Sumire Yoshizawa

"Kasumi Yoshizawa", real name Sumire Yoshizawa, is a playable character from Persona 5 Royal. She is a student at Shujin Academy who lives a double life as a Phantom Thieves of Hearts.

Appearances

 * Persona 5 Royal: Playable Character; Faith Confidant

Design
Sumire (as Kasumi) has red long hair tied into a ponytail, with a red ribbon tied into a bow and red eyes. She wears a Shujin Academy winter uniform with black pantyhose and red loafers. Sometimes however, she ties her hair with a green, checkered ribbon instead. Her summer school uniform is modified. She wears a white dress shirt under a beige button-down with vertical lines, white socks with blue lining and orange loafers. In winter, "Kasumi" wears a red overcoat, black pantyhose and black high-heeled Mary Jane shoes. Her summer casual outfit consists of a celeste blouse with black polka dots, white shorts and blue and brown sandals.

As a Phantom Thief, "Kasumi" wears a black mask with silver highlights and has a black ribbon tied to her ponytail. Her main outfit consists of a strapless black leotard, a chain belt with two silver roses motifs and the scabbard for her rapier attached to it, a black choker and red gloves. Her black bolero jacket has gold buttons, ruffled sleeves and three floor-length coattails. She wears thigh-length hose and stiletto-heels that resemble ballet shoes on the top. When in the Metaverse, Sumire instantly assumes her "Kasumi" form regardless of her current attire, as she cannot defend herself without the overlay.

Sumire's true form without cognitive manipulation looks the same as her fake form, but wears glasses and her hair drops down. Her winter outfit consists of the winter uniform, this time worn underneath a charcoal gray trench coat, a scarlet pair of gloves and a matching scarf. Her gymnast outfit is a one-piece blue leotard, and she ties her hair when she is practicing gymnastics.

Personality
"Kasumi" is a seemingly cheerful, elegant and friendly person with a seemingly perfect life, as she received a Shujin scholarship and was nearly uncontested in gymnast competitions. She also appears to be quite clumsy and careless, as she is shown outright missing the mark at the batting cages even if her reflexes are usually excellent, and she lets her phone's battery run out while texting the protagonist. Despite the fact that she can cook, she is unpredictable and somewhat clumsy at it, since she isn't sure about the ingredients, and she often uses stamina replenishing food due to her gymnast tendencies. It's because of that she eats a lot, that she considers a "normal" amount for a gymnast like herself and she also has large lunch box to prove this.

Despite her supposedly cheerful and bold personality, she does feel depressed sometimes for no apparent reason, and when practicing gymnastics, she often felt like that her body isn't hers and she cannot execute complicated moves properly despite she knows how to use them.

While she expresses admiration towards the protagonist, she dislikes the very idea of the Phantom Thieves, as she believes that people should learn how to solve their own problems instead of relying on others. Although she acknowledges that the Phantom Thieves does good by helping people, she worries that people may become heavily reliant on them to solve their problems and stop making their own efforts.

In reality, she is incredibly stressed out by the need of success, as Shujin can revoke her scholarship as soon as she gets anything below a top score. She's also alienated by her schoolmates because her high achievements make her receive special treatment from teachers, earning jealousy and envy from her schoolmates. This impairs her ability to perform and presumably led to her head teacher threatening revocation.

Sumire herself is shown to be a lot more reserved and introverted, since she suffered from an inferiority complex towards her near-perfect sister, fueled by being helped throughout her life by her; She has told the protagonist that Kasumi does most of the work for the twins bar preparing dishes, including arranging her very own bedroom. As a result, she has no self-confidence or self-esteem at all and believed that if she wasn't Kasumi, she should die. The jealousy degraded into severe depression, which caused what appears to be her suicide attempt that resulted in Kasumi's death. She gained severe survivor's guilt as a result, even going as far as requesting Takuto to transform her into her older sister to artificially boost her non-existent self-confidence and ego, effectively putting her previous statements about the Phantom Thieves in irony as she was the very one who requested Takuto to solve her own problems instead of relying on herself.

Despite Sumire's inferiority complex towards Kasumi, she is in no means, bad or even average at gymnastics, as she can often get into the high charts even if not consistently at 1st or 2nd during competitions, indicating that she is actually above average at it. Additionally, much unlike Kasumi, Sumire is said to be a decent cook, as when she was "Kasumi" she was able to prepare a curry bento with a similar taste as the curry served in LeBlanc.

Sumire also becomes easily flustered in pressuring situations, such as during the romance option in her Confidant, during which she stutters and freezes when the protagonist leans in to kiss her. Sumire's fashion senses are outright horrific and is prone to choosing bad or overly gaudy clothing.

She is one of the girls who immediately fall into love with the protagonist, although unless he expresses his love to her directly, he is largely oblivious to it. This stems from the protagonist being a major source of emotional support to her, which becomes especially obvious during the time where Takuto was driven insane. Perhaps because of this, when the protagonist cheats on her with multiple other women, she does not hide her sadness and anger towards his cheating.

It's implied that while Sumire was "Kasumi," the real Sumire still exists subconsciously, resulting in the sister's strengths and weaknesses mixed up and colliding with each other, which contributes to her inconsistencies in gymnastics and cooking. This also explains her odd depressive fits when she was still "Kasumi."

In the Metaverse, Sumire is a significantly different person. She acts much more aggressively and determined, being a violent fighter without any traces of her introverted tendencies in the real world. This indicates that much like the protagonist or Haru, she is suppressing anger that she can only relief in the Metaverse.

Sumire appears to view Kasumi in a conflicting fashion between those of a role model and a detriment. After Sumire comes to terms with her death, she fully recognizes her as a role model and seeks to become like her in a much different and healthier way than she once did. She became a strong-willed and determined person who would face her problem head-on, and would try her best to prove herself so that people would acknowledge her as her own person instead of simply as Kasumi's sister.

Profile
The Yoshizawa twins, Kasumi and Sumire, lived alongside their overprotective father Shinichi Yoshizawa, the director of the talk show where Goro Akechi was first met. Both sisters were on good terms with each other and shared the same coach. Kasumi was a quick learner, but Sumire had trouble remembering most of her moves. However, her coach rewarded the twins with ice cream for good performances, which Kasumi would always share with her no matter what. Kasumi also arranges most of the twin's daily life, including Sumire's bedroom with the exception of preparing dishes, since compared to Sumire, she was a mediocre chef. Eventually, both sisters promised to go to internationals as a sister duo.

While Sumire is no means a bad gymnast, due to Kasumi's significantly better memory, reflexes and agility, Kasumi outperforms her in virtually every way, gaining the top performance most of the time while Sumire was merely above average. Furthered by Kasumi deciding most of the things between them, the jealousy against her older sister resulted in Sumire outright wanting to become into Kasumi herself, even going as far as denouncing herself as someone who wouldn't pity even if she died. This degenerated into suicidal depression and accumulating into a fit of running away from Kasumi a month prior to the protagonist's arrival at Cafe Leblanc after a training session, in which she was nearly hit by a car without looking. She only survived because Kasumi sacrificed herself, resulting in Sumire’s already crippling depression worsening courtesy of survivor's guilt. Sumire believed that she caused her death and stole her dream, and she wanted to outright become Kasumi in order to continue her legacy of being an uncontested gymnast and a perfect person. It should be noted that it is also possible that Sumire was attempting to commit suicide by letting herself to be hit by traffic.

By recommendation of her parents, Sumire consulted the therapist Takuto Maruki to help her overcome her depression. She told Takuto the only way for her to cope was to live as her sister. Takuto claimed that he had such power and she accepts, transforming her into a near-perfect copy of Kasumi by manipulating her cognition via a Persona, and he also made "Kasumi" think that Sumire died instead of Kasumi. The real Kasumi was dead from the start, and the "Kasumi" that the protagonist encounters is merely a result of cognitive warping using Sumire as a vessel. Sumire enrolled into Shujin Academy as Kasumi and quickly managed to obtain a scholarship thanks to supposedly having her sister's qualities.

Despite the identity shift, people around her still recognize her as Sumire and believed that she was merely insane and only acted like Kasumi. Her coach even told her to take a break from training for a while, which she dismisses as a mere choreo block. Her capabilities are also closer to being Sumire than being those of Kasumi's, as when she attempts to use a complex gymnastic move that Kasumi can use without issues, "something" is preventing her from executing it properly. This proved to be an effective halt to her disturbed mindset however, as it allows the protagonist to snap her out of it by talking to her a few times once her fake identity peels off. She also personally admits that Takuto gave a huge help to her by letting her live as "Kasumi" towards the protagonist, and if not for this procedure, she would had been wept her life away.

Kasumi is first seen in-game on April 12th, trying to lend a seat for an old woman only for a man to occupy it. He then ignored her by pretending to sleep. The protagonist encourages her to speak up, but she decides not to cause a ruckus. When exiting the train, Kasumi thanks the protagonist for his attempt to help her.

On April 18th, they meet again at school. While Kamoshida does not appear to harass her unlike other girls at school, out of spite against the protagonist he still attempted to discourage interaction between her and the protagonist. He told her the rumors about him throughout Shujin, which shocked her. The rumors he told her about include murder, rape and smuggling ivory.

On May 13th, Kasumi is seen at the entrance of the counseling office with Maruki talking about how everything's been going before she enrolled to Shujin, and she recommends the Protagonist to take the counseling.

On May 30th, Kasumi is rushing to go to the school to pick up her jersey for the field trip but an old man is constantly pestering her, asking for her number and saying he'll drive her to the park. The protagonist notices the commotion and helps her. She hides behind him and the old man leaves. Kasumi thanks the protagonist for saving her. On the field trip, she invites the protagonist to have lunch with her. Kasumi apologizes and admits that after Kamoshida told her about the protagonist's criminal record and the rumors about him, Kasumi was hesitant to approach him. However, after being helped and speaking to him again, Kasumi realizes that the rumors are false and believes the protagonist is a good person. When she was rushing to pick up a balloon for a young boy who almost lost it, she dropped her student handbook which has "Kasumi Yoshizawa" written as her name. He had a strange feeling about that name, presumably because he recognized that was the name of the car crash victim implied by Sojiro Sakura on the 10th of March.

On June 6th, She is at the entrance of the school hoping for the rain to stop. Morgana had an umbrella prepared for the protagonist. Kasumi said that she's fast enough to run to the station, but because the protagonist was heading to the station he offers her to walk with him to the station together. After they arrive at the station some of the other students at the station mistaken the protagonist as her boyfriend.

On July 11th, she, the protagonist and Akechi hang out at a cafe, in which Akechi asks her about her stance on the Phantom Thieves, whom she disagrees because she believes that people should be solving their problems on their own instead of relying on others. When she asks the protagonist if he is a fan of them, he shakes his head.

On July 17th, after hanging out with Yusuke and Ryuji at the summer fair, the protagonist meets Kasumi near a construction site where she appears depressed. She was grieving for her twin sister whom she promised to go the gymnast internationals with. However, her sister was killed in the aforementioned car accident.

On September 11th the last day of the Hawaii trip, She tries to surprise the Protagonist. She came to talk about the tournament and shows him the prize she won from the last tournament.

On October 3rd, Kasumi is called by a teacher who told her that her scholarship may be revoked due to bad performance in the gymnastic internationals. The "bad performance" was merely a 3rd runner up position. Nevertheless, the teachers think that Kasumi must get first place to restore the school's reputation that got tainted by Kamoshida's case. They decide the threat of revoking her scholarship would motivate Kasumi to do better despite Takuto Maruki saying that it would only be putting undue pressure onto her. When she returns to the construction site, the protagonist comes across her and accidentally triggers the Metaverse Navigator. It accidentally causes Kasumi, the protagonist and Morgana to intrude into an unknown Palace resembling a fusion between a cognitive hospital and a futuristic paradise. She meets a cognitive copy of what appears to be her sister which was quickly crushed by a Shadow that transforms into Biyarky, which chastises her for not knowing pity. This causes her to awaken Cendrillon, who defeats the Biyarky and the trio escape. Morgana attempts to persuade her to join them, although rejects the offer.

On October 17th, Kasumi invites the protagonist up to the roof of the school for lunch. She asks him about if he will continue being a phantom thief. She expresses concern that the protagonist may get into trouble due to rumors spreading about the Phantom Thieves being responsible for the headmaster's death. When the protagonist and Morgana affirms their choice to continue, Kasumi respects their wishes and offers her help, if they need it.

On October 26th, Kasumi invites the protagonist to hang out with her during the Shujin school festival after the Phantom Thieves agree to Akechi's deal. She invites the protagonist to dance alongside her and even goes on stage herself to bust a move.

On November 19th, Kasumi asks to help the protagonist. She does so during the escape from Niijima's Palace. She assists by helping him shake off a horde of Shadows overwhelming him.

On November 25th, she came to visit the protagonist in Cafe Leblanc, and was relieved he survived the interrogation. She reveals that after hearing Morgana and the protagonist mentioning November 19th during their talk at the rooftop, Kasumi knew they were doing something, so she snuck into Niijima's Palace. She then asks to join the fight against Shido. She is rejected as Morgana believes that Kasumi does not know how dangerous Shido is. Morgana feels Kasumi should not be involved and she should do what she can do. Kasumi relents in exchange for the protagonist promising her that he will return safely.

On December 20th on the day the Protagonist returns to school she congratulates him for changing Shido's cognition, and she offers the Protagonist to go somewhere with her. However, this is interrupted due to the upcoming exams.

On December 21st she makes a slight appearance only having small talk with the Protagonist and Ann Takamaki.

She celebrates Hatsumode alongside the protagonist at the party on January 1st. When meeting the protagonist, she sensed something was odd. While hanging out with the protagonist, her father called her back home to spend time with her family, in which the protagonist can sense him calling her "%@re...," implying that he was still calling her "Sumire."

Later, she calls the protagonist via phone as he was speaking with Akechi, informing him of the emergence of a palace. She then joins their investigation. Her Persona, Cendrillon, is now at level 75.

Upon investigating the Palace, one of the monitors display the details of her sister's death, revealing her name to be "Sumire Yoshizawa." From this point on, she has headaches when trying to relive her memories. Going further will display one of Kasumi's victories where she would congratulate her sister as she promised to get the championships with her.

The master of the Palace, Takuto, attempts to prevent the team from ruining his plan for salvation. He reveals that Kasumi was the sister who died in the accident, not Sumire, and how Sumire was changed. The shock makes Sumire revert back to her original personality, and she appears to be in vehement denial of the truth. She is then taken by Takuto as the party denied his salvation plan.

When the protagonist and Akechi return to Takuto's Palace and reject his offer of a happy world, he awakens Sumire as Kasumi. Due to denial, she fights the protagonist one on one as Akechi backs off in fear of killing her with his combat instincts. After that, Takuto forcefully takes off her mask and drives her Persona berserk, forcing the duo to fight a berserk Cendrillon. This proved fruitless as Cendrillon is in severe denial and constantly absorbs the Biyarky near her. The duo were left outmatched until the other party members who broke free from Takuto's illusion returned and helped defeat it. Once this is done, he lets them go and tells them to come back at the 3rd of February. She reappears in the real world at the next day as Sumire, distressed by the amalgamation of her memories.

Sumire meets the protagonist once again and reveals that she agreed with Takuto because she could not cope with her sister's death. After eavesdropping on the party's conversation with Lavenza, Sumire is inspired by how they are determined to face their pain instead of running away. She resolves to face her sadness and overcome it as her own person.

When she officially joins the party in Maruki's Palace, her codename is "Violet" and her name becomes "Yoshizawa Sumire." During her true awakening, Kasumi transforms into Cendrillon and was fused alongside it. Additionally, inside the Metaverse she takes the form of Kasumi, as the Kasumi overlay is where all of Sumire's combat abilities reside.

If the protagonist accepts any of Takuto's offers to accept his reality, Sumire will be reverted into "Kasumi Yoshizawa" and will completely inherit all of her abilities instead of being a mere incomplete copy of Kasumi, effectively killing off Sumire.

After Takuto's defeat and the collapse of his cognitive manipulation powers, if the protagonist maxed Sumire's Confidant during the third semester, she is seen asking her coach to get a temporary break so she can look for evidence to prove his innocence and get him out of juvenile hall. Her coach rejected her request and instead will assist her in finding information so that Sumire can still continue her training, telling her that the protagonist would want that. She also picked up the newsletter about the murder of Rumi's parents and handed it to Futaba. After Valentines' Day, she goes from Tokyo to Paris, but returns on White Day (March 14th). If the protagonist maxed her Confidant and has entered a romance route with her, he can date her. In the epilogue, she meets the protagonist at the train station and bids him farewell before he departs.

Confidant
"Kasumi's" Confidant can be established during the 5/30 field trip, in which it automatically goes to rank 1. This Confidant only has five ranks instead of ten and the protagonist is not given access to the Arcana's ultimate Persona due to it being a false Arcana. The protagonist gets +5 max HP everytime he hangs out with Kasumi, regardless if the Arcana is in a false or true state. She can also let the protagonist ambush Shadows via his grappling hook and inflict them with a status condition once the confidant reaches rank 3. The protagonist can only hang out with Kasumi by responding to her SNS invitations, and it is not available in the overworld. The Confidant "maxes" prior to the 23rd of December and is required to be "maxed" in order to unlock the third semester events.

Even if her Faith Confidant is "maxed," she can be invited for a hangout. She appears in Kichijoji.

Rank 6 to 10 of Sumire's Confidant will be unlocked during the 12th of January, right after her true awakening at the third forced infiltration of Maruki's Palace, where Kasumi replaces her Cendrillon and her Arcana becomes real after a fight with five Loa. However, the protagonist cannot proceed the confidant until the 13th since he will not be allowed free activity during the 12th. Unlike the first 5 ranks, Sumire can be invited to Confidant-related hangouts in Kichijoji.

Completing Sumire's Confidant will unlock the fusion of Maria and transmogrify Cendrillon into Vanadis. Afterwards, her overworld portrait will resemble Kasumi, as she ties her hair as a reminder towards her.

The first half of Kasumi's Confidant revolves around her struggle of being stuck at a choreo block. Kasumi's Confidant automatically starts during the field trip when she shows the protagonist her reflexes by helping a child to retrieve his balloon, which prompts the protagonist to request her to teach her moves as Morgana deems it useful for their Phantom Thieves activities. In return, Kasumi requests that the protagonist act as her advisor when she needs to. Kasumi feels pressured by the expectations given to her due to the upcoming competition and is quite depressed due to a choreo block that led her coach to tell her to take a break from gymnastics until she finds her moves. This makes her feels she is far from fulfilling her dream to reach the internationals, which she shared with her deceased sister. The competition ends with her getting 3rd place. While she's not quite satisfied with the result and later on Shujin uses this as a threat to revoke her scholarship, she thanks the protagonist for helping her getting out from her choreo block.

Multiple inconsistencies around her behavior can be spotted in these hangouts, which foreshadows the Kasumi that the protagonist hangs out with is fake and Sumire was still subconsciously inside her.

The second half of her Confidant revolves around her acceptance as her true self, Sumire, and trying her best to make people around her, especially her coach, acknowledges her. Sumire begins her gymnastics practice again, yet her coach comments that she's still lacking. Sumire admits how she feels inferior to Kasumi, especially whenever being compared to her. While Sumire wants to fulfill her shared dream with her sister, she's also determined not to live in the shadow of her success and prove her own worth. As she trains with the protagonist's encouragement, Sumire gradually develops a feeling for him. At Rank 9, Sumire finally confesses to the protagonist. If the protagonist reciprocates, they'll enter a romantic relationship. If the protagonist rejects her confession, Sumire thanks the protagonist for his honest answer and gracefully accept it. Regardless of the player's choices, Sumire will still invite the protagonist to watch her gymnastic practice. In the said practice, her coach finally praise how much Sumire has grown. She also reveals that Kasumi never once looked down on Sumire despite her successes and in fact had always seen her sister as her rival. This revelation shocks Sumire, motivating her more to fulfill their dream to reach international competition in honor of Kasumi.

Etymology
Kasumi is often translated as "mist," but it also can be translated as "flowers" or "blossoms." Her surname of Yoshizawa does not have any direct meaning but was the same surname as, famous for being considered the creator of origami.

The "Mist" might refer to Kasumi completely overshadowing her younger sister in terms of talent. "Sumire" also means violet flowers in Japanese, alluding that she has been overshadowing her younger sister completely.

Sumire stands for violet flowers in Japanese. One of the flower languages of the violet flower is "honesty," which acts as an irony to her requesting Takuto to transform her into a copy of her deceased sister to evade the truth that she died trying to save her. Another meaning to the violet flower is "faithfulness," which corresponds to the Arcana theme, representing how important the real Kasumi actually is to Sumire.

Her codename "Violet" refers to violet flowers, which are known as "Sumire" in Japanese.

Sumire might also be a homage to the Chaos heroine of Shin Megami Tensei: NINE with the same name.

Trivia

 * When Sumire is under Takuto's spell, other people will still refer to her as "Sumire," although she herself will treat as if people call her "Kasumi."
 * During her false awakening, when she tears off her mask, no blood gushes out.
 * Sumire does not need her glasses to see.
 * Sumire is one of the two playable characters to be fought in order to progress the game's story in Persona 5 Royal and only has one Showtime attack with the protagonist. The other is Goro Akechi.
 * Sumire is the only first year out of the Phantom Thieves.
 * In the bad ending where the protagonist accepts being trapped in Takuto's reality, even if Sumire has been freed from it, her name will revert into "Kasumi Yoshizawa."
 * Sumire's Catherine costume transforms her into Rin, a male alien who is also known for disguising his true identity like Sumire and is a new character added to the remake.
 * Both Yoshizawa siblings are voiced by the same Japanese voice actress that voices Rika Ryuzouji from Shin Megami Tensei: Liberation Dx2.
 * "Kasumi's" phone is in extremely poor condition, as it constantly runs out of battery or suffers from poor connection.
 * Sumire's unfashionable outfit might be a reference to the outfit worn by the Chaos Heroine of the same name in NINE, which is also a leopard print outfit.
 * Sumire is the first party member whose Persona Arcana and Confidant/Social Link Arcana are both not of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck, though only when excluding main protagonists. The first party member to wield a non-Rider-Waite Arcana overall is the protagonist of Persona 3, wielding the Universe Arcana of the Thoth deck.
 * Sumire is the only member of the Phantom Thieves that uses only Hiragana for their first name.
 * Sumire has the highest number of portrait types in any character from Persona 5, having a total of 18 different variants.

Appearances in Other media

 * : Playable Character (Collaboration event)