Persona 5 Retrospective Part 15: The Haru Problem

Poor Haru is a bit of a fandom in-joke. She's such an afterthought: the last party member to be introduced¹, with a paper-thin characterization. If Haru was a random Confidant, I'd complain that she was forgettable. But Haru isn't a Confidant, she's a Phantom Thief and a playable character. 

Haru's character seems like bait for Japanese audiences - I've been told this sort of soft, ladylike character is a guaranteed hit in Japan. Yet Japanese audiences don't really care about her: she was sixth in the Japanese popularity poll, beating out only Ann and Ryuji.

Western audiences like her even less. She has a smaller subreddit than any of the other playable female characters. Even Kasumi, who was only introduced in Royal and is ergo unknown to a sizeable chunk of the audience, has a larger one. 

Haru's such a non-entity that a sort of ironic fan following has sprung up around her. People seize on the meager tidbits of characterization she gets and act like that's her "true" personality. But a character quirk that comes through in a handful of comedic dialogue is not depth. 

To be clear, I don't think Haru is a terrible character like how, say, Bubsy Bobcat or Aiden Pearce are terrible characters. She doesn't damage the game or make scenes less enjoyable by her very presence. Haru's sin is that she's boring. You could excise her and nothing would be lost.

Even Haru's awakening doesn’t stand out, although this more has to do with it being the seventh one we've seen. Remember how I said there are diminishing returns on these?

Let's start with the most fundamental problem: screen time. When we meet Haru, we're about halfway done with this 120-hour game. We've spent a lot of time with the original four Thieves. Makoto and Yusuke both got a ton of screen time and development in their own arcs. Futaba got a big-ass spotlight before, during and after her Palace. 

From this point on, only three new player characters are left. Two of them are Akechi and Kasumi, who are both plot-critical and receive lots of screen time before they become playable. The third is Haru. 

Put simply, Haru gets a fraction of the attention the other Thieves do. She has to share her own introductory arc with Morgana, and he's actually a more prominent character than she is in the Okumura Palace. Even if Haru's every moment of screen time was top-tier writing, she'd still feel thin compared to the others.

But Haru's writing is far from top-tier. Her main dynamic when she's introduced is with her father. I think there's potential here: Okumura as a domineering tyrant of a parent and Haru rebelling against him in the Metaverse. We've seen lots of exploitative adult/teen dynamics from the other Thieves, but parental abuse is juicy grounds for storytelling².

But... Okumura doesn't abuse his daughter. Not directly. In the one scene he and Haru share, he pretty much ignores her. He doesn't hit her, or yell at her, or coldly threaten her. He just calmly tells her what he wants her to do, and she says “yes father”. Haru doesn't seem to hate or even fear her father. She weakly protests her engagement to Sugimura, he blows her off, and that's the end of that.

Haru gets a single scene with the real version of her father. It lasts about two minutes, if you let every voice line play, and nothing of note happens in it.

It's Sugimura who abuses Haru. He grabs, threatens, and screams at her. In the Metaverse, Haru's Persona awakens when she's attacked not by Shadow Okumura but by the Cognitive Sugimura. Like I said last week, Sugimura is so eminently hateable that he had a lot of potential as a villain.

But Sugimura is a tertiary character. There's no resolution to his character. If you complete Haru's Confidant, she breaks off the engagement with him offscreen. She never gets a big moment of standing up to him in the real world the way she does in the Metaverse.

Nothing really gets resolved for Haru. Her father dies, but her reaction to this is understated. She just shows up a little later as though nothing happened. When she meets his killer, she doesn't even seem angry with him. 

Her Confidant, while fine, is kinda dull. It doesn't have a big emotional pay-off or anything. You mostly just help Haru grow plants. These are the scenes where her character works best, as she's increasingly willing to show vulnerability and cracks in her poise to Joker... but it's nothing special. Her big moment at the end of the Confidant is Haru serving a cup of coffee to a random executive at her father's company. High drama, this ain't.

Now, Haru's lack of development and relationships isn't necessarily a death sentence. Akihiko in Persona 3 was a pretty straightforward character too, but he had such a fun and charming personality that everyone loves him. 

But Haru not only lacks personality, she doesn’t even have her own niche! Haru's shtick is that she's reserved (like Makoto), feminine (like Ann), and shy (like Futaba). She's very buttoned-up and conservative, but becomes more comfortable with others - just like Makoto as well. In fact almost every trait Haru has, Makoto also possesses, while also getting ten times the development, a better design, a better VA, a more important role in the story...

Her all-out attack screen is at least stylish, but we get none of this "elegant but deadly" Haru in the game proper.

Every other party member has a distinct role. Joker is the leader, Morgana the getaway vehicle, Ryuji the muscle, Ann the honeypot, Yusuke creates the calling cards, Futaba is tech support, and Makoto is the mastermind. What does Haru add?

Well, her Thief gimmick is a musketeer... but she fights with a giant halberd instead of a saber. And her weapon is a grenade launcher. So she's... also the muscle, I guess. There's nothing special or notable about her, because everything she can do, another Thief already does better.

One really damning moment comes in the seventh Palace, when the Thieves have to ingratiate themselves with some upper crust sorts. Makoto, Ann, Yusuke and Futaba do well. Ryuji and Haru, meanwhile, get no usable information. Boorish Ryuji just gets ignored, but Haru's only unique trait is that she comes from money. Despite this, she's too uncomfortable to even talk to any of the rich people, while the decidedly middle-class Makoto is totally comfortable in high society.

Haru doesn't even have a comedic niche. Many people point to a few throwaway lines suggesting that she has sadistic impulses. Funny, sure... except the game makes the same jokes with Ann. And Makoto. And Kasumi. And Tae. And almost every other playable female character in the series, since they all kill Shadows. Haru doesn't get jokes at her expense, nor is she much of a straight woman. She's just sort of... there.

Four group shots after Haru's introduction. Take a moment to notice where the designers placed her in each. I didn't cherry pick these, these were the first four group shots I found in my screenshot folder.

Oh, and to put it all together, Haru also lacks a combat niche. She's a well-rounded character, but both Morgana and Makoto serve that role better than her. Her main combat gimmick is to create barriers that reflect attacks... but this is a situational ability and by the time you get Haru, you'll have dozens of items that do exactly that. Every Thief represents their own unique element, and Haru's is Psychic... but again, she comes in so late that Joker will almost certainly have a strong Psychic-using Persona of his own by then.

Nothing went right with Haru³. Nothing at all. What happened here?

The developers have never gone on record about Haru's design process, but everything about her suggests a character that was added or dramatically altered late in development. I have a conspiracy theory about this. I want to be clear that this is not substantiated by any evidence that I'm aware of - but it would explain a lot.

Let's watch the Persona 5 opening cinematic. Here's the only time Haru appears in it:

Everyone in this cinematic seems to do what you'd expect - for example, Futaba is doing some hacking while Makoto takes notes behind her - except for Haru. She's eating snacks - chips and a lollipop - with a bored expression on her face. They've also tweaked her design by removing her leggings, which makes her design less modest and soft.

This isn't the Haru we get in the game. Game Haru is earnest and ladylike, while Opening Trailer Haru looks sarcastic and disaffected. She never eats sweets or expresses interest in them during the game either, so why have her eat them in the cinematic?

I did a bit of digging and I think this opening cinematic was completed long before the game was released. Sections of it appear in this trailer from mid-2015 well over a year before the game actually released. Notably, the sequence featuring Haru with Futaba and Makoto is one of very few missing.

There's more. Haru was not featured in any early promotional material. While characters like Ryuji and Ann appeared as early as the start of 2015, the first appearance of Haru seems to have been in May 2016- four months before the game's release. Some trailers even show her father's Palace but not her.

The early descriptions of Haru are also... off. Here's how she's first described on the official Persona 5 website in May 2016:

She grew up in a wealthy family, and is elegant and naïve, but on the other hand often observes others. Although usually good at communication thanks to her gentle appearance and people handling skills, she finds no value in human relations, perhaps as a result of the environment in which she was raised, and avoids close relationships with others. What kind of incident would trigger the awakening of her Persona ability?

No, that makes sense. You're the only one of us with any sort of exposure to the upper classes, but just stand around and look pretty while the agoraphobe and the art geek chat up the wealthy guests.

Haru is depicted as elegant and naïve, but not observational. She isn't good at communicating - in fact, her Confidant hinges on her inability to express her feelings in normal ways like talking. She expresses no antipathy towards human relations, and while she lacks close relationships, the game never suggests that she was purposefully avoiding them. This description vaguely resembles the Haru we got, but a lot of it doesn't add up.

So, here's my theory. There are traces of a different characterization for Haru: that of a bored rich girl who had emotionally disengaged from the world around her. For one reason or another, the developers changed her personality in the eleventh hour to the character we got. We know they made a similar late change to Hifumi Togo, who was demoted from party member to Confidant. I think they made the same decision with Haru and just never told people.

Obviously it relies on execution, but I could see this sort of character really working. Every other Thief is highly emotional and sensitive. Haru as a girl who has built a shell of desensitization, irony and apathy to cope with her father's cruelties and the immense pressure placed on her would be a distinct character, and it could lead to some big emotional pay-offs as her armor is compromised and we see her experience the powerful emotions she's been bottling up.

When I heard about Persona 5 Royal expanding on the game's content, my first thought was "I hope they do something about Haru." They could expand or tweak her character, maybe give her more screen time earlier on or a more prominent role in the plot or a reworked Confidant. I want to like Haru, and I'm sure with some elbow grease she could be a functional character.

"Before I join the Phantom Thieves, tell me: do you already have an earnest and elegant girl with a feminine dress-wearing Persona whose character centers on her attempts to ascertain her identity following the death of a family member?"

Instead, Royal gives Haru less screen time than the base game. We're introduced to Kasumi, who is basically "Better Haru". They have the same basic personality, several similarities in their arcs, a similar dynamic with Joker, and the game even seem to have cannibalized some of the original concept for Haru into Kasumi⁴. But Kasumi is ten times more fleshed-out and interesting and even likable. Poor Haru is even more of an afterthought.

Haru does get a bit of a redemption in Strikers, where her character feels much more organic. That game's lower-stakes makes her work just fine as the sunny and feminine one with occasional flashes of darkness/sadism for comedic scenes, and she gets a simple but well-executed dramatic arc. There are several amusing running gags like her terrible driving skills and her embarrassment over being called Beauty Thief, which has clearly become an inside joke among the Thieves. It made me realize the biggest issue of all with Haru is that I wanted to like her. I didn't need much to get there, but Persona 5 didn't even give me that.

1. Akechi and Kasumi both join the party later, but have numerous scenes before becoming playable. I'll talk about both of them in later entries.

2. Uh, in a fictional story. Abuse is bad, mmmkay? Don't beat your kids, mmmkay?

3. Except her design. It's very cute and suits her personality well.

4. She isn't dead inside, but she is extremely repressed, and much of her character arc revolves around her coming out of the shells she's built around her true self to cope with past traumas. We'll get to her in good time.