Ann Takamaki

* Normal
* Panther

**Ann Takamaki** (高巻 (たかまき)  杏 (あん) , *Takamaki An*) is a student at Shujin Academy who lives a double life as a Phantom Thief.

After ridden with guilt of not helping her best friend Shiho Suzui who would fall victim to Suguru Kamoshida and would lose ties with her in the process, she would support her friends while facing, overcoming and promising not to make the same mistake again.

## Description

### Appearance

Ann is an attractive young woman with wavy platinum blonde hair that is styled in bushy pigtails with parted side bangs on the right side of her face where she accessorizes with a single yellow hair clip above her left ear as well as small circular earrings on both ears and bright blue eyes. She is of mixed ethnicity: her surname is Japanese, and her profile mentions she is 1/4 American. She is a relatively tall young woman, standing taller than both Haru Okumura and Makoto Niijima, who are both a full year older than her. She also has red-painted toenails.

Her winter school uniform is modified to fit her taste: the standard black blazer over a white varsity-like hooded sweatshirt, worn long to cover most of her short plaid skirt. Her sweatshirt has a red stripe between two blue stripes at the bottom, an S symbol near the front bottom on one side and a green four-leaf-clover symbol on the back of the hood. She wears red tights and brown boots with yellow laces. Her summer school uniform is a white shirt with a blue jacket wrapped on her waist, making her skirt more visible. She has black socks with white lining and dark brown shoes. Her hairpin is red instead of yellow, and she wears a gold necklace with a clover pendant.

Her summer casual clothes consist of a black tank top with "U2O" written on it over a white shirt with red sunglasses hanging from the middle of her chest. She wears blue denim short shorts with a red plaid shirt wrapped around her waist, black cropped socks and red sneakers.

Her winter casual clothes consist of a lavender blue button-up shirt under a red and white varsity jacket with an S symbol near the front bottom on one side. She has a white skirt, black leggings and red Converse shoes. She also wears big red round earrings.

For *Persona 5 Royal*, Ann has two new outfits. For school she keeps her winter outfit the same, but now wears the standard Shujin turtleneck with a black bow, in addition to a cream and brown varsity overcoat with multiple pins and patches and a black hood. For her days off, she wears a black leather jacket over an orange and purple plaid shirt, faded ripped jeans with a heart patch on the left pocket, and red ankle boots. When she is outside, she wears a red scarf and earmuffs.

Her cognitive copy in Kamoshida's Palace appears as a scantily clad version of her in a provocative, fuchsia bikini with panther-like patterns on it and wears high heels and wears a pair of cat ears and a gold crown with fuchsia jewels on top of her head.

In *Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight*, she sports bright pink highlighting on each pigtail and retains some part of her Shujin Academy school uniform, except that she wears a long red crop top sweater that exposes her midriff and navel, red fingerless gloves, fishnet stockings and red sneakers. She wears a pair of silver headphones around her neck, a black basketball hat on her head, light-blue nail-polish, golden hoops earrings, a spike bracelet on her left wrist and two matching gold bracelets on each wrist and a pink bracelet on her right wrist.

In *Persona 5 Strikers*, her hairstyle remains unchanged, although she generally wears red sunglasses (albeit above her eyes) and large heart-hoop earrings. She wears a white short-sleeved crop top with a neon rainbow comic design over pink and red camisole, seafoam green denim shorts, a red belt with a star buckle, and high-heeled white shoes with pink heels and pink socks. While at the festivals, she wears a red yukata with flowers on it, a yellow sash, and a blue line in the middle. For the beach, she wears a pink tied up bikini with an orange, green, yellow and pink pattern, white sunglasses with tinted shades, pink and white bracelets on her right arm and sandals.

#### Panther

Her Phantom Thief outfit consists of a skin-tight red latex catsuit with a cleavage cutout and zippers, a matching red panther mask, pink gloves, dark red thigh-high boots, and a clip-on tail on the back of her catsuit.

### Personality

Ann is a very kind and compassionate girl, enough for it to be noted by both Morgana and Sojiro Sakura. Years of isolation due to her looks have left her very withdrawn, with the belief that she's lost her place in the world. This hasn't stopped her from opening up to the people close to her and making jokes. She's able to press on without caring about the opinion of others due to her friendship with Shiho Suzui, who was her first real friend in Japan before joining the Phantom Thieves. She is shown to be a good judge of character, as she was the first person able to look past the rumors of the protagonist and see him for who he really is (while Ryuji Sakamoto befriended him before her, it was because he saw him as just another "troublemaker" and didn't learn his full story until later). Her good judgement of others is also shown by her willingness to forgive Makoto after learning her side of the story in the incident with Suguru Kamoshida, namely that she wanted to do something but felt powerless to stop him, having realized it wasn't too different from her own situation. Before this, she also comforts Makoto when she calls herself "scum of the Earth" due to her failure to help Kamoshida's victims, saying that if she really was scum, she wouldn't call herself such.

As a Phantom Thief, Ann becomes far more lively and energetic, with a strong will to never be abused or let abuses run unchecked. She agrees with Ryuji's desire to help those in need because she believes that if she doesn't, she'll go back to being the same as she was before (i.e. someone who could only look on while other people suffered instead of stepping in). Although she understands that Kamoshida is ultimately the one at fault for what happened to Shiho, she can't help but feel partially responsible as well, due to frequently pushing Shiho to keep with the volleyball team despite the effect it was having on her. She also believes that she should have dared Kamoshida to take Shiho off the team when he threatened, as he wouldn't have done anything that would risk costing him games, but ultimately feels that she didn't believe in Shiho's ability. She reacts better to being told that she may be right rather than she can't blame herself, implying that she prefers people to be honest rather than sympathetic. Her Confidant deals largely with Ann's attempt to become a stronger person and come to terms with her guilt.

Ann has a tendency to call people who participate in self-destructive behavior "idiots" multiple times, as seen in the case of Shiho and when confronting Alice Hiiragi after defeating her.

Because of her kindness, Ann initially acts as the Thieves' sole "moral center," i.e. the only one to never lose sight of the bigger picture. While Morgana can become distracted by his desire to restore his memories and Ryuji often gets worked up over becoming famous (albeit in order to give people courage), Ann acts as the common sense of the group, considering helping people to be the number one priority, and often wondering whether what they're doing can actually be considered right. She's also the one to suggest the "unanimous decision" rule, since she didn't like the idea of just picking targets at random. Despite all of this, Ann can also be rather sarcastic when annoyed or upset, particularly during her early encounters with Makoto, and isn't even above using profanity when pushed over the edge. Additionally, although she spares Kamoshida's life so he can confess his crimes and atone, she reveals later that she did it not out of kindness, but so he would end up suffering and beg for forgiveness for the rest of his life, which she considers to be a fate worse than death, much to Ryuji's shock.

Ann's personable nature allows her to get along extremely well with her friends in the Phantom Thieves. She is notably quite close with Ryuji, as the two are often seen hanging out together outside of Phantom Thief activities (such as during Ann's confidant or the school cleanup event). However, they frequently bicker and exchange jabs with each other (though it's always in good fun). Ann's hobbies include shopping and playing video games, and she in particular considers the former to be "a great stress reliever." When Futaba points out that anything can be bought online, Ann is shocked by her approach, and says that "seeing and feeling it are the most important parts." She also has a massive sweet tooth for food such as cake, and has a weakness for crepe special menus like "extra extra cream." It gets to the point that she will sometimes eat nothing but dessert and neglect normal meals. However, she dislikes carbonated drinks and seems to prefer soy milk over cow milk. As revealed in a Mementos conversation, Ann has friends from overseas, who she seems to regularly keep in contact with.

While not as bad as Ryuji, Ann is rather book dumb, doing poorly in every subject except English, which she mainly aces due to being bilingual. She can also be rather air-headed, particularly when it comes to her attempts to "strengthen her heart." Nevertheless, Ann is very smart in her own right. She is a good judge of character and has a keen eye for detail, such as when she senses anger and frustration coming from a painting at Ichiryusai Madarame's exhibit, and finds it hard to believe such a "cheerful and gentlemanly" man could have painted such a piece. Ultimately, she figures out that it was actually painted by Yusuke Kitagawa, who gave it to Madarame to pass off as his own. She's also the one to figure out that Haru and the Beauty Thief are one and the same due to their similar features, something even the far more book-smart Makoto wasn't able to do. On a side-note, her acting skills are noted to be terrible, yet somehow fool people often. In Mementos, she reveals that her poor grades are actually the result of a lack of willingness to study, saying that whenever she tries, she ends up playing games instead.

Ann has a modeling side-job as a hobby, although she doesn't want to make a living out of it just yet, as she is unsure how serious she wants to take it. Despite this and being generally confident about her body and physical appearance, Ann becomes flustered and embarrassed when she is forced into a situation that exposes her skin without her prior consent or desire. She has a tendency to mock or prank people who are ogling (such as Ryuji) and is disgusted with the idea of being used as a nude model for Yusuke's art. Ann can't stand it when people superficially value her for her body and nothing else, as if she is a thin-shelled, hollow doll with nothing on the inside or no other redeeming qualities.

She is also embarrassed by her Phantom Thief outfit at first, believing the tail is the only fine part of it, and commenting that she could never wear something like it out in public. Ann also vehemently rejects the Phantom's attempt to give her a "classy cat burglar" codename, instead deciding on the name "Panther," as it sounds "more ferocious." Her outfit is implied to be inspired by an anime Ann watched, in which she admired a "sexy" villain who was strong and confident, and took whatever she wanted whenever she wanted. In Mementos, she states that she likes using whips, and has gotten pretty good at handling one, before adding that she's not sure if that's something to be proud of. Ryuji even compares her to a dominatrix.

## Etymology

* The name **Ann** means "apricot" (杏).
	+ Both **Ann** and **Anne** could be considered correct names for her. The English localization uses Ann, while promotional material for the Japanese version uses Anne. This is similar to Aigis, who is known as Aegis in the Japanese version. It's not that one is correct while the other is not, it is simply an artistic localization choice.
* Ann's surname **Takamaki** means "tall, high" (高) (**taka**) and "roll" (巻) (**maki**).

## Trivia

* Apparently, the reason why Ann wears red tights is because she doesn't care about standing out.
	+ This also explains her unique "uniform," and how Ann has given up trying to appease Japanese society.
* On the official Japanese site, Panther is given the mocking title of "Phantom Thieves' Method Acting(?) Actress" (怪盗団の演技派(?)女優, *Kaitō-dan no engi-ha(?) Joyū*). This possibly refers to her stiff acting skills when she is tasked with deceiving or negotiating with the gang's target.
* Ann's Zodiac sign, Scorpio, which is noted for being a sign representing mysteriousness, may align with the fact that Carmen, her initial Persona, was a Romani woman who used her charm to win over the hearts of unsuspecting men and then twist them to her will, and her ultimate Persona, Hecate, was the goddess of magic and witchcraft in Greek mythology.
* Ann is disgusted upon encountering Mara for the first time.
* Additionally, much like all of the Thieves' starting Personas, Carmen is symbolic with Ann's own story; Carmen foresaw her fate in her cards, namely that she would be killed by a former lover of hers, but accepted her fate as she refused to let herself be controlled by anyone. Similarly, Ann was well aware of the consequences of going against Kamoshida, but did so anyway as she refused to be his slave, which led to Shiho being sexually abused to the point that she attempted suicide.
* All of Ann's personas have physical attack animations despite having no access to any physical skills. These can still be viewed when Ann learns a new skill.