It’s no secret why the Persona series is so darn popular amongst RPG fans. Mixing a ridiculously sharp sense of style with engaging mechanics, likeable characters, and recognisable settings have made Atlus’ franchise into one of the most revered of all time.
One thing you might definitely will have noticed, however, is that with the exception of Persona 3 Portable, every entry in the series has featured a male high school student as its protagonist. Heck, even the aforementioned exception was altered for the much anticipated remake, Persona 3 Reload, which only featured the male protagonist as its lead.
During the CEDEC + KYUSHU 2024 conference attended by Famitsu (thanks, Push Square), Atlus lead Kazuhisa Wada explained why this is the case, making references to the relatability of the high school setting and the mental maturity of a male student when compared to a female:
“Persona is a story about growing up… Such a setting can be most effectively used with students on the verge of becoming adults. Another big factor is that student life is something that most people have experienced, so it’s easy to empathize with. As for gender, this has to do with mental age. It seems that when it comes to the same high school students, women tend to have a higher mental age than men. However, we don’t necessarily think that adults or women are unacceptable.”
Sounds reasonable to us, though we wouldn’t be opposed to the series taking a chance on a different setting or protagonist for its future entries. As our pals at Push Square said, something around the Japanese corporate/salaryman culture could be quite interesting to explore. That said, we have to admit that we do love the high school setting. There’s just something inexplicably ‘cosy’ about the whole thing.
Regardless of where the franchise winds up in the coming years, we’re very excited to find out more. We’ve got our fingers crossed that Atlus decides to port both Persona 3 Reload and Metaphor: ReFantazio onto the upcoming ‘Switch 2’, because goodness, we’re really missing out over here.
