"Me no want to talk to you! Me just want to hear your screams!"
The Reaper (刈り取る者, Karitoru-mono)? is a Shadow that appears in most games in the Persona series with exploration-based elements since Persona 3.
Contents
Appearances[edit | edit source]
- Persona 3 / FES / Portable: Death Arcana, Optional Boss
- Persona 3 (Manga): Enemy
- Persona 3 The Movie: Enemy featured very briefly
- Persona 4 / Golden: Death Arcana, Optional Boss
- Persona 4 (Manga): Enemy
- Persona 4 The Animation: Enemy
- Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth: F.O.E
- Persona 5 / Royal: Optional Boss
- Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth: F.O.E
- Persona 5 Strikers: Ultimate boss
Profile[edit | edit source]
The Reaper of the Persona series has several features that distinguish it from other "grim reapers" in popular culture. The Reaper, instead of carrying a gigantic scythe, wields two long-barrel revolvers. Its face is shrouded in a blood-stained cloth sack, with only one ominous white eye to see its surroundings. It wears two long chains across its left and right shoulders, forming a cross.
The Reaper acts as a security system for areas where Shadows infest, such as Tartarus and Mementos. It either actively pursues threats as they linger in an area for too much time or ambushes them inside treasure chests or other objects that might otherwise contain valuable items, such as Power Spots. In Persona Q however, it does not act any different than other F.O.Es. In all of its appearances it is incredibly powerful. Boasting an extensive array of skills that ranges from Physical skills, Elemental and Almighty magic, and status and buffs, it is highly unpredictable and difficult to beat via normal means. Despite its low HP compared to most end-game bosses, its other stats are abnormally high, making it incredibly fast, durable and hard-hitting.
Unlike most other on-field Shadows where it is encountered, the Reaper uses its own model upon spawning on the map.
The Reaper's origins are largely unknown. However, in Persona Q alone, they are said to be deployed by Chronos to wipe out any threats against divine providence.
Persona 3[edit | edit source]
The Reaper lurks in Tartarus, and will appear to the player when certain conditions are met. This involves staying on one floor of Tartarus too long, or choosing a card from Shuffle Time that is appended with an ominous black crossbones. When it approaches the party, the player can hear a loud rattling of chains, and it also appears on the mini-map. Unlike any other shadows on the field, it can even climb up small ramps in floors. The Reaper cannot follow the player to the stairs that lead to the next floor, however, making the stairs a safe haven from it. Unless if the party's level is 70 or higher, the Reaper will most likely instantly kill all party members in a few turns while barely taking any damage.
The Reaper's appearance is hastened when:
- Choosing a skulled ("cursed") card in Shuffle Time,
- On a regular floor with no Shadows
- On a floor with powerful Shadows (red-glowing variants)
- There are "more Shadows on the floor than normal", which is filled exclusively with golden shadows or rare chests
- The last two conditions are due to the risks of the "cursed" cards during Shuffle Time, all of which bear large rewards.
As one of Elizabeth's Requests (#53), the protagonist must defeat the Reaper. Because the Reaper is a very challenging opponent, players should come prepared with a strategy in place or utilize the fusion spell Armageddon and instantly destroy the Reaper. If the request is active, the Reaper will drop the Bloody Button upon its defeat, in which you can turn in to unlock the Monad Depths.
During the battle, equipping the whole party with Omnipotent Orbs or casting either Makarakarn or Tetrakarn triggers the Reaper to use Megidolaon, which can be fatal unless characters are at Level 99.
The Movie[edit | edit source]
The Reaper appears briefly in the final movie, being the last obstacle to obstruct Makoto Yuki from reaching Nyx. When his Persona, Orpheus, regular skills fail to destroy it, Elizabeth gives him the ability to use Megidolaon in order to defeat it and move on.
Persona 4[edit | edit source]
The Reaper is an exclusive boss that can only be fought in the second playthrough of the game, where it can be found in trap chests during a second cycle. Upon examining it, the protagonist is forewarned that a powerful force dwells within the chest and repeatedly asked whether he is ready to open it. Should the protagonist choose to open it, the Reaper will attack the party and engage them in a battle. Similar to its predecessor, the Reaper can be challenged multiple times as long as the protagonist manages to locate the treasure chest he dwells within.
Defeating the Reaper may grant the respective characters their strongest weapons per defeat; however, should all of the in-battle characters have received their strongest weapons, the Reaper instead drops the strongest armor. If all of those have already been received as well, the Reaper drops the Omnipotence Orb, an accessory which voids all attacks excluding Almighty.
It will only drop a character's weapon if they are in the team that fights him. One must re-organize their team if they want to gain every weapon.
Golden[edit | edit source]
The Reaper works the same way as the original Persona 4, except that it can be encountered on the first playthrough of the game. In order to make it spawn, the protagonist has to open a total of twenty-one chests. Should this number of chests be reached, the sound of rattling chains will echo throughout the dungeon.
If the player opens a chest where a normal Shadow would otherwise stay in during this instance, the player will be warned of an ominous presence, should they ignore the warning, a fight with the Reaper will be triggered just like in Vanilla. However, if the player merely opens a normal chest (the more likely option), the chest counter will be reset and the sound of rattling chains will disappear. Leaving the dungeon or moving up/down floors also applies to this.
If a player wants to "farm" the Reaper for its weapon and armor drops, one can open a total of twenty chests, exit the dungeon, and then save the game. Even if one's first attempts at spawning the Reaper is unsuccessful, one can reload the save and try again, so as to not have to open twenty chests all over again and save time farming.
The Animation[edit | edit source]
Three Reapers show up when the Investigation Team confronts Adachi in his own reality, Magatsu Inaba. The first one confronts Kanji and Naoto at the Central shopping district, the second one fights Chie, Yukiko and Rise at the Amagi inn and the last one battles Yosuke and Teddie at Saki Konishi's house. The Reapers prove to be powerful opponents for the Investigation Team, but eventually, the Investigation Team managed to beat the Reapers after banding together.
Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth[edit | edit source]
The Reaper is an F.O.E who appears on the second floor of the Clock Tower and all floors above it. Unlike most other games where the Reaper is simply a security guard patrolling areas related to the collective unconsciousness and remove any lingering threats, it is explicitly stated to be one of Chronos' servants who appeared to remove Zen for upsetting the natural providence of the world by creating the world from Rei's memories and preventing her soul from returning to the Sea of Souls.
While the player is in the same room as the Reaper, it will pursue them for 2 steps before resting for 1 step. Unlike many other aggressive FOEs in the previous dungeons, the Reaper can pursue the player over empty spaces - but not through columns. Noting the columns' locations or impeding its movement with the various block-like pistons scattered through the dungeon becomes critical in trying to avoid it.
In battle, the Reaper can act twice each turn and has a wide array of attacks and ailment-inducing moves. Once it dips to below 50% HP it will start trying to inflict Sleep, Panic, and/or Agility Bind to render the party unable to dodge a Power Charged Myriad Arrows or Deathbound. Past 25% HP it switches strategies and throws party-wide attacks, including Mamudoon and Megidolaon. While resistant to them, the Reaper is still vulnerable to ailments and Binds which can make the battle less aggravating.
The Death's Order material it drops allows Theodore to create gear that halves the characters' stats but doubles the Exp they receive; 1 is required to create armor with this effect, 2 to create an accessory, and weapons can be created after acquiring 3. If defeated while the request to hunt one is active, it will drop the Broken Chain needed to complete it.
Persona 5[edit | edit source]
The Reaper once again returns as a powerful foe in the series, appearing to hunt the Phantom Thieves while in Mementos from Aiyatsbus onward, following Morgana's warning about a powerful Shadow in Mementos. It will only appear when the party has remained on the same floor for a full two minutes before appearing in the area, with the sound of rattling chains and a red visual rippling effect indicating its presence. The Reaper will then move through the floor and will chase down the party, even phasing through doors, but not through walls. The party will be safe while standing on the entry or exit platforms, but the Reaper will still be present in the area. Getting back into the Mona car from the platform will reset the Reaper to its original position in the area, and it will start stalking the party again.
The Reaper in battle is incredibly strong; possessing a large variety of attacks and equally sturdy defense. While it does not null, repel, drain or resist any element, it has huge amounts of DEF to reduce damage from all attacks and is still immune to instant kill effects. Sometimes it prefers to spend its turns on the various elemental Break skills as opposed to attacking the party, providing random relief turns for the party. The Reaper has a tendency to use instant kill attacks(even if your party is immune to them) so be prepared to revive party members constantly. The Reaper also has a tendency to target the weaknesses of party members, if the weak point is covered up with a passive skill the Reaper will not try attacking the weak spot. Also if the player uses Makarakarn or Magic Ointment on a party member at any point in the fight, the Reaper will use Concentrate and follow up with Megidolaon. The Reaper will repeat this pattern until the fight ends. At the start of the fight, the Reaper will always use Concentrate so be prepared to guard until the Reaper uses a Magical attack. At first the Reaper will use single target skills like Bufudyne or Hamaon and will occasionally use Megidola and Riot Gun. Once the Reaper loses around 50% of it's health, it will start using using "Ma" versions of skills and will begin to use Megidolaon, Life Leech, Spirit Leech, and Vorpal Blade.
However, the Reaper can be grinded for quick, large amounts of EXP during the month of November and December, as the Flu Season spreads through Tokyo. Like all other Shadows, the Reaper too can succumb to Despair and will die after three turns, granting the party an instant win. The Reaper has a chance to drop a Divine Pillar accessory, which halves all incoming damage, but removes the ability to Evade. Unlike most Shadows, the Reaper cannot be recruited or negotiated in any form or way, and it does not possess an Arcana (unlike in previous installments).
It is strongly recommended to let the Reaper ambush the party since if it ambushes them it will only perform 1 action per turn.
Royal[edit | edit source]
Flu Season now no longer affects the Reaper.
Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth[edit | edit source]
The Reaper returns as one of the strongest F.O.Es in the game despite never appearing as an overworld obstacle. The 4th block of the Theater District has a unique Treasure Spot that radiates darkness rather than glowing yellow or red in previous districts, and the party expresses trepidation if they attempt to harvest from it. Should the player proceed with trying to gather at the Treasure Spot, the Reaper will ambush the party -- though Snake Glare can negate this ambush and have the player start on equal footing with it.
With two actions, no weaknesses on top of immunity to almost every ailment available, the Reaper is a very tough opponent, with party-wide attacks of all varieties. Start by having party members not resistant to Curse defend, because the Reaper always starts the fight by casting Mamudoon which can claim a few free kills.
The one solace you have is its vulnerability to Agility Bind which can cause most of its deadly attacks to miss. While it's bound, utilize passives like Bound Arts+ with multi-hitting physical skills to try and get critical hits as often as possible for easy Boost.
Defeating the Reaper for the first time yields the Infernal Key, a key item that unlocks the special fusion for Lucifer. Its Holy Shard material can be used to make three powerful accessories - two of which will half HP and SP costs, while the third is the accessory equivalent of Invigorate 3. The Reaper, despite being an F.O.E. will not reward the player with a Sub-Persona on defeat.
Persona 5 Strikers[edit | edit source]
The Reaper is the ultimate boss of this game. In order to unlock him for battle, the party must:
- Clear the game and reload the cleared save.
- Complete all quests requiring the hunting of special Shadows in order to unlock them as fusions. (Seth, Cerberus, Black Frost, King Frost, Siegfried, Mara, Metatron)
- Complete the quests that involves rematches with Alice Hiiragi, Ango Natsume, Mariko Hyodo and Akira Konoe and False God Demiurge.
- Rematch Alice, Natsume, Hyodo, Konoe and the Demiurge for a second time(Painful Past + Requests).
After this, a quest requiring defeating the Reaper in the Okinawa Jail will appear. Defeating the Reaper in this quest will reward the protagonist with Paradise Lost S, the second best melee weapon for the protagonist. Talking to Lavenza after defeating the Reaper once more unlocks New Game Plus and Merciless mode.
The Reaper will attack using -dyne tier skills, Megidolaon and Riot Gun. It may also cast concentrate and spam Megidolaon, which can kill or cripple multiple party members. However, it is neutral to all elements, rendering it vulnerable to elemental status effects such as Burn, Freeze and Shock and therefore makes Technical damage incredibly exploitable.
When fought on Merciless, the Reaper boasts an astronomical amount of HP and its attacks will execute significantly faster than before; it is otherwise vulnerable in the same manner as its non-Merciless counterpart. Once the Reaper gets to half health, there will be a short pause along with the fact that the Reaper is now glowing yellow, from now on the Reaper can use Megidolaon (after a delay, the Reaper will target the character your are controlling) and Riot Gun(Rapidly fires high damage gun attacks in quick succession). In addition, several Dire Shadows, including Dark Sun, War-Hungry Horseman, Sun's Emissary, and Heavenly Punisher, will begin to spawn as the Reaper's HP continues to deplete below half health. After the Heavenly Punisher is summoned, no more new enemies will appear, and the only target required to be defeated is the Reaper itself.
It is possible to defeat the Reaper without using any items in battle on Merciless, however this feat is difficult because of how easily the Reaper or one of the Dire Shadows can take out someone (For example even if Joker is at 999 HP with 99 Endurance on his Persona, he will still most likely get one-shotted by Megidolaon assuming no buffs or debuffs are in play). It is highly recommended to create a Persona that is immune all forms of damage except Physical and Almighty, because once the Dire Shadows start spawning in, there will be multiple attacks that will be targeted to the player character and it can be hard to keep track on what attack each enemy is using. Because there are no skill cards or items that makes a Person immune to Gun, using a Persona that is immune to Gun like Abaddon or Lucifer is highly recommended because the Reaper will frequently use gun attack throughout the fight and getting hit by a critical hit can be lethal. Additionally having Personas that can cast spells that inflict Burn, Freeze or Shock can work against the Reaper and the Dire Shadows(Need to cast the skill though), and following these skills with Technical hits can make stun locking the Dire Shadows (and even the Reaper) possible. The first half of the fight is relatively straightforward since the Reaper will only use elemental and gun attacks, save SP for the latter part of the fight because this is when the fights gets dangerous. Once the first Dire Shadow spawns in, focus it down because if more too much damage is done to the Reaper, the second Dire Shadow will spawn causing the fight to be even more dangerous. Overall this fight is a large endurance fight because the Reaper has over 190k health and the fact that there are also 4 Dire Shadows makes this fight long regardless of tactics so having maxed HP, a large SP pool, and all other stats maxed on the main party members is recommended. Party members that can revive (Morgana and Sophia) are even more important compared to other fights because of how easy it is to lose party members. Also getting the "Brooch" accessory items(each be obtained by farming a specific Dire Shadow on Merciless) that make a party member immune to an element is really useful for this fight since the Reaper uses all forms of elements and getting hit by a weak point means that character will be incapacitated.
Defeating the Reaper on this difficulty grants a large amount of extremely valuable consumable items, and defeating him for the first time awards the game's most powerful Accessory, the Omnipotent Orb, as a first-time Request completion reward.
Stats[edit | edit source]
Persona 3[edit | edit source]
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Persona 4[edit | edit source]
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Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth[edit | edit source]
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Persona 5[edit | edit source]
- The Reaper is considered a proper boss-type enemy. Therefore, status conditions, critical hits and instant kills do not affect it.
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Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth[edit | edit source]
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Persona 5 Strikers[edit | edit source]
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Gallery[edit | edit source]
Trivia[edit | edit source]
- In Persona 3 the Reaper's total HP, 4444, refers to a homonym between "four" (四, shi)? and "death" (死, shi)?. The number four is also known in Japan and China as the number of misfortune.
- The Reaper's garments bear some resemblance to Tatsuya Sudou's clothes, from the Persona 2 duology. Additionally, considering Sudou eventually loses his right eye during the events that take place during the duology, and the Reaper itself is missing that eye as well, one can speculate the two of them are somehow connected.
- In Persona Q, the Reaper's total HP, 13,666, is a combination of two ominous numbers – 13 being associated with bad luck and 666 being the Number of the Beast.
- In relation to the latter, 6,666 Experience points are awarded to a party of three members upon defeating the Reaper in Persona 3.
Storyline | Shadow Yosuke - Shadow Chie - Shadow Yukiko - Shadow Kanji - Shadow Rise - Shadow Teddie - Shadow Mitsuo - Shadow Naoto - Kunino-sagiri - Tohru Adachi & Magatsu-Izanagi - Ameno-sagiri - Kusumi-no-Okami * - Izanami - Izanami-no-Okami |
Sub | Avenger Knight - Daring Gigas - Amorous Snake - Killing Hand - Dominating Machine - World Balance - Chaos Fuzz - Envious Giant - Neo Minotaur - Sleeping Table |
Extra | Contrarian King - Intolerant Officer - Momentary Child - Escapist Soldier - Extreme Vessel - Lost Okina |
Other | Margaret - Reaper |
Storyline | Mad Rabbit Alice - Nightmare Dragon Ango - Snow Empress Mariko - Akane's Joker - Akira the Hero - Kuon Ichinose (Sophia - Hecantoncheires) - False God Demiurge |
Sub | Bicorn - Pixie - Archangel - Silky - Mokoi - Succubus - Jack O' Lantern - High Pixie - Lamia - Orthrus - Eligor - Pisaca - Jack Frost - Lilim - Mothman - Setanta - Mithras - Kaiwan - Principality - Shiisaa - Hecatoncheir - Okuninushi - Neko Shogun - Kurama Tengu - Ganesha - Naga - Sarasvati - Valkyrie - Fortuna - Raja Naga - Norn - Thor - Bugs - Mot - Abaddon - Kali & Dominion - Metatron |
Dire Shadows | Bugs - Raja Naga - Lilith - Nebiros - Yatagarasu - Eligor - Mithras - Archangel |
Lock Keeper | School Bully - Natsume's Editor - Callous City Employee/Councilman - Warden - Konoe's Father |
Requests | Seth - Cerberus - King Frost - Black Frost - Siegfried - Mara - Metatron - Reaper |
- Death Arcana
- Persona 3 Bosses
- Persona 3 Portable Bosses
- Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls
- Persona 5 Strikers Bosses
- Articles with unrecognizable skill name for Module:Skills
- Persona 4 Bosses
- Persona 4 Golden Bosses
- Persona Q Bosses
- Persona 5 Bosses
- Persona Q2 Shadows
- Persona 3 Enemies
- Persona 4 Enemies
- Persona Q2 Bosses
- Persona 3 Shadows
- Persona 4 Shadows
- Persona 4 Golden Shadows
- Persona Q Shadows
- Persona 5 Shadows
- Persona 5 Strikers Enemies