Naoya Todo

Naoya Todo is the protagonist of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona and the first in the Persona series.

He is a student at St. Hermelin High who gets involved in a situation involving another dimension. He joins his classmates in investigating the corrupt SEBEC corporation, led by Takahisa Kandori, and uncovering the mystery of a strange alternate "ideal world." Noaya and his classmates would find out that Kandori opened up a portal to this alternate world, bringing in Demons, using a device he created called the DEVA System. The DEVA System connected to the unconscious mind of Noaya's classmate, Maki, which then created the alternate world that became the ideal world from Maki's mind. Noaya defeats Kandori, but still must defeat the Ideal Maki and her Shadow form, Pandora, in order to rid the Ideal World from existence. Noaya and his classmates defeat Pandora, and leave Ideal Maki behind in her world, finally finishing the deed.

He is a Persona-User who awakens the Persona Seimen-Kongou after meeting Philemon, which later evolves into Vishnu after Noaya recovers all 142 Spell Cards.

Physical Appearance
The protagonist has black hair, brown eyes and a piercing on his left ear. He wears the St. Hermelin uniform without alterations. He has a black wristwatch on his left arm, and black shoes. He also appears to be wearing light lipgloss or lipstick, as shown in Megami Ibunroku Persona and Persona 2: Eternal Punishment. The manga does not keep this feature or his more prominent eyelashes.

Occasional Appearances
In the Megami Ibunroku Persona manga, Naoya is depicted as a child with his twin brother Kazuya.

When in his gym uniform, he dresses in a red tracksuit with his school's logo on his upper left breast.

Near the end of the game, Naoya confronts his Shadow self, which is seen playing in front of a video game cabinet.

History
Naoya joins in on the bet made between Mark and Uesugi (he placed his bet on Mark) to play the Persona game. Once they played the game, a little girl suddenly appeared and he, along with everyone else, falls unconscious and dreams about Philemon. Following their teacher's suggestion, they all went to the hospital for a check up and also to visit Maki. Naoya apologizes for not visiting her for the past few days, and Maki reveals that they are childhood friends to Mark when he questioned their closeness. However, Maki's condition suddenly worsened, and she was taken for emergency surgery while Naoya and everyone else waited for her.

In the middle of the surgery, an earthquake occurs and the surgery room was suddenly blocked by a wall when they opened the doors leading to the room. Monsters then started to appear in the hospital, attacking and killing the people inside. This incident awakened Naoya's Persona, along with his friends' Personas, allowing them to escape from the hospital. They then find out that they cannot leave the town. On their way back to school, they met up with Eriko Kirishima and Maki's mother, who reveals that the organization that she was working with, SEBEC, is the one responsible for what happened to their town.

Personality
For the most part, the protagonist is silent, and his personality is controlled by the player, setting up a pattern the protagonists of later games would follow. However, the decisions that lead to the game's true ending and the gaining of the ultimate Personas paint the protagonist as a natural leader; a compassionate, perceptive, yet blunt person who is motivated to seek his personal reason for life and discourages hiding from the truth. He also shows a rather rude or informal and laidback side, his other self in Alaya Cavern telling Maki to shut up so he can concentrate on his game when she expresses her shock at seeing another version of the protagonist and referring to Igor as "old man Igor" after giving the protagonist the items to fuse the party's ultimate Personas.

In the manga, Naoya also inherited this same trait, though since he is mostly quiet and going along with everyone else, the rest of the party are surprised when he shows his hot-headed side while leading them. The manga version of the protagonist also suffers from survivor's guilt due to his twin brother Kazuya's death and as a consequence he has very low regard of his own well-being. This can be seen when Naoya blocks Reiji's attacks against Hariti by jumping in front of Reiji's attack and taking the hit. He can also be extremely pragmatic in combat, as he doesn't hesitate to use lethal force against Aki, who is a child.

Powers and Abilities
Naoya is a Persona User, meaning he is able to draw on the powers of his inner self to summon Demons that represent inner parts of his soul. A unique property that Naoya and the other Persona cast members have is the power of the Wild Card, meaning that they are not restricted to using only one Persona based on their Arcana. Naoya is, in turn, able to switch Personas at will.

Seimen Kongou
Seimen Kongou is the initial Persona of the Protagonist. He can be recreated in the Velvet Room, but has Worst affinity for everyone but the protagonist. When Seimen Kongou is returned to the Velvet Room at MAX Rank, he will yield a St Incense.

Amen-Ra
Known as Amen Ra, he appears as the Ultimate Persona of the protagonist.

Vishnu
Kazuma Kaneko's design motif for Vishnu in this particular game is the "King of Persona-users" due to his numerous avatars. Vishnu's bust still retains traditional Hindu symbols, but he wears upper hose which were popular in England as formal garment through the 17th century and can be seen in many English kings' portraits.

Appearances

 * Persona
 * Persona 2: Eternal Punishment; cameo

Trivia

 * If the protagonist visits the Historical Society prior to the hospital at the beginning of the game, Mark remarks, "You're awfully studious all of a sudden. Is Hell about to freeze over?" This could be hinting that the protagonist may be a little lax with his schoolwork.
 * In the manga, the protagonist has a habit of touching his face whenever he thinks of his other self.
 * The protagonist was the one who pierced his own ear, at the age of 12.
 * The protagonist is both a Capricorn and a Scorpio. In Western astrology, the protagonist would be a Capricorn. In Hindu astrology, the protagonist would be a Scorpio, due to a difference in dates. The artbook lists the Hindu astrological sign for the protagonist.
 * Despite only appearing in Eternal Punishment, an unused sprite of the protagonist appears in the loading screen of the PlayStation version of Innocent Sin.
 * Although being a silent protagonist, in Eternal Punishment in Kei Nanjo and Eriko Kirishima's flashbacks he appears along with Maki Sonomura at school during graduation, in Nanjo's flashback the protagonist agrees with him that distance won't separate their friendship and in Eriko's flashback he explains he won't be able to see them for a while.
 * In an interview with character designer Kazuma Kaneko, it's revealed that the protagonist's design was made to give off a androgynous look to appeal to female players. His overall looks were based off of Tomoya Nagase of the band, Tokio.
 * According to the Shinsu Ueda Artbook, the manga version of the protagonist was born on December 24 and is a Scorpio. This date, however, is incompatible with the Scorpio zodiac sign which ranges from October 23 to November 21. The manga version of the protagonist should instead be a Capricorn (December 22 - January 19).
 * In Persona 2: Innocent Sin, Yukino alludes to him as a friend who wouldn't stop gambling and playing poker or blackjack when they had serious problems to deal with.