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| “ | I thought EMMA really would guide humanity to a better world. But once Sophia changed my mind, that was when I noticed something... The eyes of everyone "saved" by EMMA... They just looked cold and dead. But you all, Sophia included... Your eyes were so brimming with hope that it opened my own. Sophia learned about the human heart by joining you on your journey. You shared good times and bad, you were there for each other when you needed it... and you learned to understand each other. I don't know if I'll ever be able to do that kind of thing... But I want to speak with other people about the heart when learning this time—try and really do it right. I just needed to make sure I apologized to Sophia and you all properly before I depart. I truly am so, so sorry for putting you all through so much pain. | „ |
| ~ Ichinose apologizing to the Phantom Thieves for her actions. |
| “ | You guys could probably never understand. I brought Sophia to life so I could learn about the human heart. Remember what I told you? All my life, I've never felt what other people call the heart... | „ |
| ~ Kuon Ichinose |
Kuon Ichinose is the overarching antagonist of the 2020 action-adventure video game Persona 5 Strikers, the spin-off sequel to Persona 5.
She is an AI researcher, who is responsible for the creation of EMMA and Sophia. Through the game, she is introduced as a friendly researcher who is credited as the creator of the application but when EMMA starts to rise as a god, Ichinose reveals herself as the true mastermind of the whole plot.
She is voiced by Kira Buckland in English, who voiced characters such as Mukago from Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Marie from Skullgirls, Kirumi Tojo from Danganronpa, and Hayase from To Your Eternity. In Japanese, she is voiced by Yoko Hikasa, who did characters like the female form of Keyarga from Redo of Healer, Ivy from Fire Emblem, and one of the fingers of Petelgeuse Romanée-Conti from Re:Zero.
Biography[]
Past[]
At a very young age, Kuon lost her parents to an unknown circumstance but Inchinose never expressed a sense of grief about it. This would lead her to be bullied by others who view her in a negative light and start calling her a doll as a way to represent her emotionless behavior. When she entered university students constantly judged her and suggested that she wasn't human due to Inchinose always in her workspace and rarely talking to people. At this point, Ichinose started to perceive herself as an emotionless doll and believed that her behavior was abnormal. Ichinose goes to study humanity's happiness and questions if they require a heart.
Later on, she creates an artificial being to help her understand humanity's hearts and desires dubbing it "Humanity's best friend." She named it Sophia and wanted to use her as proof that she is not dead inside and that she does have a heart like everyone else but it turns out that her own creation is just as curious about the topic as her. Sophia started to ask her creator what a heart is but Inchinose shut her down out of frustration and shock that her own question had not been answered. From here, she accepts that she has no heart and wonders if humanity even needs a heart to begin with so Inchinose abandons her original goal and creates a new AI named EMMA. When creating the AI she made it to have a powerful analytic algorithm capable of understanding what the public wants and made it sentient.
After finishing her new creation, she gave the base codes to Akira Konoe so he could spread EMMA's influence to the public as an application.
Persona 5 Strikers[]
Ichinose is first met at a restaurant in Sendai. She encounters the Protagonist's group has a chat with them and tells them that she is a researcher at Touhou University. She appears to the group again during Akira Konoe's speech about the EMMA application then later on reveals that she is the creator of the app. But when they showed her Sophia, Ichinose dropped her friendly attitude and reacted with little enthusiasm. Afterward, she hands out daily quests for the protagonist group can do. After attending Konoe's speech, Ichinose managed to gain the keywords for Akira's jail and it was used by the Phantom Thieves to enter it.
At the game's climax, the Thieves encounter Inchinose in the Jail of Abyss and reveal herself as the true mastermind behind the events of the game and the creator of Sophia. She tells the group that she is sent on a "special mission" by EMMA and it's to stop the Phantom Thieves from progressing further in the jail. Besides that, she goes on to explain everything from giving EMMA to Konoe and EMMA's true purpose. She believes that humanity needs to be guided by EMMA and will be its savior by becoming a god. With it, humanity will have a better future for themselves with a "god" that cares for them despite having no free will of their own. She takes control of Sophia and forces her to attack the group but then uses a giant diamond to throw them into the depths of the jail as a way to dispose of them. When they return she uses the giant diamond and Sophia to attack them until Sophia breaks free from Ichinose's control and develops her own persona.
After her defeat, Ichinose explains her past and how she really did think she was an emotionless doll. She explains to Sophia her creation and then asks for them to kill her but they refuse to, with Sophia convincing Ichinose to redeem herself and forgive her. Afterward, Ichinose, out of guilt for what she's done, decides to help the Phantom Thieves take down EMMA and restore the hearts of humanity. When EMMA transforms into a false god known as the Demiurge, she creates her own form of paradise called the Promise Land while taking all the hearts and desires of the masses. The Thieves decide to give EMMA a calling card in order to gain entrance to the Promise Land but Ichinose says that calling cards can't affect EMMA and states that she is immune to them due to her programming. So they decided to hack into the application to render her vulnerable to the calling cards when sending them to the public. Ichinose allowed Futaba access to the system, she was able to do this since she had special rights to EMMA, in which all patrolling shadows ignored her. After delivering the calling cards, the Promise Land is finally open and the Phantom Thieves are able to confront EMMA and defeat her.
After defeating the false god, everything returns to normal with humanity's desires and hearts returning. Ichinose hands herself over to the police and tells them that she is the true culprit but the police including Zenkichi do not believe her statements. She apologizes to the Phantom Thieves and Sophia for throwing her away. Ichinose realized that EMMA did not save anyone because anyone she "saves" has dead blank eyes. With this information in mind, Ichinose decides to take Sophia back with the both of them learning more about humanity together.
Personality[]
Inchinose is an intelligent woman, who is gifted with incredible intellect and knowledge when it comes to researching and studying AI. At the beginning of the game, she is shown to be happy and proud of her creation of the EMMA application and has a friendly relationship with the protagonist group. She was willing to help them while giving them daily tasks. But all of this is a facade as Inchinose is manipulating them including Konoe for her own ends and is the one who caused the entire events in the game. When she created EMMA, she thought it wasn't necessary for humanity to have a heart and without them, including their inner desires, the world would be in a better place. Ichinose made EMMA to fulfill humanity's desires as a way to take them and help her creation into becoming a god. According to her, the AI leading humanity is a good thing and she is willing to do whatever it commands her to do, like dealing with the Phantom Thieves.
Though she may come off as a simple villain Ichinose is more deluded with her beliefs since she thinks that she is an abnormal person, who has no heart of her own. The constant bullying and negative assumptions that she faced in her younger years caused her to develop this negative point of view of herself and then others. Ichinose slowly develops a dislike for humanity but is still willing to prove that she is not dead inside and is capable of having a heart through the creation of Sophia. But when her question is not answered she throws Sophia away with the conclusion that she has no heart. With this in mind, she created EMMA and gave it to Akira Konoe to complete her plans. But after being confronted by the Phantom Thieves, Ichinose redeems herself by helping them defeat EMMA and realizes that EMMA's goals would not help anyone in life. She apologized for her actions and developed a new perspective on life and was willing to bring back Sophia. Together, Sophia and Ichinose go off to understand more about humanity with the Thieves wishing them luck. The post-credit scene shows them being happy together.
Appearance[]
Ichinose looks like any ordinary scientist and researcher. She wears a simple lab coat, a light blue shirt, and black jeans. Kuon has brown hair and olive-green eyes but wears a unique chain-like earring.
Gallery[]
External Links[]
- Kuon Ichinose on the Magnificent Baddie Wiki
- Kuon Ichinose on the Heroes 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
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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
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Persona Q Clockwork God Persona Q2 Kamoshidaman | Enlil
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