Makoto Niijima

Makoto Niijima, also known as Queen, is one of the main protagonists and party members in the video game Persona 5. She is a third-year student at Shujin Academy, the Student Council President, and the younger sister of Sae Niijima. Initially appearing as an enemy to the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, Makoto joins them to take down the mafia boss Junya Kaneshiro, and ultimately stays with them as the group's strategist.

She is voiced by Rina Sato in the Japanese version and Cherami Leigh in the English version.

Appearance
Makoto has brown hair in a bob cut with blunt bangs and a French-braid styled headband that matches her hair color. Her eyes are abnormal as they have been depicted as red, although her eye color in her portraits can be interpreted as a reddish-brown. She is of average female height, being taller than Futabaand Haru but slightly shorter than Ann.

Her winter school's uniform appears normal but without the standard blazer. Instead, she wears a black halter vest over a long sleeve white shirt with a turtleneck (which is different from normal turtlenecks for female students). She wears the regulation black and red pleated plaid skirt, black pantyhose and black-brown ankle boots.

Her summer school uniform is modified. She wears a white dress shirt with the High Priestess emblem ("BJ") embroidered on the collar instead of a normal polo shirt. Under the regulation skirt, she wears capri-length black leggings and black tassel loafers with no socks.

Her winter casual clothes consists of a black turtleneck shirt under a teal blue coat, with tight black pants and brown-tan knee-high boots.

Her summer casual clothes consists of a white dress blouse with a black belt, black capris similar to leggings from her summer school uniform attire, and black low-heeled Mary Jane shoes.

Her Metaverse outfit consists of a two-toned (dark blue and black) skintight suit that is worn with a long black scarf, a dark gray corset-style leather breastplate, shoulder and knee pads with spikes mixed with boots that sport metal heels and toes, white gloves, and an iron mask.

In the upcoming Persona 5: Dancing Star Night, she retains her Shujin academy school uniform except she wears dark grey tatter shirt with stitches and black splatter pattern design, thigh high stockings attached to her skirt by garters on the front, and maroon high-top sneaker boots. She also wears a red scarf that matches her gloves, and a chain attached to her black belt.

Personality
Despite being the student council president, Makoto is an extremely unpopular student at Shujin Academy; due to her not doing anything to stop Kamoshida's abuse, she is considered by all the students to be an arrogant, selfish control freak who knew about the abuse but chose to do nothing about it because she only cared about getting a good letter of recommendation. While she does give off the impression of this during the Phantom Thieves' first few encounters with her, these rumors are ultimately revealed to be just that- rumors. In truth, Makoto was livid about the abuse but didn't feel like she had the power to anything about it. In truth, Makoto's position merely makes her a glorified tool for the principal to use however he sees fit. Feeling overshadowed by her highly successful older sister, Makoto has almost no sense of self-worth, and so has made a habit of keeping her nose down and doing what is expected of her. Her submissive nature is noted by Akechi, who condescendingly refers to her as "the good-girl type of pushover." After getting involved with the Phantom Thieves, however, Makoto realises her frustration at the authority figures around her not living up to the expectations they've set for themselves, and vows from then on to fight for what she believes in, which triggers the awakening of her Persona.

Despite appearing prim and proper on the surface, Makoto is actually more of a tomboy; she's trained in aikido (though she's never seen using it on-screen), enjoys incredibly violent action movies, never wears skirts other than her school uniform (which she wears trousers under) and seems to care little about fashion other than the headband she wears in her hair. Makoto is also something of a tsundere; while she's mostly a kind person, she can also be very bossy and is harshly critical of those who don't live up to her expectations, particularly Ryuji, whose case she constantly gets on due to his consistently nonchalant approach to school life, implying that she's a perfectionist. She also has a ton of repressed anger issues over being made to stand on a pedestal by adults who don't follow the same standards themselves and exploit her for her talent and as such has the worst temper of the group bar none, to the point that even Ryuji, who's quite short-tempered himself, often warns the others not to get her bad side. Additionally, when the group are helping Futaba become more sociable, Makoto's among the least considerate, even expressing disappointment about not being able to take Futaba into crowds of people merely a few days after they started helping her. Makoto can also be a hypocrite; when she first joins the team, she criticizes the others for performing their heists without a proper strategy, yet conveniently ignores the fact that only a few days before, she threw herself into Kaneshiro's territory with no plan of any kind out of a desperate attempt to please her sister, which resulted in the entire team getting blackmailed. Nevertheless, Makoto ultimately cares a great deal about her friends, and does not hesitate to praise them when she feels that they've earned it

Despite her immensely serious personality and efforts to be above the more bizarre antics of her friends, Makoto does have her hidden, humorous elements, such as being frightened hearing ghost stories, as well as the dark. When the Thieves introduce themselves properly to Futaba, Makoto grows increasingly nervous given how Futaba enjoys keeping her house dark and quiet and reminding Makoto of a horror movie-not to mention that, due to Futaba's own astraphobia, the thunderstorm outside broke said silence with a scream. When Futaba suddenly appears and shrieks in surprise, Makoto panics and hugs the protagonist's leg, gibbering and begging for her sister to save her until she realizes Futaba isn't a ghost. Futaba herself finds this hilarious upon realizing how stoic Makoto is normally, and repeatedly teases her about her phobia of horror movies throughout the game. She also possesses excellent driving skills.

Makoto is often believed to have the personality of a robot. The reason her classmates get this impression from her is that they believe she blindly follows the principal's orders, doesn't show a lot of emotion, and is very focused on getting good grades. Even among the Phantom Thieves she takes on the role of analyzing and memorizing enemy data much like a computer would and even has a few robot-like mannerisms. One example is when the Phantom Thieves find a treasure chest in Mementos she will tell them to "await Joker's orders". At one point, she is even called a robot by Eiko Nikaido, much to her embarrassment.