Yukari Takeba

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Yukari Takeba
IC Information
Full Name: Yukari Takeba
Gender: Female
Age (Birthdate): 16 (October 19th, 1995)
Hair Colour: Brown
Eye Colour: Brown
Height: 5'3" /159 cm
Residence: Iwatodai Dorm, Tatsumi Port Island
Workplace: Gekkoukan High School
Job: Second Year
Arcana: Lovers
Persona: Io
Role: Focus
OOC Information
Source: Persona 3 (FC)
Groups: SEES
Player: User:Eri

"To be honest, I know all about your past. But, it didn't seem fair, so I wanted you to know about mine."

For all her popularity with the boys, Yukari Takeba often has no patience for their antics - - unfortunately for her, considering she's still attracted to them. She would rather die than be like her mother, though, who's moved from man to man ever since Yukari's father died ten years ago. As a result, she's fiercely independent, pushing away even those who genuinely care for her due to a fear of being overly reliant and the deep grief she feels to this day over knowing what it means to care for someone and lose them. She's usually warmer with other girls, at least, and perfectly sociable in general. Sharp-tongued and quick to get irritated, Yukari nonetheless is deeply mindful of others' agency and hates putting them in positions of getting forced to do things they don't want to.

Background

Yukari Takeba was born to Eiichiro Takeba and Airi Takeba, and grew up in the suburbs of Iwatodai City, Japan. Her early childhood was mostly a happy one. Her father was a top researcher in the Kirijo Group, and he wasn't at home nearly often enough since he was originally stationed at the Ergonomics Research Institute at Yakushima, still he tried to be a good father to the best of her abilities, and despite his distance, Yukari always greeted him with a smile when he came home.

As a child, she was raised mostly on her mother's modern sensibilities, who was more deeply involved in her early upbringing, and shaped more of Yukari's ideas than she'd be comfortable admitting. Her mother was from a traditional family in Kyoto, and rebelled against her family's wishes by marrying the clumsy but endearing scientist. There was tension there between her Mother's side of the family and Airi, so Yukari was kept away from them.

One of her earliest memories was of the Moonlight Bridge's opening ceremony, when she was in first grade. Her father bought her a charm there, a character that was the bridge's mascot, 'Tsuki-chan' but as a child she called her 'Tsu-chan.' He told her that she was there to keep her company when he wasn't there, and Yukari took that to heart. In many ways, 'Tsu-chan' was her closest real friend for a decade.

It was only a few months later, when she was nearly seven years old that the accident happened. Her father died, and she had no idea he was so deeply involved in the events at ground zero, only that he was there. In the wake of the incident, her mother and her were alive, but their happy family was irrevocably shattered. It didn't make sense to her, she was in shock, how could someone she cared about die in an accident? How could people have a big funeral event and just move on? She saw her mother's tears, but when she started asking questions after, it only made her mother uncomfortable. Her mother answered less and less, and Yukari became a latchkey kid more with every passing day

The bullying started at school. 'It's your Daddy's fault' they said. 'Disaster Daughter' they called her. They heard it from their parents. It stung, but she hardened her heart, until she couldn't take it anymore. Eventually she started replying with mean rejoinders. It kept going until a child came back to school and said it… someone who had lost a parent from it all. That one Yukari left standing alone. She couldn't say 'Sorry' as she refused to think her Father was at fault, but she knew what he was going through. She wanted someone to blame too.

When her mother told her she was going to start dating a few months later, Yukari was shocked. 'Have you already forgotten about Daddy? How could you do that to him?' They argued frequently over this subject, and her mother spent more and more time out with her boyfriends, leaving her daughter to raise herself all the more. Furthermore, the news that Eiichiro Takeba was 'in charge' meant to everyone that he was responsible for the accident. That he died, somehow only made it worse, because he never was around to take responsibility, never was around to atone. Noone knew about his last video after all, save the Kirijo Group. Airi made the decision to uproot and leave Iwatodai City, at first moving to Kyoto to be near her relatives. This proved to be a mistake since Airi's family didn't approve of Eiichiro to begin with.

Yukari didn't hold her tongue when they spoke against him openly, soon her more traditional relatives stated that she was an ill-mannered little girl. She got shut out of their lives more and more too, because they blamed her rotten parents for such a rotten daughter. The only good that came from Kyoto for her, is that she became exposed to Kyudo Archery. Lacking strong feminine role models, they came instead from the women who practiced traditional archery. Everyone who told her she should shut up and mind herself was just wrong. 'A woman should fight and stand up for herself' she told herself, as she watched them hit the targets.

YShe spent her time living in Kyoto out by the Kamogawa River, staring across it. The drunks and couples that came out of Shijo street always bothered her, for her separation from what others regarded as humanity, human connection. Instead she yearned to maintain that connection with the dead. The river is often representative as a boundary between life and death to the Japanese people, so as a child she felt closer to him there. Without relatives or friends in Kyoto she spent so many hours there, thinking of her father, and rejecting the idea he was at fault. She believed in him, she believed in the man who was such a hard worker, who did what he felt was right, who did his best despite his responsibilities to be a good father to her.

Even if no one else did.

Her mother had worse luck dating, she couldn't find many men who would treat her well. Most wanted a more traditional wife. Not someone's widow, who had a daughter. Not someone with such modern sensibilities. Not someone who chose wrong by marrying a man who caused a disaster. Who would want the stigma of being her next bad choice? Eventually her mother couldn't take it, and decided to move. Yukari couldn't stand this either, because she told her mother she was running away- giving in to other people. Her moving again and again was a defeat, like a soft admission of guilt, because she wouldn't fight it, because she tried to move on, because she wouldn't let go.

They moved to Sumaru City, and as a child forced to care for herself, Yukari had more exposure to life as a modern girl, modern fashion, cosmetics. Her mother gave her an allowance to 'take care of herself' and besides spending it on food and necessities, she always put some away for clothes, or fashion magazines. In Sumaru City though, the rumors are stronger. 'Eiichiro Takeba was responsible' still followed them around. Her mother suddenly got dumped by more boyfriends for being 'too old' 'having a kid' or being a 'fuck up's widow' in equal measure. She got more desperate, more dependent. She'd weep, she'd beg for them to take them back.

Yukari always hated it, always hated watching her. How could she be so pathetic when the men were treating her like trash? She could understand marrying her father, she couldn't understand begging these scum who treated her like that to take her back. Soon enough, they were moving again, and she became far too used to transferring schools. It wasn't just that she had trouble relating to her peers in any meaningful way, but she wasn't given the time to make the connection. It became a practical consideration. If you attach to a classmate, you'll be leaving them soon, because your mother is weak.

Okina City was their next stop, and for Yukari Takeba, her last stop with her mother, because during the chaos of another move, she found a letter from the Kirijo Group to her mother, one she wasn't supposed to see. 'You're taking MONEY from them?' It was a big blow up. The Kirijo Group had been supporting her mother, as one of the families of the victims for years, she couldn't stand it. If he was truly responsible for the accident, why were they paying her mother? It didn't add up, the suspicion she already had was amplified to new heights. Eventually Yukari told her mother she wanted to go to middle school in a dorm in Iwatodai City. Her mother was against it, going anywhere near that city, but she didn't fight her - or fight /for/ her either. After all, her daughter had been taking care of herself for years, and the two never got along enough for it to be worth fighting for. It was too painful for her to try to cling to her past memories.

She entered Gekkoukan Middle School with the idea made up in her mind. 'Investigate the Kirijo Group'. But how? She was by herself, with nobody to help her, but it didn't matter to her. So she looked up articles in the library, she looked around the High School campus. She tried to look up survivors of the lab explosion. Nothing. Everything she did turned up nothing. The police she tried to talk to, and private investigators she tried to hire with her allowance, merely pointed to the fact that the investigation was already closed - and she'd be better off moving on.

As if she could. But that didn't mean she was making any progress. What did she expect? She was a teen with no resources, living in a dormitory. She graduated middle school, she passed the entrance exams and got into Gekkoukan High. Even being right there, at ground zero. Nothing. More and more Yukari dissociated, staring at the wall in an existential crisis about how life and death could be rendered so meaningless by other people.

And then a letter from her father arrived, sent ten years in the past for a future Yukari. While it was mostly about wishing his daughter well and hoping she'd live happily ten years in the future, he noted in the letter that he was recently promoted to Head Researcher. That tipped off alarm bells to Yukari. Why did he mention that specifically? Was he anxious? Scared? What if the reason why he sent the letter was because he thought he might not have the time to say these things in person to her?

What if he expected to die? Indeed Eiichiro Takeba had sent her that, with instructions for it to be delivered ten years in the future, because he began to understand the signs that everything was not right, and was already contemplating what he would have to do. At the same time he didn't want to burden his young child with the details, which he was understandably afraid of what might happen to her if she spoke out of turn. His employer was, after all, consumed by nihilism.

It reignited her resolve, and she decided to be more bold. That is when she went to the Chairman whom she knew was affiliated with the group, and asked him about the details of the accident ten years ago. At first he was vague, evasive. Then after considering the matter, indicated... "Let's talk again tomorrow. However, tonight I'd like for you to stay up late. It does sound unusual for the Chairman of a school to be asking one of the students to not get a good night's rest but I think you'll find it to be a Valiumable experience- get it?"

She groaned, but the offer to speak again tomorrow, well it took at least some of the anger out of her. She stayed up late that night, not understanding why he wanted her to do that, but as the clock struck Midnight and she experienced the Dark Hour for the first time. And right away she was first confused, and started wandering disoriented. Which is when she ran into Mitsuru Kirijo, who'd come to check on her at Shuji Ikutsuki's insistence. When Mitsuru hailed her, she came to and promptly shrieked because she saw a coffin and a pool of blood. Mitsuru asked for her to calm down, and follow her. That she'd explain everything soon enough. Yukari didn't know how someone could be so calm and didn't trust her, but she nodded nervously, and walked with her.

Once she was escorted to the Iwatodai Dormitory, Shuji Ikutsuki was sitting there. "Ah hello. As I promised, it is now tomorrow. And it does appear that my theory was correct, you do indeed have the potential, and were on the cusp of awakening. Fascinating..." After she was explained the basics, she was extended an offer to join the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad, in order to investigate the Dark Hour. While she was obviously suspicious and still scared and disoriented, she did eventually agree at least to that much. After all, it was the only way she might get closer to the truth of what happened to her Father.

Season 1, Episode 1

Forthcoming

Persona

This is Io. Don't Read Into It!

Io (Lovers): As Yukari's Persona, Io appears as an otherworldly yet lovely girl, eyes closed as if sleeping and arms crossed, is shackled and bound to the effigy of a bull's head. The bull's head is hollowed out, with the interior upholstery that the girl rests upon not unlike that of an elaborate coffin. Io is the Naiad daughter of King Inachus, who was forced out of his home by a prophecy which issued this divine command when Zeus lusted after her. When Hera suspected Zeus' affair, she was transformed into a heifer in an attempt to conceal it. Unfortunately, Hera was not fooled and asked for the heifer as a gift, which Zeus had no cause to refuse her. The hundred-eyed giant Panoptes was placed as a guardian to prevent her escape. Zeus sent Hermes to slay Panoptes by lulling him to sleep by spinning tale after tale in response, while playing the panpipes, allowing Io to escape. After her escape from Hera's clutches she was cursed to be tormented by a gadfly, driving her to flee aimlessly, constantly panicked and exhausted by the torment. Comforted and given direction by Prometheus, she arrived in Egypt, where Zeus returned her to her true form and she gave birth to Epaphus and Keroessa.

Io and Yukari's Narrative

Far be it from Io representing an affair from Zeus and a psychosexual context with her father, for Yukari Io's story represents the idea of 'divine will'. That events may be beyond your control, the transformational nature of relationships, in particular the abrupt loss of them. The loss of her father, the isolation both voluntary and involuntary from other people fuels the idea of separation from humanity by this transformation into the bull of the 'Io' myth.

The 'gadfly' of the story is indeed not so much a jealous tormenter, but the world itself. The world is tormenting her because of her past relationship, it stings her whenever someone says Eiichiro Takeba is at fault, when her Mother dates someone new so casually. It stings her, the pain still feels fresh, and she just can't let herself move on. It causes panic, anxiety, and confusion… well, all things she has Patra for. And Io, wandering the world on a solitary journey, driven to panic, madness and exhaustion by the gadfly - relates to the first part of Yukari's story, the lonely journey, in which she again seeks her own humanity… in Yukari's case, gained by relationships with others.

Yukari has healing spells because of her fixation on death, and preventing it. She understands the destructive effect of death on someone's life, and she doesn't want anyone else to die. Even if she doesn't have a deep relationship with someone, she understands what it could do to someone else, and she wants nobody to feel the way she does. However, it relates to more than that. For at the end of Io's story, once she arrived in Egypt… she bore a son, Epaphus. Healing represents new life - second chances - and finding healing in the idea of restoring bonds with others again as is fitting for someone with the Lover's Arcana.

As a Naiad, one might think that Io's element would be water, but instead it's wind, violent - shifting, tempestuous, much like Yukari's temper. Also she's weak to electricity, weak to 'Zeus' rather violent events of divine will that cause separation from the relationships that mean the world to you.

Special Skills

Yukari's the ace of the Archery Club. Unfortunately, that doesn't translate into sublime mythical skill with a bow in cognitive worlds, yet.

1. Mall Trawl (Charm): Yukari isn't the type to seduce others, but she can be perfectly sociable and friendly when she needs to be. Drawing upon her knowledge of fashion trends, makeup, or simply the power of a genuine compliment, she endears herself to someone and shows just how she became thought of as the most popular Second Year girl at Gekkoukan High.

2. Meal Girl (Proficiency):  Yukari solves the problem, often at someone else's expense. Woe to someone who sets off her temper, she absolutely is the type to stroll up to someone and hit them in a vulnerable spot without any warning. Physically - or emotionally! It's all fair game to her. Fortunately, she reserves her cruelty mostly for people or demons or shadows who deserve it.

3. Suspicion (Academics): A suspicious sort, Yukari is the kind of person whose gaze just lingers a little too long. She thinks on situations for a long time, and doesn't let things go. In short, she takes healthy skepticism to a new level. This translates to her not taking things, or people at face value and instead being ready and willing to second guess any fact or information that comes her way to try to look at it from another angle.

Relationships

Name Arcana Info
Minato Arisato 0. Fool ★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ "Well... that sure was a line. Aha... get serious though. There's no way you actually want that."
Minako Arisato 0. Fool ★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ "Let's start over. I'm... sorry that I treated you like you should be just like me."
Maya Amano 0. Fool ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ "Do all reporters have guns like this!? Well... she does interview teenagers, so it makes a certain sense..."
Junpei Iori 1. Magician ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ "Get serious... When are you going to grow up?"
Akihiko Sanada 2. Emperor ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ "I guess he's the kind of guy guys like Junpei-kun look up to. Don't overdo it, senpai."
Mitsuru Kirijo 3. Empress ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ "It's not like I hate her or anything, but..."
Shinjiro Aragaki 5. The Hierophant ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ "He's a much nicer guy than he thinks he is... but even so, man, why'd I say more than I needed to there?"
Umie Akabane 7. Chariot ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ "Are Sumaru Girls just like this...? Maybe it's for the best that I moved away... still, she's pretty nice I guess. Just..."
Suzume Fukura 7. Chariot ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ "Geez... guess that I shouldn't have bothered. Do you really hate yourself that much?"
Katsuya Suou 8. Justice ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ "Well, he turned out to be pretty understanding after all. Whew... now I can breathe a little easier. I kind of get the impression he's a bit of a dork though? Aren't cops supposed to be the adults in the room?"
Reiya Aomori 9. Hermit ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ "You know way more than you're saying... maybe you're serious about this, but I definitely don't trust you. All the same, I'll work with you."
Tyler Gould 9. Hermit ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ "Apparently he knows how to sort his garbage... and he can be pretty thoughtful about some things. Just, you realize this isn't a game, right? How can you think it's a good thing for anyone to be a part of this?"
Koh Katsuhiro 10. Fortune ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ "I'mmmm not really sure what your deal is at all. You seem pretty reliable at least but... hmmm, I wonder. Where did you come from that you already had an Evoker and your Persona?"
Hitomi Mandai 10. Fortune ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ "Huh. Well, it's a sensible thing to bring... I don't want to look away, when it turns out to be needed."
Ririka Kawase 12. Hanged Man ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ "If you can't even take a responsibility for messing up, then I was right all along, you shouldn't be here at all."
Ichika Kawase 14. Temperance ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ "You can't just SAY things like that in public! What's wrong with you!? Eugh... so embarrassing."
Rumormonger Merry 15. The Devil ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ "I can't believe they're someone I have to rely upon... you have to take care of yourself if you want people to trust you can handle anything."
Mio-chan 16. The Tower ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ "Uhhh look you were a big help but... I don't want to be arrested!"
Shizuka Kuroki 18. The Moon ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ "Both the hat and the puns have gotta go. Bad enough that the Chairman does it, but you too!?"

Logs and Cutscenes

Season 1

There are no cutscenes on this wiki that Yukari Takeba participated in.

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