| NOTE: This page is only about Suguru Kamoshida as his artifical counterpart Kamoshidaman is not Pure Evil. Thus, only information about the original Kamoshida should be mentioned here. |
|
|
"Mature Content Warning!" |
| “ | I'm going to have you continue the story. The one who received a "calling card" from the Phantom Thieves was an Olympic medalist... An alumnus from Shujin Academy — the PE teacher Suguru Kamoshida. It came out from his confession. He was guilty of everything — the abuse, the... violations... But there should've been no connection between the two of you since you had just transferred. Why did you target him? | „ |
| ~ Sae Niijima confronting Joker about Kamoshida |
| “ | I'm a cut above all other humans! | „ |
| ~ Shadow Kamoshida on his egotistical superiority over everybody |
Suguru Kamoshida is a major antagonist in the 2016 ATLUS action-adventure video game, Persona 5 and its 2019 expansion re-release, Persona 5 Royal, serving as the main antagonist of the Castle of Lust arc.
Essentially the first target that the Phantom Thieves had to face, he is the gymnastic teacher of Shujin Academy who is also a former Olympic Volleyball champion which resulted on him using his fame and the favoritism of the principal of Shujin as a means to get away with the crimes he had committed. Representing the sin of lust, it is also revealed that he is a dangerous sexual predator at Shujin Academy. He's the arch-nemesis of Ryuji Sakamoto and Ann Takamaki, as well as the second arch-nemesis of Ren Amamiya.
He is voiced in Japanese by Yūji Mitsuya, and by D. C. Douglas (who also voiced Albert Wesker in Resident Evil and Jasley Donomikols in Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans) in English.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
In General/Background[]
- He is a lustful, vain, cruel and utterly selfish teacher who harasses and abuses his female students emotionally, physically, and sexually.
- It's heavily implied by rumors in-game that there are "strange noises" coming from his PE faculty room, suggesting he has raped or molested some female students. It would also explain the cognitive female students in his PE class being dressed shirtless and only in their shorts in his palace.
- According to his statue's description in the Thieves' Den, it states that he sees the female students as "stress relievers", further implying that he has indeed molested/raped some occasionally.
- Inside his Palace in the cognitive world, he has a library where there is a section of books titled with each female student's name (including Shiho's) where you can place the Queen Book. Based on that section, it indicates that it either confirms the victim count or he likely target another girl after Shiho since Ann's name was also there.
- His own male students fare no better, as he subjects them to utterly ruthless training regimens that many of them compare to torture, and will even use it as punishment if his team loses a game.
- In fact, in the cognitive world, one of the students is shown being repeatedly hit by a machine that shot volleyballs. Followed by students who are tied and whipped by the guards and other students were forced to run on a treadmill with a running spikes chasing after a pot of water, also similar to the real Kamoshida refusing to give breaks or letting his players rehydrate.
- In Royal, Kamoshida's shadow can perform a super attack via volleyball by summoning cognitive versions of his real self's victims, abusing them if they fail, showing he has no remorse for what he did.
- He is also shown to be a vicious gossip, regularly starting rumors to defame and hopefully expel students he dislikes (as seen with the protagonist if his heist arc is not completed before the deadline, as well as Ryuji) and appears to be excellent in gathering personal information from his students, most likely from Mishima.
- Kamoshida blatantly manipulates, divides, and abuses his students in a predatory manner, so they couldn't stand against him together, and targets that he dislikes or wants to prey upon are isolated. His crimes are extremely obvious and blatant and he often abuses his students in the open due to his sense of untouchability (although the abuse often happens in places that he considers as "private," such as inside his PE office).
- When finding out that some of the club teams were better than his own team, Kamoshida tried to calculatingly destroy the competition by sabotaging them. One of them was the track team, where Ryuji Sakamoto joined.
- He spread false rumors about Ryuji's home life, saying that he had an abusive father. When Ryuji personally confronted Kamoshida about it, he provoked Ryuji to punch him, to which he responded by breaking Ryuji's leg and claiming he did it in "self-defense." This result in the track team disbanding and Ryuji's mother being heavily berated by the school staff, partially ruining Ryuji's life and branding him a "traitor" and a "delinquent."
- He forced Ann Takamaki into a relationship with him in exchange for her friend Shiho Suzui getting into the volleyball team, even threatened to take her off from her starting position should Ann refuse his advances.
- Despite the high heinous standards of the Persona series, Kamoshida stands out for having fairly limited resources, being just a gym teacher, and his unique (but realistic) crimes of sexual assault, as well as being incredibly personal. Not to mention, he’s one of the few villains with a Palace who is completely unconnected to Shido and his conspiracy.
Persona 5[]
- While he does offer Ren Amamiya a ride to school, his kindness towards him ultimately does not last. It is also entirely possible he offered to deflect suspicion from himself due to being alone with a female student.
- When Ann refuses to sleep with him, Kamoshida then proceeded to sexually assault (heavily implied to have raped) her best friend Shiho Suzui out of spite which resulted in her attempting suicide by jumping from the school roof, leaving her in comatose for the time being and with an injured leg.
- To further implicate this being the case, inside his Palace, there is an entire shrine dedicated to Shiho hidden with the library. Which is plastered with pictures of her all over the walls and few racks with chains on display. Meaning he already gotten what he wanted from her.
- Because of his actions, even after his change of heart, Shiho would be forced to move away and transfer out of the possibility that she will be labeled by other people for this after rehabilitating.
- When Ren, Ryuji, and Mishima confronted him about Shiho's suicide attempt, Kamoshida refused to show remorse and gloated that Shiho was unlikely to awake from her coma, which nearly provokes Ryuji into attacking him. He then reveals his intentions on having the three of them expelled from Shujin Academy, and also the fact that he had Mishima leak Ren's criminal record to destroy his reputation.
- This would lead to a bad ending if the player doesn't change his heart by the deadline in the games and would get Ren sent to juvie in the anime.
- In the manga, this is made even worse where he planned to frame Akira (Ren's name in the manga) and Ryuji for driving Shiho to suicide.
- Royal adds an additional scene in which Kamoshida's shadow, representing his true self, summons and abuses a cognitive version of Shiho in a provocative outfit as part of an exclusive super attack, further showcasing he felt zero remorse for what he did to her. If that wasn’t enough, cognitive Shiho is actually weak to everything, which meant he saw her as easy to take advantage of, making him more cruel.
- Ultimately, it is his vile actions that cause the Phantom Thieves to be founded in the first place, as Morgana, Ren, Ryuji, and Ann all agreed that he should be punished for his actions despite some small personality differences and even after changing his heart, went onto go after other rotten adults like him.
- While he does atone for his crimes, even agreeing to turn himself in to the police out of remorse for what he did, this was not out of his free will as he would have gladly continued all of his crimes had the Phantom Thieves not changed his heart by forcibly rewriting his personality after stealing his "treasure" and suggested to his defeated shadow that he should confess his crimes. In which, "changes of hearts" are treated as a form of brainwashing with the Palace Ruler's Shadow merely being a separated entity who represents the person's worst aspects of themselves.
- Even after changing his heart, Ann and Ryuji still have some lingering trauma from him as best shown in Persona Q2.
Trivia[]
- According to unused/uncut scenes in Persona 5 Royal, when he was young and after becoming a star, Kamoshida sexually assaulted a TV anchor during a date. At the time, Kamoshida felt apparent remorse, however, he was talked out of publicly admitting his crime by his agent, who said his company would silence the TV anchor and Kamoshida's crimes would be covered up as his publicity brings them money. Given the knowledge that his crimes will always be covered up, Kamoshida reaches the conclusion he can do whatever he wants without any consequences. However, not only is the canonicity of this scene unknown, given the scenario was cut, but it was obviously Kamoshida's choice to listen to his agent and to go mad with power. Thus, this isn't a redeeming quality.
- His artificial counterpart Kamoshidaman cannot qualify as Pure Evil since he is mainly bog-standard and does somewhat redeem himself.
- What highlights his “Pure Evil” status is how there are people like him in who exist in real life who use their status or gifts to benefit themselves and abuse others, really driving home his vile nature.
External Links[]
- Suguru Kamoshida on the Villains Wiki
- Suguru Kamoshida on the VS Battles Wiki
- Suguru Kamoshida on the Megami Tensei Wiki
- Suguru Kamoshida on the Hate Sink Wiki