Mariko Hyodo is a character from Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers. She is a politician and the former mayor of Sapporo.
Appearances
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- Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers: Major Character (Antagonist)
DesignEdit
Mariko has brown bouffant hair and hard angled eyebrows. She wears red lipstick, eyeliner, blue to pink eyeshadow and a pair of earrings. She wears a light royal blue scarf tied around her neck and a black business suit with darker colored rose motifs around her shoulders and left side of her skirt.
As the King of Sapporo's Jail, she appears as obese and grotesque unlike her real person. Her entire color palette is cold pale, her skin included, aside from her her makeup and her Shadow eyes. She has a pair of fangs on her upper teeth. She wears a large amount of jewelry around her neck in place of her scarf, has piercing around her left side of her face, and wears a tiara. This tiara acts as her crown, if it's taken off, all desires trapped within are freed.
During the boss battle, she takes on a giant size, with a large mouth and eyes appearing on her stomach and her lower body appearing bloblike. Her arms become several tentacles holding utensils and her head is seen tilted back past her body's apex.
PersonalityEdit
Hyodo is a politician with the intent of maintaining a clean public image of her city, and genuinely cares for her people's well being. As she was a trade partner of Kunikazu Okumura, she came to know Haru Okumura quite closely when she was a child and is genuinely disheartened by Okumura's death. Even when being affected by the EMMA application, she still manages to calm down when Haru convinces her to stop berating her civil wards.
In reality, while Hyodo's care to the city and its people are legitimate, she was very bitter by the game's events, after having been forced to step down from her position as mayor, due to being blackmailed for a scandal. This scandal involved a faulty ice sculpture that collapsed and killed a seven-year-old girl. In retaliation for the damage done to her name, she begins using EMMA to steal the desires of the people of Sapporo to allow her to regain her former position.
When being affected by EMMA, she becomes much colder against any incompetent civil wards in order to make sure that there are no more scandals that occur within the city. She became a highly abusive micromanager towards city workers, regularly working them to exhaustion over petty issues and regularly insulting those she regards as failing in even minor ways. Ironically, this makes her ignorant to the fact that using EMMA's salvation to artificially inflate her power and rig the ballot boxes is a scandal as well.
ProfileEdit
Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom StrikersEdit
Mariko is a charismatic politician from Sapporo and the city's former mayor. An incident last year caused Hyodo much disdain and resentment against her fellow politicians. During the Sapporo Ice Festival of last year, an ice statue collapsed when Mariko was still a mayor, killing a seven-year-old girl in the process. A senator took advantage of the scandal in an attempt to tarnish Mariko's reputation so he can become mayor himself. In reality, a sponsor used faulty materials for the sculpture. When Mariko attempted to call the police, he threatened that the police would discredit her instead and the other man would become mayor. Hyodo steps down out of fear of being discredited due to her involvement in the incident.
When she came across the EMMA application, she uses it to make the current mayor step down. Using her Jail to convert masses of people into her supporters as well, she would absolutely get elected back as mayor. Hyodo's keyword is public and announced loud during election campaigns, ensuring as many people get ensnared as possible. This allowed Hyodo to obtain an 88% approval rating in two months, three politicians getting a Change of Heart and confessing to corruption, and winning the support of an opposing political party. There are also rumors of Hyodo going to the national level. As she regains her fame, she forces her civil servants to work to their bone for petty reasons to make sure that the city is clean and devoid of corruption, for the sake of getting her public image back.
She meets the Phantom Thieves of Hearts when they visit Sapporo. When she was first met, she was forcing a civil ward to watch the garden 24 hours a day to prevent them from withering. She recognizes Haru, and reveals to her that she was previously acquainted with Haru Okumura's father, Kunikazu Okumura. According to her, she is a trade partner and when she would go play golf alongside Haru and her father when Haru was still a child.
Later on, it's revealed she's the King of Sapporo's Jail after an election campaign where she requests her supporters to use EMMA so they can "befriend" her. Her keyword is "Snow City.." After exploring her Jail once, she then can be seen berating another civil ward because he was getting forced to work despite having a flu. According to her, she's organizing a mass cleaning campaign for a month. When Haru berates Hyodo for her distorted behavior, Hyodo is successfully convinced to leave the ward alone for the time being.
When the party sends the calling card, they cover Mariko's election posters with them. Once confronted, the lower body of Shadow Mariko transforms into a large bullfrog like creature towering over most of her upper body, with a massive face consisting of a pair of eyes and a massive mouth. Once she was defeated, Haru chides Hyodo for straying from her beliefs, and urges her to stop feeling sorry for herself and stand up to face her problems. The next day, Hyodo admits her involvement for the oversight that resulted in the snow statue accident, as well as her involvement in the conspiracy to hide the truth, thus disqualifying herself from the elections. Once the confession is over, Zenkichi Hasegawa allow the Phantom Thieves to meet Mariko in private, and she admits to making an illusion that even the deseased child would not like to see. As Hyodo leaves, she encounters the mother of the deceased child who tells her that even if Hyodo were to leave politics behind and disappear into obscurity as recompense, her child would still not come back, and that Hyodo should deal with the grief and keep trying to get re-elected as mayor, which she accepts.
GalleryEdit
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EtymologyEdit
Mariko (鞠子) means "ball, child." Her last name, Hyodo (氷堂) means "ice institute," referencing to her Jail and her merciless attitude towards her civil wards for their incompetence.
TriviaEdit
- Her nickname “Snow White Mariko” is a reference of the main character from the fairy tale Snow White.
- Her design is loosely based off of Queen Elizabeth I.
