Wednesday, August 22, 2018

Character Analysis:Mitsuru Kirijo


Backstory

Age: At least 20(probably in the mid-20s by the time of persona 5)
Height: 166cm
Arcane: Empress
Occupation: SEES member, leader of the Shadow ops
Alliases: The Imperious queen of Executions

Mitsuru is the heir to a world renowned conglomerate known as the Kirijo group, an offshoot of a prior organization known as the Nanjo group. Ever since she was a child Mitsuru has had to hold a heavy burden due to a vast amount of crimes perpetuated upon the world by the Kirijo group during her grandfather’s time running it. Most prominently a long series of inhuman experiments into the nature of a mental world known as the collective unconscious, as well as the beings that resided there called shadows. Mitsuru’s grandfather aimed to collect masses of shadows, and utilize their unique time/space bending properties to create a time machine he could use to accumulate mass power. To this end he kidnapped children to perform shadow related experiments on them. Created and abused artificial intelligence created for the sake of combating shadows and hired scientist to study shadows for his end goals.

This culminated in a huge public accident, caused by one of his scientist eventually turning against him, which freed all the shadows collected in into numerous large fragments, and altered that state of the world. This alteration was called the dark hour, a state of space and time where shadows reigned supreme, and could gather in a newly created structured called Tartarus. During the dark hour most people where actually unaware of what was going on, but a few had the potential to operate in it, these people generally having the potential to become “persona users”. Fortunately Mitsuru was one of these persona users, and awakened to her power after protecting her father from the danger of a shadow attack. Wanting to make up for her family’s sins she then put together a team of persona users known as SEES, who operated for the express purpose of ending the dark hour and exploring Tartarus.

…This worked for a while but eventually it turned out one of the key leaders in SEES, Ikutsuki, was manipulating the rest of the group. Turns out the dark hour had more malevolent implications than anyone had ever imagine. In actuality the shadows found in the dark hour where actually fragments of human psyches, who pulled people in, and ripped more shadows out of them for the purpose of congregating in Tartarus(thus causing apathy syndrome). The larger shadows that had escaped during the old Kirijo experiments, also actually merged into a sort of super shadow after being destroyed, gaining a will of their own in the form of a boy named Ryoji.

This culminated in the possibility of a dangerous event known as the fall. You see  it turns out the only reason why humanity (and the collective unconscious) exists is because a space Cthulhu monster called nxy crashed into the earth millions of years ago, and her mental energy essentially merged with the lifeforms there(in the form of shadows). Nxy’s dormant body then became the moon, and through the Kiriju groups meddling, Nxy’s will via Ruiji and the shadows in Tartarus sought to summon down her body from Tartarus and reemerge with it into their true form. This of course would cause the end of the world, given the moon crash, along with the fact that ripping the shadows out of earth’s population would seriously mess them up psychologically, given shadows had become an important part of the human psyche.

Iktsuki knew all this however and actually wanted to the fall to happen. Once he thought the fall was set in motion, he forcibly took control of the SEES android unit Aegis and tried to kill his former comrades, managing to kill Mitsuru’s father. Fortunately however he failed, and through the power of friendship bs, SEES eventually managed to stop the revival of Nxy, though by the end of the journey they also lost the lives of the wild card Makoto and longtime friend Shinji.  From the events of Persona 3 onward Mitsuru has dedicated herself to stopping shadow related incidents, forming a covert ops group known as the shadow operatives.
In terms of personality Mitsuru is Mature and levelheaded, if not awkward in social situations due to her background and rich status.


Weapons

Rapier/one handed swords
There are multitudes of weapons available to the characters in persona 3, but Mitsuru specifically specializes in one handed sword type weapons like foils, short swords and rapiers. These weapons are often specifically designed by the Kirijo group to be extra effective against the mental entities found in the dark hour or other worlds of the collective unconscious like shadows and demons. Certain weapons in persona 3 and Q also have added ailment or elemental attributes, potentially causing status ailments like fear, distress, curse or adding elemental properties to the weapon like electricity.

Armor
Civilian clothing/Catsuit/High cut armor
Mitsuru has a variety of armor sets available to her in persona including several sets of winter, summer, and fall school clothing, a set of scantily clad armor called high cut armor, and many other misc armor sets/costumes. Though by the time of Persona 4 arena, she seems to have settled on an odd combination of wearing a latex cat suit, high heels and a fur coat. Many armor sets have specific added enhancements like speed, strength or endurance, though these stat increases aren’t quantifiable in a way that actually matter.

Fancy nails/Blazing flame
Mitsuru can also use a multitude of different accessories in persona 3 and Q as well. Though her default accessories is fairly menial, and essentially comprises of a set of fake nails. Some more interesting, albeit optional accessories includes the blazing flame item, which nullifies fire based attacks. This being of note since it covers one of Mitsuru’s weaknesses.

Persona

Persona rules
A persona is a physical manifestation of one’s inner thoughts that fights to protect its user as a metaphorical “mask” against physical danger. It is earned by acknowledging/accepting the evil (or shadow) within one’s self, along with basic human truths such as mortality. Many persona users need to directly meet their “shadow self” to become aware of their own shortcomings and come to terms with it. Though if a person is self-aware enough, some sort of push from a deity or stressful situation can also be enough for them to awaken to their abilities. Because Personas are essentially a users shadow in a controlled form, denying those shadows can cause them to run out of control. This can either result in the shadow turning into a rampaging monster or an unstable persona that may try to kill its owner.

In order to successfully summon a persona mid battle, a persona user must have access to some level of mental clarity, which can be obtain either by being placed in a life threatening situation or undergoing intense mental stress. Summoning a persona in the real world is rare despite this however and difficult to pull off substantially without some sort of aid of certain tools known as evokers (explained further bellow) or serious skill.

Using a persona and associated powers in typically easier if a character is in a metaphysical realm created/based around human thoughts. These worlds, such as the TV world, the Metaverse, and are smaller fragments of greater “collective human unconsciousness” realm that serves as an important cornerstone for the series lore. If the real world is affected by or merged with the collective unconscious realm in some, such as the dark hour in persona 3, or the red fog in Persona 4, that can also make persona summoning easier.

Personas also have the following attributes.
  • Personas and shadows are intrinsically the same thing. A persona is just controlled and tamed. This is specifically stated by the character Metis in persona 3 the answer.
  • Anything that physically happens to a persona is also felt by the persona user to an extent, allowing for some physical feedback during a fight. However the persona user will not actually gain injuries based on the damage their persona takes in a fight. This is an attribute showcased most prominently in the persona 4 animation anime, though it is pretty consistent in most other media adaptions as well.
  • Summoning a persona and using its skills does take a require the usage of either physical stamina (HP) or spiritual energy (SP). This is clarified during the tutorial of persona 3 FES.  Places that ease persona summoning also reduce this strain.
  • The strength and endurance of a persona depends partially on the mental state of its user, meaning it is possible for a persona to gain an influx of strength or even heal it’s injuries mid battle, should the persona user gain extra focus and will to fight for some reason. At extremes a Person’s personas can even “evolve” into higher forms referred to as “ultimate personas”. Most ultimate persona transformations are permeant, though they can downgrade due to disuse or metal regression. It is also possible to gain a permanent power increase equal to that of an ultimate persona, while maintaining the form of an initial persona, should the users strongly desire it. Shinjiro and karumoro in particularly went this route in persona Q.
  • When a persona accumulates too much damage it becomes “broken” and is unable to be summoned for a short period of time. The effects of a person break are short lived though, and a persona can be summoned again after a few dozen seconds of waiting.
  • All personas have affinity’s that determine how much damage they take from certain physical and elemental attacks, including resisting certain attacks, absorbing them (and using the energy to heal their uses), blocking them(not receiving any damage)and reflecting them back at the user. Affinities in persona include, Fire, Ice, Wind, Electricity, Darkness, Light and physical. Persona also has a special attribute called “almighty” that falls outside the norm of other affinity types, and is only available to certain special attacks.
  • Persona users share the same affinities of their personas, at least to an extent. In the original games characters didn’t need to have their persona summoned to use their personas null, absorb, and reflect skills to block an attack. Though in most adaptive media, it’s generally shown to be the persona itself that takes the hit when stopping these attacks.
  • Persona are specially stated to gain a boost in physical abilities, driving them to super human levels. This was established by Mitsuru in Persona 3 movie 1 34:20 http://heavenanime.com/watch/persona-3-the-movie-1-spring-of-birth-eps-1-server-1/
  • Likewise personas also grant their users super human fighting ability and talent far beyond what they should logically know or be aware of from contemporary experience. This is mentioned in tatusyas scenario in Persona 2 innocent sin, the specific quote being “Personae train both the body and the soul. The fact that he can expertly use the sword and is not afraid is thanks to his Persona. Gods and demons aren't the only archetypes that sleep inside people's hearts. If the collective unconscious is the place where the hearts of all humans are reborn, perhaps master swordmen and gun experts and even he can enter somewhere. (not sure about this one, but kind of fits when we're thinking about historic figures?)”
  • Finally each persona is designated an “arcana”, which represents the type of psych a persona represents. Actual characters in the series are also categorized in personality based on arcana.

Evoker
Evokers are devices created by the Kirjo group to aid in the act of persona summoning, particularly in places more in tune with the real world where persona summoning can be difficult. They carry in them objects called plumes of dusk, which are fragments of the alien Nxy’s body. These plumes of dusk help facilitate a connection to the unconscious world due to sharing similar properties to personas/shadows. The gun shape of the evoker and evocation of the image of suicide also helps generate fear in the minds of the character users using them, breaking down certain mental barriers that make it easier for people to call their personas forth.

It should be noted YOU DO NOT NEED an evoker to use a persona in any situation. It’s simply a tool used to ease the act of summoning. Mitsuru is fully capable of summoning her persona without one, and many other characters like Akihiko and Futaba have done the same.

Explanations on evokers

Mitsuru summoning persona without an evoker


Penthesilea/Artemisia
Mitsuru’s personas are known as penthesilea and Artemisia respectively. Penthesilea being her personas default standard form and Artemisia being its “Ultimate” evolved form, gained after coming to terms with her father’s death. In its default form Penthesilea wields two giant rapier like weapons it can use for stabbing attacks, and grants Mitsuru a resistance to ice based attacks. In the form of Artemisia her persona wields a giant extendable whip. This whip can be used as a lasso to pull opponents or objects to Mitsuru’s position and can freeze opponents into solid blocks of ice on contact. Artemisia also enhances Mitsuru’s resistance to ice based attacks, to outright immunity to ice damage altogether. Both personas give Mitsuru a weakness to fire, and during her answer boss fight specifically Artemsia can also block Light and Dark elemental attacks(though this is inconsistent and mostly likely a 1 time thing to prevent the player from beating her with light/dark instant kill skills).

Analysis
A special subset of unique skills only a few people in the persona universe have. Essentially the analysis ability allows a persona user to that give them a mental layout of a given battlefield, and the positioning of the opponents laden in it analyze the attacks and abilities of those they fight. It can also be utilized to perform acts of spatial clairvoyance. Additionally these powers can also be used to discern the emotional states of others, dispel illusions or possession and can even be used to other speak people telepathically over a distance. All in all the persona users that have this ability tend to work fairly effectively as support units.

The actual scope of how effective this ability is tends to vary from person to person. Some persona users like Futaba, Rise and Fuka are able to mentally scan entire battlefields at once, can instantly analyze all abilities a character has in an instant, and in some cases even predict the moves an opponent is about to use before they use them.

….Mitsuru unfortunately kind of falls on the lower end of the spectrum of her effectiveness with her analysis abilities. The given explanation being that she specialized more in combat, with these abilities being more secondary to her. She can progressively map out an area of a battlefield little by little (typically creating a map as the player moves in game), but typically not all at once over a wide area, or over extremely large distances. She can analyze some attributes of an enemy such as their overall power level, any elemental or physical weaknesses/strengths they have, and their physical stamina or spiritual power. However she can’t analyze every attack an opponent has, nor predict their every move effectively, and sometimes her analyses can fail. It also typically takes her some time to gather info and she tends to be incredibly reliant on various Kirijo created transceiver devices to boost her Personas analytical abilities to levels suitable for use in the field. All these factors together make the overall usage of her analytical abilities in a 1 on 1 combat scenario limited.

Using devices to boost her analytical abilities

Examples of clairvoyance
Analyzation

Long distance telepathic communications

Canceling illusions and feeling emotions
  • Feeling Labrys’s emotions in persona 4 arena manga ch 12(tbf a few people hear stuff like this in the game though, so it might not be Mitsuru specific) https://i.imgur.com/Dk3zHrx.jpg
  • Analytical personas can cancel out illusions or changes in perception. Mitsuru herself uses this ability on Labrys in persona 4 Arena during her story, after noting she could tell whenever those short of perception distortion abilities where being used https://youtu.be/k4dfFTLHteM?t=4070


Getsu-El
A powerful jumping spin rapier attack. Acts as Mitsuru’s reversal attack in the arena series.


Coup Detroit
A powerful thrusting rapier attack performed by Mitsuru. The slash itself seems to be surrounded in some sort of energy field.


Myriad arrow
   
A series of rapid rapier piecing attacks performed by Mitsuru. Often times followed up by a powerful kick that sends an opponent flying across the battlefield.

Bufu/Bufula/Bufudyne
Various ice based attacks used by Mitsuru’s persona Artemisia. The actual machinations behind how they work tends to vary from game to game. In the main games and Persona Q bufu, bufula and bufudyne represent progressively stronger, albeit similar spells, that typically flash freeze an opponents in a burst of ice energy. The ice then explodes or shatters a few seconds afterwards damaging the opponent.

In the arena series only the bufula and bufudyne variants of the attack are used, and the methods of to which are implementing them in battle is different. Bufula summons a large diamond shaped ice crystal in front of Mitsuru, which then slowly moves forward freezing and damaging any opponent it runs into. Bufudyne causes a gigantic glacier to erupt from the ground, smashing into opponents with great speed and power.

In the main games and Q

In arena


Mabufu/Mabufula/Mabufudyne
A similar form of attack to the bufu, bufula and bufudyne line of spells, but specializing in hitting multiple targets at once.  In the main games and persona Q these spells encases multiple opponents in blocks of ice, before exploding.
In arena the move mabufudyne creates 8 giant ice shards of ice that Mitsuru can shoot at an opponents as a projectile, dealing damage and freezing them.


Marin Karin/sexy dance
An infamous spell cast by Artemisia that causes the status ailment charm. The status ailment charm generally causes delusions in the affected victim, making them devoted to their opponent to the point of not attacking them, attacking allies at their behest, or healing the person who cast the spell. In the Arena games the charmed status effect can also drain the spiritual power of opponents, and give it to Mitsuru. In terms of how the move is pulled off, it’s pretty consistent throughout the franchise. The move marin karin creates a small floating rose which flies towards an opponent and inflicts the status effect if it hits. The Sexy dance version of the move simply sends out multiple projectiles that can hit many opponents at once.


Tentarafoo
A spells cast by Artemisia that causes the status ailment “panic”. The effects of panic differ slightly in the main games, Persona Q and the Persona arena series, but it typically causes a loss of coordination, preventing opponents from dodging, leaving them open to critical attacks, or making them unable to use persona related skills until the effect wear off. In Persona Q specifically the panic status ailment can also cause an opponent to attack themselves or allies, similar to confusion in Pokémon.

In the main games and Persona Q the move is performed by sending out a multitude or orange line like projectiles that can hit opponents causing the ailment. In the arena game Mitsuru actually sends a powerful wave of ice energy along the ground, which freezes opponents and inflicts the ailment if it hits.


Dia/Diarama/Diarahan
Healing spells used to fix physical wounds and restore stamina to a single character. Mitsuru can use these abilities on either herself or an ally. Dia, diarama and diarahan are all progressively more powerful healing skills, restoring small, moderate and all a characters HP in game respectively. Obviously however these abilities have limits, as they’ve never been used to fully repair extremely fatal wounds or restore say entire body parts.


Punishment
A powerful stabbing attack by Artemisia that deals damage and removes the magical binds found in Persona q(magic, strength and agility bind, which halve/remove ability to use magic and physical skills, or the ability dodge attacks and hit an opponent effectively respectively).

Vorpal blade
A slashed based attacked caused by Artemsia. Summons a myriad of energy blades across the immediate battlefield that slice opponents apart.


Megidolaon
A powerful explosive sphere created by Artemisia that falls onto an opponent with a gigantic burst of energy. The energy it’s comprised of is neither elemental nor physical in nature, and bypasses the physical defense of the opponent it hits.


Niflheim
Mitsuru’s finishing move in the persona 4 arena series. During the move she enhances her concentration by using her evoker, and then summons Artemisia to pull her opponent up into the air before condensing them in several layers of ice. Mitsuru then finishes the opponent off with a powerful rapier piecing blow that shatters the ice block they’re frozen in.


Spirit drain
A support move that allows Artemisia to drain the spiritual energy of an opponent and add it to Mitsuru’s. Is a great way of extending the amount of magical attacks Mitsuru can perform with her persona in a single battle.

Mind charge
A support move that allows Mitsuru to focus and charge the energy of her next magic based attack to 250% normal capacity.


Ice break
A support ability that reduces a character resistance ice based attacks to normal. This effectively counters anybody who had immunity to Mitsuru’s ice based weapons or attacks.


Ice boost/Ice amp
A set of passive skills. They enhance the power of ice based skills and attacks in Mitsuru’s arsenal by 25% and 50% normal respectively. They can both be stacked for a total of 75% ice damage increase.

Angelic grace
A passive skill that doubles Mitsuru’s evasion towards all attacks except physical slash, pierce and bash arracks, along with almighty attacks.

Sharp student
A passive skill that lowers the chances of being hit by a critical attack.

Special abilities

Dark hour immunity
Persona users have a unique ability to operate within the “dark hour” a plane of space/time separate from our normal one layered onto the real world at certain points in persona 3 and persona 4 arena ultimax. The explanation for this occurrence is that shadows (and personas) have some degree of power over space/time. Shadow’s can use this power to create a space where they can operate normally outside the normal laws of space time, allowing them congregate in the real world, when normally they wouldn’t. Those who have accepted their shadows somewhat, been drawn into the dark hour by a shadow, or have a persona can operate in it by tapping into those powers.

Concepts of this are specifically elaborated on in the persona 3 club books. With some notable quotes being
“Exactly! Created by the Shadow’s latent abilities, the Dark Hour is a special state of space and time, which cannot be interfered with by the usual laws of time and space. “
“In other words, the one ones who adapt, the ones with the “Potential”, are those who are able to use the Shadow’s power to time-space-manipulation for themselves?”

Persona users having powers over space and time was also elaborated on in the CD dram Persona 3:Moonlight
“Mysterious Girl: Did you know? It's thought that Personas are actually the avatars of our wills. It's been theorized that since people's minds are what give them their forms, that's why they tend to take one the forms of gods.

Aigis: The avatars of our wills...?

Mysterious Girl: The power to affect time and space... In other words, the heart's ability to draw a manifestation of itself into reality. Of course that power will inevitably resemble a person's true self, wouldn’t' it? Whether it's the desire to lock oneself away, or the desire to open that door, it definitely depends on yourself."


Enhanced damaged against enemies comprised of mental energy

Feats

Strength

Endurance

Speed
  • Persona users in game can dodge various kinds of attacks. This includes, and is not limited to the guns Aegis uses during her boss fight with Mitsuru. Lightning based magic attacks, and various elemental spells.


Scaling
Who does Mitsuru scale to?
So to get it out of the way who does Mitsuru scale to? Well mostly likely nearly every member of SEES. This is kind of obvious given she’s been fighting longer than all of them, and by the time the arena games come around is the leader of the much more advanced shadow ops organization, while most of the former SEES member stopped fighting full time. The only exceptions are Makoto and maaaaybe Aigis, given both have the power of the wild card, which should grant them more power than a normal persona user(though granted Aigis hasn't really utilized those powers much). Likewise it’s also fairly reasonable to believe that she scales to all of the persona 4 cast, except Yu for similar reasons to Makoto andAigis. This is backed up by the fact both groups have worked together in persona Q, as well as the fact the story mode of the first and second arena games consecutively had members from both groups facing off against each other. I also think it’s extremely likely Sees and the Investigation team are going to be considered on par with most of the phantom thieves(besides Ren) for various reasons that will probably be confirmed in Persona Q2 in the near future, but it’s not something anyone really needs to worry about now.


A quick note on “cross scaling”
So I’m going to go out on a limb here. Persona has so many media adaptions that the controversy that typically arises from the practice of cross scaling is actually starting to become a hinderence to analyzing the characters. It can be difficult to rely solely on the rpgs for feats because of how the persona series depicts combat with its turn based system. Likewise if you start treating every single media adaption of the series as its own separate canon, you run into a problem where individual characters start to have less to draw from since they may not have appeared in every adaption made.

…ssoooooo I’m going to take some leeway here. It’s pretty obvious that stuff like the P3 movie, the various manga, and the animation for each persona series run off the premises that all previous important storylines and events established in the games did in fact happen or are kept open enough that the stories of future games would also probably still happen. Likewise there typically isn’t any major deviations in these adaptions either when compared to the original games they are based on.

So for the most part I’m just going to use whatever for any character in most mainstream adaptions of the persona series, and say that it probably scales to Mitsuru as long as the current game cannon supports that it probably should. Though for the most part this really isn’t relevant for anything but Persona 4 the animation and the Persona 4 manga.

Strength


Endurance

Speed


Training/experience
  • Became a persona user and trained since she was in her early tweens (10-ish).
  • Played the support role in the exploration of Tartarus until Fuka joined SEES
  • Aided in defeated several of the full moon shadows, and in fighting Nxy’s avatar in Persona 3
  • Explored the abyss of time, and aided with the defeat of the demon Erubus
  • Created and led the Shadow ops, a covert special ops squad that fights against shadows.
  • Traveled through a series a labyrinths in the game Persona Q and aided in the defeat of the god of time Cronus. Also helped defeat the God Zeus when he possessed the character Elizabeth.
  • Helped rescue the character laybys from the TV world in Persona 4 Arena
  • Aided in the red fog event, where Hino-Kagusuchi attempted to destroy the world in persona 4 Ultimax.
  • Apparently is going to aid the casts of 4 and 5 in Persona Q2, whatever the plot of that game might entail.

Summary

Advantages
  • Immune to Ice attacks
  • Can analyze opponents and sense their location
  • Can bypass defenses with Megidolaon attacks
  • Can sap spiritual energy from foes
  • Has healing spells
  • Can nullify an opponent’s resistance to ice based attacks
  • Can remove magical bindings with the punishment attack
  • Has various mind altering status effects
  • Has minor time/space manipulation abilities

Disadvantages
  • Take additional damage from and can be stunned momentarily by fire based attacks
  • Some of her status effect moves have low success rates in the main games(though it's shown they always take effect if they do hit in the Arena games, so some elements of that may be a mechanic).
  • Never uses a fucking healing spell when she should when AI controlled 

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