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the-trickster-of-hearts · 5 years ago

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Kasumi’s Design and How it Compares to Joker

In honor of Persona 5: The Royal coming out in 1 day, I decided to dedicate my first post to this topic since I’ve seen people talk about it. I also wanted to share my speculation about her design along with how and why her design is possibly connected with the protagonist/Joker by using given information about the game and the designs themselves. I’ve been working on this for a while and it might kind of messy since this is the first time I made a post of this nature (plus, I want to post it before the game’s Japanese official release).

Before I discuss about Kasumi’s design and its connection to the protagonist/Joker, it’s best to look at the reason why she was created in the first place. Weekly Famitsu magazine #1588 had an interview with producer Kazuhisa Wada, director Daiki Ito, and character designer Shigenori Soejima about P5R. When Ito talked about Kasumi, he mentioned the following:

“Kasumi Yoshizawa is a new student at Shujin Academy, who has been a high achiever in rhythmic gymnastics since middle school. Since she goes to the same school as the protagonist and his friends, there’ll naturally be many points of contact between them. Introducing a new character adds a new perspective and meaning to the story, while also letting [the team] dig deeper into the characters we already know and love. Kasumi was created after much discussion about what kind of character would allow us to realize that”.

Kasumi was always meant to represent another perspective towards the story and themes of the game. Also going by this, she was most likely never meant to be a FeMC in the way people were expecting when the second P5R teaser was dropped. With that out of the way, let’s talk about her design and how it possibly relates to the protagonist’s design (for the sake of this post, he’ll be referred to as the protagonist when talking about his civilian self and Joker as his Phantom Thief self).

In the November 2019 issue of Game Informer magazine that was released digitally on the 1st, there was an interview with Soejima and he states the following about Kasumi’s design and how he came up with it:

“With Kasumi, [he] really wanted to create just a straight-forward heroine type of character. This might be a little bit different in the West, but in Japan, the manga [he] grew up reading, the main [female] characters always had a ponytail, and their club activity was gymnastics. [He] really wanted to just shoot for that female protagonist archetype. Maybe in the States or in the West, it’d be [comparable to] a cheerleader type of girl. With most of the characters in Persona 5, we really design them to have kind of a twist, kind of make them unique and different from what the standard character archetypes might be like, but with Kasumi, we wanted to just go straight for that heroine type of girl”.

Based on this, the reason why Kasumi wears the standard Shujin uniform is because she embodies the classic heroine. Soejima even points that while most of the main cast have a twist to their designs and how it relates to their archetypes (remember that the rest of Phantom Thieves, including Akechi, are meant to be deconstructions of their given archetype), he decided to be straightforward for Kasumi’s design and how she’s supposed to reflect her given archetype. The only other character to not have a twist on their design is the protagonist. Actually, that’s not completely true. The protagonist and Kasumi actually have a twist in their design (this isn’t counting the protagonist’s glasses or Kasumi’s ribbon as they don’t take away from the uniform). Compare the concept art for the protagonist to the concept art for the Shujin uniforms.

It’s hard to tell here, but the protagonist doesn’t wear the standardized shoes. Instead, he switches them out for some dress boots. Now let’s compare the protagonist and Kasumi.

Like the protagonist, Kasumi switches out the standardized shoes (in her case, she trades them out for some red loafers). This may not seem like much, but it’s rather strange that the one thing they change to their uniforms is the shoes. If anything, it seems like an intentional design choice to make them more similar.

Now that I talked about her winter uniform, I can move onto her Phantom Thief attire and its relation to Joker’s outfit.

Back to Weekly Famitsu magazine #1588, Soejima says the following when discussing about her Phantom Thief design:

“Kasumi doesn’t form a pair with the protagonist, but since [Soejima] was drawing her as an icon of P5R, [he] designed her phantom thief appearance to feel like it goes alongside the protagonist’s. The idea of ‘phantom thieves’ in itself has manga-like elements, right? Like with the protagonist, [he] wanted this new character to have that ‘coolness’ that everyone normally expects from a phantom thief. A female phantom thief that has a different stance from the protagonist… What kind of character is she? [He hopes] you’ll be excited to find out.”

When he mentions that she doesn’t form a pair with Joker, I’m assuming that he means that the two aren’t completely direct counterparts or mirror images like how P3MC and FeMC are. While their outfits do have differences (that are better seen in the new prologue), their outfits parallel each other and have the same color scheme (more on that later). Soejima confirms that Kasumi’s Phantom Thief design resembles Joker’s design is because he intentionally made her design to feel like it goes along with him.

Despite the almost uncanny resemblance of their Phantom Thief outfits, I get the impression that the overall intention of the designs are different. I believe the reason why their designs are so similar but different is because they’re supposed to reflect two different versions of the hero and heroine archetype that reflects their ideologies. At this point, I might sound like I’m crazy, but let’s quickly go over their designs and compare them.

Joker wears a black and white domino mask. Kasumi also wears a mask, but her mask is black and white/silver. Joker only has small gold buttons on his waistcoat, the rest of the buttons are silver as seen on his in-game model (they are sometimes depicted as black or gold depending on the artist). Kasumi, on the other hand, has large gold buttons on her coat and smaller gold buttons on her thigh-length hose. Kasumi also has a silver chain belt with roses on it (basically, Joker and Kasumi have their placement of the silver and gold reversed). He has a white handkerchief in the pocket of his jacket while she wears a black choker. Joker wears brown winklepickers, but Kasumi wears black stiletto-heels, which resemble ballet shoes. Lastly, he wields a knife as his melee weapon while she wields an estoc. Joker’s attire can be described as classy but able to blend in the shadows. His design the embodiment of the gentleman thief, a classical type of anti-hero. Meanwhile, Kasumi’s design is very graceful and more traditionally heroic compared to Joker’s gentleman thief-esque design. Soejima points out how the Phantom Thief concept has manga-like elements (which the characters also bring up in PQ2). Combine this with Kasumi’s transformation sequence in PV #02, Kasumi’s Phantom Thief design seems to have taken some inspiration from magical girls. Despite the numbers of differences, their designs still complement each other because of the shared color schemes, red gloves, and number of coattails. Basically, their designs are different yet still go along with each other (kind of like yin and yang in a sense).

In both their Shujin uniforms and their Phantom Thief attire, they share a black-red color scheme (which are also the main colors of Persona 5). An interesting thing to note is that the two have more of a certain color in their designs.The protagonist has a bigger emphasis on black as his hair, rim of the glasses, and dress boots are black. His eyes are technically gray, but they’re a much darker shade compared to P3MC or Yu Narukami. Meanwhile, Kasumi has a bigger emphasis on red as her hair, eyes, and shoes are red. It’s possible that the reason for the protagonist greater emphasis on black relates to how he’s the leader of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, who steal the distorted desires of individuals by morally grey means and sneak around Palaces within the shadows. In this school life, the protagonist keeps his head down and doesn’t really stand out from the crowd. Meanwhile, Kasumi rejects the Phantom Thieves because she believes that their methods don’t actually help anyone and that people should solve their own problems (this seems to stem from her own issues based on translations of her character introduction, PV #02, and PV #03). Despite this, she later joins them for her own reasons. Her appearance also helps her stand out.

This last part before moving on is speculation, but I’m going with the idea that there’s an in-universe for why her Phantom Thief outfit is similar to Joker’s. I’m kind of going on a tangent here, but it will connect back to Kasumi’s design. It’s known that Kasumi dislikes the Phantom Thieves, yet she’s seen helping Joker fight off a group of shadows while at the Casino Palace (at this point, she doesn’t consider herself a Phantom Thief but has awakened to her Persona) in the updated prologue and telling him that she isn’t going to stop him when she brings up that he still has something to do as a Phantom Thief. In PV #01, there’s a new animated cutscene involving the protagonist, Morgana, and Kasumi (note that both the protagonist and Kasumi are wearing their regular winter uniforms, not the ones for the third semester).

PV #02 elaborates on this by showing new shots of it, and reveals that the new Palace is feature in that cutscene.

In Kasumi’s introduction trailer, we see Joker and Morgana watching Kasumi awakening to her Persona in what appears to be in the new Palace. There’s also a gameplay section where the trio are seen fighting together, just them.

Based on all of this info, I can conclude that the protagonist, Morgana, and Kasumi first enter the palace some time in between Spaceport of Greed arc and Casino of Envy arc (possibly even during one of those arcs or even before). Not only that, but the animated cutscene leads to the trio exploring the new palace for the first time and Kasumi awakening her Persona. After this point, Joker and Kasumi would meet again at Sae’s Palace when she has already awakened to her Persona. Based on all of the evidence presented, her in-universe reason for her Phantom Thief design looking like Joker is because her view of rebellion is him. Again, this is only speculation. It can only be confirmed when the game released on the 31st of this month in Japan.

Lastly, I want to talk about the designs of their Personas briefly and how they compare/contrast.

Arsene of the Fool Arcana and Cendrillon of the Faith Arcana are the only P5 Personas to not have golden eyes in any shape or form (as of now anyway). Instead, Arsene has red eyes while Cendrillon has blue. Their legs have a similar shape and they’re both seen to use physical skills by using their heels. Arsene’s horns and Cendrillon’s bow both point forwards. Arsene has a mask-like face that has been described to be glass-like while Cendrillon’s legs and chest are composed from glass. Both of them feature feathers in their design (Arsene has wings while Cendrillon’s cape and bow have a feathery appearance). Both of them have hearts patterns somewhere on their designs (Arsene has heart patterns on his shoulders while golden decor holding up Cendrillon’s cape resembles hearts). Another thing they have in common is that Arsene and Cendrillon both have French origins (Arsene Lupin is the creation of French novelist Maurice Leblanc while Cendrillon is based off of French author Charles Perrault’s interpretation of the Cinderella story). As for how they’re different, the first thing to mention is the color schemes. While both have black, white, and gold, Arsene has red, but Cendrillon has blue instead. Arsene has black wings while Cendrillon has a white feathery cape. Arsene has black claws resembling talons of a bird while Cendrillon has blue nails. Arsene has an overall demonic appearance while Cendrillon has a somewhat angelic appearance. Lastly, Arsene uses Curse skills while Cendrillon uses Bless skills.

In conclusion, Kasumi’s design is intentionally meant to resemble the protagonist’s design to go alongside him and highlight their difference stances. They represent the hero and heroine archetypes on different scales, with the protagonist representing the anti-hero and Kasumi representing the traditional heroine. The in-universe reason for their similar Phantom Thief designs possibly has to do with how Kasumi’s view of rebellion is Joker mixed with gymnastics. Or maybe I’m looking too much into Kasumi’s design and how that design compares to the protagonist/Joker.

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