“This is My Tomb”: An In-Depth Character Analysis of Futaba Sakura from Persona 5 Colin Moon Follow Aug 23, 2017 · Unlisted

Isn’t it unfair that books and movies get all the in-depth analyses? Well, I think it’s unfair. In the interest of being the change I want to see in the world, this is a thematic character analysis of Futaba Sakura from Persona 5

First off: SPOILER WARNING. There will be spoilers everywhere for Persona 5. I also will be making passing references to previous Persona games thematically and mechanically, but I won’t do any direct, named, story spoilers for those games. So, definitely play Persona 5 prior to watching this, but you don’t have to have played Persona 4, 3, 2, 2–2, or 1.

Moreover, as this is hopefully the beginning of a Persona character analysis series, I will also be doing some exposition on my thoughts on social links in general, reoccurring themes in the Persona series, and other stuff now, so I don’t have to repeat it later. Woo-hoo!

Also, just for the record, Futaba isn’t my “waifu” nor do I consider her to be “best girl” for Persona 5. She’s just a fun character who I think makes for both comparatively straightforward yet still super fun analysis.. So, sorry, /r/ChurchofFutaba, but I actually prefer Haru. I guess your church could call me a Haru-tic.

With that apex of comedy achieved, let’s get into the discussion.

FUTABA JOINS THE PHANTOM THIEVES

So, Persona 5 opens with the end of Sae’s palace and the memo that you have been betrayed by one of your friends. To keep up intrigue, Persona 5 has all Phantom Thieves after the initial 4 first appear as antagonists and switch into good guys, a storytelling tactic they let down somewhat by making the main portion of everyone’s story arc finish prior to Sae’s palace.. But you know, good effort Persona 5, here’s a participation prize and a coupon for 20% off of your next order of pancake-foreshadowed plot twists.

Pancakes. Why did it have to be pancakes.

Either way, these antagonists really only come in two forms: “Excuse me as I blackmail you into stealing the heart of who I think needs to be changed” (Makoto, Futaba and Akechi) and “Fine, you can steal the heart of my father figure, but you have to bring me along with you” (Haru and Yusuke).

Futaba is the former, and she starts her path down pretty easily. She has been stalking you while you were in the cafe and saw you as a way of overcoming her own anxiety issues. So, under the pseudonym Alibaba she blackmails you into stealing her own heart… which doesn’t go great for her, as it turns out heart-stealing is not something you do over the internet. Moreover, you recognize who she must be from her last name being shared with her adoptive father (who also happens to be your legal guardian).

Once she realizes that she does need to have physical contact with people to have her problems dealt with via Phantom Thievery, she tries to call off the heart-stealing, but that goes… poorly for her. The protagonists, motivated both by a desire to help Futaba and a desire to utilize her super hacka skills to stop the Egyptian pseudonym hacker group Medjed from embarrassing them online, decide to help her regardless of her opinion…

I like to think that Itaru and Futaba would be good friends online — assuming he never finds out her gender…

As it’s later revealed that Futaba founded Medjed but jumped ship when it went a bit too out there for her, let’s briefly discuss name symbolism: Medjed is a minor Egyptian deity who we know nothing about beyond a loose connection with Death and people being Smited, but has more importantly become an internet meme in Japan after this picture of what is theoretically him went online.

Because seriously… look at him.

However, it fits Futaba well; it’s Egyptian and related to death, which follows her Palace symbolism that we’ll discuss shortly. Moreover, it’s a meme and Futaba likes her memes.

As for Ali Baba, that’s the name of a fictional character from a folk story commonly counted as one of the Arabian Nights stories. In it, Ali Baba discovers a thieves’ den and, alongside his brother’s slave Morgiana, defeats all the thieves. Moreover, it’s also a name of a famous online retailer in Asia. Once more, it’s double-suited for Futaba: There is an internet connection and a thieves connection. Now, as for why Futaba, a Phantom Thief, would use the thief-slayer Ali Baba as her online alias is debatable: she does use this code name when blackmailing the Phantom Thieves, so they could be the “thieves” Ali Baba slays, but one could also think of the modern Medjed as the “thieves”- as they stole their pseudonym from Futaba and she “slays” them by hacking their website once she has recovered from the effects of her change of heart.

Overall, Futaba’s journey from antagonist to hero is simpler than, say, Makoto or Yusuke. She’s a hacker without much socializing experience, so she begins her plan to get the Phantom Thieves to help her in the only way she knows — blackmailing via information she acquired from hacking. She was always on the Phantom Thieves side; she just acted against them as that’s the best way to be taken seriously among the bazillion posts on the Phantom Phansite.

Now, onto her palace!

FUTABA’S PALACE

So, the main reason Futaba’s the easiest person to analyze is that she’s the only Persona 5 party member to get her own palace, the “Pyramid of Wrath.”

Now, on the surface, this seems like a Persona 4 palace. For those unaware, Persona 4 dungeons focus on characters being faced with shadow versions of themselves, accepting the shadow, and then the shadow becoming their Persona.

I mean, Futaba does not /not/ do that, but…

However, Futaba’s palace is still very much a Persona 5 palace, both in how it mechanically functions as one (all Persona 4 palaces are randomly generated like the Persona 5 mementos) and in terms of story.

In Persona 4, the people exposed to their shadows weren’t exactly thrilled to be exposed to the parts of themselves they don’t want to accept, but Futaba straight-up requests her heart to be stolen (and her shadow defeated) as a form of therapy. She isn’t unaware of her shadow’s presence, and is notable in actually accepting her shadow straight-up when faced with it, an action that, were it more common, would decrease the difficulty of Persona games by a significant margin.

You wouldn’t have to deal with this Persona 4 bossfight’s lack of weaknesses if people just were more like Futaba and accepting of Shadows.

Yes, Futaba’s shadow in P5 isn’t a reflection of a part of Futaba that she doesn’t want to admit, but instead a denier of a part of Futaba that Futaba is willing to admit (that part being Futaba’s responsibility in the death of her mother). Honestly, I think the main connection between the palace and Persona 4 is the moral — that Futaba should “reach out to the truth of [her mom’s death], seeking to seize on the whole moment, yeah.”

This is all reflected in how the palace plays for the player. Futaba’s shadow is both an enemy and a friend, a tour guide through Futaba’s emotions and the source of all the shadows that keep on interrupting your tour. The players also don’t begin in their phantom thief outfits, as they aren’t seen as a threat. This reflects general social anxiety and a catch-22 of depression: you want help, but don’t want to get help.

Because let’s be clear: Futaba’s palace is about depression.

Okay, well, technically it’s about acedia, otherwise known as “Spiritual Sloth,” which is a deadly sin that time forgot. Well, a deadly sin that time shoved underneath and the couch and is pretending to not know where they left it.

The modern Catholic Church defines acedia as a subcategory of Sloth that is largely amounts to being too lazy to acknowledge God’s existence. However, it historically referred to acting as life has no meaning and, in it’s worst forms, desiring death, as that was seen as an insult to gift of life God granted you. This is not considered a sin modernly as we are more aware of how the human mind works and how depression (which acedia is very very similar too, though technically different) is a serious issue.

Real Talk: Depression is a thing anyone can suffer from and is terrible. Calling it a sin was stupid act of a church annoyed that it’s monks weren’t working at optimal momentum due to depression (often caused by the isolation monks went through). So, if you’re depressed, please do get help and don’t let the idiotic beliefs of a Church hundreds of years ago make you feel worse about yourself.

Bringing the discussion back to Persona 4: Futaba needs to accept a positive truth about her life (that her mother loved her), while the Persona 4 casts were always shown truths they felt were shameful. This shows the depths of her depression: Futaba is literally unable to think anything positive about herself until her shadowself shows her a hieroglyphic powerpoint display that recounts the events that triggered her depression and truth behind them.

Now, while I wouldn’t say Wrath is notable enough to make titling Futaba’s Palace the “Pyramid of Wrath” logical, wrath does play a role in Futaba’s palace as well. Armed with the knowledge of the truth, Futaba accepts her shadow and channels her depression/acedia into wrath at the conspiracy, beginning with the bossfight against Futaba’s previous cognition of her mother.

And there was much badass amongst the crowd.

FUTABA’S SOCIAL LINK

So, one argument that I’ve heard many regular JRPG fans leverage against the Persona series is how the social links make for poor storytelling, as it means individual character’s storylines have to made optional and therefore irrelevant to the main story. While I respect this line of reasoning, I do disagree with it.

The social link system definitely does provide a challenge to writers in this regard, but I think they’ve demonstrated the skill to make the social link system work to benefit the Persona series’s storytelling, not hinder it. In most cases, the social links are more like assorted short stories relating to the theme of each Persona game: death in P3, truth in P4, and societal hierarchy in P5. The fact they’re optional is therefore like skipping reading a short story in a spin-off anthology work (think “The Demigod Files/Diaries” in comparison to the main Percy Jackson series) — you may miss an interesting story and lose an aspect of the theme, but you aren’t actually missing out on the main story in general.

I also find the fact you are virtually guaranteed to miss social links on the first play-through speaks to an universal truth: everyone has a story to tell, and in life, you cannot collect them all. This seems especially appropriate to the game that introduced the social link mechanic, Persona 3, as it’s theme is literally “Memento Mori” — Latin for “remember that you’re mortal.” The ticking clock of the day system and the finite time to complete social links serves as a mechanical reminder that “Hey, you aren’t going to live forever and be able to befriend everyone, so you better start making some priorities.”

Persona 3 is filled with clocks everywhere in reference of this.

However, there are still some social links that do finish the business of the main story, especially ones that are of playable party members or other story-related characters like Djoma or Sojiro. This presents the writers to have a few options in how they want the social link to go.

Sometimes they decide to make something entirely new for the social link; this is done with basically all of the female social links when playing as a male in Persona 3, but is probably most obvious in Makoto’s social link from Persona 5. As Makoto’s story is so inherently connected to the main story, her social link goes off on some weird tangent wherein you have to pretend to be her boyfriend and stop a pimp from pimping. Still thematically appropriate to the game and I personally still enjoyed it, but it has fuck-all to do with Makoto’s arc beyond sharing the feminist tone.

Sometimes they decide to just straight-up continue the story of that character in the social link; this is done with basically all party members in Persona 4 (minus Naoto) as they try to deal with the effects accepting their shadows, but I would argue is best demonstrated by the Hanged Man Arcana in Persona 4.

Sometimes they decide to do a bit of both, continuing the same personal journey with new context that is still tied to the main story but less so… This the most common method, and is best demonstrated by Anne’s social link containing both a resolution of Shiho’s arc and a new story focusing on Anne’s journey as a model.

Futaba’s link is, in my opinion, mostly a continuation of the main story.. Like, they already have scenes wherein Futaba begins to adjust to socializing with other people in the main story, and her social link is really just that, but more of it. In the main story, Futaba learns to leave the house with your group; in her social link, she learns to leave the house more often and plans to actually go to this “school” thing that is apparently important.

Though if we’re being practical, Futaba could probably challenge her high school diploma and get fast-tracked into a Master’s Degree program in Computer Science.

Her social link is pretty straight-forward with this premise. Futaba learns how to be more social while following a straightforward list. Said list is also connected to Futaba’s previous relationship with her mother, showing her having recovered from her mother’s death enough to continue doing what they did without her, as opposed to hiding from all signs of her.

Futaba’s social link also demonstrates what I consider to be the best form of reference humour, with Futaba frequently referring to life via video game terminology (calling Mishina a NPC, the player her “key item,” asking about getting a PlayStation trophy for dating you, etc) as a sort of crutch for her social anxiety. She’s nervous to go outside, but has been locked in her room playing video games and hacking the internetz for a year, so she is able to leave her room when she thinks of life is just another game and another challenge to be beaten — which connects back to her straightforward list of achievements she wants to achieve.

And I am very worried Persona Q 2 will take away all the psychological reasons for Futaba to make video game references and decide she is actually just Deadpool…

Overall though, the social link is good, but it doesn’t leave me with much to say. It’s a pretty good demonstration of someone overcoming social anxiety mixed with a lot of really good jokes, but the far more interesting Futaba social link is found in the later section of Sojiro’s social link. It features Futaba’s biological uncle trying to gain custody of Futaba despite not caring about her. That comes with both a nice “family isn’t just about blood” message (nicely shared with P4’s Justice and Heirophant links) and the standard “shitty adults are shitty and OP” message shared with all the P5 social links. Maybe I’ll discuss that in more detail down the line.

Naturally, at rank 9 of the Hermit Link, Futaba does ask you out very indirectly; she asks to continue spending time with you, admits that her heart beats faster whenever she’s around you, and asks why you are so nice to her and if you only treat her like this. Well, given how Persona protagonists are always magnets for people who need an unqualified teenaged therapist, the answer to the latter question is definitely no, but you can declare your reasons for befriending her as either the fact you’re teammates or the fact that you love her.

If the latter, you’re dating her! As a couple, Futaba and Joker do follow the theme of breaking societal constructs, given how most people would probably consider the pseudo-sibling nature of their relationship weird, but no judgement there from me.

While Futaba isn’t my best girl of choice, I do concede that this Valentine’s Day card is great.

FUTABA’S PERSONA AND SYMBOLISM

Lastly, let’s discuss the symbolism behind Futaba’s two Persona: Necronomicon and Prometheus.

The Necronomicon is a fictional textbook containing knowledge of the occult that appears in various HP Lovecraft novels and novellas; however you probably know it as that book you won from Ash Williams in a game of poker. The book’s fictional history as outlined in Lovecraft’s posthumous work The History of the Necronomicon says it was written in Arabic by a Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu-worshiper in 783 before he died under mysterious circumstances, after which it floated around before being translated into Greek under the title “Necronomicon” in 950. After that, it was gathered and burnt by the Patriarch of Constantinople (i.e., head of the Eastern Christian Church). It returned via a Latin translation in 1228, before being banned by Pope Gregory IX in 1232 as part of an non-fictional book-banning that occurred at that time. However, the Latin version is the version that survives into the modern day, with the Greek and Arabic versions completely MIA. Moreover, any study of the Necronomicon is supposedly a really bad idea as most people who interact with it proceed to die via terrible means.

Don’t worry; this photo probably won’t curse you. And if it does, I’m very sorry.

Prometheus, meanwhile, is a Titan from Greek mythology (all Persona 5 ultimate Personas are mythology-based). He is mainly known for delivering the knowledge of fire-making to mankind against the wishes of the Gods, and in retaliation suffering the terrible punishment of having his liver eaten by an eagle daily (Titans are immortal and therefore his liver grows back overnight). Despite the eagle-liver-thing, he is still able to give out information and prophecies to the benefit of various demigods and humans, some of which are famously told via the Greek Tragedy Prometheus Bound, and he is ultimately freed from his torment due to his knowledge of these secrets — Hercules kills the eagle and breaks Prometheus’s chains under the orders of Zeus, the God of Thunder who tied Prometheus up in the first place. This is because Zeus needed to know a prophecy Prometheus wouldn’t tell otherwise. In other words, Prometheus is a sort of Oracle — like Futaba’s English code name.

I imagine that daily liver-eating would be pretty non-ideal.

So, despite these two… books/Titans… having very different influencers, it’s pretty clear what theme they were going with for Futaba’s Persona: forbidden knowledge. She’s a hacker; she’s the support. Depending on how far you get into her social link, she gains the ability to reveal forbidden areas in the map of Mementos. Her mother studied psience. She likes knowledge.

Moreover, for the first section of the game, Futaba is herself forbidden knowledge. Like, Sojiro hides her existence from you. It’s only through her palace and her social link that she gets outside enough to become the dispensary of forbidden knowledge.

So, to spell it out: She starts of as hidden away knowledge herself, who is hiding from people as she believes she was responsible for the death of her mother by her presence (like how the Necronomicon is hidden knowledge that causes death for those who associate with it) and grows out of her shell into someone willing to put their safety on the line (though not quite as much as those who, say, do the fighting) for the betterment of humanity (like Prometheus). I’d call that pretty good symbolism personally!

Also, her Phantom Thief outfit is very Tron-y, reflecting how her sense of justice is taken from pop culture.

CLOSING REMARKS

And that concludes my Futaba Sakura analysis! If you enjoyed this discussion and want more, then write a comment down below suggesting another Persona character you’d like me to break down like this! I do want to do more, but also university is a thing… so, um, I’ll do them as I have the time… If you have any Futaba headcanons, points I didn’t make, or other forms of Futaba analysis, then you can write those below too; I’d love to hear them too!

Otherwise, you’ve had a long day; maybe it’s time for you to go to sleep. 🐱