Ango Natsume

Ango Natsume is a character from Persona 5 Strikers. He is a famous author from Sendai.

Appearances

 * Persona 5 Strikers: Major Character (Antagonist)

Design
Ango has chin-length light copper hair and a mole on the left side of his nose. He has thin eyebrows and narrow brown eyes. His outfit consists of a black waistcoat with matching pants, black driving gloves, purple bolo tie and rimless rose-colored glasses with a square narrow frame.

As a Monarch, Ango has light lavender skin, has a sharper chin, spiky blonde hair and two large horns around his head. He is topless and only wears a pair of red shorts, which he hides behind a demon king outfit cardboard cutout (this fact is not revealed until his defeat, when the cutout topples over). The horns are also his crown, if they are broken, all desires he trapped within will be freed.

During the boss battle Ango takes the form of a Western dragon with golden armor. A fountain pen nib sits at the tip of his tail, which he uses for certain skills during battle. The wing's membranes are made out of paper and the more damaged he becomes, the armor sheds off, eventually revealing a body with pale scales and a red underwear.

Personality
At first, Ango appears as a charismatic writer with a massive fanbase in Sendai. He's also quite flirtatious and even attempts to hit on Haru Okumura and give her a kiss on her hand, which she vehemently refuses, and gets annoyed when Ryuji Sakamoto and the protagonist tell that he is overstepping his boundaries with Haru. He's also quite arrogant around his work and would take a great deal in defending it.

In reality, Ango suffers from a severe inferiority-superiority complex. He has a clear passion for writing, something he likely inherited from his successful and talented grandfather, but he lacks the talent to create a masterpiece of his own. This allows his publisher to take advantage of him and his grandfather's name for their own profit while he gets none, resulting him in using EMMA to transfer the profit to him instead.

Despite his vanity towards himself, he fully acknowledges that he is a fraud and even has respect towards actual literary work, as in a rather hypocritical case, he is capable of pointing out Ichiryusai Madarame plagiarizing "Sayuri" and is rendered speechless when he realized Yusuke Kitagawa's mother painted it. This is further proven that he sees the "heroes" going for him as villains and the "Demon King" (himself) as the real hero, indicating that he's feared of being exposed as a fraud and a shadow of his grandfather, and that he glories in the underhanded power he has over his corrupt publishing company.

Persona 5 Strikers
Ango Natsume is supposedly a famous writer who is the author of the book Prince of Nightmares, an Isekai novel about an ordinary human teenager who is reincarnated as a demon king, with the heroes challenging him being the main villains. The novel was so popular that it sold 1 million copies and managed to win a literary award.

Ango's grandfather, Sougo Natsume is a famous writer who more often than not gets top literary awards. However, Ango himself is considerably less talented, relying overly much on writing guides and material from other fiction and running himself ragged trying to overcome his lack of inspiration. Prince of Nightmares is in fact a heavily plagiarized work, with its author subconsciously taking scripts from numerous other fictitious works, including an anime from two years prior. He frequently attempted to have his book nominated for various literary awards, expecting good results to no avail, resulting in his publishing company treating him as a failure and jury-rigging the rewards so that he received a minor award in order to trick customers into thinking he inherited his grandfather's talent, and selling it based on his grandfather's name alone, not even bothering to give him honest feedback. He overheard two of his editors discussing their scheme and disrespect for him and his readership in a coffee shop, disillusioning him and causing him to develop a grudge against his editors, seeking a way to force them to acknowledge his efforts.

Two months prior to the events of Strikers, he came across the EMMA app and used it for the purpose of revenge and to sell his book for his very own profit. He first used it to induce a Change of Heart on his publishers, granting him power over them. Natsume openly shares his friend keyword, ensuring that he can change as many hearts as possible within the Sendai Jail (although the party isn't given a chance to get his keyword publicly). Using EMMA, he quickly gained tract in Sendai, developing a large fan base using his artificially empowered glory, causing his book to quickly sell 1 million copies. It is said that a drama series is planned for the book and internet boards are talking about it in several hundred threads per day, although a close glance reveals that the abnormal popularity only extends to Sendai, as Prince of Nightmares is rather unpopular elsewhere (this is a result of the limited range of the Jail system).

There are numerous posters advertising Prince of Nightmares placed around Sendai, including cultural landmarks, the statue included.

As the Monarch of the Sendai Jail, he acts as the first target that the Phantom Thieves confront after Alice Hiiragi's fall. He is first seen near a signing event where he attempts to flirt with Haru, but was stopped by Ryuji and the protagonist. He expresses annoyance and leaves.

Much like Alice Hiiragi before, people had been buying the book with loaned money, and his fans start street fights against anyone who would dress like characters from his book. When actively investigating the locals in Sendai, the party also notice people binge-spend on the Zacca grocery store that Natsume frequents, employees from the local Big Bang Burger skipping work to read the book or slipping away to buy it, and learn that a famous author gave up trying to accuse Natsume of plagiarizing her own work and quit social media because nobody seemed to notice or care.

After getting enough intel, the party learns that he is attending a signing at his book stand, where they can get intel about if he's truly a Monarch or not. A feverish fan brings over 50 copies of Prince of Nightmares to be signed. and another brings 100 copies. His fans declare his book to be inspirational and he claims that he wrote the story for a sick girl. However, when Yusuke Kitagawa buys a copy of the book to see if it's really worth the praise it recieves, he finds it to be lacking of any creative passion from its author; Futaba quickly notices that a large amount of the book's dialogue is ripped directly from a number of anime series or other fictitious works, confirming that Natsume is indeed the Monarch of Sendai. However the party still lacks his keyword, due to everyone in that convention having their heart stolen by EMMA. After trading info with Zenkichi (who confirms that he's been using EMMA), he gives the party seven invitations to Natsume's upcoming banquet, held in celebration of the sale of the 1 millionth copy of Prince of Nightmares, where they may take the opportunity to get his keyword.

When the party investigate the banquet, Natsume implies that the backstory where it was written for a sick girl is fake because he thinks nobody cares about the nature of work and he made it for the sake of this excuse, using Ichiryusai Madarame's confession as an example; he claims that "Sayuri" has no value for being plagiarized work. Yusuke confronts him personally, in which he gives a sign and states that he intends to make a sequel for Prince of Nightmares, and his EMMA keyword is "Prince of Nightmare." After this, Yusuke confronts him about the truth of "Sayuri," rendering him stunned and speechless.

His Jail is a castle where 4 mini bosses known as "Four Heavenly Kings" must be defeated to reach the Demon King's throne, based on the fiction world of Prince of Nightmares. It contains numerous pop culture references to real-life anime and video games, alluding to his book being completely plagiarized and his total lack of originality. The Heavenly Kings are actually cognitive copies of the four publishers who met him at the 1 millionth copy celebration, and in his Jail, the Demon King is actually the protagonist and the Hero is the villain, implying that he knows that his selling of plagiarized work is in fact, wrong.

Once the party locates the coffee shop after hearing the reason for his disillusionment, one of the people who spoke on his back transforms into a Lock Keeper holding 4 swords and attacks them.

The party tries to formulate a plan to send the calling card to Natsume. Zenkichi advises them to use more subtle methods, only for the Thieves to suggest using him to stick a series of calling cards to his stall instead. On the next day, Natsume's stall was vandalized with a series of Calling Cards and the party takes the opportunity to enter the Bird Cage and fight him. His shadow appears as a demon king, and he views people who wronged him as "Heroes" who are setting for his fall. After being called out for his hypocrisy by Yusuke, he transforms into a gold plated Dragon and attacks the party, whose plates shed when he's at low HP, revealing a pair of red boxer shorts. Once defeated, Shadow Natsume appears half naked with only his underpants remaining, and the Demon King clothing is revealed to actually a cardboard cutout. He acknowledges that Yusuke is right, and vanishes, collapsing the Jail.

The next day, the Prince of Nightmares fervor vanishes and he opens a confession meeting, where he admits to plagiarized work and would refund the money to everyone. The word that his publishing company used his grandfather's name for the sole reason of using him to make money also got spread out. Yusuke comes to the conference to meet him alongside the protagonist, in which Yusuke tells him to go forward, make a novel of his own and stop plagiarizing others. He apologizes for his acts and promises to make a better novel without plagiarizing other work.

Later on, Futaba spied his version of the EMMA app, but she found no abnormalities within his app, indicating that the widespread version of EMMA was used to instigate the in-game mass Change of Hearts. Just like Alice before, Futaba also noticed a person spying on Natsume's EMMA.

Preparation
Nightmare Dragon Ango is weak against Ice and Bless skills, and is resistant to Fire, Electricity, Wind, Nuclear, and Curse skills. He wields both Fire and Ice attacks. It is recommended to have Personas with Bufu and Kouha-type skills. As for the team composition, it is highly advisable to bring Sophia to the battlefield. Other options would include Yusuke, and Haru for her Amrita Drop skill (if leveled up to Lv14) to remove any ailment inflicted on the team. During rematches or New Game+, Zenkichi is a powerful choice as he can apply buffs and debuffs, and his Almighty attacks ignore Ango's buffs.

During Battle
Nightmare Dragon Ango is generally easier than Mad Rabbit Alice due to his slower speed and heavily telegraphed attacks. He will start by casting a Heat Riser type of magic to himself which will cause him to power up, and is telegraphed by an extremely long animation. This has the potential of making him extremely difficult to kill. Once he flies to the air, use the swords in the ground to deal Bless damage on him and cancel his buff; triggering a stunlock also results in the same effect. Sometimes, he might cast Shockwaves and he generally relies on Agi and Bufu projectiles. At 50% HP or below, he will start to use physicals a lot more, although he is still relatively slow. If the battlefield is running out of Ice Shards, use a Showtime or trigger the stunlock by breaking one of his shields.

Although a majority of party members are weakened in one way or another due to Ango's resistances, they can still utilize their support skills, and can do so more efficiently if they're in the player's control. This especially applies to Ryuji, who also has Physical skills in his arsenal, together with Tarukaja. The only exception to this would be Ann, who is also vulnerable to Ango's Ice skills. At the same time, although Yusuke has the opening to strike Ango's weakness with his Ice skills, he himself is vulnerable to being Downed if hit by Fire skills from the enemy's side, albeit he can defend himself with Sukukaja.

Ango's Ice weakness makes him easier to freeze, allowing for strong Technical follow-ups with physical skills, which Yusuke can capitalize on. During rematches, Black Frost is extremely powerful against him as he learns or can easily inherit the strongest Ice skills in the game, blocks Fire attacks, and naturally learns Soul Thief to restore SP. If ailment and freeze chances are boosted to the maximum with passives and BOND skills, Ice attacks will freeze Ango more often than they don't, allowing one to essentially lock him down for almost the entire fight. This can be further capitalized on with a charged Hassou Tobi from Yoshitsune.

Stats

 * HP is from the game's Normal difficulty.
 * While Nightmare Dragon Ango uses "Ch. 4: A LORD RISES", if the party Freezes him, they will interrupt the technique and prevent him from gaining buffs.
 * If Nightmare Dragon Ango's remaining HP is at 50% or below, the next time he uses "Ch. 4: A LORD RISES" and flies into the air, he will use "Nightmare Inferno" (Almighty) instead of "Glacial Conviction" (Ice).
 * In Painful Past+ battles, Ango's Agi skills are expanded, adding Maragi to the mix. In addition, Maragidyne is activated as a combo finisher after two Claw Scratches.

Etymology
Ango (安吾) means "restful, myself." Ango's last name, Natsume (夏芽) means "summer bud," which acts as an irony of him not being a developing genius despite being the descendant of a genius, but a fraud who chose to live in an illusion.

Trivia

 * Natsume sees "Sayuri" as trash because he thought that it's plagiarized work by Ichiryusai Madarame. When Yusuke Kitagawa tells the truth to him, he is left speechless.
 * A poster about his best-selling novel, Prince of Nightmares, can be seen on one of the buildings in Shibuya.
 * Additionally, an image depicting a somewhat obscured image of his Shadow (or the character its attire is based on) can be seen in the Shibuya Jail.


 * Shadow Natsume is the only Shadow Self in the Persona 5 games to be fully seen by the player before meeting the Phantom Thieves.
 * Natsume's name could possibly be based off Japanese novelists and.
 * Shadow Natsume references both the first game and  in his dialogue:
 * When defeated, Shadow Natsume offers to rule the world together and splitting it in half, the same offer that the Dragonlord makes for the player before his boss fight,
 * Nightmare Dragon Ango's Agi attack can have him proclaim that what appeared to be Agidyne was in fact Agi. This is an homage to Vearn, the main antagonist of The Adventure of Dai, who has a similar quote regarding his low-level Frizz fire spell appearing to be a high-level Kafrizzle. Futaba mentions that the line sounds familiar, referencing the manga.
 * During the cinematic that transitions into the boss fight, Ango performs a pose made famous by . Not only does this tie to his plagiarism, the of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure also hails from Sendai.
 * Natsume likes to shop at the Digging 4 Deals store at the Sendai Arcade.