Characters / Persona 5: The Phantom Thieves of Hearts

Persona 5 Main Character Index
The Phantom Thieves of Hearts (Starting Members [Joker] | Later Members [Goro Akechi | Kasumi Yoshizawa])
Confidants (Sae Niijima) | Targets - Palace Rulers / Endgame Antagonists (The Dreamer) / Minor | Other Characters
Spin-Offs: Strikers (Jail Monarchs) | Tactica | The Phantom X

You'll never see them coming.^note Clockwise from the left: Joker, Yusuke Kitagawa, Futaba Sakura, Kasumi Yoshizawa, Ann Takamaki, Ryuji Sakamoto, Goro Akechi, Makoto Niijima, Haru Okumura and Morgana. Not shown: Zenkichi Hasegawa, Sophia.

The protagonists of Persona 5 and its spinoffs, the Phantom Thieves of Hearts are a group of high schoolers (and a cat, an AI, and a detective) in Tokyo out to rid the world of evil by "stealing the hearts" of corrupt members of society. Their Personas are styled after various picaresque heroes, both fictional and real.

(Note: See the profiles of Sophia and Zenkichi here; Erina and Toshiro are here.)

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In General

#-C

• 0% Approval Rating: Comes very close to this after Joker gets out from the Interrogation Room alive and happens for real when The Man Behind the Man rears his ugly head by just making them outright not exist from people's coginition.
• 10-Minute Retirement: After nearly being wiped from existence, the team is shaken up by the experiences and filled with doubt when Joker finds them in the Velvet Room after exposing Yaldabaoth and restoring Igor and Lavenza. In the bad ending where Joker sides with Yaldabaoth, this results in them being Ret-Gone for real, with Joker becoming his pawn. However, in the true ending, Joker goes to each one to help them confront their doubts and reaffirm their drive, helping them to rekindle the rebellious fire within.
• Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable: Most of the Thieves' surnames are pronounced differently from the original Japanese in the English localization. This was allegedly at the insistence of ATLUS Japan, who wanted the characters' names to sound "more American" for the dub.
  • Ryuji's surname, Sakamoto, is pronounced SA-KA (as in the word "soccer")-mo (as in motor)-to (as in tow truck) in Japanese. The English localization stresses on the second syllable and puts less emphasis on the first syllable, resulting in sa-KA-moto.
  • Ann's surname, Takamaki, is pronounced TA-KA-ma-KI. Like Ryuji, the first syllable isn't stressed in the English dub and neither is the last "ki", resulting in ta-KA-maki.
  • Makoto's name is also pronounced differently in the English dub. In Japanese, the emphasis is on the first and third syllables, so MA-ko-TO. The English dub puts emphasis on the second syllable, resulting in ma-KO-to.
  • Haru's surname, Okumura, is properly pronounced O-ku-MU-ra. The English dub pronounces it as o-KU-mura.
  • Ren's surname (In the anime adaptation), is pronounced a-ma-MI-ya in Japanese. In the English dub, it's pronounced a-MA-mi-ya.
• Achilles' Heel: All of them have a critical elemental weakness(usually the opposite of their Persona's elemental affinity) that will result in them being knocked down if they take damage from that element(and likely killed on Merciless, which ups damage done to weaknesses). However, their Ultimate Personas, with the exception of Akechi, all give them appropriate Evade skills to give them a good chance of dodging their weaknesses.
  • While Joker's weakness shifts a lot due to his changing Personas all the time, Arsene is weak to ice and bless skills. Satanael, on the other hand, has no weaknesses. Raoul has a bless weakness, but not ice.
  • Morgana is weak to thunder.
  • Ryuji is weak to wind.
  • Ann is weak to ice.
  • Yusuke is weak to fire.
  • Makoto is weak to psychokinesis.
  • Haru is weak to nuclear.
  • Akechi is weak to curse. While he never gets Evade Curse in Persona 5, in Persona Q2 his upgraded Robin Hood drops the weakness to curse. In Royal's third semester, he's weak to bless instead.
  • Kasumi is weak to curse.
• Action Girl: Ann, Makoto, Haru and Kasumi. Futaba on the other hand is a Support Party Member - yet in Royal, she occasionally helps the team out in ways beyond her role's usual scope, such as her Persona dropping a giant bomb for her added All-Out Attack win screen.
• Advance Notice Crime: The Phantom Thieves of Hearts send their Calling Card to the Palace rulers in the real world before they complete their theft. Justified as sending the Calling Card allows the Treasure to manifest as a tangible object in the first place, which is how they change hearts.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Part of what draws the group together is that they're all more or less outcasts with nowhere to belong.
  • Joker is a magnet for negative attention due to having a criminal record for a crime he didn't commit, and nearly everyone at Shujin, including the faculty, talks dirty about him behind his back.
  • Ryuji embraced the delinquent image the school pinned on him after comments Kamoshida made about his dysfunctional family specifically to provoke him led to him assaulting Kamoshida. Kamoshida subsequently broke his leg in "self-defense" and shut down Shujin's track team, and they've never forgiven Ryuji for it.
  • Ann attracts disdain, envy, and scorn because of her natural good looks (thanks to being quarter-American) and the rumors that she's sleeping with Kamoshida.
  • Morgana has no memory of who he was prior to waking up in Mementos one day, believing that he was a human who became what he is now. He throws his lot in with the group and teaches them the ins and outs of being the Phantom Thieves in the hopes that they can help him regain what he lost, but secretly fears that he was never human in the first place.
  • Yusuke is abused and exploited by his guardian, Madarame. The other students at his school treat him differently due to both his association with Madarame and his behavior in general, and after Madarame is arrested, they actively shun him. In one recurring Mementos conversation, Yusuke casually mentions that keeping a low profile at school isn't a problem for him, because no one ever talks to him anyway.
  • Makoto's parents both died before the events of the game, her mother from causes that are never explained and her father being a cop who died in the line of duty. This leaves her to be raised by her older sister Sae, who pressures her to succeed in a society that doesn't value women as much as men. Furthermore, Shujin's principal twists her arm to investigate the Phantom Thieves, with the implication that it will affect her future, while ignoring what she wants. She has no real friends and little relations with the student body she is supposed to be representing, leaving her feeling isolated and useless.
  • Futaba suffers from an extreme case of Survivor Guilt (given to her by others that wanted to shift the blame for her mother's death onto her) and anxiety to the point of becoming a complete shut-in that almost never leaves her room. She mentions that even before her mother's death, she had almost no friends at school.
  • Haru is the heiress to a multinational fast-food company and is being forced into an arranged marriage with a man who is obviously an abusive asshole. She has nobody to support her through it, with her father focused on advancing his career at the cost of harming his relationship with her and his employees, and after his death at the hands of The Conspiracy, Haru becomes the company's majority shareholder but feels even more isolated; she mentions more than once that she doesn't know who she can trust, feeling like her father's advisors are only using her to get to his money and take control of the company.
  • Akechi seems like a bright prodigy and Great Detective, but privately reveals to Joker that his mother was a sex worker and that his father abandoned her when he found out she was pregnant. She later committed suicide when Akechi was very young, and he grew up being passed around from one abusive, neglectful, or indifferent foster home to the next, and has been alone since his mother died; his birth is actually a mistake and his celebrity status only exacerbates his loneliness. It also comes to light that Shido is his father, and everything he's done over the course of the game— causing the mental shutdowns, betraying the Phantom Thieves, getting Joker arrested and trying to kill him— was all part of a plan to betray Shido and force him to take responsibility for abandoning Akechi.
  • Kasumi plays with this. At first glance, she isn't much of an outcast, but then it's revealed that she isn't Kasumi, but her sister Sumire. While Sumire was already suffering from an inferiority complex towards Kasumi and thus was plagued by suicidal thoughts and mental instability, to add a nail in the coffin, Kasumi died saving Sumire from being hit by a car when she absentmindedly tried to distance herself from Kasumi. Sumire blamed herself for her sister's death and underwent cognitive manipulation from Maruki to make her think she's Kasumi so she wouldn't kill herself out of sheer guilt. While she might think that she is Kasumi, other people think she is just insane for impersonating her dead sister. As such, the one making her the outcast is herself.
  • Sophia is an AI with no established memory other than her initialization command: "be humanity's companion". While she builds up a rapport with the human Phantom Thieves, she still feels alone because she's ultimately a program with no ability to exist in the physical world. It only comes to light how bad this actually was when it's revealed that her own creator, Ichinose, discarded her when she accidentally offended her with an innocent question, then considers her inferior to the EMMA program out of nothing but her delusions, with said creator also a troubled woman who fits into this trope.
  • Zenkichi was once a cop who believed in justice and fighting the corrupt. Then his wife was killed in a manslaughter case involving an associate of Shido's, and he was blackmailed to stop investigating or else his daughter would be killed too. His Cynicism Catalyst leaves him stuck between going along with crooked cops to eventually take down criminals or trying to do the right thing in the moment. This alienates him from his coworkers and leaves the Phantom Thieves distrustful of him at first. He uses his carefree facade to hide how he feels alone and lost in his role as a PubSec detective.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: In-Universe; the public opinion's divide on whether the Phantom Thieves are unsung heroes dealing with scum beyond the reach of the law or callous terrorists trying to force their own views on society through brainwashing drives a major part of the plot.
• Anger Born of Worry: The female thieves are quite upset over Ryuji's apparent death, and are thus infuriated when Ryuji nonchalantly shows up, making fun of them for worrying.
• Animal Motifs:
  • Akechi, Ann, and Yusuke have bird, cat, and fox Persona masks; Ann and Yusuke's respective Metaverse outfits even have tails attached to them that match their respective animals. This leads to Ann, Yusuke and Akechi having the heist code names Panther, Fox, and Crow, respectively. This also dips into Japanese Mythical Motifs for Akechi and Yusuke, as Akechi's mask is based on a Tengu, a crow based Yōkai known for having red faces and ridiculously long noses, while Yusuke's is a traditional kitsune style mask.
  • Joker's first Persona, Arsene, invokes the image of a horned owl, which fits into his motif of a stealthy predator, and the numerous references of 'wings of rebellion' whenever he begins and ends a Confidant's story.
  • Futaba's Oracle costume is clearly based on a frog, what with the large red eyes on top of a black-and-green body.
• Anti-Hero Team: A group of teenage criminals who use the collective unconscious to force Heel–Face Brainwashing on the corrupt by destroying the embodiments of their sinful hearts.
• Ass-Kicking Pose: Whenever a Phantom Thief uses a Persona skill in battle, they'll cover their now-unmasked face with one hand and strike a rather JoJo-esque pose. This is briefly brought up in one of the Mementos bus ride conversations:
  Ann: Persona, huh...? I wonder if I'm using mine right.
  Futaba: You gotta have the right pose! Everyone have theirs down?
• The Atoner: Various members of your party also cite past failures as their reason for joining your Heel–Face Brainwashing scheme: Ryuji was previously unable to protect other students from being abused by the gym teacher who abused him, Ann felt complicit for not standing up to the physical and sexual abuse that drove her best friend to attempt suicide, Haru feels responsible for letting her father take advantage of others to increase his own wealth, and Makoto feels responsible for all the fellow students she couldn't stop from being abused or blackmailed by various adults in her time as Student Council President.
• Arc Words: Whenever the cast awaken their Personas, the Personas almost always ask them to sign or make a contract. They don't have a set Catchphrase, but the Personas will drop the word "Contract" and the series-wide "I am Thou, Thou art I" somewhere during the scene.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Subverted in regards to their outfits. Despite their appearance, they don't seem to impede their movement or slow them down in the least, as Ryuji and Futaba mention. Presumably due to it being in the world of mental cognition, where Rule of Cool runs rampantly.
• Badass Crew: Shadow-slaying, gun-slinging, heart-stealing thieves.
• Bad Powers, Good People: You'd never expect that this rowdy Ragtag Bunch of Misfits brainwashes criminals in order to help the helpless.
• Balance, Power, Skill, Gimmick:
  • The first four Phantom Thieves form this setup in the Kamoshida Palace. Joker is Balance due to his Wild Card allowing him to switch personas, Ryuji is Power as a Mighty Glacier, Morgana is Skill because he is a Fragile Speedster and the Combat Medic, and Ann is relegated to the Gimmick as a extremely SP dependent Glass Cannon and the only one in the party that learns a status ability (Dormina) in her very early game before level 10, though she does not keep the role later in the game as better Gimmick characters join the party.
  • As the game goes on, the team's combatants fit into the following: Joker, Makoto and Akechi are Balance, with the former having the Wild Card and latter two as Jack of All Stats. Ryuji and Ann are Power, with Ryuji as the more straightforward physical based Mighty Glacier, and Ann as the strongest offensive magic caster with less emphasis on her status effects and other abilities as the game goes on, and both learn Charge and Concentrate respectively, and in Royal a group version of these spells. Morgana and Yoshizawa are Skill as the Fragile Speedsters, the former built around Magic and Healing and the latter a Critical Hit Class. Yusuke and Haru are Gimmick, with Yusuke dealing a lot of damage from his physical attacks based on Baton Passes and relying on his Evasion to protect him and Haru having unusual support skills (Like Amrita Shower and Tetrakarn and Makarakarn) but also the option to go more offense with Gun skills or especially with Psy Technical damage in Royal.
• Batman Grabs a Gun: The Phantom Thieves are normally against killing their targets, but if their adversary is a massively powerful god who plans to subjugate all of reality, they're pulling out all the stops. They've had to do this twice against Yaldabaoth from the original game and EMMA from Persona 5 Strikers.
• Beneath the Mask: It's a series with Jungian psychology as the central theme - what else would you expect?
  • Joker tries to keep his head down in public in an attempt to stay out of trouble and not make his situation any worse, but deep down he's an illusive rebel who loves the thrill of living a dangerous life, and his normal meek public persona gives way to a suave, confident attitude when he's Joker. Both masks crack when he's imprisoned in the Velvet Room, as he freaks out and rattles the bars of his cell.
  • Ryuji at first glance is a lazy troublemaker, but turns out to be extremely passionate, motivated, dependable and cares deeply about his friends and seeing people treated fairly.
  • Ann starts uninterested in her day-to-day life - it's only when she's performing her thieving antics she lets herself be energetic and free. She also comes better to terms with her sex appeal and doing things for herself.
  • Yusuke comes off as aloof and standoffish, but is passionate about art and deeply fascinated with finding beauty in the mundane aspects of day-to-day life while also being quite philosophical.
  • Makoto's straight-laced in her day-to-day life, but as Queen she's noticeably more aggressive and violent. More humorously, she is also rather easily spooked.
  • Futaba's shut-in public personality hides a Cute and Psycho private personality she shows online and eventually to her friends, starting with Joker.
  • Haru seems fragile and unreliable on the surface, but in reality, she can be quite emotionally strong and independent. Case in point, she loses her father in a manner almost identical to that of fellow Empress Mitsuru from Persona 3; but unlike her, she handles the loss in a much better fashion. While the former breaks down horribly in her game, Haru sees her problems as tiring, though given how Mitsuru had a much better relationship with her father than Haru did with her own, this is to be expected. However, this is completely flipped in regards to their mutual situations as the inheritors of large corporations, however, which Mitsuru takes in stride while Haru struggles.
  • Goro's public image as a charming minor celebrity Great Detective covers up a crushing sense of loneliness and isolation while also confessing more selfish reasons behind his justice, hiding the same anger at society the Thieves do. He even admits to the Thieves later that he doesn't really care much for the job; he just likes punishing criminals.
  • While outwardly kind and gentle, Kasumi is hiding severe psychological issues resulting from the stress of trying to succeed. In reality, it's even worse. She's actually Sumire, Kasumi's twin sister. Sumire's inferiority complex over her envy at Kasumi's talent was made worse by how Kasumi held the dominance in their relationship. She hits rock bottom when Sumire was nearly hit by a car because of a fit of jealousy... only for Kasumi to push her out of the way and die in her stead, causing Sumire to plummet to such angst that Maruki had to resort to using his powers to make her think she's her own sister so she wouldn't actually attempt suicide for real. However, only she thinks that as most people who knew both of them thought Sumire has gone insane.
  • Zenkichi might seem like a shady police officer hiding malicious intent like Goro Akechi before, being sent by the police and ordered to sell them out if possible. In reality, not only is he one of the few good cops in Persona 5, he's actually dealing with the grief of being unable to bring his wife's killer to justice and having his daughter hate him as a result.
• Big Eater: Whenever the gang is shown eating, they usually consume a ton of food. Similar to the previous game, Joker can participate in a Mega Meal Challenge where he devours increasingly comically over-sized burgers.
  • Ryuji and Joker regularly get into contests with each other to see who can eat the most.
  • Ann also has a massive Sweet Tooth and is constantly craving cakes and crepes. Even after Joker and Ryuji are stuffed, Ann wants them to try dessert.
  • Kasumi can partake in the Big Bang Challenge like Joker, and doesn't seem to have much trouble with it. Justified by her being a gymnast; the intense physical activity requires gymnasts to eat a lot more than other people.
• Birds of a Feather: Discussed — Joker, Ann, Ryuji and Yusuke bond over their similar pasts and shared status as social misfits.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: They forcibly enact Heel–Face Brainwashing on genuinely cruel people who feel no remorse for their actions and abuse the legal system to make things go their way. The Thieves recognize the moral ambiguity of their actions, though, and while they feel uncomfortable with it, it's often their only option due to the scope of their targets' power over society. Justified, as it was later revealed that the Greater-Scope Villain Yaldabaoth intentionally screws with the Change of Hearts to make sure that they can no longer commit evil by making them regress into ignorant masses under his thrall, and if Joker ever strikes a deal with him to ensure his well-being under the expense of the rest of humanity and his teammates, this plays to its most cynical conclusion, where he ends up becoming a ruthless Tautological Templar who brainwashes anyone he deems sinful enough, not to say the rest of the Thieves are abandoned by him.
• Bond One-Liner: Whenever a party member prompts an All-Out Attack, they will drop one of these after the enemies have been cut to pieces, punctuated by a written message that displays behind them:
  • Player Character/Joker: THE SHOW'S OVER
  • Ryuji Sakamoto/Skull: FREAKIN' BORING
  • Ann Takamaki/Panther: OMG!! WE ARE SO AWESOME!
  • Morgana/Mona: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
  • Yusuke Kitagawa/Fox: IT WAS FUN WHILE IT LASTED, GOODBYE
  • Makoto Niijima/Queen: JUSTICE HAS PREVAILED.
  • Futaba Sakura/Oracle: GIT GUD
  • Haru Okumura/Noir: ADIEU
  • Goro Akechi/Crow: MY SOLE INTEREST IS UNCOVERING THE TRUTH.^note as Crow / I DECIDE THE TRUTH.^{note- spoilers}Royal-exclusive, as Black Mask
  • Kasumi Yoshizawa/Violet: BEAUTY IS DEVOTION
• Born Unlucky: As luckless as the Inaba crowd (especially Yosuke) may seem, they lead charmed lives compared to their successors, especially the boys.
  • On a general note, very few of the big "special events" pan out well for Joker and friends. Joker spends the whole of Golden Week working unpaid for Sojiro, their first celebration dinner turns out to be an opportunity for adults to sneer at them (though this does lead to the Phantom Thieves being officially founded, which is nice), and then Joker and Ryuji are conscripted as unpaid camera assistants on their school trip, then have to sit and listen as Akechi denounces them. The fireworks festival they attend gets rained out, they spend the whole summer worried about Medjed, and even their school trip to Hawaii is incredibly dull because the school was so busy dealing with media and police investigations that they didn't have time to organize any student activities, and the students couldn't afford to go on any activities independently because of their budget. Unless Joker secures a date with one of the girls, he spends the whole time wandering around with his friends and doing exactly what he does in Japan.
  • After clearing Okumura's palace, the team finally seems to get a stroke of good luck that allows them to celebrate by having an entire theme park to themselves. Then as they are celebrating, Okumura dies on national television, and soon after the Phantom Thieves are blamed for it.
  • What are the odds that the random sleazeball you prevented from assaulting a woman in your rural hometown turns out to be a prominent politician with terrifying power and a vengeful streak, who has both the will and the influence to get you wrongfully arrested? Ask Joker.
  • Ryuji was minding his own business when Joker's Nav kicked in for the first time and dragged Ryuji into a nightmarish dimension where his teacher's alter-ego was ready to decapitate him.
  • Yusuke is suspected of bringing some kind of weather-curse with him wherever he goes. His school trip getting diverted due to a typhoon only confirms the girls' theory. It doesn't help that his second-tier Persona is the Japanese god of storms, Susano-o.
  • This trope doesn't even stop in their debut game. Their summer vacation reunion in Strikers is effectively ruined when they discover the Metaverse is back and they're being blamed for sudden, unexplained cases popping up around the country. They're under police scrutiny to the point they have to be monitored by an investigator for their entire break, and that's not even getting into the fact that a new maniacal god figure is threatening Japan and its population once again.
• Brainwashing for the Greater Good:
  • Their M.O.: they target corrupt adults who are essentially beyond the law, entering the mental worlds created by their warped desires and fighting monstrous manifestations of their vice (each based on one of the Seven Deadly Sins), literally stealing the corruption of their hearts. This results in the target having a sudden change of heart that causes them to openly confess and try to take responsibility for their crimes. This is deconstructed, however, in that several characters in-game do point out that this feels very much like Protagonist-Centered Morality, and this amorality is deliberately invoked by the conductor to remove chaotic elements of society he despises but practices himself to prove that without him humanity will forever be doomed. During the events of Strikers, however, this was played straight as they started to combat more sympathetic figures whose crimes consist of brainwashing masses of people to cope with their personal disdain, and even then the Phantom Thieves don't need to brainwash their targets to repent at all, they convince them to willingly surrender with no strings attached.
  • They end up on the receiving end of this trope, albeit unknowingly and somewhat unwillingly. When they accidentally hand over control of Mementos to a now extremist Maruki, he begins to warp the reality around them to match their desires: returning their loved ones to life free of corruption, back in the positions they coveted, etc. He alters the party members’ memories to believe his reality is the true one, and they live in blissful ignorance for the first week of the Third Term. However, this action causes them to abandon their bonds with Joker and to forget the critical parts of their growth and desires to rebel. All of this was done as part of Maruki's plan to create a world without suffering, with them being the first people he wants to save. The only ones not directly affected are Joker, Akechi and Sumire, the former two due to their wills not being tied to their traumas and the latter because she already had her cognition changed by Maruki beforehand. When Joker helps his friends break free of the illusion, they are horrified by their weakness of giving in and are unnerved about what Maruki had done to them without their explicit consent.
• Breaking the Fellowship:
  • With the Antisocial Force and Yaldabaoth taken care of, the Thieves are forced to disband but remain close friends. In the True Ending, they agree to bring Joker back to his hometown with a road trip that essentially serves as their last hurrah for the time being.
  • In Royal, the gang all go their separate ways after stopping Maruki, mainly out of a desire to actually achieve the dreams they wanted which Maruki automatically provided in his reality. Ryuji moves away to take up physical therapy so that he can restart his track career. Ann transfers schools as she will be studying abroad with her parents temporarily. Yusuke decides to continue his artwork with a renewed focus on his adventures with the Phantom Thieves. Makoto is moving onto college with a major in law enforcement. Haru leaves for university to study agriculture and business management, in addition to learning the basics of leading Okumura Foods. Kasumi/Sumire leaves for a few months to participate in competitions, though it's likely she'll move anyways. While the situation is still as ambiguous as it was in the original, the ending for Royal heavily implies that Akechi is still alive as someone with his uniform can be seen amongst a crowd. Futaba is heading back to school^note She directly states in Strikers that she attends Shujin. while Joker and Morgana move back home together.
  • Thankfully, they all reunite^note with the exception of Akechi & Yoshizawa over the summer break for Strikers and are back in business with the new Change of Heart cases across Japan. Once all is said and done, they go their separate ways again but promise to meet over their winter break.
• Brought Down to Normal: Given that they can only use their Personas and other abilities in the Metaverse, whenever it's gone or otherwise inaccessible, the thieves are incapable of using their powers.
• Bully Hunter: Crooks, abusers, and murderers are their quarry.
• Camp: Bar none the most fabulous player party in the entire franchise, no questions asked. As repressed loners outside of school, their flashy, dramatic Phantom Thief alter-egos give them avenues to express all of the hammiest parts of themselves.
• Caper Rationalization: Their entire M.O. involves stealing critical pieces of people's psyche in order to induce a Heel–Face Brainwashing as a result. However, the targets of the heists are all corrupt and largely unsympathetic people who abuse their positions of authority and power with impunity, to the point of directly ruining the lives of the main cast if they aren't dealt with. And despite this, they're still a little iffy on the idea of messing with people's minds at first, until their first target's abuse causes Ann's friend Shiho to attempt suicide to get away from him.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Even while driving through Mementos, an Eldritch Location teeming with Shadows, the thieves will just casually chat about whatever little thing pops into their heads.
• Chained by Fashion: Whenever one of them awakens their Persona for the first time, chains can be seen surrounding their Persona, symbolizing how they feel trapped by society.
• Character Roster Global Warming: An RPG version of this trope. In the original game, the only Mighty Glacier Phantom Thief is Ryuji. Royal adds in Yoshizawa, who is a Fragile Speedster and Critical Hit Class, Strikers adds in Sophia, who is a Combat Medic and Fragile Speedster, and Zenkichi, who is another Jack of All Stats with a Glass Cannon gimmick. This leaves Ryuji as the only true Mighty Glacier even with all the new characters. Strikers and Q2 both move Haru a little bit the direction of a Glacier to alleviate this a bit though.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: The Thieves all feel compelled to save others when possible. They readily agree to risk their lives in Mementos to take on the burdens of random strangers who post on the Phan-site, even to address problems as small as someone cheating in videogames.
• Clingy Costume: When they receive their masks, they find out the hard way that it's practically welded to their faces when awakening their Persona for the first time.
• Code Name: They all use an alias when moonlighting as the Phantom Thieves - including Morgana, who doesn't even need one.
  • Protagonist — Joker
  • Morgana — Mona
  • Ryuji — Skull
  • Ann — Panther
  • Yusuke — Fox
  • Makoto — Queen
  • Futaba — Oracle/Navi
  • Haru — Noir
  • Akechi — Crow
  • Kasumi — Violet
  • Sophia — Sophie
  • Zenkichi — Wolf
• Color-Coded Characters: Each Phantom Thief wears different-colored gloves in their costumed alter-egos (except for Mona who does not wear any) that usually correspond to their icon backgrounds in the texting app, their smartphone cases, battle wipes, Thieves Den portraits and dynamic PS4 themes. They often overlap with the elemental affinity and Featherman Suits as well.
  • Joker — Red gloves and Featherman Suit, and his backgrounds are all red. This matches the icon for Curse skills. His Thieves Den Portrait uses Gray however, and Curse skills themselves are usually a swirl of red, black, and gray energy.
  • Skull — Yellow, matching Electricity.
  • Panther — Pink, except for Fire skills being represented by Red.
  • Mona — No gloves or phone, so his color is the most inconsistent. Gray in the Thieves Den, Black Featherman Suit, Teal PS4 theme, and Wind spells are Green.
  • Fox — Light Blue / Cyan, though Ice skills are represented by regular Blue.
  • Queen — Oddly gets two colors. Her color theme and Featherman Suit are straight Blue, and a deeper blue than Fox's at that. Her gloves however are a Whitish Grey where Nuclear skills are Whitish Blue.
  • Oracle — Green, though she has no elemental affinity.
  • Noir — Purple, matching Psy.
  • Crow — His backgrounds are various shades of Gold, and his Featherman suit is a Metallic Gray. However he has White gloves in his Robin Hood suit, matching Whitish Yellow Bless skills and Black gauntlets in his Loki suit to represent Curse skills.
  • Kasumi — Deep Magenta, as a Distaff Counterpart to Joker's Red. Her Featherman Suit is appropriately White to match her Bless affinity however.
  • Sophia —- Orange, similar to her electric red-orange hair and hearts. Her outfit is mostly white to match her Bless affinity but has black gloves.
  • Zenkichi –– Teal, matching his civilian shirt. His outfit, including gloves, are shades of gray and black, representing his affinity for gray-and-white Almighty skills.
• Color-Coded Secret Identity: Each of the characters' civilian and DLC costumes have consistent color themes. Usually related to the glove/elemental themes above.
  • Joker — despite his Phantom Suit's Red gloves, his costumes are usually Black and Grey. This still matches Arsène's Curse affinity, however.
  • Ryuji — always distinguished by his dyed Yellow hair. When his costumes aren't yellow, they're loud clashing colors.
  • Ann — Her costumes have a splash of Red to match her Fire affinity more than her Pink Phantom Suit gloves.
  • Morgana — As a cat his color scheme is black with a yellow collar. His DLC costumes usually reference mascots rather than regular outfits.
  • Yusuke — His dark Blue hair is his most distinguishing feature, and his costumes are typically Blue and Teal rather than his Light Blue Phantom gloves.
  • Makoto — Her costumes are either White or Blue themed, until her third semester winter costume in Royal balances both.
  • Futaba — Usually wears bright Green, matching her Phantom Suit gloves.
  • Haru — Her costumes usually incorporate Pinks and Lavenders or other pastels.
  • Akechi — Favors various shades of Gold and Brown, or to have a generally metallic theme.
  • Sumire — Wears a mix of Reds, Pinks, and other pastel colors to complement her deep red hair.
  • Sophia -– Her avatar includes a bright White coat-dress.
  • Zenkichi –– Always has a Black suit and tie with a light teal shirt.
• Combat Pragmatist: While no party from any Persona game had any troubles ganging up on an opponent, the Phantom Thieves take it a step further. They might negotiate with Shadows to get them on their side or maybe just to extort some money or items from them, they have no troubles using guns and melee weapons in tandem, and whenever they fight a major foe, they usually use special operations in order to weaken them to make the fight easier on them.
• Combat Stilettos:
  • Carmen wears high heels, matching the rest of her fancy attire.
  • Arsène has knives for stilts, which reach way past the shoes' soles. They're not just for show: he uses them in his attack animations. His third-tier form, Raoul, also has these.
  • Cendrillon and Ella wear glass and crystal styled heels respectively. Natch, considering that they're based on Cinderella.
  • Panther and Violet sport very prominent examples in their thief attire, matching their Personas. Queen and Noir also have slightly heeled shoes, though nowhere near the extent of the former two.
• Combination Attack: Royal adds a new battle mechanic called "Show Time" where two specific Phantom Thieves work together to pummel all enemies into submission.
  • Mona and Panther: Mona presents a bouquet of roses to Panther in a confession scene not unlike what is seen in a Shoujo romance manga. Panther goes for the bouquet as if accepting Mona's proposal only to reach inside and grab the SMGs that are stashed inside, using them to blast all the enemies surrounding them while Mona finishes the job with a well-thrown bomb.
  • Panther and Fox: Panther and Fox are shown in a pisquarete Japanese drama scene, where Panther twirls her parasol around before revealing her whip, which she uses to dislodge the tatami mats. Using the tatami as a cover, Fox slices up the unsuspecting opponent along with the tatami.
  • Skull and Fox: Skull walks inside Fox's beef bowl establishment utterly famished. Fox then whips up a meal for Skull to eat out of while Fox attempts to capture the moment. They end up being interrupted by enemy shadows, leading Skull and Fox to fill them up with lead. Skull finishes by throwing a grenade which Fox detonates with some well-placed shots from his assault rifle before going back to Skull's meal.
  • Skull and Queen: Skull and Queen assault the shadows in a Wild West setting, with Queen opening up with a flying kick and Skull bashing the shadow's brains in before sending them back in Queen's direction, allowing her to finish the job with a flurry of fists.
  • Queen and Noir: Queen and Noir's Show Time takes place in a wrestling ring, where they tag-team against Shadows. Queen rushes in with a clothesline followed up by Noir jump-kicking the shadow while Queen sets up for a chair shot much to Noir's concern. They then climb up the ring and finish them with a double elbow drop.
  • Mona and Noir: The spotlight shines on Mona and Noir as they leap off a building with Mona transforming into the Morgana Mobile, driving while Noir lands and fires at the enemies with her grenade launcher. Noir jumps off of Mona while he continues driving towards the enemy, getting caught up in Noir's attack much to her worry.
  • Joker and Crow: Crow begins laughing maniacally as he makes himself psychotic and begins to rush at his enemy. Joker uses his grappling hook to maneuver around the rooftop and swings at his target using his knife before jumping out of Crow's rampage, who proceeds to slash the enemy all over with his blade. Joker lands behind Crow after his phase is over and shoots the enemy with his gun.
  • Joker and Violet: Violet runs up a stairway and calls for Joker, jumping up as he uses his grappling hook to catch Violet and leave the corridor. They remain airborne for a while as Joker reorients the grappling hook and Violet latches onto his back. Joker then shoots at the enemies with his gun before launching Violet up into the air, where she enters an Imagine Spot of her sister, where she recreates a dance they once partook in while slashing at the opponents using her rapier.
• Commonality Connection: Many of the Phantom Thieves have suffered from feeling/being ostracized in one form or another, most commonly at the hands of others. In fact, after the team celebrates stealing Madarame's Treasure, Ann indirectly brings the topic up during their shared meal.
  Ann: It almost feels like I've known you all forever... do you think it's because our backgrounds are so similar?
  Ryuji: (semi-jokingly) Well, it sure ain't 'cause of anything good.
• Composite Character: The Phantom Thieves as a whole could be considered this compared to SEES and The Investigation Team. They carry around an air of professionalism similar to SEES with how they operate but are much more open about their friendships when not on the clock like the Investigation Team.
• Conflict Ball: They literally can't go a month without having their livelihoods being put in danger at the hands of men more powerful than they are—thus forcing them to head into the Palaces of said men to steal their hearts away.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: In terms of motifs and themes, they're quite different from the Investigation Team:
  • While Persona 4's party are detectives on a quest to bring one person to justice, Persona 5's party are thieves who go after multiple people and bring them to justice.
  • A similarity between both is that the party members join up after gaining their Persona during an emotional conversation with them, but the contrast is that, whereas Persona 4's Personas were their Shadows and must be reasoned with by accepting who they are inside, Persona 5's Personas are the ones who are reasoning with the party and even offer them a contract. Notably, while several of the Investigation Team members got their Personas and joined the team after their respective dungeons were completed, the Phantom Thieves instead get their Personas and join the team near the start of their respective Palaces.
  • Save for Teddie (who isn't human), most members of the Investigation Team have completely normal lives, most likely have healthy families, and their only mental hang-ups are those reflected in their Shadows (bar Yu Narukami if the anime is anything to by), while the Phantom Thieves, with one notable exception, had suffered from psychological trauma or ordeals related to their family members or friends in one way or another.
  • The two teams also have different methods; the Investigation Team mostly just meanders through various slice-of-life antics while they wait for the killer to strike again in the hopes of gathering more information, while the Phantom Thieves are much more active and frequently go out of their way to seek out targets to change the heart of.
• Contrived Coincidence:
  • The Thieves constantly find themselves in the company of shamelessly unpleasant people no matter where they go. This would be expected, given that their mission is to seek out corrupt individuals and steal their hearts away, but even in the real world, they just repeatedly happen upon unnecessarily rude or malicious individuals often without any intention of even doing so. Not to mention the fact that the random guy Joker confronted for trying to sexually assault a woman just so happened to be a candidate for Prime Minister and the leader of the conspiracy to exploit the Metaverse and control public opinion.
  • Strikers has the party encounter some of the Monarchs by pure chance. For example, on the way to Sapporo, where Zenkichi told the party to investigate another Monarch, they pass through Sendai and happen to see that there is a Jail there.
• Cool Mask: The party's main Persona each become a mask the thieves wear, and most have masks of their own.
  • Arsène (among others) becomes a bird mask, and his own "face" is a semi-transparent horned mask.
  • Carmen becomes a red panther mask near-identical to one that she herself also wears.
  • Captain Kidd becomes a skull mask, matching the skull that serves as his head.
  • Zorro becomes a black bandanna identical he wears on his own face.
  • Goemon becomes a traditional Japanese fox mask, and wears an armored face mask of his own that leaves his mouth and hair exposed.
  • Johanna becomes a metal mask, and Johanna's own face is a feminine mask on the front of the bike that serves as her body.
  • Necronomicon becomes a pair of Night-Vision Goggles that look like giant alien eyes.
  • Milady becomes a black domino mask, and uses a ball gown mask for her "head".
  • Robin Hood turns into a red mask with a bird beak.
  • Loki becomes a deep red mask with horns that resembles a crow's skull.
  • Cendrillon becomes a black mask with silver patterns around the eye holes.
  • Pithos/Pandora becomes an LED screen with blue "eyes" that change expressions depending on the mood.
  • Valjean becomes a black mask with triangular reflective eyes.
• Cop Hater: The Phantom Thieves work outside of law and order and have all suffered law enforcement's inability to solve the ills of society. This means that virtually all of the thieves have beef with the police to one extent or another, whether it's simply running from the cops or having more personal issues. Even Makoto, who dreams of becoming an Internal Reformist in Japanese law enforcement, holds a grudge against the cops. This is particularly emphasized in Strikers, where the Thieves routinely mock Zenkichi in the beginning and call him "Gramps" as he's introduced to the Cognitive World.
• Cosplay: What the paid DLC costumes amount to is cosplay for the previous Persona games, SMT if..., Raidou Kuzunoha, SMT IV, and Catherine. In Persona 5 Royal, three more paid DLC costumes are added that allow the Thieves to dress in the Demonica suits from Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, as well as dress up as Velvet Room attendants and cosplay as characters from the In-Universe Sentai show Phoenix Ranger Featherman.
• Crossover Cameo: Barring Kasumi^note Who debuted in Royal, several months after Joker's inclusion in Smash and Zenkichi^note Who debuted in Strikers, a few years later, all of the Phantom Thieves appear in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate with Joker's inclusion as a Guest Fighter.
  • Ryuji, Morgana, Ann and Yusuke make vocal cameos in Joker's reveal trailer.^note It helps that for Yusuke, they already had his voice actor (both Japanese and English) playing another blue-haired swordsman in the same game.
  • In the game proper, Morgana appears as part of Joker's taunts, and shows up in his bus form alongside the other Phantom Thieves in the Mementos stage. There's even a hat based on him that can be worn by the Mii Fighters.
  • Ryuji, Ann, Yusuke, Makoto and Haru all appear on the Mementos stage. While Futaba doesn't appear on the stage, she does have voice lines during Joker's All-Out Attacks.
  • All Thieves (again, bar Kasumi and Zenkichi) appear as Spirits, both individually in their civilian attire and in a group Spirit with their Metaverse outfits. Akechi however is excluded from the group illustration, so, while he has representation in-game, nothing gives away his eventual involvement with the Thieves. Sophia was also given a Spirit after Strikers' Western release.
  • One of Joker's alternative outfits is his Metaverse outfit, but in Crow's colour scheme (light brown hair, red mask, white jacket with gold highlights).

D-H

• Dark and Troubled Past: The whole team, with the exception of Sophie and Morgana, pretty much has them and these shared pains is another thing that bonds them to one another:
  • Joker tried to stop a man from raping a woman. When he accidentally injured the would-be rapist by knocking him over, Joker was unfairly slapped with a false assault conviction that led to him being transferred to Tokyo under probation. To add insult to injury, Kamoshida leaked his criminal record all over Shujin, so almost everyone there shuns him and treats him like a delinquent because of it.
  • Ryuji had an abusive father who beat both him and his mother, leading to their divorce, and is very aware of the difficulties his mother is facing as a single mom. Kamoshida also broke one of his legs, causing his Career-Ending Injury, after spreading rumors of his home life that provoked Ryuji into punching him, which in turn resulted in the track team being shut down, with the other members blaming Ryuji.
  • While Ann might have better times in the past, quite recently, she was harassed with gossips and rumors for her heritage and appearance and became the unfortunate Lust Object of her own teacher. Her refusal to get involved and help others (including her own best friend, Shiho). This led Shiho to attempt suicide.
  • Yusuke is abused by his adoptive parent and his own art being plagiarized as well. Worse, his adoptive parent is the reason his mother died, namely by refusing to help her in the incident that led to her dying.
  • Makoto never knew her mother, and her father was killed by an organized crime family when she was little. Since then, she's only had her well meaning but workaholic older sister. Said sister drives her to succeed, but tends to neglect her emotional needs and her own problems have caused a rift between them. Makoto also grew up pretty friendless as a result.
  • Futaba witnesses her own mother die in a car accident in front of her eyes, then was immediately told that it was her fault and gained a massive guilt complex. She was also abused by her mother's brother until Sojiro adopted her.
  • Haru may have been raised in wealth, but this did her few favors, as people were constantly trying to get into her father's good graces by being nice to her, which led her to uncertainty as to whom she could trust and who was just looking for a step up the ladder. It's also unclear as to how long Okumura had embraced the business practices that led to the events in the game. If you spend time with her during Christmas, she talks about having spent an unknown number of past Christmases alone or at boring Christmas parties of her father's.
  • Akechi's mother died when he was little, after his absentee father Shido disowned him, and he was passed between various foster homes as an unwanted child. Naturally, this resulted in him developing some serious abandonment and self-esteem issues, and his attempt to overcome them through fame and fortune as a Great Detective just left him even more lonely. To make things worse, in Royal it was revealed that he was conceived randomly when Shido molested a whore.
  • Kasumi isn't even Kasumi; she's actually Sumire who has literally no self-esteem and felt inferior to her sister, the real Kasumi, and when she had a fit that nearly got herself killed by oncoming traffic, Kasumi sacrificed herself to save her. Then when she met Maruki for therapy, he subconsciously changed her cognition so she thinks that she was her sister (the implication being Sumire reminding him of his past trauma), as otherwise she would've only tried to really kill herself from the grief.
  • While Zenkichi might look really shady at first, he's actually on the receiving end of this. A year ago prior to Persona 5 and 2 years prior to Strikers, his wife was killed in a hit-and-run by a corrupt Shido lobbyist named Owada, who was drunk driving during that time and ran over his wife in front of his daughter, then conveniently staged a suicide on his secretary to shift the blame from him. When he tried to investigate, he was sent a death threat which may get him into trouble with Shido, something that would not end pretty for him or Akane. Eventually, his inability to reveal the truth to Akane or properly investigate his wife's death, combined with being unable to spend time with her due to work, has caused her to hate and resent him.
  • Sophia is the notable aversion of this, since she has no past to begin with, and was merely a scrapped prototype of EMMA that Joker happened to find. Her creator Ichinose, however, clearly has one, where she couldn't feel emotions as an innate trait and caused people to get creeped out and distance from her, leading her to create Sophia to better understand herself only to throw a fit and scrapped her in favor of a much, more dangerous AI when she asked her a question that triggered her insecurities.
  • Another aversion is Morgana, who doesn't have a past to begin with. He's a sleeper agent created by the real Igor to guide Joker into exposing Yaldabaoth, who was impersonating him.
• Dark Is Not Evil: While most of them (Ann, Sophia, and Akechi being the exceptions) wear dark-colored outfits in the Metaverse, the thieves are generally good-hearted people who will always fight to protect the innocent.
• Death of Personality: If Joker accepts Maruki's deal in the Third Term, all of them bar Joker and probably Akechi will go through this because they won't have anything to fight or strive for, as all of them will be fulfilled via Maruki's reality warping. Especially Sumire, since she is now a perfect copy of Kasumi with all of her athletic prowess, effectively killing off Sumire in a metaphorical sense.
• Decomposite Character: Makoto and Haru are this to Mitsuru from Persona 3. Makoto has Mitsuru's position as Student Council President with a similarly serious personality, while Haru has Mitsuru's arcana and a similar role in the story.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Each character deconstructs certain character tropes:
  • Joker deconstructs the Chronic Hero Syndrome trope. In his backstory, he saves a woman from being assaulted by her boss, but the man turns out to be an influential politician and it's Joker who gets arrested for assault instead. Also, no matter what he does, the general public still treats him as a violent punk due to his record and Yaldabaoth keeping tabs on him.
  • Ryuji deconstructs the Japanese Delinquents trope. He looks like a delinquent, but he only styles himself as such because everyone treats him like one. He's a genuine Nice Guy (vitriolic relations with Morgana aside), and the only reason he got saddled with the reputation in the first place is because Kamoshida ruined his life until Ryuji reached his Rage Breaking Point and punched Kamoshida.
  • Ann deconstructs the But Not Too Foreign trope. Despite being born and raised in Japan, her quarter-white heritage gives her an "exotic" appearance that fuels nasty rumors about her, and earns her the unwanted attention of people like Kamoshida because she was hanging out with him to prevent her friend Shiho from being molested, which only adds more fuel to the rumors and Slut-Shaming she gets.
  • Morgana deconstructs the Token Non-Human trope. He believes strongly that he Was Once a Man and gets really touchy when people call him a cat. The growing evidence that he was never human only leads to even more denial and makes him question his place among his human friends to the point where he temporarily leaves the Phantom Thieves after a particularly nasty argument with Ryuji.
  • Yusuke deconstructs the Starving Artist trope. The reason his conditions are so poor is because Madarame steals all the credit and profit from his art, leaving him overworked and literally starving. Presumably also because how Madarame used to care for him to a great extent in a deliberate attempt to inflict Stockholm Syndrome onto him, he still has issues understanding that Madarame was corrupt by the time he raised him. While Yusuke does stick to his guns about creating art for its own sake, this also earns him the scorn of adult artists, including those who want to foster his talent. Part of Yusuke's confidant is getting over the idea that making artwork for the sake of earning money inherently means he's somehow less of an artist or a "bad person."
  • Makoto deconstructs the Student Council President trope. Her position only makes her a glorified gopher for the Principal, with no actual power to do anything, and everyone else sees her as an Academic Alpha Bitch that is helping cover up the abuses by the school staff (neither of which is true). Meanwhile, the constant pressure from her older sister to succeed has made Makoto question if all of her efforts are even worth it.
  • Futaba deconstructs the Hikikomori trope. She shuts herself in because she was traumatized by one of Shido's most glaring Kick the Dog moments that killed her mother and blamed the incident on her. She's well aware of how unhealthy her lifestyle is, but is too afraid to leave the house, and she's suicidal, to the point where her own self-hatred creates a Palace, feeling like the only way to break out of it is to have her heart stolen by the Phantom Thieves. Also, her foster father is in danger of losing custody of her due to him being unwilling to pay her abusive former caretaker's imposed debt.
  • Haru deconstructs the Ojou trope. While she did used to have a much better time with her father, by the events of the game began, the relationship between the two has degenerated into a Gilded Cage where her father dictates her life down to the letter, including an Arranged Marriage with an abusive fiance, and she finds it hard to trust people since she isn't sure who likes her for who she is or who only wants her for her money. And once her father dies, Haru is suddenly saddled with all the pressures of running the company that Okumura never prepared her for, or likely even intended for her to inherit at all. This presents several issues as her personal goals are far more humble and down-to-earth, and all of this happens while she's still grieving over her father's death, because he did genuinely care for her up until some time ago. Naturally, the pressure begins eating away at Haru's psyche almost immediately.
  • Akechi deconstructs the Great Detective. All of his fame and fangirls are ultimately just superficial - he's just as lonely and friendless now as he was growing up, except now people expect greatness from him. He privately reveals to the thieves that he isn't even all that enamored with the job - he only keeps doing it because he finds punishing criminals cathartic.
  • Kasumi deconstructs Successful Sibling Syndrome. Emphasis on that is not Kasumi, but Sumire being brainwashed into thinking that she's her dead sister just to prevent her from offing herself for a while. Sumire's mindset is that if she wasn't Kasumi, she should probably just...die. Aside from making her delusional, there's also an element of selfishness to this, as Sumire wanted to live Kasumi's life, even when the latter was alive. Without Maruki's Cognitive Therapy, the guilt from the incident that resulted in Kasumi's death would have caused Sumire to render herself catatonic or commit suicide.
  • Zenkichi deconstructs the Papa Wolf trope. While he was always for his family's well-being, his wife was being ran over by a drunk Shido lobbyist who could cover everything up simply because he was backing Shido, and his daughter hated him and the police in general because she didn't have any idea who her father could be facing when he tried to investigate the culprit during that time. He even chides himself for his weakness when he confronted his daughter when she was being driven insane by EMMA.
  • Sophie deconstructs the Interspecies Friendship trope. She's an AI who wants to become a friend of humanity, but doesn't understand why she has to do that. It turns out that this is her only memory; she was not given a purpose otherwise since her creator ditched her within minutes post-creation for her own selfish reasons.
• Delinquents: All of them beside Morgana and Futaba are high school students who moonlight as criminal vigilantes. Granted, only the founding group (Joker, Ryuji and to a lesser extent, Ann) fit the traditional profile and reputation at school. Yusuke is merely considered an eccentric, Makoto is student body president, Haru is a well-off young lady, Akechi is a good student and detective, Kasumi (Sumire) is an accomplished gymnast, Zenkichi is a public security officer and Sophia is an open-source AI. (However, Akechi ^note In Royal's third term only, Kasumi/Sumire, Zenkichi and Sophia joined them not to moonlight in criminal vigilantism, but to investigate and put a halt to Metaverse-related incidents after the first one.)
• Disappointed by the Motive:
  • After a Motive Rant from their target, the Thieves will usually respond with a speech of their own that calls the target out on their attitude, all of which can be summed up as "That's it? That's why you're doing this? We're not impressed." In general, the Thieves scoff at the reasons someone would choose to make the world a worse place, especially if a target is taking out their aggression on a family member or loved ones, seeing the target's motives as selfish, petty, and pointlessly self-destructive.
  • Subverted in Strikers with the Jail Monarchs. They are much more empathetic and saddened to learn about the struggles the Monarchs endured, to the point they even thought about leaving one of them alone when they realize her motives and circumstances. While this doesn’t stop them from doing their job, they're more considerate and it teaches them that not all supposedly corrupt adults are completely heartless, rather misguided and desperate.
• Does Not Like Spam: The list below:
  • Ryuji doesn't like bitter stuff, shown by him refusing to drink coffee.
  • Ann doesn't like carbonated juice. When Ryuji offers her a choice of two drinks after her awakening, she says she'll go with "Whichever's not carbonated." When Ryuji says they both are, Ann reluctantly picks the one in his right hand.
  • Hilariously, Akechi develops a distaste for pancakes after realizing that his initial love for them tipped the thieves off to his true nature.
    Akechi: Pancakes... I don't want to hear that word again for a long, long time.
• The Dog Bites Back:
  • The initial group was exclusively formed from Kamoshida's victims and the later members are all incidentally victims of Shido or his affiliates. They end up giving Kamoshida and Shido their well-deserved comeuppance by brainwashing them into a life of repentance without them knowing that their former victims were the ones behind it.
  • The group was formed because of Yaldabaoth's solitare game that he sponsored personally, only to deliberately plunge them into the abyss once he was done with them just to cement his control on the public and toy with his pawns. They break free and gain their own real freedom by forming a Faustian Rebellion against him.
• Do Not Adjust Your Set:
  • In the original game, for the final calling card, they hijack all the channels to announce that Joker's not dead and that they're going to steal Shido's heart.
  • In Strikers, they repeat this feat when sending a calling card to Alice.
• Dysfunction Junction: All of them have issues, to be blunt:
  • Morgana didn't have much issues at first save for constantly desiring to become human under the impression that he was one. Then Futaba began taking over his role as navigator and his constant bickering of Ryuji became a fall-out when Ryuji told him that he was useless, causing him to defect away from the Phantom Thieves into solitude with a partially awakened Haru. This didn't end up well for him, since he can't infiltrate a Palace on his own.
  • Ryuji had his career as a track star destroyed when Kamoshida broke his leg after the latter goaded him into a confrontation by spreading rumors of his home-life (a single-mom and his abusive a-hole of a father.) Beforehand, he was sabotaging him and the rest of the track team for upstaging the volleyball team by working them to the ground.
  • Ann faced bullying and harassment over her heritage and looks, and tends to be distrustful and distant as a result. Unfortunately, the latter behavior causes her to ignore her best friend's problems who then tried to commit suicide after being sexually assaulted by Kamoshida.
  • Yusuke lost his parents at a young age and his mentor exploited him. It is later revealed his mentor basically murdered Yusuke's mother as well.
  • Makoto has a lot of repressed anger issues over being made to stand on a pedestal by adults who don't follow the same standards themselves and exploit her for her talent. She becomes a bit more even-tempered after her dungeon/episode is complete (even if she still fights like a hellion). She also has a tendency of trying to do everything herself, something she lampshades before the climax, even as she gains her strong group of friends.
  • Futaba is severely isolated socially partly due to her Survivor Guilt over her mother's assassination and the subsequent blaming of her death. She was also raised by an abusive uncle briefly.
  • Haru was nearly sold to an unwanted marriage to a hateful man by her father for political gain, then quickly lost him tragically. She spends the rest of the game struggling with her guilt over the incident.
  • Goro suffers from some serious Bastard Angst (which, given the setting in Japan, is actually a far more serious issue than in the West) and desperately seeks the approval of others as a result. In Royal, we also learn that his birth is...shameful, to put bluntly, so he had every reason to resort to such extremes so he can expose his father.
  • Kasumi is actually outright delusional and suicidally depressed, since this is not Kasumi but the real Kasumi's sister Sumire, who voluntarily had a false personality overlaid over her because she was unable to live with being the surviving sibling.
  • Zenkichi lost his wife to a drunk Shido lobbyist, and his daughter had grown to hate him for failure to investigate her death because of the opponent that he might be potentially facing if he ever went after the culprit. This went to the point where her daughter was unwittingly being tricked by public opinion and driven insane by an autonomous AI application afterwards, to the point that Zenkichi awakens a persona and joins the Phantom Thieves himself to save his daughter.
  • Sophia plays with this. She suffers from self-loathing for unknown reasons, but it turns out that she didn't have an issue, her creator is the one who had. Namely, her parents died to unknown reasons at a very young age, and it was so traumatic that she shut off her emotions and became a delusional misanthrope, to the point that when Sophia asked what a heart was, her creator responded by trashing her and being written off as a failure.
• Elemental Powers: Like every game, each (except Futaba) specializes in a particular element. However, there are enough this time where every member has their own.
  • Joker: He can technically use every element due to the Wild Card ability, but Arsène and his variants specialize in Curse spells.
  • Skull specializes in Electric spells.
  • Mona specializes in Wind spells.
  • Panther specializes in Fire spells.
  • Fox specializes in Ice spells.
  • Queen specializes in Nuclear spells.
  • Noir specializes in Psychokinesis spells.
  • Crow uses both Bless and Curse spells, as well as Almighty spells.
    • Black Mask Crow has Curse and Almighty skills, although he largely subverts this since his skills are mostly Gun and Physical.
  • Violet and Sophie both specialize in Bless spells.
  • Wolf uses Almighty spells.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: All have a resistance to their main element, and a weakness to the opposite element, creating a juxtaposition with every playable character you get. Evolved Personas No-Sell their main element and gain resistance to another.
  • Joker, being a Wild Card, has varying weaknesses and resistances. Arsène resists Curse and is weak to Bless and Ice. Raoul blocks Curse and is weak to Bless, but not ice. Satanael absorbs Curse, blocks Bless, and resists every other element, as well as Physical and Gun.
  • Ryuji resists/blocks Electricity and is weak to Wind. He gains a resistance to Fire when his Persona evolves.
  • Morgana resists/blocks Wind and is weak to Electricity. He gains a resistance to Bless when his Persona evolves.
  • Ann resists/blocks Fire and is weak to Ice. She gains a resistance to electricity when her Persona evolves.
  • Yusuke resists/blocks Ice and is weak to Fire. He gains a resistance to Wind when his Persona evolves.
  • Makoto resists/blocks Nuclear and is weak to Psychic. She gains a resistance to Curse when her Persona evolves.
  • Haru resists/blocks Psychic and is weak to Nuclear. She gains a resistance to Ice when her Persona evolves.
  • Akechi resists Bless and is weak to Curse. In Persona Q2, he becomes immune to Bless and drops his weakness to Curse when his Persona gets upgraded. In Royal's third semester, he's immune to Curse and weak to Bless, and gains a resistance to Psychic when his Persona evolves.
  • Kasumi resists/blocks Bless and is weak to curse. She gains a resistance to Nuclear with her third-tier Persona.
  • Sophie also resists/blocks Bless, and is weak to Curse.
  • Zenkichi has no resistances or weaknesses, thanks to his Persona being Almighty-inherit, which also lets him bypass resistances in exchange for not being able to hit weaknesses.
• Escapism: There is a level on which their burglar antics are a way to escape from the doldrums of their everyday lives. Subverted by near the end game as they are fighting for their lives against the Antisocial Force conspiracy when Shido moves against them and then for all of Tokyo when the Final Boss makes their move.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Becomes something of a plot point; despite his harsh criticism of them, Akechi's careful study of the Thieves' methods leads him to realize that they were framed for killing the principal and Kunikazu Okumura and offers to help them find the real culprit. Subverted since Akechi is the culprit and he's framing them for reasons other than orders from Shido.
  • Our Phantom Thief protagonists seem especially willing to help against Domestic Abuse.
    • Notably, in Strikers, the Thieves are quick to assume Akira is a no-good scumbag since he's the one behind the Jails and Monarchs all over Tokyo. Their attitude does an immediate 180, when they learn that his Freudian Excuse, was that as a child, he was abused by his father to the point where he had to kill him in self-defense. All the Thieves are horrified at what he's been through, and Zenkichi has to remind them that this doesn't excuse all of the crimes that he's committed when they seem conflicted at how to proceed with this new revelation.
  • Although the Thieves have to develop their own sense of justice against societal corruption, they don’t try to enforce their own ideals on everyone.
  • In the True endings of both the Vanilla game and Royal, they will never turn their backs on society, even if society turns their backs on them. Joker, and by extension the whole Phantom group, refuse to hand over Japan to a God-like figure out of spite towards the public’s apathy/"desires" of everyone under the being's control, even if the God-figure has good intentions.
  • The Thieves generally hate the police for their corruption and incompetence. Emphasis on corrupt, as they learn in that some people, like Sae Niijima from the first game and Inspector Zenkichi Hasegawa from Strikers, are trustworthy, and are fine with teaming up with them to reach the same goal.
    • As tired as they are of corrupt police, they refuse to take said authority's place because they know it’d make them no better by taking power for themselves. This is why they refuse to go along with the troubled Akane Hasegawa's desire for the Thieves to dismantle the police and become the sole enforcers of justice.
  • After his defeat, Akechi reveals Shido abandoned his mother after impregnating her, causing her to commit suicide and leaving him in foster care, driving him to seek vengeance. While they don't forgive Akechi for his crimes, the Phantom Thieves give him a You Are Better Than You Think You Are speech and offer him the chance to take Shido down with them. They are also horrified to learn Shido knew Akechi was his son, yet only saw him as a puppet, before having Cognitive Akechi seemingly kill him.
• Family of Choice: The Thieves eventually grow to view each other as a second family, helping each other out with their personal problems and taking on everything the world throws at them as a team.
• Faustian Rebellion: Once the Phantom Thieves found out that they are Unwitting Pawns for Yaldabaoth to remove the corrupt that he deliberately set up for them to be demolished so he can justify his totalitarian rule, they pull this on him.
• Famed In-Story: Unlike in the previous games, our heroes' exploits (save for the Persona aspect of it) become known all across Japan. During the field trip to Hawaii, they find out that even the Americans have heard of the Phantom Thieves.
• Fanservice: In Strikers, it embraces the summer aesthetic by placing the team in swimsuits on the beach trip to Okinawa, while Ann's regular summer outfit features bare midriffs and emphasizes her legs more than her Phantom Thief costume.
• Firing One-Handed: Joker, Ann, Akechi, and Kasumi all fire their guns with a single hand. Of course, the game establishes they're not real guns, just replicas, airsoft guns and, in Akechi's case, toy Ray Guns. This works because of the Your Mind Makes It Real nature of the Metaverse; the Shadows see the guns as real, and thus, they are.
• First-Name Basis: Like the Investigation Team before them, all the members are on a first-name basis with one another. The two third-years in the group, Makoto and Haru, also immediately dismiss the seniority hierarchy and do not want to be referred to as senpai. Akechi is the one exception; while he refers to everyone by their first names, the rest of the team and even the game's own interface only stick to calling him by his surname. This is also unusually applied to Zenkichi as well; the "unusual" part being that he's the only adult in the group and doing so in Japanese society would be considered incredibly rude, but he embraces it due to wanting to be on equal footing with the rest of the Thieves.
• Game Face: They all indulge in this while in the Metaverse, where they have nothing to hide:
  • Joker often sports a confident and taunting smirk befitting a criminal mastermind.
  • Ryuji sports a big, toothy shark-grin.
  • Ann goes for the mischievous and coy look.
  • Morgana combines his default smile with a Dreamworks Face.
  • Yusuke doesn't smile much (and his mask also covers his mouth), but when he does, yikes!◊
  • Makoto doesn't really smile so much as stare her opponents down with her teeth bared.
  • Futaba's◊ smile is cute, cheeky, and more than a bit psychotic.
  • Haru's◊ is refined, classy, and undeniably dangerous.
  • Akechi's dorky, flamboyant mannerisms when he initially joins the Thieves are the exception to this. However, once he rejoins in the third term his All-Out Attack screen changes from him dancing against a flashy backdrop to him laughing maniacally.
  • Zenkichi has a predatory smile and look in his eyes.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble:
  • The final team in the base game (excluding Akechi, who leaves the party later on) consists of four males (Joker, Morgana, Ryuji and Yusuke) and four females (Ann, Makoto, Futaba and Haru). Royal brings back Akechi and adds a new member in Yoshizawa for a total of five males and five females.
  • Persona 5 Strikers also equals out the team's gender ratio with Sophia and Zenkichi, who join in that game in place of Akechi and Kasumi. Likewise, counting Morgana as male and including both Akechi and Yoshizawa equals the team's gender ratio overall to six guys and six girls.
• Good Counterpart:
  • To the Masked Circle from Persona 2, a mysterious group who would grant the wishes of their clients who are also led by a man named Joker and secretly manipulated by a God of Evil. The difference is that there are no strings attached in regards to the requests given to the Phantom Thieves, while the wishes granted by the Masked Circle come at the cost of the client's dreams.
  • They could be viewed as this to Strega, the antagonistic group of Persona users in Persona 3. Strega uses a website where users can request vengeance towards a victim, which they do by using the Dark Hour. Similarly, the Phantom Thieves can take requests from the Phansite and change the targets' heart using the Metaverse, the biggest difference being no harm comes to the targets.
• Good Feels Good: While all of them are good people, most of the Thieves (barring Joker, Makoto and Ryuji) join up with the Phantom Thieves initially to resolve their own personal issues and remain afterwards for their own reasons, such as Futaba to find out the truth about her mother and Yusuke for his art. However, they all develop an appreciation and a sense of pride in taking down rotten authority figures and giving people a sense of hope.
  Futaba: Risking our lives to stop rotten adults... that's why we're Phantom Thieves!
• Good Is Not Soft: For the most part, they are genuinely kind and affable people doing what they feel is right. However, their experience with the severe corruption of authority figures and a society that keeps protecting them has ensured that they will not hold back when punishing those who abuse their authority for selfish gain and hurting others.
• Gotta Get Your Head Together: Most of them enter this pose when first awakening their Personas. The exceptions are Joker and Ann, who are physically restrained at the time, and Futaba, whose awakening is far less painful than the others.
• Heel–Face Brainwashing: Their modus operandi. By stealing a target's Treasure, they effectively force their targets to have a change of heart, repent their wicked ways, and become better people. The Phantom Thieves do note the rather twisted morality of this, but justify it as doing what they have to do because no one else will. Their targets are either too powerful or too well-connected for the law to do anything about it, and the apathy of the Japanese public to these problems means nobody's coming to stop these terrible people. So while the Phantom Thieves do feel kind of bad about forcing people to change their minds, their targets are all such scumbags that they can justify it. Part of this need also stems from Yaldabaoth manipulating the public to worship these figures and allow them to get away with their crimes, and he actually forces them to to give up their autonomy to him should the Phantom Thieves defeat one of them. After the Phantom Thieves bring down Yaldabaoth for good, they downplay the brainwashing aspect and focus on convincing their targets to genuinely change themselves, with much better results for both sides.
• Heel–Face Turn: Interestingly enough, all of the thieves that join after Kamoshida's Palace are all actually introduced in more antagonistic roles (barring Sophia, who starts off loyal to the thieves) before properly joining:
  • Yusuke, after realizing that Joker, Ryuji and Ann are trying to dig up information on his master, threatens to sue the trio for trespassing in his home unless Ann agrees to model nude for him.
  • Makoto is pressured by the School's Principal to uncover the identities of the Thieves. After she succeeds in doing so, she blackmails them into helping her dig up information on Kaneshiro.
  • We learn during the month of July that Futaba had Leblanc bugged since Joker's arrival, and when the thieves hit a snag upon learning that their next opponent is a hacktivist group, she anonymously contacts Joker and strikes a deal: Steal Futaba's heart and she'll take on the group—if not, she'll rat the thieves out to the police. While Futaba's introduction is less antagonistic in tone, especially after the thieves learn about her from Sojiro, blackmail is still involved, and not completing her palace shows Joker falsely recollecting that she made good on her threat.
  • Haru is introduced as a rival Phantom Thief and initially refuses to join the group because of how Morgana briefly left the group on bad terms.
  • Goro is a detective who consistently holds firm that the thieves are criminals that should be tried under the law. When he joins them during the latter half of the game, it's as a temporary alliance which later becomes permanent during the third term events of Royal.
  • Downplayed with Kasumi, who isn't actively malicious towards the thieves but is still opposed to their methods - even after gaining her Persona, she functions as an Aloof Ally who only rarely helps them out. However, after Maruki drives her insane, she actively attacks Joker in a fit of desperation and guilt: only after being defeated and rescued by the thieves does she finally join them for real.
  • In the sequel, Zenkichi is assigned to investigate them when people start acting brainwashed across Japan, and the Phantom Thieves are immediately suspicious of his intentions. Ultimately subverted since Zenkichi was only acting antagonistic because it was part of his job. He's far more interested in finding the actual culprit than the rest of the police and is pretty easy going and considerate, becoming a trusted ally before he joins full time.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: In most animated cutscenes, their masks are raised so that the viewer can properly see their faces.
• Henshin Hero: The Thieves all get an Instant Costume Change as they enter the Metaverse, giving them access to their Personas, allowing their model guns to work like real firearms, and making them stronger, faster, and tougher than they would otherwise be.
• Hero with Bad Publicity:
  • Zigzagged, the news media often calls them villains and criminals, but they still get some public support for their actions. This is played further straight when they are framed for murder and their public approval rating plummets from the 90s into the single digits. Then zigzagged again when by the end, where 50% of the population voice their support once everyone is completely free of Yaldabaoth's influence, indicating that the mass public approval plummet was because they were manipulated by supernatural influences.
  • Among the Phantom Thieves, Joker and Ryuji in particular have this problem in their civilian lives. While Ann's reputation gets repaired after they steal Kamoshida's heart, Joker and Ryuji only get a new crop of rumors started about them, with the student body convinced that the two must have physically threatened Kamoshida into confessing to prevent their expulsions. For Joker's case, this actually happens because the Holy Grail imprisoned him in the compromised Velvet Room, which is actually a Quarantine Cell for the most dangerous inmates capable of destroying all social order. It turns out that the Holy Grail actually changed the public's congition in its whole entirety to make them think that Joker is really some dangerous criminal.
  • Akechi gets a bit of this as the Phantom Thieves become more popular, taking the stance of "they may be doing good, but the law is the law." As such, there are quite a few people calling for Akechi's head on the Phan-Site, though the rest of the Thieves consider Akechi a minor nuisance at worst before he joins.
• He Who Fights Monsters: The Phantom Thieves spend 90% of the game forcefully Heel–Face Brainwashing adults because they're honestly left with no other options: the people of Tokyo are simply too apathetic and weak-hearted to stand up to corrupt people in power. At the end of the game, it was revealed that it's a deliberate design by Yaldabaoth which sets everything into motion just to make sure anyone placed into his "game" really didn't have other options and to make sure none of the Thieves' targets actually atone. Once exposed, he gives Joker the opportunity to cooperate with him and continue using Mementos and the Palaces for these forceful reformations, with his argument being that humanity cannot resist its darker impulses and will continue succumbing to its desires. Taking the offer has Joker decide that indeed, Humans Are Bastards who can't care for themselves and he descends into full-blown misanthropic Knight Templar territory with his crew presumably still ceasing to exist in public cognition, netting you a Bad Ending. Defying this and trusting in society's ability to change without supernatural intervention or Yaldabaoth's influence is necessary for the True Ending.
• Historical Domain Character:
  • Ryuji and Yusuke have real people as their Personas - Captain William Kidd and Ishikawa Goemon, respectively. Note that Makoto, despite appearances, does not - Pope Joan is not a historical person, and the historical John VIII was nothing like the legend.
  • Haru and Akechi's Third-Tier Personas are historical figures (Lucy Hay, Countess of Carlisle and Hereward the Wake, respectively) who are commonly believed to be the inspiration behind their initial Personas. Meanwhile, Ann's Third-Tier Persona, Célestine, is Célestine Galli-Marié, the first actress to play Carmen on stage.
• Hope Bringer:
  • Their stated goal is to provide hope to those suffering by stealing the hearts of abusive authority figures publicly. How well they accomplish this task is a matter of much in-universe debate.
  • They become this for all of Tokyo in the Yaldabaoth fight where they inspire the populace to snap out of their despair and reject the evil god, which allows them to defeat him. This unfortunately has the side effect of turning them into the new masters of Mementos and the Metaverse as a whole, and unknowingly pass it to Maruki, who proceeds to become the new God of Control.

I-R

• Immune to Mind Control: Zig-zagged across the games:
  • The Holy Grail purposefully grants the Phantom Thieves the ability to see through the distortions he manipulates to allow him to plunge them into despair once he makes the public loses trust in them.
  • Mostly Subverted in Maruki's reality. All of the Phantom Thieves, with the exception of Sumire, Akechi, and Joker, fall for it hook, line and sinker when Maruki grants their subconscious desires. It takes Joker some convincing to snap them out of it.
  • In Persona 5 Strikers, the Monarchs brainwash their victims by stealing Desires from their Shadows. But because the Phantom Thieves' Shadows transformed into Personas, the Monarchs can't steal their Desires to control them.
  • In Persona 5 Tactica, Marie brainwashes all of the Phantom Thieves into becoming her slaves, sans Joker and Morgana. They only escape by dodging the spell, implying they were just as susceptible.
• Implausible Hair Color: Surprisingly averted. Most of the cast look realistically Japanese with plausible (often dyed) hair color. Futaba and Ryuji's hair colors are explicitly stated to be dyed, with it being heavily implied that Haru and Akechi dye their hair as well (as brown is an extremely common hair dye choice in Japan), and Sophia being an AI with floating red hearts as pigtails is definitely a justified exception. This trope only comes into play for Yusuke (who has deep blue hair)^note and even then, it might possibly represent black hair, Ann, since despite being 1/4 Caucasian, it's extremely unlikely that she would have natural blond hair, and Kasumi (who has crimson hair).
• Informed Flaw: The game makes the claim that they'd lost sight of their goals by going after Okumura, but this is not the case. For starters, Okumura was guilty of many serious crimes- exploiting his workers, asking for mental shutdowns and planning on giving his daughter away to an Arranged Marriage with an abusive fiance- so he would have been targeted otherwise. The Phantom Thieves are notably uncomfortable with the sudden surge of people asking for Okumura to have a change of heart, but realize they have valid reasons to target him.
• Instant Costume Change: After awakening to their Personas, the party's outfits change into their Phantom Thief outfits upon entering the Metaverse.
• Internal Reformist: They wish to reform their world by stealing the hearts of "corrupt" people. While they eventually make their presence known to the public, they keep their civilian identities secret. So while the Thieves become famous, the people behind the masks remain complete nobodies to everyone except The Conspiracy they're trying to take down.
• Invisible Parents: The only parents that are seen on-screen are Haru's father, Sojiro (aka Futaba's adopted father), Shido (aka Akechi's father), and Kasumi's father. Justified in the case for a lot of them as Joker is away from his parents, Ann's parents are overseas and she was raised by hired help, Ryuji's father abandoned him, Akechi's birth itself was a mistake and his mother committed suicide, and Yusuke and Makoto are orphans. However, Ryuji's mother never actually shows up in the story, and it's never outright stated whether Haru's mother passed away or she and Kunikazu are just divorced, only that he "raised his daughter alone." In addition, while Futaba's birth mother died before the events of the story took place, nobody really knows anything about her birth father as according to Sojiro, Wakaba would not say a word about him.
• It's Personal:
  • A number of the Thieves have good reason to want to get back at Shido and The Conspiracy due to the ways in which their lives were negatively affected:
    • Joker was falsely accused by Shido of assault, thus being put onto probation. All of this was because he (Joker) was attempting to protect a woman that the man in question was sexually assaulting.
    • Makoto was forced to suffer from her sister's unintentional neglect due to the government's insane caseload being foisted onto Sae. The Niijima sisters are later implicitly targeted by the Antisocial Force for working together to fight against it. Additionally, Makoto herself is also used as an unwitting pawn to help deduce who the Phantom Thieves are before she herself becomes one.
    • Futaba's mother was murdered by Goro on Shido's orders due to her research on cognitive psience, with agents of the conspiracy then needlessly blaming Futaba for her mother's death for no other reason than to make a child suffer. Because of all of this, Futaba suffered crippling anxiety and became a shut-in.
    • Haru's father became a pawn of the Antisocial Force, and was murdered by them after his Heel–Face Turn in order to sow public outrage against the Thieves.
    • Even Goro has good reasons to want to take down Shido's conspiracy. Because of the societal taboos surrounding his birth, Goro's mother died in depression, and he was sent to live at a group home, all while Shido and his co-conspirators knew this was happening, and didn't care.
  • Zenkichi is especially eager to take down Konoe because he brainwashed Akane into being a Monarch.
• Irony:
  • Morgana's Persona is Zorro, a famous rogue who's well-known for his fox motif. Morgana is a cat.
  • Despite being a criminal who wishes to escape the chains of society, Joker actually finds his high school's uniform to be rather stylish. He tends to wear some of his DLC school uniforms more casually, though, such as with an open blazer.
• Jumped at the Call:
  • Although Ryuji stands out specifically for his eagerness, each of the Phantom Thieves display this to varying degrees once they accept their respective Personas; the moment they make their contracts being the points where each of them finally overcome whatever issue is holding them back, and once they do, they don't turn back.
  • Before Haru manifests her Persona, she enters the Metaverse to help Morgana and to protect herself from her father's abuse.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: All the thieves sans Joker lose their memories of fighting Caroline and Justine after the Superboss fight. This is one of the rules the two specifically imposed before facing him.
• Last Chance Hit Point: At Rank 8 of their Confidant, non-Protagonist party members will be able to endure one lethal attack per battle.
• Last Disc Magic: During the third semester in Royal, each party member (barring Joker) can evolve their Persona into a third form provided their social link was maxed out beforehand. When fully-evolved, they gain access to an extremely powerful Secret Art exclusive to them, but they only become available during The Very Definitely Final Dungeon and cannot be transferred over to New Game Plus.
• Literal Metaphor: A "persona" is described in Jungian psychology as the "mask" a person wears in society to protect themselves. In the Metaverse, the team's personas become physical Masks of Power.
• Lovable Rogue: They may be thieves, but that doesn't mean they're bad people.
• Mask of Power: They don masks when going into dungeons, similar to the heroes of P4 donning Specs of Awesome in the TV world. The masks are actually their Personas in physical form, dissolving into blue fire when the Personas are called out to fight.
• Mind Rape: As shown when each member first encounters their Persona, the initial process to accept them really hurts.
• The Mole: The game opens with the police stating that someone within the Thieves sold you out, leading to your capture and interrogation.
• Morphic Resonance: While there's no transformation involved, most of the party's other selves still mirror their appearance in some way:
  • Arsène shares Joker's penchant for classy attire and black and red color scheme. Tying into the mask motif, Arsène looks to have a mask for a face.
  • Carmen has twintails like Ann, but makes them much larger. The vines she carries mirror Ann's whips, and her panther mask copies Ann's cat motif (and presumably provides the inspiration for Ann's codename).
  • The Nose Art on Captain Kidd's boat mirrors Ryuji's own razor sharp teeth in his All-Out Attack portrait, and Ryuji's skull mask obviously references Captain Kidd being a skeleton. Captain Kidd also has a metal brace on his right thigh, likely the same place where Ryuji's leg was broken by Kamoshida.
  • Both Morgana and Zorro are comically top heavy. In a more traditional shapeshifting example, Morgana, naturally, shares his fur color and patterns between his humanoid and house cat forms. Less noticeably, his house cat collar is the same yellow as the bandana he wears in his other form.
  • The mask Milady carries is identical to Haru's, sans it being pink as opposed to Haru's black.
  • Robin Hood's Chest Insignia mirrors Akechi's initial printed on his briefcase.
    • Akechi's black-and-white striped tie also bears resemblance to Loki's dazzle camouflage coloration.
  • Cendrillon has a hair bow, similar to the one Kasumi uses to tie her hair back. When it evolves into Vanadis, the bow dissappears and its hair comes down, similar to Sumire's (this Kasumi's true identity).
  • Futaba's thief clothing has linings with similar color as the Necronomicon. The linings are also shared by some of the panels in her Palace, and similar-looking patterns also appear on Maruki's persona, who shares the same Lovecraftian origins as Futaba's Persona in one of its forms, albeit with noticably worn-out coloration.
  • When party members are turned into mice via either a status effect or a dungeon gimmick, they retain their masks, eye colors, and idle stance. Haru also keeps her hat.
• The Musketeer: All party members can switch between melee weapons and firearms, in a return to the combat system of the first Persona and its SMT ancestors.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • The founding members of the Thieves are horrified at the effects of the Heel–Face Brainwashing on Kamoshida, while also justifying it by saying he had it coming. It continues to be a point on contention with them for a while. Depending on the player's choices, Joker can be remorseful or apathetic to Kamoshida.
  • To a lesser extent, after hearing Akechi's interview at the TV station where he compares forcing a change of heart to brainwashing and forced confessions, Joker, Ryuji, Ann, and Morgana are angry at first but start to question again if they're really doing the right thing. Taking on Kaneshiro strengthens their resolve.
  • After they realize that the Antisocial Force arranged for them to become famous by defeating Medjed, and then be framed for the deaths of Okumura and the principal, the Thieves don't take it well.
  • Both Makoto and Akechi realize that they had some part, however small, in Sae becoming obsessed with catching the Phantom Thieves. It helps strengthen their resolve to change Sae's heart once they see she has a Palace.
  • All of them, minus Akechi and Sumire, feel absolutely horrified when they realize they allowed themselves to become enthralled by Maruki's world where their dreams come true, and unintentionally made the counselor the new Memento’s ruler after they took Yaldabaoth’s place as the public’s "gods". All of them privately hate themselves for betraying Joker and their group’s ideals, even if it was an accident. Joker helps break them out of their funk.
• Named After Somebody Famous: Almost every party member shares a first or last name with a Japanese historical or literary figure. Some even have an almost identical full name, sans one or two letters. This overlaps a bit with Meaningful Name, naturally, and for anyone with a basic grasp of Japanese popular culture and history (so almost every gamer in Japan), some of these characters become a Walking Spoiler the moment you read their name.
• Nice Guy: While some are nicer than others, the entire group (with the exception of Akechi) are generally kind, sensitive people who will go out of their way to help anyone in need, no matter the risk to themselves.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • By the end of the game, it is implied that Kamoshida, Madarame, Kaneshiro, and Shido were all put under Yaldabaoth's control thanks to the Phantom Thieves changing their hearts. The thieves don't let this get to them, however, and successfully take down Yaldabaoth himself in the true ending.
  • Following the defeat of the Final Boss it's revealed they become the new masters of Mementos and the Metaverse. Their inability to realize this, combined with their subconscious desire for their wishes to come true, empowers Takuto Maruki by making him the new master of Mementos due to confiding all their wishes to him. They don’t take the revelation well, and vow to return to their reality.
  • In Strikers, to prove their innocence when Alice Hiiragi starts stealing people's desires, they publicly announce their return with a huge spectacle and broadcast the calling card across Shibuya. This helps them get the desires back and prove Alice's crimes... except it then causes the police to suspect them even more about the other cases in the country and warns numerous Monarchs and the Big Bad that they're coming. Zenkichi spells it out they didn't think their actions through and uses this as leverage to get them to make a deal with him.
• Nice Mean And In Between: The trio of Joker, Akechi and new character Kasumi form this dynamic during the third semester in Royal when they're the only characters who haven't fallen to Maruki's world. Kasumi is a cheerful, kind-hearted girl, Akechi is a belligerent, Ax-Crazy Jerkass and Joker's generally heroic, but can be a bit of a show-off and The Gadfly at the player's discretion.
• No Man Should Have This Power: Defied. Though Akechi brings up the more unethical implications of the whole "changing hearts" thing, the Thieves are constantly placed within scenarios where the only way the problem can be solved is by stealing a Treasure from a Palace. Even with the implication that everyone whose hearts they stole were put under Yaldabaoth's control, the Thieves respond again by just destroying Yaldabaoth, the "Treasure" of Mementos.
• Non-Uniform Uniform: Similarly to past Persona high schools, both Shujin and Kosei appear to be lax on how students wear the uniform. Only Joker and Akechi (presumably) wear their school uniforms properly. For instance:
  • Ryuji wears his winter uniform with the blazer open and trades off the school turtleneck/polo for a Fun T-Shirt. He also rolls up the cuffs of his uniform pants, has a visible white belt, wears sneakers instead of dress shoes, and discards the suspenders of his uniform, making them hang from his waist.
  • Ann wears her blazer open. Rather than a regular shirt, she wears a zip-up hoodie underneath it, with red leggings and brown lace-up boots. Her style of wearing the uniform in particular is deliberately flashy and improper because she stopped giving a damn what the crowd thought of her. Although she does wear the summer uniform at near regulation, having the polo shirt untucked, a blue jacket tied around her waist, black knee-length socks, and brown loafers.
  • Makoto wears a black halter-styled vest instead of a blazer, full length black leggings, and dark brown ankle boots during the winter. For the summer, she replaces the polo shirt with a women's dress shirt with the 'B/J' symbol of the High Priestess Arcana on the collar, capri length black leggings, and black loafers.
  • Haru wears a short sleeved pink sweater in place of the blazer along with white patterned tights and black Mary Jane shoes for her winter uniform. For the summer, she replaces the polo shirt with a pale lavender sleeveless turtleneck blouse.
  • Yusuke forgoes the blue blazer worn by other Kosei students during winter in favor of a white gakuran with a fleur-de-lis on the left chest, while in the summer, he wears a non-regulation dark-blue dress shirt instead of the standard light-blue dress shirt. No matter the season, he also never wears the school's standard striped tie (or any kind of tie, really).
  • Interestingly enough, Kasumi from The Royal downplays this, coming the closest outside of Joker to wearing their uniform the proper way, but she wears custom red loafers rather than the proper black. She's also folded her skirt to a shorter length like Ann. Played straight for her summer uniform, where she adds a yellow cardigan (despite it being summer), custom white socks with a black stripe and orange loafers instead.
• Not a Game: This phrase is occasionally thrown around when some party members aren't taking things seriously. For instance:
  • During a randomly occurring exchange in Mementos, Ryuji will ask Morgana to hurry up, and he'll respond, "This isn't a game, amateur!" and tell him that they have to be careful. Considering that the Reaper can appear if you wait around too long, Morgana has a point.
  • The Thieves use an argument along this lines when trying to dissuade Haru from unilaterally trying to steal the Treasure with Morgana's help. Played with in that Haru's very serious about this, even if she's out of her depth.
• Omniscient Morality License: Deconstructed. These characters are well aware of the morally grey implications of their Heel–Face Brainwashing activities, and do indeed display discomfort with their actions, particularly in wishing there were other ways to resolve the issues that they face, both before and after dealing with them. Yet every major target that they face (save Futaba, Sae, and Maruki) turns out to be so irredeemably and outlandishly evil, and have the power and/or "support" of people to allow them to get away with their acts (making conventional methods pointless, along with dangerous more often than not), that the Thieves always end up with no other choice.
  Morgana: It's not like anyone will ever find out.
  Ryuji: That's not the point! If we just go around secretly doin' whatever we want, we'd be no better than that 'effing Kamoshida!
• Opposing Sports Team: In Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight. Since Elizabeth's objective is to prove that her guest is a better dancer than Caroline and Justine's, the Phantom Thieves assume this role offscreen.
• Outlaw: They are all this, though it helps that many of their Personas were as well. Morgana even seems to model himself after the western outlaw motifs while Joker takes more a modern approach.
• Paper-Thin Disguise:
  • The Phantom Thieves are comprised of former victims of the group's targets, they regularly hang out with each other in highly public areas, can often be found staking out the properties of their intended targets, and often talk about their activities as Phantom Thieves in public and through cell phone texts. This gets them in trouble a number of times throughout the game, as anyone who puts even a minor amount of effort can easily deduce their identities.
  • In a more literal sense, their costumes in the Metaverse function this way: despite not hiding a lot of their more identifiable features like Ryuji's and Futaba's distinctive dyed hair, ordinary people who enter the Metaverse don't recognize them, and only realize who they are by their voices. The only exception is Zenkichi/Wolf, whose high collar and hat would make recognizing him at a glance difficult.
• Parental Abandonment: True for most of them.
  • Joker, Ryuji, and Ann still have parents but they are either never seen or rarely brought up. Joker's family situation is purposely left vague, but he is said to have parents back home while he lives with Sojiro over his probation period. Meanwhile Ryuji's father left him and his mother, to their mutual relief. Ann's parents work primarily overseas, so they were rarely around for her growing up, leaving most of her rearing to be done by hired help.
  • Yusuke and Makoto are orphans. Yusuke's father and mother both died before he was old enough to clearly remember either of them, so he was taken in by Madarame. After he joins the team, Yusuke is forced to fend for himself without any remaining guardians. Makoto's mother died when she was very young. She and her sister Sae were raised by their police officer father alone for most of their lives. He was killed in the line of duty several years before the plot, leaving Sae to care for Makoto alone since.
  • Futaba has Sojiro as an adoptive father, but her mother Wakaba died two years before the game's plot. Even before then, her biological father was never in the picture. According to Sojiro, Wakaba became pregnant one day and took it upon herself to raise Futaba alone. She never mentioned the father to anyone, not even Futaba herself.
  • Haru's mom died when she was very young. Her father is around, but is killed during the events of the game.
  • Goro is the child of a sex worker mother and Shido. His father abandoned his mother long before he was born. His mother eventually died when he was very young, forcing Goro to spend his childhood being passed around various foster homes.
  • Subverted with Kasumi, as while her mother is unseen, her father is very concerned for her. For good reason too, considering she's actually a depressed, suicidal Sumire deluded into believing she's her deceased sister. She also mentions that her mother and grandmother are still around.
• Phantom Thief: They're collectively known as "The Phantom Thieves of Hearts" (as it's the name given on their first calling card by Ryuji, though you can change the name afterward) and for good reason: their ability to travel into the collective unconscious makes them untraceable by conventional security measures and law-enforcement.
• Power Makes Your Voice Deep: The Thieves' Personas all share a voice actor with their respective owner, but most of them speak with a much deeper, more confidently, more formally, and, in the case of the teenagers, more adult sounding voice than their owners'. The sole exceptions are Futaba, whose Persona speaks in a Child-Like Voice and Morgana and Akechi whose Personas never speak in-game.
• Price on Their Head: Following Okumura's death, the Phantom Thieves are deemed Japan's #1 threat, with a ¥30 million reward available for anyone with information that leads to their capture.
• Public Domain Character: With the exceptions of Ryuji and Yusuke, all of the Thieves' Personas are derived from classic literature. There's Arsène Lupin (Joker), Zorro (Morgana), Carmen (Ann), Pope Joan (Makoto), the Necronomicon (Futaba), Milady de Winter (Haru), Robin Hood (Akechi), Cinderella (Kasumi), Pandora (Sophia), and Jean Valjean (Zenkichi).
• Rage Against the Heavens: The party's ultimate Personas are based on mythological figures from various cultures who were cast from the heavens, forced into servitude, or imprisoned in The Underworld by their higher powers: Satanael, Seiten Taisei, Hecate, Mercurius, Kamu Susano-o, Anat, Prometheus, Astarte, and Loki. Kasumi plays with this with her Ultimate Persona Vanadis. While a popular goddess from Norse mythology, she is also associated with Freya, who suffered from the gods in the past.
• Rage Breaking Point: The founding thieves have a collective one during the Kamoshida arc. Ryuji is openly worried about the possibility of accidentally killing Kamoshida while messing with his mind, while Ann is pretty much resigned to being his Lust Object. Then Kamoshida rapes Shiho, and the enraged party decides that he has to be removed from power no matter what.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The thieves are a bunch of high school students (and a cat), that include a boy on probation for assault, a self-styled Japanese Delinquent, a quarter-white part time fashion model, a painter's apprentice, the Student Council President, a recovering Hikikomori, an eccentric rich girl, a teenage Great Detective who is actually a treasonous criminal, the brainwashed younger sister of a renowned gymnast and, again, a cat. In the sequel, they're joined by an adorably naïve and literal-minded AI, and a middle-aged inspector who was ordered to investigate them before opting to fight with them instead. Not the best material for becoming world famous Phantom Thieves or fighting a well-funded criminal conspiracy, the Anthropomorphic Personification of society's apathy, a Well-Intentioned Extremist who seeks to over-write reality with his Lotus-Eater Machine, or an A God Am I complex service app brainwashing all of Tokyo.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Downplayed. The Shujin Academy School uniform is black and red, and all of the party's thieving outfits and Personas have red and/or black on them. But the Thieves are all Anti-Heroes at worst.
• Red Is Heroic: All of the thieves (barring Morgana, Makoto, Haru and Zenkichi) feature red as part of their designs, and are Anti-Heroes who strive to fight for justice and to protect the innocent.
• Ret-Gone: After his reveal as the Big Bad, Yaldabaoth attempts to use his influence over the population of Tokyo to inflict this on the Phantom Thieves. With Mementos being the people's "super-Palace" with him at the center, he induces enough of a change in the collective cognition to compel them to refuse to acknowledge the Thieves' existence. It's only through the intervention of the real Igor and the Velvet Room that this manages to get undone.
  • Some minor Foreshadowing: around the time of the Thieves' invasion of Shido's Palace, Mishima leaves IMs on Joker's phone, saying that - in order to prop up what remains of their good name - he's going to change the poll question on the Phan-Site. He changes it to "Do you believe the Phantom Thieves exist?" And, right as Yaldabaoth's antics erase the Phantom Thieves one by one, the poll pops up. Just so the player gets to powerlessly watch as it ticks down to zero while Joker and the rest of the Thieves fade from existence.
  • And to invert the previous point: Mishima leads a rallying cry in Shibuya to empower the Thieves. This time, when the poll pops up, it rapidly increases to 100%, allowing Joker to summon Satanael.
• Revenge: Part of their motivation is to get back at adults who have wronged them, and most of the Thieves end up targeting someone who has done them harm at some point. This is especially true for Shido, who was responsible for Joker being put on probation, Akechi's horrible life experience (as well as his apparent death), and the deaths of Futaba's mother and Haru's father.

S-Y

• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: When turned into mice from a status effect, their mouse noises are literally just saying "squeak" in a falsetto. Special mention goes to Makoto, whose "squeak" is deadpanned in a tone barely higher than her usual voice.
• Scoundrel Code: Early on they lay down a few rules that govern how they conduct their heists.
  • 1.) A target must be unanimously agreed upon before they act.
  • 2.) They don't kill their targets.
• Secret Art: Upon obtaining their third-tier Personas in Royal, the Thieves will learn a skill unique to themselves, which is usually a multi-target variant of a skill the Persona normally learns. Joker, Kasumi and Akechi are unique in this regard as all three learn a unique skill before they get access to their third-tiers.
  • Joker's ultimate Persona, Satanael, learns the passive skill Tyrant's Mind, which strengthens every type of attack. He also learns Black Viper, a severe Almighty single target spell, which was originally inheritable in the vanilla game, but became exclusive to Satanael and Satan in Royal. Joker's third-tier Persona, Raoul, starts with Phantom Show, which has a high chance of inflicting the sleep ailment on all foes.
  • Ryuji's third-tier Persona, William, gets access to Fighting Spirit, a full-party Charge buff.
  • Morgana's third-tier Persona, Diego, gets access to Miracle Rush, a multi-target Physical attack with a high Critical chance.
  • Ann's third-tier Persona, Celestine, gets access to High Energy, a full-party Concentrate buff.
  • Yusuke's third-tier Persona, Gorokichi, gets access to Hyakka Ryouran, a full-party Heat Riser buff.
  • Makoto's third-tier Persona, Agnes, gets access to Checkmate, which acts as a multi-target Debilitate.
  • Futaba's third-tier Persona, Al-Azif, gets access to Ultimate Support, giving Futaba a chance to fully restore the party's health and cure any non-special ailments inflicted on them.
  • Haru's third-tier Persona, Lucy, gets access to Life Wall, which gives the party a one-use barrier each that repels any non-Almighty attack.
  • Akechi's ultimate Persona, Loki, learns Laevateinn, which he had in his boss fight, but is now a colossal Physical attack instead of Almighty. Akechi's third-tier Persona, Hereward, gets access to Rebel's Blade, a colossal Almighty single target spell that deals increased damage to downed foes.
  • Kasumi's initial Persona Cendrillon learns Brave Step at Lv 80, which increases the critical hit rate of the entire party. Her third-tier Persona Ella learns Masquerade, a severe Physical single target attack that hits the foe twice.
• Secret Identity: High school students by day, picaresque heroes by night.
• Secretly Selfish: While they all genuinely want to fight evil and help the helpless, each Phantom Thief aside from Joker has selfish motivations that prompt them to awaken their Personas and join the Phantom Thieves. This not portrayed as a bad thing however and it's stated that having more selfish motivations is perfectly fine and natural as long as they don't cross a line:
  • Ryuji awakens his Persona in order to save Joker and Morgana but also wishes to get Revenge on Kamoshida for ruining his life.
  • Ann awakens her Persona to get justice for Shiho but is also motivated by rage against Kamoshida for similar reasons as Ryuji and to save herself.
  • Yusuke awakens his Persona out of a combination of disgust at Madarame’s true nature and anger at having been lied to and taken advantage of by his father figure all his life.
  • Makoto wants to save not only the students of Shujin from Kaneshiro’s Blackmail but also herself and her sister from becoming Sex Slaves to Kaneshiro and to prove she isn’t useless.
  • Futaba accepts her Shadow and gains her Persona upon realizing that her mother didn't kill herself due to her but was actually murdered and had the blame passed on to her. It even happens as she vows Revenge on her mom's killers.
  • Haru's Persona doesn’t fully awaken until she realizes that her father was fully aware of how horrible her fiancé is and admits that she doesn't wish to be married off to him.
  • Akechi reveals that he awoke his Persona offscreen after being attacked by Black Mask and simply not wanting to die. This was a lie and it's revealed that he was Black Mask all along. While we don't learn the circumstances of him awakening to either of his Personas, they were almost certainly not selfless.
• Shown Their Work:
  • Yusuke's Persona, Goemon, has "Ixicava" written on his clothes, a nod to the inaccurate transcribing of "Ixicava Goyemon" his name was given after his execution.
  • Ann's Persona Carmen is constantly smoking a cigar. In the original novella and play, Carmen worked in a tobacco factory and is often depicted as smoking.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: During the second phase of the first form of Royal's final boss, Maruki will sometimes try to persuade all of the thieves sans Joker one at a time into accepting and following his reality before restricting the player's movement options. Everyone of them tells him that it's not gonna happen and that they are confident in themselves to push through their reality despite the hardships.
• Signature Move: Their initial and ultimate Personas (barring Necronomicon and Prometheus, since they're support-type Personas) gain one each in Persona 3 Reload: The Driver passive skills (which strengthens a type of offensive skill by 75%) for their initial ones, and high-end damaging skills for their Ultimates. Some of their skills are also carried over, such as Blazing Hell (Hecate), One-Shot Kill (Astarte), Rebellion Blade (Loki), and Masquerade (Vanadis).
• Speaks Fluent Animal: Morgana can only be understood by people who have heard him speak in the Metaverse, i.e. the entire party.
• Status Buff: This time around, the buffs and debuffs are spread evenly among all the party members.
  • Joker: Potentially All
  • Mona: (Ma-)Sukunda^note Reduces hit/evasion
  • Skull: (Ma-)Tarukaja^note Increases Attack
  • Panther: (Ma-)Tarunda^note Decreases Attack
  • Fox: (Ma-)Sukukaja^note Increases hit/evasion
  • Queen: (Ma-)Rakukaja^note Increases Defense
  • Noir: Heat Riser^note Increases all three stats of one ally
  • Crow: Debilitate^note Decreases all three stats of one foe
  • Violet: Brave Step^note Increases critical hit rate for all allies
  • Sophie: (Ma-)Rakunda^note Decreases Defense
  • Wolf: Heat Riser and Debilitate
  • Oracle: Potentially any Ma-kaja, party-wide Heat Riser, Ultra Charge, Mediarama, or a small SP refill.
• Super Mode: Their third-tier Personas in Royal are Palette Swap upgrades of their initial Personas despite being formed from Fusion Dances.
  • Raoul is Arsene dressed like Lupin the Third and with a pair of mechanized knife boots and bat wings, complete with a fedora for a hat.
  • William is Captain Kidd in Delinquent clothes with a futuristic yacht and Arm Cannon.
  • Diego is Zorro with a white shirt, blue jeans, and a bigger rapier
  • Celestine is Carmen wearing popstar clothes with Braids of Action and backup dancers.
  • Gorokichi is Goemon in a Glam Rock punk getup wielding an oversized cigar.
  • Agnes is Johanna as a black and gold sports vehicle.
  • Al Azif is Necronomicon resembling a Black Triangle-type UFO.
  • Lucy is Milady in a Badass Longcoat with a suitcase and Cool Shades.
  • Hereward is a Darker and Edgier Robin Hood in a special ops suit.
  • Ella is Cendrillon in a Fairytale Wedding Dress style tutu and holding a bouquet of flowers.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: Their eyes turn bright gold, like Shadows, when they all first awaken to their Personas. Sans Arsène, all of their Personas have golden eyes.
• Taking the Bullet: At Rank 9 of their Confidant, non-Protagonist party members will gain the ability to tank one lethal hit for Joker per battle. The sole exception to this is Akechi until he gains it after he rejoins the party during the third semester in Royal.
• Tarot Motifs: Each character is linked to one of the major arcana, and the meanings of the cards inform aspects of their personality and/or the circumstances of the conflicts that they face:
  • Joker is the Fool, a card of new beginnings, open possibilities, and undiscovered potential. As the player character and wielder of the Wild Card power, Joker's personality and powers are something of a blank slate that can develop in any number of directions.
  • Morgana is the Magician, a card of active energy, knowledge, and turning the natural elements into personal power; fitting for an Exposition Fairy who knows the ins and outs of personas and the Metaverse, and can teach the player to hone their powers and craft tools.
  • Ryuji is the Chariot, a card of strong will, mastery of the self, and earning the respect of others. Ryuji is a strong-willed and passionate character, but struggles with a delinquent's reputation, and he learns to focus on his own goals without worrying over others' perceptions. On a more literal level, the Chariot can refer to travel, and Ryuji is a trained runner (not to mention that his initial Persona, Captain Kidd, rides a ship and his ultimate person, Seiten Taisei, rides a cloud).
  • Ann is the Lovers, a card of choices, relationships, and love in all its forms. A prominent struggle she faces throughout the game relates to how her beauty makes her an object of desire, and how she must work harder to connect with people on a less superficial level and treasure the relationships that she can form.
  • Yusuke is the Emperor, a card of responsibility, structured authority, and taking charge of one's life. Yusuke's mentor abused his paternal authority, and Yusuke found he could only grow and move forward when he stopped ignoring it and became independent.
  • Makoto is the High Priestess, a card of passive energy, intuition, and guidance. Makoto is more reserved than other characters, as she keeps her emotions from affecting her calm exterior and thinks things over with herself before making decisions, and she becomes a valued source of insight when the team is determining their courses of action. At the same time, she has a lot of repressed anger over her inability to do things and becoming better at dealing with that while also helping people out is a subtle part of her development.
  • Futaba is the Hermit, a card of isolation, maturity, and internal reflection. Futaba shut herself away from the rest of the world, but she is only able to grow and mature once she opens herself back up to it — and that involves confronting and analyzing her existing conceptions and determining the truth of them.
  • Haru is the Empress, a card of passion, sensuality, and a love of nature. She feels stifled by her duties to her father and his company, instead finding happiness in gardening, where she is free to feel her full passion without worrying about the complexities of business and whom she can trust.
  • Akechi is Justice, a card of justice, truth, and honesty. As a detective, Goro is dedicated to uncovering the truth and punishing the wicked, but has a hard time taking a level look at himself and his own faults.
  • Kasumi is The Faith, representing faith in self and others. However, she doesn't actually have faith towards herself, for she is actually the suicidally depressed Sumire with absolutely no self-esteem and always overshadowed by the real Kasumi. She does get better in the third semester, and learns to value her own self a lot better since then, however.
  • Zenkichi is The Priest, representing compassion and the balance between personal beliefs and law. He slowly grows to care for the Thieves before risking himself to protect them from being arrested on false charges.
  • Sophia is The Hope, a card of optimism, positivity and hope itself. Sophia helps the Thieves when they are thrust back into the Metaverse, staying bubbly and excited by all the things she learns. She becomes a literal embodiment of hope when she awakens Pandora and is a key factor in taking down the corrupt EMMA and giving freedom back to the brainwashed Tokyo citizens.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Ryuji and Morgana seem to genuinely dislike each other, which leaves the former completely unwilling to apologize to the latter after he accidentally upsets him prior to Okumura's Palace. They eventually reconcile and develop a friendly, but still contentious relationship after that.
• Theme Naming: While each of them are still specifically named to reflect the characters of their summoners, the third-tier Personas from Royal all have their names be based on the "true self" of the original Personas they're upgrades for, reflecting how just like people accepting their Shadows (the "true self") will make them stronger and grant them Personas, the Personas revealing their true selves makes them stronger and brings out their true potential.
• The Three Faces of Eve: The Phantom Thieves have Ann as the Seductress — being the middle, she uses her appearance to seduce the enemies, Makoto as the Wife — being the oldest, she's responsible for taking others well-being, and Futaba as the Child — being the youngest, she's smart, but doesn't know the outside world.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: While they go after Shadows with impunity, they try to avoid actively killing anyone. Even Ryuji, who absolutely despises Kamoshida, confesses that he doesn't want to kill him in spite of all the terrible things he's done. The Thieves still get blamed for the death of Okumura, but even Akechi (before he joins the Thieves and had caused said death) thinks someone else did it because the Thieves had never shown a predilection to murder before.
• Took a Level in Badass: For the most part, the Thieves start out as ordinary humans. However, once they awaken their Persona, they become extremely capable fighters within the Metaverse.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Almost definitely thanks to Joker and Cafe LeBlanc, everyone in the team has a liking for curry, coffee, or both. Although, most of the main cast have foods that they seem to obsess over in the game. Like:
  • Ann loves sweets, but seems particularly fond of crepes.
  • Ryuji also loves ramen and has a local hole-in-the-wall ramen joint that he drags Joker to.
  • Any time sushi is mentioned, Morgana begins to pine for fatty tuna, which is almost always denied to him.
  • Yusuke is constantly eating Jagariko during the Phantom Thieves meetings. In Strikers he's always talking about how he wants to eat hot pots.
  • Futaba apparently used to eat nothing but Sojiro's curry. It turns out that it's because it was a recipe that her mother created to compliment Sojiro's coffee.
  • Joker himself can prove himself to be a fan of the local fast food joint, Big Bang Burger by eating a series of increasingly huge burgers. The last one is literally bigger than his own head, and with the right stats you can finish it off without any repercussions.
  • The Persona 5 Maniacus talks about the party members' favorite foods (except Joker):
    • Ryuji loves junk foods like beef bowls and hamburgers. A big ramen fan; passionate about taste and noodle texture.
    • Ann loves all sweets. Especially cake, to the point where she can replace meals with it. Can’t resist the “extra cream” crepe campaigns.
    • Morgana for some reason 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.
    • Yusuke 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).
    • Makoto loves fishes and lightly flavored 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.
    • Futaba loves curry, cup yakisoba, and 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 of yakisoba, though.
    • Haru loves cooking that brings out the flavor 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 savoring 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 flavors and aromas.
    • Akechi likes 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.
• True Companions: The Phantom Thieves quickly become like a second family, not only trusting each other to go on life-threatening heists with, but helping each other deal with various personal traumas and regrets.
• Übermensch: What the Thieves end up becoming by the end of the game, notably while they did ignore society's rules and use methods against the law, they still cared about the opinion of the fans and often wondered whether what they did was truly justice or not, but by the end of the game they stopped caring all together whether they would be seen as heroes or villains, resolving to see their own justice through.
• Underrated and Overleveled: Like in the last two games, almost all of the party members beyond the first few are far stronger in gameplay than their background and level of experience justifies.
• Unknown Rival: Joker, Yusuke, Makoto, Futaba and Haru all had direct or indirect gripes against Masayoshi Shido and are ready to unleash hell on him for what he or his associates did against them or their parents. For him, however, he never recognizes these people as threats individually and while his Shadow still remembers Joker, his real person does not realize the many teenagers he ruined the lives of are the "Phantom Thieves" who caused his downfall.
• Unwitting Pawn:
  • Their rise to fame was orchestrated by Shido's conspiracy, which arranged for Medjed to threaten the Thieves and hacked into the poll to push Okumura to the top, so that they could eventually be framed for all the crimes they committed using the Palaces.
  • However, unlike past groups of Persona users, they are this as a whole like nearly anyone else in the game. It turns out that Yaldabaoth had deliberately set up the most stupid and repulsive of people possible to the heights of fame and form a seemingly untouchable conspiracy despite their repulsiveness and foolishness, only to order the Phantom Thieves to carry out their dismantling; The Thieves thought that they made their targets better people by changing their hearts only to see them turn into weeping husks, and it turns out that by "changing hearts," they never reformed people, but only carried out public executions for Yaldabaoth. Once nobody is left, Yaldabaoth plans on deleting the Thieves from existence as well so he can reign over and prove that without his rule, the world will forever be in chaos thanks to the foolishness of humanity....Unless the Thieves remove him as well.
• Victory Pose: Each Phantom Thief has one after an All-Out Attack.
  • Joker tugs on his gloves while flashing a Slasher Smile.
  • Skull gives a devil horns gesture.
  • Panther flashes a peace/victory sign.
  • Mona drops into a swivel chair and lights a cigar.
  • Fox looks back at his foes while gesturing as if to say "What was the point of challenging us?"
  • Queen turns her back to the camera and glares defiantly.
  • Oracle/Navi winks and gives a thumbs up, while being blown away by an explosion from the bomb she set up.
  • Noir stops to enjoy a soothing cup of tea.
  • Crow channels Michael Jackson and busts a few dance moves. He later adopts an Ax-Crazy grin when he rejoins the party in Royal.
  • Violet dances around with a ribbon in hand.
• Violence Really Is the Answer: When confronted by someone with a Palace, the Phantom Thieves will invariably have to enter the Palace and steal the person's Treasure, which will always coincide with beating up the Palace owner's Shadow (or in Futaba's case, a manifestation of her guilt and self-loathing).
• Walking Swimsuit Scene: During a trip to the beach and the Class Trip to Hawaii, they all wear swimsuits. They can be made to wear these swimsuits during battle through free DLC.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In the second bad ending in which Joker makes a deal with Yaldabaoth, none of the other Phantom Thieves except for Joker actually appear in the ending. Sojiro's brief scene hints that he no longer has any memories of the past events and since Joker is now working as an accomplice to Yaldabaoth, it's possible the others are still trapped within the Velvet Room.
• We Help the Helpless: Their motivations primarily stem from them actively wanting to help people suffering from those willing to abuse their station in society for their own gain.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: There is never a problem in-game that the Phantom Thieves can't solve by just jumping into a Palace and stealing the Treasure away. Whenever they end up in conflict with needlessly malicious adults, corrupt politicians, or even manifestations of humanity's desire for freedom from all responsibility, all the Thieves have to do is steal the distortion away. This does get averted in the true ending epilogue however, wherein the rest of the Phantom Thieves successfully bail Joker out of his prison sentence even after having lost access to the Metaverse, and in one of the bad endings, Joker comes to the conclusion that this is the only way to affect humanity and becomes a despot who changes the heart of any who defies him.
• With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: The group as a whole does not kill their enemies; they only force them to repent by feeling remorse for their wrongdoings. The early Thieves realize early on that they could be more ruthless but choose not to be due to being good people, although they do consider killing Kamoshida at first. This sets them apart from Akechi, who's a professional assassin and whose murders are a major plot point.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: This becomes their new modus operandi in Persona 5 Strikers. They discover that the Monarchs of the Jails don't have a treasure to steal because they don't have distorted desires, but if they don't get rid of the Monarch then they'll just come back and steal people's Desires again. Instead, they convince the Monarch that revenge won't accomplish anything, and that they are strong enough to fight their problems without the Metaverse. The Thieves still desire for their targets to repent, but this time because they know that the Monarchs are still good people deep down, rather than horrific scum like most of the palace rulers.
• You Are Not Alone: A recurring theme among them, and invoked whenever the group adds new members. They all want to make it so that no one has to go through what they did again.

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Members of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts

• Starting Members
  • Joker
• Later Members
  • Goro Akechi
  • Kasumi Yoshizawa

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