Zenkichi Hasegawa

Zenkichi Hasegawa, also known as Wolf, is one of the main characters and party members in the 2020 action-adventure video game Persona 5 Strikers. 
A Public Security Officer, he is assigned to the case involving recent Changes of Heart, becoming closely involved with the Phantom Thieves of Hearts and eventually becoming one himself to save his daughter, Akane. His Persona is Valjean, based off of Victor Hugo's Jean Valjean. He represents the Apostle Arcana, which indicates fairness, compassion, and sticking to both the law and beliefs.
He is voiced by Shin'ichirō Miki in the Japanese version, and by Tom Taylorson in the English version.
==Appearance==
His normal attire is that of a business suit, complete with a tie and white loafers. He wears black-framed glasses and has a goatee and shoulder-length black hair.
In his Phantom Thief attire, he wears a large tailcoat with tassles at the end of each sleeve, with black pants and shoes. He has these tassels at the back of his tailcoat as well. He also has a large fedora-like hat, with a point in the front, twin holsters to hold his revolvers, and a pinpoint blindfold as a mask. Taking off this mask allows him to summon Valjean.
==Personality==
Despite Zenkichi's cold and untrustworthy demeanor, he is actually very intelligent and honest. He is also quite easygoing and laid-back, but he takes his job very seriously in spite of this. He also has a sense of humor, finding things funny when others might not. In addition, he tends to panic and get nervous when caught off-guard, although this side of him isn't shown often. He struggles with self-worth, as, after his wife's death, his daughter began to resent him and he was forced to set aside retribution for his wife due to death threats targeted at his daughter. However, as a Phantom Thief, he mercilessly takes down Shadows akin to a voracious wolf, hence his codename.
==History==
Zenkichi once lived in Tokyo, but a hit-and-run in which his wife, Aoi Hasegawa, was killed at the hands of Chief Cabinet Secretary Jyun Owada, who evaded the consequences of his actions due to his connection to Masayoshi Shido, left him alone as a single father. Although Akane witnissed the crime and knew Owada was the perpetrator, blame was placed on Owada's secretary, and Owada was never convicted. Even when Zenkichi attempted to investigate the case on his own, he received death threats from Owada directed at his daughter, Akane Hasegawa. He decided to protect the family he still had rather than avenge those that he doesn't and quit his investigation. He and Akane soon moved to Kyoto to live in the same area as Aoi's parents. This left Akane feeling bitter, as the police caught the wrong person and her father failed to complete the case, and she began to resent not only the police but Zenkichi as well. Because of this resentment, she became a strong supporter of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, believing them to be much better at serving justice than the police. Zenkichi began to regret this as well, but Commissioner Miyako Kaburagi promised him she would investigate the case once again once she has the power to do so, only asking that he obey her commands. Due to this, Zenkichi began working with Kaburagi to use the Phantom Thieves to investigate the recent Change of Heart epidemic.
In the events of Persona 5 Strikers, Zenkichi is the one assigned to the mysterious Change of Heart epidemic, specifically investigating the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, believing them to be the most likely culprits. In time, he tracks down the thieves and saves them from a drunk man, revealing himself as a police officer and informing the thieves that they are suspected of the recent Changes of Hearts. He blackmails them into working together, promising that they would be freed from suspicion for their cooperation. Despite the circumstances of their alliance, Zenkichi proves to be a very useful asset to the Thieves throughout their heists in Jails, and eventually becomes quite attached to them, against Kaburagi's orders, especially after they spend time with Akane. He allows them a place to stay when they are being chased by people influenced by EMMA, but soon finds that Kaburagi ordered a fully-armed arrest on the thieves. After a failed attempt to convince her to call off the arrest, he shouts out at the Phantom Thieves to run, and he gets arrested. Although he was released from interrogation quickly due to intervention from Sae Niijima, he soon finds that his daughter, Akane, was made into a Monarch by EMMA and Akira Konoe, and the Phantom Thieves are being kept in a cage in her jail by Futaba Sakura, the only one who was able to escape. Worried for his daughter's safety, he infiltrates the Jail, and finds that she wished to change the hearts of the Phantom Thieves and then go after her mother's killer. After seeing her daughter's Shadow like this, he informs her that he was just trying to protect her from Owada, but she retaliates, claiming that she was also worried about Owada's secretary, which surprises Zenkichi. This hits him so hard that he begins to believe that he had failed to protect the people he cared for, but after encouragement from the Thieves, he awakens to his Persona, Valjean. He fends off a group of Shadows and frees the Phantom Thieves from their prison. After this, he officially joins the Phantom Thieves as "Wolf".
Once the thieves get to the end of Akane's Jail, she snaps, refusing to acknowledge them as the true Phantom Thieves and she sends her own copies of them to fight the thieves. Zenkichi works together with Sophia to take down Futaba's doppelganger, while the rest of the thieves take down their own. Once Joker finally defeats his copy, Akane's Shadow collapses, thanking Zenkichi for protecting her and then returning to her own self. He and the rest of the thieves return to the real world, and he reconciles with his daughter.
When coming up with a plan to take down Akira Konoe, Zenkichi gets in contact with Kaburagi, promising Owada's arrest, to which Kaburagi gives him his police badge back and gives him three days to solve the case. After helping the thieves change Konoe's heart, Zenkichi would be the one to personally arrest Konoe alongside Kaburagi, informing him that it was his daughter that EMMA made into the Monarch of the Kyoto Jail, which Konoe was unaware of. Although he couldn't bring himself to forgive Konoe for his actions, Zenkichi urged him to atone for his crimes and become a true hero of justice.
When EMMA went back online on its own despite being shut down, Zenkichi met once again with the Phantom Thieves. They soon found it was EMMA, or the False God Demiurge, who was the true culprit, and alongside the rest of the Phantom Thieves he was able to take it down, as well as closing all the Jails. He makes his farewell from the Phantom Thieves once the Demiurge is defeated, and returns to Kyoto to live with Akane. It is also known that he later arrests Owada, finally getting revenge for his fallen wife.
==Trivia==
*Zenkichi is the first fully playable adult Persona-user since Persona 2: Eternal Punishment.
*Zenkichi is one of four (alongside Shinjiro Aragaki, Koromaru, and Metis) to not possess an Ultimate Persona.
==External Links==
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