Yu Narukami

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Yu Narukami
Other Name(s)	The Sister-Complex Kingpin of SteelPersona 4 Arena Persona 4 Arena Ultimax Investigation Team BoyPersona 5 Royal Soji SetaPersona 4 (Manga) Yuya SetaVisualive Persona 4 Hayato AsakawaVisualive Persona 4: The Evolution
Age	16-17
Height	180 cm (5’11”)
School(s)	Yasogami High School
Affiliation(s)	Investigation Team
Arcana	Fool World
Persona(s)	Izanagi (Initial) Izanagi-no-Okami (Ultimate Persona)
Voice Actor(s)	Daisuke Namikawa (JA) Johnny Yong Bosch (EN)

Yu Narukami is a playable character and the protagonist of Persona 4 and its spin-offs. The name Yu Narukami was originally the protagonist's name in Persona 4 The Animation, later adopted for Persona 4 Arena and Persona 4: Dancing All Night. The name became the protagonist's default name in the Steam and subsequent re-releases of Persona 4 Golden, which the game defaults to if its text language settings are changed.

Profile

The protagonist of Persona 4 is a teenage boy from a large, unnamed city who moves to the smaller city of Inaba for a year to live with his uncle and cousin while his parents work overseas. He begins attending Yasogami High as a 2nd year high school student and quickly makes friends with fellow 2nd years Yosuke Hanamura, Chie Satonaka, and Yukiko Amagi. Together, the four of them are the founding members of the Investigation Team that comes together to use their Personas to solve the serial murder case. During his stay in Inaba, he grows close to his cousin Nanako, who greets him every day when he returns home. She begins addressing him as her big brother, and he cares for her while his uncle works late. Though he is a silent protagonist, his possible dialogue choices during the game's school and slice-of-life moments have a humorous tone, while his choices during the more serious moments help shape him as a leader who keeps the team on track. He often has the option to tell the others to remain calm so they can focus on uncovering the truth of the murder incidents.

When designing the protagonist, Shigenori Soejima wanted to make him look different from the Persona 3 protagonist. Instead of a boyish look, Soejima wanted the Persona 4 protagonist to look bold and rough—but in a good way. Soejima considers his eyes to be the most important part of the design, as he thought it would look neat if they were peeking out from behind his bangs, and drew him as though he's always glaring at something. The protagonist wears his Yasogami High boys uniform with the buttons undone, and the collar was purposely drawn taller than the other male characters' to help bring out his eyes.

Gameplay

For complete gameplay information, see Gameplay:Yu Narukami.

In Persona 4, the protagonist starts out with Izanagi. Unlike other party members, the protagonist can never be swapped out of battle, and having him faint will result in an automatic Game Over. He has the special property of being a Wild Card, making him able to summon and switch between different Personas in battle, as well as change his stock of Personas to an extent. This lets him swap out between multiple different strategies, as well as switch his elemental affinities.

Across his appearances through other Persona games, spin-offs, and collabs, the protagonist always has Izanagi as his Persona and uses Zio spells as well as physical abilities with his katana.

Game Appearances

Persona 4

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The Hero is silent and nameless with a malleable personality like other silent protagonists in the franchise.

Persona 4 Golden

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Persona 4 Arena

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Persona 4 Arena Ultimax

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Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth

Side P4: On this side he is the player character and once again silent and nameless. The Hero is referred to as Leader on this side, while the P3 Hero is referred to as Vice Leader.

Side P3: On this side he is a supporting character, despite being a vocal supporting character he is still nameless. Because of this, he is referred to as Vice Leader while the P3 Hero is referred to as Leader.

Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth

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Persona 4: Dancing All Night

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Persona 5 Royal

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Anime Appearances

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Manga Appearances

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Audio Drama Appearances

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Novel Appearances

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Stage Play Appearances

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Other Appearances

CR Persona 4 The Pachinko

Yu is one of the selectable avatars for the pachinko machine. When selected, his mini-portrait will appears on the player's stat screen and he does the voice over for the machine's functions. He is the subject of some probability events, such as the crossdressing pageant and the curry cooking.

BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle

	For more information on this subject in BlazBlue, see Yu Narukami on BlazBlue Wiki.

Puzzle & Dragons

Yu is a 5★ light unit who can be obtained in the gacha during the Persona collaboration. His base card and evolution were part of the first collab in 2018, then got a reincarnated evolution and an assist during the collab's re-run in 2020.

[4376] Yu Narukami (Base)

• Active Skill: Myriad Arrows
• Leader Skill: Transfer Student from the City

[4377] Yu Narukami & Izanagi (Evolution)

• Active Skill: Myriad Arrows
• Leader Skill: Investigation Team

[4401] Teddie's Glasses (Skill Up)

• Active Skill: Myriad Arrows

[6371] Yu Narukami & Izanagi-no-Okami (Reincarnated Evolution)

• Active Skill: Myriad Truths
• Leader Skill: The Will of So Few Surpasses the Will of All MankindSkill name references one of final boss's lines in the true ending

[6372] Persona 4: TV (Assist Evolution)

• Active Skill: Midnight Channel

Star Ocean: Anamnesis

Yu was an ACE 5★ Defender unit who could be obtained in the gacha during the Persona 5 Royal collaboration. His collab artwork for the game was drawn by Yūhi Kijimoto. His skills were references to Persona series skills.

• Battle Skills: Cut in Two, Zio, Cross Slash, Cleave
• Rush Combo: Izanagi: Ziodyne
• Talents: Investigation Team, Izanagi, Provider, True Bonds

Kotodaman

Yu appears as a unit in the Persona collab for the mobile game Kotodaman during the collab's original run in 2020, and once again during the rerun in 2024. He can be obtained by rolling in the Persona gacha. As a game unit, Yu is a 5★ light-attribute unit who can be used to form words using the syllables that make up his initials: ゆ・ゅ and な. He can be evolved into a 5★ unit. His skills are named Zionga and Ziodyne, following how Izanagi learns Zio in Persona 4.

Nomenclature

Names in Other Languages

Language	Name	Meaning
Japanese	鳴上 悠	Narukami Yū. The family name means "above the animal cry" and the given name means "calm" or "eternal."

Trivia

• According to the Persona 4 Art Book, Soejima states if the P4 Hero was a Sentai Ranger he would be the Blue Ranger rather than the Red Ranger.
  • Despite this, his later outfit is ironically the Red Ranger in both P4G and P4D.
• According to the Persona 5 Art Book, the Hero is described as being designed to remind you of a dog: loyal and sincere.
• In the US manual for the original Playstation 2 release of Persona 4, the protagonist is shown to be named Raidou Kuzunoha. This is a reference to the character of the same name from the Devil Summoner series.
• In the JP manual for Persona 4, the protagonist's name is Kōsuke Tsukimori, a reference to a glasses-wearing doctor from Atlus's Caduceus series. In the US, the series is known as Trauma Center and the character was renamed Derek Stiles.
• Yu Narukami has several alternate color palettes in Blazblue: Cross Tag Battle intended to reference other media.

• 

  Palette 8
  Based on Ryoji Mochizuki from Persona 3.

• 

  Palette 9
  Based on Ragna the Bloodedge from the Blazblue series.

• 

  Palette 10
  Based on Makoto Yuki and Orpheus from Persona 3.

• 

  Palette 11
  Based on Hyde Kido and Linne from Under Night In-Birth.

• 

  Palette 12
  Based on Ruby Rose and Weiss Schnee from RWBY

• 

  Palette 13
  Based on Joker and Arsène from Persona 5.

• In the manga, Soji forms bonds with both characters of the Sun and Strength Arcana, despite this being impossible in-game.
• In the stage plays, the Hero's name is changed with each showing as the audience would choose the name.
• Yu's cell phone in Persona 4 The Animation is the teal and silver EXILIM CA003.
• The protagonist was nicknamed Banchō (a delinquent gang leader) by the Japanese fanbase due to Izanagi wearing a traditional boy's school uniform, how some of his Japanese dialogue options such as how he greets Dojima sound manly, the delinquent-looking Kanji having a great deal of respect for him, and him wearing a Japanese girls delinquent uniform for the crossdressing contest. This was later used in his title for Persona 4 Arena, with banchō being localized as Kingpin in his English title.
• Though the city the protagonist comes from is never named, it is implied to be Tokyo due to the green sign that says "Inoue Line for Akihabara" that can be seen in the opening movie when he boards a train, therefore making the Inoue Line a fictionalized version of the real world Yamanote Line. Akihabara would become a location in Persona 5, again using a green colored train line route on the subway map.

Gallery

See Gallery