Makoto has brown hair in a bob cut with blunt bangs and a French-braid styled headband that matches her hair color. Her eyes are abnormal as they have been depicted as red, although her eye color in her portraits can be interpreted as a reddish-brown. She is of average female height, being taller than Futaba Sakura and Haru Okumura, but slightly shorter than Ann Takamaki.
Her winter school uniform appears normal but without the standard blazer. Instead, she wears a black halter vest over a long sleeve white shirt with a turtleneck (which is different from normal turtlenecks for female students). She wears the regulation black and red pleated plaid skirt, black pantyhose and black-brown ankle boots.
Her Metaverse outfit consists of a two-toned (dark blue and black) skintight suit that is worn with a long black scarf, a dark gray corset-style leather breastplate, shoulder and knee pads with spikes mixed with boots that sport metal heels and toes, white gloves and an iron mask.
Personality
Despite being the student council president, Makoto is an extremely unpopular student at Shujin Academy; due to her not doing anything to stop Suguru Kamoshida's abuse, she is considered by all the students to be an arrogant, selfish control freak who knew about the abuse but chose to do nothing about it because she only cared about getting a good letter of recommendation. While she does give off the impression of this during the Phantom Thieves' first few encounters with her, these rumors are ultimately revealed to be just that: rumors. In truth, the abuse outraged Makoto, but she didn't feel like she had the power to do anything about it. In fact, Makoto holds no real authority in the school, with her position merely making her a glorified tool for the principal to use however he sees fit. Feeling overshadowed by her highly successful older sister, Makoto has almost no sense of self-worth, and so has made a habit of keeping her nose down and doing what is expected of her. Her submissive nature is noted by Goro Akechi, who condescendingly refers to her as "the good-girl type of pushover." After getting involved with the Phantom Thieves, however, Makoto realizes her frustration at the authority figures around her not living up to the expectations they've set for themselves, and vows from then on to fight for what she believes in, which triggers the awakening of her Persona. After the group defeat Junya Kaneshiro, Makoto decides to stay with the Phantom Thieves, saying that she's done being the "exemplary honour student" and that she's going to try to be more honest with herself.
Despite appearing prim and proper on the surface, Makoto is actually more of a tomboy; she's trained in aikido (though she's never seen using it onscreen), enjoys violent action movies, never wears skirts other than her school uniform (which she wears leggings under) and seems to care little about fashion other than the headband she wears in her hair. Makoto is also something of a tsundere; while she's mostly a kind person, she can also be very bossy and is harshly critical of those who don't live up to her expectations, particularly Ryuji Sakamoto, whose case she constantly gets on due to his consistently nonchalant approach to school life, implying that she's a perfectionist. She also has a ton of repressed anger issues over being made to stand on a pedestal by adults who don't follow the same standards themselves, and as such has the worst temper of the group bar none, to the point that even Ryuji, who's quite short-tempered himself, often warns the others not to get her bad side. Makoto can also be a hypocrite at times; when she first joins the team, she criticizes the others for performing their heists without a proper strategy, yet conveniently ignores the fact that only a few days before, she threw herself into Kaneshiro's territory with no plan of any kind out of a desperate attempt to please her sister, which resulted in the entire team getting blackmailed. Nevertheless, Makoto ultimately cares a great deal about her friends, and does not hesitate to praise them when she feels that they've earned it.
