Futaba Sakura is the Navigator of the Phantom Thieves from Persona 5. She is different from the main crew of the Phantom Thieves, as prior to Persona 5 Strikers, she was a shut-in who does not attend school and rarely, if ever, leaves her house.
With a case of social anxiety bordering on agoraphobia developed from the trauma of losing her mother Wakaba Isshiki, combined with her generally introverted personality, Futaba is strongly uncomfortable with going outside. When the protagonist first meets her, she is a shut-in who does not attend school and almost never leaves her room. She communicates with the world remotely via the Internet, and her adoptive father Sojiro Sakura enables her lifestyle out of guilt that he could not protect her from trauma. Having disconnected herself from humanity and the world beyond her apartment, Futaba suffers from suicidal depression, crippling bouts of anxiety and would freak out instantly when seeing unknown people inside Sojiro's house. When first encountered, Futaba is so consumed with self-loathing that she suppresses her desire to live, causing her Shadow Self to develop a much more helpful personality than average, one who only desires Futaba's happiness. Prior to her Change of Heart, she thinks that her room is the only place she actually feels safe to dwell within due to the frequent hallucinations she has about Wakaba bearing hatred on her.
Even before her mother's death, Futaba was quite a lonely child growing up. Part of this was due to her isolation for being a genius, with other students thinking she was a freak due to her eidetic memory (things she's reminded of when she's given a tour of Shujin), while the other part was due to her mother working long hours to support her, meaning the two hardly ever got to spend time together. It got to the point where Futaba would sometimes think her mother cared more about her research than she did about her, an insecurity that only worsened when her mother died and she was read the fake suicide note. Because of her desire for her mother to be alive again, and the belief that she deserves to die, Futaba ended up creating a Palace where her mother wants her dead. With the help of the Phantom Thieves, however, she realizes that the suicide note was forged and manages to remember the real Wakaba. Futaba is also very fond of sushi and Sojiro's curry, both of which were meals she shared with her mother.
When she first joins the Phantom Thieves, Futaba states that her main goal is to find out the truth behind her mother's death, but also gains a growing investment in the group's goal of reforming society.
After her heart is changed and she begins to actively go out, Futaba still initially tends to hide behind the protagonist so that she won't be seen in public, or wears masks which make it impossible to identify her. Even during Strikers the anxiety issues do not completely go away, as, if the protagonist talks to her while investigating Alice Hiiragi in Shibuya, she will say that the heat and crowds of people during summer still makes her uncomfortable.
