Persona 4/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Accidental Innuendo:
    • Chie: "Alright guys, pile on! Are you ready?" And if refused: "We're not gonna do it? Aww..."
    • To say nothing of "Yosuke pounded an enemy!" With emphasis put on "pounded".
    • Yosuke: [to Yu] "What, really? I know you were always good with your hands and— uh, never mind..."
  • Alternative Character Interpretation: In the anime, Yu has a habit of making rather... odd... comments with a straight face, which has fans debating whether he's a Cloudcuckoolander or a Deadpan Snarker with a strange sense of humor. Either way, he's a bit eccentric.
  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: An anime adaptation that so far looks to have none of Persona Trinity Soul's divisive flaws will cause that kind of reaction. Especially since the entire voice cast has been confirmed to be coming back, and the music team is working on the music as well. Has been confirmed for a US release by Sentai Filmworks
    • The announcement that the English dub of the animation will have the cast of the game returning.
      • Though there was the subsequent revelation that nobody told them they would be coming back...
    • A Persona 4 fighting game. Made by Arc System Works!
    • Persona 4. For the Vita. In HD. With new characters and costumes. The fandom exploded with rejoicing.
      • And one of the costume choices for the boys? The cross-dressing pageant outfits.
    • The game is confirmed for US release (though the Vita isn't region locked anyway) in October.
  • Anticlimax Boss: Adachi is surprisingly simple, considering his importance to the plot; honestly, he actually comes across as noticeably weaker than the rather brutal Kunino-sagiri battle that preceded him. Justified in that he's immediately followed by the much more dangerous Ameno-sagiri, but it's still a bit jarring.
  • Anvilicious: The game hits pretty early and pretty hard with the message that it's better to face your true self than to live in denial, from the murder mystery premise to the way the characters gain their personas. Of course, that's not exactly a bad message. Just a tad overbearing.
  • Applicability: Naoto is seen by many Western fans as Transsexualism, which overlaps with, but wasn't exactly the intent of the creators.
  • Base-Breaking Character:
    • Yosuke. He's either the most hilarious character in the game or he crosses the Dude, Not Funny line over his treatment of Kanji and the girls.
    • Marie, the new character set to debut in the Updated Rerelease of Persona 4, has already gotten cries of Mary Sue due to her outfit, and is either loved or hated for possibly being a new party member or resident of the velvet room. There's also Die for Our Ship from some Shippers that fear she will be "the next Aigis" and become a far more Implied Love Interest than the likes of Yukiko or Rise.
    • Broken Base: Kanji's treatment in episodes 7 and 8 of the anime, specifically Yosuuke and Narukami's reactions to Shadow Kanji as well as the the tent scene. Was it funny or really homophobic?
  • Breather Boss:
    • Shadow Rise doesn't have much HP, and while she's the first boss to use multiple elements, she doesn't have any particularly troubling abilities. It's mainly a lead-in to the fight with Shadow Teddie.
    • Shadow Naoto is relatively simple in comparison to the bosses that come before her (Shadow Teddie and Shadow Mitsuo), being vulnerable to Silence and only getting one turn per round as opposed to Mitsuo's two.
  • Cliché Storm: A lot of the Dojima family drama amounts to this, including Deceased Parents Are the Best (the Dojima matriarch being dead and a source of angst for both Ryotaro and Nanako), When You Coming Home, Dad? (Ryotaro being a workaholic who doesn't have time for Nanako and is always breaking promises to spend time with her), and a Third-Act Misunderstanding (the Dojimas being sent a threatening letter, which leads to Ryotaro turning against the Protagonist).
  • Crack Pairing:
    • The Japanese fandom has a large following for Adachi/aged-up Nanako, however little sense it makes.
    • Rise and Kanji have also turned into a surprisingly popular one as well. Interesting in the fact that, story-wise, the two have crushes on different characters, the Protagonist and Naoto respectively. To be fair, they do seem to get along quite well in the game (the game notes it may be because they're both first-years while the others in the team are second years until Naoto joins) and people may see them as an alternate Yosuke and Chie pairing without the UST. Oddly enough, this pairing might have been referenced in Persona Q, where Yukiko, at one point, believes that Kanji has a crush on Rise and should confess to her.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome:
    • The Genesis, which is the boss theme for the final boss in the True Ending. The music is very oppressive until the climactic fanfare of Reach Out To The Truth comes in, representing everything you've fought for so far.
    • Other candidates are "I'll Face Myself"-Boss Theme and "The Almighty".
    • Other good mentions are "Fog" and "Never More".
    • Long Way and Secret Base
    • Pretty much the entire Never More: Reincarnation soundtrack remix album. "I'll Face Myself" and "Reach Out to the Truth" are two of the standouts.
      • Gets more awesome when used in the anime's version of the Shadow Mitsuo fight.
    • The opening video song.
    • The Theme Song that the anime started using as of episode 13.
    • This music during the Shut Up Hannibal scene in episode 25.
    • The music used in episode 25 when everyone attains their ultimate Persona, Yu fuses Lucifer, and they all defeat Ameno-Sagiri.
  • Demonic Spiders:
    • Any Shadow with the word "Basalt" in its name. They resist (and later outright nullify) physical attacks, have unpredictable weaknesses, and while they don't have many skills, their regular attack hits like a ton of rocks. Oh, and there's one type of them that resists Almighty. You will, more often than not, drain half your collective SP getting everyone's health back up after fighting a group of Basalts.
  • Designated Hero:
    • The reason why Yosuke is such a Base-Breaking Character. He is perverted to the point of misogyny (right after a girl he had a crush on was murdered), and his tendency to make fun of Kanji's insecurities make him look like a huge homophobe. However, unlike the former, he never faces karma for the latter.
    • While Yosuke is no saint, Chie's treatment towards him doesn't paint a pretty picture of her either. She'll often assault Yosuke (and the protagonist and Kanji on some occasions) for minimal offenses, even if he apologized beforehand, she mooches off of him, and she charged money to Yosuke's credit card for an expensive suit for Teddie without asking him.
    • The rest of the Investigation Team may not be as bad as Yosuke and Chie in the Jerk Ass department, but they still have their moments, like Yu and Kanji coercing the girls into competing in the beauty pageant, the infamous Amagi Inn scene, and the times they took swipes at Kashiwagi and Hanako for their looks. Another point against them is their tendency to make short-sighted decisions, as mentioned in Idiot Plot below.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Zig-zagged. Even though Adachi was designed to be one of these, his sizable fanbase doesn't romanticize him, just find him a fun character. Not that plenty of fans don't play it completely straight, though. There is actually fanfiction where he reforms, takes the main character's place in his absence, and ends up with Nanako. Some even blame the main characters for not helping him face his inner issues.
  • Ear Worm: Notably the main theme song "Pursuing My True Self and "Your Affection". "Jika Net Tanaka" (returning from Persona 3) and "Junes' Theme" are also contenders. In fact, the Junes jingle counts as an in-universe example.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse:
    • Mr. Morooka has quite a few fans who find him funny and/or good at teaching. Some even joke that he should have been a party member.
    • Naoto. Because she's a reverse-trap.
      • Naoto was popular enough to receive a spin-off game in Japan, something only achieved before by Aigis from the previous game.
    • Adachi has been reaching this position in unthinkable levels.
    • Kanji Tatsumi, because he's going to renovate your ass!
    • Aika Nakamura, a side character introduced in the anime, saw a sudden spike in popularity after a scene in episode 6 where she stoically delivers Chinese takeout to Chie... in the middle of a chase sequence.
  • Epileptic Trees:
    • This particular game is notable for spawning even more than games of its franchise usually do, thanks in no small part to leaving certain side-mysteries from the main plot tantalizingly half-answered or unanswered at all (in order to leave plot hooks for the inevitable sequel, in all likelihood. Naoto being a descendant of Raidou Kuzunoha and/or the sister of Persona 3's Protagonist (and the two are not mutually exclusive), the exact nature of Teddie, as he's clearly not just a joe shmoe Shadow who wants to be nice to humans and the nature of the TV World and how it relates to the Dark Hour and Abyss of Time from Persona 3 are especially popular targets for tree-planting.
    • And who could possibly forget the strange eye symbol that can appear on a party member's status screen? The one that still hasn't been explained by anyone, least of all Atlus themselves?
  • Escapist Character: Yu definitely qualifies as he can romance school and TV idols, is an uncontested leader, a Supreme Chef, a Warrior Therapist and generally comes out as an all-around cool guy for absolutely everyone he meets.
  • Even Better Sequel: The gameplay is miles better than its predecessor. Most notably not having to wrassle with uncooperative ally AI in battle. Ironically, the Portable remake of Persona 3 had a number of refinements that were directly inspired by Persona 4, including the ability to instruct your teammates.
  • Evil Is Sexy: Shadow Rise takes Rise Ms. Fanservice's traits to the extreme level: she clearly moans during her boss battle, where she rides a strip pole. And "threatens" to get naked(which she does, but is Barbie Doll Anatomy) . Yosuke, who never hides how much of a pervert he is, outright says to Yu which he don't knows if he should be frightened or aroused by her as the party fights the manifestation of the idol's hidden desires.
  • Fan-Preferred Couple:
    • Despite there not being any real "official" couples (what with being able to date everyone), Naoto and the Protagonist get paired up a lot (to the point that said spoiler is reaching It Was His Sled territory). Yukiko and Rise are also very popular targets for Protagonist-shipping, more or less in a dead heat behind Naoto for second place.
    • More notable, perhaps, is Chie and the fact that she is rarely paired with the protagonist: if she's ever paired, it's usually with Yukiko, or sometimes Yosuke. Also, if Naoto is not paired with the Protagonist, she's almost always paired with Kanji. Often for comedic effect.
    • For some reason, the Japanese fanbase also seems quite fond of pairing Naoto and Rise together. This is apparently due to their Rei-Asuka-esque Red Oni, Blue Oni appeal, and the fact that Naoto looks "cute" in a dress opposed to Rise being "sensual".
      • The real reason for this is actually because of the voice actor connection. Rise is voiced by Rie Kugimiya and Naoto is voiced by Romi Paku: they've had many roles where they worked together, notably Ed (Romi Paku) and Al (Rie Kugimiya) Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist.
      • Romi Paku once stated in a behind the scenes interview for Fullmetal Alchemist that she wanted Rie Kugimiya to come and cook for her in nothing but an apron. There tends to be a fair bit of teasing subtext between them during interviews together.
    • There is numerous fanart for protagonist and, guess who, grown-up Nanako. It doesn't help that, if you max her and Dojima's Social Links, you can have her get a Childhood Marriage Promise from him.
    • And then there's the protagonist and Yosuke. Easily one of the most popular ships in the fandom (both for Western and Eastern fans), which is largely because of the considerable Ho Yay vibes between them.
  • Fandom Rivalry: Between fans of Persona 4 and fans of the other games, especially the first two, who feel that this game is overrepresented in spinoffs due to being Adored by the Network.
  • Fan Dumb: Apparently when the original game debuted, a good portion of the fanbase believed that Naoto was transsexual and, for some reason or another, did not realize that she is just a Wholesome Crossdresser. Cue the promotional artwork for Naoto's spinoff Light Novel series featuring her with noticeable breasts and longer hair. People went ballistic over this reveal, decrying Naoto's character Ruined FOREVER and calling Atlus out for insulting the LGBT community. This, despite the game making it very obvious that Naoto is female and the only reasons she dresses like a man is because she wants to appear more mature and to eventually become a detective, a profession that is heavily dominated by men.
  • Fanon:
    • Being a Heroic Mime, the protagonist's personality is ultimately determined by the player, but some personality traits have become re-occuringly in fanfiction, such as him being a Badass Bookworm, a Deadpan Snarker (his dialogue options tend to head towards Only Sane Man most of the time, but sometimes head towards this), a Nice Guy and the Only Sane Man (literal non-example, he's the only member of the party whose persona does not stem from having resolved his own mental issues (he hasn't got any); if you pay attention, most of his dialogue choices tend to edge towards this as well). Many of these traits would become canon after future games established the anime's Yu Narukami as "canon".
    • There are exactly two moments when Naoto's bust is brought into question; one vague hospital scene where she's embarrassed to have her measurements read, and again during the Hot Springs Episode. Fanon decided to take this ball and run with it straight outta the stadium, and the grand bulk of her fanart depicts her with downright tremendous assets, easily surpassing D-cups. Meanwhile in Canon, the hot springs character cut-out and the anime of the game show only a slight elevation, nothing more than a modest B-cup.
    • The "Naoto is Transsexual" has also become a popular topic of debate and interpretation. Note that, unlike with Kanji, this aspect was actually unintentional. The new Naoto spinoff has jossed this bit as well.
  • Funny Aneurysm Moment: On certain days, Mitsuo can be found standing across the street from Tatsumi Textiles. Talk to him, and he'll suspect Morooka of being the murderer. If you know what happens later in the game, this is either amusing or disturbing.
  • Game Breaker:
    • Chie, in Golden, as she gets Apt Pupil and Auto-Tarukaja. Her Black Spot and Rainy Death skills both have a 35% Critical Hit rate, the highest in the game, and with Apt Pupil and Rebellion, it reaches a 70% Critical Hit rate. By spamming critical hits, Chie can trivialize entire encounters. The only problem is that Rainy Death is only around for 3 levels before God's Hand comes along, which is arguably still game-breaking.
    • The infamous "autoleveling" trick: if you equip a Persona that nulls physical attacks and fight a group of Great Kings, they'll continuously summon Mooks. The trick? Attack a Mook once, turn on Rush mode and leave the game running overnight, and wake up to a godlike EXP reward. This was Nerfed in Golden, where after summoning a few Mooks, it'll start tossing Megidola until it runs out of SP and will keep casting it, forcing you to kill it.
    • Golden Hands now hand out tremendous amounts of cash when you kill them as well as fantastic experience for beating them too. Early game requires Chie's Rebellion/Revolution to earn the critical hits (or buying items from the Shiroku store to help get around the higher defenses), but once you start getting the Megido line of spells, then your only challenge is to kill them off before they flee. The prizes are too good, and it becomes really easy to power level.
    • Also from Golden, advancing Rise's Social Link now grants her even more abilities that turn the game into a cakewalk: once per battle, she can summon a Beehive Barrier to completely nullify a multi-target enemy spell that would have killed an ally, and if the hero is defeated, she can revive him once with full health and SP. She can also randomly pop in to heal your whole team, restore your SP, or cast a Ma-kaja or Ma-taru spell. Not to mention that your all-out attacks can sometimes get a power boost, which is just the icing on the cake.
    • Fusion and the Persona Compendium, if you've got money to burn, especially on Golden. Many of the higher level Personas, such as those obtained from completing S. Links, like Beelzebub, are extremely powerful, and with the right skills they make the game trivially easy. A few notable Personas that aren't final Social Link are available as soon as you have the money and level to put them together:
      • Black Frost comes with no weaknesses, handily absorbing Fire and Ice and reflecting Dark. It also naturally learns Mind Charge, Agidyne and Fire Amp, meaning it can set off some powerful Fire attacks.
      • Yoshitsune learns the best attacking skill in the game: Hassou Tobi. It hits all enemies eight times, more than enough to offset the weaker power of the individual strikes, compared to single target attacks like Primal Force. Buffs like Power Charge and Tarukaja can help augment this further, and if you somehow give it Victory Cry, it can wipe away all enemies and then heal your HP right back up.
      • Trumpeter has a multitude of resistances, so if you fuse it with Null, Reflect or Absorb Element skills, you can essentially make it invincible, making it so that only the seldom used status ailments and Almighty attacks can damage you. On top of that, it learns two very useful skills for buffing and debuffing. Heat Riser raises all of the stats of one character, while Debilitate reduces all of the stats of one enemy.
      • Alice, due to her powerful Die for Me! skill which is a Dark instant kill type skill. Combine that with Mudo Boost to increase its effectiveness, and she can clear away enemies with ease. She can also have a very magical oriented moveset with skills like Mind Charge and Megidola for enemies who aren't immediately destroyed by Die For Me!.
    • The ability for skills to randomly change during fusion. It is random, yes, but it is also possible for a Level 45 or 50 persona to get Victory Cry, which can normally only be gotten by Lucifer at Level 99. This makes the rest of the game a cakewalk in terms of grinding. A trick with the Persona Kaiwan, normally around Level 25 or so, can be fused on a specific day some time during June, and with enough patience and luck, it can acquire Victory Cry, which can then be fused onto other Personas.
    • Spell Master halves the SP cost of all skills that use it. This is quite useful in the Hollow Forest, in which if you have a Persona with that ability, you can essentially throw around high-level spells while your accessory recoups the cost.
  • Genius Bonus: Kintoki-Douji is a mechanical bear attached to the end of an Arrow-class missile, a design furthered by Kamui-Moshiri. The Ainu people worshipped a bear-kamui, Kimun-Kamui, through a ritual practice that involved rearing a bear cub for several years, and then sacrificing it by shooting it to death with arrows.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: This holds true in relation to Persona 3. Persona 3 was a little better received in Japan and is generally considered the better of the two games, and got far more spinoff merch due to the incredible demand; Persona 4, meanwhile, still got a decent reception but not a great one and not much secondary merch. The opposite holds true in America and Europe, though; while Persona 3 did basically bring real mainstream attention onto the franchise, Persona 4 reviewed much higher and is generally considered by everyone to be a whisper away from total perfection and quickly became the best-selling SMT title in the West ever (which actually had the effect of making Persona 4 the best-selling SMT game ever due to worldwide sales). This may actually be spilling back to its homeland as well, with several spinoff merch and sequels that are about equal with Persona 3.
  • Goddamned Boss:
    • Contrarian King, the Bonus Boss in Shadow Yukiko's dungeon. He has insanely high Attack power for his level and his Rampage attack can kill the entire party in one hit if you go back and attempt to defeat him immediately after clearing the dungeon the first time, even if defensive buffs are in play. However, he becomes rather easy if you grind through another dungeon or two and then return, or have a Persona with Null Physical on a New Game+, or simply get lucky and never see him use it.
    • Shadow Teddie, given his massive amount of health. His attacks are easy to recognize if you know his tells, so it's more of an endurance contest.
  • Hell Is That Noise: Those squelchy noises Shadow Rise makes when she's moving.
  • Hollywood Homely:
    • Ms. Kashiwagi is widely derided among the students as ugly, when she looks like this [dead link] (though more likely they're talking about her desperate attempts to "regain her youth").
    • Rise, when she's working at her family's tofu stand. Presumably it's meant to show how different she is from her idol persona, but characters genuinely believe she's an old lady just from the fact that she's wearing a kerchief on her head.
  • Holy Shit Quotient:
    • The first time the player fights a tank.
    • Margaret seems to dedicate their boss fight to seeing how badly they can screw the player over in the most over-the-top manner possible, per Shin Megami Tensei tradition.
  • Informed Wrongness: Kashiwagi is often treated like she's worse than Morooka when her worst crime was getting jealous of Rise. Even flirting with her students would at worst get her fired since her students are well-within the age of consent. To be fair though, most of this might be because she's flirty to an uncomfortable degree, doesn't seem to be a very good teacher, and generally just comes off as being pushy, desperate and just unpleasant in general.
  • Internet Backdraft:
    • Kanji's ambiguous sexuality. Especially since any outcome would determine whether a Kanji/Naoto pairing is possible or not.
    • Persona 3 vs. Persona 4. Or better yet, which of the two protagonist is better?
    • The new opening for the PS Vita Port. Apparently, just saying you don't like it will have others calling you a Non-Fan.
  • It's Popular, Now It Sucks: Now that Atlus has built up a franchise around Persona 4, this type of Hatedom has come out the woodworks. Taken Up to Eleven with the 2013 Persona event, which announced a grand total of four Persona games, three of them Persona 4 related. This event pretty much shattered the Shin Megami Tensei fandom due to Atlus' focus on Persona 4; for comparison, three non spin-off games were released since 2000 while Persona had five, counting remakes. For all intents and purposes, Persona 4 has become Atlus' equivalent of Final Fantasy VII.
  • It Was His Sled: Naoto's gender. It was actually suppose to be a surprise, but between all the fanart pairing herself with the Protagonist or Kanji and her American VA's poor job of disguising her gender it couldn't be helped. The secret was much better concealed in Japan, giving Romi Park's long history of voicing young male characters. The spinoffs not concealing this at all don't help matters either, so at this juncture, it's basically not even worth tagging as a spoiler.
  • Jerkass Woobie:
    • Sometimes Yosuke's status as Butt Monkey goes too far, especially when it comes to Saki... but then he also does things like mock Kanji's sexuality and sign the girls up for a Beauty Pagaent against their will. Naturally, this makes him something of a Base Breaker.
    • Mitsuo Kubo. Though on the surface, he seems to be an irredeemable, sociopathic murderer, one ought to stop for a moment and consider the kind of isolation he must have gone through to make him that desperate for attention that he would kill a person (who we're given reason to believe had been abusing him) and take credit for two other murders just to prove that he exists. Voices in his dungeon such as "Sadness increases by 5" and a long scream of "I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING" don't help matters either. Though his actions aren't justified, those who can see past their hatred might still wish things could have turned out better for him... or at least, that he had thought twice.
    • Saki Konishi, considering how her family endlessly berates her for her decision to work in Junes, as the opening of the store is ruining her family's liquor store business. She's also the subject of gossip from her classmates and friends, and her friendship with Yosuke ended up complicating her life even further. Sure, she comes across as a cold-hearted girl in reality (although this is debatable, as seen under Alternative Character Interpretation), but she certainly didn't deserve to die.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships:
    • The protagonist. No, really. Probably doesn't hurt that he can canonically end the game with six girlfriends and inspire a Precocious Crush in his cousin as well as a 27 year old nurse.
    • Kanji's ambiguous sexuality and chemistry with everyone on the team has resulted in fans shipping him with everybody. Naoto's still the most popular ship for him though.
    • Naoto is also one of these.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Izanami, who has both protagonists and antagonists doing her will without even needing to lift a finger.
  • Memetic Badass: Kanji. Not unreasonable, given that in canon he managed to take down an entire biker gang while he was just fifteen.
  • Memetic Molester: Igor has a very creepy expression that looks like he's going to molest you. Doesn't help that he summons you from your dreams.

"Helllllllllllllllo. PERSONA PERSONA PERSONA SOCIAL LINKS SOCIAL LINKS SOCIAL LINKS"

    • Adachi also qualifies. "Bitches and whores", indeed.
  • Memetic Mutation:
  • Memetic Sex God: The male protagonist was already pretty popular as this in the gandom, but The Anime of the Game takes his sex appeal Up to Eleven and the fans (females and males) have reacted accordingly. According to 4chan and tumblr, Brotag will get EVERYONE laid [dead link].
  • Misaimed Fandom: Most fans focus so much on Kanji's sexuality issues that they lose sight of the fact that, while that's an important factor, his real and biggest issues are with acceptance. In fact, after his level his ambiguous sexuality is only mentioned as a Running Gag, while his Social Link focuses more on being true to himself. True, whether he is straight or gay (or bisexual) is a part of his problems, but it's not the focus.
  • Misblamed: Yukiko is often blamed for the Amagi Inn incident because she forgot the time, but it was Rise who suggested to just keep it a secret.
  • Moe:
    • Rise, Nanako and Ayane.
    • Depending your preferences, many of the other girls can qualify as moe, especially during their respective social links and even more so during their christmas date events. Naoto wearing a schoolgirl uniform anyone? It doesn't even have to be a girl: Yosuke's been referred to as moe by several people, and for good reason, too.
  • Most Annoying Sound:
    • The squeaking Teddie does when he walks. It's enough that some players refuse to use him on dungeon crawls for specifically that reason. And his voice.
    • The high pitched 'ding!' sound when you miss hitting an enemy.
    • The Draining and Reflect/Countering noises.
    • That 8-bit... noise that Mitsuo's Shadow makes in Hero form before attacking. And you will hear it a lot in that battle.
  • Most Wonderful Sound:
    • "Welcome home, Big Bro!" Once it's gone, you will miss it.
    • The music that plays when you max out a Social Link.
    • Just like Persona 3, the sound cue that plays along with a Eyed Screen cut-in when a team member lands a critical hit or strikes a weakness. As of Golden, after January you can hear it as often as you like.
  • Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: Thanks to his role in Power Rangers as Adam, Johnny Yong Bosch was by far the most famous member of the cast in 2008. He plays the protagonist, but it is only battle grunts. It comes off as highly suspicious in the original version of the game that he is playing a supporting character who doesn't even have a Social Link. Not surprisingly, he is the killer.
  • Nausea Fuel:
    • The reaction you'll get besides horror at Berserk Shadow Rise.
    • The random fridge events, which involve, among other things, white miso that used to be red and an entire mushroom growing out of one of the food items. And yes, the game gives you the option to eat these mysteries, while providing Courage for doing so (at the cost of using up all your time in the evening).
  • Never Live It Down:
    • The guys crossdressing. Take a wild guess how much fanart there is of it. In Golden, their "crossdressing" outfits are all selectable costumes the party can wear while dungeon diving, and Rise has a number of (mostly complementary) comments she can make about them.
    • And then we have the One-Scene Wonder with Adachi eating cabbages because he's on a budget. Fans can't stop making fun of this, exaggerating by making them an actual pairing.
    • The infamous "Yosuke brings real swords to the public cafe" scene. Even the staunchest of Yosuke fans admit this was an incredibly boneheaded move on his part.
  • Nightmare Retardant:
    • Adachi proves that confronting a brutal killer becomes notably less frightening when he's wearing a smile that just screams 'heavily intoxicated'. And, of course, Ameno-Sagiri, lord of fog and master of oblivion... a.k.a. the giant disco eyeball smoke machine.
    • Don't worry, the anime's fixed that. Sweet dreams!
  • Padding: A common complaint about the story is that it would often come to a screeching halt for high school shenanigans that don't add to the story, but are mandatory to sit through in order to progress it. The most notable examples include the camping trip, the school festival, and the Amagi Inn scene. In a game where time is of the essence, these scenes cut into days that could be used for level grinding or building Social Links.
  • Paranoia Fuel:
    • So you're saying a secret hell populated by demons that actively try to carry out my gruesome death hides behind that television screen?
    • Sometimes when you go to the police, they will help you. And sometimes they will manipulate you into condemning innocent people who you think you are saving to an almost certain death, and they will do it all for fun. Good luck talking to the right officer!
    • As if walking through heavy fog wasn't creepy enough, this game comes along to drive home the idea that monsters are lurking in it and their world is merging with ours.
  • Player Punch:
    • Nanako's kidnapping, and her subsequent dungeon. Not to mention her apparent death. And the utter silence when you come home after that, without Nanako's cheerful "Welcome Home, Big Bro! ^_^" to greet you. Even worse, take revenge on her behalf... and get a one-way path to the bad ending, where she dies.
  • Shocking Swerve: The revelation of Adachi as the true murderer comes as a big shock to some players. You either had to pay incredibly close attention to every bit of his dialog, or use a process of elimination when given a list of suspects and go from there. While your list of suspects isn't terribly hard to eliminate (i.e. it can't be a party member, a social link, or the guy you just proved innocent), the revelation itself is barely hinted at.
  • Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped: Don't lie to yourself.
  • Surprisingly Improved Sequel: From a gameplay standpoint, pretty much everything from Persona 3 has been greatly improved and refined and several new features have been added as well. The story is more divisive with the fanbase, however.
  • Take That, Scrappy!: One is done at the Scrappy Mechanic from the third game, in which you could only control your main character. Shortly before the fight with Shadow Chie, Teddie will contact you and suggest that you switch Yosuke to manual control if you haven't already because "Compared to you, Yosuke stinks" at fighting. Yosuke, while annoyed to hear that from Teddie, concedes that Teddie has a point, and asks you to control him. Considering that Shadow Chie frequently targets Yosuke's weakness, you'd do well to take their advice.
  • Tastes Like Diabetes: Most of the time her scenes are genuinely heartwarming, but other times Nanako crosses the line straight into this.
  • That One Attack:
    • Contrarian King's Rampage, which for some reason is many times stronger than the typical Rampage, and the King's other attacks. Brought Tarunda and Resist Physical? Your main character might survive a single hit of Rampage, though that says nothing for the rest of your party. But if it lands two or three hits, you will die regardless of buffs and resistance. Nothing short of Null Physical can truly protect you, but the only way you will have that at this point in the game is either getting really lucky in Shuffle Time or being on a New Game+.
    • Whenever Shadow Mitsuo throws a bomb.
  • That One Boss:
    • It wouldn't be an Atlus game without them. The first one of many is Shadow Yukiko, having a lot of HP compared to the previous boss Shadow Chie. Her Burn to Ashes attack deals high damage, even while guarding. When she reaches half health, she'll summon a Charming Prince that will inflict your party members with status effects and leave your party members open to Shadow Yukiko's Shivering Rondo, which is nearly guaranteed to kill a Fearful target in one hit. In the original Persona 4, she didn't even have a weakness... her servant was weak to ice. It's easier in Persona 4: The Golden where she has a weakness to Ice, and her servant is weak to Elec, but the Charming Prince can still Silence Chie with Makajam. And did we mention Shadow Yukiko has more than twice her original health now?
    • Shadow Mitsuo is even worse, being able to give himself a free 1400 HP every few turns, dealing high damage, inflicting Exhaustion, and having the dreaded Evil Smile (inflicts fear on all enemies) + Stagnant Air (increases ailment susceptibility) + Ghastly Wail (instantly kills ALL fearful enemies).
    • Shadow Kanji is pretty hard too. He starts off with two assistants, one with healing and buffing spells and one that deals high damage. The assistants have a decent amount of health, and no weaknesses in the original Persona 4 (and if you're playing on Golden, they'll put up Wall spells to prevent their new weaknesses from being hit). Shadow Kanji himself deals high damage, continuously poisons male party members and enrages females, and has a massive amount of health - and no weaknesses, Golden or no.
    • Also, Shadow Teddie, although he becomes extremely easy if you have a Persona with Null Ice or actually do what Rise says and guard. It's also possible to interrupt Nihil Hand by doing enough damage to the boss while he's charging up, but it's unlikely that you'll be able to manage this unless you're very high level and/or on a low difficulty setting, so guarding is the safer option.
  • That One Level:
    • Hello, Void Quest. It seems straightforward enough at first, but wait until it starts randomly changing your direction at every intersection. Plus, unlike the other dungeons, you have to find an item halfway through to proceed to the boss.
    • The Hollow Forest. The idea of limiting players and upping the difficulty might have been a great idea, and Shin Megami Tensei fans were looking forward to the idea (the level was designed by the Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey staff, after all. However, in effect, the level is just tedious. Limiting players' SP just makes battles annoying and frustrating, and enemy levels are so low that even without using SP the fights aren't difficult, just annoying. Same with taking players' items. Taking away players hard earned items, both expendable and equippable is just irritating, turning items that are usually Boring but Practical into precious rares (just leaving the dungeon to go to the Velvet Room requires the uncommon Sacred Branch). Throw in Marie's poems every time you go to a new floor, a visually repetitive design, and the fact players are stuck with default costumes (even though this is the first dungeon since several costume options are given to the players) and you have a dungeon that's just a pain.
  • That One Sidequest:
    • Margret's Social Link requires you to fuse Personas with specific abilities. Prepare to sink a lot of spending money into the Compendium, looking up the correct Arcana combinations, praying that the resulting Persona inherits the right moves, etc.
    • Ai (The Moon) is the easiest Social Link character to piss off. One wrong move, and you can have a Reversed or even Broken Social Link. There is also the fact that as long as you don't ruin the Social Link, you can end up dating her only to break up with her or vice versa. This can cause problems either way: you could end up with her breaking up with you if you actually wanted her for a girlfriend, or you can end up with her sticking with you even when you were interested in someone else, which is fairly annoying if you don't want to be cheating.
  • Toy Ship: Errand Boy and Spacey Girl.
  • Uncanny Valley:
    • Yukiko's ascended Persona Amaterasu is pretty cool-looking, except for the fact that it has no face.
    • Rise's radar-face persona Himiko. It looks like somebody took her face off and installed wires.
    • Mitsuo Kubo's horrible dead eyes qualify as well.
    • Namatame's usual expression, staring like that can be a little creepy, although his backstory at least makes it justified. His boss form has this pretty bad as well.
  • Unfortunate Implications: In Persona 4: The Animation, Yosuke asks why Naoto didn't catch the killer (same as he does in the game). When Naoto responds, mentioning being scared (reasonable enough, given the situation) and apologizes, Rise and Chie respond with the following statements respectively. "Of course she was scared!" "She is a woman!" Apparently, the reason that it was okay for Naoto to be scared is her sex rather than the fact that most people would be scared out of their minds in the same situation. It's lessened in the English translation of the game by also bringing age into the equation, but the sentiment's still there.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion: The Fox is actually a vixen. She has kids at the end of the game.
  • What an Idiot!: So your nephew, who you've suspected for a while of involving himself in your murder case, suddenly receives a threatening letter saying someone close to him will die if he doesn't butt out? Why, obviously the right thing to do is leave your seven year-old daughter at home alone while you interrogate him at the police station. Awesome parenting skills, Dojima! Of course, if you follow his and Nanako's Social Links, you'll learn that despite his good heart, well, parenting really is not one of Dojima's strong points.
  • What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?: Characters such as Teddie and Nanako can get reaction from fans, though in the former's case he eventually stops being a teddy bear and becomes a stud.
  • The Woobie:
    • While most of Yosuke's "moments" are funny, there are a few moments where the laughter just has to stop (pretty much anything involving Saki after the second murder, especially since after she's killed you find out she hated Yosuke all along even though he fell in love with her).
    • Namatame's pretty damned pitiful as well. Getting the love of his life murdered by a madman, getting caught up in said madman's plot as a pawn, being wrongly framed for the murders he was trying to stop... nothing seems to go right for him. You can add to his suffering by throwing him into a TV, but you'll be punished for it with the bad ending.
    • 2011 was a really bad year for Naoto. She has no friends in Inaba, the police only tolerate her when they need her, and the investigation team may as well have neon signs advertising that they are some how connected with multiple murders. Oh yes, her gender and isolation issues are as bad as Kanji's. You feel glad when she finds people who will like her for who she is.
    • Come to think of it, a lot of the Social Links have endured a lot of pain. From Ai, who creates the image of a social dominator to conceal the fact that she's suicidally depressed due to the bullying she went through in her past, to Hisano the self-loathing widow, they should be really glad that the main character is a Warrior Therapist.
    • Kanji is another one: he acts like he does because he wants to be accepted and because people made fun of his hobby (later, job).
    • Dojima is yet another one. He's gone through more in the past 6 years than most could handle in their lifetime. Having his wife killed in a hit-and-run, which caused him to become so devoted to his job that he barely interacted with his only daughter to the point that she's practically able to take care of herself at only 6 years of age (and he admits it's due to fear if you go for his Social Link), seeing her kidnapped right before his eyes, and watching her slowly die (though thankfully, only temporarily) can be pretty rough on a person. And to top it all off, he finds out that the person who had orchestrated the kidnapping was his own partner, whom he trusted and had been good friends with. And through it all, he remains completely strong and stone-faced. Almost.
    • And of course, Nanako whose sadness and loneliness whenever she's left to take care of herself by her dad is utterly heartbreaking. Her happiest moments came from a commercial jingle before you came to live at her house. It's no wonder that she latches onto you as a brother instantly. Her Woobie powers are so great that a group of teenagers are repeatedly willing to hang out with a 6 year old kid just to cheer her up.
  • Woolseyism:
    • Teddie's verbal tic was changed from adding the word "-kuma" to words in his sentences to making bad puns, many involving the word "bear" in some way. This arguably counts for his name, too, since the connotations of a cutesy bear calling itself "Kuma" ("Bear" in Japanese) don't translate well into English. Although even in Japanese, Teddie also made bear puns (just less often than the English version). This even goes so far as that when fan-subs of The Animation were being made before the dub was released, fans would insert bear puns into Teddie's dialogue rather than retain his use of "-kuma".
    • Changing "Mayonaka TV" to "The Midnight Channel".
    • "Everyday Younglife Junes" to "Every day's great at your Junes!".
    • You get to engage in some Woolseyfication of your own if you take the part-time job as a translator. You'll often be asked about how you want to translate something culture-specific, like idioms or children's speech patterns, and basically have two options - do it literally, or creatively improvise. You have a chance to get paid MUCH better if you improvise (assuming you don't screw it up), one of the "double or nothing" opportunities that determine how much you get paid.
    • The item that instantly transports you out of a dungeon was originally called "Kaereiru", from the Japanese "kaeru", meaning "return". Stateside, it's called "Goho-M". This also counts as a Stealth Pun that most people don't get until they say "Goho-M" out loud. Go on. Try it.
    • The Take That to Twilight was most likely a creation of the translator.
    • The final scene for the Fortune social link originally about the choice of pronoun, is changed to the pitch of voice.
    • The mention of Naoto's family being like Raidou Kuzunoha the 14th is the result of the translators lacking any other option to translate Chie's reference to a Japanese book series about a family of Legacy Character detectives. Does not stop the line from fueling insane levels of Epileptic Trees.
    • Shadow Kanji in the Japanese version speaks with more stereotypical gay "quirks". In the American version, he sounds more Camp Gay which is the North American stereotype for homosexuality.
    • Golden's new Lust arcana (from Crowley's Thoth deck) was renamed "Hunger" to avoid any confusing implications that Adachi was lusting after the protagonist. It's supposed to represent "lust for life" rather than just carnal desire (never mind that it has the Mother Harlot of Babylon for its illustration).
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