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Trivia / Persona 5

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    General Trivia 
  • Adored by the Network: Much in the same way as Persona 4 before it; however, this time the adoration has expanded beyond Atlus and into their new parent company Sega as well, with Persona 5-related cameos and references popping up in numerous other games from both Atlus and Sega as a whole.
  • Ascended Fanon:
    • With Makoto's Persona Johanna having the form of a motorcycle, many fans proposed that instead of riding in the Morganamobile in Mementos, she instead rides her Persona. The joke later appeared, and was recognized, in the release of one of the P5 anthology mangas.
    • In a way, one of the endings to the Third Semester plays into this; should Joker accept Maruki's deal to maintain the false reality, the ending has Sojiro ask Joker if he'd like to continuing living with him for to finish his third year with his friends, and maybe take over Leblanc in the future. This has been popular Fanfic Fuel for the fandom since the original game's release, and Atlus decided to invoke it here with the Stay Ending. Though in context, it's clearly meant to not be a good thing ultimately.
  • Author's Saving Throw:
    • After ages of western fans pestering Atlus for a dual audio option and eventually getting a hard "no", Atlus softened the blow of the April 2017 delay by announcing the Japanese voice track as free day-one DLC.
    • The European version of Persona 4: Arena had a debacle with its release date, where the game took nearly a full calendar year to be released in Europe after coming out in Japan. Before Persona 5 was released, Atlus confirmed that the European version of the game would be released on the same day as the US version.
    • Before the game was released, Atlus released a rather vague press statement warning people not to stream past July 7th in-game. While this was ostensibly to avoid spoilers, the wording in the initial press release made it sound as if Atlus was going to hold people who refused to follow this guideline legally responsible. After some fan outcry, Atlus personally apologized for their harsh streaming conditions and requested players not to stream the game past the in-game date of November 19th. They also said they never intended to issue copyright strikes against streamers, and anything that sounded like a ban on streaming was just poorly worded.note 
    • While not particularly popular in Japan, there was a small backlash in the West towards the original Persona 5 regarding the Shinjuku Creatures. Their scenes involved the two characters hitting on Ryuji when he clearly wasn't interested in them, which some fans — especially those on the LGBT spectrum — found offensive and unfunny. It was confirmed by Atlus during a Persona 5 Royal preview event in February 2020 that these scenes would be rewritten for Royal's Western release to tone down the character's stereotypical Camp Gay traits. Specifically, the Creatures have gone from middle-aged gay men trying to get with Ryuji to a pair of old drag queens who mistake Ryuji for having an interest in their scene.note  Whether or not the change should've been made is up to interpretation.
  • Bilingual Bonus: Joker's school "Shujin" is a Japanese homonym for "prisoner", and Yusuke's school "Kosei" is a homonym for "rehabilitation".
  • Blooper:
    • In the vanilla game, when you're investigating Kaneshiro, you talk to a blackmailed student named Iida who gets a voiced scene right after talking with Ann. However, his conversation with her is fully voiced in Royal, and Iida clearly has a different voice actor between the takes.
    • During the confidant reactions to the aftermath of Shido's calling card in the English dub of Royal, Takemi's single line still uses Kristen Potter's voice work instead of Abby Trott's.
    • In a Mementos skit in Royal, Max Mittelman coughing weirdly was accidentally left in. Mittelman is aware of it.
    • When viewing Ann and Morgana's Showtime in the Thieves' Den, a mouse cursor can be seen in the corner of the video.
    • When Morgana gets turned into a human in the third semester, he gets an older sounding voice actor in the English dub, but if you talk to him outside of Leblanc, he still has his normal voice.
    • For unknown reasons, the game will not recognise if you've already obtained Bugs upon encountering one in Maruki's Palace, even if you have one in your party, and will display its 'unknown enemy' name.
  • Cash-Cow Franchise: While Persona as a whole exists as this for Atlus, Persona 5 ended up replacing Persona 4, the previous main cash cow, as this in the more recent years.
  • Content Leak:
    • A few days before Persona 5 was released in Japan, preloads of the game were datamined which inevitably led to said dataminers posting spoilers, most notably confirming the popular fan theory that Akechi was the one who sold out the protagonist during the Niijima's Palace heist.
    • A never-before-seen official artwork of Crow, matching the style of the other Thieves, was unintentionally leaked via the Persona O.A. app where it was used alongside the other male Phantom Thieves' official artworks for a set of White Day-themed wallpapers, which lead to said wallpaper being pulled less than 24 hours later due to an apparent issue with its unlock conditions and replaced with a cropped version of his All-Out Attack finisher screen. Oddly enough, the full version of Crow's official artwork has yet to be revealed by Atlus even after Persona 5 Royal's release, with merchandise using stock official art of the Thieves opting to use Akechi's civilian attire even with the rest of the Thieves dressed in their Metaverse outfits.
    • A beta build for Persona 5 dated seven months before the Japanese release was leaked to the public, which included, but is not limited to: Beta versions of multiple tracks, including Last Surprise, Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There, and Rivers In The Desert, beta animations for the Phantom Thieves, such as opening the Tactics menu or selecting a Persona skill, and more.
  • Defictionalization:
    • A replica of the headphones worn by Futaba were officially released by Atlus Japan in cooperation with AKG.
    • An official replica of Shinya's "Get Smoked" hat is avaliable courtesy of Fangamer.
  • Dummied Out:
    • A cafeteria lunchtime scene that takes place during the day of the exam results is cut. It would allow the player to invite either Ryuji, Ann, Makoto, Mishima, or Kawakami, and whoever is picked would reward his/her Confidant points. Though the event code is already in the game, it is still unfinished, as it only checks if Joker got into top ten and not if he got the top of the class, and it lacks voice lines and non-neutral portrait expressions, among other things.
    • The sixth Palace boss' roulette has the Phys and Gun variants of the "Punishment" skills (the two element icons are present on the wheel), but they are never called by the boss' AI despite the two skills being functional.
    • There are a variety of scenes in Royal's files that are not in the final game. Some are original and some are altered versions of what appears in game. Possibly most notably, there were originally going to be special scenes tied to the Will Seeds that would flash back to the Palace Ruler's past, showing us how their desires became corrupted over time, turning them into who they were at the present. These scenes are in the game's files, but not implemented.
  • God Never Said That:
    • Akechi's lack of presence in a lot of promotional material for the game up to and including not appearing in collaborations such as the Catherine Full Body DLC and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, as well as his Guest-Star Party Member status in the original game, has caused some (mostly his detractors) to take it to mean that Akechi isn't "officially" counted as a Phantom Thief, even though the official site for Persona 5 Royal lists him on the Phantom Thief page and promotional material shows him amongst the Thieves to the point of appearing in Royal's opening animation, and official surveys and character popularity polls label him as one.
    • Before Word of God officially confirmed the Deuteragonist of the game to be Akechi, many fans often claimed that Makoto was the deuteragonist, usually by wildly exaggerating her relevance in the story due to her sister Sae heading the interrogation that acts as a framing device or by pointing out the Game-Breaker power of her equipment. Some fans even argued that Morgana was the deuteragonist due to his closeness to the protagonist and being revealed to be the manifestation of mankind's hopes and being created by Igor to assist the protagonist.
    • A misinterpretation of the artbook and an interview with Katsura Hashino led many fans to believe that Hifumi Togo was meant to be the Phantom Thief strategist, before Makoto took her place and Hifumi was demoted to a Confidant. What actually was said is that her character design was proposed for a Phantom Thief, to be added to the team alongside Makoto, and the two of them would have both been strategists and Foils of each other (Makoto a straight-forward one, and the other one more unorthodox). When it was decided that Makoto was to be the sole strategist, the other character's design was repurposed for Hifumi. This also explains Hifumi's unorthodox approach to shogi in-game.
  • In Memoriam: A dedication of Miyu Matsuki and Kazunari Tanaka, the respective voices of Chihaya Mifune and Junya Kaneshiro, appears in the ending credits of Royal. Strangely, the 2022 ports don't add Billy Kametz (Maruki).
  • Late Export for You: The free Christmas costumes DLC was released on 21 December 2016 in Japan, and on 11 July 2017 in North America. Before the game's release, it was announced for that same date for Europe. But somewhere along the line Deep Silver, the European publisher, silently removed it from the list. When asked about it on Twitter, they answered Christmas was still some time away. Fans reacted to this as well as you might expect. It was eventually released as part of the paid Costume and BGM DLC bundle in late October with a free separate release still nowhere to be seen.
  • Meme Acknowledgment:
  • Milestone Celebration: Semi-unintentionally, but thanks to the delays, the game was first released in 2016, the 20th anniversary of the Persona series. A title card featuring the logos of all 5 schools the protagonists go to shows when booting the game up. The Japanese release also nearly matches up with the 25th anniversary of the Shin Megami Tensei series as a whole, with the Western release being a more even match.
  • Newbie Boom: Even more so than Persona 3, Persona 4, and the anime adaptation of the latter. Persona 5 is the best selling game in Atlus' history by a wide margin, and the growth of Let's Plays, online streaming, and social media since Persona 4's release way back in 2008 gave the game significantly more exposure to a wider audience. Persona 5 received even more exposure after its main character was included as a playable fighter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
  • No Port For You: The Steam and other console ports of Royal, despite being advertised to feature all Downloadable Content as in the PlayStation 4 version, are missing the Raidou costumes and music, as discovered by dataminers of the Nintendo Switch version that happened to be shipped early. Also a case of Older than You Think, since said contents are already not listed in the official DLC list for the ports but it took until October 2022 for the mainstream to actually realize this. Presumably, this is done for sensitivity reasons towards China and Korea, considering the Imperial Japan imagery in said games, but considering how according to fans China does not mind it and the fact that Soul Hackers 2 earlier also has Raidou costumes, the real reason is unknown. Of course, it only took a few hours for a mod to add the content back in for PC.
  • Posthumous Credit: Chihaya Mifune is voiced by Miyu Matsuki, who died before this game was released.
  • Promoted Fanboy:
  • Spoiled by the Merchandise: While Goro Akechi's lack of presence in a good percentage of the game's trailers, marketing, and artwork was intended to hide the fact that he joins the Phantom Thieves despite his public disapproval of their methods, a lot of people used this to correctly predict that Akechi was the one who sells the protagonist out during the Niijima's Palace heist. The initial intent of concealing Akechi's involvement with the Thieves in promotional material also backfired as he is present on the box art alongside the other Phantom Thieves, spoiling the fact he joins them in the first place.
  • Orphaned Reference:
    • The reason why Akechi has the same reddish-brown eyes Makoto and Sae do was because he was originally planned to be their brother.
    • The Palaces could be seen as leftovers from the game's original plan to be about traveling.
      • Kamoshida's castle could have been in England.
      • Madarame's museum could have been in France.
      • Kaneshiro's bank could have been in either Italy or New York, especially given his establishment as a mafia boss despite being Japanese.
      • Futaba's tomb could have been in Egypt.
      • Okumura's space ship could have been in NASA.
      • Sae's casino could have been in Las Vegas.
      • Shido's ship could have been the party's mode of transportation and the final dungeon.
  • Shipper on Set: Erika Harlacher, the voice of Ann Takamaki, is a big shipper of her character with fellow Phantom Thief team member Ryuji Sakamoto. She's made a couple of tweets before and after the game's release that shows her supporting it on fanart and the like. She once stated at a convention that, while she was recording her lines for Ann, she was shocked that the two characters didn't end up together once she was done the main story and it was time to do the Confidant dialogue (which includes an optional romance route with player character Joker).
  • Streisand Effect:
    • After Atlus mandated the game's streaming restrictions for the sake of not spoiling the plot, a number of content creators posted spoilers just to protest.
    • Another instance happened after Atlus tried to DMCA the PS3 emulator RPCS3 on the grounds that it could run Persona 5 before its official Western release. Not only did it fail (The dispute was settled simply by the RPCS3 devs removing any references to P5 on their Patreon), but it also made more people aware of the emulator's existence and that it could run P5 reasonably well.
  • Swan Song: Released over a decade after the console's launch and almost 6 months after the console was discontinued in North America, the PlayStation 3 version is considered this for western players, as it was the final big title to release for the system. Most players agree that it was an amazing way to go out.
  • Urban Legend of Zelda: A few rumors gained ground around the time of the game's Japanese release, when accurate information and translations were rare:
    • One was that Ryuji would end up with Ann if the player didn't romance her. Which gained traction with the fandom due to their chemistry and Ryuji/Ann being a popular ship within the fandom.
    • Another was that Goro Akechi's Bolivian Army Ending only occurred if you didn't max out his Confidant, and maxing it out and saving him was required for the "true ending". This one was quickly jossed after it was confirmed that Akechi's Confidant ranks up automatically, and the game doesn't have a "good vs true ending" split like Persona 4 did. However, some of the variants of these rumors were applied to Royal, which changes Akechi's confidant rank up to be manual and the true ending of Royal changes whether or not you have maxed out his Confidant before the third semester starts.
    • Tying into the above was an abundance of rumours involving ways of accessing Akechi's Palace, with two of the more prominent involving having to max out the Justice Confidant or maxing out all your Confidants and handing in your diary to Sojiro. Dummied Out content shows that Akechi was supposed to have a Palace at some point during the development before being scrapped.
    • Another suggestion was that the Protagonist could romance Sae if her Confidant was maxed out. Like Akechi, Sae's confidant is automatic and even in the normal ending, Sae only sees him after the end of Mementos just to inform him that the police need to arrest him for breaking his probationary status. Dummied Out content implies she may have been romanceable at one point during development.
    • There are long-standing rumors about the game over/bad endings from failing to complete some of the Palaces, most talked about being Futaba committing suicide and her family blaming the protagonist for it, as well as Haru's fiance; personally suing the Phantom Thieves. In Futaba's game over, all that was mentioned was that the protagonist is arrested for coercion, blackmail, and suspicion for being a phantom thief, while Sojiro is also arrested for hiding a suspect. Okumura and Sae's palaces have the same game over in that the police was given an anonymous tip that the protagonist is the leader of the Phantom Thieves. In the first three game overs, the game was very explicit on who filed the charges, or in Makoto's, who was found at an "illegal services" shop. These seem to have come from fan analysis, and while certainly implied through the narrative, the victims were not mentioned in the game overs at all. Some fans went as far as so claim they were in the original version and the English localization had left them out for whatever reason. Those who have played the Japanese version will point out that the game overs in both versions of the game are, in fact, the same.
  • Word of Saint Paul:
    • Erica Lindbeck seems to share the fandom's theory that Futaba is on the Autism Spectrum and played her as such.
    • In one interview, Matthew Mercer explains that even with the few options the player is presented with in-game, he feels that the friendship between Yusuke and the protagonist has an underlying attraction in it; Yusuke also is, in his opinion, "the most down for pretty much anything."
    • Erika Harlacher, Ann's English voice actor, supports shipping Ann with Ryuji.
    • On the 25th of March 2020 Australian games retailer EB Games released Royal about six days ahead of the intended release date. While it is not currently known why this happened, common believe is that with the Australian Governments attempts to crack down on the COVID-19 pandemic forcing non-essential businesses and stores to close the next day, it's possible that they were trying to get the copies they had out before serious actions had to be taken.

    Voice Acting Trivia 

    General Development 
  • Development Hell: The game was first announced in 2013 for a Winter 2014 release, which was later pushed back to a general 2015 release. Come September of that year, the game was pushed back again to a Summer 2016 release. And while they did work this out by finally settling on a September 2016 release for Japan, the English release was pushed back another five months instead of the closer release that had been previously implied. And then the English release was pushed back another two months in order to improve the localization. Developer interviews have strongly hinted that the delays were related to the financial difficulties of Index Holdings, Atlus's former parent company.
  • Executive Meddling: The way the document detailing the infamous streaming limitations was worded all but states that it's all because of Atlus Japan (with Atlus USA reluctantly enforcing the will of "their masters in Japan").
  • Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition:
    • Japan has a 20th Anniversary Edition which includes an art book, CD set with music from the entire series, and several in-game items.
    • Internationally, there's the "Take Your Heart" edition, which includes a CD with select music, Morgana plush, art book, steelbook case, and school bag.
  • Meaningful Release Date:
    • The simultaneous Americas/Europe release date was going to be on Valentine's Day, tying into the heart motif but it was delayed until April 4.
    • Royal came out in Japan on Halloween 2019, which could be seen as tying in with the motifs of masks, costumes, and monster summoning. Its 2022 Multi-Platform launch on PC, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch also came out in October. The international release of the PS 4 original was on March 31st, or the day before April Fool's Day.
  • Real Life Writes the Plot:
    • When given a closer look, it's not that hard to believe that the passing of Isamu Tanonaka in 2010 may have played a hand with The Reveal that Igor had spent the majority of the game replaced by an impostor instead of simply given a new actor.
    • The Tohoku earthquake and nuclear accident changed the development team's original concept for the game. While the P5 team originally planned for the game's theme to be backpacking and world travel, they felt in the wake of the disaster that they needed to refocus on the issues facing Japanese society, which led to the massive Sequel Gap and the other delays on P5 itself (some JP info here and here).
  • Recycled Script:
    • Just like the previous game, the True Final Boss is a godlike entity who granted the protagonist and his Foil their Persona abilities as a part of a test of humanity. That said, rather than being disguised as a forgettable NPC, said god disguises themself as series Big Good Igor.
    • The final dungeon's plot takes some cues from Persona 2 as well. A benevolent and malevolent god have a "game" going between them as to whether humanity is worth saving, and the malevolent one is rigging it in his favor. This sums up Philemon and Nyarlanthotep in 2, and Igor and Yaldabaoth in this game.
  • Refitted for Sequel:
    • Ann is a blonde-haired girl who uses a whip as her main weapon, very similar to an abandoned beta concept for Rise Kujikawa.
    • Likewise, Munehisa Iwai's design resembles early concept art for 4's Kanji Tatsumi.
    • Akechi was originally going to be an optional confidant, difficulty with implementing this due to him becoming an enemy later in the story forced Atlus to change it into an automatically progressing one. In the game's Updated Re-release, Akechi's confidant once again became optional.
  • Schedule Slip: Persona 5 was initially announced in November 2013 to have a Winter 2014 release on PlayStation 3 - just before winter rolled around, the game was delayed to late 2015, alongside the announcement the game would also be appearing on PlayStation 4. And once again, as the end of the year approached with Tokyo Game Show, there was another long delay to Summer 2016 - in short, approximately a year and a half after the game was initially set to release. Finally, on May 5, the game's Japanese release date was announced for September 15, 2016, while it would be releasing in the West on February 14th, 2017. However, as if that wasn't enough, the Western version was delayed again to April 4, 2017. This meant that since its reveal until the international release, Persona 5 took three years and five months for the entire world to play.
  • Sequel Gap: The last mainline Persona titlenote  was Persona 4 which was released in July 2008 for Japan, making a gap of 8 years.
  • Teasing Creator: One of the earliest trailers was this, where the main character appeared to be the typical mild-mannered silent protagonist like the ones in the previous two games. This made the Phantom Thief reveal come straight out of left field.

    Character Information 
  • As the protagonist is an extension of the player, his stats and preferences are deliberately unknown.
  • The Phantom Thieves' Astrological Signs:
    • Ryuji: Cancer (July 3rd)
    • Ann: Scorpio (November 12th)
    • Morgana: Unknown
    • Yusuke: Aquarius (January 28th)
    • Makoto: Taurus (April 23rd)
    • Futaba: Pisces (February 19th)
    • Haru: Sagittarius (December 5th)
    • Akechi: Gemini (June 2nd)
    • Kasumi: Aries (March 25th)
  • The Phantom Thieves' Blood Types:
    • Type A: Makoto, Haru
    • Type B: Ryuji, Ann
    • Type AB: Futaba, AkechiNote
    • Type O: Yusuke

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