Sadayo Kawakami

Sadayo Kawakami is a character from Persona 5. She is a teacher at Shujin Academy and the protagonist's homeroom teacher.

Appearances

 * Persona 5 / Royal: Supporting Character; Temperance Confidant
 * Persona 5 (Manga): Supporting Character
 * Persona 5 Dengeki Comic Anthology: Minor Character
 * Persona 5 Comic à La Carte: Minor Character
 * Persona 5: Mementos Mission: Cameo
 * Persona 5 The Animation: Supporting Character

Design
Kawakami is a youthful-looking woman of medium height and a slender build. She has dark brown unkempt hair, dark brown eyes and consistently has a somewhat long and sleepy face.

While teaching, she wears a yellow long-sleeved shirt striped with white and red horizontal lines, a blue denim skirt and white kitten heel pumps. During her off-time, she wears a beige blazer over her outfit.

During her second job, she wears a French-styled maid costume and has her hair pulled into twin tails.

If she's the protagonist's date during the Hawaii trip, she wears a blue and yellow striped bikini, a white graphic t-shirt with a red flower design, and the number 14 on it, and yellow and white flip-flops. Around her neck is a whistle hung on a red strap.

Persona 5 Royal added a winter outfit for her during the third semester: a yellow Chesterfield-style coat over a brown turtleneck sweater, her usual denim skirt, and black leggings with matching black pumps.

Personality
"Welcome home, Master. ♡ I'm going to fill your tired heart full of lovely energy. ♡ Meow! I'm Becky, and I have the pleasure of serving you today. ♡ We're going to get along so well! Meeeooowww! ♡♡"

- Becky, before realizing the client is her student, the protagonist

Kawakami is a highly competent and professional teacher who never lets her ever-mounting stress and exhaustion show visibly in either of her jobs. She is laid-back and outspoken, once saying "crap" in class.

While she initially acts very coldly towards the protagonist, this was because she thought he was a problem student and felt unfit to deal with the kind of trouble he could bring. After he stands up to Suguru Kamoshida, she realizes that there is more to him than both his criminal record and the rumors showed and thus becomes more understanding and willing to listen, showing her more compassionate and involved side. This coldness also applies to Ryuji as well, as she warns the protagonist to keep their distance from him and that he is nothing but trouble, though this is followed by her seeming sad at how drastically he changed compared to when he was in the track team.

She is also something of a hopeless romantic, though both her crushing self-loathing and age cause her to feel that she has grown past the point where she can experience such things. Still, she enjoys cheesy romantic lines and is more than willing to throw some herself. She takes being in a relationship seriously, delaying her response when the protagonist confesses to her and refusing at first because of their situation as teacher and student. It is only because it is the protagonist confessing to her and his willingness to be with her that convinces Kawakami to start dating him while also working hard to be a teacher.

Her maid job in Victoria as "Becky" is a housekeeping service focused on providing household chores with a few extra options like sharing a meal with the maid, back massages, and lap pillow. Kawakami effects a stereotypical moe personality, acting energetic, cute and naive. She also acts like a cat and says "meow ♡ ." As she herself admits, her age and health make this come off as shallow and fake, and she regularly breaks character out of fatigue, at one point, even collapsing on the protagonist's bed and complaining about all the work and odd jobs she has to do.

As the player progresses through her Confidant more of her caring and supportive nature show, as she constantly worries about the protagonist's living arrangement and she offers to help out in any way she can. Even once she no longer has to work at Victoria she is still willing to come over and help out if asked.

Shown only in the anime adaptation, Kawakami is seen showing her excitable side too. During the Hawaii trip, she was shown modeling in multiple swimsuits.

Persona 5
Kawakami is a Japanese language and homeroom teacher of class 2-D at Shujin Academy. She appears on the day when the protagonist first arrives at the school on Sunday for registration. The principal assigns the protagonist to her class which is also attended by Ann Takamaki and Yuuki Mishima because it is the only second-year class with a vacancy. Knowing her new student is a juvenile on probation, Kawakami displays anxiety and expects a tougher male teacher would be more suitable to handle such a student, and complains to Kamoshida who claims that he would kick students like the protagonist right away if they were to do anything.

Initially, due to the protagonist's tainted reputation because of a criminal record, Kawakami does not hold him in high regard. However, as she begins to learn more about him, she begins to open up and would also socialize with him.

After her primary occupation, Kawakami dons the cosplay maid uniform and works as a call-in housekeeping service associated with "Victoria." Ryuji Sakamoto and Mishima one day are interested in looking for a hot maid after seeing a flyer advertisement and invite the protagonist to a vacant apartment that Ryuji knows about. They call the maid agency without specified preference and Kawakami ends up being dispatched and is depressed to learn that her customers are her students, though Ryuji and Mishima flee the room before they find out. The protagonist can later call her to his residence. When she arrives, she is confused by her student, she compliments his sense of justice for opposing Suguru Kamoshida, but baffled by the fact that he would call a maid service, and requested her again. After hearing that he was feeling short of friends due to the bad rumors about him spread by Kamoshida, Kawakami offers to let him slack off a bit in class as thanks for keeping her secret, as long as he keeps his grades up.

She also offers him to request her again if he ever needed housekeeping. Initially, she lies that she has a sick sister who needs to pay her expensive medical expense, but as the protagonist continues to use her maid service and talk to her, Kawakami more hints are shown that it isn't the case, and eventually, she finally confesses the real reason she moonlights for money. When she was teaching in the previous school, she was ordered by the principal to persuade a student called Taiki Takase who had the lowest grades and skipped school frequently to transfer to another school. Kawakami pitied Takase for losing his parents and working three part-time jobs to support his life, hence she tutored him personally to improve his grades. This act of kindness was met with criticism and the principal ordered her to either stop the tutoring or resign because of rumors about Takase being a juvenile delinquent. Kawakami had no choice but to give up on Takase. Takase received her phone call about her difficult decision during his delivery part-time job under heavy rain. He apparently died in a car crash during New years eve because of exhaustion from his part-time jobs and studying. Takase's relatives who adopted him blamed Kawakami for his death and threatened to sue her unless she pays them as an "apology" for Takase's death.

Takase's guardians become increasingly insatiable by raising their demands more frequently. When Kawakami is hospitalized because of being overworked, they only visit her to urge her payment to cover their debts. At this point, the protagonist protests them using their late son to guilt-trip Kawakami and convinced her to stand up against them, with it quickly being revealed that the true motive behind their blackmail is to pursue a hedonistic lifestyle they originally forced Takase to pay for. After the couple shows up in Shujin Academy to threaten her by making her second part-time job, which they assumed to be prostitution after the latest increase of their demand, known to all Shujin faculties. In reality, her agency has two divisions: one being a legit call-out service and the other being the actual prostitution service, with Kawakami being in the former. The protagonist overhears this and asks Kawakami about their full names, in which a Mementos request will be open so he can steal their hearts in Mementos so she can be liberated from her extortionists. After that, she quits all of her part-time jobs and informs the protagonist that she can finally put full energy in education. She thanks the protagonist in their final rank for all of his support through her ordeal and has surmised correctly that he is a Phantom Thief as only he could have possibly have known about Takase's guardians. Regardless of her relationship status with the protagonist, she promises to continue to support him in and out of school, using her skills as a maid to help him on his quest to help others.

During the Shido's Palace arc events, Kawakami plays a part in covering up the protagonist from suspicion. Ann mentions that Kawakami has informed the staff and students that the protagonist has gone home for a month due to family issues. This allows the protagonist to better remain hidden from the general public due to his "death" as the leader of the Phantom Thieves.

If the protagonist maxes her Confidant, she will rally the entire Shujin Academy staff to release the protagonist out of Juvenile Hall in February.

Confidant
Unlocking her Confidant requires participation in the "Operation Maidwatch" event with Ryuji Sakamoto and Yuuki Mishima. This can be done as early as May 24th, but also requires that the party finish Madarame's Palace first. Then, talking to Kawakami and Ms. Chouno after school will give Ms. Chouno the implication the Kawakami is acting as a tutor for the protagonist. After that, given that the protagonist's Guts is at level 3 or higher, he can call Kawakami to his residency using the public phone in Café Leblanc to initiate her Confidant.

The call-out service for basic house cleaning or other domestic services costs 5,000 yen each time and is most consistently available on Friday and Saturday nights regardless of the weather. Kawakami may also occasionally become available on other days of the week. Kawakami's Confidant provides a wide range of services and features that allow the protagonist to save time. Her initial ability will sometimes allow the protagonist to have free time during classes lead by her to craft infiltration tools and read books. Later in the Confidant, she can even help the protagonist do this during classes led by other teachers. At Rank 3, Kawakami can help with household chores such as cooking curry, making coffee, making infiltration tools, and washing laundry, saving the protagonist time at night to focus on Confidants. At Rank 8, utilizing Kawakami no longer costs anything. Normally after the protagonist spends an afternoon in the Metaverse, he cannot act at night, but at Max Rank, Kawakami can give a special massage that revitalizes the protagonist and allows him to go out at night on those days.

When the protagonist reaches rank 8 of her Confidant, they need to receive and complete the Mementos Request "A Teacher Maid to Suffer" to continue. The event that grants the request, however, takes place at school. If they reach that rank shortly before a period where they don't go to school, like the summer holidays or the school trip, the Confidant will be stalled until the event can occur. The protagonist can accidentally render the rest of the Confidant inaccessible if they hold off on ranking it up before November 20th, as the protagonist cannot return to school after that date for plot circumstances.

Kawakami's farewell gift to the protagonist on the last day after maxing her Confidant is Unlimited Service, a special Coupon that gives the protagonist the ability to use her Special Massage from the start of New Game+ once her Confidant has been established. Spending time with Kawakami on the school trip to Hawaii will result in her giving the protagonist the Hawaiian ring: a ring engraved with each of their initials. If the protagonist pursues a romantic relationship with Kawakami, she will gift the protagonist a Pen Case on Christmas, allowing the protagonist to earn more points when using a Temperance Persona during their Confidant in NG+, and Sadayo's Chocolate on Valentines Day, which fully restores SP to one ally when consumed.

Royal
Kawakami is once again introduced during the meeting at Shujin Academy on April 10th, but her side job is hinted at much earlier, when she mistakenly sets a folded up flyer under the protagonist's student ID before hurriedly snatching it back up.

On April 18th, she will pull the protagonist into the guidance office for a conversation based on a lecture that she received earlier that morning from Kamoshida regarding the protagonist and notes that the protagonist seems to be drawn to athletes based on him becoming acquainted with both Ryuji Sakamoto and Kasumi Yoshizawa.

In Royal, her Confidant works the same, but Super Housekeeping is now unlocked at rank 6 instead of 7.

Persona 5 The Animation
Kawakami appears in the anime adaptation of the game. Here, her maid job was foreshadowed in the first episode when she drops a flyer for the agency (Housekeeping Services Victoria) when Ren first visits the school. Kawakami's second job also is shown to have a more physical effect as she started to nod off during the first exams.

Gallery

 * Persona 5

Etymology
Kawa-kami (川上) means "above the river." Sada-yo (貞代) means "chastity-(mundane) world."

Trivia

 * Her name bears resemblance with Sadayakko Kawakami (川上 貞奴), an internationally acclaimed Japanese actress.
 * The kind of call-out maid business Kawakami is involved is called "," or "Deriheru" (デリヘル) for short, which is very common in large cities of Japan. "Health" is a euphemism for sexual service.
 * The 14 on Kawakami's beach T-shirt is a reference to her Arcana, Temperance, which is card #14 in the tarot.
 * Just like other non-party Confidants, it was originally possible to break or doubt (reverse) Kawakami's confidant, although it is removed in the final game. A series of dialogues exist in the game's hidden files which indicates what would happen when the protagonist attempts to use Kawakami's services if the Confidant is doubted or broken. According to the text, Kawakami is intended to doubt or break when the protagonist is in a relationship with another girl.
 * Kawakami fishes at Ichigaya as a hobby and is an expert fisherman according to the protagonist and Ryuji. She is encountered there when the protagonist and Ryuji hang out there for the first time.
 * Kawakami is one of four Confidants in Royal to have two different Confidant portraits, the others being Goro Akechi, Sumire Yoshizawa, and Caroline and Justine. Unlike those three, however, who change their portraits after key events in the story, Kawakami's portrait (along with her name) changes to match her "Becky" persona whenever she's called over to Leblanc to complete a chore.
 * In Persona 5 Strikers, if the protagonist tries to use the phone found in Leblanc, Morgana will joke about calling Kawakami to help them at Leblanc while they are away.