Asuna Harukawa

Asuna Harukawa
P5 Minuet P5D PQ2 Minuet (PQ2)
ALSO KNOWN AS	Exhausted Student Harukawa-senpai Tiny Senpai (by Futaba) Suna-Suna (by Kotori) Asu-senpai Minuet (Code Name)
JAPANESE NAME	春川明日奈 メヌエット
ROMAJI	Harukawa Asuna Menuetto
FIRST APPEARANCE	Persona 5
AFFILIATION	Shujin Academy Literature Club Phantom Thieves of Hearts
AGE	17-18
DATE OF BIRTH	February 28 c. 1998
ZODIAC	Pisces
HEIGHT	147 cm (4'10")
WEIGHT	50 kg (111 lbs)
BLOOD TYPE	AB
MELEE WEAPON	Sabre
RANGED WEAPON	Airsoft Gun
ARCANA	Fortune
PERSONA	Eugénie, Thalia
JAPANESE VA	Risa Taneda (Kaori Miyazono - Your Lie In April)
ENGLISH VA	Amber Hood (Soleil - Fire Emblem Fates)
Gallery

"I wonder if Mom ever realized she had a choice too. Maybe that's why things ended up this way. But just because she couldn't doesn't mean that I can't. I may not know now, but who actually knows the future in the first place?"
― Asuna Harukawa, Persona 5

Asuna Harukawa (春川明日奈 Harukawa Asuna) is a playable character in Persona 5. A third year student and member of Shujin Academy's Literature Club, Asuna has an easier conveying her feelings through words on paper more so than vocalizing them. She was a firm believer in the Phantom Thieves, only to join them later on as part of their cause.

Profile

Appearance

Asuna is a girl quite short for her age, only standing at about 147 cm (4'10"). Her skin is a bit more tanned than most, but not entirely to the point where her skin is dark. While not chubby, Asuna's body type isn't exactly on the lanky side, being a bit on the heavier side for her height; she also has pretty long legs, which she's sometimes a bit self-conscious of. Her eyes are a dark amaranth purple and hidden behind a pair of round glasses, usually sporting slight bags and dark circles underneath due to her constant lack of sleep and tired disposition. Asuna's dark red hair tends too usually be quite messy and frayed out a bit, never exactly laying flat. 

Normally, she is seen wearing the standard Shujin Academy uniform with some additions; underneath her winter blazer, she usually wears a deep red turtleneck sweater and long black thigh high socks with two red stripes of the same color along the top. Her summer uniform is a standard Shujin-distributed polo shirt, with the edition of a silver beam-paired eighth note pin gifted to her by Kotori Nomura in their childhood, as well as a pair of black calf-length with two cherry blossom symbols on the outside. The shoes she normally wears are light brown loafers with similar cherry blossom buckles affixed to the outside of the shoe's saddle.

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Personality

"Stealing hearts sounds like something out of a mystery novel... Kinda romantic if you think about it! Well, when you look past the whole trying to reform society thing, but you get what I mean!"
― Asuna Harukawa, Persona 5

At first glance, people assume that Asuna is either unmotivated or just lazy due to her habit of falling asleep at random intervals during the day. However, as it turns out it's actually quite the opposite; she is actually incredibly motivated and ready to tackle any project given to her with gusto. The problem is that she happens to be the type of person with extreme tunnel vision, having her involve herself so deeply into whatever she's doing that she loses track of time or feels as though she can't let up until things are how she likes them. Due to her mother's strict regimen in terms of piano lessons, she has gained the habit of repeating things and redoing things over and over until they're what she sees as satisfactory. All of these things together has led Asuna to being extremely tired and out of energy throughout the day.

Despite all of this, Asuna does what she can to look on the bright side and use all of her mistakes as learning experiences. She likes to experiment, as evident in her Confidant Link where she and Akira spend most of their time running around trying out different activities that she'd want to experience. Although, there are times where she just gets incredibly discouraged when she feels like her performance isn't "up to standard" due to her growing up being told that the outputs of her endeavors should be the highest quality and nothing less. She truly does have fun, but it's become such a hard habit for her to break out of that it ends up tiring her out even more. After Seiko's change of heart, she tries her best to accept that there's no way that she can excel in literally everything and starts broadening her horizons even if it ends in failure.

More often than not, when not studying music sheets, Asuna could always be found with her face in some sort of book. To her, literature is as much as a form of self-expression as it is a form of escape. She states that literature is the best gateway to the heart, which has caused her to become quite the idealist and romanticist. This does become a problem in some cases with her making suggestions or having expectations for some things to happen or be a certain way because she "read it in a book once." This usually leads Makoto or Ann to stop her (and sometimes Ryuji due to him sometimes thinking her odd ideas could be plausible) before she ends up getting herself into trouble in one way or another.

Despite it coming from years of her mother's crushing presence and influence, Asuna just can't come to hate the piano. While her primary outlet tends to be her writing, some days she finds herself drifting back to the instrument that caused her so much pain in the past. Those days, she more often than not finds herself crying while attempting to play, reflecting on her childhood and the days she remembered of her mother before her ideals had been warped. To her, the piano is an important part of her life just as much as it is her own personal hell that she can't let go of. This is why she ends up quite hesitant when others ask to hear her play; the amount of memories held in that one instrument weigh on her greatly, and she waits patiently for the day where that shadow can finally be lifted.

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Story

Early Life

• In the beginning, Asuna lived quite the normal life with her mother and father; they were an honestly happy family
• She had taken up piano at quite the young age, largely interest due to watching her mother play and stories about their family's bloodline
• Originally, she genuinely enjoyed it, willingly taking lessons from her mother and using them as a sort of bonding experience for the two
• While hard to pinpoint exactly when, her father began to notice a change in Seiko's demeanor; a lot of talk about time passing, Asuna's apparent natural talent, and many mumblings about her own mother and childhood
• As time passed and Asuna got older, she began cracking down more and more on her schedule; there was no time for "lollygagging," she had to practice, she had to perfect it
• Still sorting out details but she started lashing out more and more, especially when her husband reminded her that their daughter was just a child and needed to be able to actually live like a child
• Of course paranoia and past experiences deep-rooted her mindset as "this comes first, this is what you're meant to do; you have the talent and not perfecting it is a waste; abandoning this is like abandoning your bloodline, and choosing to abandon your bloodline means you're worthless"
• One thing lead to another and the two ended up divorcing, Asuna staying with her mother while her father moved out
• Her junior high years were spent focused solely on piano; she had her standard education, but everything outside of that was either practice, recitals, or lessons. They would sometimes run so late into the night that she would have many nights simply falling asleep on the piano; of course this wouldn't do, so she would be promptly woken up (whether it be with a glass of water dumped on her or a loud slap) and scolded with her mother deciding to hover over her and ensure that she not fall asleep again
• This began her horrible sleeping habits; with her clock being thrown so off balance and nothing she could do about it, she found herself constantly falling asleep at school and throughout the day, leading to her grades suffering
• During one of her practice recitals, she met a girl named Kotori (whose parents were also esteemed musicians, two people that Seiko actually wasn't quite fond of) who found her curled up asleep in one of the rooms of the hall
• The two hit it off surprisingly well, although when asked about her interests Asuna just... didn't know how to answer besides "I play piano"
• hhhhhhhhhhh there's a lot to write out, but Kotori was the one who gave her the idea to start writing because of her own experiences keeping a personal diary
• Seiko is honestly jealous of her own daughter's talent, sort of using her as a catalyst to carry on their legacy due to her aging
• While being talented in her own right, Seiko's paranoia leads her to viewing others in the field as more than rivals; to her, they're more like obstacles she sees as having to either jump over or just destroy and break down all together
• She's done some dirty stuff that she keeps from Asuna; bribing judges, blackmail, and a lot of shady business that's pretty damn illegal
• I'll go into this more when talking about the Palace but Seiko's shadow brings up stuff that sort of shows throughout little snippets, things along the lines of "you were born with the sole purpose of carrying on our legacy; this is your destiny, this is what you were made for. you have no other purpose"; yes, Seiko does actually care about her child, the need to continue their legacy began to eat at her and she started seeing Asuna less as her daughter and more as her vessel of sorts; think how Endeavor raised Todoroki, that kinda stuff
• Honestly Asuna's just tired and she's slowly ruining herself because she doesn't want to disappoint her mother; by the time she reaches high school, she's lost the drive she had to play, more so just taking the strides instead of actually enjoying it
• A lot of days she wants to cry, she wants to run away, she wants to just stop, but she can't just simply because this is her mother. At this point, her writing has gone from a simple diary to full on venting and a borderline frustrated cry for help; to her, it's the only way she can get these feelings out and not destroy herself more than she already is.
• She'd be lying if she said that she hadn't thought of ending everything and killing herself, but using her writing as an outlet and Kotori's constant shoulder to lean on would tend to shoo those thoughts from her mind
• "You see someone that you know, and they ask you how you are, and you just have to say that you're fine, when you're not really fine", a story by Asuna Harukawa

Persona 5

"That's the difference between Koto-chan and what you've become, Mom. She showed me I could make my own decision."
― Asuna Harukawa

• just like Makoto, Akira can find her in the library some days under the moniker of "Exhausted Student"
• Asuna is first shown (as a more important figure) when Akira exits the school gate after school, only to see a girl asleep against the wall
• wondering why the hell she's sleeping outside like that, he decides to attempt to wake her up, only to get beat to the punch by another girl that seems to be wearing a Kosei uniform; rip you tried my dude
• groggy, the tired girl apologizes to the other girl saying that she didn't get much sleep last night (to which the Kosei student replies "again?" and the girl nods knowing the other will know the reason why), only to notice Akira standing there and proceeds to apologize to him as well saying she probably looked odd falling asleep out there
• the two then leave together, leaving Akira to wonder what just happened as Ryuji to show up and ask him why he's just standing there staring into space
• he has the option to mention it to him directly or just say "I honestly have no clue", but either way Ryuji's just really confused about what he's going on about
• still sorting things out, but probably at some point, Makoto says that her sister had gotten tickets to an upcoming concert in Shibuya, much to Ryuji's chagrin because he's not about that life
• she says she's more so interested because of a few of the performers that she'd like to see live, two of them being Seiko Harukawa and Hiroya Nomura
• due to her sister's schedule, she's stuck with two extra tickets (due to having a two plus one thanks to a coworker), so Akira and Ann end up going with her

Palace

PALACE NAME: Sanctum of Destiny

PALACE OWNER: Seiko Harukawa

PALACE THEME: Fur Elise - Dhirk Remix

LOCATION: Bunkamura Concert Hall, Shibuya

KEYWORD: Sanctuary

CONSEQUENCE: If Shadow Seiko is not defeated before the deadline, a blank-faced and tired-looking Asuna can be seen standing out front of Leblanc simply staring at the building. She places something in front of the door before backing away slowly and leaving into the night. Found sitting in front of the cafe is a small notebook (assumed to be written in by Asuna herself) containing a series of poems that get more and more nonsensical and darker as they go. On the last page of the notebook, the last sentence written in it seems to be incomplete, stating "Seeing that she had already lost everything, she ran, then came back, and turned around, and inside that dark alley she―", alluding to what is eventually Asuna's sudden disappearance. She is later found dead in an unused room in the concert hall, hanging in front of a lone piano.

If her Shadow is defeated before the deadline, on the day of the performance a tired and sorrowful Seiko appears on stage, confessing everything she had done to both her daughter and her fellow musicians during her career. Seiko's reputation from then on is ruined, leaving a large mark on their family's name and promptly having her blacklisted and forbidden from performing. While it does give Asuna a lot more attention than she'd like, she just appreciates that the Phantom Thieves were able to protect her closest friend to her mother's wrath. Due to her mother being taken into custody, Asuna promptly moves in with her father after finally being put into his custody and begins to explore her new world of infinite choices.

Seiko's Palace specializes in the Brainwash and Sleep status ailments, housing many shadows that specialize in these areas. Persona and items with the ability to dispel these conditions are recommended. Incomplete compositions are placed in three of the four shrines (representing the three side halls) and are guarded by mini-boss shadows that must be defeated to proceed. When the three pieces are put together, they create a finished piece that is then used to unlock the main shrine (representing Orchard Hall) where Seiko's treasure is located. When Shadow Seiko is defeated, the team is rewarded with an original unreleased composition by Asuna's great-grandmother.

• takes place after Kaneshiro's palace
• that place is bright as all hell because you have to bathe in her holy light /sarcasm
• while Seiko doesn't intervene much herself, she's always watching over them and giving them "grades" as they hit certain checkpoints
• oh there's a lot of jeering, you know it; Asuna gets the brunt of it cause hey that's her daughter, but people like Ryuji and Akira aren't safe
• primarily a lot of Justice Arcana shadows are seen, so there's gonna be a shit ton of angels around here; I'm gonna run this shtick into the g r o u n d
• who's ready for some s a c r i l e g e   a n d   b l a s p h e m y
• she even dresses like a goddess herself with some really cheesy piano solo going on for her it's really fucking dumb and gaudy
• plus all of the Madarame shade because she's definitely the type
• hell the boss fight is right on the main shrine and you can probably hear noises from the crowd during the fight since there's an actual audience (representing her "followers") while they go against Seiko herself

Confidant

Asuna's Confidant becomes available 3 days after the arrest of her mother. After being absent from school for those 3 days, Akira gets a text from Asuna asking for a hand in moving the rest of her belongings to her father's house. [[ tba ]]

Gameplay

Party Member

In battle, Asuna's main means of offense are Psy-based skills and a few Bless-based skills, often followed by various status inflicting and support skills. This grants her a resistance to Psychokinetic and Bless skills, but a glaring weakness to Nuclear and Curse skills.

Asuna's main play style seems to be centered around inflicting enemies with Sleep, or Brainwash to proceed and follow up with Psy attacks for a technical bonus. Although she is resistant to Brainwash respectively, she has normal chances of being inflicted with other status ailments. Due to her personality and actions outside of the Metaverse, she is the most susceptible to the Sleep ailment.

A lot of Asuna's melee weapons have secondary effects that inflict either Sleep or Confusion, continuing her trend of status ailment infliction. While not the post powerful, her guns allow her to single target enemies, making her useful to down enemies weak to Gun attacks.

Tanka Tags

Unlocking Asuna's Confidant allows her to create an item called a Tanka Tag. Increasing this Confidant's rank will allow Akira to receive higher tier tags to be used in battle.

Attire

Asuna's Phantom Thief outfit seems to take inspiration from what seems to be a modernized version of some 13th to 15th century Bodice fashion, as well as very showy yet elegant performance/stage/dance outfits. It consists of a long-sleeved medium-length collared dress with a beige waist piece and light gold accents along the collar and pleat edges. White leggings accompany light gold shoes adorned with artificial pink carnations atop the throat of the shoe. Her mask resembles that of a simple winged masquerade mask decorated with light gold tips along the wing shapes and three small pink jewels along the top of the eye holes. An extra addition to the outfit is a white winged cape brought together at the chest with a ribbon sporting a light pink jewel akin to the ones present on her mask.

Relationships

Main Page :: Relationships

Trivia

• While not stated exactly what her sexuality falls under during the story, Asuna is shown to more often than not talk about girls she finds cute or pretty. This can especially be seen in her pre-Confidant conversations that are initiated in front of the maid cafe in Akihabara. When put alongside other interactions with her, it is assumed that she more than likely at least falls under bisexuality.
• If neither are romanced by Akira and certain conditions are met, Asuna's "official" romance is with Haru Okumura.
• Due to years of training and conditioning, Asuna's ears are very fine-tuned to where she can pick out voices in a crowd quite easily.
• Asuna's affinity towards writing and literature leads her to making a lot of literary references in her speech, ranging from referring to characters in terms of character types she feels they fall into to quoting various novels and manga.
• Her code name, Minuet, has a double meaning. A minuet is a short composition following many of the formal characteristics of the accompaniment complimenting the dance of the same name, with the word itself being adapted from the French world menuet meaning "fine, delicate" and as a diminutive of menu meaning "small." This is alluded to when her code name is chosen, with Yusuke stating that it fits her and Asuna promptly responding with "I-I get that I'm short, but come on!"
• Asuna has stated that she only chose her code name due to her musical knowledge. Despite knowing words here and there, she can only speak base-level French. However, she is actually quite skilled in English and is known to be able to hold conversations with Ann just speaking English alone.
• Although not done so on purpose, Asuna is noted to have an extensive collection of cherry blossom-themed clothing. When asked about it, she states that even she never realized this trend beforehand.