sophisticated female student

Player Name: Raina
Age: 30
Contact: hypothetical
Timezone: PST
Other character currently in game: N/A

Character name: Makoto Niijima
Age: 18
Canon: Persona 5
Canon point: Post game
History: Wiki link

Three key adjectives: Justice, Responsible, Motherly

Influential Events:
Her father's death: When Makoto was 14, her father was murdered in the line of duty by a criminal. Her mother had already been out of the picture for some time, and so this left Makoto and her sister, Sae (only 21 years old at the time) to fend for themselves. His death was deeply felt by bother girls, who attributed their senses of justice to him.

This left Sae very little time to do anything but focus on getting a prestigious job that would be able to provide for her and her sister, which fundamentally altered her relationship with both Makoto and her sense of justice. Makoto, for her part, was a smart child who could immediately grasp that her sister was under a lot of pressure, and felt that pressure trickle down. While her sense of justice hadn't changed, Makoto pushed it aside in order to make things as easy as possible for Sae.

She worked hard to be the perfect student. Her grades were immaculate, all the teachers loved her, and she did everything she was told without questioning. It didn't fundamentally change the pressure that Sae felt, and over time, Makoto became sensitive to how much of a burden she was on her sister. If she stepped out of line in the slightest, it would always come back to how this must be so hard for Sae. And before she joined the Phantom Thieves, this sort of crticism was part of how the school principal had tried to push her back into line, after fundamentally misunderstanding Makoto as only caring about prestige and getting ahead.

Her persona's awakening: Back against the wall, Makoto and the Phantom thieves were taunted by Kaneshiro's shadow's. Kaneshiro, like so many adults in her life, attempted to go for the jugular for Makoto by threatening Sae, unless she got back into line. But, inspired by the Phantom Thieves, Makoto felt something in her snap, and she contracted with her persona with zero hesitation.

Up to this point, Makoto had been weaponized against the Phantom Thieves. She had been given marching orders to investigate them, and had quickly figured out who they were. However, she had also picked up on a drug dealing scheme that had been trapping students at Shujin High into a circle of blackmail and lawbreaking. Out of desperation, Makoto in turn threatened to blackmail the Phantom Thieves unless they helped her fix this problem with the students. And it was Makoto's recklessness, willingly letting herself get trapped by Kaneshiro's blackmail machine, that had led them to this moment.

Rather than focus on what an idiot she was, or how reckless she'd been, she finds power with her persona. She finds her sense of justice, that she had pushed down for so long. And most importantly, she finds she does have a rock bottom when it comes to following orders from immoral adults. She doesn't care about her own wellbeing. But she doesn't want to be used against her sister, or to fail the students that were counting on her, even if they didn't particularly like her. Moreover, she finds that she likes taking her problems into her own hands. She likes punching the crap out of her enemies, regardless of whether or not a student council president should solve her problems that way. It makes it hard for her to ever want to go back to the person she was before.

Revealing Erika's Boyfriend's Scam: Makoto had made a friend with one of the Shujin students, Erika. But Erika had fallen for a shady club host in Shinjuku. Makoto couldn't place it, but she had a strong feeling that he was just using Erika. He refused to ever refer to her by her name, and was quick to ask for Makoto's phone number as well. Then, he started asking Erika for money, claiming that he had accidentally broken a valuable bottle of liquor at his club. Makoto recognized the tactic from her father telling her about it, and she knew she had to stop this before it went further. Makoto purposefully sent him a text in Erika's voice, and waited for him to text her back. Then she tricked him into saying Erika's name was Makoto, revealing him as a fraud.

This was a major moment for her. She was able to protect someone dear to her, and to do it not using her persona's power, or even her fists, but with her wits. It proves to her that she can connect with people her age, and importantly, that she can forge her own path with her strengths and desires, outside of the phantom thieves. She doesn't have to be a lawyer like her sister, and she doesn't need anyone's validation for it.

Following this incident, Makoto promises to Akira that she's going to become a chief of police. She knows that the odds are stacked against her, but she now has the resolve and belief in herself to do it. She finally gets to follow her heart, instead of following what is expected for her. It's freeing in a different way.

Confronting Sae in her palace: Makoto had always wondered if her sister had a palace, but she had wanted to avoid confronting that. But now... things had pushed her in that direction, and worse, her sister's shadow had ended up attacking them, after Makoto learned how willing her sister was to cheat to win.

With defeating her sister's shadow, Makoto is finally able to have an open conversation with Sae. She had been going behind her back to work as a phantom thief, or finding her path forward. But she'd never had to reconcile who she wanted to be with who circumstances had forced her sister to become. She'd known that their father's death had deeply affected her sister, and that it was very possible that others had twisted Sae to suit their needs. But she needed to connect with her, and hopefully remind her of who she had been.

This is Makoto's chance to transcend the idea of herself as a "burden" on her sister, but instead as someone who can help and save her sister before she becomes a monster. It's hard, and Makoto would rather not have to do it, but she knows she can't ignore it, and her pleas are able to bring Sae back to her senses, even without stealing her heart's treasure.


Link to Samples: Link to Sample 1; Link to Sample 2;

Chosen path: Monk
3 Abilities: Mediarama (healing) + Mystery of Death + Observant
Why this path?: Because Makoto doesn't care for prestige or material wealth, she cares for justice. She would rather seek out opportunities to help, than to ignore them and be comfortable in her own enclave. Add to this, that Makoto prefers to tackle her problems with her fists and with her wits, the Monk path makes a lot of sense for her versus the weapons and shields that are natural to the Paladins of the world.