Yuuki Mishima

Yuuki Mishima is a character from Persona 5. He is a student of Shujin Academy and the founder of the Phantom Aficionado Website.

Appearances

 * Persona 5 / Royal: Supporting Character; Moon Confidant
 * Persona 5 (Manga): Supporting Character
 * Persona 5: Mementos Mission: Supporting Character
 * Persona 5 The Animation: Supporting Character
 * Persona 5 The Stage

Design
Mishima is likely of average height or shorter, with spiky blue-tinted black hair, black eyes and a relatively "average" face. He is designed to look absolutely ordinary to represent all fans of the Phantom Thieves, as well as the players. Otherwise, people might think only a certain type of person supports the main cast.

Mishima generally wears Shujin Academy's standard winter uniform sans the blazer and with the shirt untucked, sleeves rolled up to his elbows and suspenders off his shoulders. He also wears white tennis shoes with green accents. In the summer, Mishima again wears the standard uniform with the suspenders off. In casual settings he dons a long-sleeve shirt with green sleeves and a volleyball image sits in the middle with the words "BOYS' FIGHT" encircling it. He pairs this with tan cargo pants and blue sneakers.

At the beginning of the game, Mishima's face was fairly injured and his left arm was wrapped in bandages due to being constantly abused by Kamoshida.

Personality
Bullied, abused and ignored, Mishima is an isolated individual who craves freedom from his day-to-day tortures. He used to be one of the students that Kamoshida likes to abuse and harass the most and often uses him to spread unfavorable rumors to students that he dislikes against his own will. He was also beaten a lot, and was heavily injured when first met. At one instance seen in-game, Kamoshida blatantly spikes a volleyball into Mishima's face.

Initially nervous and scared because of Kamoshida's abuse, once the tyrant of Shujin was neutralized, his excitable and loyal nature undoubtedly shines through. While his enthusiasm can become annoying, at times Mishima will still be hesitant and respectful, often apologizing for texting when he is sure the protagonist is busy. Mishima idolizes the protagonist as a cool superhero, most likely viewing the protagonist as his "savior" from his abuse under Kamoshida. There are times when Mishima will cling to the protagonist, once saying he will never forgive the protagonist if he is left behind. This clinginess and other socially awkward behaviors is likely due to his past of social isolation as a victim of bullying.

Although he looks up to the Phantom Thieves, he feels envious that he himself could never make an impact upon the world as they do. Mishima has always wanted to change himself and help others, but has internalized past taunts as a "nobody" and thus considers himself too pathetic and weak to do anything. As a result, when he was making the Phan-Site initially, he was merely using it to take advantage of the Phantom Thieves' popularity, and he has planned to use the protagonist to take down his past bullies. It required the protagonist to go to Mementos and speak with his Shadow just to make him reconsider on his own. When he saw one of his former bullies being beaten by a mob while investigating him, he instead protected him with a blank threat that he may report the mobs to the police with solid proof, which worked, making him realize that he doesn't need the Thieves' help to overturn his fates.

Mishima seems to be rather perceptive. He quickly realizes that the protagonist is a member of the Phantom Thieves. Additionally, he can both sense and articulate the mood of Tokyo's population before the other Phantom Thieves can as reflected in his poll questions. Mishima may be fairly intelligent as well, as he clearly knows how to build and maintain a website and has shown that he can gather enough evidence to build up a case against the Mementos targets put under his charge. He also has a perverted side, as he is responsible for the "Operation Maidwatch" event that led to Kawakami's double life being exposed in front of her students.

Mishima is surprisingly good with girls, as he receives chocolate on Valentine's Day while Ryuji doesn't.

According to the character anthology, Mishima is designed to be the "grounded" character among the Phantom Thieves.

Persona 5
Mishima is a second year high school student at Shujin Academy and classmate of the protagonist and Ann Takamaki in class 2-D. He is a member of Suguru Kamoshida's volleyball club, and is a frequent target of Kamoshida's abuse. Kamoshida uses Mishima to call in other students to his office for "advice sessions" and also to spread nasty rumors online about anyone that Kamoshida takes a dislike to. The protagonist is a victim of the latter tactic before even setting foot into the school. Mishima is aware of the wrongness of his actions under Kamoshida’s orders, but is justifiably terrified of the consequences of going against Kamoshida.

When the protagonist and Ryuji Sakamoto are looking for witnesses to testify about Kamoshida's abuse, Mishima refuses to say anything, out of fear, like everyone else in the school. In the volleyball rally, Kamoshida is seen deliberately spiking a volleyball aimed directly at Mishima, which is knocked down and examined by Kamoshida. This act angered Ryuji and he and the protagonist decides to ask the school for proof of the volleyball coach's abuse towards his students. However, he seems to be in constant denial and just insists that he is not good at volleyball, so their efforts of interrogating him and other students were for naught, as all of them insisted in protecting Kamoshida.

Later, he is told by Kamoshida to call Ann's best friend, Shiho Suzui into his office, even though there is no "session" planned that day. In reality, after Mishima calls Shiho in, it was heavily implied that she was raped by Kamoshida as his revenge for Ann rejecting his offer for going to bed with him.

When Shiho attempts suicide the next day, Mishima is horrified and reveals to the protagonist and Ryuji what Kamoshida has done. With that knowledge, Ryuji confronts Kamoshida, with the protagonist and Mishima backing him, resulting in Kamoshida's decision to expel all three of them at the next board meeting. He then reveals that Kamoshida actually told him to leak the protagonist's criminal record on the Internet. Fortunately for Mishima, his expulsion is overturned thanks to Kamoshida publicly confessing his wrongdoings after his corrupted heart is stolen by the protagonist, Ryuji, Ann, and Morgana. Mishima then apologizes to Ann for not saying anything even though he knew what had happened to Shiho. He also apologizes to the protagonist for spreading false rumors about him and promises he will make it up to him.

After Kamoshida's arrest, he realizes that the protagonist, Ryuji, and Ann are the Phantom Thieves of Hearts and thus approaches the protagonist more frequently. His obsession with the Phantom Thieves’ actions leads to him to create and then maintain the "Phantom Aficionado Website" (Phan-Site) by himself. His site hosts anonymous polls about the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, such as "Do you believe in the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, or not?" and collects heist requests from the public. The player can take note of the identified requests from his site and solve them in Mementos, the Palace of the general public, for people not sufficiently chaotic and rebellious enough to have their own individual Palace in the Metaverse. Mishima’s goal is to raise support for the Phantom Thieves, because he believes that they are administering justice.

If the protagonist reaches Rank 5 of his Confidant, Mishima will begin to act oddly, such as how he was being called a "Zero" and he needs the protagonist to take action against his bullies. When a man from Mishima's former school approached him and gave him snide remarks during Rank 6, he tells the protagonist to change his heart. This greatly alarms the protagonist that Mishima is most likely trying to take advantage of the Phantom Thieves, and warns that he might go after him instead. Once back at Café Leblanc, the Phantom Thieves enter Mementos and locate Shadow Mishima. Unlike the other Shadows, the Phantom Thieves do not appear to intend participating in combat with Shadow Mishima (as seen in the way they stand in front of him) and he offers to talk with the protagonist instead. Once he convinces Shadow Mishima to give up trying to take advantage of them by leaving Mementos instantly and making him reconsider his actions, Mishima admits that he's initially just doing it for the sake of fame and power and seeks to do for the better.

When Yaldabaoth begins to merge the Metaverse with reality, Mishima is one of the few people who is able to see the changes the city undergoes while everyone around him doesn't. During the final battle, when everyone else is finally able to see the changes and begins to panic until they see the Phantom Thieves' mark on the TV screen, if the protagonist maxed his confidant before, Mishima will appear to support the Phantom Thieves and urges everyone to do the same. (If he doesn't, a man in flower pants will do it instead). This greatly weakens Yaldabaoth and gives the protagonist enough power to evolve Arsène into his ultimate Persona, Satanael, and defeat Yaldabaoth.

Following the protagonist's arrest, if the protagonist has maximized his Confidant, Mishima will be seen at Shibuya Station, trying to collect signatures to overturn the protagonist's assault conviction against Masayoshi Shido.

Royal
Mishima functions identically from his Persona 5 counterpart. However, when Kamoshida is about to cast Gold Medal Spike, he will use it through a Cognitive Mishima. Cognitive Mishima is not targetable and will leave immediately with a Cognitive Shiho taking his stead. Cognitive Mishima does not look different from his real-life counterpart, but he is nothing short of an obedient slave to Kamoshida, indicating that he views him as such.

When Maruki's reality kicks in for earnest, Mishima posts a questionnaire asking if people wanted to become a Phantom Thief. The response is close to negative, but for reasons other than hate against the Phantom Thieves. This is in reality, a distortion created by Maruki. Once Maruki was defeated, the questionnaire reverts to normal at a 40% approval rate and the same neutral comments just like the last questionnaire in Persona 5.

Confidant
Mishima's Confidant unlocks automatically on May 6th and reaches rank 2 on May 8th. After that, he starts sending missions to complete in Mementos through his chat messages. Some of them must be completed in order to make his Confidant bond progress, though it's still possible to max out the Confidant before completing all missions. Mishima's Confidant is very easy to rank up, as it always does so every time the protagonist goes to meet him, regardless of whether the player has a Moon Arcana Persona in their possession.

As the player ranks up Mishima’s Confidant, they will eventually meet Shadow Mishima in Mementos, who represents Mishima's repressed feelings. His Shadow Self is born from the real Mishima’s his desire to use the Phan-Site’s popularity for his own purpose, like getting revenge on his past bullies by using his website to threaten them both online and offline. The Phantom Thieves of Hearts notice this and confront him. However, Mishima is already aware of his wrongdoing, hesitant if this is truly the best way to become "somebody." The protagonist, recognizing this, leaves Shadow Mishima alone to face himself despite Mishima's urging to change his heart. Once he fully realizes he is using the Phantom Thieves for glory, the real Mishima also realizes it and regrets it. Mishima then decides to use the Phan-Site to help let the people's voice be heard by the Phantom Thieves.

Mishima's Confidant bonuses affect experience points earned by the party, with his first bonus allowing non-active party members to gain a portion of experience the active party receives. Raising the Confidant allows the party, both active and non-active, to gain more experience from battles, with his final rank letting non-active party members level up at the same pace as the active party.

Mishima's farewell gift to the protagonist on the last day, after maxing his Confidant bond, is his Documentary Plans about the Phantom Thieves. The item unlocks all experience perks in a New Game+ once his Confidant is established.

Etymology
Yuuki Mishima's name is probably a reference to the author. Mishima would also inspire the Shin Megami Tensei character Gotou. Mishima also bears some resemblance to the protagonist of Yukio's novel  which many believes to be an autobiography of Yukio himself. In the novel the protagonist is physically weak, socially awkward and constantly tormented by the idea of how he looks in other's eye which is primarily contributed by his gay orientation.


 * The name Yuuki means "reason, case, cause" (由) (yuu) and "brightness, radiance, shine, sparkle, gleam, twinkle" (輝) (ki).
 * Yuuki's surname Mishima means "three" (三) (mi) and "island" (島) (shima).

Trivia

 * If Mishima's Confidant is not maxed out, then he will not be seen rallying the other people to cheer for the Phantom Thieves at the end of the game. Instead, the public will snap out of it on its own, thanks to the help of a brown-haired man in floral pants and a jacket-wearing young man. The scene is not cinematic.
 * Mishima does not have a particular food he likes or dislikes, but he'll eat the parsley that often comes with sandwiches because he feels bad to see it left behind.
 * Mishima is the only Confidant with a Shadow but not a Palace.
 * Mishima is the only non-party member who follows the protagonist during gameplay. This only occurs once, immediately before Kamoshida threatens them with expulsion.
 * Mishima and Goro Akechi are the only student Confidants who are referred to by their surname rather than their first name. All of the other student Confidants (the Phantom Thieves plus Hifumi Togo and Shinya Oda) are referred by their first name. Unlike Akechi however, Mishima possesses no antagonistic traits whatsoever.