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Name: Shun
LJ: god_pony
E-Mail: shunkunATgmail
IM: please ask via PM
Character Name: Akihiko Sanada
Series: Persona 3 Portable
Timeline: October 5th, before his resolution (male playthrough)
Canon Resource Link: http://www.windy-days.net/akihiko/ | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Megami_Tensei:_Persona_3
Character Background: (Note: Akihiko will be taken from the male character's playthrough, but aspects of his canon history and personality will be taken from both the male and female playthroughs, as the female path allows the player to get more information on Akihiko's background and personality.)
Akihiko Sanada is one of the main character's senior classmates at Gekkoukan High School and a playable party member in the game's dungeons and boss battles. He is captain and champion of the school boxing team, and a close friend of Shinjiro Aragaki and Mitsuru Kirijo's. When the main character (Minato Arisato) first meets Akihiko, he comes off as a calm and cool senior with a large fan following consisting mostly of starry-eyed young ladies who hope to be his girlfriend. He enjoys training and going to the ramen shop for beef bowls.
Despite a 'perfect image', Akihiko has humble roots. He lost his parents when he was very young, and he and his little sister, Miki, were sent to live in an orphanage. They befriended another little boy at the orphanage who was a little older than Akihiko named Shinjiro Aragaki, and the three became inseparable friends. Some may even say Akihiko and Shinjiro regard each other as brothers, never being far away from each other, and even getting into quarrels that look more like wrestling matches than arguments, as Shinjiro tells the player on the female playthrough when he agitates a cut in his mouth from an earlier 'debate'. Tragedy continued to strike Akihiko down, however. One fateful day, the orphanage caught fire. Akihiko and Shinjiro made it out safely, but Miki became trapped inside the building, and lost her life in the blaze while Akihiko could only watch helplessly from afar. With no family left, Akihiko struggled a bit through childhood, feeling awkward and hiding behind Shinjiro's shadow from bullies and angry adults. To the present, Akihiko at times still questions whether or not he's weird for being brought up the way that he was.
When he got older, he'd decided enough was enough. He was tired of being weak and called a crybaby all the time, and wanted to fight back. The closest thing he could get to actual combat training was to join the junior high boxing team, so he signed up. Akihiko was a natural, and was soon a rising star on the boxing team, gaining adoration from his classmates and garnering attention from other schools. This talent, Akihiko's desire to become stronger, and another interesting characteristic attracted Mitsuru Kirijo, a girl in Akihiko's grade level and daughter of the wealthy owner of the Kirijo Group who built Gekkoukan High. She had an offer Akihiko couldn't refuse. It was the chance to actually fight a true enemy: shadows.
Akihiko, along with Shinjiro, joined the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad, or SEES for short. Led by Mitsuru and advised by Shuji Ikutsuki (the school chairman), the trio of junior high students ventured out at night during the Dark Hour. The Dark Hour is a hidden extra hour of time between one day and the next where normal people transmogrify into coffins, and those with the 'potential' are plagued with a horrific nightmare world where shadows lurk and prey on human minds, afflicting them with a disease called Apathy Syndrome if they're unable to escape the amorphous monsters born of emotion. Once a person has Apathy Syndrome, they become oblivious to the world, the will to live sucked dry from them and reducing them to a helpless and passive 'vegetable' state. To fight the shadows, some with the potential can summon extensions of their soul called Personas using a gun shaped device called an Evoker. The Personas appear as ghostly forms near their host when called upon and can cast spells capable of combating enemies and healing wounds and maladies. SEES researched and battled many shadows, until one night when the aftermath of a horrible accident distanced Akihiko from Shinjiro. SEES continued on despite Shinjiro's leave, some time later accepting a girl named Yukari Takeba into its ranks. Akihiko tries countless times to get Shinjiro to come back, but his friend always refuses due to guilt that Akihiko felt Shinjiro shouldn't need to burden.
Almost two years after the accident, the events of Persona 3's in-game timeline start. A boy named Minato Arisato moves back to Iwatodai after a many years' leave to attend school at Gekkoukan. Like Akihiko, Mitsuru and Yukari, Minato has the power of persona, and joins SEES. He becomes their exploration leader because of his natural abilities and a special power to summon more than one persona. The excitement of SEES's growth and their inaugural trips into Tartarus, the shadows' nest, only empowers Akihiko to work harder at his training, though at the start he despairs that he must sit out due to badly injured ribs. Without Mitsuru to be his voice of reason, Akihiko would have stubbornly joined in the battle too soon, showing that the Gekkoukan Golden Boy doesn't always completely think things through and may ignore his own well being for the sake of others. Fortunately for Akihiko, he eventually heals and spiritedly re-enters the ring to fight by his underclassmen's sides.
SEES continues to get bigger, obtaining new members throughout the year after meeting them through missions and research. Akihiko, always determined to gain power, is responsible for Junpei Iori and Koromaru's memberships, having found them while out on his Dark Hour patrols. One membership Akihiko still fails to obtain is that of Shinjiro's, however. Several times throughout the spring and summer, Akihiko reunites with his friend in hopes that their success may coax the anti-social teen back. It seems there is nothing that will convince him otherwise.
When an elementary student named Ken Amada joins SEES, the past begins to come back to haunt them; Ken is the son of the woman that Shinjiro accidentally killed during the accident two years ago. Having Minato join him, Akihiko extends an invitation to Shinjiro once more to rejoin SEES, and Shinjiro surprisingly (or unsurprisingly) accepts. Tension builds quietly between Ken and Shinjiro throughout the month of September while Akihiko is glad to have his best friend back at his side.
The 'ceasefire' between Ken and Shinjiro remains until October 4th, the anniversary of the accident. Akihiko becomes so wrapped up in dealing with the Fortune Shadow that he forgets the significance of the date until Shinjiro and Ken are nowhere to be found. When he finally does realize what's going on, he's too late to stop them, and something more terrible than he could ever imagine happens. Takaya Sakiki, leader of the antagonistic Persona-using group called Strega, attempts to kill Ken with his pistol, but instead plants two fatal shots into Shinjiro, who dives in front of the boy to save his life. He arrives to find Shinjiro on the ground drenched in blood, and Ken crying in agony from nearly losing his life and having to watch the graphic scene unfold before him. Shinjiro humbly requests for Akihiko and Minato to take care of everyone with his last breath.
Akihiko goes through a brief period of mourning, pain and confusion after losing Shinjiro, the guilt of his past and present eating at him all at once. No parents, no sister, and now no best friend. But after visiting Shinjiro's memorial in front of the school auditorium, he is able to find resolution in his heart. He finally understands that it's impossible for him to protect everyone, no matter how strong he himself becomes. Finding peace and new determination to try his best for SEES and his friends, Polydeuces transforms into Caesar, a much more powerful Persona.
Akihiko's resolve rubs off onto the others, and he's more than ever determined to bring an end to the Dark Hour. Even as things grow complicated and they discover that their actions towards saving the world have only made things worse, they stand strong and prepare to face the true threat coming for them: Nyx, the entity that is summoned once all major arcana shadows are defeated and re-pieced with Death. SEES becomes the Nyx Annihilation Squad, and together, they put their all into defeating her.
There is a price for her defeat, and Minato literally sacrifices himself to protect the world from the Fall, sealing Nyx in the process. Everyone in SEES is forced to forget their memories of the Dark Hour as a result, but is able to reunite with Minato on Graduation Day before his passing.
Abilities/Special Powers:
- Has the 'potential'; can experience the Dark Hour in places where it exists.
- Can summon the Persona Polydeuces, a supernatural entity that can attack and cast various spells. Polydeuces has the following abilities:
Zionga - a strong bolt of lightning magic that zaps one enemy.
Mazionga - a series of strong lightning bolts that hits all nearby enemies.
Sonic Punch - Polydeuces stands in front of Akihiko and strikes the enemy with a powerful punch.
Diarama - a healing spell that restores a moderate amount of health to an ally or himself.
Elec Boost - A passive trait that strengthens Akihiko's Zionga and Mazionga spells.
Sukunda - A spell that makes an enemy move slower and lowers their accuracy temporarily.
Rakunda - A spell that weakens an enemy's defense temporarily.
Tarunda - A spell that weakens an enemy's attack power temporarily.
Polydeuces gives Akihiko a strong defense against electricity, but causes him to have a weakness to ice.
Third-Person Sample: Every so often, Akihiko liked to patrol the streets of Iwatodai, a spark of adventure in his eyes and his holster at his side, carrying his trusty Evoker. It was pretty easy to kill a shadow with Mitsuru and Shinjiro's help, but he felt he got more out of an encounter while on his lonesome.
The world around him slept in blissful ignorance, each person standing or lying as a black coffin in their homes, their cars, or out on the street sometimes. Sometimes there would be an exception: another person with the potential lost in a nightmare and easy prey for the shadows. Not too often, but enough that Akihiko's patrols had a good purpose in Mitsuru and the Chairman's eyes. Tonight was Akihiko's time to play the hero once more.
He reached a corner in town, and heard a cry of terror across the street. It faded with the slight jingle of a convenient store door; someone had run inside to escape from something. That 'something' soon arrived on the scene, a dark black blob rising from the ground and peering at its surroundings with beady red eyes glowing behind a little yellow mask, a lot like a crow. Its prey had escaped it, but that was all right. It found something better.
Without warning, the shadow rushed at Akihiko, leaping off the ground like a bouncing ball with intentions to knock the boy on his backside. Unfortunately for the shadow, Akihiko wouldn't be taken for a pushover. "POLYDEUCES!" Akihiko called, holding his Evoker to his head and pulling the trigger. A bright light surrounded his body, and an unusual, muscular entity with flowing blonde hair covered in square, metal plates of silver armor appeared for only a second above him. That was all the time it needed to raise its hand and call down a bolt of lightning. The shadow stood deathly still after the attack, paralyzed by the shock. "Say your prayers." Akihiko grinned, bringing back his fist and slamming it into the shadow's body. Defeated, the shadow disintegrated into the air.
Another successful kill, Akihiko went to see about tending to the guy hiding in the convenient store.
First-Person Sample: [Dozens of bento boxes surround Akihiko in the Dining Room, all gorgeous works of art in their own right and filled with treats that would appeal to a young Japanese high school student.] I didn't mean to come here to eat. I thought this was our kitchen, back at my dormitory. I just wanted to make some plain old omurice-- [The table delivers before he can fully say the word.]
No. I'm sorry. I can't. This is too expensive for me. I'm sure it tastes nice, but I'd rather just have a glass of milk and pro- [He pauses in disbelief at the last box's contents when they're revealed. When was the last time he had these? A stack of heaven under thick maple syrup and melting butter. Are those...] Pancakes?
Name: Shun
LJ: god_pony
E-Mail: shunkunATgmail
IM: please ask via PM
Character Name: Akihiko Sanada
Series: Persona 3 Portable
Timeline: October 5th, before his resolution (male playthrough)
Canon Resource Link: http://www.windy-days.net/akihiko/ | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Megami_Tensei:_Persona_3
Character Background: (Note: Akihiko will be taken from the male character's playthrough, but aspects of his canon history and personality will be taken from both the male and female playthroughs, as the female path allows the player to get more information on Akihiko's background and personality.)
Akihiko Sanada is one of the main character's senior classmates at Gekkoukan High School and a playable party member in the game's dungeons and boss battles. He is captain and champion of the school boxing team, and a close friend of Shinjiro Aragaki and Mitsuru Kirijo's. When the main character (Minato Arisato) first meets Akihiko, he comes off as a calm and cool senior with a large fan following consisting mostly of starry-eyed young ladies who hope to be his girlfriend. He enjoys training and going to the ramen shop for beef bowls.
Despite a 'perfect image', Akihiko has humble roots. He lost his parents when he was very young, and he and his little sister, Miki, were sent to live in an orphanage. They befriended another little boy at the orphanage who was a little older than Akihiko named Shinjiro Aragaki, and the three became inseparable friends. Some may even say Akihiko and Shinjiro regard each other as brothers, never being far away from each other, and even getting into quarrels that look more like wrestling matches than arguments, as Shinjiro tells the player on the female playthrough when he agitates a cut in his mouth from an earlier 'debate'. Tragedy continued to strike Akihiko down, however. One fateful day, the orphanage caught fire. Akihiko and Shinjiro made it out safely, but Miki became trapped inside the building, and lost her life in the blaze while Akihiko could only watch helplessly from afar. With no family left, Akihiko struggled a bit through childhood, feeling awkward and hiding behind Shinjiro's shadow from bullies and angry adults. To the present, Akihiko at times still questions whether or not he's weird for being brought up the way that he was.
When he got older, he'd decided enough was enough. He was tired of being weak and called a crybaby all the time, and wanted to fight back. The closest thing he could get to actual combat training was to join the junior high boxing team, so he signed up. Akihiko was a natural, and was soon a rising star on the boxing team, gaining adoration from his classmates and garnering attention from other schools. This talent, Akihiko's desire to become stronger, and another interesting characteristic attracted Mitsuru Kirijo, a girl in Akihiko's grade level and daughter of the wealthy owner of the Kirijo Group who built Gekkoukan High. She had an offer Akihiko couldn't refuse. It was the chance to actually fight a true enemy: shadows.
Akihiko, along with Shinjiro, joined the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad, or SEES for short. Led by Mitsuru and advised by Shuji Ikutsuki (the school chairman), the trio of junior high students ventured out at night during the Dark Hour. The Dark Hour is a hidden extra hour of time between one day and the next where normal people transmogrify into coffins, and those with the 'potential' are plagued with a horrific nightmare world where shadows lurk and prey on human minds, afflicting them with a disease called Apathy Syndrome if they're unable to escape the amorphous monsters born of emotion. Once a person has Apathy Syndrome, they become oblivious to the world, the will to live sucked dry from them and reducing them to a helpless and passive 'vegetable' state. To fight the shadows, some with the potential can summon extensions of their soul called Personas using a gun shaped device called an Evoker. The Personas appear as ghostly forms near their host when called upon and can cast spells capable of combating enemies and healing wounds and maladies. SEES researched and battled many shadows, until one night when the aftermath of a horrible accident distanced Akihiko from Shinjiro. SEES continued on despite Shinjiro's leave, some time later accepting a girl named Yukari Takeba into its ranks. Akihiko tries countless times to get Shinjiro to come back, but his friend always refuses due to guilt that Akihiko felt Shinjiro shouldn't need to burden.
Almost two years after the accident, the events of Persona 3's in-game timeline start. A boy named Minato Arisato moves back to Iwatodai after a many years' leave to attend school at Gekkoukan. Like Akihiko, Mitsuru and Yukari, Minato has the power of persona, and joins SEES. He becomes their exploration leader because of his natural abilities and a special power to summon more than one persona. The excitement of SEES's growth and their inaugural trips into Tartarus, the shadows' nest, only empowers Akihiko to work harder at his training, though at the start he despairs that he must sit out due to badly injured ribs. Without Mitsuru to be his voice of reason, Akihiko would have stubbornly joined in the battle too soon, showing that the Gekkoukan Golden Boy doesn't always completely think things through and may ignore his own well being for the sake of others. Fortunately for Akihiko, he eventually heals and spiritedly re-enters the ring to fight by his underclassmen's sides.
SEES continues to get bigger, obtaining new members throughout the year after meeting them through missions and research. Akihiko, always determined to gain power, is responsible for Junpei Iori and Koromaru's memberships, having found them while out on his Dark Hour patrols. One membership Akihiko still fails to obtain is that of Shinjiro's, however. Several times throughout the spring and summer, Akihiko reunites with his friend in hopes that their success may coax the anti-social teen back. It seems there is nothing that will convince him otherwise.
When an elementary student named Ken Amada joins SEES, the past begins to come back to haunt them; Ken is the son of the woman that Shinjiro accidentally killed during the accident two years ago. Having Minato join him, Akihiko extends an invitation to Shinjiro once more to rejoin SEES, and Shinjiro surprisingly (or unsurprisingly) accepts. Tension builds quietly between Ken and Shinjiro throughout the month of September while Akihiko is glad to have his best friend back at his side.
The 'ceasefire' between Ken and Shinjiro remains until October 4th, the anniversary of the accident. Akihiko becomes so wrapped up in dealing with the Fortune Shadow that he forgets the significance of the date until Shinjiro and Ken are nowhere to be found. When he finally does realize what's going on, he's too late to stop them, and something more terrible than he could ever imagine happens. Takaya Sakiki, leader of the antagonistic Persona-using group called Strega, attempts to kill Ken with his pistol, but instead plants two fatal shots into Shinjiro, who dives in front of the boy to save his life. He arrives to find Shinjiro on the ground drenched in blood, and Ken crying in agony from nearly losing his life and having to watch the graphic scene unfold before him. Shinjiro humbly requests for Akihiko and Minato to take care of everyone with his last breath.
Akihiko goes through a brief period of mourning, pain and confusion after losing Shinjiro, the guilt of his past and present eating at him all at once. No parents, no sister, and now no best friend. But after visiting Shinjiro's memorial in front of the school auditorium, he is able to find resolution in his heart. He finally understands that it's impossible for him to protect everyone, no matter how strong he himself becomes. Finding peace and new determination to try his best for SEES and his friends, Polydeuces transforms into Caesar, a much more powerful Persona.
Akihiko's resolve rubs off onto the others, and he's more than ever determined to bring an end to the Dark Hour. Even as things grow complicated and they discover that their actions towards saving the world have only made things worse, they stand strong and prepare to face the true threat coming for them: Nyx, the entity that is summoned once all major arcana shadows are defeated and re-pieced with Death. SEES becomes the Nyx Annihilation Squad, and together, they put their all into defeating her.
There is a price for her defeat, and Minato literally sacrifices himself to protect the world from the Fall, sealing Nyx in the process. Everyone in SEES is forced to forget their memories of the Dark Hour as a result, but is able to reunite with Minato on Graduation Day before his passing.
Abilities/Special Powers:
- Has the 'potential'; can experience the Dark Hour in places where it exists.
- Can summon the Persona Polydeuces, a supernatural entity that can attack and cast various spells. Polydeuces has the following abilities:
Zionga - a strong bolt of lightning magic that zaps one enemy.
Mazionga - a series of strong lightning bolts that hits all nearby enemies.
Sonic Punch - Polydeuces stands in front of Akihiko and strikes the enemy with a powerful punch.
Diarama - a healing spell that restores a moderate amount of health to an ally or himself.
Elec Boost - A passive trait that strengthens Akihiko's Zionga and Mazionga spells.
Sukunda - A spell that makes an enemy move slower and lowers their accuracy temporarily.
Rakunda - A spell that weakens an enemy's defense temporarily.
Tarunda - A spell that weakens an enemy's attack power temporarily.
Polydeuces gives Akihiko a strong defense against electricity, but causes him to have a weakness to ice.
Third-Person Sample: Every so often, Akihiko liked to patrol the streets of Iwatodai, a spark of adventure in his eyes and his holster at his side, carrying his trusty Evoker. It was pretty easy to kill a shadow with Mitsuru and Shinjiro's help, but he felt he got more out of an encounter while on his lonesome.
The world around him slept in blissful ignorance, each person standing or lying as a black coffin in their homes, their cars, or out on the street sometimes. Sometimes there would be an exception: another person with the potential lost in a nightmare and easy prey for the shadows. Not too often, but enough that Akihiko's patrols had a good purpose in Mitsuru and the Chairman's eyes. Tonight was Akihiko's time to play the hero once more.
He reached a corner in town, and heard a cry of terror across the street. It faded with the slight jingle of a convenient store door; someone had run inside to escape from something. That 'something' soon arrived on the scene, a dark black blob rising from the ground and peering at its surroundings with beady red eyes glowing behind a little yellow mask, a lot like a crow. Its prey had escaped it, but that was all right. It found something better.
Without warning, the shadow rushed at Akihiko, leaping off the ground like a bouncing ball with intentions to knock the boy on his backside. Unfortunately for the shadow, Akihiko wouldn't be taken for a pushover. "POLYDEUCES!" Akihiko called, holding his Evoker to his head and pulling the trigger. A bright light surrounded his body, and an unusual, muscular entity with flowing blonde hair covered in square, metal plates of silver armor appeared for only a second above him. That was all the time it needed to raise its hand and call down a bolt of lightning. The shadow stood deathly still after the attack, paralyzed by the shock. "Say your prayers." Akihiko grinned, bringing back his fist and slamming it into the shadow's body. Defeated, the shadow disintegrated into the air.
Another successful kill, Akihiko went to see about tending to the guy hiding in the convenient store.
First-Person Sample: [Dozens of bento boxes surround Akihiko in the Dining Room, all gorgeous works of art in their own right and filled with treats that would appeal to a young Japanese high school student.] I didn't mean to come here to eat. I thought this was our kitchen, back at my dormitory. I just wanted to make some plain old omurice-- [The table delivers before he can fully say the word.]
No. I'm sorry. I can't. This is too expensive for me. I'm sure it tastes nice, but I'd rather just have a glass of milk and pro- [He pauses in disbelief at the last box's contents when they're revealed. When was the last time he had these? A stack of heaven under thick maple syrup and melting butter. Are those...] Pancakes?