#6 Eyeshine fan

Code July 2026 Day 29: Overload

I've seen so many people making fun of how Yumi and Ulrich argued so hard they made the world red in Routine, so I drew a silly little thing about it lmao. Fighting so heated the world is overloading hahaha :')

Turns out my ass couldn’t draw the comic properly digitally so I just drew it on paper then coloured em’ digitally :P

Honest question: is there anything you dislike or hate about Makoto, and if so, what is it? Do you see this as a small, annoying part of an otherwise likable character? Or do you dislike her entirely?

I'm currently trying to make an analysis post for Makoto Niijima that is basically a defense for her character. She's not my favorite Phantom Thief, but I do like her, and I can't find much discussion about her on Tumblr (the little I find is usually from people who dislike her. That's fine, but I want to offer a different perspective). However, I want to better understand the reasons why people dislike her in the first place, so that my analysis can be made in good faith. Below is a poll:

My opinion of Makoto has soured over time, I’ll admit. The more I see of her the less I like her.

Some of the reasons you have listed, so I’ll go into those first.

1) She’s boring: quite frankly true, but I don’t think it’s because she’s the “normal” one. She’s not normal. However, I think the writing missed out on making her an interesting character by getting rid of her “edge” the moment she joins the team. She really seemed like she was going to break away from the confines of society when she decided to fight against Kaneshiro - she was trying so hard to fit into the “perfect student council president” aesthetic, and that moment was her breaking away from that, because deep down she IS a rebel. She WILL just punch people when she’s pissed off. She WOULD ride in a motorcycle and dress like a punk if she could. That’s what the game would lead you to believe… and then the moment after that, she goes back to being the student council president like nothing’s changed. It doesn’t lean into those aspects of her character AT ALL. The most we get is some jokes from Ryuji calling her Miss Biker or whatever, which she clearly doesn’t like. So yeah, she’s boring. She’s wasted potential. She could have been a whole lot more interesting, but she doesn’t grow at all as a character due to what happens in Kaneshiro’s palace. Nor does her experience in Sae’s palace cause her to experience any character growth either. She barely has a say that whole arc.

2) She becomes a cop: this. Honestly I don’t know how anyone can defend this. The whole game the team is fighting against the cops, showing the corruption of the police force, showcasing how it fucked over Joker’s life and left him traumatized for life. Imagine going through all that and then someone you think of as a good friend turns to you and says “I wanna join that group.” I would never talk to them again. Joker would be justified in cutting off Makoto just for that. It matters less about how the system can’t be fixed from the inside, even though that is true. To me it matters more that Makoto would be proud to join an oppressive force she knows brutalized and traumatized and ruined the life of one of her closest friends.

3) She tries to be the “team leader”: I don’t think this is true but I do feel in a way similar to this sentiment, which is that from the moment she joins, everyone acts like she is the saving grace their team needed so it wouldn’t fall apart at the seams, and that they were hopeless without her. This isn’t HER fault, it’s the writing’s fault for wanting her to seem special. For some reason the moment Makoto joins the group everyone else loses all their brain cells and collectively donate them to her. I hate that they get dumbed down just to make her look smarter. They all go “wow Makoto! You’re so smart! We never would have thought of that!” Even though they had come up with pretty good and elaborate plans for the first two palaces. Yusuke had brains before Makoto joined the team. So did Ann and Ryuji, but Yusuke especially stands out to me because he is way more smart and clever than late game gives him credit for, and most of this is a result of trying to make Makoto the “brains” of the team. I don’t mind her being the smart one, but it’s at the expense of everyone around her being dumbed down, and that’s what I take issue with.

4) She and Akechi hate each other: I don’t agree with this one, I just wanted to say I’ve never heard this argument before. I think that’s silly anyway… if anything Makoto and Akechi get along the best out of anyone on the team. They both have a personal connection to Sae and I never got the impression that they feel strongly about each other at all.

Anyway now my own reasons for hating Makoto.

5) Makoto blackmailed the team and didn’t apologize for it: She never apologized for doing this. Ann had to apologize to HER, even though Makoto blackmailed the phantom thieves into doing whatever she wanted. Yes she felt bad about it, yes she was only doing it because she was put in a tough spot by the principal. She still did it and never apologized for doing it. And then the team acts like it never happened and completely forget about it when she joins the team. It’s silly to me that they drop the conflict entirely and pretend it was JUST about Ann hating Makoto for no reason even though Ann had VALID reasons for being pissed.

6) Kaneshiro arc is bad: I know this is less Makoto’s fault again but her character suffers because of it. She has less of a personal connection to Kaneshiro compared to everyone else and their palace, and Kaneshiro’s arc is just SUCH a downgrade from Madarame and Kamoshida. I really feel like things would have benefited from Akechi and Makoto’s role being flipped, and Akechi joins during Kaneshiro arc and Makoto joins during Sae arc. For one thing, it would make it so that Sae’s arc focuses more on Makoto’s character rather than Akechi, as it should considering her personal connection to Sae. As it stands she doesn’t have all that much of a reaction to changing Sae’s heart at all. For another thing, it makes way more sense for Akechi to be investigating Kaneshiro as part of his job and to use this as an opportunity to “test” the phantom thieves morality, while also earning their trust. You could also open up Makoto’s social link at the same time as normal and allow the player to interact with her before she joins the team. I think her character would benefit a lot from that, especially because it makes no sense for her to wait as long as she did to ask the team to help her change Sae’s heart in the current story. She always had it in the back of her head and never brought it up until it was convenient for the plot. It’s silly.

7) Her social link is one of the worst written ones in the game: Most of her social link isn’t even about her, it’s about her friend Eiko. And yet despite how important Eiko is to the story, she doesn’t even get her own profile and design. Makoto gets only a few moments in her link to actually explore her own character and struggles - the rest is just about Eiko. It makes zero sense.

8) The game pushes her romance too hard: I hate that in this game where you can choose who you want to romance, it’s so obvious that Makoto is the choice the game wants you to make. The story has so many classic romance coded moments between Joker and Makoto, namely the ghost futaba scene and the fact her confidant is about them fake dating. And then again in Strikers, they do the same thing, as though your choice in who you date doesn’t even matter because Makoto’s the only “real” option.