(P5)

(Flare)

(P5R)

(P5S)

(P5D)

(P5X)

(P5T)

(P5 Anime)

(P5MM)

(P5 Manga)

(Live Action)

(Flare Live Action)

(PQ2)

(Flare PQ2)

*******

Name: Emiko Hayashi

Also known as: Mikki (by Ryuji)
                              Flare (Code Name)
                              Bespectacled Female Student
                              Miss Show-Off (by Morgana)
                              Inmate (by Caroline and Justine)
                              Titania (by Igor)
                              The Vicious Sniper (Shadow Kamoshida's library)
                              The bitch who's always angry (by Shadow Okumura)
                              Flare, Ignition of Victory (P5S request)

Japanese Name: 林 恵美子
                               ミッキ
                               フレア
                               ミスショーオフ
                               囚人
                               妖精女王

Romaji: Hayashi Emiko
                Mikki
                Furea
                Shujin
                Titānia

First Appearance: Persona 5

Affiliation: Phantom Thieves of Hearts

School: Shujin Academy

Date of Birth: April 30
                          c.1999

Age: 16-17 (P5)
         17 (P5S)

Zodiac: Taurus

Height: 170 cm (5'7")

Cell Phone Color: Pale Blue

Blood Type: O

Melee Weapon: Podao

Ranged Weapon: Sniper, Two-Handed Rifles

Arcana: Charity

Initial Persona: Wu Zetian

Ultimate Persona: Latona

Ultimate Persona (P5R): Wu Zhao

Theme: "Break In To Break Out"
               "IT'S TOO LATE"

Japanese VA: Aya Hirano

English VA: Caitlin Glass

Portrayed By: Sakina Kuwae (Stage Play)

*******

"Good and evil exist in this world and we don't have the right to mess with this balance. Not me, not you... and definitely not you."

-Emiko Hayashi, Persona 5

Emiko Hayashi is a playable character from Persona 5. She is a student at Shujin Academy who lives a double life as a Phantom Thief. And the childhood friend of Ryuji Sakamoto.

Emiko's struggles are deeply connected to a terrible accident that happened to her when she was young, resulting in her carrying immense guilt and cutting ties with her old friends. Learning to overcome the past and accept it, she would help her friends while promising not to allow other people to go through what she did.

Appearances

• Persona 5 / Royal: Playable Character; Charity Confidant

       ○ Persona 5 (Manga): Major Character

       ○ Persona 5: Mementos Mission: Major Character

       ○ Persona 5 Dengeki Comic Anthology: Major Character

       ○ Persona 5 Comic à La Carte: Major Character

       ○ Persona 5 The Animation The Day Breakers: Major Character

       ○ Persona 5 The Animation: Major Character

             ■ Persona O.A.: Major Character

       ○ Persona 5 The Stage

• Persona 5: Dancing In Starlight: Playable Character; Charity Social

• Persona 5 Strikers: Playable Character

• Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight: DLC Partner

• Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth: Playable Character

       ○ Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth Roundabout Special: Main Character

• Persona 5: The Phantom X: Side/Playable Character

• Persona 5 Tactica: Playable Character

Design

Emiko is a tall girl who has thin hair tied in small ribbons by the sides of her face, with the back cut short. She has dark brown hair with the bangs falling on her forehead and also wears a pair of half-rimmed glasses with oval-shaped lenses. Her skin is pale and she has dark brown eyes.

Her winter uniform consists of a creamy turtleneck t-shirt along with a black blazer, black and red pleated plaid skirt, black pantyhose, and black ankle boots. She accessories herself with a brown scarf that has a lighter accent traveling on its edge. Her summer uniform consists of a creamy-colored short-sleeved polo shirt along with the black and red pleated plaid skirt, white ankle socks, and black shoes.

Her summer casual clothes consist of a short half-sleeved white t-shirt with bright green bonds on the shoulder, a silver necklace with a round pendant, a denim skirt, and orange-and-yellow sneakers. Her winter casual clothes consist of a dark beige sweater worn under a denim jacket with its sleeves slightly rolled up, a long denim skirt that reaches her knees, black leggings, white-and-blue shoes, and her iconic dark brown scarf wrapped around her neck.

In Persona 5 Royal, Emiko's school outfit is slightly modified for the Third Semester, wearing a dark gray overcoat, and beige gloves. On her days off she wears a beige sweater beneath an olive green-colored overcoat, black pants, a thick beige scarf that matches her sweater, knee-length brown boots, and brown earmuffs.

Her Phantom Thief outfit consists of a big white masquerade mask along with a desert-colored military jacket that has white accents traveling on half of the sleeves with black edges, the collars of the sleeves are also white with black edges and have two small pockets on both sides of the chest. Underneath that, she sports a white plate that covers her chest and abdomen that's black at the top with black edges on the sides and center, containing a small golden zipper at the top. She also wears pants that match the color of her jacket that expose her front thighs and are black at the top, black combat boots with golden clippings on top, a black leather belt around her waist with a blue ornament on the left, black fingerless gloves, and a white muffler around her neck that has a black accent traveling on the center. Unlike her real appearance, her hair becomes pale blue that is casually short, with a tuft of hair tied up on both sides of her forehead with two white hair clips on her middle bangs, and her eyes become indigo-colored.

In Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, she retains some part of her Shujin Academy school uniform, except that she wears a light pink vest underneath a desert-colored buttoned jacket, gray knee-length socks, and black combat boots. She wears a white basketball hat on her head backward with "Level Up" written on it and retains her white muffler around her neck.

In Persona 5 Strikers, her outfit consists of a half-sleeved loose white dress shirt with a pocket on the left side of the chest, jeans shorts, and white sneakers with a red accent. She keeps her silver necklace with the round pendant. While at the festivals, she wears a yellow yukata with flowers on it, a dark blue sash, and a white line in the middle. For the beach, Emiko wears a dark blue tied-up bikini with white frills on the upper chest line, and the hem of the lower piece with it having two ribbons on both sides and white sandals.

Personality

"Thank you... for choosing to believe in someone like me."

-Emiko Hayashi to Ren Amamiya

Emiko is a stoic and mysterious girl who tends to hide her feelings and has a calm demeanor as she tends to be completely unfazed by most of the events that occur. In the beginning, she seemed a lot like a cool and calm girl who doesn't talk or interact much with people as she's seen always sitting alone whether in class, the courtyard, or the volleyball rally. However, she has a violent temper once angered, best seen in her interactions with Ren as she becomes hostile, aggressive, and rude to him, and yet she claims that he's the first person to make her extremely angry. She's known for giving off an intimidating vibe whether from her body language or her sharp gazes that scares off other people as seen when she looked at Ann deadly and scared her on her way to school when she and Ren were stuck under the rain on his first day. It's thought that Emiko is indifferent to other people's emotions due to her harsh demeanor and rude way of speaking with them such as when she called her childhood friend Ryuji by his last name, signaling her cutting all of her ties with him and not considering his emotions in the process. And also when she verbally abused Ren by using the rumors regarding him and saying "Or what? You're going to assault me?"

Beyond her stone-hard exterior lies a genuinely kind heart as seen when Ren witnessed Emiko embracing Mayu when she apologized to her after Kamoshida's confession and when she showed little worry at Ren's injury after Kamoshida's spike during volleyball practice. Ren even thought of her as "someone so cruel but also so kind." In reality, Emiko is a lonely and fragile-minded individual due to her harsh childhood and upbringing along with the incident she experienced as a child that caused a huge trauma to stick with her, causing her to suffer from PTSD. When reminded of it, she'd be on the verge of collapsing and hyperventilating, almost completely breaking apart as seen in the battle against Kamoshida. She cannot easily forgive those who hurt her and it's shown that she holds a grudge against them. She acts harsh and rude in order to push away people from her life so they wouldn't get hurt by her and see her true self, especially Ryuji and Ann, which made her cut all of her ties with them after the incident which happened with her. She's not as emotionless as claimed to be since she apologized to Ren for her harsh treatment of him, saying that she did what she did because he reminded her of everything wrong with her.

Emiko has many insecurities regarding herself, starting with her own appearance for reminding her so much of the person who was responsible for her trauma in the first place. She doesn't like the way she looks and wishes she had a sexier body and a bigger breast and even showed clear signs of jealousy when Yusuke wanted Ann to be his model and kept complimenting her looks. Despite that, she's very passionate about the things she loves, especially her guitar and the songs she writes; she claims that music is her best friend and the bond she shares with it is indescribable since it was the only thing that kept her sane during her times of misery. She has her own soft and sweet side that she doesn't like to show to others because she doesn't want to feel vulnerable and exposed to them. It's revealed that Emiko isn't used to kind and gentle touches due to her living in a hellish domestic environment for many years, as she visibly flinches and shows signs of fear when Ren tried touching her before. She's a believer in God and goes to church every Sunday, yet she believes she's far from salvation because of the sin she committed and is convinced that the tragedy that fell upon her was all her fault. She's unable to cut free from her past and still clings to it, bringing her more misery and depression, showing that she's, in fact, quite a cowardly character.

According to Ryuji and Ann, before the hideous incident that happened with Emiko, she was a completely different person before turning herself into an introverted person. She used to be very energetic, on-going, friendly, and even mischievous, going as far as pulling pranks on the members of the track team along with Ryuji, being his "partner in crime." After joining the Phantom Thieves and opening up to them, Emiko shows more of her old self such as her own childish and silly tendencies albeit she still has her aloof and harsh side. Emiko is also somewhat proud and will not hesitate to get physical with those that challenge, make fun of her, or keep annoying her, mostly Ryuji and Morgana whose heads got smacked by her on multiple occasions. During missions and Palace explorations, it's clear that Emiko cannot abandon another in trouble and takes the battles very seriously, and is determined to clear them by whatever means necessary even if she had to take matters into her own hands. In the Metaverse, she becomes more confident with a more fearsome aura, even scaring Joker a bit from her and is seen to enjoy fighting and defeating Shadows and even chose the code name "Flare" to herself due to her confidence in her skills, coming off as cocky and show-off. Thus, earning her nickname "Miss Show-Off" from Morgana.

Profile

"If you think you know me, then you better reconsider."

-Emiko Hayashi, Persona 5

тнιѕ ωση'т вє мєηтισηє∂ тσ ανσι∂ ѕρσιℓєяѕ!!!

Etymology

Emiko has a lot of different meanings according to the writing in Kanji. But the kanji in her name "恵美子" means "blessing," "favor," "beauty," and "child." Her surname Hayashi literally means "woods."

Trivia

• The name Titania which Igor calls Emiko means "Queen of the Fairies."

• Emiko's nickname "Mikki" was originally given to her by Ryuji when they were kids which means in Japanese "Mickey." He said that he gave her that nickname because her voice reminded him of the famous Disney cartoon character Mickey Mouse.

• Like the Hope and Faith Arcana, the Charity Arcana is not found in standard Tarot decks. The Charity Arcana is present in the Visconti-Sforza Tarot deck. While upright, it represents altruistic love, compassion, empathy, friendship, and reaching out to strangers. On the other hand, reversed, it can represent miserliness, selfishness, lack of compassion, lack of empathy, and prejudice.

• Emiko Hayashi is also the name of a Japanese film producer, although the similarity between the names was unintentional.

• The original design of Emiko is Shino Asada/Sinon from Sword Art Online II.

• Emiko is the only main female character who wears Shujin's uniform without any modifications, minus her scarf.
       ○ The reason why she doesn't modify her uniform is that she doesn't want to stand out and has already given in to society.
       ○ Apparently, the reason why she wears her scarf is due to her initial social distance from people. She has a habit of burying her face into the scarf, giving her a sense of security.
       ○ She only wears it during winter and takes it off when the weather becomes warmer.

• On the official Japanese site, Flare is given the mocking title of "Phantom Thieves' Ice Queen" (怪盗団の氷の女王, Kaitō-dan no Kōri no Joō). This possibly refers to her initial coldness toward others and the deadly glares she gives.

• Emiko's Zodiac sign, Taurus, which is noted for being a sign representing dedication and ambition, may align with the fact that Wu Zetian, her initial Persona, was a Chinese historical figure who ruled over the country as the first woman to do so, and her ultimate Persona, Latona, was the goddess of motherhood in Roman mythology.

• Additionally, much like all of the Thieves' starting Personas, Wu Zetian is symbolic of Emiko's own story; Wu Zetian was extremely intelligent and literate who was groomed by her father from a young age and became the first female ruler of China after being the concubine of the Emperor and used her cunningness to climb on the social ladder, even killing members of her own family. Similarly, Emiko was also groomed by her father ever since she was a child with her combat skills, weaponry, and wild imagination but she killed him as well, increasing her status of security.

• All of Emiko's Personas were suggested by LyrissaArtemick.

• Emiko is Lynn's favorite main character in the game.

• Just like with Makoto Niijima, Goro Akechi, Ryuji Sakamoto, and Ann Takamaki, the official Twitter account for the Persona series posted a "Happy Birthday" message for Emiko on April 30, 2017, JST.
       ○ Lyn Inaizumi, along with Game Symphony Japan, played the Happy Birthday song for Emiko, as a request from Ren.

• Her favorite author of all time is Agatha Christie.
       ○ Coincidentally, she's seen reading Murder on the Orient Express.

• Emiko said several times that she wishes to go to the USA.
       ○ This is evident in her ability to speak English to some extent. However, she's still not on the same level as Ann.

• Emiko's favorite food is anything that has chocolate as the main ingredient.

• Emiko is the tallest girl among the Phantom Thieves. She's 170 cm.

• Emiko is an otaku who adores watching anime, reading manga, playing anime video games, and making references.
       ○ There are 56 manga volumes, 18 figurines, and 5 posters in Emiko's room as seen in Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, as well as her third awakening in Persona 5 Royal.
       ○ She also owns an extremely limited edition of a keychain of Shoto Todoroki wearing a butler uniform from My Hero Academia.

• Her Japanese VA Aya Hirano is known for her roles as Lucy Heartfilia from Fairy Tail, Monaca Towa from Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls, Imai Nobume from Gintama, Haruhi Suzumiya from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Menchi from Hunter x Hunter (2011), and many more.

• Her English VA Caitlin Glass is known for her roles as Hannah Annafellows from Black Butler II, Hinata Hino from Future Diary, Petra Ral from Attack on Titan, Kyoko Kirigiri from Danganronpa the Animation, Hiromi Shiota from Assassination Classroom, Mina Ashido from My Hero Academia, and many more.