Shuji Ikutsuki

Overview

Shuji Ikutsuki is chairman of the school-board at Gekkoukan High School and adviser of S.E.E.S. with close ties to the Kirijo Group. He is capable of entering the Dark Hour but unable to use a Persona, and thus acts in a supportive role to the S.E.E.S. members. He's viewed by others as thoughtful and considerate, but also has a love of telling lame jokes, all of which revolve around puns, that no one finds funny.

The Truth

Despite his mild-mannered behavior, Ikutsuki is actually working towards goals opposing those of S.E.E.S. Ikutsuki also reveals his true colors as an insane, twisted, and manipulative man consumed by warped beliefs and evidently mentally unstable. His belief is that Nyx, the Fall, and death are salvations. By doctoring an old video tape of Yukari's father Eiichiro and altering other records, he tricks the students into thinking that the Dark Hour, Tartarus, and the Shadows will all disappear if the twelve powerful shadows that appear each full moon are defeated, when in fact doing so hastens the coming of Nyx. After the last of the shadows are defeated and the S.E.E.S. members believe their work is done, he uses Aigis to capture them with the intent to use them as a sacrifice to bring about "the Fall". He also forces Aigis to capture Mitsuru's father, Takeharu Kirijo. However, Aigis breaks free from his control at the last minute, frees the students, and spares Takeharu. Frustrated that his plans aren't working, Ikutsuki pulls a gun to finish the job, but Mitsuru's father also brandishes one and the two shoot each other simultaneously. Takeharu is killed, dying in his daughter's arms, while Ikutsuki yells, "At long last, I will rule this new world!" before deliberately falling to his death.

Ikutsuki is later revealed to have been the creator of Strega as well, as Jin Shirato reveals that Ikutsuki rounded up several orphans years ago and performed inhumane experiments on them to artificially induce their Personas. Of all of the one hundred orphans experimented on, only three survived. These three later became the criminal organization Strega.

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax

Three years after the events of Persona 3, in Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, Shuji Ikutsuki is confirmed dead by SEES as they had discovered his corpse. However, despite this, he proves to be the indirect mastermind behind the events of this game. It is revealed that ten years ago, when Ikutsuki performed his inhumane experiments on orphans, he favored his youngest test subject, Sho Minazuki. Ikutsuki raised Sho in a solitary environment where he never interacted with anyone, and considered Sho to be his favorite test subject, performing more experiments on him than with anyone else. One of these experiments involved implementing a Plume of Dusk inside Sho to give him a Persona, but this resulted in Sho developing an alternate personality known as Minazuki. Minazuki took over Sho and attempted to kill Ikutsuki for bringing harm to Sho. Ikutsuki attempted to erase Minazuki from existence, which resulted in Sho falling into a coma. Due to Sho becoming useless to Ikutsuki's experiments, he placed Sho in the hospital and paid the medical bills to keep him alive in this state indefinitely.

Several illusions of Ikutsuki created by Sho appeared to confuse the Shadow Operatives, which consists of the former SEES members. Sho adopted Ikutsuki's tendencies to tell lame jokes that no one finds funny.