SOUL CAMPAIGN ➸ APPLICATION
( C H A R A C T E R I N F O R M A T I O N )
Name: Yukari Takeba
Age: 17
Gender: Female
Fandom: Persona 3
Timeline: 1/31/09, After fighting Takeya, before the final battle with Nyx
History: http://megamitensei.wikia.com/wiki/Yukari_Takeba
( P E R S O N A L I T Y )
Yukari Takeba is one of your typical Japanese high school students. She’s a member of the archery club, cares a lot about her grades and making sure that enough study is done, and her reputation is key to her as well. On top of that, of course, she's your typical girly-girl when it comes to things like fashion. Thanks in part to her general cheery nature, she happens to be one of the more popular girls of Gekkoukan High, enough so that she can be choosy about having popular boys hanging off her arm (and is seemingly incredibly shallow concerning them, given that you have to max your Charm stat in the game to date her). On the outside, she's a pretty normal girl, right? Wrong.
As well as being in the archery club, she is also a member of S.E.E.S. (or the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad), which is a seemingly normal club on paper. However, this isn’t a club just anyone can walk up to and say they want to join. This “club” or “squad” is made up purely of these with the ability to use Persona. Their job? Fighting creatures known as Shadows, monsters which only appear at the extra hour in the day known as “The Dark Hour”.
Out of all the S.E.E.S. members, Yukari is the resident healer. As a member of the archery club, her natural choice of weapon is the bow and arrow. Her Persona starts out as Io and later evolves to Isis; her Social Link is that of The Lovers. Without knowing anything about tarot and the meaning behind this card, one may immediately imagine some lovesick girl batting her eyelashes at the main character like a fool. Yukari is anything but that kind of girl, though you can make her yours just as well as any other available girl in the game as long as you play your cards correctly... It’s important to know that the Lovers card is not just about love, but about choice, and Yukari represents both elements perfectly.
"Usually, I feel like the real me is trapped somewhere deep down inside". As her social link progresses, this is what Yukari tells Minato. That is, Yukari is incredibly complex and made up of many layers like an onion, hiding herself behind a mask and letting very few people see the real her. The cheery, popular girl at school is not even the same person as the one she shows to those in S.E.E.S. Underneath that kind of nice, kind of tsundere and occasionally short-tempered student is a terrified girl. When we first see her in the opening to the game, as well as Minato’s first encounter with her, we see this side of her - the terrified and paranoid side of her, and the side she doesn’t want most people to know exists. Though that isn’t to say she won’t admit it when she’s scared at times, because she will - usually at times of extreme fear.
Yukari hides her fear in many ways; sometimes she snaps at others, other time she teases people, even when it’s inappropriate to do so. When it seems like she’s afraid of ghosts, she reacts by going out of her way to discover the truth and prove the rumors wrong. Other times she lets
her emotions get the better of her and rushes into dangerous situations rather than thinking calmly and clearly. When she gets angry she snaps or freaks out, but outwardly seems gets over things faster than one would expect. She says she’s okay as she pushes her feelings to the side in favor of appearing as if she can keep her cool.
It is in Yukari’s nature not to trust people to the point where she sometimes comes off paranoid, even in situations as silly as school rumors. Opening up to people is not something she does easily. In the beginning, her own wants and needs come before others and she often comes off as manipulative. That is not to say that she is a bad person as such, but she uses people for her own benefit to get what she wants, usually when she needs to learn the truth. That’s another thing, she’s obsessed with finding the truth. Whether it’s about ghost stories or the truth behind the Kirijo group and what happened with her father’s death, nothing is too small.
While Yukari wears a mask to hide her true self, when it comes to other people it’s like she wears multiple masks. Where she acts one way with one person, she acts completely different with another. With Mitsuru in the beginning she is tense, untrusting of her motives as well as jealous of her popularity. Junpei, however, she teases sometimes to the point of coming off as mean, calling him Stupei and generally treating him as if he’s not worth much. With Fuuka she was unsure about her joining S.E.E.S. in the first place, yet the moment she joins she is quick to request that the other girl uses her hacking skills to find out the truth about the Kirijo group.
Next to her parents, Yukari’s relationship with Minato is perhaps the most interesting. Though she slowly gets over everything and is able to become friends with Mitsuru, treat Junpei like a normal person and see Fuuka as a real friend, he is the only one she ever truly opens up to completely. Right away Yukari knows that he’s different and because she feels like they have a lot in common, she divulges more information than she had with anyone else before. With him, she feels bad about hiding the initial truth and spying on him. She relates to him not only because he lost his parents as well, but because he was a new Persona user when she was as well. In the end if you follow her social link, she actually falls in love with him.
As for Yukari’s parents, they are incredibly important to her, and it is next to impossible to mention Yukari without her father being in the picture. Yukari’s father is the most important person to her, and when she learns the false "truth" about him she’s devastated. However, Yukari always believed that he was a good man and worked for the greater good, and that is why she always looked up to him. Yukari’s father is like her anchor, he’s the reason she pushes on as hard as she does, why she works hard and doesn’t give up even when everything seems hopeless. It’s not until Yukari learns the real truth that she finally opens up a little more to everyone else. Her mother, on the other hand, she resented because she dealt with her father’s death by dating other men. When Yukari says she hates women like that, she refers to her mother.
( A B I L I T I E S )
A member of the archery club even before joining S.E.E.S., Yukari’s weapon of choice in battle is an arrow. As an archer, Yukari is decently skilled. Naturally, over time she has only gotten better but she is not perfect.
Along with skills in archery, Yukari is also a Persona user-you know, one of those kids that shoot humanoid creatures out of their head to
use in battle. Yukari’s Persona is Isis (earlier Io) with the primary abilities of wind and healing. Her Persona also grants her the ability to heal outside of battle.
( W E A K N E S S E S )
One of Yukari’s biggest weaknesses is her own stubbornness and her inability to be open about her feelings. On multiple occasions she has been known to hurt people with her words when she was only trying to lighten the mood. That is, she has a hard
time thinking about others before herself.
Yukari’s second biggest weakness is her father. If there is any way to get to her, it would be through him. Her father was the most important person
to her, to the point where she all but disowned her mother because of her actions after his death. Learning about the false-truth about her father was one of the biggest blows to her in the game.
Though she tries to hide it, Yukari also has a huge fear of ghosts to the point where she will become hysteric and jumpy at times. This goes for about anything unexplainable, really. She will go out of her way to prove that she’s 1) not afraid and 2) that they don't actually exist, and that people are just overreacting.
In battle, Yukari is weak to electricity due to her Persona’s wind abilities.
( W E A P O N I N F O R M A T I O N )
Why your character should be a Weapon: While Yukari is strong-headed enough to be a Meister, she lacks the initiative as a leader to truly be one. While it is true that Yukari
will rush in on her own and has been known to complain about other people being in charge of a situation, she does little more than that. When it boils down to it, Yukari is a follower, not a leader. She’ll give her opinions like the best of them and tell people they’re wrong, but she will always take the role of support rather than truly take the charge that is needed of someone to take the role of a Meister.
What is your character's Weapon form?: Yukari’s weapon form is that of a highly ornate wooden bow (the kind that shoots arrows, not the kind that goes in someone's hair) that shoots soul arrows. Carved into the wood are little hearts, like one may expect from a Cupid’s bow-minus all the tackiness. This particular form was chosen for Yukari because it is the weapon she herself uses both in and out of battle and is what she is most familiar with. The style in particular is a nod to her social link-the Lovers Arcana.
Abilities here
( S O U L I N F O R M A T I O N )
Head-strong, independent, determined, guarded, narrow-minded, paranoid
Yukari's soul takes the appearance of a little pink floaty head with the outline of her hair and the heart-choker she keeps around her neck and a little annoyed face.