Takuto Maruki is one of Persona 5 Royal’s brand-new characters, and he’s got a brand-new Arcana and Confidant as well: the Councillor Confidant. Maruki’s Confidant is excellent. You’ll get +5 SP each time you spend time with Maruki, plus a range of other combat benefits.
Mild spoilers lie ahead, but reading on is vital for unlocking Persona 5 Royal’s true ending and getting to the third semester.
You’ll need to get the Councillor Confidant up to Rank 9 before November 18 to access the new third semester. That means it’s pretty important you have a Councillor Persona on hand every time you trigger a Confidant event. The earliest you can do this is Level 12, with Kushi Mitama. It’s the cheapest way as well.
Councillor Confidant Ranks 1 and 2
You’ll automatically establish the Councillor Confidant on May 13, after the school assembly meeting. As always, it doesn’t matter what responses you give here: It’s automatic.
You’ll also attain Rank 2 on the same day. We aren’t listing what the responses are to help keep from spoiling things too much, so we’ll just list the number of the response instead. Unless you did a lot of grinding, you probably won’t have Kushi Mitama by now. If you do, it gives an extra point for your correct responses.
- 1: 2nd choice (+1)
- 2: N/A. Choice doesn’t matter
- 3: 1st or 2nd choice (+1)
- 4: 1st choice (+1)
This first event doesn’t have a follow-up phone call. You do get Detox, though, a chance to cleanse Joker of all ailments in battle.
Councillor Confidant Rank 3
You should be able to rank up again by May 23 when Maruki contacts you by phone. I didn’t have Kushi Mitama yet thanks to a daft decision, so these are just the base values.
- 1: 3rd choice (+1)
- 2: 1st or 2nd choice (+1)
- 3: Doesn’t matter
- 4: 1st or 3rd choice (+1)
- 5: 1st or 2nd choice (+1)
- 6: 1st (+1)
Rank 3 gives you the Flow ability. You’ll randomly begin battle in a Charged and Concentrated state, which means your physical and magic attacks will do extra damage.
Councillor Confidant Rank 4
Maruki should contact you again a week later. Depending on how many points you got before in your events (and if you had a Councillor Persona), you might not be able to rank up yet. From here on, I’m using values you get with a Councillor Persona.
- 1: Doesn’t matter
- 2: 1st choice (+3)
- 3: 3rd choice (+3)
- 4: Doesn’t matter
- 5: Both choices (+2)
- 6: 1st choice (+3)
- 7: 1st choice (+2)
Councillor Confidant Rank 5
Rank 5 gives you access to your next ability, the highly useful Mindfulness. Mindfulness offers a random chance to restore Joker’s HP when it’s low.
- 1: 1st choice (+3)
- 2: Doesn’t matter
- 3: 3rd choice (+3)
- 4: 1st or 2nd choice (+2)
- 5: 2nd choice (+2)
- 6: 1st or 3rd choice (+2)
Councillor Confidant Rank 6
You won’t get Rank 6 for a while. The Confidant automatically pauses until you’ve cleared Futaba’s Palace, the pyramid.
After that, it resumes automatically, so you don’t need to worry about it until you’re prompted to continue. Just make sure you take him up on his offer every time, so you aren’t down to the last minute getting up to rank nine.
- 1: 3rd choice (+3)
- 2: 1st choice (+3)
- 3: 1st or 3rd choice (+2)
- 4: Doesn’t matter
- 5: 2nd choice (+2)
- 6: 1st choice (+2)
Councillor Confidant Rank 7
After Rank 6, Maruki’s requests come in regularly like before, once per week. Again, give them priority.
- 1: 1st choice (+3)
- 2: 2nd choice (+3)
- 3: 1st choice (+3)
- 4: 3rd choice (+3)
Rank 7 brings you Flow Boost, which makes it more likely you’ll start battle in a Flow state.
Councillor Confidant Rank 8
Nothing super special about Rank 8, though you start to get a real idea of who Maruki is.
- 1: 1st choice (+3)
- 2: 1st choice (+3)
- 3: 1st choice (+3)
- 4: 1st or 3rd choice (+2)
- 5: 1st choice (+3)
- 6: 1st choice (+3)
- 7: Doesn’t matter
- 8: 1st choice (+2)
Councillor Confidant Rank 9
This is the last time you’ll hang out with Maruki in a normal event. It gets a bit heavy, too, so keep that in mind.
- 1: Doesn’t matter
- 2: 3rd choice (+2)
And now you get Detox X, which increases Joker’s likelihood of shedding ailments.
Councillor Confidant Rank 10
Rank 10 happens automatically on November 18. We won’t say anything else, because that would spoil basically everything. You’ll unlock the ultimate Councillor Persona as well, which we also won’t spoil for you, and Wakefulness, which increases the amount of SP recovered through Mindfulness.
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That’s everything you need to know about Persona 5 Royal‘s Councillor Confidant. Be sure to check out our other Persona 5 Royal guides for more tips and tricks.
