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| “ | Why do you keep pushing forward? You will be happier with the illusion. Embrace the fog and immerse yourself in a world that matches your desires. | „ |
| ~ Izanami-no-Okami to Yu Narukami in Persona 4: The Animation. |
Izanami-no-Okami is the overarching antagonist and true final boss of the 2008 video game Persona 4 (as well as its 2011-2012 anime adaptation).
Intrigued by humanities' true desire, Izanami takes the form of a human, and bestowed various people their latent powers of invoking Personas. Izanami believed, that by observing the ones who have awakened would carry out humanities' true desire.
While disguised as gas station attendant, Izanami was voiced by Daisuke Namikawa in the Japanese version of the game, Takahiro Mizushima in the Japanese version of Persona 4: The Animation, Karen Strassman in the English version of the game, and by Derek Stephen Prince in the English dub of Persona 4: The Animation. As Izanami, she was voiced by Romi Park in Japanese and by Karen Strassman in English.
Biography[]
It can be assumed that Izanami's past is true to the myth where she and her husband Izanagi has created the world together until her demise due to giving birth to fiery God Kagutsuchi. Her spirit goes to the underworld with Izanagi pursuit her spirit. Izanagi goes to returned her to tekan of the living, but is horrified with her now undead appearance.
The scared Izanagi flees for the gate to the land of the living and blocked the gate with a boulder. Brokenhearted, Izanami threatened that she will ensure that 1000 mortals will die while Izanagi replied the threat by ensuring 1500 mortals will born in return. And thus, their marriage is over.
Izanami was intrigued by humanity's greatest desire and decided to infiltrate the land of the living to figure it out. She posed as an androgynous-looking attendant working in the Moel Gas Station of Yasoinaba and to before commenced the next part of her plan by awakening Persona ability to some individuals she met there, namely Tohru Adachi, Taro Namatame, and finally, Yu Narukami. It is unknown exactly how many humans Izanami awakened, however, she implies that many have been awakened by her.
Out of individuals she awakened however, only Yu that interested her most, even more than Adachi himself. That's why she used Yu as a catalyst to awaken the potential of invoking Persona of those close to him, so they could carry out her plans.
Aside awakening other people's Persona, Izanami also spread rumors regarding the urban legend of the Midnight Channel. As the Midnight Channel reflects the images of the viewers' desires, Izanami believed that this would make her understand better about humanity's wishes.
However, Adachi, one of the awakened ones, uses his powers for murder, and carries out the belief of humanities' insecurities, leading Izanami to believe that what humanity actually wishes is a world of oblivion and stillness, and thus she subjects to overrun the world with Shadows, monstrous physical manifestations of humanity's repressed thoughts and inner desires. Acknowledging (and misguided by) Adachi's plans, Izanami created the god of fog, Ameno-sagiri, and later, Midnight Channel itself.
Focusing her schemes on Yu, Izanami visits the him in his dream. In there, Izanami taunts him for a wish to reach the truth, and asks him to follow her if he does. Izanami's plans of using Yu eventually was a success. However, Yu's Wild Card ability that enable him to carry multiple Personas alongside his original Izanagi, and his determination are something she did not foresee. For most of the year, she observed the events unfolding from a distance; only making any appearance to Yu on days when it rained, but otherwise was unseen. Ignoring the urges of killing Taro Namatame, the wrong suspect of the murders, allows Yu and his fellow Investigation Team to eventually find out the true culprit: Tohru Adachi.
After defeating Tohru Adachi and defying Ameno-sagiri's plans to overrun the world with Shadows, Yu, whom having Adachi warned him about puppeteer that manipulate whole events through a letter and Nanako told him about her suspicion on the Gas Attendant, confront Izanami whom in her Gas Attendant disguise and asked her about what she did to him in their first meeting, Izanami revealed her true identity and chastises his persistence to seek the truth, and tells him that she shall await his defeat in the "other world". When Yu and co. visit her reality in Midnight Channel that taking form of Yomotsu Hirasaka, Yu recognized the place that he once visit in his dream when met Izanami, but couldn't tell whether he did confront her or not.
In Yu's final confrontation with Izanami, she faces the party with her goddess form, but it was eventually revealed to be a fabricated appearance when Yu uses the Orb of Sight, an item given by Igor to shine upon the truth. Having her facade taken away, Izanami reveals her true form as Izanami-no-Okami, a rotting, death-ridden being. Izanami-no-Okami later sends the Yu comrades to the underworld, and finally, Yu himself.
When Yu is about to give up, he hears the voices of his friends who encouraging him to fight. In anime, it's not just their voices that encouraging him, but also Margaret, Igor's current assistant whom snapped Yu from his breakdown as his said mental breakdown dangerously reduced his Izanagi into a powerful Shadow which represented his fear of losing his friends. Margaret's encouragement, as well as voices for his friends, enable him to regained his senses and acknowledged his fears, allowing his Shadow to revert to its Persona form Izanagi once more.
Now returned confront Izanami once more not long after his defeat, Yu confront the goddess again. Accumulating powers from bonds from people he met in his life (which in game referred as Social Links), Yu channels the powers to his initial Persona, Izanagi, transmogrifying Izanagi to his true form, Izanagi-no-Okami. Bemused by the Protagonist's powers, Izanami-no-Okami repeatedly attacks the Protagonist, but is surprised to see the Protagonist enduring all her attacks. Angrily asking how the will of so few could defy a divine will, the Protagonist ultimately summons Izanagi-no-Okami, ending Izanami with one powerful attack, known as "Myriad Truths".
Upon Izanami's defeat, Yu's friends whom banished to the underworld instantly teleported to his side with the weakened goddess exclaims that she will not interfere with humanity anymore. She encourages them to live and face their own decisions, but cannot guarantee their happiness, and fades away.
All in all, despite Izanami's antagonistic approach in her schemes considering one of her pawns, Adachi, has indirectly swayed her towards a darker path, she truly wishes for humanity's happiness, as evident that she later congratulates the Investigation Team for discovering the truth, as well as defeating her.
Powers and Abilities[]
Being a goddess, she had a nigh-omnipotent powers that made her a formidable adversary that Protagonist aka. Yuu Narukami ever faced.
- Power Bestowal: Like Philemon, Izanami can bestowed anyone the ability to summon Persona. Unlike Philemon however, Personas that she awakened were limited to Izanagi form. Even so, how their respective Izanagi Personas looked like still depend on their psyche and conscience: Yu's Izanagi looked pure and dignified that mirrors his good heart, whereas Adachi's Izanagi looked feral, bloody, and malevolent.
- Immortality: Izanami is immortal in spite of suffer mortal demise once, and is returned as undead being.
- Invulnerability: Izanami is technically invulnerable due to died once, though she eventually defeated when Yu uses Myriad Truths against her.
- Thousands Curses: She can banished her victim to underworld with Thousand Curses ability at will.
Trivia[]
- Interestingly, both Japanese and English voice actresses of Izanami's true form voices another supporting character in Persona 4. Her Japanese voice actress, Romi Park, also voiced Naoto Shirogane. Her English voice actress, Karen Strassman (who also dubbed Izanami's gas attendant disguise in the game), also dubbed Nanako Dojima.
- Also, counting The Animation, this is the second time Derek Stephen Prince voiced a character from the Persona series, his first role was Takaya Sakaki in the English version of Persona 3.
- Izanami is similar to Yaldabaoth, the primary antagonist of Persona 5. They're both entities beyond humanity and appears in the story at first, manipulating the protagonist and their future villains into their own games. After the protagonists defeated the human Big Bads (Adachi and Masayoshi Shido, respectively) in the story, they both revealed themselves and their true intensions.
- However, Izanami is interested on human nature and that interest makes her intrigued on Yu, meaning she has no disrespect towards humanity, and she was happy to accept her defeat and respects humans. Yaldabaoth, on the other hand, scorns humans and attempts to use the Phantom Thieves as his puppets so that he can either rule humans with an iron fist or destroy the world and create it anew, and Yaldabaoth fails to acknowledge humanity's true power prior to his defeat.
- There are some foreshadowing of Izanami being the actual threat Yu Narukami and co. deal with all along in addition of the one who gave him the ability to summon his Persona.
- Yu becomes dizzy after he and Izanami's human disguise, the unnamed Moel Gas Station Attendant, shake hands. This didn't go unnoticed by Nanako, which didn't help by her remarking the latter as weird.
- When Yu is facing a mysterious figure obscured by the fog at the end of a strange labyrinth, a closer look reveals their silhouette suspiciously resembled humanoid half of Izanami's false goddess form.
- The lecture Yu and co. during his school's trip to Tatsumi Port Island by Mr. Edogawa which tells about Izanagi and Izanami's past and end of marriage, particularly due to the former being horror-struck by the latter's decayed state. This hints what Izanami's true state of being she concealed when she eventually faces off against Yu and co.
External Links[]
- Izanami on the Magnificent Baddie Wiki
[]
 Villains
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SEBEC Route Takahisa Kandori | Nyarlathotep | Pandora Snow Queen Quest Victims of the Snow Queen Mask | Tomomi Fujimori | Night Queen
Innoncent Sin Masked Circle | Master Joker | Tatsuya Sudou | Junko Kurosu | Anna Yoshizaka | Ginji Sasaki | Akari Hoshi | Nyarlathotep Eternal Punishment New World Order | Tatsuzou Sudou | Kiyotada Sumaru | Takahisa Kandori | Chizuru Ishigami | Nyarlathotep
Strega (Takaya Sakaki | Jin Shirato | Chidori Yoshino) | Kouetsu Kirijo | Shuji Ikutsuki | Nyx Avatar Persona 3 FES
The Killer | Mitsuo Kubo | Izanami Persona 4: Arena & Persona 4: Arena Ultimax Sho Minazuki | Shadow Labrys | Hi-no Kagutsuchi
Suguru Kamoshida | Sphinx | Sae Niijima | Antisocial Force (Ichiryusai Madarame | Junya Kaneshiro | Kunikazu Okumura | The Traitor | SIU Director | Sugimura | Kobayakawa | Masayoshi Shido | Yaldabaoth) | Shiro Asakura Persona 5 Royal Persona 5 Strikers Alice Hiiragi | Ango Natsume | Mariko Hyodo | Shuzo Ubukata | Akira Konoe | Jyun Owada | Kuon Ichinose | EMMA | Lock Keepers
Teru Gojuin | Dark Yashiro | Yatsufusa Hatanaka
Persona Q Clockwork God Persona Q2 Kamoshidaman | Enlil
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