith" for Azathoth and "Throw Away Your Mask" for Adam Kadmon.

Trivia

 * Changing the PS4's main menu theme to Takuto's theme will also change its music to "Ideal and the Real."
 * Up to this day, Takuto has remained unmarried while nearly everyone he knew in his university hasn't.
 * Takuto has trouble preparing dishes with apples, unlike Sumire.
 * Takuto is one of the very few final bosses in the Megami Tensei franchise that are completely human.
 * Takuto is so far the first human character to be completely controlled by a rogue Persona. When accounting for non-human characters, Elizabeth is the first, having been overtaken by Zeus in Persona Q.
 * If Takuto manipulates the cognition of an individual to make them believe they are another person, such as in Sumire's case, their perception of others will change to make them believe they are being referred to by the name of the person whom they are impersonating. This implies that, without complete control of Mementos, Takuto's abilities can only manipulate his targets' memories and perceptions of themselves and others.
 * Takuto does not actually revive the dead using Azathoth. Rather, he rewrites history as if the events leading to that person's death and/or corruption never happened in the first place, resulting in their present-day counterparts being altered or restored accordingly.
 * Takuto is one of the very few people who crossed Shido's path without being assassinated or threatened with legislative action by him.
 * Takuto is the only Confidant in the game to be affected by Yaldabaoth's distortions even when his Confidant is maxed, although the way in which it affects him is vastly different from the rest of Tokyo due to his unique circumstance.
 * Takuto's Persona behaves in a drastically different way from other Personas. Not only can it manipulate the Metaverse from within the real world, it is extremely unstable when used to do so as seen in its ability to cause memory loss and cognitive dissonance as drawbacks to its powers. It is also highly susceptible to cognitive manipulation from beings born of the Collective Unconscious and displays an initiative and sentience separate to Takuto as a result of that, such as when Azathoth pressures him to continue his plan when he begins to have doubts. Additionally, when Maruki summons his Personas, they must remain tangible and vulnerable to attack, rather than appearing only momentarily when attacking, a trait shared thus far only with Asterius (excluding navigation Personas).
 * When Tokyo is affected by Takuto's cognition warping powers during the third semester, the black and white on the calendar dates inverts.
 * Takuto is the only Palace-ruler who personally maintains his Palace in place of his Shadow Self.
 * Takuto is so far the first major adult target for the Thieves' heists to be genuinely made a better person as designated instead of being reduced into a weeping husk like the others.
 * Takuto's Japanese VA, Satoshi Hino is known for his role as Sai in Naruto & Naruto Shippuden series, Ainz Ooal gown from Overlord, Yuji Sakai from Shakugan no Shana series, & Yoshitsugu Otani from Samurai Warriors series.
 * While Takuto's English VA,Billy Kametz is known to be the voice of Josuke Higashikata from JJBA: Diamonds are Unbreakable, Galo Thymos from Promare, Naofumi Iwatani from The rising of the shield hero, Colt from Brawl stars and not to mention Ferdinand Von Aegir in Fire Emblem Three Houses.
 * Coincidentally, Satoshi Hino (While being Japanese VA) and Billy Kametz were born in the USA.
 * Takuto's motives after becoming insane are extremely similar to Nyx's.
 * Both seek to end all matters with a swift blow that ends all of humanity's pain, with Nyx wiping out all life on Earth and Takuto drowning humanity in eternal happiness and taking away all of their growth using Mementos as a control device. If the protagonists accepts either of their deals, humanity will remain ignorant as their plans come to fruition.
 * Both are brought into action without their own consent; Nyx is reawakened by the Kirijo Group's experiments, while Takuto is driven to insanity when Yaldabaoth maddens Adam Kadmon and degenerates him into Azathoth.
 * While Nyx is related to death, Takuto is related to overabundant and stagnating life.