*
PERSONAL INFORMATION [ my personal commentary in brackets, the official in parens. Any obvious sarcasm is mine, of course. :D]

NAME: Mayuzumi Yukino (‘á ‚ä‚«‚Ì)
NICKNAMES: Yukki (Maya and Fujii), Yukino-san, Yukino-anesan (Eikichi)
BIRTHDAY: April 9, 1979
ZODIAC SIGN: Aries
CHINESE ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Earth Sheep
GUARDIAN DRAGON: Scarlet Dragon
HEIGHT: 170 cm [5' 7"]
WEIGHT: 53 kg [117 lbs]
BLOODTYPE: A
OCCUPATION: Photography student and part-time apprentice cameraman, badass anesan (anesan is just another version of oneesan, "big sister")
TAROT ARCANA: Empress
ELEMENTAL AFFINITY: Fire
STARTING PERSONA: Vesta
ULTIMATE PERSONA: Durga
WEAPON: Projectiles - throwing knives, paper cranes, you name it.
LOOKS: Heavily permed hair held back by a cap.
HABITS: Taking out her pocket-camera and practicing her shots
LIKES: Photography (mostly landscapes)
FAVORITE SPORTS: Getting into fights and playing softball (because she's as strong as a guy)
FAMILY: Mother, two little sisters, and two little brothers
TALENTS: Fighting and staring people down
FAVORITE FOODS: Yakisoba (a noodle dish), yakitori (grilled chicken)
HATED FOODS: none
DISLIKES/IS UNCOMFORTABLE WITH: "It's what's called a "favorable mood" (she's really shy, but she thinks that she has to overcome that)."
DREAM: To become a cameraman
NAME MEANING: MAYUZUMI: A kind of ink used to draw eyebrows...an eyebrow pencil (no, really), YUKINO: in hiragana, but might mean "snow field" or something similar
GAMES: Main party character in P1 and P2: Tsumi, NPC in P2: Batsu. ;_;
SEIYUU: Hanba Tomoe

MOST COMPATIBLE PERSONA: EMPRESS, STRENGTH, TEMPERANCE, STAR, HERMIT
STR+: STRENGTH
AGI+: LOVERS, STAR
VIT+: HERMIT, EMPRESS

INDIVIDUAL CONTACTS:
WARN
SCOLD
TALK ABOUT THE FIST
DEATH BY PHOTOGRAPHY

AMUSING GROUP CONTACTS:
EIKICHI + YUKINO: PLEASE PHOTOGRAPH ME! Eikichi begs Yukino to take a picture and begins posing furiously. She shrugs and snaps a random picture, and Eikichi protests.
YUKKI + MAYA: Basically, this contact involves Maya saying something really stupid, and Yukino sweatraining and correcting her (word puns, mostly). It's supposed to amuse the demons with how stupid Maya is.
YUKKI + TATSUYA + EIKICHI: DEATH BY THE FIST (SPECIAL) This is very very similar to the Investigation of Terror contact in Batsu. Guaranteed to scare or interest demons.
MAYA + LISA + YUKKI: SEXY WOMEN The three ladies try to seduce the demons. Maya shows them some leg, Lisa leans forward to show them some cleavage, and Yuki blushes, horribly embarrassed, and tries to sound seductive. When Yukino leaves the party, she's replaced by Jun in this contact. *laugh*

Her blood type is A, and according to Japanese tradition, type A is "cautious, considerate,helpful, responsible, peaceful, indecisive, restrains expression, has a good memory, is good at teamwork, prefers formalities and structures." Well...okay...

Yukino's tarot affiliation is Empress. I guess the relevance here is that to be true to the Empress, you have to be mothering and independent and in touch with your true self - which Yukino hasn't quite been doing recently, with her attempt to be girly for Fujii. When she decides to be true to herself, she takes care of Yoshizaka Anna and acts more in character for herself - tough and independent.

Yukino's initial persona is Vesta, the Roman goddess of the hearth and home. She was a mysterious goddess, whose temple and sacred fire was tended by Vestal Virgins and only opened to people (women) once a year. She had a stern, empress-like appearance, not really much like a motorcycle, honestly. (Read more)

Vesta's spells: Magna, Agi, Dormina, Zio, Maharagi, Frei

Yukino's ultimate persona, so to speak, is the Hindu goddess Durga. Durga is one of the forms of the goddess Parvati, and Parvati took this form because there was a demon, Mahisha, who had been granted the boon that he could not be killed by any male, be it human, divine, or animal. This put the gods in a bad situation, and a goddess appeared, born out of their worry and anger. This was Durga. The gods gave her their weapons (she has eighteen arms...she can carry more weapons than most) and sent her off to battle the bull-demon, Mahisha. When Mahisha saw this beautiful goddess headed for him, he fell in love with her and offered to marry her, since that was OBVIOUSLY what she was there for (riding a tiger and carrying eighteen weapons? Hello?). She retaliated by killing his entire army single-handedly. Mahisha kept making excuses for not killing the beautiful goddess until his entire army was gone, and then he went out to battle her. They fought for nine days and nine nights (Mahisha could shift shapes, and would only die if you killed him in his natural form), and the entire world stood still to watch. Finally she had her tiger hold his bull-form down and she cut off his head while he was partially transformed between the bull form and his natural form. Indians still celebrate this battle with a nine-day-long festival, Navarathri, usually held in the fall. So, in short, Durga == scary, empowered womanhood in its purest form.

Durga's Spells: Ziodyne, Whirlwind Blast, Furious Blazing Dance, Maha Mudo, Gryva, Heavenly Commander Fire and Lightning Array, Freila

Yukino is a Aries (another description). Aries are people of action, not thinkers. They're extremely straightforward and brash, headstrong and devoted to lost causes (such as Yoshizaka Anna, I guess). Subtlety and patience are not their forte.

Yukino's theme music, as I recall, is "Truth I need." It plays during her important scenes, and, as you can probably guess by now, can be found on the drama CD "Errors of their Youth."

Yukino went to St. Hermelin High School, of course. When she was in high school, she wore an extra-long skirt and had her hair trimmed short. In short, she was a badass anesan, who put the smackdown on anyone who misbehaved. (Brown jokingly recalls how she used to kick his ass on a regular basis.)

all the boys love her, but she's probably into the ladies. sorry, guys!

Spoilers for Innocent Sin will definitely follow, so don't read if you want to play the game and find out for yourself. Consider yourself warned if you've only played Batsu. (A lot of the details of her backstory come from the game guide and the conversations between Kaneko Kazuma and Satomi Tadashi, if you're wondering.)

PERSONALITY

Yukino is a returning character from Persona 1; I guess Atlus included her because it wasn't possible to get all of the Persona 1 cast in your party, so you'd have to replay and replay and replay to really get to know all the characters. She used to be the strong anesan who laid down the law among her classmates, but after getting out of high school, she seems to have lost her direction and become uncertain what kind of person she wants to be. She greatly idolized Saeko-sensei and wanted to be a teacher like her, but she wasn't sure that she had the brains to become a teacher. So she became a photography student, where she meets her first love, Fujii Shunsuke, who's her boss and mentor. She wants to become the kind of person Fujii would like, so she grew out her hair, and around Fujii, lapses into the most amazingly girly mannerisms. It's almost painful to watch her talk like a little girl and blush around Fujii, who, for his part, does his best not to encourage her either way.

Yukino, despite her strength and brashness, is in truth a very shy, awkward person. She doesn't know how to express herself with words, so she does it with her fists. She doesn't feel comfortable with who she is, so she tries to change herself into someone she thinks other people will like, with minimal success.

Yukino sees something of herself in Yoshizaka Anna - a bitter, confused girl who has no hope for her own future and therefore doesn't care what happens to her. Yukino had once been like that, and she had been helped by Saeko-sensei, so she wanted to help Anna in the same way.

HISTORY


massive spoilers follow. got that? good.
Yukino's father is gone - I think he walked out on the family - so Yukino has one hell of a father-complex, like everyone else in the game. o.o; She's attracted to Fujii because he's nice and fatherly and she craves that.

She's also confused when she accompanies the group to Mt. Iwato - she didn't recognize any of the flashbacks because she hadn't been part of them! All in all, her story is separate from that of the Masquerade; her story is about learning to become comfortable with herself.

When Yukino was in high school, she was a problem student. Saeko-sensei took her under her wing, and talked her into thinking about the future and not wallowing in the present. Yukino took that advice to heart, and greatly admires her teacher. So she decided to try to change who she was, and to see if that helped her feel more comfortable with herself.

She wanted to become more outgoing and feminine, so she grew her hair out and permed it, and uses girly-talk around Fujii. But for all her attempts, everyone who knows her well sees how incredibly fake that act is. Eikichi, when he sees Yukino blushing and stammering over Fujii, simply wonders if anesan is feeling sick, since it's so out of character for her to act that way. Fujii, for his part, seems to treat Yukino like a favorite student, wanting the best for her but not wanting to push her into a career that she doesn't truly want. Fujii senses that Yukino's confused about her future, and doesn't want to ruin things for her.

When she meets Yoshizaka Anna and hears about her plight, she's reminded of her own high school days, and decides to try to help Anna. She finds Anna chainsmoking in the Zodiac and gives her a good talking-to. Anna is both annoyed and sort of interested that someone is taking an interest in her, so she warns Yukino to leave before she got hurt. Yukino refuses to, and each time she sees Anna, she tries to get through to her, and Anna warns her to leave. This just makes Yukino more and more determined to save Anna from her own idiocy.

Her boss Fujii, unfortunately, is a bit of an idiot, and goes up on Mt. Katatsumuri to photograph the ongoing NAZI INVASION. When the group rushes after him, they meet up with the old Head Priest of the mountaintop monastery, who has known Fujii and Yukino for some time. The head priest says that Fujii has been there and left already. He had left his father's Leica camera, which he intended to give to Yukino if she decided to become a cameraman. (Note the significance of the fact that it was Fujii's father's camera...everyone and their father-complexes.) Yukino accepts the camera from the Head Priest, and they all hurry to Caracol, where they find Fujii dying. He dies in Yukino's arms, and this completely breaks Yukino. She wants to stop everything and just stay there with his body, but Tatsuya forces her to accompany him, and this reminds her that she has to save Anna, or she truly will have lost everything.

She goes into Caracol, and finds Anna being attacked by some Longinus mecha. She defeats the mecha, and is confronted with her Shadow, who makes her admit that she's unsure of her own abilities and uncomfortable with herself. She's come to terms with herself, though, and prepares to fight her Shadow. Anna stays at her side to help, commenting that Yukino's straightforwardness was embarrassing, but also sort of refreshing. Together they battle Shadow Yukino while the rest of Tatsuya's group runs ahead to save Jun, and Yukino rejoins them to fight the Joker in the heart of Caracol.

Afterwards, in the Velvet Room, she asks Philemon to give her ability to summon persona to Jun, because she doesn't need it anymore. She doesn't need to pretend to be someone else anymore, and she's going to fight the Nazis with her own strength. Anna promises to go with her and protect her, and they go off into the city, fighting Nazis together.

...you can make what you will out of their relationship.

If you choose not to force Yukino to come with you, she fails completely. Inside Caracol, Shadow Yukino reached Anna instead of Yukino, and Shadow Yukino encourages Anna to destroy everything to ease her own pain. Anna clings to Shadow Yukino, and Shadow Yukino pets her hair, telling her to kill all those who oppose her. Shadow Yukino and Anna attack Tatsuya's group, and when they lose, Shadow Yukino encourages Anna to commit suicide with her, so that they can be "together forever <3". They link hands and jump off the bridge, and Anna dies along with Shadow Yukino.

This completely shatters Yukino, and she has a nervous breakdown, and she never says a word again.

I hope this will tell you which choice to make on Caracol, mm?


[ WIND TIME BACKWARDS ]