Futaba Sakura

* Futaba
* Oracle

Oracle (Phantom Thieves Code name)

Sojiro Sakura (adoptive father)

**Futaba Sakura** is a major character who appear in Persona Record Series. She is the Navigator of the Phantom Thieves and she was a shut-in who does not attend school and rarely, if ever, leaves her house.

As Persona Record: Magi Arena Chapter 3, it turns out that Futaba began attending Shujin Academy.

## Background

Futaba is the daughter of cognitive psientist Wakaba Isshiki; her father is unknown. Due to her high intelligence compared to other children around her, she was bullied often and barely had any friends other than a girl named Kana. However, Kana's parents were sexually harassing their daughter, and when Futaba discovered this, Kana left her as well.

While Futaba and her mother had a great relationship with each other, two years ago, when she was in middle school and the first Metaverse-related incident instigated by Yaldabaoth and Shido started, her mother, Wakaba Isshiki, suspiciously died in front of her because of a mental shutdown caused by Goro Akechi and ordered by Masayoshi Shido, resulting in Wakaba throwing herself in front of traffic. Her relatives, who have an eye on Wakaba's legacy, blamed the prodigy programmer for her death, based on a forged "suicide note," particularly after agents of the Conspiracy used it to manipulate Wakaba's family, hoping to keep her (alongside other cognitive psience researcher's) research for themselves.

Before her mother died, Futaba asked her to go on a family trip, at which Wakaba expressed her annoyance at Futaba bothering her for completing her research for the sake of her life, which Futaba responds with a tantrum. In reality, she promised her that she will bring her to anywhere she wants to go after she completes the research. The combination of the suspicious timing of her mother's "suicide" being after a family quarrel between the two, and the derogatory content of the forged suicide note, engineered the delusional belief that her mother hated her, which drove her to a complete breakdown. Following her mother's death, custody of Futaba was passed to several of her uncaring relatives, including her uncle, Youji Isshiki, who refused to even treat her as a person, not even allowing her to bathe or have a proper bed. Futaba does not know that her mother died of a mental shutdown before witnessing Okumura's death from the same circumstances, and Shido quickly forgot about Wakaba after he killed her.

This led her to develop guilt, psychological trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder, extreme social anxiety and hallucinations. The hallucinations are often of Wakaba's face overlaid on other people (Or Wakaba herself) looking disappointed in her. She has not attended school ever since graduating middle school: by her age, she should have been a first year student in high school. Wakaba's close friend, Sojiro Sakura has adopted Futaba, paying her uncle the better part of Futaba's inheritance to leave her alone. During her isolation, she tried to use her substantial hacking skills to learn about her mother's research and how it relates to her death only to find all of the information related to it had disappeared completely, and she shut herself in so tight at Sojiro's house that nobody around Yongen-Jaya had heard of her before, even from stores where Sojiro frequents. By the time of the game, her depression has worsened into outright suicidal impulses and a refusal to meet anyone, including Sojiro, as well as a delusional subconscious belief that her death would bring Wakaba back to life. Sojiro even tried to call a doctor to no avail, since she refused to come out of her room and usually locks it. The sheer magnitude of her negative emotions went so bad to the point that she managed to generate a Palace, despite not being a criminal with a heavy desire for controlling other's lives unlike the majority of targets. Due to her heart being distorted, she does not properly recall any of the events that ruined her life, as the memories are concealed in three murals in her Palace.

After The Phantom Thieves of Hearts, led by Ren Amamiya or the Joker, completes the mission to change Junya Kaneshiro's heart. Futaba, who was secretly listening to them from the side room, realized that they were the Phantom Thief they were rumored to She then sends a secret message to Ren under the alias Alibaba, asking them to change her heart. Suspicious of the Phantom Thief about Futaba's anonymity, Makoto Niijima immediately realized that Alibaba was Futaba.

With Wakaba's rage towards Futaba, Futaba's shadow was cast. She is forced to face her own fears as her shadow tells her of her mother's death. Futaba realized immediately that her mother's death was unnatural and realized that she was deceiving herself. Finally, she was able to awaken her Persona power and successfully defeat her shadow. After that, Futaba became a member of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts under the team's navigator.

## Appearance

Futaba is a young girl with hip length black hair dyed bright orange with straight-cut bangs and two long strands in the front along with a single small, thin strand at the top. Her brown eyes also seem to have some faint purple tones in them, appearing mauve. She wears large black circular glasses, and she is always seen wearing a set of AKG K845BT headphones with red earpads. She seems to be very short, even compared to other girls.

### Casual Wear

Her casual winter outfit consists of multiple layers: she wears an off-shoulder white top with a red splatter-like pattern on her chest with five white asterisks (\*\*\*\*\*) which are reminiscent of a password input system in the red splatter, a black tank top underneath that, a dark green jacket with a faux fur trimmed hood, black short shorts, a studded black belt in a slanted position, black thigh highs socks and black knee-high boots with buckles and studs at the top. The green jacket has A.F.K. on the back (for "away from keyboard"), although it is difficult to see because of Futaba's long hair.

Her casual summer outfit consists of a black tank top with a *Tetris* image in front, with a green tank top underneath. She wears gray baggy pants with black laces on the bottom and green sneakers. She also has a white hip pack that forms a monstrous face with the zipper as the mouth and green eyes.

Her nightwear outfit consists of a black shirt with "JLMK!" (presumably "just let me know") over a white-and-black striped long sleeve shirt and short black shorts with a light green trim.

### Oracle

As Oracle, Her outfit consists of a skintight black bodysuit with fluorescent neon green glowing stripes and matching black boots with neon green soles. Her mask is a pair of big black goggles with orange lenses. This outfit was inspired by sci-fi movies like *Tron*.

## Personality

With a case of social anxiety bordering on agoraphobia developed from the trauma of losing her mother Wakaba Isshiki, combined with her generally introverted personality, Futaba is strongly discomforted by going outside. When the protagonist first meets her, she is a shut-in who does not attend school and almost never leaves her room. She communicates with the world remotely via the Internet, and her adoptive father Sojiro Sakura enables her lifestyle out of guilt that he could not protect her from trauma. Having disconnected herself from humanity and the world beyond her apartment, Futaba suffers from suicidal depression, crippling bouts of anxiety and would freak out instantly when seeing unknown people inside Sojiro's house. When first encountered, Futaba is so consumed with self-loathing that she suppresses her desire to live, causing her Shadow Self to develop a much more helpful personality than average, one who only desires Futaba's happiness. Prior to her Change of Heart, she thinks that her room is the only place she actually feels safe to dwell within due to the frequent hallucinations she has about Wakaba bearing hatred on her.

Even before her mother's death, Futaba was quite a lonely child growing up. Part of this was due to her isolation for being a genius, with other students thinking she was a freak due to her eidetic memory (things she's reminded of when she's given a tour of Shujin), while the other part was due to her mother working long hours to support her, meaning the two hardly ever got to spend time together. It got to the point where Futaba would sometimes think her mother cared more about her research than she did about her, an insecurity that only worsened when her mother died and she was read the fake suicide note. Because of her desire for her mother to be alive again, and the belief that she deserves to die, Futaba ended up creating a Palace where her mother wants her dead. With the help of the Phantom Thieves, however, she realizes that the suicide note was forged and manages to remember the real Wakaba. Futaba is also very fond of sushi and Sojiro's curry, both of which were meals she shared with her mother.

After her heart was changed and she begins to actively go out, Futaba still initially tends to hide behind Ren Amamiya so that she won't be seen in public, or wears masks which make it impossible to identify her.

Futaba begins to change after meeting Ren Amamiya and the other Phantom Thieves, opening up to them more and becoming more relaxed around them. Once she's truly comfortable around others, she shows her childish side and likes teasing her friends, particularly Ryuji Sakamoto, Yusuke Kitagawa and Morgana, and sometimes Makoto Niijima as well. Although she still has occasional anxiety and odd habits, she comes off as bright, playful and cheerful when with her newfound friends. However, due to being socially inept, Futaba is often extremely blunt, to the point that she seems to have no concept of tactfulness. An example of this is moments after she rehabilitates, Futaba begins to comment on the spikes of Makoto's queen outfit when she began to talk harsh words on her, and shortly after this, Ryuji joins the conversation and she makes a "note" making fun of Ann's coldness to Ryuji, causing Ann slight discomfort. She also likes to poke fun on Yusuke every once a while, often by calling him "Inari." "Inari" is a word which means fox, but can mean tofu curd sushi due to tofu being offered near Inari Shrines, forming a pun which implies that Yusuke was a degenerate.

She appears to be the least physically fit member of the Phantom Thieves, to the point that she may end up sleeping for days at a time. Futaba is obsessed with computers (if the protagonist claims he built his own PC, she asks for details on the GPU, CPU, RAM, etc.), often plays video games, which she sees as a form of escapism, is into sci-fi, as shown by her Phantom Thief suit and her Persona being a UFO, and shows a very perverted side at times, commenting on the other girls' thief suits and the size of Ann Takamaki's breasts. She is also shown to be heavily reliant on the internet as she doesn't see the point in going shopping since you can buy anything online and even claims that she can use it as a substitute for going to school. She addresses Sojiro by his given name instead of "dad," which is considered very impolite in Japan, even in the case of adoptive paternal figures. Sojiro refers to himself as her father, and while he never insists on her calling him "dad," he becomes very pleased when she begins to occasionally.

Futaba is shown to have a soft spot for cats, a trait she shares with Sojiro, and when she realizes Morgana is a part of the Phantom Thieves, she begins teasing him regularly. Futaba has little problem talking to people as long as the subject interests her, since when Makoto was making Futaba open up, she couldn't at first when she brought up mundane topics like food and the weather, the latter of which means nothing to Futaba since she had been a shut-in for the past few months.

## Abilities

Futaba's Persona is Necronomicon. She is capable of hacking computer systems.

## Relationship

### Ren Amamiya

At first, the two had never met, but Futaba knew him from the beginning through Ren's voice that swayed through the walls of her room. Once she learns that Ren and the gang are members of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, she has to use a pseudonym to text him over the phone. After Futaba entered the Phantom Thief, the relationship between Ren and Futaba began. Although they both lived in the same place, Futaba often saw him as a older brother.

### Sojiro Sakura

Futaba's Adoptive father. Sojiro was an acquaintance of her mother, Wakaba, before her death due to an unnatural suicide that forced Futaba to live with an abusive uncle. With Sojiro's help, Futaba became his adopted daughter. Although she had known Sojiro when eating at his cafe with her mother, she loved her adoptive father dearly.

### Wakaba Ishiki

Futaba's biological mother. She loved her mother so dearly, but with her tantrum that her mother was unable to keep her promise when Futaba was in middle school, her mother ended up with an unnatural suicide. That is why Futaba had to lock herself in a room, blaming herself for the death of her beloved mother. With the help of The Phantom Thieves of Hearts, she begins to learn the truth and background about her mother's death and stop blaming herself.

### Sana Futaba

Futaba's Magical girl best friend. She and Sana are very close as Sana and Futaba have experienced the same life before meeting two of their friends, and with Sana's invisibility, Persona-Users like Futaba can see her, made the two of them quickly become friends.

### Iroha Tamaki

Futaba's Magical girl. After Futaba learned that Iroha was a magical girl, he decided to form an alliance to protect the world from witches and shadows.

## Trivia

* The name **Futaba** means "two" (双) (**futa**) and "leaf" (葉) (**ha**/**ba**).

* Futaba's surname **Sakura** means "help, aid" (佐) (**sa**) and "warehouse" (倉) (**kura**).

* Futaba was originally imagined with having black hair. Original sketches show her looking a bit emo/goth, with a black jacket with a skull, and a black-and-white striped shirt. However, the character designer wanted to make her stand out and so her hair was made bright orange, as depicting a sad and suicidal character with dark hair and goth/emo clothing is a bit of a cliche. Her final outfit is a lot less goth/emo looking, although she still wears black boots.
* Futaba's surname is her adopted name. Judging from her mother's surname, her birth name is Futaba Isshiki.

## Gallery

Futaba in Casual FormConcept artOracle Concept artThird Semester concept artConcept artCinematic expressions concept artworkFutaba sits in front of LeblancFutaba and The GangFutaba typingFutaba alone in her dark bedroom.Futaba appears in Sojiro's houseFutaba alerted by MorganaFutaba physically meets the group for the first timeFutaba in her roomFutaba sleepingFutaba playing video gamesFutaba and Ryuji are playing video gamesFutaba and AnnClose up of Futaba's phoneFutaba on her laptopFutaba looking at the skyFutaba looking up information from her laptopFutaba doesn't interact with cats wellFutaba after Valentine's DayFutaba with Ann and Makoto at Miura BeachFutaba eating with HaruFutaba talking with Haru behind Ryuji and RenFutaba wearing a reindeer hatFutaba with the girls on New Year's"Together With The Family""A Reality Without Pain"Futaba hiding in the bushes with the Phantom ThievesFutaba, Haru and MakotoOracle formFutaba inside of NecronomiconFutaba in her Oracle outfit inside NecronomiconFutaba as NavigatorSwimsuitFutaba's face being covered at the beachFutaba's face exposed at the beach