The Persona series, as iconic as it is, has always featured a protagonist with two undeniable qualities in each of its entries - but creative producer and chief director of Atlus' renowned Persona team Kazuhisa Wada has a good reason why the main characters are always young and male.
As covered by Famitsu, Wada reveals during the CEDEC + KYUSHU 2024 conference why every Persona lead is a high school boy - and the answer is quite simple. "Persona is a story about growing up," says the producer (translated via Google, DeepL). "Such a setting can be most effectively used with students on the verge of becoming adults." That's not the only reason behind Atlus' decision to feature young men, however.
"Another big factor is that student life is something that most people have experienced, so it's easy to empathize with," continues Wada. "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." That's why the Persona team chose to opt for boys over girls, but it's not exactly a hard or permanent rule for the developers.
"Therefore, we chose a male student as the protagonist, on the grounds that a man would be best if we were to depict growth," explains Wada. "However, we don't necessarily think that adults or women are unacceptable." Could that mean a future Persona title with a female lead, or possibly an older main character? Metaphor: ReFantazio at least serves as proof that Atlus as a whole doesn't always go for high schoolers as protagonists.
Persona 3 Portable was unique, too, allowing players to choose between a male and female protagonist. While Persona 3 Reload later excluded this option, the more recent revamped JRPG still saw the release of Episode Aigis - a game-sized DLC centered around a female member of the S.E.E.S. As a longtime fan of the Persona series, I hope we see more such content down the line - perhaps even in Persona 6.
While you wait for more Persona, check out some of the best JRPGs available right now.
