MAKOTO NIIJIMA |001|

Name: Makoto Niijima Current age: 28

Makoto has brown hair in a bob cut with blunt bangs and a French-braid styled headband that matches her hair color. Her eyes are abnormal as they have been depicted as red, although her eye color in her portraits can be interpreted as a reddish-brown. She is of average female height, being taller than Futaba Sakura and Haru Okumura, but slightly shorter than Ann Takamaki.

Her winter school uniform appears normal but without the standard blazer. Instead, she wears a black halter vest over a long-sleeve white shirt with a turtleneck (which is different from normal turtlenecks for female students as there is a noticeable zipper). She wears the regulation black and red pleated plaid skirt, black pantyhose and black-brown ankle boots.

Her summer school uniform is modified. She wears a white dress shirt with the High Priestess emblem ("BJ") embroidered on the collar instead of a normal polo shirt. Under the regulation skirt, she wears Capri-length black leggings and black tassel loafers with no socks.

Her winter casual clothes consist of a black turtleneck shirt under a teal blue coat, tight black pants and two-toned brown-tan knee-high boots with dark cuffs. Her summer casual clothes consist of a white dress blouse with a black belt, black capris similar to leggings from her summer school uniform attire and black low heeled Mary Jane shoes.

During the trip to Hawaii, Makoto wears her swimsuit, which consists of a white bikini with a skirted bottom.

In Royal, Makoto’s school outfit is slightly modified for the Third Semester, wearing a large black overcoat and brown gloves. On her days off, she wears a white sweater with a large turtleneck collar, a black skirt, black pantyhose and black ankle boots. Additionally, she wears a dark blue coat and brown leather gloves.

Her Metaverse outfit consists of a two-toned (dark blue and black) skin tight suit that is worn with a long black scarf, a dark gray corset-style leather breastplate, shoulder and knee pads with spikes mixed with boots that sport metal heels and toes, white gloves and an iron mask.

In Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, she retains her Shujin academy school uniform except she wears dark gray tatter shirt with stitches and black splatter pattern design, thigh high stockings attached to her skirt by garters on the front and maroon high-top sneaker boots. She also wears a red armband tied around her left arm that matches her gloves and a chain attached to her black belt.

In Persona 5 Strikers, she wears a short-sleeved black leather crop top jacket over a white T-shirt, shin-length black leather pants, and black shoes. She also seems to have inherited the necklace of her older sister, Sae Niijima, which is a dog tag. While at the festivals, she wears a blue yukata with a white flower pattern and an orange sash. For the day off in Okinawa, Makoto wears a dull olive halter top bikini with a green and white leaf pattern, with lace up sandals that reach her ankles.

Despite her position as student council president, Makoto is an extremely unpopular student at Shujin Academy. This is because she did nothing to stop Suguru Kamoshida's abuse, resulting in other students labeling her as an arrogant, selfish control freak who knew about the abuse but chose to ignore it because she only cared about getting a good letter of recommendation. The Phantom Thieves initially assume the same of her. In actuality, this happens because Makoto holds no real authority at Shujin, with her position merely making her a glorified tool for the principal to use however he sees fit. In reality, Makoto wanted to do something against Kamoshida, but was too afraid of the principal meddling with her college record in order to protect the P.E. teacher.

She also is not above keeping secrets from her friends both out of shame and in order to maintain her image. When Akechi reveals to the group that Sae has a Palace, Makoto admits that she knew as much, and she wanted to go there so Sae might repent, but she kept it a secret because she thought it was "too selfish of a reason." Long before this, this trait led to her hiding the true reason why she didn't stand up against Kamoshida.

Feeling overshadowed by her highly successful older sister and being used as a tool, Makoto has almost no sense of self-worth and so has made a habit of keeping her nose down and doing what is expected of her. Her submissive nature is noted by Goro Akechi, who condescendingly refers to her as "the good-girl type of pushover." She also has the poor habit of apologizing immensely and can go as far as making an unnecessary wall of text via IM to do so. After getting involved with the Phantom Thieves, however, Makoto stops denying that she was nothing other than a tool for higher authorities, and vows from then on to fight for what she believes in, which triggers the awakening of her Persona. After the group defeats Junya Kaneshiro, Makoto decides to stay with the Phantom Thieves, saying that she's done being the "exemplary honor student" and that she's going to try to be more honest with herself.

Despite appearing prim and proper on the surface, Makoto is actually more of a tomboy: she's trained in aikido, enjoys violent action movies, never wears skirts other than her school uniform (which she wears leggings under) and seems to care little about fashion other than the headband she wears in her hair.

Makoto has a compliant temperament that she never breaks out of. She is a level-headed and kind person, almost to a motherly extent. That side of her would be highlighted when she'd help Futaba Sakura and at a few points Morgana. That being said, following her awakening, that discipline would be self-asserted, and in turn she would be strict on others and have an unrestricted and violent way of expressing that. Aside from her athletic ways of fighting, in the English localization this branches out to her voice acting as well. Makoto would be hard on Ryuji Sakamoto due to his consistently nonchalant approach to school life, who would fear her in turn. Morgana would be afraid of her a few times, even if it's over nothing and she only spoke to him with authority, similarly, to treating himself as her subordinate. The other Phantom Thieves and even Iwai of the Mementos Mission manga fear her. Additionally, this same struggle with regulations would make Makoto herself socially awkward at first, as she wouldn't yet realize that there's more to life than that and would actively combat her ignorance with the protagonist's help.

At the same time, Makoto herself is actually quite embarrassed of her excessively masculine and dramatic ways of fighting and attire: many times she would complain about her mask and would wish she'd wore anything else. Even when she's praised and admired for her looks, such as by her new friend Haru Okumura, she would only react with shame and dismissal of the topic. And if she were to genuinely get into her role, she would deeply regret it later on, as portrayed in some of her dances in Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight.

Makoto is an excellent analytical thinker and strategist, known for correctly deducting how a majority of puzzles in Palaces work on first sight. Bar situations where Akechi joins the party, who directly excels with exploiting the matters of the heart, Makoto performs most of the strategic work.

Makoto's relationship with her sister is highly bitter, as Sae considers her as a detriment, yet Makoto constantly attempts to please her by fulfilling the expectations of other people. When she realized her sister's true nature (Where her Leviathan form can be seen briefly appearing for a second before the party battles her), she went to a near breakdown before Akechi assures her that they will get this through. In the end, Makoto wanted to help her sister, directly telling her later that she wanted to heal her heart.

The Niijima sisters Makoto and Sae lived alongside their father since their mother died when they were young. As he was not home often, the sisters disliked him. Three years ago, he was murdered by being ran over by a truck in the line of duty, forcing the elder sister Sae to juggle between handling cases in court and raising Makoto alone. In order to retain the 99% conviction rate of her country's courts, Sae also more often than not, found herself having to rig cases with a guilty charge against her will. As a result, she saw both Makoto and their father as a burden and did not hold her in high regard. Makoto also regretted disliking her father and wished that he would still be around.

Makoto was deeply apologetic that her sister has to shoulder the burden of supporting her on her own, which she absolutely hates being in a position at, and as a result studied very hard so that she can enter a top-notch university and relieve Sae's burden once she graduates. Nobody in school treated her seriously, and even Sae's associates, such as Goro Akechi, mocked her for her submissive attitude. When the protagonist moves to Tokyo, she has become a third-year honor student and the president of the student council in Shujin Academy, although she was dissatisfied with the situation because the students view her as incompetent and unfit for the job.

She can initially be found in the school library on 4/19 studying at a table after school lets out for the day and will appear semi-regularly there from then on. During the period where Suguru Kamoshida was sexually harassing students, blackmailing them and abusing his fellow athletes in Shujin, Makoto wanted to do something against him, only to back off in fear of Kobayakawa giving her a bad resume as retaliation.

After Madarame's confession, she was asked by Principal Kobayakawa to investigate the possibility that the Phantom Thieves are students from their school after their volleyball coach, Suguru Kamoshida's confession and arrest. She accepts the request and is quick to deduce that the protagonist and the others are the Phantom Thieves and starts to approach them. Ann Takamaki, in particular, does not like her presence due to a rumor that claims Makoto was aware of Kamoshida's true nature but kept quiet about it like everyone else in order to maintain a paragon image before the faculties and receive a recommendation for her own benefit, a thought that Ann bitterly tells Makoto, which disturbs her. (This turned out to be true as she confirmed personally later on after Kaneshiro extorts the party.)

She begins to tail the protagonist for a time, following him whenever he is in school or even as far as Shibuya. On June 11th, Makoto finally confirms her suspicions when she hears Ryuji and Ann declares out loud in the courtyard of Shujin Academy that they are the Phantom Thieves. However, she decides not to give this proof to Kobayakawa and instead demands the Phantom Thieves to prove their justice by reforming an unknown mafia boss who has been extorting many students around Shibuya, including those attending Shujin Academy. If they can complete the task, she will not expose their identities to anyone (even the police). Deep down, Makoto actually approves of the thieves and believes her father would think the same way, which she told Sae when the sisters were having dinner at home, triggering Sae's anger, causing her to call Makoto a "burden." This disheartens Makoto heavily, even if Sae quickly apologized for insulting her because of an impulsive fit of rage. Sae then tells Makoto that she will not have dinner with Makoto from that point on, implying that she still holds grudges against her.

Makoto checks on the group as they have trouble reaching the center of mafia boss Kaneshiro's Palace. Ann, Ryuji and Yusuke point out how useless she is for not doing anything that can help them, but rely on the hard work of somebody else, something that greatly upsets Makoto after being told the same thing before by her sister and Akechi. To prove her worth, Makoto purposely acts as bait into the mafia so that the gang can follow behind. Once there, Kaneshiro takes photos of the group being merely present in his adult-exclusive nightclub for blackmail material. He demands 3 million yen within 3 weeks in exchange for the photos, which will ruin their reputations if leaked. Additionally, if they cannot pay the 3 million yen, he would force Makoto into prostitution to pay back the debt, adding that he may even keep Sae as his personal slave.

Makoto apologizes for her rash actions and explains how this folly could ruin Sae's effort in raising her. She tries to think of a way to pay Kaneshiro, but Morgana suggests making her an ally by bringing her along to Kaneshiro's Palace because she is now the "special customer" to Kaneshiro's extortion business. Entering the Metaverse, a passageway is opened to allow the thieves and Makoto to access Kaneshiro's "floating bank."

Makoto is confronted by Shadow Kaneshiro who taunts her by revealing his plan to extort her sister. Kaneshiro's mocking display of exploiting the obedience of others would be met with a violent rebellion from Makoto, who would no longer let other people decide how to discipline herself, awakening to her Persona power of Johanna and deciding to join the Phantom Thieves.

After changing Kaneshiro's heart, she receives a call from Kaneshiro who tells her he has deleted the photos and is going to turn himself in, relieving Makoto and the others. She then reports to Kobayakawa that she concludes her investigation of the Phantom Thieves by simply telling him that the Phantom Thieves are justice, lying that she does not have any proof that the Thieves are in their school, much to Kobayakawa's dismay. She even declines his recommendation letter for university when Kobayakawa persuades her once more, asserting she's going to establish her success on her own.

Upon showing her support for the Phantom Thieves, Makoto and Ann mend their relations by exchanging apologies for shifting blame off of themselves. Makoto asks if she can address Ann directly by her given name and without honorific, to which Ann happily agrees. Makoto also begins to act as the strategist of the Phantom Thieves by proposing direction and trouble solution for the gang. She usually analyzes the puzzles around the Palaces aside from cases where Akechi is around the party, as Akechi's deduction skills are sharper than hers. She goes so far that she installs spyware written by Futaba Sakura in Sae's laptop so the gang can learn the investigation progress of the Prosecutors Office.

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