Hey everyone!

So yesterday I started my series of character essays, going from my least to most favorite characters. We did Yoshizawa yesterday, and today's essay is Makoto Nijima.

Now, there’s some stuff I need to cover with this one before we get into it. Firstly, I don’t hate Makoto. I USED TO, which was entirely an issue of my own. I take first impressions incredibly seriously and Makoto’s first impression is uh… bad. And that’s kind of an understatement. In fact I still really hate her introduction. BUT these days I’m more okay with her. I've realized that a lot of my problems with her were just me being kind of petty. I still don’t exactly like her. But I don't hate her. I think she’s just okay.

And that brings me to the second thing I need to cover, which is the controversy surrounding Makoto. She’s an incredibly divisive character for kind of an odd reason. She has a lot of popularity (which I feel is undeserved, but we’ll get to that) and she garners a lot of hate (which I also feel is undeserved). That said, I think most people are kind of justified in their opinions..? Sort of..?

The thing is that a lot of pro-Makoto people argue that “people only hate Makoto because she’s popular”, and anti-Makoto people argue “people only like Makoto because she’s popular”. And yeah, that’s probably true for some people. But I don’t think that’s the case overall. I think people like or dislike her for reasons that are sensible to them.

I say this because I’m gonna kinda tear into her here… well, more how the game uses her than the character herself, because much like Yoshizawa, I feel the writing around Makoto is just really, REALLY bad a lot of the time.

So let’s start with Makoto as a character. Makoto is very… vanilla. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, and a lot of people really like that about her. For me, however, when she’s surrounded by the other characters she gets so outshined that you effectively forget she’s even there a lot of the time. Especially since she very rarely has anything to offer to conversations; be it useful or fun.

So what IS there to her character? Well… she wants to be a police officer. And she is smart… sort of.

See, one of my major issues with Makoto is that she’s told, not shown. Let me explain here. Let’s say I walk up and tell you that my friend can break dance. Yeah, there are people who can do that. Like it’s not super unusual. But there’s going to be a little voice in your head that goes “but can he REALLY?”. Now, if I take you to this friend and he break dances in front of you, it removes any doubt because you’re actively watching it. HOWEVER… if I come up and constantly tell you my friend can break dance, then you meet said friend and he CANNOT break dance, then well… that’s a problem. And Makoto falls into that last trap.

The game wants us to desperately believe that Makoto is a genius. They really want us to think that if you put Makoto, Hal 9000, Light Yagami, Dumbledor, and God in a game of wits, Makoto will come out on top (before you get mad at me, google the word “hyperbole”). The point is that the game tells us repeatedly that Makoto is VERY. VERY. SMART… so you’d imagine that we’d see some of that, right? Well… not really. All you can really see are her test scores on the board which again, is more just the game telling you she’s smart instead of showing you. Meanwhile she constantly SHOWS a bunch of dumb stuff. Let’s count them down.

• Blatantly obviously stalks Joker. As of P5R it is canon that Mona and Joker were well aware of this.
• Approaches a fucking mobster and effectively goes “ARE YOU TRYING TO SELL ME DRUGS, MR. PINKMAN?! PLEASE SAY ALOUD ‘YES. I AM SELLING YOU DRUGS’”
• Gets herself kidnapped with no plan at all
• Approaches Haru and says “Hey Haru. Why were you in your dad’s palace? What’s up with that?” then does the surprised Pikachu face when Haru politely tells her to fuck off
• Gets outsmarted by Akechi during the panel

Guess how all of these turn out? Poorly.

Now because I KNOW someone is going to point it out, she does have TWO times where she is… “smart”. I put smart in quotes because the intelligence they show us in these segments is kind of… demi-human. She comes to conclusions that, based on the information she has, she should not be able to come up with. These being “We were set up”, and “Eiko’s boyfriend is eeeeevil”. We’ll get more into that second one later, but when she brings up the possibility of being set up… there’s no evidence to point to that. Like, yeah. We as the player have the information. But the party does not. All we know is Okumura died and we’re being blamed for it. Which like… I guess yes, you could come to the conclusion of “it’s a set up” but the more realistic answer is either “we made a mistake” or “this specific thing was a set up.” You may be thinking “Wait, what’s the difference?” Well I’ll tell you.

Makoto’s conclusion is that the Thieves’ entire popularity was a set up. Medjed, and Okumura were all set up. Is she right? Yes. But… she has no evidence for that when she first brings it up. However if her conclusion was “Someone followed us in and killed Okumura” and they were set up that way… yeah. That makes sense. That’s a reasonable thing to think, especially since they know there’s another metaverse user. The idea of a setup here is not some grand, illuminati style plan. It’s just “someone happened to see us going in and decided to fuck us over on this specific thing”.

We are also told that Makoto is some super badass which… also isn’t really shown. Yes yes, she’s cool in the metaverse.

So. Is. Everyone.

As soon as she leaves, her badassery goes away. She just becomes the soft-spoken study robot again.

Anyway. So her as a character is kind of all over the place, and her personality is kind of boring. She’s actually WORSE in P5S because 99% of her character has been diluted into “Guys we need to study.” Seriously. The group is on vacation and she brings up school and studying all. The fucking. Time. And the single thing she does in the story; her ONE thing… is helping a child fucking study. During summer break.

So is there any good to Makoto’s character? Sort of. I like how she goes from being a pawn of adults to someone who is self-sufficient… however that’s kind of all she does, and that happens VERY quickly. It also doesn’t really have like… an impact. When you look at other characters, their change builds up naturally through their introductory arc. With Makoto she awakens, is kind of forgotten about, then at the end she goes “Um. Fuck u Mr. Kobayakowa :)“, and Kobayakawa wasn’t even the villain here. He was BARELY a part of the arc.

Anyway. Let’s move on to her story relevance. Now, I have a lot of issues with how people view Makoto’s story relevance.

So, let’s talk about her introduction. Firstly, Makoto’s intro is… really bad. I mean REALLY bad. She almost comes off as a villain. She basically acts like a snobby bitch and blackmails you. Now since I know someone is going to bring it up, Yusuke, Futaba, and Akechi’s blackmail is different contextually. I need to say this now because people in this sub have this general idea that these are all somehow the same.

But anyway, Makoto’s whole thing is “I want you to prove you’re good people”. She could have proven this by saying “Hey. There’s a mob boss trying to fuck over students and effectively enslave them. Mind dealing with that?” If the Thieves say no… well, that isn’t very moral, is it? But instead she leaves them no choice, and literally does what Kaneshiro does. Kaneshiro goes to people, gets blackmail material, and says “You do as I say or I expose you”. Makoto then actively says that she thinks that’s a bad thing. And SHE. DOES. IT.

Anyway. Her intro is bad. And unfortunately she doesn’t really get an arc. As I said above, most characters have a problem they face, which leads to their awakening, then builds through the associated palace, culminating with them facing down someone or something important. The issue is that Makoto doesn’t have a history with Kaneshiro. So after her awakening (which I have some narrative problems with as well but I’ll let that one lie), she basically just falls in line with the rest of the group and the palace falls flat because the confrontation kind of ends up just being… another villain encounter. It’s not like it is with Kamoshida or Madarame.

There’s also the whole “Team strategist” thing. Again, this is an issue I have with the writing. Here’s how this scene goes.

Makoto: So how do you guys usually go about this? What’s your plan?

Me: Well, usually we start by finding a map, and safe rooms. We make our way through the Palaces, moving from safe room to safe room until we reach the treasure. We discern a strategy for getting the treasure, then leave. Once out, we send a calling card, go back in, and steal the treasure.

The in game characters: I sowwy. I no kno wat ‘plan’ mean. Plz explan 2 me.

Makoto: You guys are fucking dumb. Here’s what we do. We start by finding a map, and safe rooms. We make our way through the Palaces, moving from safe room to safe room until we reach the treasure. We discern a strategy for getting the treasure, then leave. Once out, we send a calling card, go back in, and steal the treasure.

I’m hoping you see the issue here. Nothing changes. The game goes out of the way to specifically give her this weird role that ends up being just… pointless because nothing changes. Aside from like... one of the voices you hear during combat which... like who really cares?

But what else does Makoto have?

Well… she is related to Sae. That’s it. Even in Sae’s palace she doesn’t fucking do anything. She has a BRIEF moment where she talks to Shadow Sae which is a fucking distraction. And that’s all she does. That is Makoto’s story role.

I know people are going to argue with me. I know Makoto haters are going to go “Well um aktually she gets to hug Joker and she steals all the spotlights from the spotlight factory” but come on. That’s just certifiably false. And Makoto lovers are gonna go “Nu-uh! She’s the bestest!” which… if you think she’s the best that’s fine but like… I’m sorry. Makoto doesn’t do anything.

And because I know it’s going to come up, let’s discuss “The Plan™”.

A lot of people (falsely) attribute “the plan” to Makoto. Now, I understand why. Because even the game falsely attributes it to her for whatever fucking reason. After it happens they go “Great job on that plan Makoto!” but again, much like before… we are not shown Makoto contributing to making this plan. At. All.

You know who does get scenes of making the plan?

Futaba.

In fact. Futaba gets ALL the scenes of making the plan. Realizing they can use the Metaverse? Futaba. Knowledge of how Akechi is going to go about his assassination / getting the police into the Metaverse? Futaba (and sort of Mona. It was his idea to bug Akechi’s phone). Knowledge about the room Joker will be stored in? Futaba. Making the app that allows her to remotely trigger the Metaverse? Futaba. Getting Sae to go back and save Joker? Futaba.

Huh. Seems like Futaba was responsible for like 95% of this plan, huh?

Anyway… Makoto also doesn’t do much in Strikers. Like I said. She studies with Akane and drives the RV. That’s it.

So let’s talk about her confidant now. Because it’s… it’s bad. And this probably won’t be overly controversial because I think even most Makoto fans think it’s pretty bad.

It starts off promisingly, with you taking Makoto to learn about her peers because she’s a cardboard cut out robot who doesn’t know the word “fun”. And honestly if things continued from here and it became a story about Makoto lacking self-esteem because she doesn’t know how to deal with her peers on a personal level I’d like it a lot more. But that isn’t what happens. It quickly introduces…

Eiko

Eiko is a girl Makoto becomes friends with because they both like a cartoon panda. It’s quickly revealed that Eiko is dating an older guy in a shady area.

Now, I’ll admit, I was also like “Man this dude is skeevy” but it was more “I think this man is a douche” not “I think this man is a criminal”. Makoto, however, immediately jumps onto the “this man is a criminal” bandwagon and… ends up being right?

This bothers me for two reasons. One; no evidence other than him being a douche which is not exclusive to criminals. Two; it means the story ends with just… “Oh. Makoto was right”.

My problem here is that, much like everything involving Makoto, it makes the story fall flat. Makoto doesn’t LEARN anything from this experience. She doesn’t change as a person. She ends the story the same way as when it began. It blows. It really does.

Anyway. Let’s continue being controversial.

Makoto in combat is just like her everywhere else.

She’s a jack of all trades. TECHNICALLY I would say she’s better as a healer than Morgana, because her healing powers are slightly weaker, but she can actually use them because she doesn’t die in one hit like Mona does. But otherwise like… she has decent magic attack and stats. She has decent endurance. She has sub-optimal strength. She’s just kind of… okay?

And yes, I know. If you take her to the jazz club every night you can make her strong enough to rip through the fabrics of space and time and kill the villains of Persona 6. But you can do that with anyone. And I wish people would stop telling me this.

She’s pretty good in Strikers. Her normal attacks are kinda bleh, but she’s super helpful and kinda interesting to play.

Anyway. I realize a lot of this might seem harsh. But I want to clarify again that I don’t hate Makoto. I just find her to be so absurdly underwhelming that it bothers me. I wish she had more to do in the story. I wish her character was handled better. I wish the writing surrounding her was at least SLIGHTLY well done (especially when the writing for most of the rest of the game is top quality), and I wish her confidant didn’t blow ass.

I just want more for this girl than “Well. She’s.. I mean she’s there. She’s part of the team.”

Anyway. I know people are going to rip me apart for this one but I don’t really care. I’m about to sound narcissistic as fuck but looking at the game without putting attachment to, or detestment of the character into this, she really is just kind of present. She is there and does almost nothing.

But what do you guys think?

Hope you guys enjoyed it! Next time we’re starting with the first of the characters in what would effectively be the B tier. So it should be more positive (though I do still have issues with some of them), so look forward to that!

Till next time!