Defending Haru Okumura - Male POV

Haru has chin-length curly light auburn hair and brown eyes, and has average height. She wears her winter school's uniform modified to her taste: a pink turtleneck cardigan with short puffed sleeves and a long-sleeved white shirt underneath. The cardigan is zipped open up to her navel and has two large pockets on the front. She wears the standard black and red tartan skirt, white tights with a black flower pattern and black Mary Jane shoes.

Haru is generally very shy and reserved. At school, she is viewed as eccentric due to her tendency to keep to herself and avoid contact with others as much as possible. She has serious trust issues, finding it difficult to differentiate between who truly values her as a friend, and who merely wants to use her for her family's status. This is due to her past, where not only friends, but adults and teachers would be kind to her just to please her father and smile at her for their own personal gain. Despite this, Haru is an incredibly kind-hearted girl. She becomes fast friends with all of the Phantom Thieves, and is the only member of the group Ryuji Sakamoto doesn't argue with on a regular basis. She can also be very awkward, as shown when she first introduces herself to the others as "Beauty Thief”. She later explains that she was trying to be a "heroine of justice," having grown up admiring female superheroes she watched on TV. She loved them for always fighting to protect others and being happy, desiring to be just like them someday.

At first, Haru is reluctant to team up with the other Phantom Thieves, saying she can't cooperate with people who don't know what they want to do, and calls them out for turning their backs on Morgana when their goal is supposed to be to help the weak (on Morgana's end, he left for not telling the team how he truly felt). After her real desires are brought to light, however (namely, to get out of her arranged marriage with her abusive fiance), she changes her mind and decides to team up with the Thieves to change her father's heart. Despite this, she is initially still reluctant to oppose her father, and as a result hasn't fully awakened to her Persona, though this changes once she learns that her father has no illusions of the kind of man her fiance is, and declares that she is no longer his "subservient puppet." Afterwards, she decides on the codename "Noir", to remind herself that she is operating on the darker side of the law despite her desire to be a heroine of justice. As such, she is rather surprised to discover that the others decided on their codenames based merely on how their outfits look, when she had created such an elaborate backstory for hers.

Initially, Haru behaves very formally towards the group, believing that it's her responsibility as the newest member of the team. After being told that whether or not she's new doesn't matter to them, however, she loosens up and becomes much more casual. She calls Makoto "Mako-chan," after declaring that she is the first friend of her own age she's ever had (initially catching Makoto off-guard, but soon considers it refreshing), and calls Morgana "Mona-chan," both in and out of the Metaverse. She also uses affectionate honorifics for everyone (-kun for boys and -chan for girls). This attitude goes both ways, as she dislikes the younger members of the group calling her "Senpai" and asks for them to just call her "Haru."

In her spare time, she enjoys tending to her own garden, as well as growing vegetables on the roof of the school. Besides gardening, she also enjoys horror movies. Because of her gentle personality, she is often underestimated, even by her teammates, however she admits she feels excited when Shadows beg for their lives, that cutting down enemies as they approach is a thrill, and that she sees combat as a form of stress relief, hinting that she is somewhat sadistic. Also, after a battle, Haru may say something along the lines of, "Phew, I need more of that!" and despite saying that she gets nervous before combat, she always wants to do it again afterwards. Her sadistic streak is enough to unnerve Makoto, who's well-known among the group for her vicious temper and tendency to take her anger out on Shadows. This sadistic side is further shown by the fact that if the protagonist cheats on her on Valentine's Day, she will express her anger with an eerie smile on her face, requesting that he take her chocolate before she crushes it, showing a passive-aggressive personality. While the other Phantom Thieves quietly express their distrust in Zenkichi Hasegawa in their first encounter, Haru bluntly tells him that they despise the police in an eerily polite way with a confident smile on her face. It also seems to manifest when she is driving a vehicle; she is a maniacal driver capable of driving from Fukuoka to Kyoto, a trip that should take eight hours, in a single morning even with an accidental detour into Osaka, much to the chagrin of her nauseous and terrified passengers.

Regardless, Haru is mature, level-headed, and kind in almost every way. She is also described to be very feminine, as pointed out by Ann. She enjoys helping the Phantom Thieves, as she becomes delighted when she learns that her hobby of vegetable-growing can prove useful to the group's activities, and is excited when Makoto proposes a Showtime with her. This is because she wishes to be seen as dependable by them, but often worries that she may not be doing good enough, and can be fairly self-deprecating when she expresses that doubt. Haru is shown to be easygoing, being very polite to teachers and authorities, and often showing a friendly smile to her peers when talking. She also has a rather refined speaking pattern. Haru can sometimes be playful and teasing as well, but knows not to push limits and is never taken to a serious degree.

As someone raised under the teaching of "do as you're told," Haru is reserved and often lets other people decide for her, even describing herself as someone who's not adept at saying what's on her mind, yet she's aware that this isn't how she wants to live her life. Haru has grown to appreciate just about any freedom she can get, claiming that having the freedom to go out shopping, as opposed to just doing it online, is "a luxury in itself." Additionally, despite the fact that she has been forced to do whatever people wish of her, Haru is very empathetic and can easily see how easy her life is in comparison to the average person, and she really is luckier than everyone else to be born as rich as she is.