Persona Producer explains why most of the protagonists are male students

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Summary

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



Over many years, Persona The series has been around, with some fans wondering why most of the game's protagonists are students, and now the producer has offered an answer to that. This trend continued ivr Personathe user's most recent record, Person 5which took the world by storm upon release.

Persona was a popular RPG series that spun off the original Megami Tensei games. As both series continued side by side, Persona it almost always had a male protagonist, with few exceptions Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, Persona 3 Portableand Personality 3epilogue. However, even in Persona 3 Portablethe female protagonist is technically non-canon to the series, meaning the only non-male and non-student protagonists are from Persona 2: Eternal Punishment and Personality 3epilogue.


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Now the manufacturer Persona series, Kazuhisa Wada, explained why this is so. Speaking at the CEDEC + KYUSHU 2024 conference, Wada said that Persona games are meant to be coming-of-age stories with a coming-of-age theme. As such, the choice of high school students for the majority Persona protagonists and party members just makes sense because the middle and high school years tend to be when people start to get a taste for adult life.


What about the gender of the main characters?

As for the gender of the protagonists, Wada said this was mostly due to perceived differences in the mental maturity of girls and boys. Wada noted that female high school students tend to have a “higher mental age” or maturity than their male counterparts. Men as such have more room to grow and develop, making them a better choice for a protagonist in this context. With that, Wada notes that it is not out of the question for the games' protagonists to be either women or non-students.


At this point, it remains to be seen whether Personality 6 shakes up this regular form of the series. Many players have asked for an older one Persona the protagonist, perhaps like the fandom that has been with the series since the beginning, has aged itself. Based on Wada's reasoning, there is still room for adults to continue growing and maturing throughout life. For example, the protagonist from college or just post-university age can be an interesting act.

Unfortunately Person 5 is now eight years old, no real revelations have been made regarding the sixth main entry in the franchise. However, Atlus kept fans of the fifth entry busy with performances Persona 5 Royalexpansion of the story of the original game, Persona 5: Dancing in the Stars, Persona 5 attackers, Persona 5 Tacticsand even a Person 5 mobile game.

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