Yusuke Kitagawa

"Recruit me to your team, Phantom Thieves."

- Yusuke Kitagawa, Persona 5

Yusuke Kitagawa is a playable character from Persona 5.

Design
Yusuke has short dark blue hair with parted bangs slightly covering his left eye and gray eyes. He wears his school's uniform normally. It consists of a white long sleeve button up shirt that has his -shaped school's emblem, black trousers and shoes. He is also seen carrying several silver keys attached to his belt.

His burglar outfit consists of a fox mask, black jumpsuit, white motorcycle boots, blue gloves, waist sash, and a long white fox tail with a red ribbon wrapped round it.

Personality
As cool, calm and collected as he appears on the outside, Yusuke is very methodical, intelligent and elegant as well. He holds his mentor, Madarame, in extremely high regards and greatly respects and admires him. Having been sheltered for most of his life, Yusuke is unaccustomed to the ways of the society he lives in and because of this, his naïveté shows more times than not, in particular being unaware when he is coming off as creepy and intrusive to a potential female model for his work until directly told. His whole life's passion surrounded by art, he sees an aesthetic in mostly everything, and even has a desire to draw his fellow friends/Phantom Thieves (especially Ann).

Persona 5
Yusuke is an honor student in an art course at the Kosei Public High School. Orphaned at a young age, he was found to have artistic talents and he is currently a live-in disciple of a famous Japanese painter by the name of Ichiryusai Madarame.

Yusuke approaches Ann Takamaki before being misunderstood as a stalker by Akira Kurusu and Ryuji Sakamoto. He asks Ann to become a model for his next art, inviting her to go to his master's art exhibition to consider his offer. Hearing Madarame is a fraud, the Phantom Thieves decides to accept Yusuke's offer so they can investigate Madarame. They directly asks Yusuke about this, which angers Yusuke who continuously defends his master. After hearing about Madarame's doing from his former disciple, Matsuhiko Nakanohara]], and locates his Palace, Ann and Morgana tries to find the proof of Madarame's deception by once again accepting Yusuke's offer to become his model while the protagonist and Ryuji enters Madarame Palace. Ann sweet-talks Yusuke to let her enter Madarame's studio where they found the evidence of Madarame's deception. When Madarame threatened to call the police, Ann and Morgana runs away, and Yusuke follows them as well, leading him to enter Madarame Palace. Even after seeing the proof earlier, Yusuke still wants to believe in his master, so he decides to follow the Thieves to find out the truth.

Meeting Shadow Madarame, his master's Shadow reveals that to him, Yusuke is an art slave. He admits that he has been indeed stealing his students' artwork and declares it as his own. Once Yusuke learns of this truth, his desperation to find any decent goodness in his mentor turns into that of complete and utter desire for Madarame's retribution. Yusuke awakens his Persona, Goemon. Retreating to the real world, Yusuke asks to be allowed to join the Phantom Thieves, which permitted by Morgana.

Confronting Shadow Madarame along with the Phantom Thieves for the last time, Shadow Madarame reveals his real treasure, the real Sayuri that Yusuke's mother had painted. From this, Yusuke deduces that his mother's death is not a simple accident. Shadow Madarame confirms this, revealing that when Yusuke was a little boy, all other disciples of Madarame began to distance themselves away from him after learning of his true nature, leaving only Yusuke's mother, Sayuri. Around the time Yusuke was born, Sayuri created an art piece of herself happily holding her newborn son in her arms. When Madarame came across this beautifully constructed work of art, he made a deal with Sayuri in which he'd agreed to let Yusuke become a new member of the family in exchange of holding on to the artwork. One tragic day, Madarame witnessed Sayuri having a seizure in front of him, and instead of easily offering medical support, he let her die in vain and made duplicates of her last piece dedicated to her son to sell to the public, which granted him the fame and credit he has today. In order to give it "mystery," Madarame altered the art by removing the baby from the picture completely. Since he was just 3 years old, Yusuke receives no credit or recognition for his brilliant work; Madarame uses them to take the credit for his own, just like he did to Sayuri, Natsuhiko and his other disciples many years ago.

Now knowing the whole truth, Yusuke thanks his former mentor because now he no longer has any reason to forgive him. Eventually defeating him and stealing his heart, Yusuke retrieves the real Sayuri painting that his mother had painted for him. Back in reality, Madarame confesses to his crimes and is swiftly punished and discredited for it. Yusuke sadly recalls the "happy family" he lived in when Madarame's other disciples were around and how as he grew older, he never lost the hope that they would come back and they all could be happy once again. Now that he is part of the Phantom Thieves, he feels like he has another "happy family" again. Wanting to let go of the past, Yusuke gives the Sayuri painting to the protagonist who then displays it at Cafe Le Blanc.