Adults Shouldn't Be In Persona?
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
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AAAHHHHH I'm genuinely so sorry about the title everyone!!!! I meant to put a "?" at the end of the title to both invite more conversation about the topic and also it makes more sense regarding the base of the conversation spark.
I rushed the upload of this video because of P3R playthrough prep, I'm so sorry that I didn't double check 😭😭😭
Well, when it's next to a thumbnail of Zenkichi, we all knew the title was ironic.
Do not worry so much, your video was really cool. Nice cosplay also!
Oh I'm super relieved to hear that! I was thinking it seemed super out of character for you to make a weird clickbait title haha
I was about to say, "I do NOT want to hear this from a Katsuya simp 😆"
Thankfully, I actually _watched_ the video before commenting 😅
If adults can't be in Persona then why is Zenkichi so damn hot? Checkmate, atheists.
He is basicly on fire at this point x"3 (sorry)
But 100% agreed!
I see your Zenkichi and raise you a Sae Najima (technically not a persona user but still) 😅
Also look up the Toshiro and Erina concept art for P5T and GOD DAYM
Toshiro is hot too🤒....(Despite his Tactica design)
What do atheists have to do wi- You know what? Fuck it, why not??
Dilf Counseling is on Tues, May 14th
0:55 Counterpoint to this first argument: Adults don't have their life together. Being an adult and having their shit figured out are not intertwined in the slightest.
That being said, Crystal, I don't think it's entirely unrealistic to go through that much self-discovery within your highschool years. Unlikely, yes, but it does without a doubt happen. I myself discovered my affinity for writing fanfiction when I was close to graduating.
4:25 I also agree with this point. Being an adult now, I would love to hear stories within Persona that appeal to my current experiences as well, with finding a job and such.
However, when I have characters that I can truly resonate with (and in most of these games, those characters are teenagers) and who spoke to my past struggles, they give me a sense of catharsis. As if I wasn't the only one who felt exactly like I did then. Knowing that I share that pain lightens the burden, in a sense.
5:46 This. Honestly, all that truly matters is the quality of the story told. All of the Persona stories have a certain level of quality, and while I certainly don't agree with some of the methods they tell those stories with (or the elements they include for "shits n giggles" (they usually aren't very funny at all, like imagine having a hot springs scene between a bunch of adults blegh)), in every circumstance the story ends up being _truly_ meaningful and has me sobbing like a little bitch. I trust Atlus to do that, at least, and if they do it with a bunch of adults, then great!
8:59 What even is this take???? You could tell a story just as impactful as any modern Persona game without having high schoolers dominate the cast entirely. This is why I love the Persona spinoffs, like 5 Strikers and the Arena games: the character stories they introduce could just as easily apply to an adult character as a teenager. Take Sho, for example: say he was 17 by the time Minazuki awakened and attacked Ikutsuki instead of when he confronted Yu and the others with the P-1 Grand Prix and Climax. That would put him at... what, 21-22 by the time of Arena/Ultimax? Even older? Not a lot would fundamentally change about his story. In fact, it would let his and Adachi's own stories have more parallels, and make each one even more impactful, while still not entirely separating him from Labrys and Yu.
9:57 This is a point I'm actually neutral on. I do agree that the high school setting has been done a lot, but not necessarily done to death, or to the point of boredom, at least for me.
11:14 I would totally love seeing the whole cast of Persona 4 as adults, though! I loved that they went down that path with the Arena games showing the P3 cast post-Answer, it was so cool seeing them after all that time, and I would love having them retread that ground again with a P5 Arena, or even having them cameo in Persona 6! Maybe even have a passing-of-the-torch story?
12:22 YES! I FUCKING LOVE ZENKICHI AND TOSHIRO! THEY'RE AMAZING! SHOUTOUT TO MACLEOD ANDREWS AND TOM TAYLORSON FOR THEIR PHENOMENAL PERFORMANCES AS THEM, THEY'RE SOME OF MY FAVORITE PERSONA CHARACTERS!
13:33 Yeah, just like... don't be _weird_ man. You're killin' the vibe. If you're the kind of person who gets torn up about this, you're probably REALLY fun at parties.
14:43 again, see above. Having a new story with the old characters is something I absolutely love about the Persona spinoffs. It's great, we should be doing it more. We _want_ the more. Give us the more.
15:35 this is something I mostly agree with. Part of the issue I take with Persona 4 and 5 is that characters almost entirely stop developing past the arcs where they are introduced, and they try to supplement this issue with the Social Links, but it feels like it intrinsically ties these characters's development to their respective Wildcard, which is just... it sits wrong with me? I don't really like it that much? However, the Persona 4 Anime solves this issue entirely by baking the party member Social Links and development into each episode, as well as adding more and better scenes with each character (including non-PM SLs), and it works SO WELL. Please go watch the P4 Anime, it's so good.
@@My2Cents.iF7934 BASED
I feel like Catherine explored sliver of it, but I’d love a Persona that actually talks about some real adult topics. I.e. caring for old parent with dementia, falling out of touch with old friends, growing a local community from hobby/interests/beliefs, and nurturing future generations.
Katsuya, Kasukabe and Zenkichi: *exists*
I mean it's been done well and I think it's more realistic to remember no one has life figured out once they are an "adult".
Also, take the P2 and P4A/AU approach again, bring back some of the younger characters as college students, parents, or just older in general. Like, people forget how much growth a character like Ken has both IN P3 and then after through Arena.
Here’s what I heard:
“You guys know how much I related to Kenji-“
WHAT??!!?!?
“- from Persona 5”
???????
I don't think the main theme of persona is "self discovery". It's what happens but that's just the product of character development.
The theme is bonds and how they make you stronger. Each game in the modern persona makes is a point about how having others around you, having multiple PERSONAS helps you overcome life's greatest hardships both narrative and game play wise. You don't stop having bonds when you become an adult
I would like to see an adult cast but I can also see why they choose teens as they struggle the most with their self image. That being said a college setting would be awesome.
I'm fine with adults characters in persona as long as the protag is in high school and they don't make up the majority of the crew. My limit for teammates would be half and half. But the protag themselves has to be a high school student because that is the only way i could stand it. I'm currently in the process of graduating high school and i don't want to be reminded about the sucky situation that is adulting. I wanna be able to flash back to the good days. I want to be able to come home from a job and completely forgot about it. The protag has to be in highschool.
CrystAAHHL, WHO'S THERE? You really left us with that?!
Video was great BT Dubs and I really appreciate your opinions on exploring the depth and maturity of Adults through Persona.
Having an adult cast reforge or form new lasting friendships despite crazy bullshit wirk hours would be amazing!
About the possibility of Persona not being set in Japan because of how adult life is in Japan, I don't think it would work.
Modern western culture is something Japan doesn't have contact with. Persona usually deals with real struggles of society, like P5 had the whole thing about rotten adults because (without getting too much into it) there's a real issue with younger people being supressed by their society's current structure.
I think japanese writers would have a hard time writing a Persona game in modern western setting because of that. Probably would need western writers, and I'm afraid that could backfire in many ways.
A big part of Persona is about forming bonds, and that's a theme that might be even more relevant to an adult audience, since forming friendships as an adult tends to be a lot tougher
Persona 2 is amazing, people saying that persona don´t work with adults probably didn´t played 2 or played the games for real
16:07 On the topic of a Yakuza game starring a teenager, I recommend you play the Kurohyou games. It's Yakuza spinoff duology for the psp with a 17 year old as the protagonist, you'd be surprised with what they do with him. There are english fan translation mods available for both games now. 👀
Zenkichi was lovely though, a perfect combination of a depressed adult who felt stuck between a rock and a hard place and masking that with humor and wit. With all these adult responsibilities weighing him down and then his Persona powers and the youthful viewpoint of the Phantom thieves help him break free from that.
Thanks for the nice video Kotone Yu and Ren.
What I think would be great is if part of future Persona cast are characters from the past games. While those who are not part of the main cast appear as social links. And instead of a new midnight channel or dark hour you now have to investigate what this other world truelly is. You would still have new members in your team who go to school with you but the other "veterans" could act as some kind of Sensei
TBH, I wouldn't mind adult Persona characters but having an adult cast wouldn't really work unless they completely reinvent the series gameplay for like the 1 year cycle thing. It was even pointed out in Persona 5 that high schoolers have a lot more time to do these things then adults do. I'm not against adult Persona users or even a spin-off focusing on adults but I don't see it working as a full game
I don't mind adults in Persona, but I am CONFUSED by adults in Persona because in Persona 3 and Trinity (which to my knowledge is cannon) it seems to imply that Persona's can no longer be manifested once you hit a certain age (kind of like your Daemon being able to change shape before settling as a animal in Dark Materials) While there are drugs that can allow you to use a persona past a certain age it seems to come with various health detriments. Persona Strikers and Tactica seem to contradict this, although it is important to note that with the Arena games, only 3 & 4 are confirmed to be in the same 'world' as each other. 5 could very well be a AU.
Phew. If people think they finish growing in their teenage years, I do not think that's a great sign. Brains aren't even finished developing by 20 for men. I've grown exponentially in my 20's than I ever did as a teenager.
And who knows on when P2 will get remade. Midori confirmed they're planning on it but if it's actually 3 years I'll pay you 300 dollars.
(You play as a teenager in the psp Yakuza games)
If there's gonna be an adult persona i wish one of the party member is having a marriage that would be interesting
I always found the "adults already have themselves figured out" angle of being against an adult persona cast kinda funny because... like... Do these people even remember persona.
Categorically most adults in the series with any narrative importance, don't have themselves figured out lol
I agree. Some of the most interesting characterization in a story comes from characters who thought they had themselves figured out, but are just realizing that they didn't know as much as they thought they did. It's interesting to see a character's preconceived notions and beliefs challenged throughout the course of a story.
“Adults having themselves figured out” is the ultimate fantasy honestly. Just give me a game where I can play 30 year old who just figured everything out and can chill. That sounds lovely
@user-zv8md9xv8c that's an absurd angle to look at this from...
Are we really stereotyping now? Adults are always mature and teens are always... horny? I'd never play a game like that, unrealistic
@user-zv8md9xv8c "This textbook definition of a stereotype is hardly a stereotype."
Cough cough any adult confidant in 4 and 5
Yes. Adults naturally sleep less and you'll get a whole new time slot for free time - morning before work/school!
And no curfews
And no f-ing exams wasting a week lol
Ha maybe there is actually a sleep mechanic. You can choose to go to bed early or sleep in and get certain benefits if you go into the battle zone the next day. Or stay up late/wake up early to get more things done.
@@imaginefun13So like Persona 3?
You have to get up at 5am on a weekend to grind your fitspo buddy social link. 💀
As an adult who doesn't have their shit together, I just want representation X'D
Same 😅
why? what is this weird feeling of "i wanna be represented on muh games" it's weirdo shit
@@rubenbrito4166 You only say this because you're already represented in games and don't realize that you take it for granted. You're seriously gonna sit here and ask "why do people like relating to characters?" Really?
@@rubenbrito4166 I think you're the weird one here mate. People have wanted to be represented in tales ever since the times of Homer and oral tradition.
I aint represented in anything nor fo I crave it. Not everything has to be about me.
I'm 39 and still don't have "who i am" figured out. The most change has come in the last ten.
Yep. I'm 46 and while I changed a LOT in my 20s, the biggest changes have come in my 30s and 40s.
I never fail to surprise myself by learning something new about myself, and without being burdened with worrying what people think about me, it leaves a lot more room for introspection and growth.
@@seanplaysgames2551 Glad to know that you find it comforting... it can be scary to think about all the changes people are always going through, regardless of age, but it also means that there's always room for new opportunities, growth, and change.
Same here.
Hot take compromise: give us a main game that's still the current high school formula, except the cast are all/mostly seniors instead of juniors; that way, not only is it a fresh take on the existing formula (since you'd have to be juggling prep for your future on top of everything else), but also when the time comes for spinoffs the cast are either in college or working adults and thus the spinoffs' stories have even more room to run wild and break free from the existing formula.
The spin-offs are weird in that regard anyway. Every Persona 5 think has some kind of “they had a crazy adventure during the plot of the original game that everyone forgot” storyline, except Persona 5 Strikes which takes place during summer vacation and thus negates the characters moving on with their lives.
Yu Narukami got to have a true P4 sequel with P4 Dancing & the fighting games which play like they maybe took place 5 minutes after P4 given how little anyone but the P3 cast changes.
But it also feels like Narukami is just warped into the spin-off dimension more than any other character because of fighting game crossovers. Narukami has still got to fight the cast of RWBY like it is still 2013
Keep in mind that Japan isn’t America. They have different education culture.
Isn't P3 kinda like that already? Mitsuru, Aki and Shinji are all third years and there's no first year party member, unlike P4 and P5. Ken is still a kid but the whole deal with him is being mature beyond his age, too.
@@funninoriginal6054 They’re still outnumbered by the juniors, and importantly the player is still a junior; being a senior in Japan involves a LOT of extra work and preparation compared to being a junior, and I think it could be an interestingly challenging experience to have to fit that into your daily life schedule on top of everything else.
@@FlipzMCL Side Note : I also feel like Persona games tank their opportunity for direct sequels by having the cast be a mix of juniors and seniors. Like, c’mon Atlus. You know you are going to make spin-offs. So why are you writing yourself into a corner where half of the Phantom Thieves move away at the end.
Persona 2 Eternal Punishment 😑
Was going to say.
Right?! Such disrespect for the GOAT! Hell, most of the best social links are about or concern adult!
Do you think the people constantly screeching about how adults being in Persona would ruin Persona have ever played anything other than Persona 5?
@@THENAMEISQUICKMANVery unlikely
@@THENAMEISQUICKMANI only played P5, but I watched a playthrough of P5S and Zenkichi is my favourite Persona character ever since.
I just realized I have seen so much Japanese high school settings but I have zero concept of Japanese university setting. 🤔
Literally the only depiction I've ever seen of a Japanese University (that wasn't a 2 second imagination spot in Love Hina) was in an anime called Tatami Galaxy and it honestly looked really interesting -though not sure how much of that was actual university focus vs the Tatami Galaxy plot and characters being zany as all hell XD
I feel like alotta shows that revolve around uni students have popped out in the last few yrs, Rent A Girlfriend, Grand Blue, Run With The Wind, Uzaki- they’re even in uni in Tokyo Ghoul nd Golden Time
I was thinking the exact same thing.
Grand Blue
@FaisLittleWhiteRaven Uzaki Chan wants to hang out takes place in Uni
Wait a minute, you're an adult! You shouldn't be in Persona! Shit, wait, we're all adults!
The biggest lie I was taught as a kid was that grown ups know wtf they're doing. I'm now in my thirties and I can say without a doubt that's bs lol. And not even just because of myself, I observed this even among boomers and gen X'ers
Having an adult could freshen up the average teenager cast and has potential for deeper character arcs (like how the leader is a teenager and one of the members they command is an adult so it brings conflict cus the adult as more "experience")
They need an adult that will help the teens about life and has more mature than everyon that why persona 5 striker is good because they have a father figure in that game
A single adult in the main cast would be a great way to acquire certain items and what not that teenagers would be unable to obtain legally. Like the adult member of your team on certain days of the week has enough free time to go and acquire things for the crew from some sort of black market, an underground business that would want nothing to do with teenagers for obvious reasons.
Young adult characters maybe college students would be an interesting approach.
I disagree with the idea of Highschooler figuring out a lot about themselves is "unrealistic", that really depends on how sheltered you are, but teenagers who have to face serious hardship usually mature very fast, so I have no issue with that. Expecially in P5 where most of those issues are real ass problems that japanese teens had to face from actual criminal cases, and those are only the ones that we know about. Expecially in Japan where teens are typically less sheltered, are expeted to already compette to get into good middle schools then good high schools, to try to get sucessfull in sports club since middle school to increase their chances, to go to school by themselves since a young age, to work part time very early...ect
I definitely thing that even if it's obviously exagerated the amount of shit the persona casts have to go through isn't that unrealitsic
On the other side I indeed think that there is absolutely nothing stopping anyone from doing self discovery as an adult, heck I doubt most people really figured out themselves by 30, heck some people never find out, as sad as it sounds.
I do think the older you get the more you can get stuck in your routine and unable to quesiton yourself (which is kind of part of P5 point) but that would only make the awakenings more interesting when a character question not just his recent decisions but his whole 10-20 years of adult life up to this point.
So honestly as long as they are confident in the story they want to tell, I'm fine either way, if they think they have another great story that works better for a young man MC (I honestly think that the whole plot of P5 about rebelling in the context of japanese culture works well better with teenagers who are like at the bottom of the japanase authority expectation rank, and of course they did dig in the adult side of it with Zenkichi and Toshiro which were masterfulyl done as well), if they think their next story would work better with a female MC that's cool, if they think their next story would work better with a college student great, same with a working adult, as long as they do it because they truly believe it'll work better and not just to please the community, I'll like it.
I agree that P5 works best with teenagers. They’re at the age where they recognize the societal problems that affect them, have opinions about the world, but don’t have the power (legal or influential) to change things. If they were adults it seems like they should try to solve things as an adult, or else it becomes the cliched hardboiled “sometimes we have to work outside the system” sort of thing.
But I don’t agree about high schoolers finding themselves. When I think of everyone I know who went through a lot at that time, I would still say they didn’t find themselves at all until around 25.
I only figured myself out and stuff after I left high school. HS was nothing but "study, go do these activities that you HAVE TO but don't want to, and suffer insufferable idiot peers that act like morons". It was only after I left that I figured out that I was one of the morons too and there was so much to learn, so much that I actually WANTED to learn. Adulthood >>> Highschoolery.
@@FieryAnubis @ER-gb4ee Most people only get mature at adulthood, I don't deny that.
But most people also don't have to go through nearly as much life changing shit as the average persona confidant does.
Like sure I also personally think I only started to mature in prep school and engineering school, but I am not everyone, and i'm also not japanese. Japanese kids have a lot more pressure put on them by the age of 16 than most of occidental kids.
Also i don't mean "finding yourself" like becoming automatically as wise and self aware as they can be, I mean finding yourself in the sense of coming of age, that moment where you stop being a kid in his own selfish world and become aware of problems around you and your part in it. Some people get it very fast when they have to take responsibilities early and other still didn't get it by the age of 40.
And I am perfectly aware that for most people it doesn't happen before around 20, but persona characters are rarely "most people"
@@naproupi Life changing events aren't high school era exclusive. Again with my example, biggest life change happened at 27. It took til 32 to even process it and accept it. Especially in the context of Persona, that would be incredible to see, even if it was all condensed to a single year as usual. Because that's just it, Persona doesn't represent "the majority" or the average experience. These are clearly special people with special powers, and there's always a disconnect between the themes and the setting, making certain themes not even hit as hard as they'd like to as a result.
"heck some people never find out, as sad as it sounds"
I don't think that's sad at all. If you've "figured yourself out," you're stagnating.
The best part of being a middle-aged adult for me is how often I end up surprising myself with something new that I didn't know about myself or changes in my mindset.
I had the idea of having both:
The first half of the game is during highschool, but the second half is with the now adult cast reuniting.
It could be interesting: Seeing where social links ended up and/or how your involvement changed them.
Like how the first SMT has pre end of the world and post?
I'd like to see this, too... a time-skip type thing of say, 5-10 years.
Lol SMT1 has 2 separate apocalypses @@PJSam1998
I haven't played it, but isn't this what the persona 2 duology does?
@@AshEshyr Persona 2 Innocent Sin has a mostly teen but still mixed age cast. But high schools are only dungeons. No life sim elements. Eternal Punishment is an all adult cast (except for the final dungeon) but it's not an IT thing. It's almost an entirely new cast.
there are 4 comments and people have literally just flamed without watching any video 😭
Yup!
That's what you get when you use an inflammatory title. It brings in clicks, but also flames.
the title is clickbaity, if I didn't know Crystah I would have blocked her lol
it took me reading this comment to realize that I fucked up my title D,,x the flame comments probably, understandably came from that... Thank you AHHH!!
Some people only read the headline and got the conclusion in their head.
I remembered hearing some people say a college setting in Persona wouldn’t work out because college in Japan has more work than college in the West.
That perception is only half-true. College in Japan is actually pretty relaxed for the most part, with a lot of free time available for students to work on other activities (getting driver’s license, part time job etc).
The big work-load comes from the job-hunting season, which lasts from 3rd year through 4th year of college on average in Japan.
So maybe a full on college setting might work or might not work, but I can easily see a College student persona user. Heck, there already is a phantom idol in P5X who’s a college-age exchange student.
So then have the protagonists be in their 1st and 2nd year of college. Problem solved!
Yeah it seems like the people who comment that really don’t know much about college in Japan? High school is more stressful and has more work than college, typically people can’t discover themselves until college in Japan.
In persona 2, the cast having non-standard jobs was probably the easiest way to let adults have the time to be part of the journey. Maya, Baofu, Katsuya, and Yukino all have jobs that would allow them time to excuse their adventures as part of fieldwork (even if the plot finds ways to put the adults on sabbatical anyway). That being said, it'd be interesting to have a... I'm not sure how to phrase it in english, but a Salaryman protag who plans his sales route around spending large chunks of the day essentially playing hooky. Just with the added twist that he's secretly fighting demons with that time. It's not uncommon to see one or two of this type of lazy salaryman character hanging around restaurants or game centers in japanese works already, so the idea of a hero who masquerades as someone with poor work ethic while actually working to save the world would be interesting. I don't know how japanese society would perceive a character like that though.
It’d be cool if with young adults they added a system where because of work schedules you could only bring certain people on certain days to a dungeon depending on whether or not they had to work or travel that day. Kinda like p3 when some party members weren’t available for Tartarus.
@@Hitchswitch111that sounds like something that would instantly be hated
People don’t like gameplay to be neutered
@@pn2294 got a more realistic way of incorporating adults then?
@@Hitchswitch111 have them all work for the same company
@@pn2294 okay but they’d still have different schedules bro. 😂 you don’t have the same hours as everyone in your job on top of everything else there’s school/daily life activities that you have to take into account. Not everyone is free at the same time. Even in p3 it was kinda like that lol.
P2 Eternal Punishment is a great game and does have a good adult cast, but it is an entirely different type of animal than what the persona series has evolved into today. I think what many people are trying to say is that from a gameplay perspective in terms of the day and night/ reality and fantasy cycle, the average adult has less of a wide range of things to do and free time on their hands to make that cycle interesting, or at the least as interesting as it is with a majority teenage group.
When it comes to something like Pokemon i am not opposed to having the option to be an adult trainer, becuase it doesnt really change the shape of the game. The game will flow the same rather the trainer is an adult or child. But with persona certain mechaincs just wont feel or work as well.
Curiosity compels me to ask what you view the Persona series as being today... There are some commonalities in P3, P4, and P5, but they are definitely very distinct games, IMO.
Nah, Adults can do literally whatever they want and an Adult Japanese game could just be set in a smaller town that isnt a fictional tokyo setting. Boom, solved the work crunch problem.
@@Phantom-kc9ly Exactly. There's a ton of ways to do it... BTW, nice avatar: one of my favorite ATLUS games by far.
@@vorpal22 in the 9 years I've had it youre the first to recognize it lol
@@Phantom-kc9ly Ha! My partner just started playing it yesterday after I've been recommending it for ages. I want to go back and play both games again at some point.
Alice, Natsume, Mariko, Akira, Zenkichi and Toshiro alongside most adult Social Links to me show that Persona can have adult protagonists wile still retaining the themes
Honestly, it’s weird to see people, ummm… fixate on female characters in the series especially since a lot of them are, you know, underage. So it’d be nice for an all adult cast as it’d feel less weird imo
I too find it unrealistic that only japanese high school students can defeat gods.
Agree 100%
Depressed middle aged wagies could defeat gods too!
I agree and I agree! I think Atlus knows how to write adult characters and their redemption arcs!
85% of Persona fans never played P2 and it shows. No wonder they can't think positive!
Have 85% of Persona fans also never played a Yakuza game?
Ain’t nobody playin that bruh
Its the persona game that has me the most interested, but i wish they had PC ports.
@@zokemon69this isn’t the own you think it is lmao
@@Lonewulf321 It’s pretty obvious that P1 and P2 are a lot less popular. They exist but how many people are really going back to play them? It’s not an own it’s just facts
Honestly yeah the series has been focusing more and more on adult dark themes it would make sense and also it would make the adult romanceable social links less creepy
I think the age group should just be widened in general. Zenkichi is one of my favourite characters in the series despite being way older than the other main characters in his game, and Ken is one of my favourite characters in the series despite being way younger than the other main characters in his game. It shouldn't be "okay everyone needs to be the same age because we just can't fathom any other way to have them meaningfully know or connect with other"
Pretty much my thoughts, too. We're saving the world whilst dealing with a lot of stuff that would break most adults... but we're teenagers. And yeah, the minor/adult romances just give me the biggest of icks. i get it, it's optional... but it's still icky.
The series has always had themes like that for it's entire run and maintained a highschool cast throughout with the exception of one game. I think you could definitely do a P5S or reverse of P3 where there are adult party members that work with the highschoolers but it's kinda unnecessary to drop the highschool setting entirely
Yeah, I always thought it was a bit fucked up to have the friction of P5's first palace and then have a bunch of romanceable adults. Double standards go crazy
@@hazamax2139 That's what my tweet was that got mentioned at that part of the video, that the entire first arc is undermined when the MC can just go romance 3 other adults, ONE OF WHICH IS A TEACHER
I often notice that the people who think that young adults/adult are boring characters and games work better with a teenage cast tend to be young themselves? I also did that back when I was a teen, thinking that everyone above age 22 was the same kind of old but as I age I'm starting to notice that wow being a teen was a very limited experience. Which makes sense! As teens we just simply don't understand what it feels like to have been born 20-30-50 years ago. We are just interested in different experiences.
But yeah while I do think that the way they made Persona games function at the moment are most suitable for a younger cast (and also I don't fully trust the company to make meaningful romances between adult characters) I do think it COULD work if they actually tried to make it work.
I mean i dont think you can trust the company to make meaningful romances in any capacity, haven't the creators/writers of 3-5 gone on record to say that they've never even had a female friend?
Most of the character arcs in Persona aren't really tied to a certain age. Like Kanjis arc with masculinity and societies view on gender can be experienced at any age.
If Atlus was to make an adult cast in Persona I'd love for these characters to have arcs that are intrinsic to being an adult. Falling out of touch with friends because everyone starts to live their own life, realising some of your past friendships were toxic and how to cope, how to make new friends when there are less proximity relationships, how to develop your relationship when your partner wants children but you don't want to, finding time for your hobbies when this adult tiredness hits you after work, how to keep up with chores and responsibilities, giving up dreams because you can't pay for a certain career education, the loss of your parents (actual loss or through ilness), the realisation that school doesn't teach us how to live and do chores or taxes...
I could go on and on but my point is that being adult brings it's own struggles and magic which isn't talked about enough. A game like Persona that focuses so heavily on characters and self discovery would be great for themes like this
I keep getting distracted by the Majima standee in the background and all I can think about is Majima being in Persona 6
I personally think that Persona is still probably going to be a more high school-oriented series, but I’d love for Persona to have more spin-offs that focus on adults, or college students at the very least.
I’d love a Persona game where it follows just low-level office workers who stumble onto the persona stuff as part of their job
Anyone that has played Catherine knows how well atlus can do stories with an adult cast...even with how goofy catherine gets the themes and the tension it brings are insanely good. and no matter if you love or hate Vincent he self discovers alot in the game and you even get to decide how he ends up letting you see two sides of a complex topic
If someone says that you can't tell an interesting story set in Japan with adults, I'd say "Play Yakuza".
Everyone goes to high school. But not everyone goes to college. Most people have similar life experiences up until turning 18. But while some people are married with a house and kids at 25, others might still be on school, or in the army, or moving to Hollywood to chase acting dreams or in AA or playing professional sports, or a VTuber.
Once you take the concept of social simulation out of high school it becomes dramatically less broadly relatable because adulthood doesn’t look the same for everyone, but we can all remember being kids.
I think this is why so many genres resist aging up their characters even when it would make sense to do so
In Japan, over 60% of adults have some form of tertiary education, and a "college-aged" cast could easily be a mix of college students and non-college students that are still in their early 20s, but starting their careers (or hell, even stagnating with adult expectation paralysis).
@@vorpal22 My point isn’t that it is unrealistic or undoable or that I would be against it as a concept.
My point is THIS is the the reason I think Atlus & other creators stick to the high school settings (it is why Euphoria is set in a high school even though it should 1000% should have been put in college instead because of all the sexual content).
High school is a broadly relatable setting. Most of us had similar high school experience. But very dissimilar adult lives.
But there are still popular social simulation games where you don’t play children, such as Stardew Valley and Yazuka
@@TheJadedJames Okay, I can appreciate that, but the experiences of high school students is extremely diverse as well: if you ask me if I can relate to any of the characters in Persona 3, 4, or 5, I'd be hard pressed to think of one that resonates with my teenage experiences. I think claiming that we had "similar high school experience" just because most of us had to attend school for four years doesn't really draw people together much more than the experiences of being in your 20s separates us.
I did love Stardew Valley back in the day, which definitely focuses more on being a young adult than a teenager. I think a well-written story - regardless of demographic - can have widespread appeal, and having a diverse cast of characters in terms of their experiences can make for a really interesting story, even if it's hard to find one to relate to specifically.
Why lots of Japanese fictional media companies focus on high school students is an interesting question, though.
@@TheJadedJames FWIW, GPT-4 seems to agree with you. I don't' really have any objection to plots being focused on high school students - and even with sexual content, in Japan, nationally, the age of consent is 13 (but in many prefectures, it is 18), and while it's becoming more controversial, depicting things like statutory rape in drawn form isn't necessarily illegal. I think that's possibly why we see things like Joker dating adult women and clearly having sexual situations with them.
I guess for me, I found the characters of Personas 3 and 4 to be really well done, but the characters in Persona 5 to be terrible, and it's burnt me out on the whole high school trope when I think about it specifically in the context of Persona. Like I said elsewhere in this thread, Joker is one of the dullest protags I have ever played, so neutral that almost anyone can insert themselves into his character however they want, and the characters are obnoxiously grating, needy, and often one-dimensional compared to the earlier entries.
I know the game didn't sell fantastically, but I really liked the characters in Soul Hackers 2, and they represented a fairly broad representation of adulthood between the three "human" characters. I'd like to see more of that, but with the issues in Soul Hackers 2 resolved. (I still can't believe that ATLUS didn't try harder to fix what were obvious flaws... at least with SMTV Vengeance, we MIGHT get SMTV with fixes for the obvious flaws, even though the game had fewer of them.)
Let’s go the other way!!! Grade school persona!!
After P3P I do NOT trust Atlus on that one.
@@ProfiteerProphet I do not trust Atlus and I most certainly do not trust this fandom
FBI open up
So Devil Children?
Earthbound?
Katsuya Suou, every P1 character as adults in P2: "Are we a joke to you?"
I'd like a mix, but personally relate more to teenagers than i do adults because I'm still rather young(turning 21 in a few days). I especially relate to characters who are young, but take on too much responsibility for themselves since i myself have taken on a lot of responsibility with caring for my unwell mother and taking care of my siblings
My partner who I brought into the series has LONG said that they feel like college would be a better fit bc you generally have even MORE free time than you do in high school, you can cover more adult themes more comfortably and realistically, and as an added bonus, giving everyone a major is just a fun bit of extra characterization. You could even have some characters who aren't in college but are the same age and just already working or in an apprenticeship/trade school. Both of us felt that Persona 5 would have felt even better if everyone was in college. Then you could have had stories like:
Joker had to change schools bc he was at a top university and was expelled, having to switch to a lower tier or community college
Akechi being a polisci student and political intern for his father at said former top university, giving them a little connection before the game even starts
Ryuji's injury costing him the scholarship he needed to stay in school and having to shift to the workforce, maybe even working at the school he used to attend. It would also feel more realistic that the coach is literally physically abusing students and everyone just lets it slide if he is coaching a team that earns the school a lot of money. We've seen MANY scandals of coach's and player's actions being covered up by the school so they can keep raking in money via the team.
Ann trying to figure out if she wants to be a model or a designer while managing everything with Shiho. With the coach being more prevalent, it's more believable that his relations with a student would be covered up, especially since she isn't a minor anymore and thus, it's a harder sell to the cops ESPECIALLY in Japan.
Makoto dealing with being a girl in a largely male major and dealing with misogyny as a Criminal Justice major on top of her sister guilt-tripping her about the cost of her college
Haru trying to balance her family's required major of Business Management with her own passion for Botany in the form of a club or minor and being isolated from other students due to her status. Maybe she is even forced to join a certain sorority bc all women in her family join it and everyone hates her there. (though I don't think Japan has those)
Yusuke as the Art major hailed as a prodigy, propelled into stardom by the scandal from his sensei, and now reliant on a scholarship to survive, adding pressure to perform that keeps tainting his work
Futaba debating whether she even NEEDS to go to college bc she knows everything they would teach her already and she could just take all the classes online from her room and maybe realizing that while she has the job skills already, attending classes and clubs with everyone can still be fun and good for her, maybe even having a storyline where she takes a struggling computer science or programming student under her wing.
Kasumi also cracking under the scholarship pressure as her failure to perform as well as her sister did could lose her her place at school or even the Olympics
The stories are all similar but just have higher stakes in college and it feels more natural for them to get caught up in things like politics and drug rings than it does for high school. It's also more believable that they would have an on-site counselor that students are using for the Royal ending. Also can you tell I was a scholarship student?
I personally think young adults like 18-21 are a good middle ground. It would also allow more freedom like no school or school replaced with work. Or if they go even older than 21 they could make the main characters parents.
I find it funny how people always say that university studends in Japan have no life. Meanwhile in my university all the exchange students and my Japanese class teacher keep touting about how university is the best moment of their life with all the freedom they got.
I wanna say something about the "adults don't work with the 'discovering yourself' plot" way of thinking. In Japanese society, as soon as you turn 18 you are considered an adult, and you're supposed to have everything figured out. You have to know whether you'll get a job or go to college, find a partner, all that stuff. As much as I want a story based around young adults, we need to remember where the Persona games are coming from. In fact, all 3 modern Persona games touch on very real issues in Japanese society, that would seem a bit weird to westerners.
That's the thing, though...it's very evident that *many* 18 yo's in Japanese society don't, in fact, have it all figured out, which is why I would actually argue that a persona game with an 18-22 yo MC would actually work to its benefit. And many of the concepts/themes that are covered are just as prominent in young adulthood, it doesn't just magically disappear upon graduation of HS/inauguration of University lol
As much love as I have for P3 & P5 (haven't played P4 yet), the HS setting is already starting to wear itself thin. You don't expand your franchise to new heights by continuously having a retread of similar issues among similar social environments.
And something a lot of western people don't take into consideration: The suicidal rate among high schoolers in Japan is one of the HIGHEST in the world.
That's in part why media caters to high schoolers so heavily in Japan, they're trying to make sure said high schoolers make it into adulthood in the first place!
And that's just it, that's why it would work. It would be a commentary on that whole mindset. 18? Hell, go for 24+. Not even those people have themselves figured out, Japan or not. Finding yourself at a later stage is very common. It could be a deeper look at how misguided the society is and how even adults haven't faced themselves yet. And to take it further, they don't have the time to do it because of societal pressure, work, etc. You can go hella deep with it.
@@MaxusFox23 That's a nationwide issue, not just teens. And they have more than enough material to relate to that specializes in that demo in that regard (anime, manga, games, music, etc.). The adults need some love, too 😅
I disagree, in Japan you are supposed to have what you are trying to do work wise in high school/what college you are trying to go to etc. But people literally don’t have the time to “discover” themselves until college (where until you are doing job interviews it’s pretty relax). People also don’t start thinking about marriage until after college/ after the started their career? It is HIGHLY unusual for people to get married young 18-24 in Japan. Why things like suicide and having to put on a fake mask are problems in Japanese society, they span multiple age groups (though you will see high rates among teens since they are typically more overworked/no time to relax before college)
I think the most problematic part of having an adult cast is the gameplay "slice of life" part, since the school system would need to be reworked entirely to adapt it into a "job environment"
To me, the best solution is to do it like fire emblem three houses does, with the first half having them as teenagers and the second as adults
A persona game with a timeskip sounds pretty awesome to me. I had an idea of the p5 cast having another game with them as adults that were either jaded by society and rediscovering their will of rebellion or were fully growing into that rebellious spirit and reuniting as the phantom thieves as fully matured, confident, and admirable individuals with strong moral codes.
I really like this idea but the social link system might be messed up. The best we might get would be an adult main character who flashes back to highschool and has a past with some of the other social links before growing apart from them over time. Then atleast it would be going into the repressive aspect of japanese work culture while also showing how its never too late to reinvent yourself and walk a new path.
Honestly it’s really not that hard when you think about it. It just depends on what kind of job you work at. Like for example, a teacher work schedule will be very similar to a high school student but with a few changes like coming to school earlier, staying at school later, tutoring, covering for another class, etc. To fit persona, you can easily set it up to where you have an option to come to class later, set up tutoring dates, and choosing not to cover another class. It really can work out.
Same for a salaryman, you can fit a schedule to work around it too. Like you could have rest days you can use when you earn them, you can come later or come earlier, you could leave later or earlier too, you can skip a day (may cost your job though) and so forth.
Even if a character works at a store, a family business, ceo, etc the same can apply but their schedules can probably be much looser. Heck, you can even actively get to choose your schedule with these jobs that last a in game week, so it gives you more time to do other things.
It’s not as limiting as you think, and as an adult in game you’d probably have more freedom to do stuff, like you could probably even spend more time doing a dungeon but it comes at a cost with your job.
Or better yet, the cast could be adults with no jobs and the theme of the game is learning to take responsibility for yourself and your actions, so in the beginning they start off with no jobs and have loads of free time, but by the end they have less free time and a job.
@@ningmushii yeah, I guess that still sounds good
Let’s hit middle ground. A Persona game but in college.
Wait... we're supposed to have our 💩together!? Oh no...
The problem with discussing the teenager/adult topic on a public forum with your followers and subscribers is that a large portion of that base, maybe even a majority, has no frame of reference for what it means to be an adult.
I think what I find funny is that this sounds like “all persona games” when the funny thing is is that p5 strikers has Makoto and Haru. Whom are over the age of 18 thus adults. I think they’re 19 in it (don’t quote me) but think about college or stuff like that. Cool college mystery stuffs.
The concept of “seishun” is incredibly strong in Persona and Japanese media as a whole. I completely agree with your take and I’m always so excited when I see stories that revolve around college age or older main casts. The topics are deeper, more philosophical and profound, and often rarer and involve conversations that aren’t had enough… it’s an outlet for unique art of a different variety.
But I’ll also be the first to also respect that Japanese culture really does anchor career paths and societal routine right around 16-17, far sooner than Western cultures. So the adults tend to escape through seishun-themed stories and young teens of that age who are more likely to play video games are able to relate more since they’re deep in it.
I always have to remind myself that my own media literacy and appreciation kicked in not playing modern games about my younger years, but revisiting games I actually played in my younger years.
That said, Zenkichi is the GOAT and I honestly thought he was an amazing breath of fresh air in Scramble.
And I still adore P4U because we get to see the P3 cast (my favorite) grown up and really becoming the best versions of themselves.
People are drowning themself in cup of water. Both adults and teanagers go to self discovery faces. Some people have some part of themself discover by higschool while other part reaming unknown until their 60's. At end the persona saga have so many themes that pretty much any demografic can enjoy it, so who cares if the protagonist are adults or tenagers what matthers is the story and how can it be related to your life
The "modern" Persona 3 and up settled on the high school structure because it's a daily grind for the yearly gameplay loop, and you can chuck most of the main non-optional npcs into the school.
You could easily do this setting in an university from our western perspective but I have no idea how they work in japan, never saw one in dramas or animes( Gran Blue being the only one I remember that the cast is from an Uni). Now full on adults, 27 and up, would require a lot of creativity and effort to apply this daily /yearly gameplay loop from a team that is used to do the same thing over and over for the last 17 years.
I think one thing that should be kept in mind when discussing these games is teenagers themselves as a target audience. Persona does have a lot of teens as fans, and something they can relate to is probably a priority.
Which is, in my opinion, the greatest argument FOR a party member of older characters. When you're in highschool it does feel like you are getting ready to "be done", to "be an adult". It is an important lesson for kids that you're never "finished", you are always growing. A party of young adults in different settings (maybe the protagonist and main core are in college, but there are party members who went straight into working, or maybe even just trying to figure out what they want to do) and their journey of finding themselves would be very cool to show to younger audiences.
Especially because now we have a remake culture where old games are always "still there", so high school kids still have the older Personas to relate more directly to their current situation.
This is true, but recent demographics studies have shown that the number of adults that play video games is actually shockingly high, and many of us have far more disposable income than teenagers do. I probably spend around $5,000 - $10,000 per year on my video gaming habit and I'm in my 40s. I see teenagers online all the time saying that $50 for a game is too much when, given the amount of work that goes into making a good game and how many hours of entertainment you get out of a 100+ hour JRPG, the cost of entertainment per hour is extremely reasonable.
@@vorpal22 Oh, I'm not saying that teenagers are the sole target demographic, not even that they are the majority of players. However, they are not insignificant, and don't seem to be considered at all during this discussion. It seems to be exclusively on the perspective that the player is an adult who either is bored of only playing as children or wants to enjoy some nostalgia. That's why I brought that up.
@@ProfiteerProphet Derp! I missed clicking on the "Read More" part of your comment, so I didn't see the second and third paragraphs until just now. *feels silly*
Yup, I get it now, and sorry about that! I like your comment about high school feels like "being done:" you get out, and you get a job or pursue a specific subject in higher education, and a lot of people seem to have an idea of that being a fixed path where you stagnate, when the reality is that the start of adulthood is actually a really exciting new adventure where it feels like you have a lot more liberties to shape your life the way you want.
Ha! Don't even get me started on the "remake" culture... I don't mind remakes sometimes, especially if they're well after the original and because the original is not really playable on a current platform, but some of the remakes (especially by ATLUS) leave me feeling a bit irritated... like, I bought a PS3 just to play P5... and then a week after, it was announced as being really delayed. (I would have waited and just bought a PS4 had I known...) Then only three years later, they release a "new version" that's "more complete" than the original. They did similar things with both the SMT: Devil Survivor games, and it's just too soon for a remake at that point. I spent like 140 hours playing P5... I was not ready to spend another 140 hours playing Royal... in fact, I still haven't finished Royal even though I got the CE for PS4 and the re-release CE for Switch (worst CE ever, IMO... that stupid chest case... the Akechi bag was nice and the rest was awful.) I've made it about 2/3rds through, but I'm just not feeling like going through all that again.
It'll be interesting when SMTV:Vengeance comes out, which is another similar situation. I really liked the original even though it had serious flaws. I wonder if I'm going to be able to play it through so soon after SMTV?
It's really weird for me to see people talking about the discovery of who they are as teenagers, because for me (and maybe I am the odd one here) I only felt as discovering myself and following my own path in my mid-twenties.
I just want one of the protagonist's teachers to be a Persona user and a party member. It's the most obvious idea that I'm surprised they haven't done yet
Same, I used that concept for a crossover AU (aka Persona story with the cast of another series). Became an interesting dynamic when one of his students is the "leader" and the group also has another one of his students & his son.
Persona 5 Strikers literally has a 30 something cop join the Phantom Thieves who gets his own Persona and everything
@@TheJadedJames yes but his persona is activated so late in the game and he’s gonna be a forgotten character like all persona games so I’m not even gonna count him too much
@@devbyrd6127 how dare you imply i will ever forget zenkichi
I wish Akane was used more than just an obstacle the Phantom Thieves face that also gets Zenkichi involved but it could be hard since the lifestyles are massively different. It, however, would not be impossible since she really wants justice for her mother’s killer.
Just started with the video and that first camp just made me think about how it would be pretty cool to have an adult who’s still trying to figure out themselves and finally find out what they want to do. Because like, some people are slower at it (like me lmao) and feel like they are behind on life in their adult lives. It can be nice to know that we aren’t alone in trying to find ourselves still and that it’s not too late to do so
I first played persona 4 the summer before my first year of college. My situation was exactly the opposite to that of the protagonist - he was a city kid moving to the boonies, I was a boonies kid moving to the city. Both me and him moved in with someone from our family, and both me and him found ourselves learning more about ourselves and the world by meeting the people around us. The freedom and mobility in-game Jackie had was something I wished I had throughout high school, and becoming a legal adult in a college that doesn't have required attendance except for tests and in a city that has good public transport made me feel like I could see the opportunity to up my social stats or meet new social links and learn from them at every corner every day.
One day, IRL Jackie woke up and had his Magician call him out of the blue - like in-game Jackie had gotten calls from his friends in the morning to hang out sometimes - and he asked if I wanted to go do volunteering work at 11:30 AM. That specifically was an opportunity I don't think I would have gotten otherwise, and just like in-game where sometimes one social link unlocks another, this one gave me another part to my day-to-day life. I don't think I would have had the mindset required to get out of my bed and meet up if not for Persona 4, so I'm grateful for it.
All of this to say that more freedom and mobility in college is good and fits Persona a lot!
My conclusion to this question is that more people need to play the Caligula Effect games (especially Caligula 2). It perfectly shows how to incorporate adults into high-school games.
I think the high school setting makes the calendar setting flow really naturally. Hopefully metaphor proves that system can work in other settings
I also think high school is relatable to everyone at a base level whereas not everyone has a 9-5 job or goes to college.
Honestly I’ll be happy as long as the story is good and the cast is likable but I would love a shakeup to the formula
The only people who think adults shouldn't be playable characters, dont even know P1 and P2 exist 😂
There is soooo much potential in a new persona game with adult's. But at the same time i wouldn't want Atlus to make that game if they dont have the motivation or dersire to make it. It would just result in a bad prduct if the passion isnt there from a development stand point.
My main problem with adult persona is that adults have no free time and i can barelymax out the social links already...
ADHD reply ahead.
tl;dr: P3 + P4 characters are great. P5 characters suck ass and are annoying as hell. I would love an adult cast like in SH2, but with the obvious problems of SH2 addressed. Adult casts / mixed casts have worked really well in the past. Overall, I don't really care that much: I just want a game with a GOOD protag and great characters who are not annoying, 1D, and OTT. Can't wait for Metaphor! P5 + the remake + spinoffs + bad characters + Joker nearly killed my love of ATLUS and P5's popularity has put ATLUS in a very difficult position.
Non tl;dr:
"Why are people insistent on 'Persona but with adults' instead of admitting they aged out of the series'
I didn't play my first Persona game until I was in my 40s... and probably the majority of Persona fans are adults (based on ratings and on simple gamer demographics)... so no, we don't "age out" of Persona.
I know it was not ATLUS' biggest winner because there were definite flaws in it (e.g. absolutely terrible dungeon crawling), but I really loved Soul Hackers 2 because it contained adults having adult interactions in adult settings and felt fresh; however, it was really P5 that ruined the whole teenage setting for me. P3 and P4 were both amazing.
P5 had a lot of good things to it (plot, dungeon design, aesthetic), but IMO, the characters are the one downside to the entire game: they are so one-dimensional trying to resolve one internal conflict, and listening to how needy and chatty they are about the most inane topics throughout the game (something which didn't really happen in P3 and P4) was tedious, and sometimes they were stupidly over-the-top. Yusuke and Futaba were unbearable characters, IMO: the worst of the worst across all Persona games.
Furthermore, Joker is THE most milquetoast protag I have ever played: he's just filler with zero personality for the player to relate to, whereas while even other games where the protag has few traits (e.g. some Fire Emblem games, SMTV), they have enough to make them an actual character with a personality to explore.
ABSOLUTELY AGREE with the adult self-discovery: I'm 46, and I am always surprising myself with new things I am learning about myself, far more than in my teenage years. Teenage years are relatively shallow because of the fact that for so many people, the way that others perceive you is often paramount and forms your ideas, and while that still exists in some adults, many adults gain the confidence to stop caring if someone doesn't like them or has a problem with something that we do. The biggest changes in my life (spirituality, political views, and things I require and have to offer romantically) occurred in my 20s, or even later.
A college setting wouldn't be so bad for Persona and I could get into that. I could also take the teenage themes again... just please don't make the characters like Persona 5. Trails / Kiseki is a great example where you have a main cast that is largely teenagers, that act like teenagers, and yet still undergo processes of self-discovery while also having a lot of adults in the cast.
What I'd really like to see is better LGBT representation (and not just for the sake of having token LGBT characters): we were totally baited with Kanji and Naoto, even though they were still great characters. This is an area where ATLUS specifically but Japan in general really seems to struggle (e.g. Unicorn Overlord's bromances rather than same-sex relationships), and gay men are pretty much used as a stereotypical attempt at humor that is super cringey. If you want to talk teenagers, then discovery / exploration of sexual orientation is a huge part of coming of age for that demographic. AI: The Somnium Files did LGBT characters really well.
Love your take on Metaphor: it's the first ATLUS game I've been excited for in a long time. I just can't Persona 5 any more between 5, 5R, Q2, 5S, 5T, dancing, and now 5X. I really hope Metaphor succeeds because we need a third ATLUS pillar: the others have largely died (EO, Soul Hackers, Devil Survivor, etc). Persona 5 sales are a mixed bag: the insanely high number has forced ATLUS to aim at pleasing SEGA and the shareholders, thus forcing them to abandon less successful franchises that still did relatively well when compared to other companies... Most fans now are Persona 5 fans and us long-standing ATLUS fans are having to deal with the consequences of that.
We need new persona game where mc works as a teacher
Trying to finish playing Persona 2 Eternal Punishment, this video's super relevant for me right now.
Persona with an adult cast can definitely work, as we saw with Maya Amano's adventures. It mostly depends on what topic ATLUS wants to cover and how they want to approach it. While Personas 3, 4, and 5 were all fun, with messages I can get behind (the inevitability of death and making the most of life, searching for truth amidst the misinformation, the system has problems and sometimes you need to break the rules because they don't work anymore or are used to subjugate), I do feel like those deep topics would probably be a better fit in an adult setting with a main character whose profession is relevant to the intended message moreso than a high school kid who needs to focus on their education so they don't get grounded, but it's moreso about suspension of disbelief than realism. I mean... calling forth the power of the fairy king Oberon from Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream" to electrocute everybody is absolutely not realistic, but we still accept it because that's Persona. A teen saving the world isn't realistic, but we suspend disbelief to allow the story to do what it's trying to do, and as a result, we get stories that don't disappoint.
I also feel like it might make things feel less hectic overall if the MCs are adults. The younger you are, the less chill you are, and that excess energy and craziness seems to make stories about teens and kids feel like "please take a freaking chill pill people, you're making a huge deal out of nothing..." I definitely have more control over my emotions now compared to when I was younger and was constantly panicking all the time.
Another thing to consider with adults is the fact that they have more options for what their lives are like. Teenagers are in school, but they don't have a variety of options by comparison to adults with full-on jobs and hobbies and stuff.
There's a lot to consider, and it would take more than 1 RUclips comment to run through the options to see what'd work best for the story. Sorry if this feels like a thought dump mess.
I think a big issue on this 'debate' is misunderstanding each narrative frame has its own pros and cons, that you can do any story in each of them (but some of them work better than others). Humans don't stop growing or changing, but what they are changing from, and what they change into, does vary by the when and how.
Teenagers are good for social change. It's the first time you have to face the flaws and limits of your peers (classmates) and idols (parents/teachers). So for a narrative about finding yourself in that context, it's a good way to leverage that pressure. As you find your footing, which might not be what your parents want you to be. And decide if being liked is better than being yourself. For P5 (sticking to P5 because I can do examples for each), the Phan-site and the way the school talks about Joker are good things to lean into if you're sticking to a social change. Makoto and Ryuji really fit here.
Early adulthood (college/20-somethings) works better when it's a focus on yourself vs. society. This is where I think P5 could have done better with a college age character set. Where how you survive in the world, and how you view the world around you is most at play. Figuring out the rules society runs by are often cruel, flawed, and meant to hurt people as often as help them. As the Phantom Thieves realize the whole system is stacked against them, this would suit way more to a 20something cast than high schoolers. And would really support Haru and Joker's character arcs.
Older adult arcs are about you vs yourself, and where life has put you, the choices you've made (often in the context of social and societal changes from above). Do you like where you've ended up? Would younger you hate who you are now? What did you give up for where you've gone. Of course the best example of this is Zenkichi, but it also applies to Akechi, Futaba, and Yusuke. You can do it with younger characters, but their agency is far more limited the younger they are at the start. They have less options.
There's no right or wrong answer to how to do a Persona game. You can explore any of these with any age character, but I would be hard pressed to think I'd attach to Zenkichi's plot as much as I did if the Phantom Thieves were in their 30s. And on the opposite side, Sophia (my favorite Persona character) works only if you frame her like a child learning of the world.
Outside of that, it's a video game. High Schoolers provide a much more structured day system for time management elements. And High School is a better setting if you need to keep a variety of characters in a centralized location. Which both help lead into new characters into the plot. For me, I'd want a college aged protag with their core cast from their college plus a few younger and older characters met through story need. Centering on a societal fight like P5, with small moments of self-reflection for everyone.
For the record I'd view P3 as more social focused, and P4 more Self focused. So P3's structure is fine as-is, and P4 probably would have felt stronger with adults. P5 really is baby's first anarchy so they should have been college aged and would have made several factors of the game slightly less icky not being about high schoolers.
I'm on the side of making personal users all adults in an entry. You're always reinventing yourself. I'm almost 40 (God, just... why) and my tastes in media and literature have gone more classical, I'm a teaching instructor at my job now, I live by myself with excellent credit, started drinking wines joining a club for it, most recently got my motorcycle license and a Harley Nightster Special when the very idea of ever driving terrified me. I mean, WHO AM I? I would have never thought to achieved what I am and keep expanding as steadily. A game with people reinventing themselves or even looking back at who they were as their better selves would be cool. As well as a shout out to Persona and SMT players who grew up with it, and something for younger generations to chew on for when they get there.
The Persona 2 Duology does have a really good adult cast. I enjoy looking into Katsuya and Tatsuya's dynamic. Maya is an interesting Protagonist for Eternal Punishment. Baofu starts off mysterious in Innocent Sin, and becomes a great character in EP. Ulala is also amazing and her growth is also interesting. And you see the growth of some of the Persona 1 cast in the Persona 2 Duology.
Zenkichi has a pretty good development in Strikers. He starts out with the Phantom Thieves' distrust, but that distrust slowly breaks down the more he helps them. He almost acts like a dad to them really (or funny uncle if Sojiro took the dad spot already lol). And the awakening of his Persona is really one of my personal favorites, as well as the catalyst for getting his Persona, that being his daughter, Akane.
I can't say much for Maruki because I have not played Royal 😅
But from what I've seen he's been received pretty well.
I’m surprised no one mentioned what I think is the draw of teenage protagonists - this is the sweet spot between having less responsibility in childhood and coming to terms with the responsibilities and realities of the world as an adult. Teenagers tend to think they know it all and have it all figured out. There’s a conviction and idealism that lends itself well to a cosmic save the world story - very few material conditions are stopping you from doing what’s right if you’re a teenager whose only real obligations are school and family. (This isn’t true of every teenager ofc.) meanwhile as an adult this is much harder. As an adult I’ve discovered myself way more. I also see other adults around me with so many responsibilities that the idea of dropping everything to save the world is unthinkable. This is why activism is associated with young people.
… I want an adult cast tho.
In short It really comes down to how the story is structured. I ultimately don't mind either way but I would prefer an adult cast. I've mentioned it in one of your playthoughs and you touched on it here, but I think as great as it still was 5 was the only one that suffered for its cast because the story encompassed society and government. Hell just as a thought experiment with the back stories for some of the SL I think the game becomes more compelling If say Sae Nijima, or Tae Takemi awaken to personas (not everyone needs to join the Phantom Thieves).
Lastly while I understand the concept of "target audience", I find it hard to believe the industry and writers aren't aware of how much more they are catching and where criticism is typically coming from.
On the topic of people saying that they think having them start out as high schoolers and having them age over time is a good compromise, I think it can work. The Trails series (one of my favorites) does this really well imo with the first two Cold Steel games having a primarily highschool aged cast and the later games have them as young adults. All while still giving many of them continuous growth to their character arcs. It also mixes younger aged cast members with older ones pretty well too. Granted Trails has the time to do this over multiple games rather than just one or two. It also focuses on geopolitics and war and stuff rather than the more personal stories that Persona tells so it’s not a 1 to 1 comparison. I do think it can be done though and at the end of the day all that matters is that the game is good
Definitely agree, especially when it comes to Trails. They do this very well, and have great adult characters right off the bat, too, all with complex motives and dilemmas... the aging of the characters really presents a lot of different perspectives.
I got into Trails because I got so sick of ATLUS becoming the Persona company to the exclusion of almost everything else that I branched out, and I'm really glad I did, because I have loved Trails so much.
I'll be curious to see if Metaphor is a bit more Trails-like, given the premise.
I'd participate in these if the questions were hosted on any platform other than Twitter. I REFUSE to use it, lol. Not because of the standard reasons of Elon bad and stuff (which are true) but because i genuinely think the version of Twitter that exists right now and has existed for a while, is actively horrid for mental health, especially if you are any flavor of minority, like i am (trans.)
I think adults for P6 would definitely be a nice change of pace, but for your points on teenage struggles I don’t think I’d agree since everyone has different circumstances. I know a dude pushing 30 living with his parents, no job, never cleans his room is lazy etc. and then I knew 16 year olds in high school who worked jobs and had to help out with things in the house because they had a single mother and lots of younger siblings, the high schooler had to mature and struggle way more than some 30 year old bum. It’s all about circumstances not just age lmao. That being said, adults have cool stories too and should be included in persona
Hi you might really like the Caligula Effect games is all im saying.
please please please please
Persona 1 and 2 writer involved in games about people fighting to get out of a dream world, with background music by vocaloid composers. The casts include adults and they're really really good.
Caligula 2 is an unmatched video game.
I would like a mix age cast, not like equal teen and adult but like 2 adults so at least they have someone to relate to age wise. All adults is fine too but saying no adults at all just seems boring, as time went on p5 became the "adults are so useless and rotten" game to me even though theres more to it.
Also like you said i think I'm in my "persona out" phase as i kind of don't care much or maybe im just sick of p5 specifically. Metaphor is the game I really want as it seems like something truly different from atlus which I feel they dont do much of that nowadays and fantasy is my preferred setting. (Also I've been waiting like 8 years for project re fantasy news, I WAS in highschool when that was talked about and got nothing until last year)
As a high schooler (for about a few more months) I am all for Persona mixing things up or keeping to high school. While I disagree that adults or teens are more or less interesting, some of the most interesting people I know are adults, or my youngers, I do see why people would think that. Because adulting is often seen as boring, and in many ways, it very much is boring. But being a teen can be just as boring.
Like an adult cast formed of previous Persona teens all grown up would also be super cool, because we get to see if their personality and Persona has changed along with them as they've gotten older!
Persona needs better writing in general, all the characters seem to have no life outside the protagonist (P3 a bit less than others). It’s like they are stuck in time and only the sphere around the protagonist makes them have any agency.
Outside of that the cast seems to stop developing or be plot relevant after their story beat is done, even within their own social links. I unironically think Strikers has the best script of any of the games, if they could have that with a mix of how P3 characters actually exist outside of the plot it’ll be great. It’s cute that a lot of the comments think adults are dull, I’m guessing they must be teens or early 20s.
Also the mystification of Japan and their culture by some of the fanbase is cringe (it happens in anime so it’s totally true). Oh and it’s mega unpopular but have a canon named protagonist for once, the party calling him every pronoun or adjective sounds so unnatural.
I think the biggest reason for being highschoolers is the lack of commitments restricting what you can do each day. That's also why the games all have the protagonist in second year of highschool. In Persona 3 Akihiko and Mitsuru are frequently unable to participate in expeditions to Tartarus because of their year 3 exams.
It's worth noting that Persona only gets its M rating in America. In Japan, the game's target demographic is teens like its cast of characters. P2E was about adulthood, but even P2 started out in high school.
About the highschool thing: you're viewing it with from a western perspective. I recommend you both read and watch 5 centimeters per second by Makoto Shinkai for a different angle on the idea of Japanese highschool
At the end of the day, how old the cast is isn't the key determinant of how "mature" or good the story is (although an adult cast would definitely shake things up a bit). You can explore mature themes with a predominantly teenage cast. You can make sth like SH2 with a majority adult cast.
I'm 31 and I'm still trying to figure myself out. Persona helped me with that process but I've also struggled to make real the person I think I should or could be, and so that process still goes on. I don't think there's any aging out of a series like Persona, because not everyone finds themselves in the same way, at the same rate, or at the same time in life.
i want adults because i want to see characters grown in different ways and because we dont really have a game (aside from 2.5) where we play as adults being a kid isn't a core theme of the series if you ask me
also i want to see less adults are evil and more adults learning to have passion again and that there prime isnt over just because they have to pay taxs, i want them to explore different things
also would love collage or uni
also adults would make the dating stuff a lot more "comfortable" (im looking at futaba i get shes good for younger people playing but honestly with the themes shown i feel like we shouldn't cater to kids in anyway) i like the romance and if anything they should add more (cough cough queer relationships cough cough) but theirs way to much normalization of some random man in his forties sexulising theses kids, yes that is a fandom problem at the end of the day but still (your allowed to like a younger character and enjoy there romance option thats fine but its the normalization of sexuliasion of kids) i dont think that this is a reason to change persona but a pro to doing it
but either way i just want more persona lol
I think the argument about adults having less time cause Japan's work culture could be a way to highlight hikikomoris maybe and perhaps them gaining personas is how they make their first steps to going out their rooms
dont think too deeply bout the comment above tho, i just had that idea popped up lmaonade
Honestly, I just don’t care but I just hope they have a good storytelling and character development.❤😊😅
come on guys, toshiro has the BEST character development in all the franchise. dude literally faced all the traumas from his teenage hood that still affected him as an adult and changed his entire view of the world at like what 30? he rocks
I think an adult cast would be fun. I like the adults in Persona like Adachi and Zenkichi. Also even though its different I think Catherine sort of gives a glimpse into what adult Persona could be like. The interactions in the bar with Vincent, Orlando, Toby, Jonny and Erica talking about adult problems combined with the supernatural stuff.