MinaYuka

MinaYuka is the het ship between Makoto Yuki and Yukari Takeba from the Persona fandom.

Canon
Yukari officially met Makoto on April 7th, 2009. She is willing to take Makoto to Gekkoukan High School on his first day of school. During the April full moon operation, she is the first person to feel bad for Makoto when Mitsuru and Ikutsuki watch him sleep during the Dark Hour if he has the potential to summon a Persona. During the Magician Arcana’s attack, Yukari gives Makoto a weapon and takes him to safety on the rooftop. After Yukari’s failed attempt to summon her Persona due to her hesitation and getting attacked by Magician Arcana, Makoto uses Yukari’s Evoker to summon his Persona for the first time to protect her. After the Magician Arcana is defeated, Makoto saves her again by defeating the small fragments of the destroyed Magician Arcana.

After Makoto regained consciousness and woke up in a hospital, Yukari was the only one to visit him. She decides to tell him about her past since they both lost someone important to them.

During the June full moon operation, Yukari will be the only option to go with Makoto to search for the gym storage keys due to Akihiko and Mitsuru keeping an eye on Junpei late at night at the school.

During the July full moon operation, Yukari is the only party member to be paired up with Makoto by Arcana Lover’s manipulation since she was seen in the cinematic cutscene of the original game. By the time Yukari regains her senses, she will realize she is half naked wearing only a towel, and slaps Makoto in the face before she goes back to the bathroom. After she is fully dressed, she threatens Makoto that if he tells anyone about this, she will never speak to him again.

The player can choose to formally develop their bond through Yukari’s social link after Yakushima’s trip. Yukari struggles with romance and her relationship with her mother.

She gets jealous of Aigis for getting too close to Makoto most of the time. The first time was after they back from Yakushima where Aigis wanted to become roommates with Makoto in order to stay by side. The second was Aigis transferred to Gekkoukan High School where she declared she wants to be by Makoto’s side in front of everyone in class.

In the film adaptation, Makoto’s relationship with Yukari is platonic due to Makoto taking an interest in Aigis. She and Makoto rarely interacted with each other after Aigis joined SEES. Despite their relationship being toned down, Yukari can be a supportive friend to Makoto most of the time as she deeply cares for him as a friend.

In the manga adaptation, Yukari is the main love interest of Minato due to only sees Aigis as a friend. There have been some moments together where she healed his injuries with her Persona’s healing abilities. As months went by, Yukari started to develop romantic feelings for him.

Moments
The Journey The Answer Persona Q
 * On the first day of Yakushima, Junpei asks Makoto who is his type, he will have the option to say Yukari.
 * After Yukari finds out that his father was responsible for the creation of the Dark Hour, when Yukari asks Makoto if he came here because Mitsuru asked him, he says he came because he wanted to which makes Yukari blush. He can embrace her for comfort.
 * In the summer festival, Makoto had the option to hang out with Yukari if he accepted her offer via phone call.
 * In the bad ending, it was implied Yukari and Makoto started dating each other.
 * In the New Plus Game in the PSP version, if Yukari is chosen, she will spend time with him during the final cutscene rather than Aigis. She will make a promise to Makoto that she will be by his side before his death.
 * Yukari didn’t take Makoto’s death very well as she regrets never giving him a proper goodbye, thanking him, or making peace with him before his death. She tries to forget about him by attending cram school.
 * After she learns that Aigis has awakened the ability of the Wild Card like Makoto, she becomes very jealous and hostile towards her.
 * When SEES tries to decide what they should use their keys for, Yukari wants to use the key to go to the past to their last battle against Nyx and prevent Makoto’s sacrifice.
 * After Yukari and Mitsuru are defeated by Aigis and Mitsuru, Yukari finally admits that she had promised to Makoto. According to her, it wasn’t like Aigis’ promise, it was a promise she made by herself to stay by Makoto while she held his lifeless hand. She didn’t care about anything else, she just wanted to see him again.
 * After Yukari finds out to real truth about Makoto’s heroic sacrifice, she is finally able to move on from Makoto’s death and accept his decisions.
 * In the first dungeon, "You In Wonderland Labyrinth", if Makoto calls her cute, Yukari will blush at his response.
 * Regards the choices, Yukari will always choose to drink the last two shrink potions with him since she doesn't want Makoto or Junpei to look at her skirt.
 * If the player chooses the correct answers to Yukari's preferences in the second dungeon, Group Date Cafe dungeon, Yukari will be Makoto's destined partner.
 * During the Big Day floor, Yukari states she will never marry anyone. However, Yukari begins to change her mind as getting married won’t be so bad if she meets the right person like Makoto since he fits her preferences.

Quotes
"I'll be by your side, I promise."

- Yukari, Persona 3 Portable

"I... I made a promise to him too... I promised that I'd try my best to change this world, so that people would stop wishing for the Fall... It wasn't like yours... It was something I promised myself while holding his cold hand... That's why I decided to put the past behind me, and look forward... But I can't... I can't be that person... I wanna see him.. I don't care about anything else! I just wanna see him again!"

- Yukari, Persona 3 FES The Answer

Fanon
The name of the ship came from mixing Yukari Takaba with Makoto Yuki, the name for the Protagonist that was used across most adaptations (Persona 3 The Movie, Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight, and Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight). The MinaYuka ship has mixed reaction in the fan base. There been some of the official artworks of Makoto and Yukari together in the original game and the manga.

There are some moments where Yukari is depicted as a canon love interest to Makoto due to sharing some major ship tenses moments in the main storyline. In Persona 3 FES The Answer, it wasn’t stated if Yukari and Makoto were in relationship or she had unrequited feelings for him before Makoto’s death is unknown. However, some fans believe that their relationship was canon. In the manga, she also started to developed romantic feeling for Minato even though he didn’t ask her out nor confessed his love to her.

However, there was some negative responses where Yukari wants to uses her key to travel to the past to the final battle where Makoto perform a heroic sacrifice to save humanity. Yukari will rather prevent Makoto’s death than saving humanity against Nyx. This shows on how Makoto’s death greatly affected Yukari as she clearly doesn’t want to lose someone precious to her again like her father. This makes fans felt sorry for her.

MinaYuka started to increase after the game received many spin-offs off which included Persona Q  and Persona 3 Dancing Moonlight.

On AO3, MinaYuka is divided based on how one calls Makoto. Between Makoto Yuki (144), Persona 3 Protagonist (288), and his manga name Minato Arisato (198), there are 630 works.

Fandom
FAN FICTION
 * Yukari/Makoto on FanFiction.Net
 * Yukari/Makoto on FanFiction.Net
 * Yukari/Makoto on FanFiction.Net
 * Yukari/Makoto on FanFiction.Net


 * TUMBLR

Trivia

 * Makoto and Yukari appear on the Volume 2 cover of Persona 3 manga.