Zenkichi Hasegawa

Zenkichi Hasegawa
Also known as	Wolf (Code Name) Old man (by Phantom Thieves of Hearts)
Japanese Name	長谷川 善吉 はせがわ ぜんきち ウルフ
Romaji	Hasegawa Zenkichi Urufu
First Appearance	Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers
Affiliation	Kyoto Prefectural Police Phantom Thieves of Hearts
Age	Above 40 (As he claims)
Melee Weapon	Two-Handed Swords
Ranged Weapon	Dual Revolvers
Arcana	Priest
Persona	Valjean
Japanese VA	Shin'ichirou Miki

Zenkichi Hasegawa is a playable character from Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers. He is a police inspector from the Kyoto prefecture in charge of investigating the latest Metaverse-related incident.

Appearances

• Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers: Playable Character

Design

Zenkichi has black shoulder-length hair, dark grey eyes, and a goatee, as well as sharing similar facial features as Masayoshi Shido. He wears a set of rimless glasses with a square narrow frame and a black suit with a tie. Underneath he has a light turquoise long-sleeves shirt with golden buttons in each end of it and black buttons in each side of the collar. He wears white sneakers.

As a Phantom Thief, Zenkichi wears a pinpoint blindfold as a mask. His attire is a black ankle-length tailcoat with black buckled tassels at the end of the sleeves, a silverish-gray folded up collar up at forehead-length with a large-brimmed fedora-based hat attached on the collar with a long swordfish-like point up at the front of the hat as the tailcoat has large 'V'-fashioned lapels. He also wears a high-collared jacket coat with silver accents with matching double bandolier belts and a matching holster belt where he can keep his firearm on the right side and puts the belt around his waist with another holster belt on the left side, black pants, silverish gray accented, black winkle pickers. His eyes turn blue when his close-up is activated.

Personality

While Zenkichi's appearance and demeanor suggests him as untrustworthy, he is actually deceptively intelligent and easygoing, which surprisingly, doesn't cover any hidden motives unlike Goro Akechi, another detective who joined under the Phantom Thieves. Unlike a majority of police officers, he also believes that the Phantom Thieves are just. However, Zenkichi also has a comical side to him, having a tendency to panic or overreact when he's caught completely off guard that usually involves him speaking while shouting in dismay.

He has some self-worth issues, caused by the death of his wife and his daughter's disdain towards him. This happens because Jun Owada, a noted poltician with ties to Masayoshi Shido, who had killed his wife in a hit-and-run accident where he was drunk driving and killed Aoi. Although his daughter was a credible witness, the whole crime was conveniently covered up and pinned on the poltician's secretary (who subsequently committed suicide in shame). Despite being taken off the case due to his relation to the victim, Zenkichi attempted to investigate Owada on his own. However, after a death threat was placed upon his daughter was issued against him, Zenkichi gave up on the case in fear of losing his daughter as well. Upon encountering his daughter Akane's shadow within the Jail, and realizing the depths of her rage stemming from his failure to uphold justice and avenge Zenkichi's wife and the person blamed for the crime, he realizes his own hypocrisy in letting Owada go unpunished for his own convenience. However, upon hearing his Shadow's voice, coupled with the Phantom Thieves' encouragement to stand up for his family, he finally made a stand to fight by his own code of justice, which triggers his awakening as Wolf. He is even capable of convincing his superior, Miyako Kaburagi, to turn on the corrupt and now-powerless Owada.

As a Phantom Thief, akin to his codename, he fights shadows mercilessly like a rampaging wolf, considering it's not bad to go wild once in a while. Even the Phantom Thieves were surprised by his personality change in his first awakening and battle. His speech patterns in battle is akin to a wolf hunting its prey. Despite not being as physically active as the other thieves in terms of age, he's capable of recovering his stamina fast proven by his recovery speed in between after his first battle and before their mission to save Akane within the same day. True to his assigned Priest Arcana, he is the oldest Phantom Thief (and surprisingly, the oldest playable character in the Persona series), and takes his role as the adviser and father figure of the team seriously, despite being the newest member. He is shown to be wise and logical during discussions and strategies, as well towards the targets' shadows when convincing them to change their ways.

Profile

Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers

Zenkichi lives in Kyoto and has a daughter named Akane. He's a member of the Kyoto Prefectural Police. Two years ago, his wife, Aoi Hasegawa, passed away after being hit by a car. In reality, the incident was orchestrated by Jun Owada, a former lobbyist of Masayoshi Shido. While Zenkichi tries to dig in, he was being blackmailed by a death threat. Aware that Akane's life would be threatened if he insists on pursuing Owada, so he reluctantly relents when the police decides not to investigate the case. As a result, Akane came to resent the Police and law enforcement in general, even going as far as supporting the Phantom Thieves of Hearts in fervor because she believes that they go against law enforcement. She also resented her father to an unhealthy degree since she's more often alone at home to the point of referring him by his name.

He's in charge of investigating the mysterious conversion cases that appear to be separate from the previous ones involving changes of heart. He tracks down the Phantom Thieves of Hearts and decides to use them in order to investigate the increasing amounts of change of heart cases, with one that involved the mesmerizing of a talk show host being directly pinned on them. In reality, this was not of the Thieves' work, but those of Alice Hiiragi's. He approaches the protagonist and his friends by chasing off two dunkards, revealing himself to be a police and even exposes a police officer who is tailing them. Zenkichi reveals that the Police had suspected that the change of heart case with the talk show host a day ago being their work and blackmails the Phantom Thieves into working together with him in exchange he will guarantee their freedom from being suspects.

Throughout the investigation, Zenkichi proves to be a surprisingly trustworthy ally for the Phantom Thieves and the investigation on EMMA's mysteries and the data of its clients, even if he's assigned to arrest them when anything goes wrong. Despite his superior's order, Zenkichi grows closer to the Phantom Thieves, especially after they help comfort his daughter's loneliness. He provides them a hiding place when they are chased by people under EMMA's influence and promises that he will fulfill his end of the deal. To his surprise, however, he finds his superior, Miyako Kaburagi orders a fully armed arrest of the Phantom Thieves. Zenkichi tries to discourage her from arresting them as they are innocent. When this fails, he took the place for them to be arrested. Fortunately, is quickly released from interrogation by Sae Niijima.

Zenkichi goes to their hiding place and finds Futaba alone. Learning that his daughter has become the King of Kyoto's Jail, Zenkichi enters the Jail with Futaba to rescue the Phantom Thieves who are captured by Shadow Akane. Confronting his daughter's Shadow, Zenkichi finally explains he chose not to pursue Owada to protect her life, but then learns that Akane not only thinks about her mother, but also other people who became victims of Owada's wrongdoing who are not protected like she is, shocking Zenkichi who never considered that his daughter would have thought that far. The revelation makes Zenkichi believe that he had failed to protect his loved ones, but the encouragement from the Phantom Thieves reignites Zenkichi's resolve to fight by his own code of justice, awakening his Persona, Valjean. He defeats Akane's Shadow horde and frees the rest of the party. Now able to fight, Zenkichi officially joins the Phantom Thieves.

Once the party reaches the end of Kyoto's Jail, Shadow Akane snaps and attacks the party as they deny her using copies of the Phantom Thieves. Wolf and Sophia fight against My Dear Futaba, while the rest take care of their own. After the protagonist defeats My Dear Joker, Shadow Akane collapses and thanks Zenkichi for saving her, then vanishes into light. Despite Zenkichi seeming to be grief ridden over his daughter's "death," he gets over it when Morgana informs him that it's just her Shadow Self, and the real person is perfectly fine. Once the party returns to the real world, the real Akane is actually rendered unconscious after she told EMMA to save her, and she comes into terms with Zenkichi.

While forming a plan to change Akira Konoe's heart, Zenkichi requests Kaburagi's help in his case, promising that Owada would be arrested. Kaburagi granted Zenkichi her permission, returning his police badge and giving him three days to solve the case. Once Konoe's heart is changed and he confessed to his crime, Zenkichi would later personally arrive alongside Kaburagi to arrest Konoe. While he couldn't forgive Konoe for using his daughter, he encourages him to atone for his crime and reform as a true hero of justice he dreams of, which touched Konoe.

When EMMA restarts on its own, Zenkichi joins the Phantom Thieves again to fight against the False God Demiurge and shut down EMMA once and for all. Once the Jail of the Abyss ceases to exist, Zenkichi bids the Phantom Thieves farewell as he is going to return to Kyoto once the case is closed. He is last seen waiting outside the building as Owada is arrested and escorted by the police.

Gallery

Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers

Zenkichi's Close Up Concept art Concept art 2 Zenkichi's status screen art Zenkichi with the protagonist and Sophia on the Weekly Famitsu Magazine Issue #1629 cover Artwork of Sophia and Zenkichi for P5S's release by Shigenori Soejima Zenkichi Pre-Release Wallpaper (576x1024) Wolf Pre-Release Wallpaper (576x1024) Zenkichi & Valjean Pre-Release Wallpaper (576x1024) Zenkichi's Showtime Zenkichi Hasegawa Zenkichi in Shibuya Zenkichi at a Tokyo Public Security Bureau meeting revolving the Phantom Thieves Zenkichi awakening to his Persona Zenkichi at a Madicce building Wolf's portrait

Videos

Zenkichi's Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers Trailer

Etymology

Zenkichi (善吉) means "good luck," and Hasegawa (長谷川) means "long valley river."

In Other Languages

Language	Titles
English	Zenkichi Hasegawa	Wolf
Japanese	長谷川 善吉 (Hasegawa Zenkichi)	ウルフ (Urufu)
Korean	하세가와 젠키치 (Hasegawa Jenkichi)
Traditional Chinese	長谷川 善吉 (Zhǎnggǔchuān shànjí)	WOLF

Trivia

• Zenkichi is the first adult Persona user to be a full playable/party member since Persona 2: Eternal Punishment.
• Unlike the other Phantom Thieves awakening, instead of tearing the mask off whole, Zenkichi tears off the mask breaking it into two. 
• Zenkichi's overall Phantom Thief character is derived from French origins.
  • His Phantom Thief design is based on Le Pacte des loups (Brotherhood of the Wolf).
  • His Persona Valjean originates from the name of the protagonist of Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel Les Misérables, Jean Valjean.
  • His codename (Wolf) is derived from what criminals were called/labeled as in the Les Misérables novel. This alludes to his character while inside Kyoto's Jail: instead of following the law like a dog, he seeks his own justice as a rampaging wolf.
• Alongside Shinjiro Aragaki, Koromaru and Metis from Persona 3, Zenkichi does not possess an Ultimate Persona.
• Zenkichi Hasegawa is very similar to Ryotaro Dojima in that they're both widowers raising their single daughters by themselves while serving in the police force. Similarly, their daughters both inadvertently conceive realities of their own in their respective Shadow worlds, both spawned from the grief of losing their mothers, which are used to further the ends of the human antagonists (Akira Konoe and Tohru Adachi through Taro Namatame respectively).
• In game dialogue indicates that Zenkichi is above 40 years old, making him the oldest playable character in the Persona series.