Persona producer on why most Persona protagonists are male school students

Speaking with attendees at the CEDEC + KYUSHU 2024 conference, Persona producer Kazuhisa Wada, explained to the audience why they usually select the main protagonist to be both male and a school student. Wada told fans at the question and answer session at Kyushu Sangyo University the following:

Wada said that games in the Persona series are coming-of-age stories focused on growing up, and the most effective setting for those kinds of stories are of students on the verge of entering adulthood. Wada added that student life is an almost universal common experience and people can easily identify themselves with it.

As for the gender of the protagonist, Wada said that the choice is related to maturity and mental age. For high school students of similar ages, it seems like female students tend to have a higher mental age than male students, Wada continued. To better depict the themes of growth, the developers decided that a male student as the protagonist would fit better. However, Wada insisted that the team doesn’t think that adults or women as protagonists aren’t a possibility to consider.

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