Kunikazu Okumura is a character from Persona 5. He is the father of Haru Okumura and the CEO of Okumura Foods, who runs Big Bang Burger.
Kunikazu Okumura is the third president of Okumura Foods, preceded by his father. He founded Big Bang Burger, a fast food chain that the protagonist can shop in during his free time.
Kunikazu only has one child, his daughter Haru Okumura. Both Kunikazu himself and Haru, as well as other associates of Okumura Foods had mutually admitted that he used to genuinely care for her in spite of his rather unethical and overambitious business practices, up until he attempts to arrange a marriage for her with Sugimura, an abusive man who does not treat her as anything other than "a plaything" for the sole reason of trying to compete with Masayoshi Shido for the premiership. Even then, it was later revealed that the arranged marriage contract between Haru and Sugimura was fabricated and even some high executives within his company had never heard of it. Presumably, he fabricated the contract under one of the black box meetings that he frequently held with board members who were loyal to him.
He is one of the heist targets of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts at his own Palace. Initially prosecutor Sae Niijima notices Okumura's fast food business heavily benefits from his rivals' deaths from the mysterious mental shutdowns and psychotic breakdowns carried out by the Antisocial Force, a fact that is learned by the thieves after they have stolen the investigation documents from Sae's laptop. After the Medjed incident, Okumura's heist request ranking in the Phantom Aficionado Website suddenly surges with loads of comments against his business practices. The Phantom Thieves are initially indecisive about reforming Okumura, but settle down when Haru joins them to escape her doomed marriage.
His sin, his Greed, and his Palace is a spaceport formed from his desire for success, to the point where he refuses to acknowledge how much he is hurting Haru or his employees with his overly ambitious business and political ventures. He knows full well what kind of person Haru's fiancé Sugimura is, but arranges the marriage anyway to gain power to become prime minister. The main inhabitants of his Palace are the cognitive existences of his workers, which take the form of robots who are devoted to him and are devoid of any emotion, symbolizing that he views his workers as dispensable labor. The robots are also used to fuel the spaceport when they go defunct, indicating that he considers his workers as easily disposed.
After he receives the calling card, he sends it to the police. When the Phantom Thieves arrive to take his Treasure on the upcoming day, his Shadow activates a 10 minute self-destruct timer in his Palace in an attempt to kill the Thieves in an explosion while he escapes to "utopia." Once the party reaches him, he tries to subdue the Phantom Thieves by tricking them into separating from Haru and capturing the rest by pretending to have already reformed, but Morgana manages to escape the force field and hits the remote control he was using with his slingshot. During his boss fight, he sits on a floating chair and summons multiple waves of his robots to attack the party. Recognizing that he is not nearly strong enough to beat the Phantom Thieves directly, he activates a thirty-minute self-destruct timer and hangs back while his robots attack the party. After the party takes down all of his forces including his right-hand man Execurobo MDL-ED, Shadow Okumura is left alone, unable to fight off the Thieves and is eventually brought down.
Because he is shown to genuinely care about Haru and regularly feels deeply conflicted about his obligation to his business and his daughter, the Phantom Thieves come to respect him as an opponent. When his Treasure is stolen, he attempts to reveal the identity of the head of the conspiracy that are behind the mental shutdowns, but the Thieves are forced to retreat because of the tight time limit. When the Shadow Self is left alone, Goro Akechi shoots and kills it.
His Treasure is a spaceship model kit that takes the form of a glowing orb with a metallic shell in the Metaverse, and the appearance of his Palace is based on this model kit. Kunikazu wanted this model kit when he was young, and it is now a valuable collectible. The Thieves sell it to celebrate at Tokyo Destinyland.
During his press conference of October 11th, Okumura admits his maltreatment of his employees. Just as he is about to reveal the true culprit behind the mental shutdowns, he suddenly suffers a heart attack-like affliction and dies on camera, much to the horror of the Phantom Thieves; the general public, however, are delighted by his death. By the next day (right after Igor delivers a congratulatory speech and a warning to the protagonist), the general public have suddenly turned on the Phantom Thieves, believing that they are murderers worth a 30 million yen bounty on their heads. His death, supported by the calling card he had sent to the police as well as the sudden discovery of a calling card sent to Principal Kobayakawa, results in a sharp decline in support for the Phantom Thieves. Despite Okumura blatantly using Haru as a bargaining chip for political fame before, he was still her beloved parent because he used to treat Haru like a daughter instead of a tool. Therefore, Haru is left traumatized and guilt-ridden over his death, and she vows to uncover the truth behind his murder. Haru also believes that she and her fellow Phantom Thieves are innocent over his death.
When the Phantom Thieves infiltrate Shido's Palace, it's revealed that his heist request was rigged by the Antisocial Force in order to lure the Phantom Thieves into a trap, so that they can be framed for his murder. The person behind it was also the same person behind the blank Medjed threats that kickstarted the heist on Futaba Sakura. Masayoshi Shido also wanted him to be removed from the get-go, as he posed a threat against him during the general election. Despite Shido having ordered the TV Station President to cover up as many of his scandals as possible in gratitude for his funds, the constant scandals that Okumura and his company were often tangled in rendered them impossible to cover up by the Antisocial Force despite protection from the media. When combined with Okumura actually getting into Shido's way of premiership, this made him an incredibly lucrative target to remove alongside the Phantom Thieves. When confronted by Haru however, Shadow Shido has no real recollection of this incident despite it occurring pretty recently, and merely dismisses him as an insignificant roadblock to be crushed on his way to power. After the Phantom Thieves change his heart, Shido publicly confesses to being the one responsible for Okumura's murder following his landslide victory.
Okumura's role is largely identical in the original game. This time, his cognition of Haru appears in his Palace. Cognitive Haru is depicted as an obedient asset that acts as a part of his movement animation (like Cognitive Shiho Suzui during the Asmodeus boss fight.) His support skills also tend to make the battle more erratic than in Persona 5 and the robots flee and reset after two turns (which his movements capitalize on), making the timer actually a risk. After the party defeats the MDL-ED Execurobo, he dispatches cognitive Haru as a last-ditch attempt to dispose of the party, transforming her into a robot that self-destructs after two turns. Once Cognitive Haru is sacrificed, he is rendered helpless exactly like in the original game.
Okumura is first mentioned in the third term semester by Haru during Hatsumode, when she says they'll be spending time together. He is then personally seen a week later alongside Haru in Kichijoji, scouting for locations for a new Big Bang Burger restaurant. He is now heavily implied to be what he was prior to arranging Haru's marriage to Sugimura for the sake of politically competing with Shido; a clumsy and unambitious businessman who genuinely cares for his daughter. This is an alteration made by Takuto Maruki, who warped history so that in this reality, he never died nor did his political and corporate ambitions rise to destructive levels. Once Haru chooses to deny Maruki's reality, Okumura vanishes.
Before the protagonist checks on all his teammates, Okumura can be seen discussing business affairs with Takakura in Shibuya. This Okumura also personally inspects his branches for flaws and cares for his employees' well being, instead of being obsessed with pure profit.
If the protagonist cuts a deal with Maruki to let him overwrite the current reality, Okumura will be seen hanging out with Haru during the credits.
While Okumura does not directly appear, it was revealed by Mariko Hyodo that they were trade partners, and when he still cared for Haru, the three would play golf together. She also sympathizes with Okumura's death, indicating that she also knew Okumura cared for Haru prior to the events of Persona 5.
In the Legacy of Chris Thorndyke,
And he is reprised by Christopher Corey Smith in the English dub and Hirohiko Kagekawa in the Japanese dub.
THEMES[]
- Sweatshop (Persona 5) - Okumura's Palace
- Darth Vader Boss 1 (Star Wars: The Force Unleashed) - Vs. Shadow Okumura
- Symphony NO. 9 from the New World (Asura's Wrath) - Vs. Execurobo MDL-ED
- Estasi Dell Anima (Zombieland) - Sacrifice of Kunikazu Okumura