Persona 5: Futaba Sakura (ENTP)

Futaba Sakura from Persona 5 is typically typed as an INTP, so you’re probably a bit surprised to see us identifying her as an ENTP. However, we do have reasons, which we’re going to share below. We considered other personality types for Futaba, such as INTP and ENFP, but ultimately settled on ENTP. She’s actually a rather complicated character, so I’m going to attempt to clarify all the factors before providing our individual cognitive function evidence. For the record, we used both Persona 5, and Persona 5 Strikers as sources of evidence. Although, with that being said, we identified Futaba as an ENTP in Persona 5 alone, before even playing Strikers. Strikers just further confirmed our conclusion. I hope the analysis below makes sense!

The Relevant Factors To Consider

Factor #1: Her mother’s tragic suicide

Futaba suffers a tragedy at a young age. Worse though, she is told by certain adults that her mother’s suicide was her fault. She’s treated poorly by those around and eaten up by guilt, which ultimately leads to her isolating herself from the world. This reaction has multiple ramifications. (1) She grows to fear the outside world, and (2) her ability to interact with others is stunted. It might be tempting to use these struggles as proof of introversion and inferior Fe, but you have to remember that other personality types can fall prey to these given such an extreme scenario.

Factor #2: The nerdy hacker stereotype

Futaba embodies the nerdy hacker stereotype, which often leads people to gut type her as an INTP without fully considering the evidence. Any personality type can enjoy any hobby, so specific hobbies can’t be used as key evidence.

Futaba Is An Extravert?

There are some general signs that we look for to indicate extraversion or introversion, in addition to relying on evidence for specific cognitive function placements. In Futaba’s case specifically, there are three main things that we noticed.

(1) Her impulse (and efforts) to explore and rejoin the external world seems too strong for an introvert. Sure, she’s scared, but she’s not at all content to remain isolated. In addition, she makes little effort to rationalize exposure as unnecessary, and she doesn’t enact ways to make it unnecessary. Instead, she pushes herself to get out and interact with the world, even impulsively so. For instance, while she does ask the game’s protagonist to accompany her, she heads into a store without waiting for him, only to end up having an emotional breakdown with everyone watching. An introvert would be much more cautious and calculated in their efforts to readjust, given all of Futaba’s insecurities.

(2) She’s expressive, talkative around her friends (bossy, even), and generally open about her feelings, which seems unlikely for a former, severely reclusive introvert. The first bathhouse scene in Persona 5 Strikers, where she’s being both excessively loud and unapologetically inappropriate, provides a good example of her extraverted tendencies.

(3) While Futaba did lock herself away from the world into her own isolated tomb of self-judgement, Futaba never cut herself off from the internet. She even has cameras set up in Leblanc which allows her to keep up with what is going on even though she is not directly interacting. She kept herself entertained and distracted, ultimately becoming a very prominent hacker. Of course, the fact that she viewed isolation as a punishment at all could suggest some extraverted leanings.

ENTP Cognitive Function Breakdown For Futaba Sakura

Ne:

“She’s so quick minded that conversations with her tend to jump from one topic to the next. It seems like she’s always coming to conclusions in her head.” – Sojiro about Futaba

“Let us ride to Nakano! We shall sally forth into a realm of true figurine geekdom.”

“Hmmmmmm… maybe curry spaghetti! And curry using! Oh, and curry croquettes, and curry pizza!”

Futaba has very prominent Ne. In conversations alone, she’s constantly making puns and random references. For instance, it’s commonplace for to end conversations with a phrase such as “Let’s make like a tree and leaf”, which is an idiom mixed with a pun. She also gives Yusuke the nickname “Inari”, which is both an insult and a pun (in Japanese). She also frequently references video games, anime, etc. In addition, she enjoys using dramatic or theatrical language, which is common for NPs.

Before the Phantom Thieves meet Futaba, Sojiro describes her as being quick-minded, explaining that conversations with her tend to jump from one topic to the next. This demonstrates a Ne’s user tendency to make connections between a broad range of subjects that may not seem directly connected.

Futaba is good at coming up with ideas, whether that be for minor things such as a new menu item for Sojiro, or for aiding the Phantom Thieves. She frequently thinks to research certain subjects or possibilities long before the Phantom Thieves ask her. (There are several times throughout the game where, for instance, they’ll ask her to look into something, and she’ll respond that she’d already done so.)

Ti:

“This overwhelmingly forgettable appearance, generic speech style, and total lack of sex appeal… Nishima, are you an NPC?”

“There he goes. I’ll never understand that logic of his.” – Futaba about Yusuke

I’ve seen people argue Fi because she’s falls prey to self-blame, wallows in her emotions rather than over-analyze them, and doesn’t try to think about things logically. There are some flaws in that thinking, the main one being that we don’t really know how she dealt with everything as it was happening. All we actually know is the end result: she locked herself up in a room, and lived her life on the internet. One could just as easily argue that she distracted herself with hacking for the entire time as she waited to die in that room. All we really have to work with is the information the games actively show us.

Futaba doesn’t usually frame her motivations in terms of values. For instance, when explaining her reasoning for wanting to join the Phantom Thieves, Futaba says, “Changing people’s hearts isn’t my goal. I want to learn what happened to my mom… the reason why she was killed.” She makes it about learning what happened, and learning why, rather than doing something for the greater good or in line with certain values.

Futaba also doesn’t appear to emotionally attach herself to a specific identity. For instance, when her original alias “Medjed” gets tarnished, she doesn’t bother to fight for the name and reclaim her innocence/reputation. Instead, she simply abandons the name, and switches to a new alias.

Lastly, Futaba tends to do a lot of detached analysis followed up by an impersonal conclusion. She’ll focus this analysis on others, like when she meets Mishima and determines that he’s an NPC. However, she also focuses it on herself. She essentially analyzes herself from a third-person perspective. For instance, rather than experiencing her emotions and focusing on those, she’s shown analyzing her physical symptoms to determine that the emotion she’s feeling might be love.

Fe:

“If I only act for my own sake, I can’t put all my full effort into it anymore. But when I remember my friends… and you… it’s like I’m tapping into some kind of unknown power!”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh! Praise me more, keep it comin’!”

Futaba unabashedly enjoys praise, and will encourage others to validate her in this way. This is common for tertiary Fe users, especially ones who are confident in their abilities. This relationship with praise also points away from inferior Fe, since inferior Fe users are typically uncomfortable with praise. (It usually has to do with them not knowing how to react, and not liking the spotlight.)

As Futaba grows closer to the team, she starts becoming motivated by the relationships in her life, like her friends. She explains that she can’t put her whole effort into things anymore when it’s just for herself. Her friends become her power.

Futaba is prone to nostalgia, which is a further indication of her having a feeling function that’s higher than inferior. She’s often make nostalgic references, and one time she even asks the game’s protagonist to pat her on the head like her mother always used to when she was happy with her.

Si:

“I guess dwelling on the past is just a bad habit of mine, huh?”

At the start of the game, Futaba is most definitely dealing with inferior Si grip. Most people explain it as a loop, but given the extreme nature of what happened, a grip scenario makes much more sense. Grip Si compells Futaba to isolate herself in her room, disallowing her to move on from the past. In addition, once she finally does try to get out into the world, Futaba is shown bringing up the past quite a bit, such as when visiting a school. In nearly every room they visited, Futaba has memories to share, specifically bad ones.

Futaba gets very particular and detailed, but only about things that matter to her. They are usually insignificant things while other larger things are left unattended to. For instance, while her room may be in complete chaos (compelling Morgana to clean it up for her), Futaba gets furious with Yusuke for changing the way her action figures are set up.