Sumire Yoshizawa

Kasumi Yoshizawa
Japanese Name	芳澤 かすみ よしざわ カスミ
Romaji	Yoshizawa Kasumi
First Appearance	Persona 5 Royal
Affiliation	Phantom Thieves of Hearts
Age	15-16
Melee Weapon	Rapiers
Arcana	The Faith
Persona	Cendrillon
Japanese VA	Sora Amamiya
English VA	Laura Post

Kasumi Yoshizawa is a playable character from Persona 5 Royal. She is a student at Shujin Academy who lives a double life as a Phantom Thief. 

Appearances

• Persona 5 Royal: Playable Character; Faith Confidant

Design

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. Her summer casual outfit consists of a celeste blouse with black polka dots, a white skirt and white 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.

Personality

Kasumi is a cheerful, elegant and friendly person with a perfect life, as she received a Shujin scholarship. 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 letting her phone's battery run out while texting the protagonist. Despite she in fact, 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.

While she expresses admiration towards the protagonist and his friends, she greatly rejects Phantom Thieves and their existence, as she believes that people should learn how to solve their own problems instead of relying on other people. This stems from her own personal issues, having been helped throughout her life.

In reality, Kasumi appears to be incredibly stressed out by the need of success, as Shujin can revoke her scholarship as soon as she gets anything below a top score. According to the voices prior to Cendrilion's awakening, other people also pile up a lot of expectations on her and would consider her useless as soon as she cannot fulfill. This is further compounded by the death of her sister a month prior to Joker's incident with Shido from a traffic accident, which impairs her ability to perform and presumably led to her head teacher threatening the revoking of her scholarship.

Profile

Kasumi is an accomplished rhythmic gymnast who transfers to Shujin Academy at the same time as the protagonist. Due to her accomplishments, the school has high hopes for her. At some point, Kasumi becomes involved with the Phantom Thieves, despite having different views from them. She joins them for her own reasons, rather than for the idea of changing the hearts of corrupt adults.

She can be first seen during the 12th of April trying to lend a seat for an old woman only for a man to occupy it. While Kamoshida does not appear to actually harass her unlike the other girls in his volleyball group, he attempted to discourage the interaction between her and the protagonist based on the rumors about him throughout Shujin, but to no avail.

On May 5th, Kasumi is in a rush to go to the school trip when an old is constantly pestering her asking for her number, and saying he'll give her a ride. The protagonist is walking by and notices the commotion and steps up to help her, she hides behind him and the old man just leaves afterwards. 

On July 7th, after hanging out with Yusuke and Ryuji at the summer fair, the protagonist meets Kasumi near a construction site where she appears to be depressed; It turns out she was grieving for her twin sister whom she promised to go the gymnast internationals together. However, a month prior to the protagonist's arrival to Leblanc, her sister was killed in a car accident, presumably being related with the mental shutdown cases.

On the October 3rd, Kasumi got her scholarship revoked due to bad performance in the gymnastic internationals. In reality, the "bad performance" was merely a 3rd runner up. Nevertheless, not only she wasn't satisfied due to repeated success, her head teacher decided to revoke the scholarship anyway even when Takuto Maruki persuaded him twice to re-consider. When she returns to the stadium construction site, the protagonist comes across her and accidentally triggers the Metaverse Navigator, accidentally causing 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 then attempts to persuade her to join them, although she rejects.

On the November 17th, Kasumi invites the protagonist up to the roof of the school for lunch. She asks him about if he's gonna continue on being a phantom thief.

On the November 26th, Kasumi invites the protagonist to hang out with her during the Shujin dance festival after the Phantom Thieves agreed to Akechi's deal. She invites Joker to dance alongside her and even goes onto the stage herself to perform her moves.

On the 17th of November, Kasumi requests to corporate with the protagonist; She fulfills this in the Niijima's Palace final confrontation, where she assists the protagonist's escape by helping him ditch off a horde of Shadows overwhelming him.

Confidant

Kasumi's Confidant can be established during the 5/20 field trip. It initially only has 5 ranks, although the protagonist is not given access to the arcana's ultimate Persona due to it being false. The protagonist can only hang out with Kasumi by responding to her SNS invitations; She does not appear in the overworld.

Gallery

Persona 5 Royal
Kasumi on the P5R key art Kasumi on the middle   File:Shigenori Kasumi and Ren .jpeg Ren and Kasumi by Shigenori Soejima Kasumi with the protagonist and Akechi in the DARTSLIVE collaboration. Kasumi with the protagonist on the cover of Dengeki PlayStation Vol. 681 (December 2019 issue) All-Out Attack finishing touch.

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 Akira Yoshizawa, famous for being considered the creator of origami.

Trivia

• Kasumi's Confidant has only five ranks, contrary to the ten that all Confidants have. In truth, this is because her Confidant is "false," thus making her the second character whose bond with the protagonist to have one, the first being Tohru Adachi in Golden.

Appearances in Other media

• Star Ocean: Anamnesis: Playable Character (Collaboration event)

Star Ocean: Anamnesis
Kasumi in Star Ocean: Anamnesis