Persona 4/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Actor Allusion:
    • Adachi (Johnny Yong Bosch) quoting the catchphrase of Alpha 5.
    • There's also an in-game allusion. Bosch voices both Adachi and The Protagonist, and is revealed towards the end to have a persona himself... The same one that the Protagonist begins with, Izanagi. His choice for the role becomes much more obvious thereafter.
    • Yumi's tumultuous relationship with her parents has a number of parallels with Rika Nonaka/Ruki Makino's.
  • Adored by the Network: Even moreso than Persona 3, it's quite obvious that Atlus adores Persona 4, with the two games receiving a plethora of spinoff media.
  • Beam Me Up, Scotty: Adachi never actually utters the memetic "Bitches and whores" line. That one came from a doujinshi that was edited by 4chan. However, considering his misogynistic attitude towards women, the line is in character.
  • Cash Cow Franchise: Over the years, Atlus has really taken to building a franchise around Person 4, quite similar to what Square Enix did with Final Fantasy VII. To date, the series has or will produce: a Manga Adaptation, an Anime Adaptation, an Updated Rerelease, a Fighting Game Sequel, a Broadway Production, and more recently a manga and light novel spinoff with Yosuke and Naoto as the main characters respectively.
    • And this is all on top of Persona's general cash-cow status for Atlus!
  • Defictionalization: There is a fanmade recipe for the Aiya Rainy Day Special Mega Beef Bowl. Comes with a vegetarian option.
  • Development Gag: When mentioning that the police are looking for witnesses to the serial murders, Yosuke jokes about the killer wearing 'bright yellow clothes' at the crime scene. One of the original designs for the killer, as shown in concept artwork, had them wearing a bright yellow raincoat.
  • Fan Nickname:
    • Souji Seta for the protagonist, taken from the Manga Adaptation, as well as Brotag (frequently used on a... certain unscrupulous imageboard) due to his many friendships, especially his close one with Yosuke, and Banchou ("gang leader") in Japan, because of his persona Izanagi's uncanny resemblance to a stereotypical Banchou due to its Badass Longcoat (see here). The Giant Bomb community and other related websites refer to him as Charlie Tunoku, due to the Persona 4 Endurance Run.
    • Captain Pistol, referring to Naoto.
    • Mr. Pringles, referring to the King sub-type of shadow.
    • Yosuke is also affectionately nicknamed as Brosuke, due to his Bros Before Hoes Level 10 Social Link event. His name seems to lend itself especially well to this: Moesuke (for being Adorkable) and Failsuke (for being a Butt Monkey). He also has a new nickname thanks to so many of his Ho Yay scenes: Yosgay. Also doesn't help that he has the Yaoi submissive term in his name.
    • Adachi: "Cabbage Adachi", mainly due to his dialogue if you talk to him at Junes at certain points. He speaks passionately about having a cabbage-centric dinner because he can't afford much else.
    • People refer to Yukiko as Amagidyne or 'Drunkiko', due to the Kings Game scene.
    • Ryotaro Dojima: Brojima. Mostly because you are the most likely to be the murderer, but are above suspicion. And Ace Detective, because of a certain webcomic.
    • The Inaba Scoobies for the Investigation Team, if the WMG and IJBM pages for this game are anything to go by.
    • T. Bearson: Teddie, circa his appearance in The Ultimate In Mayonaka Arena, which is what you get when you 'bear'-ize M. Bison's name.
  • Life Imitates Art: This report about a man who was found dead, with no signs of trauma, hanging upside down from a telephone pole. Shouldn't that be death imitates art?
  • No Budget: Atlus was going through severe financial trouble during development, and this shows quite a bit if one digs through the data, as the game was essentially built on top of Persona 3 in a way that is more or less akin to a fanmade hack, with much of the data assets remaining buried in the code in a way that was most likely not test data. This is testament that despite the lack of money, the game was still financially and critically successful, though this did not prevent Atlus from going bankrupt a few months after release and subsequently bought out.
  • The Pete Best: Erin Fitzgerald wasn't the first English voice for Chie, but she's become the most iconic.
  • Playing Against Type: Johnny Yong Bosch, used to playing the role of The Hero (which he does in this game, seeing as how he's pulling double duty), playing the lovably incompetent detective, Tohru Adachi. Later, it turns out he's playing even further against type when it's revealed that Adachi is in fact the killer, complete with an evil laugh when summoning his Persona.
    • Rie Kugimiya, Shana Clone specialist... now voicing an extremely bubbly, nicely-proportioned teenage idol Rise. In fact, one Image Boards commenter said that she's not only "not a Tsundere", but also an anti-Tsundere.
  • Relationship Voice Actor: Yuri Lowenthal, the idealist, is Yosuke while Johnny Yong Bosch, the cyinicist, is Adatchi (and the Protagonist).
  • Rule 34: Obviously, but an infamous adult video company (TMA) is working on a live-action porno of it!
  • Talking to Himself:
    • Johnny Yong Bosch as the Protagonist/Yu Narukami and Tohru Adachi. More prevalent in The Animation and Ultimax, where Yu actually has dialogue as opposed to him remaining silent outside of battle, where his only lines are his grunts and battle cries when summoning his Persona. These games feature a very different delivery for Adachi by Bosch, in which his voice is raised to a higher pitch, likely to keep the two characters' voices distinct during these scenes.
    • Matthew Mercer as Taro Namatame and Kanji Tatsumi, in the second half of The Animation.
    • Mary Elizabeth McGlynn as Naoto Shirogane and Noriko Kashiwagi in The Animation, where she serves as The Other Darrin to Naoto's original voice actress.
    • Technically, everyone who encounters their Shadow self.
  • Technology Marches On: Small example: the cell phones used by the Investigation Team look rather dated by 2011 terms.
  • Word of God:
    • In the second episode of the Persona Stalker Club, Atlus confirms that Yosuke enjoys listening to Western and Japanese music, including those from soundtrack albums.
    • The fifth episode, basically an Adachi special, confirms that although Adachi carries a lighter on his person for whenever Dojima needs it, Adachi himself doesn't smoke.
    • The twenty-third episode mentions that Adachi is very familiar with the Moonlight Bridge since he used to drive there when he was working in the city prior to his transfer to Yasoinaba.
  • Word of Saint Paul:
    • Troy Baker stated during a convention that after asking the English Voice Director for motivation, that he voiced Kanji as if he was indeed gay. Baker has gone on record that he does believe Kanji is gay.
    • Erin Fitzgerald later admitted to doing the same thing with Chie in The Golden, portraying her as 'madly in love' with Yukiko after reading the script.

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