The creator of Persona explains why most of the main characters are students

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Summary

  • The male protagonists of the Persona series reflect the coming-of-age theme in coming-of-age stories – school years symbolizing the transition to adulthood.
  • Producer Kazuhisa Wada explains that the male protagonists in the Persona games reflect the perception of the higher mental age and maturity of female students.
  • Fans speculate that the next Persona game could feature an older character as the series evolves with the player base; potential for college age characters.



For many years Person The series has been around, with some fans wondering why most of the main characters in the games are students, and the producer has now offered an answer to that. This trend was continued in Personmost recent entry Persona 5which took the world by storm upon its release.

Person was a much-loved RPG series derived from the original Megami Tensei games. Since both series continued in parallel, Person there was almost always a male hero, with one exception Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, Persona 3 Portableand Persona 3epilogue However, even in Persona 3 Portablethe main character is technically non-canon for the series, meaning that the only non-male and non-college characters with Persona 2: Eternal Punishment and Persona 3epilogue


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Now the manufacturer Person of the series Kazuhisa Wada explained why this happens. Speaking at the CEDEC + KYUSHU 2024 conference, Wada said that Person the games are designed as coming-of-age stories with a coming-of-age theme. Therefore, the choice of high school students to be the majority Person main characters and party members just makes sense, because in the junior and senior high school years, people start to get a taste of adulthood.


What about the gender of the Persona characters?

As for the gender of the characters, Wada said it was mostly due to perceived differences in the mental maturity of girls and boys. Wada noted that female high school students tend to have a “higher mental age” or more maturity than their male counterparts. As such, males have more room to grow and develop, making them a better choice for a protagonist in this context. That being said, Wada notes that it is possible that the main characters of the games will be either women or non-students.


At this point, it remains to be seen if there will be Person 6 will shake up this regular form of the series. Many players asked for an elder Person main character, perhaps because the fandom that has been with the series since the beginning has aged itself. Based on the opinions of Water, even adults have the ability to continue to grow and mature throughout their lives. For example, a main character who is college age or just out of college might be interesting.

But, unfortunately Persona 5 now eight years on, no real revelations have been made regarding the sixth major entry in the franchise. However, Atlus kept fans of the fifth entry busy by introducing Persona 5 Royalexpanding the story of the original game, Persona 5: Dancing in the Starlight, Persona 5 strikers, Persona 5 tacticsand even a Persona 5 mobile game.

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