Haru Okumura [ Noir ]

will do all the fancy shit later

NAME: Marion
AGE: 21+
CONTACT: unification
CHARACTERS IN GAME: None


CHARACTER NAME: Haru Okumura
AGE: 18 (17 at the start, but her birthday passes in game time)
CANON Persona 5
CANON POINT December 24th, immediately after defeating Yaldabaoth
HISTORY: Haru's wikia page which details her introduction to the story and her confidant arc.

Plot summary located here - it should be noted that Haru is the last official member of the Phantom Thieves to join, and joins the cast as the endgame begins to kick into gear.
PERSONALITY:

Refined, well-mannered, eloquent and always neatly dressed, Haru Okumura embodies what many parents would consider their ideal image of the perfect daughter. She gets high grades in a good school, keeps the right company, and obediently accepts the plans her father has made for her in order to further their family's empire. Yet underneath this submissive veneer beats the heart of a girl who wants to forge her own path, but is caught in a trap between loyalty to her father and loyalty to herself. In the end, she must choose to betray one.

From a young age, Haru's life had already been planned for her by her father. Anyone who speaks with her can tell she's well groomed and educated. She wears expensive well-made clothes, she crafts sentences with eloquent vocabulary, and is always pleasant in conversation. This is not all there is to her, but for most of her life it was all she was permitted to be. Society instructs children to obey the adults in their lives, especially their parents, and so Haru was forced to squash and compact much of herself to conform. Many people only see this surface layer to her because she has been forced to never express herself beyond them. She loves gardening, dancing, thrillers, but no one would ever know if it didn't fit her image. If her father said jump she would ask how high, and accepted his plans like the dutiful daughter she is. A dutiful daughter obeys her father, lets her father pick her friends, always gets the best grades, and never speaks back. She had to mature quickly to meet his demands, none of which she flinched from for seventeen years thanks to a healthy mix of love, responsibility and the fear of shame for failing him. He was working hard to continue the food business her grandfather started, and so she had to support him and their family by obeying.

However her life as an heiress gave birth to a significant growth of mistrust. She felt that the people in her life were phony toward her and only wanted a connection to her because of her name. They smiled, said kind things, wanted to please her, but it never felt like they genuinely cared about her as a person. The friends her father chose for her were no different, all carrying their own agendas in trying to befriend her. Perhaps she too was a part of that manipulation, as she surely smiled and acted kind to them for similar reasons, and so her life became more a performance put on for others. She's notably the only member of the Phantom Thieves who actually questioned their motivations when they first approached her to join them, as she wondered if they were really acting on behalf of justice or just out of a desire to increase their fame. This displays a rather analytical side to Haru's judgments, never taking things at face value after hard learned lessons about it.

In relation to this, Haru is a sensitive soul. When you have to deal with people who may be putting on an act, you learn how to suss out the real from the fake. The circumstances under which she was raised made her in-tune to other people's emotions, and shows a great deal of empathy and kindness toward others. While her father is cold and calculating, always thinking about profits, Haru displays compassion and a 'human side' to business in a matter of speaking. When Morgana feels shunned by the rest of the team, Haru decides to support him as an ally even if she doesn't necessarily agree with how he handles the situation at hand. She always shows concern for others even when she's in the midst of personal turmoils, and believes that even people like her father can change into better people. If people are always growing like plants in a garden, then she sees herself as a nurturing presence to help take care of them. She becomes a pacifying voice in a group of rowdy teenagers because of that.

Of all the group she has the least 'rebellious' outward appearance, so it would surprise anyone to know that she is so intensely in love with being a Phantom Thief. She loves a dramatic entrance, will pose as she speaks like she comes out of an anime, and embrace the role with vigor and passion. Her code name 'Noir' is a reminder that she pursues justice from the shadows, knowing that the law proper cannot always get the job done, and she insists that it be used whenever she's in costume. A lot of this comes from her love of shoujo animes where the beautiful heroine saves the day, happy and smiling throughout, and she emulates them regularly as a guide to her own path. The heroine befriends others, grants mercy when warranted, and always sticks to her ideals even when it feels like the world is against her. Fighting evil by moonlight, winning love by daylight, it pretty much comes straight out of her dreams of escaping the confines of her life as is.

Though it should be noted that despite her typically kind nature, Haru does have a wrathful side to her that has been freed up with becoming a Phantom Thief. If someone crosses a line with her, usually if they insult her or her family's honor in some way, she can turn cutthroat and merciless with her retaliation. The backbone she always wanted came to be out of her betrayal, and she's no longer shy about standing her ground when warranted. In addition, of all the thieves she clearly enjoys the thrill of combat the most. She makes frequent off-hand comments about how excited she is to get into the fray, and mentions it serves as a form of stress relief. Though she's wise enough to keep it under a tight lid, as even her friends think she gets a little too homicidal, but the good news is that this only seems to apply to the Shadows and not actual people. Relevant as well is she loves horror movies, especially slasher films, even though she admits that they scare her. Oh, and if the protagonist dates and then cheats on her, she cheerfully demands he take her chocolate before she crushes it in her hand. The summation of all this being do not mess with Haru Okumura. She's very kind and good natured, so those who take advantage of that and betray her will be sorry.

Haru's character arc in the game centers around the decision as to whether she should trust herself to forge her own path in life, or to obey the whims of those who she loves despite knowing she's their puppet. After all, there is a certain comfort in obedience and Haru knows this well. For a long time she lets her father make all her decisions because society says to always obey those above you, especially your family, and she accepts this reality as the one she was born into. Her ascension into a Phantom Thief is therefore her decision to betray the image that society demands she takes, to betray her father's wishes of the future he wants for her, and to make her own path out of these betrayals.

This arc is further reinforced in her confidant link. Every major character the protagonist, 'Joker', meets has a special arc where he helps them with a major incident in their lives. Following the death of her father, Haru has inherited his majority shares in the company - effectively making her the new Okumura Foods CEO in waiting. Yet after everything she experienced with her father's change of heart, and then immediate death after, has ramped up her distrust in the talking heads of her father's company. Over the arc she has to decide whether or not to trust one of the company's presidents, as she hears two different sides to him from different people and rumors. At the end she has a heart to heart with the man about her desire to see the company grow while also keeping a stronger moral fiber that her father neglected, to which the president genuinely and heartily agrees. Through his compassion she sees him from a genuine man, and gains an understanding about how to navigate in business without her father present. Additionally, Haru's confidant arc is one of the last available in the game - meaning this is all happening just before the insanity of the endgame hits. It goes to show Haru's capability to juggle the double life of a well-manner girl and a Phantom Thief seeking justice.

CANON POWERS:
Persona - Milady | Astarte

In game all the main Phantom Thieves gain a magical summon born from their hearts called a Persona. It is essentially the manifestation of their greatest desires born from their repressed-selves, called Shadows in game. The Persona of all the Phantom Thieves are based on a well-known fictional character who rebels against the norms of society for the greater good. Haru's Milady is named for Milady de Winter, a major antagonist in Alexander Dumas' Three Musketeers and a classic femme fatale. When Haru summons her Persona, she is able to transform her outfit into her Phantom Thieves get-up.

Milady's attack set in game is a mixture of Psychic magic attacks, Gun skills, and Support skills. Upon maxing out her confidant with the protagonist, Milady undergoes a transformation into Astarte - a Goddess representing Love, War and Fertility across different cultures. She is resistant to Ice attacks, Nullifies any Psychic attacks, and is weak to... Nuclear... attacks. As all regular people tend to be.

Here are the available skills it can use:

Psiodyne - Heavy Psychic damage to one foe.
Mapsiodyne - Heavy Psychic damage to all immediate foes.
One-shot Kill - Severe gun damage to one foe.
Amrita Shower - Cures all ailments, though does not heal HP.
Makarakarn - Creates a one-hit barrier against magic attacks.
Tetrakarn - Creates a one-hit barrier against physical attacks.
Heat Riser - Boosts ally attack, defense and speed temporarily.
Psy Break - Suppresses psychic resistance temporarily.
Psy Amp - Boosts psychic skills by 50% (passive)
Cripple - Boosts gun skills by 50% (passive)
Climate Decorum - Boosts evasion during adverse weather (rain, heatwave, flu) (passive)

OTHER: In game Haru can grow plants that can recover user's SP, the energy used for special magic based attacks. I'm not sure if she could be allowed to do something similar with the plant life of the game, so I figure I throw it out as a question.


CRAU INFO: N/A
MAGIC ABILITY:

Telekinesis - Taking a cue from her affinity toward psychic magic in game, Haru will be able to use her mind to move objects relative to her physical strength. It should be treated as something like an invisible hand, a force that she can control as an extension of herself. If Haru can lift the object in question physically, then she can do the same mentally from a long distance. It would let her push buttons from out of reach, shove people at a distance, and so on. If she tries to physically lift something, let's say a heavy bag, then she can use her telekinesis at the same time to assist her in the act. She can also use it to lift multiple objects at once, but the more she juggles the harder it is to concentrate, and the sum of her objects cannot exceed her own physical strength to lift those things.

As it correlates to physical strength, the power of her psychic ability will also be influenced by bodily changes. Should Haru work out and become physically stronger, her power will also strengthen relative to her improvements. If she's tired, sick, exhausted, her telekinetic power will weaken in turn. If she's getting fired up, angry about something, or feels more determined in the moment, the power will respond positively.

ANY WEAPONS/MAGICAL ITEMS?: Haru's weapon will be an axe, which is her primary weapon of choice in the game. In reality it's just a display piece, but in the metaverse it becomes a real and very powerful weapon. She'll be able to swap it as such.
ANY PETS?: None.


LINKED SAMPLE: TDM toplevel