Futaba Sakura

Futaba Sakura is the Navigator of the Phantom Thieves from Persona 5. She is different from the main crew of the Phantom Thieves, as prior to Persona 5 Strikers, she was a shut-in who does not attend school and rarely, if ever, leaves her house. Futaba is a young girl with hip-length black hair dyed bright orange, with straight-cut bangs and two long strands in the front along with a single small, thin strand at the top. Her brown eyes also seem to have some faint purple tones in them, appearing mauve. She wears large black circular glasses, and is almost always seen wearing a set of AKG K845BT headphones with red ear cushions. She seems to be very short, even compared to other girls. Her casual winter outfit consists of multiple layers: she wears an off-shoulder white top with a red splatter-like pattern on her chest with five white asterisks (*****) which are reminiscent of a password input system in the red splatter, a black tank top underneath, a dark green jacket with a faux fur trimmed hood, black short shorts, a studded black belt in a slanted position, black thigh high socks and black knee-high boots with buckles and studs at the top. The green jacket has A.F.K. on the back (for "away from keyboard"), although it is difficult to see because of Futaba's long hair. With a case of social anxiety bordering on agoraphobia developed from the trauma of losing her mother Wakaba Isshiki, combined with her generally introverted personality, Futaba is strongly uncomfortable with going outside. When the protagonist first meets her, she is a shut-in who does not attend school and almost never leaves her room. She communicates with the world remotely via the Internet, and her adoptive father Sojiro Sakura enables her lifestyle out of guilt that he could not protect her from trauma. Having disconnected herself from humanity and the world beyond her apartment, Futaba suffers from suicidal depression, crippling bouts of anxiety and would freak out instantly when seeing unknown people inside Sojiro's house. When first encountered, Futaba is so consumed with self-loathing that she suppresses her desire to live, causing her Shadow Self to develop a much more helpful personality than average, one who only desires Futaba's happiness. Prior to her Change of Heart, she thinks that her room is the only place she actually feels safe to dwell within due to the frequent hallucinations she has about Wakaba bearing hatred on her. Even before her mother's death, Futaba was quite a lonely child growing up. Part of this was due to her isolation for being a genius, with other students thinking she was a freak due to her eidetic memory (things she's reminded of when she's given a tour of Shujin), while the other part was due to her mother working long hours to support her, meaning the two hardly ever got to spend time together. It got to the point where Futaba would sometimes think her mother cared more about her research than she did about her, an insecurity that only worsened when her mother died and she was read the fake suicide note. Because of her desire for her mother to be alive again, and the belief that she deserves to die, Futaba ended up creating a Palace where her mother wants her dead. With the help of the Phantom Thieves, however, she realizes that the suicide note was forged and manages to remember the real Wakaba. Futaba is also very fond of sushi and Sojiro's curry, both of which were meals she shared with her mother. When she first joins the Phantom Thieves, Futaba states that her main goal is to find out the truth behind her mother's death, but also gains a growing investment in the group's goal of reforming society. After her heart is changed and she begins to actively go out, Futaba still initially tends to hide behind the protagonist so that she won't be seen in public, or wears masks which make it impossible to identify her. Even during Strikers the anxiety issues do not completely go away, as, if the protagonist talks to her while investigating Alice Hiiragi in Shibuya, she will say that the heat and crowds of people during summer still makes her uncomfortable. Futaba begins to change after meeting the protagonist and the other Phantom Thieves, as she begins to practice opening up and challenging her own boundaries. Beneath her anxiety, Futaba has a childish side and enjoys teasing her friends, particularly Ryuji Sakamoto, Yusuke Kitagawa and Morgana, and occasionally Makoto Niijima and Sojiro Sakura as well. She often pokes fun at Yusuke by calling him "Inari," a word which means fox, but can mean tofu curd sushi due to tofu being offered near Inari Shrines. This forms a pun which implies that Yusuke is a degenerate. Futaba's social ineptness often causes her to be very blunt, to the point that she seems to have no concept of tactfulness; she will often make notes about the thieves behaviors as if she is studying them, and she shows no qualms over commenting on/reacting to the other girls' phantom thief suits or the size of Ann Takamaki's breasts. In addition, she addresses Sojiro by his given name instead of "Dad," which is considered very impolite in Japan, even in the case of adoptive paternal figures. Sojiro refers to himself as her father, and while he never insists on her calling him "Dad," he becomes very pleased when she occasionally begins to. Despite her social ineptness and anxiety, Futaba has little problem talking to people as long as the subject interests her. When Makoto is originally attempting to help Futaba open up, she has little success bringing up mundane topics like food and the weather (the latter meaning nothing to former shut-in Futaba). However, once Yusuke starts rearranging her Featherman figures, Futaba begins passionately arguing with him, which soon turns into an actual discussion, allowing Makoto to deduce that she's simply not interested in mundane topics. Futaba is a prolific hacker. As the original Medjed, her skills were of worldwide fame, even if her own identity remained anonymous. Sometimes she is shown to use this without regard for privacy or consequences, such as her bugging of Leblanc to keep an eye on Sojiro, bugging the protagonist's phone camera so she can keep an eye on them during their trip to Hawaii, and finding out her Uncle's financial history (which Sojiro had to point out was obviously illegally obtained, meaning they couldn't make use of it without getting in serious trouble). Makoto even mentions before the Hawaii trip that she's glad Futaba is on their side, recognizing she'd make a fearsome enemy. As a former shut-in, Futaba appears to be the least physically fit member of the Phantom Thieves, to the point that she may end up sleeping for days at a time (something that happens often enough that Sojiro is unconcerned). She is also shown to be heavily reliant on the internet as she doesn't see the point in going shopping since you can buy anything online and even claims that she can use it as a substitute for going to school. Futaba loves computers (if the protagonist claims he built his own PC, she asks for details on the GPU, CPU, RAM, etc.), often plays video games, is into sci-fi (as shown by her Phantom Thief suit and her Persona being a UFO), and is a big fan of the show Phoenix Ranger Featherman R (as evidenced by her posters and figurine collection).