@nursemchurt Oh boy. To quote Persona 5's artbooks section on Takemi...

"We originally made her look extremely unapproachable, with the eyes of a killer. However, we received a request from Director Hashino that ‘all female characters should basically be on the cute side’ and eventually softened the design. I suppose we probably overdid it a bit in the beginning [laughs]”

The artists basically wern't allowed to make female characters that aren't moe bait.