SMT Nocturne Character Analysis of Yuko Takao: A Well-Written Toxic Personality
My interpretation of Yuko Takao is that she was a total zealot. She fell for Hikawa’s tricks due to her zealous beliefs, she outright stated that she felt no remorse for her actions of having annihilated all of humanity and forcing her own favorite students into the Vortex world, and to counteract Hikawa after being deceived by him, she immediately devotes herself completely to Aradia without any self-reflection for her actions despite having caused the end of the world. The reason she couldn’t create a Reason was precisely because she was a zealot. She couldn’t find her own meaning and instead used everyone around her as a crutch while presenting herself as the blameless victim for actions that she willfully chose to do. The moment she thought she could grasp at power for herself, like the Yahrino Himorogi that she took from you without earning it by her own efforts, she immediately expected her God to bestow her Reason and give her a path towards a happy ending. She’s notoriously unreliable and although she tries to suggest any path you choose is fine, she still also tries to suggest her own path with you doing her work for her after failing to fulfill it herself. She didn’t have any inner strength, I have no idea how anyone who has played the game and seen her thoughtless actions could even come-up with that conclusion. Chiaki, Isamu, and Hijiri are the only ones to show inner strength besides the player character of the Demi-fiend should you choose certain routes.
The only ones I had empathy for in the entire conflict, apart from the Manikins, were Isamu, Chiaki, and Hijiri because they were all blameless victims just like the Demi-fiend but didn’t have his demonic strength to endure the world’s hardships. Or at least, two of the three didn’t initially and the third died unable to do much of anything. If they really lost their sanity, then that’s all the more reason to have empathy for them and none for Yuko Takao. Isamu acting like an asshole victim was completely reasonable from an emotional standpoint; he was tortured twice and he was in the same desperate situation that you were in, but without any power to defend himself (as can be seen when Thor knocked him out). Chiaki may seem genocidal, but the world itself drove her to become the monster that she was and told her that it was the correct way to survive. After all, if the world is going to be remade and Manikins are transitory, then why do they matter? Logically, she was right, even if the conclusion was a cruel one and borne from her own suffering at the hands of Sakahagi who sliced her arm off. Before Hijiri had supposedly “betrayed” you, he did nothing but help you and tried his best to support you. All three of these people, just like the Demi-fiend, were victims of circumstance and deserve far less blame than Yuko Takao and Hikawa. I’d judge Yuko Takao as worse, because Hikawa had a specific purpose in mind while Yuko Takao literally destroyed the world for no reason other than her own emotional anguish which she seemed to project on others. Even if she had a point in her arguments, the fact that the world reverts to how it was before in her own ending seems to diminish them and Hikawa’s counter arguments to her end-up ringing as the truth as a result.
Yuko Takao is no less a villain than any of the others, but because she doesn’t have a disfigured monstrous form people are too willing to treat her as an innocent victim. If you’re going to judge Chiaki for slaughtering the Manikins, then why not also judge Yuko Takao for doing the same thing on an order of magnitude far greater and reaching up to billions of innocent human lives lost? Furthermore, if you’re going to judge the Demi-fiend for what he does in the True Demon Ending, then take an honest look at the person who you perceive to be the “sane” ending of the story and look at what she was so easily manipulated into doing. This is who the Demi-fiend, Chiaki, and Isamu placed their complete faith in and whom they cherished and respected before the Conception. If she had been given a monstrous figure like the others, I think the others would have more readily seen her for what she really was. If you find what Chiaki and Demi-fiend do to be gut-wrenching, well hey . . . like teacher, like pupil. Unlike Chiaki, Yuko Takao has no respect for you and constantly begs you to do her dirty work for her just like Isamu, which explains where he got it. All of the negative behaviors of the three students after the Conception can be seen as a reflection of her own behavior. They almost certainly learned it from her and if you apply condemnation objectively, she’s actually one of the two worst lunatics out of all of them. She was never a good person; Hijiri, Isamu, and even Chiaki were all good people driven to insanity due to Yuko Takao’s actions.