Persona 5 Royal comes with insane amount of updates/additions to the base Persona 5 game. One of those additions is the new party member: Kasumi Yoshizawa.

This article is about her and why I think she has one of the strongest character arcs in the game, as well as her ties to the conflict of the exclusive final arc of the Royal version.

Major Spoilers For Persona 5 Royal's New Content

Despite being completely absent in the base Persona 5. Kasumi is introduced in the first act of the Royal version. The Phantom Thieves were in their final mission before Joker's arrest: The Casino Heist. Kasumi is introduced as a Persona. Despite not being a part of the group, she had a friendly relationship with Joker, enough to help him escape the Casino.

Her story and relationship with Joker is explored in short segments throughout the whole game year. While she doesn't affect the story of that was present in the base game, she appears at different times between the major arcs of that story. She finally gets her spotlight in the third Semester.

Kasumi: The Honor Student

At first glance, Kasumi seems the girl that got everything. She's a nice girl from a well-known family and a honor student who got a scholarship for being national-level gymnastic.

A while before the events of the game, her younger sister has died in a car accident. Depressed, Kasumi who couldn't fulfill her promise of reaching the top of gymnastic world together with her sister anymore, couldn't achieve the results she was used to.

Her family sent her to the counselor Dr. Maruki to help her with her depression. At the same time, she tried to work harder on her training to get back to her top form and do better at the meetings.

As a freshman in Shujin Academy. Kasumi is the underclassmen to all the Phantom Thieves who attended Shujin.

Joker first meets her when she tries giving her seat on the train to an old lady. He meets her again and saves her from someone who tried to pick on her in the city. They interacted more on the park clean-up activity sponsored by the school. That's when Joker first learns her name and they start hanging out.

Kasumi's Confidant is a very unique one. Initially there are only 5 stages instead of the usual 10. (She's the only character has 5 stages in the game.) She's also unusually cheerful in those story segments but she gets depressed easily when she makes a mistake. In her Confidant story she teaches Joker about gymnastics and trains him for it. (Joker's HP increases along with her Confidant Rank.)

One of her Confidant interactions revolves around going to the Batting Cages with Joker. She misses all the balls, most of them without even swinging, while talking about how good she was as a child and claiming she's concentrating.

When asked about the Phantom Thieves when they were at their peak, Kasumi had an interesting opinion: She thinks that they're doing the people harm by solving their problems for them. Believing that people will start depending on the Phantom Thieves instead of trying to solve their problems themselves.

Scholarship Uncertainty

Few months later Kasumi had to represent the school in an important gymnastics meeting. Despite her efforts, Kasumi couldn't get back in her top form before the competition. She barely got the third place in meeting. Teachers at the school threatened her of retracting her scholarship if she didn't provide results. Noting that the third place isn't good enough.

Depressed, Kasumi took a stroll around town and found her way into a Palace in the cognitive world. Taking Joker and Morgana with her as they were nearby. She didn't understand what was happening around her or what the Shadows are, but she managed to awaken her Persona.

Joker and Morgana gave her a crash course on the Metaverse. She didn't join the Phantom Thieves. Kasumi only stayed friends with them instead.

I believe that the developers decision to not let her join the Phantom Thieves at this point was made to preserve Persona 5's base story, but in this case it damaged the coherency of Persona 5 Royal's story.

A while after that, she overheard Joker and Morgana mentioning November 19. Kasumi correctly concluded it has something to do with their Phantom Thieves heist, so she went after the party and helped Joker escape, not knowing an ambush was waiting for him outside. (As long you don't get a bad ending, he gets better.)

Sumire: A Heartbreaking Backstory

Royal's exclusive third semester casts light upon the back story of the Yoshizawa twins and why Kasumi acts the way she does throughout the game's story.

Joker's awakens in a new reality where everyone's wishes have been granted. Kasumi & Akechi are the only other persons who noticed the weirdness. They were also the only ones who were able to see the Palace in the middle of the city that normal people didn't notice.

Joker, Kasumi and Akechi joined forces and explored the Palace. There, they stumbled upon a (cognitive) recording of the day Kasumi died. Upon watching that, our "Kasumi" broke down.

You see: The real Kasumi Yoshizawa was the one who died before the events of game.

The "Kasumi" we knew the whole time was her younger sister: Sumire Yoshizawa. She couldn't deal with the death of her sister, and took her identity, believing that she was the one who died instead. Sumire lived her life believing she was her older sister.

The real Kasumi was a perfect gymnastic, full of confidence and cheerfulness and always got top spots in the meetings. Her younger sister Sumire was the opposite, shy, hesitant. While she wasn't bad at gymnastics, she'd was always below her sister's level.

Sumire grown jealous of her sister more and more. She viewed Kasumi's acts of help and encouragement as pity. Sumire believed that she's worthless and wished to die so she won't drag Kasumi down. After all she was the inferior version in every way. (Except cooking, but she was depressed and beating her sister in cooking isn't enough for her.)

One day, when both sisters were returning from school. Sumire was drowning in depressive thoughts. She didn't notice she was crossing the road at the wrong traffic light. She only snapped when Kasumi pushed her out of the way as a car was about to hit her, only to be hit instead.

Watching her sister die, Sumire's already broken self lost all will and reason to live.

Eventually with the help of Dr. Maruki, she managed to block all memories of such incident. She began to live for her sister AS her sister! Due to Maruki's magic, her cognition changed. In her mind, everyone including herself see her as Kasumi. In reality they still refer to her by her real name.

Joker didn't know her name because all of his interactions around her were with her, the teachers who only refer to her by last name, or Dr. Maruki who's kind enough to not break her delusion.

When Sumire finally remembered her true identity, she turned against Joker and Akechi. She kept screaming in anger about her worthlessness. Pleading Maruki to make her forget again. Fighting Joker to make him reconsider his stance on this new reality where all wishes come true.

A Reclaimed Life

It took some beating from Joker & a lot of time to cool down for Sumire to come back to her senses. Then, she spent the next month with the Phantom Thieves aiding their quest to overcome the new reality.

At that point, her Confidant story's second half of opens.

Joker learns more about Sumire insecurities. Her vows to overcome them, and her love confession. By the end of her Confidant story, she finally manages to find her own style (of gymnastics) after imitating her sister style all these years.

My Favorite Girl in Persona 5

So, "Kasumi" is my favorite character in Persona 5 with Futaba being a close second. (I also love Haru, but I have to admit that the latter's character arc isn't presented well in the game.)

When she was in her Kasumi's persona, Sumire's personality changed to match (her cognition of) Kasumi's but she still had the body of Sumire. That explains why she couldn't get back to her old form and win competitions. She wasn't even the same person.

Sumire also retained some of her personality flaws that melded into her Kasumi persona. Her tendency to get depressed and her hesitation are not things we know about the real Kasumi. These traits made her think she's acting unlike herself. Knowing that casts a new light on all of Joker's interactions with her.

Early in Persona 5 Royal, students at Shujin were excited when the national level gymnastic attended the school. Only for them few months later to start whispering angry about her "honor student" status and that she doesn't deserve the schoolarship.

Knowing her backstory we can assume that they weren't angry that Kasumi was getting a special treatment without providing results. They were angry because a clearly unstable girl who pretends to be her dead sister is getting such treatment.

Another aspect I love about Sumire's character arc is how she believes she's inferior to her sister in every way. She isn't!

Sumire is good at cooking but Kasumi isn't. When she made a bento for Joker as Kasumi, it was very bad tasting. We don't see much of Kasumi's flaws, (that weren't actually Sumire's,) but I believe Sumire is better than her sister in more aspects than she's aware of.

On a different note: In Persona 5 Royal, Sumire is the closest love interest to Joker and the girl that contrasts him the best. She's also the only one who confesses her love to him first out of the all (romance-able) party members. Some fans believe she's the Canon love-interest. 

All things considered, I would say Sumire is the best girl in the Royal version of Persona 5. I wish the level of care and depth put into her to be present in all the characters of the next Persona title!

What do you think?

If you're interested more about Yoshizawa, I recommend watching "The Psychology of Kasumi Yoshizawa (Persona 5 Royal)" in which the Youtuber ThoughtBubble analyzes how her depression affected her life even before her sister died.

This article was originally posted on HIVE blockchain. All images are from Persona 5 Royal game or its promotional materials.