SIU Director

The SIU Director is an unnamed character in Persona 5. He is the boss of Sae Niijima and the leader of the Special Investigations Unit, a force that hasn't lost a case in 50 years, which is also in charge of the Phantom Thieves case.

Appearance

 * Persona 5 / Royal: Supporting Character
 * Persona 5 The Animation: Supporting Character

Persona 5
As the director of Special Investigations Unit, he leads an elite team of police and prosecutors that deal with government scandals and other huge cases. The team hasn't lost a case in fifty years. However, the director was only able to reach his current position by using forged evidence in order to win them. Goro Akechi managed to figure this out by meeting the Director's Shadow Self in the Metaverse, and used it to blackmail him into cooperating with Masayoshi Shido in order to proceed with their plans of killing Shido's enemies and finding a scapegoat for their crimes so Shido can go into inauguration unopposed.

The director appoints Sae Niijima to lead the investigation of the recent psychotic breakdown incidents and the involvement of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, something Sae is initially honored with, but later baffled of because of her relatively fresh qualifications in the department, which turns out to be part of Shido's grand plot of eliminating the Phantom Thieves using Akechi as a front. After the supposed death of the group's leader, the director suffers from a mental shutdown on Shido's orders, having outlived his usefulness. His death is covered up as the result of a stroke brought upon by illness.

After his death and Shido's dismantling by the Phantom Thieves, a proxy director who is Shido's accomplice in the crimes involving the Metaverse is appointed to assume his post. While support for Shido seemingly calms down once the truth came out, it inversely reaches an apex during the 23rd of December as the public unerringly yearns for him to become the prime minister, putting the investigation against him into a vicious death cycle. The proxy proceeds to cover up Shido's confession to his crimes as "mental instability with no proof of a Change of Heart," then dismisses Sae from her duty because of her dedication in prosecuting Shido as she confronts him. This is actually a distortion manifested by Yaldabaoth to "demonstrate the foolishness of humanity" by manipulating the public's mindset. Once Yaldabaoth is destroyed for good, the proxy is presumably discredited and dismantled as well.