Persona 5 Characters

And those are all the playable Persona 5 characters currently available in the game, along with a brief introduction to their personalities and motivations. If you want more adventures to sink your teeth into, check out our list of the best Switch RPGs and head off on a new adventure today.

Persona 5, a role-playing video game by Atlus, is centered on the Phantom Thieves of Hearts,[a] a vigilante group of high-school students working to change the hearts of criminals by getting them to confess their crimes through defeating a physical manifestation of their subconscious in a mysterious realm known as the Metaverse. Its playable characters can be controlled in the game's many locations, known as "Palaces". People with great desires and a distorted perception of the world have a Palace in the Metaverse which the Phantom Thieves access through a mobile app on their smartphones. Persona 5 is set within Tokyo beginning in April of the year "20XX".[2]

The player character is a silent protagonist codenamed Joker. He is a high school student who moves to Tokyo after being expelled from his former school due to a false accusation of assault, later forming the Phantom Thieves.[3][4] He forms it with Morgana, a mysterious cat-like creature who serves as the Thieves's second-in-command, guiding them around the Metaverse, wanting to discover his origins and restore his true form, alongside Ryuji Sakamoto, who is seen as a delinquent at his school due to an incident with his former track team.[5] More characters join the group during their heists, including fashion model Ann Takamaki,[5] art prodigy Yusuke Kitagawa,[5] student-council president Makoto Niijima,[5] hacker and foster daughter of your temporary guardian Sojiro Sakura, Futaba Sakura[5] and business heiress Haru Okumura.[3][4][6] Also interacting with Joker are Goro Akechi,[5] a high-school student and ace detective; Sae Niijima,[5] a public prosecutor and Makoto's older sister; the residents of the Velvet Room; Igor and his assistants, Caroline and Justine.[6][7]

Many of the game's characters represent the tarot's Major Arcana suit. Although the suit has twenty-two cards and Royal-exclusive characters account for two additional, alternate Arcana for a total of twenty-four, only twenty-one (twenty-three in Royal) are represented by characters; the last one, The World, is given at a later point in the game. The seven deadly sins are a recurring theme within the game, with certain characters and situations representing certain ones.[5]

The game's character design and setting distinguish it from previous entries in the series, replacing Persona 4's yellow-and-green palette with reds and blacks. As with Persona 3 and Persona 4, its characters were designed by Shigenori Soejima.[8] In an interview, Soejima said that he could not design the characters without the game's theme and plot being set, so he was given very detailed instructions from the producer during the process. He also worked on the color scheme and its overall visual presentation.[9] In addition to their casual and school apparel, each of the Phantom Thief characters have their own thematic costumes with masks when they enter the Metaverse, as well as codenames.[10]

His persona is Zorro, which Hashino describes as Morgana's ideal human form. Morgana fights with a slingshot and curved sword. He can transform into a minivan in the Metaverse, which allows the Phantom Thieves to travel quickly. Morgana represents the Magician Arcana as a Confidant,[20] allowing Joker to craft a variety of tools to help the Phantom Thieves explore the Metaverse. As the Confidant progresses automatically, Morgana's Persona will transform into Mercurius. In Persona 5 Royal, his Persona can evolve into Diego.[21] He seeks Joker's help to discover his true form, and believes that he was once human. After the Phantom Thieves enter further into Mementos,[c] Morgana learns that he was created by Igor to help guide Joker against Yaldabaoth.[23] After Yaldabaoth is defeated, Morgana loses his Metaverse form and vows to remain with Joker in hope of becoming human. In Royal, Morgana gains a human body when the Phantom Thieves were living in Maruki's reality, voiced by Bryce Papenbrook. In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Morgana is featured in Joker's taunts, victory poses and All-Out Attack Final Smash, in addition to being a spirit and a background character on the Mementos stage as the Morganamobile. Morgana also appears as a downloadable player character in Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania.[24]

Ryuji's persona is Captain Kidd.[27] In battle, he fights with clubs and shotguns. As a confidant, Ryuji represents the Chariot[28] Arcana and allows the Phantom Thieves to instantly defeat lower-level Shadows. Joker helps Ryuji rediscover his love for running and re-establish the track team.[26] Despite reuniting the team, Ryuji plans to run on his own instead. Upon completing his Confidant, Ryuji's Persona takes the form of Seiten Taisei, who is known for his immense strength. In Persona 5 Royal, his Persona can evolve into William.[29]He is portrayed by Kouhei Shiota in Persona 5: The Stage.[16] In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Ryuji is a spirit and a background character on the Mementos stage.

Ann Takamaki (高巻杏, Takamaki An, Anne in the Japanese version),[30] using the Phantom Thief codename "Panther", is a one-quarter-American girl in Joker's class who recently returned to Japan. She speaks English fluently, and is a model. Despite her popularity and unique appearance, Ann is shunned by the girls in her class because of her rumored relationship with the gym teacher Kamoshida.[31] Hashino describes Ann as "the life of the party", who "will have an impact on the fate of the main characters."[citation needed]

Zenkichi Hasegawa (長谷川善吉, Hasegawa Zenkichi), who assumes the codename "Wolf", is a character introduced in Persona 5 Strikers. He is a police officer from the Public Security Bureau and he struck a deal with the Phantom Thieves so as to find out the mastermind behind the brainwashing events around Japan. He has a daughter, Akane, but she hated him ever since her mother, Aoi Hasegawa, passed away in a hit-and-run accident and he couldn't arrest the person responsible for his late wife's death. At first, he was content with just solving the case and would even go so far as to abandon the Phantom Thieves. However, after bonding with them during the cases, and them helping him reconcile with his daughter changed his personality somewhat towards the Phantom Thieves. He also allowed the Phantom Thieves to escape arrest when they were framed for murder in Okinawa and the hacking of the virtual assistant, EMMA, which led to him being temporarily arrested. The Phantom Thieves, through Sae Niijima, allowed him to be released from arrest and subsequently awaken his Persona when his daughter was manipulated to be a monarch for Kyoto's Jail.

In Persona 5, some individuals have a severely-distorted view of the world and the people around them. At a certain level characters gain a Palace, a place in the Metaverse where their desires appear. Eight palaces must be overcome, represented by the seven deadly sins; each palace has an owner with whom the main characters interact. In Persona 5 Strikers, a character's corrupted Shadow Self is represented as a "Monarch" that rules over a "Jail" in the Metaverse as opposed to a Palace, with their distorted desires instead manifesting from resentment towards certain people or traumas they had previously endured, who use the mobile application EMMA to artificially inflate their own ego by stealing the desires of civilians. As opposed to the Palace owners, Monarchs' Treasures are related to core traumatic memories that are viewed by the main characters as catalysts for their corruption.

Shido's palace represents pride and takes the form of a cruise ship sailing though a sunken Tokyo, where he and his conspirators live in luxury; rather than cognitive beings, the Shadow selves of Shido's conspirators also reside within the palace, having been drawn to his strong personality and ego. His treasure is a golden ship's wheel in his palace, manifesting as his legislator's pin in reality. After Shido's change of heart, he confesses his crimes in a press conference after his landslide victory; however, the cult of personality he benefited from is maintained by Yaldabaoth until the Phantom Thieves destroy Mementos. He is arrested at the end of the game, and Joker testifies against him at his trial.

Yaldabaoth, the God of Control, is a malevolent being that appears in the form of the Holy Grail: a Treasure of Mementos created from humanity's distorted sloth. He leads the conspiracy to give Masayoshi Shido political power and sponsored the Phantom Thieves to see which is stronger: their salvation of the world or Goro Akechi's desire to destroy (and recreate) it. Yaldabaoth imprisons Igor, impersonating him until Joker unmasks his identity.

Like previous Persona games, progression of the characters' skills is based on their level of bonding with non-player characters. Persona 5 has Confidants (コープ, kōpu, lit. "Coop" in the Japanese release, short for "Cooperation"),[47] replacing Persona 3 and Persona 4's "Social Links". Each Confidant represents a tarot Arcana (suit), based on their disposition and problems. Spending time with a Confidant allows characters to advance personas of the same Arcana, gain extra skills, and fuse the strongest persona of that Arcana.

Caroline and Justine represent the Strength Arcana,[20] and encourage Joker to fuse certain personas with skills. When he fails to stop the Holy Grail, they remember that Yaldabaoth had captured Igor and split the pair to prevent them from acting. They fuse into Lavenza (ラヴェンツァ, Raventsa), their true form; she calls Joker "Trickster" instead of "inmate." In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Caroline & Justine appear as a spirit. 2b1af7f3a8