Characters of Persona 5

Persona 5, a 2016 role-playing video game by Atlus, is set in Tokyo beginning in April of the year "20XX". It centers on the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, a masked vigilante group of high-school students working to change people's hearts and have them confess their crimes. They do this by defeating a physical manifestation of their subconscious in a mysterious realm known as the Metaverse, accessed through a mobile app on their smartphones. The playable characters can be controlled in the game's many locations, such as "Palaces", which are created by people with great desires and a distorted perception of the world.
The player character is a silent protagonist codenamed Joker, a high school student who moves to Tokyo after being falsely accused of assault and expelled from his former school, and later forms the Phantom Thieves and becomes its leader. He forms it with Morgana, a mysterious cat-like creature who is the Thieves' second-in-command and guide in the Metaverse, who wants to discover his origins and restore his true form, and Ryuji Sakamoto, who is seen as a delinquent at his school due to an incident involving his former track team. Over time, more characters join the group, including fashion model Ann Takamaki, art prodigy Yusuke Kitagawa, student-council president Makoto Niijima, hacker and foster daughter of Sojiro Sakura, Futaba Sakura and business heiress Haru Okumura. Also interacting with Joker are Goro Akechi, a high-school student and ace detective; Sae Niijima, a public prosecutor and Makoto's older sister; and Igor and his assistants, Caroline and Justine, who are residents of the Velvet Room.
Many of the game's characters represent the tarot's Major Arcana suit. Although the suit has twenty-two cards and Royal-exclusive characters account for two additional alternate Arcana for a total of twenty-four, only twenty-one (twenty-three in Royal) are represented by characters; the last one, The World, is given at a later point in the game. The seven deadly sins are a recurring theme within the game, with certain characters and situations representing them.
The game's character design and setting distinguish it from previous entries in the series, replacing Persona 4's yellow-and-green palette with reds and blacks. As with Persona 3 and Persona 4, its characters were designed by Shigenori Soejima. In an interview, Soejima said that he could not design the characters without the game's theme and plot being set first, so he was given detailed instructions from the producer during the process. He also worked on the color scheme and overall visual presentation. In addition to casual and school apparel, each of the Phantom Thieves have their own thematic costumes with masks when in the Metaverse, as well as codenames.
In Persona 5, some individuals have a distorted view of the world and the people around them. If this grows strong enough, they gain a Palace, a place in the Metaverse where their desires appear. There are eight Palaces that must be overcome, which each represent one of the seven deadly sins and have an owner with whom the main characters interact. In order to topple a Palace, not only its Ruler must be defeated, but its Treasure must be stolen; in real life, these Treasures represent the point where the Rulers' desires grew to distort their perceptions, thus stealing them leads to the changes of hearts. In Persona 5 Strikers, a character's corrupted Shadow Self is represented as a "Monarch" that rules over a "Jail" in the Metaverse as opposed to a Palace. Their distorted desires manifest from resentment towards certain people or previous trauma, and use the mobile application EMMA to artificially inflate their own ego by stealing the desires of civilians. Unlike Palace owners, Monarchs' Treasures are related to core traumatic memories, which the main characters view as catalysts for their corruption.
Like previous Persona games, progression of the characters' skills is based on their level of bonding with non-player characters. Persona 5 has Confidants (コープ, kōpu, lit. "Coop" in the Japanese release, short for "Cooperation"), replacing Persona 3 and Persona 4's "Social Links". Each Confidant represents a tarot Arcana (suit), based on their disposition and problems. Spending time with a Confidant allows characters to advance personas of the same Arcana, gain extra skills, and fuse the strongest persona of that Arcana.
The game's characters were generally well received. According to Simon Miller of trustedreviews.com, "The cast of characters only gets better as the game progresses." The Verge also praised the cast: "Persona 5 has a memorable and lovable cast of characters ... the story is buoyed by a great cast of characters, who – in typical Persona fashion – start out as forgettable teenage archetypes, before revealing themselves to be layered, lovable individuals."
GamesRadar+ praised the characters and the new Confidants: "Every aspect of the game's narrative is outstanding, including the many ancillary folks that you can make into 'confidants'". Eurogamer enjoyed the characters' exchanges of surreptitious text messages, but objected to the game's gender ethics: "Persona 5 continues the franchise's awkward relationship with queer-coded people". In The Independent, a reviewer called the characters "fantastic".
GameSpew also noted the characters: "Yet as with any Persona game, its biggest selling point is how the game explores such ideas through its colourful cast of characters." According to a Kotaku review, "If you're looking for an RPG with a great story and characters it may be a huge disappointment." However, Amanda Yeo of Kotaku enjoyed the game and its characters: "Persona 5 taught me how to be a friend." A Polygon reviewer liked the game's characters overall, but disliked the portrayal of homosexual characters: "Essentially, some of Persona 5's only examples of queer characterization are there as a terrible joke."