The art teacher in Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal, who has been selling off his student’s work as his own, is the Shadow Madarame Boss. You fight the Persona 5 Shadow Madarame boss in the Museum of Vanity dungeon. Madarame appears as a collection of his paintings, two for the eyes, one for the nose, and one for the mouth.
These paintings have their affinities and weaknesses, making the fight complicated. This guide will help you defeat the Shadow Madarame in Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal.
For more help on Persona 5 read Persona 5 Madarame Palace Guide, Persona 5 Futaba Palace Guide and Persona 5 Okumura Palace Guide.
Shadow Madarame’s weaknesses and resistance
Shadow Madarame in P5 has no particular weakness to any attack type but is highly defensive against certain attack types. First, both the eye paintings resist all magic elemental attacks, including Fire, Ice, Electrical, and Wind attacks. Instead of dealing with damage, these attack types will heal the boss.
Avoid using elemental attacks on the eyes at all costs. Attack the eyes using physical attacks, gun attacks, and status ailments, e.g., Poison, Nuke, Bless, and Curse.
Shadow Madarame’s nose heals when inflicted with any status ailment in Persona 5. You want to avoid using Poison, Nuke, Bless, or Curse. The nose can be attacked with physical, gun, and elemental magic attacks.
Lastly, Shadow Madarame’s Mouth painting heals when you use physical and gun attacks. So you can only use elemental attacks and status ailments to damage the mouth painting.
In his second form, Shadow Madarame will summon his four clones, each with a different color, and you need to fight off four Madarames at once. Here, again each color has different affinities and weaknesses.
The real Madarame is neutral and has no notable strengths or weaknesses. In general, all the clones are strong against physical attacks and receive less damage from all physical attacks. The red clone, Ersatz Fury, is weak to Ice attacks in Persona 5 Royal.
It will repel both Fire and Electrical attacks, so avoid using them at all costs. The yellow clone, Ersatz Joy, is weak to wind-type attacks and will repel both Fire and Electrical attacks, so avoid using them at all costs.
The blue clone, Ersatz Sorrow, is weak to Fire-type attacks and will repel both Ice and Wind-type attacks. The last clone, Ersatz Mirth, is vulnerable to Electric attacks and will repel both Ice and Wind attacks in P5R.
Recommended level to defeat Shadow Madarame
The recommended level to fight Madarame in P5 is 21. However, since the boss requires all attack types to be used actually to defeat, we recommend that you face the boss at level 25 at least so that all your attack types are strong enough to make a difference in Persona 5.
Shadow Maradarame skills and attacks
Shadow Madarame has different skills and attacks for both phases of the boss fight. Below we have gone over the attacks for each phase of Madarame boss fight in P5 so you have an idea of what to watch out for.
Phase 1 attacks
| Shadow Part | Attack | Effect |
| Painter’s Eyes | Tarukaja | Buff attack of one painting for three turns |
| Rakunda | Debuff defense of one enemy for three turns | |
| The Artist’s Grace | It makes one enemy weak to all affinities for one turn | |
| Restore | Revive one piece of the shadow painting with 25 percent HP | |
| Painter’s Nose | Flame Dance | Medium fire damage to one enemy |
| Silent Snowscape | Medium ice damage to one enemy | |
| Thunderclap | Medium electric damage to one enemy | |
| Maelstrom | Medium wind damage to one enemy | |
| The Artist’s Grace | It makes one enemy weak to all attack types for one turn | |
| Restore | Revive one piece of the shadow painting with 25 percent HP | |
| Painter’s Mouth | Bite | Medium physical damage to one enemy |
| The Artist’s Grace | It makes one enemy weak to all affinities for one turn | |
| Restore | Revive one piece of the shadow painting with 25 percent HP. |
Phase 2 attacks
| Shadow Clones | Attack | Effect |
| Shadow Madarame | True Fake | Summons more Ersatz Madarames to fill the party, up to four at once |
| True Artist’s Grace | It makes all enemies weak to all affinities for one turn | |
| Ersatz Fury (Red) | Flame Dance | Medium fire damage to one enemy |
| Tarukaja | Buff the attack of one ally for three turns | |
| Ersatz Joy (Yellow) | Thunderclap | Medium electric damage to one enemy |
| Tarukaja | Buff the attack of one ally for three turns | |
| Ersatz Sorrow (Blue) | Silent Snowscape | Medium ice damage to one enemy |
| Tarukaja | Buff the attack of one ally for three turns | |
| Ersatz Mirth (Green) | Maelstrom | Medium wind damage to one enemy |
| Tarukaja | Buff the attack of one ally for three turns. |
Strategy to defeat Persona 5 Royal Shadow Madarame boss
Now that you are familiar with everything Shadow Madarame throws at you, let’s look at the actual boss fight. We will help you navigate the Madarame boss fight in P5 and P5R so you can emerge victorious
Phase 1
The first phase of Shadow Madarame has him appear in the form of four paintings, and each of these has different weaknesses and strengths. Fortunately, you can set individual thieves to focus on each part.
This allows you to ensure that you don’t let any part of Shadow Madarame heal with accidental attacks, and you can focus on killing each part.
Once you kill off one of the paintings, it doesn’t mean that part of your fight is over in Persona 5. Madarame will revive his painting after a few turns, and you must ensure that all the paintings are defeated simultaneously to finish the first phase.
Without defeating all the painting parts and having them beaten at the same time, you cannot progress to phase 2, so make sure you damage all the parts equally and try to defeat them close to each other so you don’t have to face a revived part with full HP again in Persona 5 Royal.
Phase 2
Now that you have defeated Shadow Madarame’s paintings, he appears before you in a humanoid form, alone. You start the fight, and it all goes smoothly. There is no catch, and all your attacks deal proper damage.
However, once you have depleted about 30% of Shadow Madarame’s health, he will summon four clones of himself to aid him, all in a different color. Again, you can assign individual thieves to face off against individual clones so you can focus on their weaknesses and stay safe from any repelled attacks in P5R.
Again, as before, you cannot just defeat one clone and be done with that one. Defeating the clones won’t make much difference in this phase; you must beat the real Shadow Madarame, or he will keep respawning his clones to fight you. You can take out the clones, but they will respawn in a move or two.
The fight will end after you have defeated the real Shadow Madarame in his second phase.
