| Toshiro Kasukabe | Gallery | Quotes | Party |
"You can't stop us. The rebellion is here. The rebellion... within my heart!"
Toshiro Kasukabe is a major character, eventually playable in Persona 5 Tactica. He is a young member of the National Diet expected to be the next prime minister.
Appearances[]
- Persona 5 Tactica: Playable Character
Design[]
Toshiro wears a navy suit with a white collared shirt, along with a striped tie. He also wears a white glove on his right hand. After awakening to Ernesto, he no longer wears this glove. It also reveals he has a large gash scar he received from the incident when he was a teenager.
As a teenager, he wears the high school's uniform buttoned up- a black shirt with golden buttons, black pants and black glasses.
Personality[]
Toshiro has a serious, logical and argumentative personality, shown to be a great strategist. He is good at seeing a situation in its entirety, but is underconfident, nervous, and easily frightened (likely due to his traumatic experiences in high school and being a pawn of his social circle), losing morale quickly and advocating for plans that put him and the Phantom Thieves less at risk. At the beginning of the game, he submits easily to Marie's bullying and advocates surrender, but over the course of the game he becomes more confident and willing to accept danger to stop injustice. He initially claims to dislike the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, but in fact he highly approves of them, admiring them for standing up to Masayoshi Shido and proving that even he was not above justice, with his defeat being the catalyst for Toshiro to start standing up to his manipulative and corrupted father.
Profile[]
Persona 5 Tactica[]
Toshiro was the son of Yuki Kasukabe and Yoshiki Kasukabe. While his father, an influential politician, was a strict man with a harshly discipline, his mother was a lot kinder to him. However, his mother was a frail woman who was constantly in and out of the hospital, so he wasn't able to see her often. One day, young Toshiro asked her out to a park at the rooftop of a convenience store. However, at their returning trip, his mother succumbed, fell onto the floor, and died shortly after, and the resulting survivor guilt made him believe that he killed his mother, as well as his father constantly blaming him for the event.
With his father as the sole caretaker, Toshiro lived a life of strict discipline under him, who wanted him to become an influential politician like him. He was extremely strict and would resort to corporal punishment if he failed to meet his demands, causing him to take whatever means to ascend to the path his father desires.
In high school, he became its Student Council President to solidify his college record, encouraged by his father to experience being a public figure to take up his work. When he tried to stop a mugging incident, he was beaten by the thieves and was witnessed by Eri Natsuhara, a confident upper-class woman who approached him in the student council room during the night after out of respect. Toshiro was initially reluctant on her, but Natsuhara would bug him with more and more reports of misconduct. He only followed to her demands to keep tabs on her, but they became close friends in no time and the student council office quickly became a counseling office of sorts. However, a shady man called Ichiro Nakabachi was suddenly appointed to vice principal (and had the principal seat laid out to him). Nakabachi established a reign of terror in the school, where students were encouraged to pry into each others dark secrets and report it to him and used that information to ruin the lives of students through clever use of blackmail, which Toshiro and Natsuhara caught wind of after a student who was blackmailed into working at a nightclub reached out to them, prompting them to perform an investigation against Nakabachi, which culminated into a confrontation on the school balcony where they arranged all of his victims to join them. Nakabachi was successfully outed as his crimes became widely known across the school.
However, as news spread, more dissatisfied students began attacking Nakabachi, even over petty grievances, which ultimately developed into a lynch mob, with students even following Nakabachi to his home, forcing the man into near-complete isolation outside of questioning and leading him to crack under the pressure and harassment. Unfortunately, Nakabachi snapped, and stalked Natsuhara to a train station where she and Toshiro were waiting for a train, and attempted to kill her by pushing her onto an incoming train as revenge. Natsuhara slipped into the station track and was ran over by a train. She survives this incident, but ends up being hospitalized and crippled for life. Nakabachi, as well as the students harassing him were all arrested. The students of his school made Toshiro into a scapegoat, not wanting to face their part in contributing to the chaos, and shunned and bullied him into avoiding school altogether, until it suddenly died down one day. Toshiro speculates that Yoshiki used his political authority to silence the student body to preserve his track record.
After the incident, Toshiro distanced himself from Natsuhara under the belief that she would hate him for his perceived misdeeds. He also became complicit towards Yoshiki's political games and corruption under the fear that any attempt to reject his father's arrangements for his staircase to political fame will result in a similar incident like the fallout at the train station.
Growing up, he followed his father's footsteps to become a congressman. After the downfall of Masayoshi Shido, Yoshiki took whatever he means he could to rig the elections for his son to become prime minister, including recruiting shady personalities to threaten opposition, arranging him a marriage with Marie Anto, the haughty and possessive daughter of a conglomerate, and bribing Marie's family with money. It was at this moment where Salmael began invading his mind to erase his will in order fulfill mankind's desires of tranquility, but Toshiro's subconscious resisted due to awakening a will of rebellion after being inspired by the Phantom Theives' broadcast hijack against Shido, as well as Guernica's art piece on the diet building. In an effort to fully break Toshiro's spirit, Salmael then created cognitions based on his worst fears and the domineering figures in his life (with their negative aspects heavily exaggerated) to torment him into complicity and shame, but his subconscious willpower took a form similar to Natsuhara and rebelled, managing to create a stalemate within his mind. As a last resort, Salmael captured Toshiro and took him into his world so it could kill him directly. It's also heavily implied that Salmael wiped out his memories. To the public, Toshiro was reported missing.
Toshiro was first encountered by the Phantom Thieves of Hearts and Erina imprisoned in a castle within Marie Kingdom. Morgana does not recognize him at first, but the protagonist recognizes him as the politician reported missing on the TV. He does not remember anything save for being trapped in a strange world, and warns them that there are "terrible girls" guarding the prison who should be avoided at any cost. He also tells them that the worst one of them was "a girl with the whip and a brazen leather outfit." It was by that time where he and the Phantom Thieves were ambushed by Ann and Futaba with Marie speaking through them. Despite Toshiro warned the Phantom Thieves not to interfere with her and run as quick as possible, they are there to save their comrades, so they fight Ann anyways. Erina manages to save Ann and Futaba when the protagonist destroyed a Marie Kingdom flag and she replaces it with her own flag.
Using this method, the Phantom Thieves and Toshiro saved Ryuji and Haru was well, before Erina's attempt to save Makoto and Yusuke went awry as Erina got sniped and was knocked out unconscious when she was about to set up her flag of rebellion. Therefore, Toshiro instead musters his courage to set the flag in her place, successfully freeing Makoto and Yusuke. With every party member recollected, the Phantom Thieves set up to save the rebels from Marie's camps and confront her. When the Thieves go and save the rebels, it was Toshiro who set up a successful plan to free them. Erina then appoints him leader of the Rebel Corps afterwards.
During the battle against Marie, Toshiro lands the finishing blow on her when the Phantom Thieves bait her under a chapel bell. After being defeated, the copy Marie warns him about a grave sin he committed in the past before vanishing.
With the first kingdom freed, Toshiro, Erina and the Phantom Thieves find a door that they hope will bring them back home. Unfortunately, it instead sends them to another kingdom resembling feudal Japan, ruled by an overbearing, two-faced despot copy of Yoshiki Kasukabe known as "Lord Yoshiki". Shortly upon arriving, they run into a woman being harassed by legionnaires from Yoshiki's personal army, the Aizen Squad. After driving off the legionnaires, the woman takes the group to the rebel hideout, once again resembling Leblanc. Introducing herself as Yuki, she tells the group of Yoshiki's crimes against the people and her mission to free them from Yoshiki's grasp. The group accepts her request for aid, seeing no other option to get back home. Toshiro is the one who formulated the initial plan to disable the spycams and expose Yoshiki.
After disabling the cameras throughout the kingdom, the group is intercepted by the Yoshiki copy, who reveals that he is Toshiro's father before departing. This triggers another flash of memories for Toshiro, allowing him to remember the details of his father's crimes and the evidence he has against him. He then realized that his father's hostile behavior in this world doesn't match up with what the real Yoshiki would be acting like, as the latter should have no idea that his son was even pondering the thought of ousting him. This, combined with other extenuating circumstances, causes Toshiro to deduce that this kingdom, and by extension the one that came before, was created out of his own cognition.
In the following Rebel Corps operation, Toshiro was suddenly struck with extreme anxiousness and pallor. Initially he wanted to move away, only to be drawn alongside Yuki into a door leading to an isolated area of the Kingdom resembling an amusement park. Once he sets foot there, he hears voices implied to be manifestations of his guilt for "killing his mother" and screams and begs for the voices to stop as his face pales out. The Phantom Thieves save them and make their way to liberating the Labor of Love.
After the Phantom Thieves defeat Yoshiki, Yoshiki enters a diatribe about how the Phantom Thieves and Toshiro are messing with his "peaceful country" by fanning a war, before reprimanding Toshiro for his "crime" of "killing his mother on a selfish whim", driving him into despair. He then kills off the Yuki copy and vanishes laughing with copy Yuki vanishing shortly after. After the battle, Toshiro assures Futaba and Erina that this Yuki was just a copy and his emotional response was just a result of his memories about his mother coming back, though Futaba knows he was lying and he was actually emotionally impacted by seeing his mother vanish again even if it's not the genuine article.
The party stumbles into another Kingdom, this time taking the form of Toshiro's former high school. The unknown ruler of the Kingdom had manipulated the students into turning against each other, but nobody knows the name of the ruler, and they can only be reached once they find four keys to the music room. Throughout the party's quest to obtain the keys, more and more of Toshiro's high school past was uncovered through flashbacks. All of the flashbacks present after picking up a key have something to do with a girl named Eri Natsuhara and a shady man named Ichiro Nakabachi, a copy of the latter which is allegedly the Kingdom's ruler.
The party collects all four keys and it merges into a key to the music room where Nakabachi was fought. However, the copy Nakabachi acts nothing like his usual self, and instead reprimands Toshiro of his "great crime" before briefly assuming his usual characterization and transforming into a robot. The party defeat him and he seemingly admits defeat, but the copy Nakabachi suddenly asks if his words of defeat is what Toshiro wants to hear, and reveals himself to be a decoy of the actual tyrant, Shadow Toshiro. Shadow Toshiro kidnaps Erina, shows Toshiro a flashback of him ruining Natsuhara's life and claims that his "crusade for justice" is nothing short of a farce, driving him to despair. The party was then attacked by agitated rebels who are representations of the students who want to conveniently find a scapegoat after Nakabachi's fallout.
The party approaches the student council room and confronts Shadow Toshiro, only to find Erina being tied on a chair and the Shadow approaching Toshiro. The shadow attempts to kill Erina, claiming that he is delivering his wish by killing off a curse that ruined his life, "the lingering husk of Natsuhara's dream." The Phantom Thieves find themselves incapacitated by Shadow Toshiro's trap, leaving Toshiro as the only option to stop him. The protagonist throws his dagger to Toshiro, but initially he is hesitant to pick it up until he remembered Natsuhara's final words before he parted with her was a reassurance towards him. He then impales the Shadow's right hand with a dagger, stunning it and rescuing a falling Erina, reminding himself of the moment where he failed to stop Natsuhara from falling off the station platform. As a last ditch attempt to convince Toshiro, his Shadow claims that Natsuhara is a lunatic that will pull him to the dregs of hell, only for him to undergo an awakening and Erina transforms into his persona, Ernesto.
Leaving no choice, the Shadow attacks the party, first on foot, then taking the form of a massive, bloodied corpse of Natsuhara, only to end up defeated and presumably denied. It was at this meantime where Salmael descends and expresses his intention of eradicating the will to reform and the root of conflict, later revealed to be none other than Toshiro himself. The godly being offers everyone out if they give all of their will of rebellion to them, which is met with vehement rejection. Seeing that there is no other choice, Salmael awaits their answers in his own Kingdom.
During the descent towards Salmael, the godly being unleashes clones of the previous three tyrants against the party, and Toshiro rejects all of them. After the party defeats Salmael and Lavenza sends them back to the former Marie Kingdom, knowing that her mission is complete, Erina vanishes back into Toshiro as he bids her a tearful farewell.
Back to the real world, Toshiro returns to meet the real Marie and Yoshiki. Yoshiki requests him to read a cover-up script he wrote, only for him to tear the script up and indict Marie and Yoshiki for corruption in front of the media on the next day. He tells the media that he will be resigning from the elections and break up his arranged marriage with Marie. As Toshiro is still an enabler of his fiancee and his father's corruption and society is still reeling from the ruckus Shido's Antisocial Force committed last year, his reputation tanks greatly and he had to work back up to regain public trust.
During the post credits, a woman holding a walking cane spots him doing public service to a few elderly citizens. Toshiro looks at her fondly and she crouches towards him, smiling at him and telling him she has finally caught up to him. Toshiro tells her that he's been waiting.
Gallery[]
![Toshiro's character profile from the P5T site[1]](/wiki/File:P5T_character_profile_Kasukabe_Toshiro.png "P5T character profile Kasukabe Toshiro.png (220 KB)")
.png "Toshiro (Student Council President).png (116 KB)")
Trivia[]
- Despite fully awakening to his Persona, his appearance does not change at all. This makes him the only character to have a Persona but have no clothing change in Persona 5 spin-offs. In spite of this, he is shown wearing a mask during his awakening. This suggests that his usual attire already matches how he sees someone who fights for justice.
- Toshiro is the third character to have an entire game's worth of dungeons modeled after him, the others being Hikari and Rei. However, unlike Rei's and Hikari's dungeons which were cognitive worlds made by their unfulfilled desires or self-destructive thoughts (respectively), Toshiro's dungeons are explicitly made by Salmael with the intent of killing him outright, and the dungeon bosses (excluding Shadow Toshiro) are all cognitions of people he knew and feared instead of shadows representing their traumas or desires. Additionally, Toshiro is trapped physically, while Rei is not a physical being and it's implied that the Hikari encountered in Q2 is not physical either.
- Students in Toshiro's school cannot hang out with each other directly after school, but they can do so on the weekends.
- When talking to a bedridden Natsuhara, his right hand is covered in bandages, implying that he hurt his hand trying to save her.
- Toshiro once received a love letter in high school that he vehemently hid from Natsuhara because he does not want her to investigate it, though he is proud of receiving it.
- Toshiro's birthday falls on the same date as April Fool's Day.
References[]