Persona 5 attackers has been out for a little over a week so I’m pretty comfortable saying this:
Thank goodness for Wolf!
Wolf (née Zenkichi Hasegawa) is the newest and only adult member of the Phantom Thieves. There are adults who help the Phantom Thieves and keep their secret, but until Attackers, there has never been a user of an adult persona.
And I love him. A lot of.
I was worried about him when he first got around the Phantom Thieves. While there are some good grown people like Cafe Leblanc owner Sojiro or Dr. Takemi, adults are always the villains in the Person 5 series. So then a new one, no less a cop, started hanging out Attackers, I thought he was going to be in trouble. Great, one more character to get attached to, just for the writers to piss him off. This is Dr. Maruki all over again.
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Despite a number of scenes where it seemed painfully clear, Mr. Hasegawa de Attackers’ gang for his own benefit, he turned out to be one of the good guys. Aided by Tom Taylorson’s spectacular voice talents, Mr. Hasegawa a bumbling charm around him. He’s not overly serious like most allied adults of the Thieves. When he hangs out with his young partners-in-crime, he takes on their jokes about his age or rashness. Finally a character user for adult people!
The Person 5 series presents the ultimate power fantasy: how much better could life be if the worthless people just realized they were worthless and stopped? In Person 5 and Royal, this conflict was presented as adults vs. children. The adults are given carte blanche to be worthless, and the only people who realize or care are the helpless adolescents. That’s why the Phantom Thieves are rightly suspicious of them – adults are the ones who supposedly have the power to bring justice to bastards, but they don’t. When Kamoshida abused children Person 5, none of the administrators intervened, even despite overwhelming evidence. It calcified this notion that adults have no idea or are complicit.
But Wolf’s presence on the team adds nuance. He helps the Phantom Thieves understand that even all powerful adults who follow all the rules can suffer from the yoke of oppression and manipulation, and that it is better to work together than to fight. When his own daughter turned on him for failing to arrest her mother’s killer, Hasegawa reveals that he compromised his sense of justice in order to protect her. Then, after awakening to his persona through a close association with the Phantom Thieves, he is finally able to bring his wife’s killer – who also happens to be responsible for all of the heartbreak change – to justice. Collaboration between adults and children saved the day.
Also, humans look good when Wolf fights.
The cowboy get up? Swinging those guns? Swing that huge sword? Does he call himself “Wolf”? Oof! He’s hot, not that smoldering sexy way, but that single daddy, crumbs in bed, charmingly schlubby-ish way. And he has huge DBE – dad offer energy. Mr. Hasegawa is actually a Japanese version of Jim Hopper from Weird stuffAnd thank you God he’s grown up so I don’t feel bad saying Wolf is hot. Thank you Attackers, to finally let me be guilt-free.