Kasumi Goto

Writeups.org offers extensive Mass Effect coverage. The core articles are setting for Mass Effect 1 and the setting for Mass Effect 2, plus the profiles for the heroine – Staff Commander Mandala Shepard.

Unless you are highly familiar with Mass Effect, we recommend reading these articles first.

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• There are S P O I L E R S in this thing.
• This profile assumes a specific video game playthrough. See our video games writeups FAQ for more.
• This profile features tabletop RPG mechanics about the video game’s gameplay. See our video games writeups FAQ for more.
• This profile features non-canon hypotheses about in-game events and mechanics. See our video games writeups FAQ for more.

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Background

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Powers and Abilities

Kasumi is a high-powered thief. She specialises in the sort of heist one makes movies about. She :

• Is highly intelligent planner and observer.
• Has top-notch technological skills.
• Excels at social engineering.
• Is justifiably confident that she can defeat even top-drawer security measures.

A typical Kasumi job will leave her target discovering that something has been missing for some time as she inexplicably got in and out with but the barest traces of a break-in. Some of her thefts using expertly-crafted replicas to replace the stolen item have yet to be discovered. No harm no foul, right ?

Kasumi has quite a reputation among the sort of persons who might hire her for a job, such as the Shadow Broker – yet she’s a ghost. Almost nobody knows what she looks like, and few even know that she exists. She usually works alone.

She’s crafty

Gōtō seems very good at gauging personalities to determine how competent and dangerous people are, and their motivations. She very quickly realises how dangerous Liara T’Soni can be despite appearances. In Mass Effect playthroughs where Morinth survives, Kasumi is the only person to realise what is going on.

Though she prefers stealth, misdirection and hacking, Kasumi is a superior athlete and fighter. She displays impressive agility and suppleness. While she uses light arms — pistols, machine pistols and submachineguns — with excellent accuracy, her usual goal is to quickly extricate herself from a situation through close-range burst fire and acrobatics.

She packs a M-3 Predator just in case, but generally used a M-4 Shuriken machine pistol for self defense. Her new employer had her switch to and train with a high-end, rebuilt M-12 Locust submachinegun so she could handle serious firefights.

Name it, rate it…

Kasumi’s suit sports an advanced personal cloaking field. She can just vanish whenever she wants, and her field will defeat even good sensors.

Becoming invisible at a whim is tremendously useful for intelligence-gathering. It would also seem that Kasumi just likes hanging around invisibly and listening to people’s conversations.

Her field cannot be sustained when she attacks, though – whether it’s a melee attack or shooting a gun. And it will take a few seconds for her to recloak.

Her suit — which we’ve assumed is lightly armoured — also seems to include Element Zero inlays allowing her to suspend her mass. This is an important part of her MO, since Kasumi is a superlative gymnast.

Nullifying her weight allows her to :

• Perform impossible acrobatics and Matrix-style jumps.
• Hang by but her fingertips without stress.
• And presumably to run on fragile surfaces and other wuxia -style exploits.

…tune it, print it…

She also trained herself to sprint with a drastically lowered body mass. This way she achieves superhuman bursts of speed. It is likely also possible for her to run along walls and the like, but that’s not supported by the game engine.

Though it’s not clear, one scene implies that her gloves (and presumably her boots) can stick to surfaces, given how she holds onto the gunship on Bekenstein. There are pad-like surfaces on the palm of her gloves, reinforcing this impression.

Kasumi’s omni-tool includes numerous resources to hack, fool, spoof and defeat electronics –

• Locks.
• Security cameras.
• Sensor grids.
• Voice print locks (by recording and splicing voice with perfect accuracy).
• Combat mechs.
• DNA scanners (provided she can analyse DNA using her omni-tool, for instance using skin flakes, to spoof the information).
• Automated turrets.
• And even large vehicles such as light gunships if she can operate from within their kinetic shields.

When hacking a complex system, Kasumi’s omni-tool can give her a VR environment much akin to a cyberpunk-style cyberspace. It allows her to visualise what’s going on and react faster. When she does so another holographic interface appears – white virtual goggles in front of her eyes.

Turn it, leave it, start, format it — technologic…

Kasumi’s omni-tool can also produce a weapon that will become more common by 2186 – an omni-blade. This is a disposable silicon-carbide blade flash-forged by her omni-tool. It is suspended in a Mass Effect field in front of her fist. Kasumi uses it much like a katar.

One assumes that this weapon is normally used for silent sentry removal. This presumably means robots, since Kasumi prefers non-lethal means against living guards.

Ms. Gōtō is proficient in using her omni-blade in combat. She actually brings a knife to gunfights. When she spots an opportunity she will cloak, use her acrobatic and sprinting skills to invisibly cross the battlefield in a flash, and stab a selected opponent in the back.

It takes a few seconds for her to recloak and bounce back to her allies. Thus, she does that when she’s confident that her shields can take the resultant gunfire.

Such an attack is easily lethal. Commander Shepard often has her stab heavily-protect opponents to weaken their defenses – especially if they then turn to face Kasumi, giving Shepard free rein to open up and hit them in the back.

…technologic

Since she now works more as a commando and less like a thief, Kasumi upgunned a model of flashbang grenade that she only rarely used during her thieving career. These do not rely on a Mass Effect field and will thus work fine on well-protected opponents, blinding them for several seconds. The shockwave can also stagger them a bit and helps weaken shields.

Kasumi will usually use her flashbangs to suppress a source of enemy fire and relieve pressure for a short bit. Either that or allow a teammate such as Commander Shepard to storm an enemy position while the opposition is dazed.

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History

Kasumi’s a ghost. And she fully intends to remain invisible, unknown and untraceable. Few even know of her existence, and fewer still know what she looks like.

She may have grown up on Earth. She’s one of the few humans in the Mass Effect series to call herself a national of a specific country, often presenting herself as Japanese. She works as a freelancer for the type of persons who pays large sums of money to have extremely valuable items procured from their current owner.

She specialises in art and antiquities, and obviously finds those much more interesting than, say, industrial espionage.

In her youth Kasumi was known as the Red Rose. She left a single red rose in lieu of whatever she had stolen.

Keiji

Some years back Kasumi fell in love with another Human thief and spy for hire, Keiji Okuda. They bumped into each other as they were hired to steal the same painting. They decided to keep the painting and become partners in love and crime.

Keiji convinced her that her romantic red rose calling card was silly, and she stopped that schtick. Kasumi still decorates her living quarters with a few red roses, though.

Circa 2184, Keiji acquired some very sensitive data. He feared that these could be used to discredit the Systems Alliance. The data was kept in one of his cybernetic implants, a “greybox” storing all of his memories.

Soon after that, Mr. Okuda was killed during a heist. He was attempting to rob major weapons dealer and art collector Donovan Hock .

Hock extracted Okuda’s greybox from the corpse, since he was certain that it held priceless data. However, his efforts to have it decrypted did not produce any result. Okuda was a high-level encryption expert.

Stolen memory

Reeling from the loss of her lover, Kasumi planned to steal the greybox. She had the access codes in her own cerebral drives. Thus, having the greybox would allow her to access Keiji’s memories in VR form and thus spend virtual time with him.

But Hock’s security was problematic. It seems that Kasumi was confident that she could get in, but there were too many unknowns about getting out.

In 2185 Kasumi was approached by the Human supremacist organisation Cerberus, who had the connections to know of her existence. Cerberus was looking for the most skilled specialists they could find, and offered an impressive signing bonus for her services.

They didn’t actually find her. It was the curious Kasumi who heard they were looking for her and tracked them down to see what they wanted.

Enter the dragon

Though Ms. Gōtō was certainly interested in the money, the offer clicked when she realised that Cerberus wanted her to work with *the* Staff Commander Shepard. Kasumi was a big fan of Shepard, knowing about her incredible exploits during the Skyllian Blitz, the Saren Plot and beyond.

Though the job was clearly outside her usual MO, she didn’t want to pass up working along with a living legend. As a Shepard fangirl she didn’t mind the Commander knowing her past and her face either.

Associating with Commander Shepard was also a solution to the Hock heist. Using the cover she had built, Kasumi could credibly bring one person with her at the Hock estate. If things got hairy on the way out, she was confident that the legendary Commander Shepard could handle anything – especially with her help.

Anything.

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Description

Kasumi has a soft, rounded face and doe eyes. Her hood hides much of it in shadows, leaving the small rectangular tattoo on her lower lip and upper chin as her most distinctive facial trait.

She usually has a faint smile floating on her lips, and wears a touch of lip gloss with a slight glittery effect. Like nearly everybody in the Mass Effect future, she wears very tight clothing.

Her eyes have a strangely shiny quality. It seems probable that they are artificial. Or maybe it’s the product of tiny implants around her eye sockets to project her VR interface. In many instances her eyes are clearly emitting a small amount of light, as if backlit.

Her eyes usually shine blue-white. There’s occasionally a red tinge instead but it’s probably an odd reflection from the game engine.

She also uses a lot of black eyeliner. This is a common look for Human women in the Mass Effect future.

Raspy

Kasumi’s voice is distinctive – cheeky, slightly raspy and nasal. She has a slight accent but not one that reads as Japanese.

The brief official trailer for the Stolen Memory DLC provides a good example of Kasumi’s voice and style :

 

Below is a very brief video of a typical Kasumi moment.

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Personality

Kasumi is bright, fun-loving and enthusiastic – as well as terribly curious. She’s happy with being who she is and with her mystique. And she is a self-admitted Commander Shepard fangirl.

Kasumi chose to have an exciting, dangerous, roguish life letting her admire treasures and relying on her wits and skills for survival and success.

Kasumi generally acts friendly and bubbly. She is very much a people person, though with zero respect for privacy. She likes chatting, making cute/funny remarks. She is a huge gossip, always knowing all the latest rumours about who did or said what.

Ms. Gōtō is also a relentless optimist, always looking at the bright side of a situation.

Though she routinely handles priceless, one-of-a-kind objects, Kasumi’s sense of wonder about rare items and art masterworks is unblemished. Her reactions to Hock’s secret museum was like an arts enthusiast’s first time at the Louvre . She kept wowing and excitedly explaining to Shepard the significance of the works of art stashed there.

Her own tastes are fairly conventional, though. She prefers beautiful to deep.

Kasumi likes all sorts of old things, sometimes just because they are old. For instance he has a small library of actual books printed on paper. She likes touching them. To her, ancient equals valuable and perhaps attractive.

Romance of the red rose

Kasumi misses Keiji very much. She spent months planning the Hock heist to be virtually reunited with him. Though Keiji’s last message urged Kasumi to move on and delete his memories, she couldn’t do it. She craved experiencing life with him again. She spent VR time in their shared past, repeatedly reliving those episodes that made her happiest.

Her upbeat nature meant that she didn’t wallow in these memories for too long. But she needed to experience being with Keiji again so she could move on with her year-long grief.

Unfortunately, the man upon whom she next developed a crush, Jacob Taylor, makes her feel shy. He is far from the most approachable guy around, leaving Kasumi to watch him from a distance like some timid schoolgirl. It is strongly implied that she spies invisibly as the muscular Jacob goes through his daily workout routine.

Listen like thieves

Ms. Gōtō has an odd fixation on darkness, silence, invisibility and being the best thief and stealth fighter there is. It can occasionally come across as a bit weird or even creepy. Such as when she stares at Krogan fighting knives and makes a stilted comment about how silent they look. She is clearly obsessive.

She also seems to consider that she’s honour-bound to steal things rather than acquire them normally. This vaguely evokes a world-class athlete who must practice constantly to retain their edge.

Kasumi often jokes about being a kleptomaniac. But this seems to just be a running gag on her part rather than her actually having that condition.

Well, probably.

Hail to the thief

Kasumi is sentimental and empathic. She’s always feeling for people and encouraging them to find happiness. Though she’s a hardened criminal and a capable killer, she’s not a fan of bad things happening to people.

She prefers to steal from criminals and faceless institutions. One gets the impression that she much prefers avoiding harm to innocents, and even goes out of her way to help them. It wouldn’t be surprising to discover that she has a Robin Hood streak. One of her remarks implies that she goes an extra mile not to kill guards during a heist.

In particular she’s known to once have counter-kidnapped and brought back home a little girl with a talent for art, just because it was it was the right thing to do. She simply couldn’t let a child fall prey to slavers just because she happened to be a wonderful painter.

Kasumi is one of the most benign and least bloody-handed persons on Shepard’s tactical crew. But that’s not hard to achieve.

Sharp as a knife

Kasumi seems proud of her intelligence. She doesn’t brag about it, but the first or second word that comes to her mind when defining herself is “smart”.

Likewise, she doesn’t put efforts into looking like a super-badass. She doesn’t mind admitting that she’s scared in the rare cases where that happens. What she’ll never admit to is feeling dumb.

She’s also fond of various aspects of the Japanese culture of the 2100s – though she might be of Japanese descent rather than actually Japanese. She also misses some little things from Earth, like her grandmother’s ramen recipe.

Ms. Gōtō is the only person in-game who calls Staff Commander Shepard “Shep”.

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Quotes (Mass Effect 2)

“Commander Shepard ? My name is Kasumi Gōtō. I’m a fan.”

“Now you see me…” (code phrase to announce she’s about to launch a stealth attack)

(To Shepard, while diving to cover after a narrow miss by a geth colossus’ main gun) “It’s always like this around you, isn’t it ?”

(Staring at a graved tablet) “Oh wow, look at that. It looks like Quarian script. It must be really old ! I mean, when was the last time a Quarian wrote something on stone ?”

“So Commander, do you think Jacob likes Japanese girls with a penchant for kleptomania ?”

“I hear that Liara and you were an item. It must be hard for you to see her again after so long. She seemed so… cold and focused.”

(Kasumi just finished briefing Shepard on the big heist they’re about to commit – a crazy plan of the sort that only works in movies)
Shepard (semi-sarcastic): “Well, that should be… interesting.”
Kasumi (upbeat): “That’s what I’m going for !”

“I’m the best thief in the business. Not the most famous. I intend to keep it that way.”

“Trapped inside a Reaper… Well, it could be worse. I don’t know *how*, but…” (long beat) “I guess it could be full of rats !”

“Gabby and Ken would make such a lovely couple, but I doubt they’ll ever realise it.”

Shepard: “So, can you handle these security systems ?”
Kasumi: “Pleeaaase. Remember who you’re talking to. Keiji could crack this in his sleep.” (beat) “And I’m better.”

“My grandmother used to make the best ramen. Delicious. Thinking back, I really should have stolen her recipe.”

(Looking at the Illium skyline) “Towers, traffic, lights and Asari everywhere you look. I thought about living here for a while… but everybody’s so tight-arsed. It’s all about money to these people. I do what I do for the love of it. These people… do it because they don’t know any better.”

“Donovan Hock. Arms dealer, smuggler, murderer. Geeeh-nerally not a great guy.”

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Mass Effect 3

The mistress thief returns in Mass Effect 3 ! Our general policy is to keep the information from each game separate, but there’s not enough material for a second profile. So we’ll have a separate section instead.

There are of course S P O I L E R S for Mass Effect 3 in the following chapters.

Bekenstein and subsequent events in this playthrough

The Hock heist was a narrow call. But Shepard and Gōtō pulled it off through a mix of subterfuge, stealth, social engineering, ample gunfire and explosives.

The greybox indeed held all of Keiji’s memories… as well as secret data he’d said could start a war. This data was a timebomb. On the other hand, Commander Shepard had gotten a sense of Kasumi’s character. She told her to keep it so she could be with Keiji again by sharing his memories – trusting her not to do anything stupid with the political data.

Delighted, Gōtō became a close friend of Shepard. She was in the field during many subsequent combat missions. She kept the Commander’s morale up and encouraged her to experiment with more civilian clothing and entertainment.

Kasumi survived the entire campaign and saw the destruction of the Collectors. Once everybody had been debriefed, Kasumi hugged Shepard and left. Shepard was facing a court martial and would likely be in a brig for a while.

Mass Effect 3 – the Spectre

During the following months Ms. Gōtō crossed swords with another Spectre. This man was a Salarian called Jondum Bau. He had been trying to arrest her for several years.

Bau never managed to corner Gōtō. But they respected each other’s skill and intelligence. Kasumi thought that he was a good man, and she appreciated that he believed Shepard’s warnings about the coming annihilation.

Several days after the Reapers’ invasion of the galaxy, Gōtō sent Bau the politically sensitive intel in Keiji’s greybox. The data was about an Alliance special ops raid against a Batarian lab studying Reaper tech.

Exposing this would have normally sparked a Human/Batarian war. But the point was now moot. As Kasumi expected, Bau swiftly deduced that some Reapers parts had been stolen by the Hanar  who had provided the Humans with intelligence about the lab.

Mass Effect 3 – proof of indoctrination

This technology corrupting minds just by being there, Bau acted on the tip by investigating Hanars tied to the Batarian research. Commander Shepard, who had recently been released from prison and reinstated, was contacted by Bau to assist him. Furthermore Kasumi was also present to help, relying on her invisibility cloak to evade Bau.

Shepard and Bau found the corrupt Hanar and attempted to arrest him. During the struggle he sent a computer virus that would deactivate the planetary defenses of Kahje, the Hanar homeworld. That would leave it helpless against the Reapers.

Kasumi successfully rushed in to stop the virus while it was still in transit. She then pretended to be killed by an explosive booby trap. It was presumably simulated with one of her flash grenades.

Mass Effect 3 – make it until you fake it

Neither Spectre was fooled by the improvised trick. However, seeing how she had just saved Kahje — and after Commander Shepard told him that Kasumi had been instrumental in destroying the Collectors — Bau decided to leave Kasumi be.

Having appreciated working with the Commander, Bau told her that he and a number of Spectres would be at her side when the Humans would attempt to retake Earth.

Shepard then waited a bit and told Kasumi she could show up.

Mass Effect 3 – Project: Crucible

Gōtō did not wish to join Shepard’s team. The previous series of special ops strikes had been at the far edge of what she could do. Thus, an all-out war was not something she could help with. Commander Shepard knew that, and actually had another proposal.

A massive engineering project was ongoing to build a master weapon against the Reapers. Shepard wanted Gōtō to help with that:

• As a galactic-class security expert.
• As an experienced technologist.
• As an elite asset protecting the facilities against less skilled intrusion specialists.
• As a mistress of “alternative procurement” able to get rare resources for the project.

Happy to have a suitable way to help her friend and the galaxy, Kasumi took the job.

Mass Effect 3 – Citadel

Inevitably, Kasumi’s job experienced significant mission creep. She was often asked to recover critical resources from sites occupied by either the Reapers or Cerberus. She found the challenge exciting and was apparently brilliant at it. Since she was, after all, the best thief in the galaxy.

However, Kasumi needed the thrill of running heists. She made a side-trip to the Citadel, recruiting three accomplices to quickly rob a casino.

She coincidentally ran into Commander Shepard. But since Gōtō’s plan was to rob the rich to give to the poor by making war refugees win at the games, the Commander left her alone and concentrated on the war.

With the desperate war against global extinction, the ties between Commander Shepard’s past and current operators tightened. Though everyone was extremely busy, the destruction of many fuel depots across the galaxy had turned the Citadel into a mandatory waypoint. As a consequence, a meeting there could be arranged.

The Commander thus decided to throw a party for all survivors from her Spectre squads, which Gōtō happily attended.

Though her behaviour was strange as usual and she was invisible most of the time, Kasumi greatly enjoyed the party and being around Shepard’s operators. After the party, the assembled unit regretfully split up to return to the war.

Kasumi saw the Crucible launch as the last battle for the galaxy was about to take place.

New characterisation elements

Originally, Kasumi’s self-description as a kleptomaniac seemed to be comical exaggeration. But with the Citadel DLC she does seem to have unusual needs – though probably not pathological ones.

One now gets the impression that Kasumi needs to be where she’s not supposed to be, to see what she’s not supposed to know, to take what she’s not supposed to touch. This impression reinforces the Mass Effect 2 implication that Kasumi was running around the ship invisibly and spying on everyone all the time (especially Jacob).

However, Kasumi’s utter disregard for privacy and intimacy doesn’t seem to be intended to hurt anyone. She only ever uses the information she gathers by creeping around for helpful purposes.

Rather, she seems to be driven by a need to know everything about everything around her. She also appears to get a big kick out of being invisible, unstoppable, ethereal and utterly elusive.

Stealth, spying and stealing is her nature. It’s what she does, whom she is and what she needs. Kasumi Gōtō is everywhere and nowhere, knows everything and is free from all rules and barriers.

The happy phantom has no right to bitch

Kasu-chan is bubblier and funnier than ever, though, and her strange behaviour definitely registers as “eccentric” rather than “creepy”. To her friends it seems that she’s playing some sort of weird game with life. She also keeps a close eye on opportunities to do good deeds through thievery and espionage.

When the Commander finds Kasumi examining her underwear drawer, she doesn’t feel angry about it. It’s obvious that Gōtō is playing a game where she’s exploring some sort of wondrous realm full of hidden treasures and juicy gossip. Though at this point said realm happens to be Shepard’s apartment.

Kasumi still has a big thing for men with a superb, muscular physique, such as Jacob Taylor. She also seems to develop some interest in James Vega, but less so. One gets the impression that Vega is too bulky for her tastes.

With her strange preferences, Gōtō seems more interested in looking at them while they don’t know that she’s here than in actually dating them.

Mass Effect 3 quotes

Gōtō: “Bau is a good Spectre. The galaxy needs more like him.”
Shepard: “And the fact that he’s trying to arrest you ?”
Gōtō: “Well, nobody’s perfect.”

Shepard: “As a Spectre, I could get you a pardon”
Kasumi: “Last time you roped me into a suicide mission.”
Shepard: “I didn’t say you had to join.”
Kasumi: “You were working your way around to it.”

Gōtō: “See… Jacob could’ve gotten me back onto the Normandy.”
Shepard: “I thought that you were spending your time with Keiji’s memories ?”
Gōtō: “Hey I’m nostalgic, not dead.”

(Examining a sculpture in Anderson’s apartment) “Y’know, 20 years from now, this could be worth a fortune.”

Shepard (convincing Kasumi to help with the Crucible project): “Think of all the expensive tech that’ll be lying around. It’s not like they’re going to check your pockets at the end of the project.”
Kasumi (delighted): “Shep, you always say the nicest things.”

“I’m a thief. Stealing is who I am. Without it, I…” (never finishes her sentence)

Gōtō: “Hi Professor. You know that one-of-a-kind, point-to-point comm server you were talking about the other day ?”
Prof. Olausen (Crucible project): “Do you have any information on its… whereabouts ?”
Gōtō: “I’ve got something better. Check your front door.”

(A slightly drunk Shepard jokes that the feuding Subject Zero and Miranda Lawson should just kiss up and make up. As Jack and Miranda are appalled by the suggestion Kasumi appears from thin air)
Kasumi: “I’m ready to record. I’m sure that that there’s a market for this.”

“I’m not lactose-intolerant. I just don’t put up with lactose’s stupid drama.”

Cdr. Shepard: “Can’t you just… mingle and have fun like a normal person ?”
Gōtō (puzzled): “Why would I want to do that ?”

(The Commander unexpectedly finds Kasumi in her bedroom)
Gōtō: “Oh, hello panties.” (beat) “Oh, hey Shep.”
Shepard: “Wait, are you going through my [underwear] drawer ?”
Gōtō: “I go through everybody’s [underwear] drawer.” […] (Examining one of the Commander’s least utilitarian panties) “Girlier than I was expecting. I kinda thought they’d have a camo pattern.”

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By Sébastien Andrivet.

Source of Character: Mass Effect video game trilogy. The main entry only covers the information from the second game ; the Mass Effect 3 material is in a separate section at the end. Kasumi is voiced by actress Kym Hoy.

Helper(s): Ayumi Tanaka, Darci. Enhanced textures by Jean-Luc Fortier.

Writeup updated on the 2^nd of June, 2013.