Yu Narukami
Yu Narukami is a character featured in the Persona series developed by Atlus, he serves as the main protagonist of the 2008 role-playing video game Persona 4. In the game, Yu is a silent protagonist whose thoughts and actions are decided by the player. He is portrayed as a high school student who moves to the countryside region Inaba away from his city home, to live with his uncle Ryotaro Dojima and cousin Nanako while his parents are busy working. Shortly after arriving in Inaba, Yu starts investigating a murder case involving victims killed in the mysterious TV World, where he awakens his "Persona" — the physical manifestation of his subconscious spirit — in order to confront and defeat the "Shadows", the creatures who murdered the first victims. Yu has also appeared in other works related to Persona 4, including an anime adaptation, Persona 4: The Animation, a manga version, and several spin-off games. For these works, Yu received his own characterization and development in the stories.
Yu was designed by Shigenori Soejima who aimed to create an ambiguous character who could appeal to most players by way of reflecting several feelings towards them and through his mannerisms. For the anime, director Seiji Kishi expressed difficulties in giving the character emotions without damaging what the original staff created. The character is voiced by Daisuke Namikawa in Japanese and Johnny Yong Bosch in English. Both actors expressed difficulty in voicing him with Namikawa finding his social life challenging while Bosch also had to voice another major character in the anime.
Yu has been positively received by critics, with his characterization, social life and being the subjects of praise due to his portrayal as a mostly silent teenager whose few lines are related to the plot and in some cases, a source of witty comedy. However, his anime adaptation with more soul and more lines was also received well as a different, less lifeless take on the character while staying true to the original Yu seen in the game.
Character creation
Character designer Shigenori Soejima made Yu with the idea that his entire personality be decided and portrayed by the player's in-game actions and decisions. As a result, he wanted Yu to look more ambiguous than the male protagonist of Persona 3. Soejima compared Yu to the Blue Ranger from the Power Rangers franchise as such character tends to stand silent to follow the orders from his leader. His character design stayed relatively similar to its initial conception, with his tone and facial expressions changing the most. The feature Soejima focused on most was his eyes: he thought that having his eyes under the fringe of his hair would make him "look cool." The collar of his school uniform was made to stand a bit taller than other characters'. While designing the character, Soejima noted "the main character needs to be well-rounded enough to be likeable, but also needs that extra little something to make him stand out from the rest of the cast." He made a "baby face" sketch of the character so that he and the staff could discover Yu's "special something" and discuss what would make him stand out as the protagonist. In contrast to the Persona 3 protagonist who was seen as "shy" and "cute", Yu Narukami is meant to have far more different design which resulted in a smaller hair and "cool" eyes that in order to fit with the fact glasses he wears in TV World. This was primarily influenced by an unspecified Osamu Tezuka character who had a distinctive cool look while wearing glasses. Yu became the marketing core for the game as the fights in the game force the characters to wear glasses and thus Yu was drawn in order to avoid any dorky look. However, when compared with the rest of the characters, Soejima made less illustrations for the protagonist as he does not have a distinctive personality in the game due to most of his traits being made by the player.In retrospective, Hashino claimed that Yu was written as a character who would be the driving force of the narrative, most notably to contrast how he is originally from a city with his coming to a country. As a result, when asked about why Persona 4 did not include an alternative female protagonist like Persona 3 Portable, Hashino felt it was because Yu would feel more natural as a result. Soejima also believes Narukami's appeal was too forced in retrospect and wanted the next lead, Joker from Persona 5 to be different from his predecessor.
Yu Narukami's base Persona is based on an entity from Japanese myths, Izanagi, in similar fashion to previous base Personas. The focus on Japanese myths is further explored in the game's climax where the final boss, Izanami, was based on Izanagi's wife from Japanese myths too. Izanagi's design was meant to convey a "manly" feeling but the artist felt it would be too cliche if the Persona looked like a high school student. While folklore stories of Izanagi have him with a pike, the Persona was meant to be given a giant knife as a weapon, giving him another manly element. The aspect of youth psychology was implemented in Izanagi's knife as in previous times, it was accepted that grown man would be allowed to wield weapons in the middle of the city. In the climax of the game, Izanagi evolves into Izanagi-no-Okami to defeat the final boss. Soejima aimed for the evolved Persona to look stronger than the original one. This was accomplished by giving him more pointy aspects. His new white outfit is also meant to reflect the idea of a more mature person. In regards to the protagonist's relationship with the culprit, Soejima sees him as a corrupted take on him, which resulted in his Persona being the nearly identical Magatsu no Izanagi. Izanagi ended up being Soejima's favorite Persona from the game due to the cool aspect of his squad-like uniform and his face. He said that Izanagi represents manliness even if he comes across as a stereotype.
Differences in adaptations
In the initial Persona 4 game, the main player-controlled character is known simply as the "Protagonist" or "Hero", whose name is decided by the player. The name "Yu Narukami" was first given to the character in the 2011 anime adaptation, Persona 4: The Animation, and has since been used in official games where the character is unable to be named by the player, beginning with Persona 4 Arena. Prior to this, he was given the name of Sōji Seta in the game's manga adaptation. In an interview, game director Katsura Hashino drew attention to the way in which the Protagonist remains silent and emotionless throughout the game. This leaves the player to interpret the Protagonist's emotional reactions subjectively at any particular point. Hashino elaborated on this particular character trait becoming an obstacle for Persona 4: The Animations director Seiji Kishi, since the character would undoubtedly have to speak and show some level of emotion. In the same interview, Kishi admitted the difficulty of transitioning the silent Protagonist into the anime without destroying what Hashino had already established.A unique gesture of Yu's in the anime occurs when he unbuttons his school jacket when summoning a Persona for the first time. Kishi noted this as being a "key" moment of "opening something that was closed." However, he refrained from explaining its deeper meaning, leaving it instead as something for the viewers to ponder and hence helping them enjoy the adaptation much more. Another aspect made possible in the anime was Yu's cool and composed nature during battle scenes. Hashino elaborated that it was possible to create such an attitude by having the fighting solely done by the Personas, thus establishing Yu as an emotionally strong character—something which "would have lost its significance if he was given a weapon."
Casting
Yu's voice acting has been handled by Daisuke Namikawa in Japanese. Besides the game, Namikawa voiced the character in a drama CD before the anime's premiere. He considered Yu as an honest young man. However, he felt the Yu from the game and the anime to be completely different based on the directions he was given to act. In retrospective, Namikawa finds his work interesting due to the amount of actors he worked with. Since Narukami was a silent character in the video game, the actor felt his portrayal in the anime more challenging, and thus had to act more. He took a liking to both Yu's daily life as well as his fights in the TV World.Johnny Yong Bosch voices the character in English. Bosch felt uneasy about voicing Yu due to the fact he also voiced another character from the game, Tohru Adachi. However, when he initially learned that the protagonist would have very few lines, his worry evaporated. It was first planned that Yu's voice actor for the anime would be recast, because he and Adachi would begin to interact several more times. However, in the end Bosch remained as the voice of Yu to avoid disappointing the fans. In order to solve the problem of having both of his characters sound too similar, he decided to speak in a lower register for Yu.
Appearances
In ''Persona 4''
In Persona 4, Yu is a high school student who moves to the countryside of Inaba to live with his uncle Ryotaro Dojima and cousin Nanako Dojima for a year as a result of his parents working abroad, and attends Yasogami High School where he meets most of the game's cast. Upon learning of the Midnight Channel's connection with the murders in Inaba, Yu gains access to the TV world, where he investigates the case alongside his friends and is appointed as their leader as a result of his experience. There he awakens his initial Persona, Izanagi, a swordsman wearing a black coat, which he uses to fight embodiments of humans' negative feelings, the Shadows.Yu also has the unique "Wild card ability, which allows him to swap Personas for use in battle. This is tied with the Social Links mechanic: each bond Yu makes with other characters grants him access to more and much stronger Personas, each named after one of the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck. Yu's own Arcana is The Fool, representing the group as a whole and personified by Izanagi, which later becomes the Judgement, when the Investigation Team realizes that Taro Namatame is not responsible for his actions and begin to seek out the real culprit behind the Inaba events. After closing the serial murder case, Yu learns he gained his powers from the goddess Izanami who had been posing as the Moel gas station attendant and aims to transform people into Shadows. Yu defeats Izanami by transforming Izanagi into Izanagi-no-Okami, representing The World, thanks to the power he gained from his many friends through Social Links. He then returns to his hometown, saying farewell to his friends.