The cover says Maniacus in English so I guess it’s Maniacus… Anyway I think the character sections and the interview section would have the most new information; not sure if I’ll do the others yet.
Needless to say this post spoils pretty much everything; DO NOT click in if you haven’t FINISHED the game, etc. Don’t even think about it. Especially if you haven’t played it but are planning on watching the upcoming anime. Seriously, the spoilers are real. (Also I dunno what any of the quotes are in the English version so don’t expect them to match up exactly)
Also I don’t have a scanner so… apologies in advance for the bad pictures. And I know the formatting sucks ;_;
P.S. Of course the bookmark gacha gave me my least favourite party member; I’d ask to trade but anyone that owns this book probably isn’t reading this
Protagonist/Hero/MC
CV: Fukuyama Jun
Codename: Joker
Persona: Arsene / Satanael (lol the book says Saturnael)
Profile:
- Leader of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts
- Tried to save a woman from a drunk man but she took his side so he got charged with assault; now he has a criminal record
- In a dream, he is taken to a blue prison called the Velvet Room, where a strange old man named Igor tells him that he is headed towards ruin, and must achieve his “rehabilitation” – but that was actually part of a larger plan; an experiment to determine the fate of humanity
- He has the power of the Wildcard, i.e. the ability to hold multiple personas and recruit shadows from palaces to become his personas
- Because of this power, he must take on the role of humanity’s “Trickster”
How the main party’s awakened personas were selected:
- We decided that when personas awakened, they would go from “chivalrous thieves from stories” to “tricksters from real legends”
- We also planned on collecting names of famous gods that everyone would be able to recognize
- So, rather than coming up with gods that would be “extensions” of the starter personas, we first listed names of gods that came to mind when thinking of “tricksters from famous legends” and then divided them up between the characters
- The first “famous trickster gods” that were suggested were Seiten Taisei, Susanoo, Mercurius, Loki, and Prometheus
- In the Persona series, we try to match the genders of the characters and their personas when possible (except in certain special cases), so at this point we assigned four of those personas to the male party members other than the protagonist, and then adapted the last one to use for a female character
Why Satanael was chosen:
- The first and foremost reason is because Satanael’s story coincides with the protagonist’s
- We also chose him because of the impact from the word “Satan”
- When we were designing him, we actually wanted him to be called Lucifer or Lucifel, but those were already the names of popular personas and we would have to exclude them in order to use that name, so after some reconsideration we settled on the name he has now
Sakamoto Ryuuji
CV: Miyano Mamoru
Codename: Skull
Persona: Captain Kidd / Seiten Taisei
Profile:
- A student at Shuujin Academy
- Used to be part of the track and field club, but fell for the volleyball coach Kamoshida’s provocations and raised his fist at him, causing the track club to be disbanded
- One of the founding members of the Phantom Thieves, and plays the role of the vanguard
- His friends often have to warn him against acting rashly
- People at school avoid him, thinking that he’s a troublemaker, but he’s actually an honest, optimistic guy that cares about his friends a lot
- Absolutely terrible at studying, but doesn’t skip out on classroom duties
Why Seiten Taisei was chosen:
- Continuing from the previous page’s story, we chose this based on Ryuuji’s profile
- There are various different interpretations of Seiten Taisei, but in Japan, the most famous one is the “golden snub-nosed monkey,” aka the “blonde monkey,” so we drew him as such *laughs*
- The pre-awakened Captain Kidd rides on a pirate ship while Seiten Taisei rides on a flying cloud, so their movements feel similar
Confidant Profile
- Arcana: The Chariot
- The track and field club was disbanded due to Ryuuji’s act of violence
- This confidant story is about Ryuuji’s past and how he overcomes it
Sex | Male | Household | Lives with his mother |
---|---|---|---|
Height | 175 cm | Skills | Sprints (personal best time was 11.2 seconds when he was active), ability to chug a 500 ml carbonated drink in one go (trained for it back when he was on the track club; also managed a 1000 ml bottle before) |
Weight | 61 kg | ||
School Year | High School 2nd | Habits | Pokes the ground with the toe of his shoe when he’s bored |
Zodiac | Cancer | Hobbies | Reading (but only manga), working out (gets annoyed that he can’t do his old regimen anymore) |
Blood Type | B | Favourite Foods | Junk food like beef bowls and hamburgers. A big ramen fan; passionate about taste and noodle texture. Gets teased for being like a kid because he doesn’t like bitter stuff. |
Ideal Partner | A kind, graceful girl that makes me want to protect her | ||
If you won 700 million yen in the lottery? | I’d build a big house on a tropical island (lately my mom keeps saying that she wants to spend her old age relaxing somewhere warm) | ||
A message for one of the Phantom Thieves | To Makoto: Wanna switch your Johanna with my Kidd just once? I wanna ride a bike too! |
Creator’s Comment:
- Like in the previous game, the characters that join your party have their turning point in the main story, while the S-link (co-op/confidant) shows how they resolve their personal problems afterwards
- The character stories are not written specifically for the confidant events, but rather to tie up loose ends in their original design
- In Persona 5, these are “confidants” rather than “social links,” so they involve more adult characters than the previous two games
Takamaki Anne
CV: Mizuki Nana
Codename: Panther
Persona: Carmen / Hecate
Profile:
- MC’s classmate, a girl who is 1/4 American and returned to Japan from Finland
- Due to her past and her flashy looks, she stands out a lot among her peers and doesn’t have many friends
- Because of this, she cares deeply for her one best friend, Shiho, and is furious when calamity befalls her
- This triggers her persona awakening, and she joins the Phantom Thieves
- She’s bad at studying like Ryuuji, but her English is so good that she can even tutor Makoto, the third-year honour student
- She doesn’t seem too fond of her phantom thief outfit, but the tail gets a pass
Why Hecate was chosen:
- Compared to the five male personas that were selected first, the girls’ awakened personas may seem a bit less well-known
- We felt that if all of them were based on famous gods, then you wouldn’t feel as much “depth,” so we intentionally included some obscure ones, like Anne’s Hecate
- However, the motive is the same in that she is a trickster who matches Anne’s profile
Confidant Profile
- Arcana: The Lovers
- Anne attends school while also working as a model
- She only started this job because both of her parents are fashion designers, but eventually she finds the motivation to become a first-rate model
Sex | Female | Household | Father and mother (who often aren’t around), live-in attendant |
---|---|---|---|
Height | 168 cm | Skills | Speaks English almost natively (also does well on English tests), no fear of strangers (although she is not self-aware of this) |
Weight | I completely forgot! (TL note: This is in English) | ||
School Year | High School 2nd | Habits | Fiddles with the tips of her twintails when she’s thinking |
Zodiac | Scorpio | Hobbies | Watching TV dramas, games (on handheld consoles, not smartphones) |
Blood Type | B | Favourite Foods | Loves all sweets. Especially cake, to the point where she can replace meals with it. Can’t resist the “extra cream” crepe campaigns. Doesn’t like carbonated juice. |
Ideal Partner | A composed, mature guy, like an English gentleman | ||
If you won 700 million yen in the lottery? | First I’d buy all the clothes and shoes that I want. | ||
A message for one of the Phantom Thieves | To Futaba: I’m surprised that there’s games that you’re bad at. I like rhythm games, because I can just go with the flow! |
Morgana
CV: Ootani Ikue
Codename: Mona
Persona: Zorro / Mercurius
Profile:
- A mysterious black cat that lost his memories
- He was captured in Kamoshida’s palace; MC and Ryuuji rescued him and they ended up working together from then on
- Despite having no memories, he is knowledgeable about palaces, shadows, and personas, and is a useful guide to the other characters who aren’t used to fighting yet
- He insists that he used to be a human, but eventually grows to doubt his origin and reason for existence, culminating in him leaving the Phantom Thieves at one point
- His true identity is a being that Igor created from “society’s hope” to guide MC
Why Mercurius was chosen:
- Following from before, Mercurius was chosen to match Morgana’s profile
- Similar to the Greek Hermes, Mercurius is a god related to travelers, thieves, and magic, making him a good fit for Morgana’s role within the Phantom Thieves
- His design adds onto this, with his blue clothing hinting towards Morgana’s origin and power
Confidant Profile
- Arcana: The Magician
- Morgana’s confidant ranks up automatically with the main story
- His bonds with the Phantom Thieves grow stronger as they steal hearts, and he eventually solves the mystery of who he is
Sex | ??? | Household | None |
---|---|---|---|
Height | 50 cm (length including tail) | Skills | Lockpicking, machine repair |
Weight | 3.5 kg | ||
School Year | – | Habits | Licking his front paws |
Zodiac | ??? | Hobbies | Watching TV (news, detective shows) |
Blood Type | ??? | Favourite Foods | For some reason he has a very refined palate, and likes high-grade sushi and meat. He used to complain about being fed cat food, but now he’s totally into it. |
Ideal Partner | A noble-minded, kind, cheerful girl that cares about her friends. It would also be good if she looks nice in twintails. | ||
If you won 700 million yen in the lottery? | I’d give it to people in need, like a chivalrous thief would. (But I’d keep some for myself to go on a sushi date with that girl.) | ||
A message for one of the Phantom Thieves | To Yuusuke: I know you’re hungry, but stop eyeing my dried sardines like that! |
Kitagawa Yuusuke
CV: Sugita Tomokazu
Codename: Fox
Persona: Goemon / Kamu Susanoo
Profile:
- A student on an art scholarship at Kousei High
- He became an orphan at a young age when his only blood relative, his mother, passed away, but the famous Japanese artist Madarame Ichiryuusai saw potential in his artistic talent and took him in as a live-in pupil
- Even when the Phantom Thieves expose Madarame’s vanity, he cannot turn against his master, who raised him and gave him a home
- However, when he finds out that Madarame’s masterpiece “Sayuri” was actually stolen from his mother, he manages to separate himself from his past life with Madarame
- He’s an eye-catching pretty boy, but his eccentricities make him seem disconnected from reality
Why Kamu Susanoo was chosen:
- As with the others, he was chosen to match Yuusuke’s profile
- Susanoo was also used for Yousuke in P4 so we weren’t sure if we should repeat him so soon. But when it comes to trickster gods, you just can’t leave out Susanoo, so in the end we still included him
- We picked the alias that sounded most divine
Confidant Profile
- Arcana: The Emperor
- Yuusuke takes a new step forward after cutting ties with Madarame, but falls into a slump because he has witnessed the ugly, dirty side of humanity
- His story depicts his anguish and personal growth as he walks the path of beauty
Sex | Male | Household | No relatives (both parents passed away) |
---|---|---|---|
Height | 181 cm | Skills | Painting, frugal cooking (self-taught cheap meals for himself) |
Weight | 63 kg | ||
School Year | High School 2nd | Habits | Holding his hands up to frame a composition |
Zodiac | Aquarius | Hobbies | Walking (because he can’t afford public transit), people-watching |
Blood Type | O | Favourite Foods | Has an eye for aesthetics even for food; very knowledgeable about ingredients, cooking methods, arrangement, etc. He’s picky but in reality he can’t get what he wants anyway (mainly because of money) |
Ideal Partner | What Mona Lisa was to Da Vinci (someone who will give him artistic inspiration) | ||
If you won 700 million yen in the lottery? | Build my own atelier and devote myself to painting. | ||
A message for one of the Phantom Thieves | To Morgana: How rude. It was the sardines that were looking at me. |
Niijima Makoto
CV: Satou Rina
Codename: Queen
Persona: Johanna / Anat
Profile:
- A third year student at Shuujin Academy and the smart, moralistic student council president
- She lost her mother at a young age and her policeman father was killed on duty, so now she only lives with her older sister Niijima Sae
- She’s an overly serious, stubborn honour student
- She inherited her sense of justice from her father, but she wasn’t always so serious, and questions herself for doing whatever the authorities tell her to do
- The things that Shadow Kaneshiro says to her are the final straw, and she unleashes her pent-up anger and resentment
- She likes watching intense yakuza movies that make her clench her fists
Why Anat was chosen:
- Johanna being a motorcycle wasn’t because we were deliberately trying to be original, but because bikes are a symbol of “youth independence” (i.e. it’s the first vehicle where you can travel far away on the path of your choosing, without following railroad lines)
- We felt that it matched Makoto’s development
- Anat is an “alternative form” rather than a “transformation,” which is conveyed in the design as well
Confidant Profile
- Arcana: The High Priestess
- Makoto is smart and has plenty of knowledge, but is dangerously oblivious to the ways of the world
- MC joins her on her journey to expand her world view by challenging herself to recreational activities
Sex | Female | Household | Lives with her older sister (Niijima Sae) |
---|---|---|---|
Height | 164 cm | Skills | Household chores, aikido |
Weight | …Why do I need to tell you? | ||
School Year | High School 3rd | Habits | Putting her hand to her chin when she thinks |
Zodiac | Taurus | Hobbies | Reading (any genre, including sci-fi and manga), touring (after exams are over) |
Blood Type | A | Favourite Foods | Fish, lightly flavoured dishes. She’s a health nut so she’s picky with nutritional balance. 30 ingredients per day, less than 5g of salt content per day, blueback fish have a lot of DHA… etc. |
Ideal Partner | A reliable person that is skilled with both the pen and the sword | ||
If you won 700 million yen in the lottery? | I’d put it into savings for future use. | ||
A message for one of the Phantom Thieves | To Anne: It’s hard for me to say this, but those toppings you always get with your crepes… One of those crepes contains three meals worth of calories… |
Sakura Futaba
CV: Yuuki Aoi
Codename: Navi
Persona: Necronomicon / Prometheus
Profile:
- A genius girl with amazing memory and programming skills
- Age-wise she should be in her first year of high school, but she has been a shut-in ever since her mother died and she had traumatizing experiences at school
- She is an incredible hacker, and the original founder of the hacker organization Medjed, that challenged the Phantom Thieves
- She figures out the Phantom Thieves’ identities by spying on Leblanc, and requests their assistance in an attempt to free herself from her situation
- She likes cup noodles, but Soujirou only lets her have them once a week
Why Prometheus was chosen:
- As mentioned before, out of the first 5 personas we thought of, one of them had to be assigned to a female character
- There was some debate over making the genders match up, but in the end we decided to interpret Prometheus as an “object-type god” (flame holder) rather than a male god, making it a genderless god like her Necronomicon
Confidant Profile
- Arcana: The Hermit
- Freed from the confines of her room, Futaba proclaims that she will change herself by following her “promise list”
- She wants MC to listen to her request if she completes everything…!?
Sex | Female | Household | Adoptive father (Sakura Soujirou) |
---|---|---|---|
Height | 149 cm (she insists, “I’m 150!”) | Skills | Programming, hacking, gaming |
Weight | Hint: 0 kg < x < 1000 kg | ||
School Year | Age-wise high school 1st, but doesn’t go to school | Habits | Squats everywhere, uses internet slang in real life |
Zodiac | Pisces | Hobbies | Internet surfing, games, anime |
Blood Type | AB (RH-) | Favourite Foods | Curry, cup yakisoba, sweets. She loves home cooking, but didn’t want to burden her very busy mother with extra housework, so she always pretended to be satisfied with instant meals. She does approve of a certain cup yakisoba, though. |
Ideal Partner | Must meet the following specifications: Prefers indoors over outdoors / Won’t clean people’s rooms without asking / Drawn to ancient times / Can sing all of the Featherman theme songs |
||
If you won 700 million yen in the lottery? | Build a life-sized Featherman robot (that moves). | ||
A message for one of the Phantom Thieves | To Haru: If you’ve never eaten cup noodles before, that means you’ve missed out on half of human life. I’ll prepare some of my favourites; let’s have a noodle festival for Haru at the hideout! |
Okumura Haru
CV: Tomatsu Haruka
Codename: Noir
Persona: Milady / Astarte
Profile:
- A third year student at Shuujin Academy and daughter of the president of Okumura Foods, the enterprise that owns Big Bang Burger
- She lives in a motherless household with the housekeepers and servants
- Her father is pressuring her into an arranged marriage with the son of a political family, and she is fed up with the lack of freedom in her life
- She saves Morgana after he ventured alone into a palace and was defeated, and appears in front of the Phantom Thieves as a “beauty thief”
- After a lot of trouble, she ends up joining their party
- She lives a refined life and doesn’t know much about the ways of the world, but her instincts are sharp
- Her hobby is vegetable gardening, and she experiments on her own with selective breeding
Why Astarte was chosen:
- Astarte and Makoto’s Anat actually have fairly similar origins as gods
- Makoto and Haru share a lot of traits, such as “student in a higher grade”, “female character”, “confined by the values of their superiors”, “burdened with their fathers’ deaths”, etc, so their personas came from the same roots
- Additionally, Milady’s awakening into Astarte represents the transformation from “artificial” to “organic” which is present in Haru’s story
Confidant Profile
- Arcana: The Empress
- Haru vowed to her persona that she would betray her father, but is now faced with grief as a result
- Okumura Foods is in a state of disarray without their president, and she bears heavy responsibility as his successor
Sex | Female | Household | Father (dies during the story), live-in housekeepers and servants |
---|---|---|---|
Height | 158 cm | Skills | Ballet, tea ceremony, tea tasting (She can identify brand and geographical origin. Recently learned how to for coffee as well) |
Weight | I’ll leave it to your imagination | ||
School Year | High School 3rd | Habits | Holding her hands behind her back, overreacting |
Zodiac | Sagittarius | Hobbies | Gardening, handicrafts |
Blood Type | A | Favourite Foods | Cooking that brings out the flavour of the ingredients, dishes that are an acquired taste. She is used to eating luxurious course meals so she has a refined palate, and is unusually adept at savouring the ingredients for a high schooler. On the other hand, she is also attracted to rare delicacies like dried mackerel, and blue cheese that have strong flavours and aromas. |
Ideal Partner | Someone who is fun to be with. Someone who enjoys eating their meals. | ||
If you won 700 million yen in the lottery? | Donate it to a good cause. | ||
A message for one of the Phantom Thieves | To Ryuuji: One day, I want to try making coffee that you would be able to drink. How about if I tone down the bitterness, add a lot of sugar, and carbonate it to make it more stimulating? |
Akechi Gorou
CV: Hoshi Souichirou
Codename: Crow
Persona: Robin Hood / Loki
Profile:
- A high school student that also works as a detective
- His nickname is “The Second Advent of the Detective Prince”
- He criticizes the Phantom Thieves’ disruptive actions, and collaborates with the prosecutor Niijima Sae on her investigation of them
- He eventually forms a cooperative relationship with the Phantom Thieves, and reveals to his new comrades that he possesses a persona as well
- They venture into Niijima Sae’s palace together, but at the very end, his true allegiance is exposed
- He is another “chosen one” who received the same Wildcard ability as MC
- Despite having the same ability, he is jealous of MC for being surrounded by friends, and lets his hatred consume him
- His emotions are complicated, though – he doesn’t deny liking MC, and laments that they hadn’t met a few years earlier instead
Why Loki was chosen:
- Loki may have been the most fitting persona choice in the game, aside from MC’s
- Loki is not only famous as a god, but has also been used in many Atlus games before
- When I compare Loki’s image in those games to Akechi’s character and actions in this story, I can’t imagine anyone other than Loki for him
Confidant Profile
- Arcana: The Justice
- Akechi’s stance changes greatly, from an enemy that criticizes the Phantom Thieves on TV to an ally that fights with them
- His real identity is the key to a big mystery
Sex | Male | Household | None (Lives alone in an apartment in the city) |
---|---|---|---|
Height | 178 cm | Skills | Detective reasoning |
Weight | 64 kg | ||
School Year | High School 3rd | Habits | Stopping to think during a conversation |
Zodiac | Gemini | Hobbies | Cycling (he uses a hybrid bike for getting around the city because it’s good for tight turns), bouldering, fashionable sports like darts |
Blood Type | AB (RH-) | Favourite Foods | Nothing in particular. He eats whatever is popular, and tries anything that gets good reviews. He doesn’t mind waiting in lines. He picks up information from conversations with adults and visits various places in the city on his bicycle. Since he has a lot of adult acquaintances, he has a lot of influence at obscure shops and high-class restaurants alike, but he doesn’t actually care about the taste much. |
Ideal Partner | Someone who can maintain distance. | ||
If you won 700 million yen in the lottery? | Travel around the world to expand my views (but not until exams are over). | ||
A message for one of the Phantom Thieves | To the Leader of the Phantom Thieves: Looks, intelligence, athletics; you don’t excel over me at any of those things. So why do people gather around you…? I’m deeply curious. |
Creator’s Comment:
- Based on how the story goes Akechi should be a confidant, but at the very end he becomes your enemy, so we struggled until the very end deciding how his story should conclude
- At first, we also looked into making him rank up like a normal confidant rather than the forced progression, but for various reasons we settled for how it is now
Thank you so much for translating this information! I love the game and want to know more about development, sadly most of them are Japanese info. Thanks to you, these data can be accessed by overseas fans.
Why are All the Female Cast’s Weight Unknown!?
I guess they hiding something.
But Thank You! Persona 5 is one of the best recent Jrpg to come out. Really Looking fowardto Persona 5 Royal….too bad I don’t own a PS4…..”cries in the corner”
It’s basically an anime/manga trope that girls are sensitive about their weight. Though most of the time they’re actually like, 20 pounds underweight. 0_0
Thank you for the translations! Character profiles are one of my favorite things to read. They offer insight into the characters that you might miss from the game.
I like how everyone’s concerned about food in their own way except for Akechi.