Characters / Persona 5: Joker

Persona 5 Main Character Index
The Phantom Thieves of Hearts (Starting Members [Joker] | Later Members [Goro Akechi | Kasumi Yoshizawa])
Confidants (Sae Niijima) | Targets - Palace Rulers / Endgame Antagonists (The Dreamer) / Minor | Other Characters
Spin-Offs: Strikers (Jail Monarchs) | Tactica | The Phantom X

The Protagonist / Joker / Ren Amamiya / Akira Kurusu / Various^note Mao Tomokawa (12/13), Hinato Ashida (12/14), Izumi Urata (12/14), Sumito Futami (12/15), Shousuke Tsuji (12/15), Kousuke Kiryuu (12/19), Ritsu Minatogawa (12/19), Rui Asou (12/20), Tsukasa Kujou (12/21), Takio Sumida (12/21), Shinya Konno (12/22), Tohru Matsuda (12/22), Akinari Doumiya (12/23), Rei Udagawa (12/25), Yuuki Kiryu (12/25), Kouichi Miyama (12/26), Koyomi Igarashi (12/27), Ranma Toujou (12/28), Satoru Kurachi (12/28), Jou Yakumo (12/29), Itsuki Onda (12/29)

Arcana: 0. Le Mat (The Fool), XXI. Le Monde (The World)

Persona: Arsène (Initial) → Satanael (Ultimate) → Raoul (Third-Tier, Royal DLC); Picaro Personas (DLC); Wild Card

Weapons: Daggers and semi-automatic pistols

Exclusive Skill (Royal): Phantom Show - High chance to inflict Sleep on all enemies.

Voiced by: Jun Fukuyama (JP), Xander Mobus (EN)

Stage actors: Hiroki Ino (The Stage)

"I'll reveal your true form!"

^{Click here to see Joker}

^{Click here to see Arsène}

The Pillager of Twilight

^{Click here to see his Ultimate Persona}

Satanael, The Rebel Archangel

^{Click here to see Raoul}

The Great Thief

The Leader of the Phantom Thieves

The show's over.

Arsène: "I have heeded your resolve. Vow to me. I am thou, thou art I... Thou who art willing to perform all sacrilegious acts for thine own justice! Call upon my name, and release thy rage! Show the strength of thy will to ascertain all on thine own, though thou be chained to Hell itself!"

The game's main character, a second-year high school student who is transferred to Shujin Academy in Tokyo after being put on probation due to a bogus assault conviction — the result of stopping a would-be molester that happened to have connections. While he seems meek and passive, this behavior hides the heart of a trickster that eventually leads to him becoming "Joker", a notorious Gentleman Thief. He is aligned with the Fool Arcana and is subsequently the resident holder of the Wild Card. As such, he can switch between hundreds of Personas at will, and said Personas can grow stronger through fusion and bonding with others.

His Persona is Arsène, the hero of Maurice Leblanc's Arsène Lupin novels. One of fiction's most famous thieves, Lupin is the archetypal Phantom Thief, a gentleman who steals from criminals worse than himself, both for profit and for the fun of it. As a Persona, Arsène looks like an almost demonic version of the original hero, combining his standard classy attire with massive black wings, long-fingered hands, and a constant Cheshire Cat Grin, all topped off with red and black attire.

His ultimate Persona is Satanael, the Gnostic equivalent of the Devil. Depending on the tradition, Satanael is either another aspect of God himself, or the greatest of God's angels, who rebelled against his creator in an attempt to steal back his freedom, only to be cast down from Heaven for his pride. In Persona 5, Satanael combines aspects of both, sporting elements of Yaldabaoth the Demiurge (ironically enough) and Shin Megami Tensei's standard interpretation of Lucifer, the Rebel King of Hell.

His third-tier ultimate Persona in Royal (DLC) is Raoul, an alias that Arsène has used in multiple stories and notes it as his middle name. In The Damsel with Green Eyes, Lupin uses the alias Viscount Raoul D'Andresy and was referred as such in the entire book. This name seems to more directly refer to the story "The Queens Necklace" where it tells the tale of a young boy named Raoul who stole the valuable necklace at the young age of 6. In actuality, the boy is none other than a young Lupin and it's heavily implied that Raoul is his real first name. Raoul appears as a modern gentleman in a red coat and fedora, smoking a cigarette, with black and gold mechanical wings.

No relation to the Clown Prince of Crime or the characters featured in the Persona 2 duology.

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A-C

• The Ace: To be fair, the previous two protagonists in the series were good at pretty much everything they did, but Joker takes it to new heights with sheer style.
• Adaptational Badass: In the anime, Ren takes on Akechi with no help from the rest of the Thieves and won. He also beats Shido's final two phases alone with no damage, by himself.
• Adaptational Personality Change: While his personality is all up to the player in the game, the anime adaptation portrays Joker in his civilian life as somewhat shy and awkward, as opposed to the brashly cool headed confident troublemaker he's implied to be in the game, albeit being slightly more snarky in the dub. Conversely, the manga adaptations play up Joker's heroic Deadpan Snarker tendencies.
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • Since he can get under-the-counter pharmaceuticals at a shady back-alley clinic in exchange for his assistance in various clinical trials to help develop a new medicine, Dr. Tae Takemi christens him "my little guinea pig", and continues to do so if they start dating.
  • In the anime adaptation, Ryuji occasionally calls him "Renren" in Japanese dub (with the nickname being used once in the English dub). His reaction to it makes it cross over into Embarrassing Nickname.
  • In the Mementos Mission manga, Akechi starts calling him "Watson-kun" after he agrees to help him with a case.
• All According to Plan: The Phantom Thieves orchestrated the entire casino heist, up to and including Joker's arrest by the authorities, to give him the chance to convince Sae to cooperate with them directly, while also exposing Akechi and Shido as members of The Conspiracy. That said, it apparently never crossed his mind (or the other Thieves' for that matter) that the police would drug him in captivity just before his interrogation, turning the whole 'fake your death' thing into an insane Gambit Roulette.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Subverted in-game to an extent. He has a record and looks the part, but all of the female cast members he can enter relationships with fall for him not for being sexy, or distant, or dangerous, but because he's a supportive, compassionate person who helps them learn to handle and overcome their own issues.
• All-Loving Hero: Despite being dealt a bad hand and subject to injustice at such a young age, he not only helps twenty-odd people from all walks of life deal with their personal issues, but specifically forms his own Caper Crew that forcefully reforms corrupt members of society in order to galvanize abused people like himself to stand up for themselves.
  • Especially prominent in Royal, as he shares especially special strong bonds with the new characters along with his rival Akechi, whom, despite the terrible things he's done, Joker still sees as another victim of society that he wishes he could save. He's really the only one Akechi gets along with while Joker does everything to save Maruki from himself.
  • He can be very nice and forgiving to Shadows, if the players choose to, though this is ineffective in negotiations with non-Timid shadows.
• All of the Other Reindeer: He starts the game with pretty much everyone wanting nothing to do with him due to his "record"; fellow students, teachers, police officers, his legal guardian, even his own parents (though we only hear this interpretation from Sojiro early on; it's unclear how true it actually is). While his situation never changes completely, at least his classmates eventually stop spreading rumors about him. Sojiro gradually warms up to him, to the point that he starts treating him like a son. This is actually justified, considering the implications where Yaldabaoth has been brainwashing the public into thinking him as the most dangerous criminal that has to be rehabilitated since that lawsuit with Shido, which was also implied to be rigged by Yaldabaoth just to have an extra toy he can mock humanity with.
• All Your Powers Combined: Like previous protagonists following Persona 3, Joker has access to the "Wild Card" ability, which allows him to control hundreds of different Personas and increase their power through the bonds he forms with his friends and accomplices, giving him access to a wide assortment of elemental affinities, attacks, and other skills.
• Always Someone Better: Unintentionally becomes this to Goro Akechi, whose refusal to stand down during his boss fight stems from jealousy over Joker's good fortune in both the friends and love he gained despite being near-condemned by his false record. On top of that, there's his general refusal to believe that Joker is better than him.
• And I Must Scream: In the bad ending. After getting Killed Off for Real by Akechi, he is brought to the Velvet Room where he is chatised by Igor (actually Yaldabaoth) and the twin wardens for failing in his mission to unknowingly carry out the former's plan. As punishment, he is to be trapped in his cell forever, with nothing to free him from it or even end it.
• Animal Motif:
  • It's not as prominent as Yusuke's fox or Ryuji's monkey, but the developers noted that Joker was designed to be reminiscent of a cat (despite his mask being bird-themed), possibly due to him being deceptively docile, elegant, hiding mysteries, and the fact that he often wanders through town like a stray cat while carrying a cat in his bag.
  • His mask's design may be bird-themed, but it doesn't exactly look like an eagle or a crow. However, when compared with Arsene's design, with its rounded head, long 'eyebrows', flowing wings, and taloned stiletto heels, it invokes the image of a horned owl, an often overlooked bird of prey that specializes in stealth. Satanael and Raoul are explicitly batlike.
• Anti-Hero: Downplayed. He and the rest of the Phantom Thieves do turn people into weeping messes by force, but their targets are generally in positions where the only way to stop them is via stealing their treasures, and their minor targets undergo a change of heart without much issues. Otherwise Joker and the rest of the thieves are kind-hearted people who are legitimately doing good.
• Apologetic Attacker: He can tell the final boss of Royal "I'm sorry" before starting the fight.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Gives out plenty of these to the various Shadows he encounters to interrogate their motives, considering the small amount of dialogue he has, these make up a great deal of what he says. Exaggerated with Ichinose in Strikers when he causes her to physically recoil.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In Royal, we get to know from Kasumi about some crimes Kamoshida fabricated for him using Mishima. These include murder, burglary and....elephant tusk trafficking. Now, that is just ridiculous.
• Asleep in Class: Like in Persona 3, it's possible for him to do this with enough ranks in Kawakami's Confidant, granting him points with a certain other Confidant or a random social parameter rather than putting him in good condition for Dungeon Crawling.
• Attractive Bent-Gender:
  • One of the DLC costumes you can obtain for the male characters in Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight has Joker cross-dressing as a female police officer.
  • A piece of official art for the Mementos Mission manga depicting him as a genderbent police officer makes him look startlingly attractive, he also spent around 1-2 chapters in said outfit in the Mementos Mission manga, disguised as a female police officer helping Akechi interrogate a victim.
• Aura Vision: His "Third Eye" ability allows him to detect the danger level of Shadows, see which receptacles are hiding treasure, identify otherwise interactive places like gaps and ledges, and even determine the identity of potential Confidants, by displaying various color-coded auras around the object or person in question.
• Badass Adorable: His Adorkable mannerisms and personality, handsome looks and overall badassery certainly makes him this.
• Baritone of Strength: Both Jun Fukuyama and Xander Mobus give him a reasonably deep voice, particularly Mobus, which is more evident in his rather aggressive battle quotes (as seen here). Arsène, for his part, speaks in a smugger version of Joker's voice, highlighting his position as The Leader of the Phantom Thieves.
• Badass Boast: In the manga, he gets one during the fight with Shadow Kamoshida, which doubles as a Shut Up, Hannibal!.
  Shadow Kamoshida: So what if I beat up on a slave or two? Who cares? The same goes for you rats! Do you really think you can do anything?!
  Akira: Yes, we can. If we work together, we can take down one crummy adult.
• Badass Bookworm: Pretty damn smart and intelligent, even for a Persona protagonist. He can even potentially get top of the class-level marks on his tests.
• Badass Driver: Sort of. He's the Morganamobile's designated chauffeur in Mementos, but Makoto seems to be the crew's getaway driver since she actually has taken driving lessons.
• Badass Finger Snap:
  • Joker uses items in battle by snapping his fingers.
  • In Strikers, he ends his All-out Attack with a finger snap.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Joker's Metaverse outfit consists of a fancy suit complete with a double-breasted vest and pocket handkerchief and a pair of red gloves.
• Badass in Distress:
  • At the end of The Caper that serves as the game's Action Prologue, he's cornered by a triple wall of police officers carrying riot shields while acting as a decoy to allow the other Thieves to escape, and is subsequently captured, beaten, bound to a chair, drugged, and beaten again. Subverted in that he was supposed to get captured, and eventually he mostly rescues himself, provided you don't get a bad ending.
  • Played a bit straighter in the Good Ending, as his friends' actions are instrumental in securing his eventual release from juvenile hall.
• Badass Longcoat: His thief outfit incorporates a stylish high-collared black trench coat that goes down to his ankles, the coattails of which beautifully flap behind him as he runs.
• Bash Brothers:
  • At his choice, he can display this dynamic with Morgana, Ryuji, Yusuke, Akechi or any combination of the four. Subverted with Akechi with The Reveal that he's the traitor all along. Reconstructed when he rejoins the team during the third semester, especially since he is the only male party member Joker can pull off a Showtime with. Even better when it was improvised rather than prepared and/or planned.
  • In Persona Q2, he shares this dynamic with both of his predecessors the P4 Protagonist and the P3 Male Protagonist with their Unison Skills.
• Battle Couple: At his choice, he can become one with Ann, Makoto, Haru, Kasumi/Sumire or any combination of the four. Futaba doesn't count since her dynamic with Joker strictly falls under Combat and Support.
• Battle Cry:
  • When attacking a Shadow's weakness, Joker will frequently order his persona to "Ravage them!". When using one of the DLC Personas, he will instead use the battle cry of the Persona's past user, such as shouting "It's Sho-Time!" when using Tsukiyomi.
  • His canon battle cry is "It's Showtime!", according to various sources (when he initiates an All-Out Attack that wins the battle, his quote is "The Show's Over", referring back to it), sometimes saying it before they begin the Palace Infiltration after sending the calling card. Strikers implements this as his Pre-Asskicking One-Liner when performing a Showtime Attack.
• Beware the Quiet Ones:
  • A fairly silent, humble figure in his day-to-day life, Joker regularly tucks himself into an invisible space while making himself small and out of the way: his greatest strength in the real world is helping others become stronger by helping them recognize and overcome their weaknesses. Even then, many of the responses he can give in-game are quite sassy and dismissive — and God help you if you are a target.
  • Depending on which options are chosen in dialogue, he can be quietly confident or snidely brash. But when he's confronted with actual injustice, he still holds himself back, even up to the point of potentially giving Akechi a second chance after Akechi tries repeatedly to kill him. But in battle, he has no qualms about going all out, and he will absolutely not stand for injustice even when he's trying to keep a low profile.
• Big Brother Mentor: To Shinya Oda from the Tower Confidant. Shinya himself notes halfway through the confidant that he sees Joker as an older brother. Amusingly, the Confidant starts with Shinya acting as a sort of mentor to Joker on how to handle gun fights. This dynamic reverses when Shinya's personal problems come to light, with Joker being there for him to listen and/or offer advice, guiding him through his problems. Unlike all of the other Confidants, who manage to figure out Joker's identity as a Phantom Thief, Joker has the option to explicitly tell Shinya by the end of his Confidant (who can also deduce it otherwise), particularly because of how much Shinya had grown.
• Big Eater: Joker can eat his way through all of Big Bang Burger's colossal burger-eating challenges if he has enough Guts, Knowledge, and Proficiency (Level 2 in each for the first challenge, Level 3 for the second, and Level 4 for the final challenge). He has virtually no trouble with eating large amounts of food. Morgana expresses appropriate amounts of disbelief when Joker finishes the Cosmic Tower Burger.
  Morgana: Y-you've done it again! Come on, we should head home. I'm full just from watching you...
• Blatant Lies:
  • Some of his dialogue choices involve this. When meeting Kawakami as a maid, she asks how old he is, and he can say he's in high school (which is the truth), he's in college (which is a semi-plausible lie), or that he's "a dad" (which is obviously false).
  • During Sae's interrogation, he repeatedly refuses to give information on his fellow Phantom Thieves, even though Sae's deduced the identities of all the human Phantom Thieves. Near the start of the interrogation, all three of his responses to Sae talking about mental shutdowns are either evasive or claiming that he hadn't even heard of them before (though this could be justified by the effect that the Truth Serum is having on him).
• Blind Without 'Em: Subverted; he only wears those glasses to look less intimidating, and can see perfectly fine without them. In a skit during Royal, Ryuji tries on Joker's glasses, and notes that his vision hasn't changed at all.
• Blood Knight: Shows hints of this from time to time, from awakening his Persona in a bloody frenzy of smirking insanity to flashing scornful leers at his enemies when landing a Critical Hit. When ambushing Shadows, he launches himself several feet into the air to plant the heels of his boots into their shoulders and tear their masks off their faces, grinning while his enemy violently bursts into a tar under his hand. Being Joker's other self, Arsène is just as bloodthirsty.
  Arsène: Kill them however you desire. Run wild to your heart's content!
• Borrowed Catchphrase:
  • When using the DLC Personas, a number of Joker's battle cries and comments upon learning a new skill will evoke the original user of that Persona.
  • When he meets the Persona 3 cast in Q2, he can say "I don't care" when asked by P3 Hero to continue being their leader. Yukari is surprised by how spot-on the impression is while P3 Hero dejectedly wonders if he actually does say it so often.
• A Boy and His X: Morgana is technically not a cat, but he acts as Joker's pet for all intents and purposes and the two are practically inseparable most of the time.
• Breaking the Bonds: After spending the game being imprisoned in the Velvet Room in the past or in Sae's interrogation room, Joker finishes off the final boss by breaking the chains holding back Arsène's true power.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • In February 2015, Atlus put out a Cut-and-Paste Note newspaper ad where Joker declared he would crash an upcoming Persona concert. Sure enough, near the end of the event, the lights were "shot out", and he proceeded to steal the show with P5's first gameplay trailer.
  • A similar stunt occurred when Joker shut down and "infiltrated" the 2018 Video Game Awards theater to announce his participation in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: As long as the player is maxing stats, he's absolutely this. Rarely does he ever pay attention to lectures, and almost every single time he's shown in class, he's either staring out the window or on his phone. Nevertheless, he's still considered one of the more intelligent members of the Phantom Thieves, and regularly makes anywhere from above-average to top-of-the-class grades. It becomes even more pronounced on a NG+, where he does little to no studying outside of school, unless Makoto is getting the team to prepare for exams.
• But Now I Must Go: Like the Persona 4 main character, he has to go back home at the end of the game, because he's no longer on probation. Unlike in P4, this doesn't stop Joker's friends from tagging along with him.
• Call-Back: Interestingly, he's the third character in the series to be named "Joker", the other two being Jun Kurosu and Tatsuya Sudou from the Persona 2 duology. Like his predecessors, he also responds to people who have a wish to be made true by calling their phones and wears a mask to protect his identity. However, P5's Joker is the only one who genuinely helps people, albeit still through illegal means.
• Call to Agriculture: Starting Haru's Confidant quest chain allows him to harvest vegetables with her at the school's rooftop.
• Canon Name: While he has no static given name, he does have an official nom de guerre in "Joker". It's the code name that Morgana picks for him, and as with most Atlus games, in promotional material the creators enter his name as "Protagonist" even though they would address him often as "The Phantom" instead which doesn't come up often in the game itself. In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Catherine: Full Body, characters simply refer to him as "Joker", with no mention of his alter-ego.
  • The manga adaptation, which began serialization shortly after the game's Japanese release, goes with "Akira Kurusu", after he just went unnamed throughout the Persona 5: The Day Breakers OVA, where he's referred only by his heist codename. The odd thing here is that "Akira" is actually spelled with the kanji for "Daybreak", which might make the Day Breakers OVA a Protagonist Title. It's still unknown if Atlus came up with the name and named the OVA as such.
  • The anime, Dancing in Starlight, and Persona 5: The Phantom X give him the name Ren Amamiya, and Royal defaults to "Ren Amamiya" instead of whatever the player entered if the language is changed mid-game, making it the closest to the definitive name for Joker as Atlus is concerned.
• Can't Drop the Hero: In Persona 5, Royal, Q2, and Strikers, Joker is the only character that must be in the party at all times. In the original game, it's also game over if he gets taken out, though this is not the case in Q2, Strikers, or Tactica.
• Cape Wings: The image is invoked in Arsène's design. His wings are meant to simultaneously symbolize the dark cowls of thieves and the freedom they have to go wherever they please.
• Cassandra Truth: As part of his interrogation, he tells Sae everything she needs to know about him working with a talking cat, stealing hearts, and wandering around mental landscapes, while leaving out details that would incriminate his friends and confidants. It takes him explaining half a dozen incidents for her to actually believe it.
• Casting a Shadow: As the resident Wild Card, Joker can switch Personas at will, but his initial (and most iconic) Persona, Arsène, starts off with Eiha, which is a regular, dark-element attack spell. In Persona Q2, due to the inability to switch Main Personas, he becomes one of the resident Curse specialists, and the only one to innately learn Maeigaon. Within the context of the Phantom Thieves, he's the only one who can use Curse skills until Akechi joins in both the original game and in Royal, whereas he's the sole Curse specialist in Strikers.
• Celibate Hero: There is the option to play him this way, and the player is stuck with certain default choices for most story-important social events if Joker does not enter a relationship:
  • In Hawaii, he's stuck hanging out with Ryuji, Yusuke and Mishima by default. If Makoto and Hifumi's respective Confidants are at a high enough level by the time the trip takes place, they can also invite Joker out to the beach, although they do it more as a close friend and not as a romantic partner.^note Due to the school trip's date and the steep requirements to progress in either Confidant, it is next to impossible to properly court either Makoto or Hifumi by the time Shujin flies to Hawaii, hence why their own events are more platonic in nature. Contrast with Ann and Kawakami, both of whom can be romanced well before Hawaii, have to be dating him for their events to show up and are explicitly more affectionate about it if Joker chooses to spend time with them.
  • If he has no relationship during the Cultural Festival, Haru acts as the game's default choice to have both get to know each other, although Ryuji and/or Mishima can tag instead if one or both of their Confidants (much like Joker's potential girlfriends) have been maxed out.^note Unlike the above example, choosing Makoto here now requires that Joker date her, and the dialogue between the two reflects said choice.
  • He spends Christmas Eve with Sojiro and Futaba if he doesn't date anyone around that time.
  • Finally, Ryuji passes by the cafe on Valentine's and hands Joker chocolate while complaining about girls. In Royal, this gets expanded to include Yusuke, Morgana and Sojiro, who lays down some relationship knowledge on the boys and offers to buy them food. Additionally, any female Confidants (sans Caroline and Justine) he's completed but opted to remain Platonic Life-Partners with hand him obligation chocolates on the 15th during set intervals throughout the day; at the very least, Sae will always pass by LeBlanc in the morning to deliver her chocolate personally due to being a mandatory maxed-out Confidant. This affects White Day as well if Joker is single, as he instead gets gifts for Sojiro on Morgana's recommendation since he would have no romantic Valentine to reciprocate.^note It is still possible to obtain these friendship chocolates on the 15th if Joker is dating someone, but only if he stays faithful to her; any more will trigger the expected consequences.
  • Much like 3's Makoto and Yu before him, spinoffs like the anime, Strikers and Dancing in Starlight depict him as single (or at least not in a relationship with any of the four female party members). He's still given a fair amount of Ship Tease with his female teammates, but nothing beyond that. For example, in Strikers, he gets the choice to spend time in Sapporo with any of the girls one-on-one in a Ferris wheel ride, while another event in Osaka allows him to accompany all of them for a trip to Tenboto, which does end with the girls pressuring him into answering which one of them he'd rather date or otherwise just spill the beans on his love life, although his answer is not definitive.
• Character Tics: Has quite a few. He can regularly be seen pushing up his glasses, playing with a lock of his hair, spinning his phone on his fingers, twirling a pen between his fingers, or shoving his hands into his pockets during his idle animations or in cutscenes, and he will often appear to rub the back of his neck when choosing certain Dialogue Tree response or doing an activity that raises a social stat. He also taps the floor with the tip of his shoe when nervous or bored and habitually tightens his gloves during his Phantom Thief activities, to the point it's part of his All-Out-Attack Victory Pose, Idle Animation, and running animation.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: A borderline example. Unlike his predecessors, Joker can regularly engage in various human parameter-increasing activities like martial arts workouts with a fighting dummy and pull-ups in his room; gameplay-wise, this actually boosts his stats.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: Arsène has a constant grin made of hellish flames plastered across his face. In fact, the highest level of curse magic he can use to kill his foes with forms the same blood red flame-smile on use.
• Chick Magnet:
  • Manages to be an even bigger one than his predecessor. He can simultaneously gain the affections of every last female party member and most female Confidants, for a total of nine potential romantic partners. In addition to Ann, Makoto, Futaba, and Haru, this includes a famous shogi player from another school, a journalist, a fortune teller, a medical doctor, and even his homeroom teacher. Royal adds in another romantic partner for Joker to pursue, the accomplished gymnast and Phantom Thieves' Aloof Ally Kasumi Yoshizawa, bringing the total number of potential romance partners to ten. Cheating will get you punished, albeit not permanently (thanks to Sojiro). Even if one opts for the 'friendship' route during the penultimate stage of their Confidants, it's highly evident in their behavior that most of the girls end up falling for him anyway, and are just unwilling to act on their feelings unless he makes the first move. Haru, for example, sounds outright heartbroken if you choose to stay platonic with her, and has to retreat to her room after her Rank 9 event. And while he can't actually romance the Velvet Twins, it's obvious that Caroline and Justine also fall for him, and their "fused" form, Lavenza, will even give him a heartfelt Love Confession if he talks to her with the reward for beating the twins in his inventory.
  • It gets lampshaded in Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight. Ryuji and Yusuke are jealous of the fact that Joker is getting friendly with the ladies and interrogate him to learn his secret.
    Ryuji: Goddamnit... You get all the luck... Geez... Your connections are a freakin' mystery, man. You even got the in with a hot doctor. There's gotta be more where she came from. C'mon, man, hook us up!
    Joker: Find one yourself.
    Ryuji: Gettin' all defensive, are ya? What've you got to hide?
    Yusuke: They say that all's fair in love and war... We need to set the record straight. [flexing his fists] You're going to tell us everything. Prepare yourself.
    Ryuji: Yeah! Time to let the cat outta the bag! [Ryuji and Yusuke subject Joker to a rapid-fire series of questions]
  • Joker's cameo stage in Catherine Full Body also lampshades the fact that he can be played as a womanizer. The thieves will get on his case about it too.
    Yusuke: Rumor has it that men here are unfaithful. Don't tell me Joker is—
    ...
    (after completion) Midnight Venus: Oh, dear Leader. You look like a heartbreaker. Don't get carried away, okay?
  • In Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth, the girls confront him about his womanizing with thinly veiled threats should he choose to flirt with Hikari.
    Morgana: Seriously... If you keep getting carried away like that, you're going to end up in some real trouble someday.
    Haru: [giggling] You're fussing too much, Mona-chan. There's no way Joker would ever do that—right?
    Ann: That's right. You'd never make a girl cry—huh, Joker?
    Joker: [Eye Take] [breaks into a cold sweat]
    Makoto: Yes, the rumors about him being sleazy turned out to be false accusations... Isn't that so?
    P4 Hero: Ah—This maelstrom I'm sensing in them...
    P3 Hero: Yeah... Joker, you might want to watch your back.
  • Strikers refrains from giving him a canon love interest, but it does highlight his status further with one optional interaction he can get with his female teammates in Osaka. If Joker chooses to go with the girls to Tenboto instead of Ryuji and Yusuke, Sophia asks him about who he would be most likely to date between all four of them. Even with Joker's responses being very non-committal and even outright denying he's interested in anyone, the girls all pressure him into choosing all while Morgana and Sophia awkwardly witness everything from the sidelines.
• Chivalrous Pervert:
  • He checks out Ann along with the other boys during two animated cutscenes, and can potentially flirt with and tap nearly every girl he interacts with, but still, he's quite protective of the girls — especially Futaba, with whom he's shown to be very accepting of her general eccentricity and goes out of his way to protect her from her Evil Uncle — and there's no doubt that all of his female Confidants would be knee-deep in shit (if not dead) if it wasn't for his constant help.
  • He can also be very conscientious of the girls he's interested in if you choose to play him that way. In Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, Ryuji asks what Joker's type is. Joker can respond by saying that the girl he's dating is his type, which Ryuji immediately lampshades.
    Ryuji: A'ight, next up! What's your kinda girl?
    Joker: One I fall in love with.
    Ryuji: [accompanied by "correct answer" sound effect] There it is—a classic answer that offends absolutely no one!
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Inverted. Over the course of the game, he is betrayed on three separate occasions: by the woman he protected from assault, by the Traitor who sells him out at the Casino, and by "Igor" himself, who turns out to be an impostor manipulating him to sate his own god-complex.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Arsène himself notes this — as the last time Joker tried to help someone in need, the penal system slapped an assault charge on his record for his trouble — and even wonders if the resolve he showed in the past was genuine or not. This in turn proves to be the catalyst for his Persona Awakening, as his desire to help the helpless is the basis of his rebellious will, allowing him to form a contract with Arsène and summon him to save Ryuji from Kamoshida. From that point on, Joker refuses to allow a single person to suffer if he knows about it, no matter the risk to himself. This ends up compromising his identity with all of his confidants when they see that the people causing them problems suddenly have convenient changes of heart after they told him about them.
• Clark Kenting: In a literal sense, as he started wearing Purely Aesthetic Glasses after he was convicted for assaulting Shido. He's also the only one of the Phantom Thieves not to customize his school uniform.
• Clark Kent Outfit: Kawakami's massages reveal his gallivanting around the Metaverse has given him a rather ripped physique, which is normally concealed by his outfit. It's shown quite prominently in the Mementos Missions manga.
• Cloudcuckoolander: You have the option to play him as this, as there's a weird or joke response option in most Dialogue Trees.
  • While trying to get into Kamoshida's Palace via the Metaverse app:
    Ryuji: What's this eyeball-lookin' thing?
    Joker: Cute logo, huh?
  • After Morgana shows up in the real world:
    Ryuji: A cat's speaking! Can you hear it too?
    Joker: Meow?
    Ryuji: This is no time to be jokin' around!
  • When Morgana asks Joker to say something witty back at Makoto for blackmailing them, the player has the option to say "Something witty," much to Morgana's chagrin.
• Clear My Name: Given who got him in the whole mess in the first place, Joker doesn't make any effort to do this as well as knowing nothing else about the guy who has also seemingly disappeared. Upon realising that it's Shido and he's marked as the next target, Joker is given the opportunity to get the assault charge marked off, but Sae points out that it's going to be difficult to do that. He's officially given a blank slate at the end.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Plays this to both Yusuke and Futaba during their Confidants, but more so with Futaba.
• Clueless Chick-Magnet: The manga has him unknowingly charming girls. For example, in the Dengeki Manga Anthology, Joker runs into Kawakami on his way out and ends up wooing her with his honest assessment that she's a better maid than the ones he spent with in the café. Morgana responds by warning him to "Keep your philandery in moderation," as Joker is oblivious to Kawakami blushing at him.
• Cold Ham: Joker rarely speaks, but while in the Metaverse, his dramatic facial expressions, mannerisms, and penchant for flashiness say plenty.
• Combat Pragmatist: Fighting fairly is usually discouraged in SMT-related combat, but Joker makes it a point to dupe opponents with flair. From flashbangs, to ambushes, to using the environment, to calling in backup to stun opponents, he'll use just about any trick he can come up with to tip the battle in his favor as long as it can be done stylishly.
• Combat Parkour: Fights quite stylishly with his knives and guns, shredding his enemies with nimble, curving movements, and can learn a showy Gun Fu special skill that can knock even The Reaper off his feet.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character:
  • There are a few notable differences between him and the P3 male protagonist:
    • The P3 protagonist eventually becomes a relatively well-respected student and the majority of his/her friends are from the school, while Joker has a bad reputation up until the end and only four of his Confidants outside of the party are from Shujin Academy (with two of them being teachers^note Kawakami and Maruki and two of them being introduced in Royal^note Maruki and Kasumi/Sumire).
    • Both are part of organizations to fight against those who have wronged them. The P3 protagonist is a relative newcomer to S.E.E.S.,^note At the start of the game, Mitsuru, Akihiko, and Yukari are already members, while Shinjiro is a former member and ends up being roped into their fight against the Shadows, which were responsible for killing his/her parents when he was very young. By contrast, Joker was falsely accused of a crime by a corrupt politician, and is a founding member of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts alongside Morgana, Ryuji and Ann.
  • He makes a bigger Foil to the P4 protagonist, Yu Narukami:
    • Yu is a model student who works in secret to help the police solve a series of crimes. He wears his uniform in a casual style, but in contrast, his hair is neatly styled. Meanwhile, Joker is a delinquent on probation who commits crimes against the real crooks because the local police can't or won't do anything about it. He wears his uniform quite professionally, but his hair is unkempt.
    • Yu puts on glasses while fighting Shadows because said glasses help him see through the fog of the Shadow world, where he also wears his school uniform. Joker wears Purely Aesthetic Glasses to make himself look harmless, and he removes them while fighting Shadows in the Metaverse to reveal a stylish thief outfit modeled by his own Persona. Both remove their glasses when they become unnecessary at the end of the game. Yu can see through Izanami's fog, and Joker's name is cleared and he no longer has to live a lie.
    • Yu has a pretty clunky fighting style that leaves the impression that his preferred weapon is more heavy than he would like, awkwardly swinging his swords like a baseball bat, and he only gets any proper fighting skills in the fighting game spin-offs. In stark contrast, Joker displays highly choreographed attacks and ultra-proficency with knives and handguns.
    • Yu went from a big city to a small town for a fairly mundane reason (his parents are overseas and he's living with his uncle), while Joker had to go from a small town to a big city because he's on probation after being Wrongly Accused for "assaulting" a Corrupt Politician, his parents apparently "got rid of him for being a pain the ass",^note according to Sojiro, who was admittedly not very sympathetic at the time and he had to transfer schools.
    • Yu's school life is extremely important, and the fun times he has at Yasogami High are a major part of the good times he has during his time in Inaba, as is his predecessor from P3 for whom after-school clubs were integral to keeping up Social Links. Joker's school life, in contrast, is almost non-existent (albeit not to Tatsuya's level), and all of his Confidants are with people around town who are similarly shunned by society. Some of the most unpleasant parts of the game take place at Shujin, and he even stops attending school altogether for a month after Sae frees him from his interrogation, although that's justified due to having to fake his own death. However, school does remain an integral part of the game for a few stat-boosting reasons (along with one of his confidants being his homeroom teacher) and often provides hints and foreshadowing in the game.
    • Both Yu and Joker have the option of pulling a Face–Heel Turn by cutting a deal with the main villains of their respective games; Yu with Adachi, and Joker with Yaldabaoth. Yu has to take the initiative in making the deal by willfully concealing Adachi's guilt and then privately confronting him about it later. Adachi is outright shocked when Yu willingly destroys evidence linking him to the crime and gleefully taunts Yu over it. Yu is visibly distraught by his actions, knowing that he'll remain under Adachi's thumb for the rest of his life. In Joker's case, it's Yaldabaoth who offers him a deal after a failed attempt to have him killed, and once Joker accepts, he keeps his word, not appearing to be particularly surprised by the outcome (though he does comment that Joker ultimately succumbed to his own desires). Joker, in turn, seems to have no issues whatsoever with his decision, and in fact sports a sinister smirk knowing that the city is effectively under his control.
    • In the animation versions, both used dragon-like Personas in specific scenes. Yu used the Kohryu Persona based on an Eastern dragon, while Joker used the Seth Persona shaped like a Western wyvern.
    • In a flashback, it's shown that Yu's old classmates did not take the news of him transferring well, showing that he's well-liked. Joker, however, is treated as a pariah following the incident.
  • Previous protagonists generally tend to lean towards swordsmanship. Joker is a Gunslinging Knife expert.
  • The ultimate Personas of the P3 and P4 protagonists are Messiah and the God of Gods Izanagi-no-Okami respectively. Joker's ultimate Persona is an analogue to the Fallen Angel Lucifer and an enemy of God.
  • Unlike his predecessors' anime counterparts, Ren is rather shy and introverted, and doesn't have a dry sense of humor or serves as a Straight Man when joining his friends' hijinks.
• Conveniently Seated: On the second-last seat next to the window with Ann directly in front of him, usually to show them both whip out their phones in class.
• Cool Big Bro: Joker has a tendency to act like a caring older brother to those younger than him:
  • He's only a year older than her, but he certainly acts this way with Futaba — aside from being her Living Emotional Crutch, he cooks for her, plays video games with her, and lets her barge into and monopolize his room. You can play a subversion, though, if you romance her, in which case Joker becomes an Understanding Boyfriend.
  • Played straighter with Shinya Oda, a troubled grade-schooler who Joker acts as a surrogate brother to in his Confidant link.
  • Royal allows him to act as this to Caroline and Justine, via optional hangout events that involve taking them to a variety of places throughout Tokyo to teach them about human culture.
  • In Strikers he becomes this to Sophia on her quest to learn about the human heart. One of her in-battle voice lines even has her awed by his coolness.
• Cosmic Plaything: Put yourself in Joker's shoes for a moment; you were just an average kid in your hometown walking back home early in the evening. Everything is fine, until you saw a woman get assaulted a drunken man attempting to force himself on her. You step in between them, and in his continued attempts to get to her, he stumbles and cuts his forehead. Obviously, he's the one going to jail, right? HA HA HA—No. All of a sudden, you get framed for assault, you're expelled from your school, taken to court, sentenced to a year of probation far away from your hometown, your parents did nothing (possibly because they couldn't do anything about it), and your whole life pretty much went to hell simply because you happened to piss off the most corrupt politician in the country. Suffice to say, things do not get any better from there. Then it turns out, your "probation" wasn't that simple, nor was it even a typical probation; Yaldabaoth rigged all the circumstances for these things to happen because he already compromised the Velvet Room, and knows that you are the Trickster Igor foresaw who can change the ruin he imposes unto the Public, so he wants to compromise you so he can "prove" that Humans Are Flawed EVEN if he blatantly set you up.
• Country Mouse: It's mentioned a few times in passing that Joker's hometown is somewhere in the countryside. He presumably had to come all the way to Tokyo because no place but Shujin would take him thanks to his criminal record.
• Cultured Badass: You can't increase the Knowledge stat without hitting the books. When he's not bashing Shadow skulls or making crooks repent for their crimes, he's likely back at Leblanc brewing some coffee or picking up shogi with Hifumi.

D-H

• Dark Is Not Evil: He and his Persona are both Blood Knights and wear black and red clothing, and Arsène naturally uses darkness spells and has a sinister, demonic appearance fit for a messenger of hell, but they're actually anti-heroes fighting Shadows and far worse criminals, rather than outright villains.
• Dark Messiah: In the second bad ending. After making a deal with Yaldabaoth, Joker keeps up his activities as the Phantom Thief, but uses his power indiscriminately with the Public being brainwashed by Yaldabaoth to be unable to speak up or think for themselves, effectively taking over Tokyo and turning it into his own police state.
• Deadpan Snarker: There is almost always a sarcastic dialogue option available, even towards the snobbish Creepy Twins who act as his prison guards in the Velvet Room. Caroline always seems to get the blunt of it, though.
  Caroline: Hey, are you laughing at us!?
  Joker: I sure am.
• Deal with the Devil: In the second bad ending, Joker is able to make a deal with Yaldabaoth in which in exchange for not interfering with his plans with the Holy Grail, he will stop the worlds from merging and leave control over the city to the Phantom Thieves. Doing so will result in Joker and Joker alone getting fame and becoming a force of terror against Tokyo.
• Death Glare: Gives an especially icy one to Yaldabaoth in the final battle just before he blows the god's head off with a bullet empowered by the Seven Deadly Sins.
• Decon-Recon Switch: Joker is both a Deconstruction and Reconstruction to the Magnetic Hero, but this is more prevalent in Royal with the Third Semester than it is in the vanilla game scenario. Throughout the game, Joker can start a transactional like relationship that turns into a strong bond that inspires loyalty and friendship from the other, especially with the playable thieves. However, because Maruki makes it so that none of the issues that caused the thieves own troubles happened in his actualized reality, Joker is left a footnote to the thieves newly idealized lives since the events that catalyze the start of their meeting and friendships were erased until the thieves snap out of Maruki's actualization. If Joker accepts Maruki's reality or missed the deadline for the third semester Palace, Joker's "erasure" from the lives of his confidants and fellow Phantom Thieves can potentially be permanent. The Reconstruction comes by reaching the good ending, where, the thieves thankfully were able to snap out of Maruki's actualization, but they were left guilty for a good portion of time for nearly falling to Maruki's reality and forgetting what their friendship with Joker has taught them, and how important meeting Joker had been to their lives. This incident becomes the catalyst to their third awakenings in Royal and after reality is restored, they rally Joker's other confidants to free him from prison and clear his name.
• Defiant to the End: In the Deadline Game Overs, rather than give his killer the dignity of a response, he merely glares right at them right up until they pull the trigger.
• Depending on the Artist: While mostly consistent, Joker's appearance varies slightly in some of the spin-off material. Namely, his hair and glasses. His hair can be very defined and on the shorter side, or it can be a solid black shaggy mess. Are his glasses square? Round? Large? Small? There really doesn't seem to be an answer.
• Determinator: Massively so. Whether it be an unfair and unjust probation, two supernatural twins beating down on him, or the living embodiment of man's desire for social order erasing him from existence, he doesn't quit.
• Devious Daggers: Fittingly for a pragmatic thief, Joker wields a surprising hodgepodge of knives and daggers ranging from kukris to kopis and skinning knives, as well as a few machetes, and at least one scalpel as his melee weapons. This is in contrast to most Persona protagonists, who generally prefer swords. It's implied this started due to the bad rumours Kamoshida had spread about him when starting at Shujin, one of which was that he carried a concealed knife on him. Once he awakened to his persona, the students' cognition of him resulted in that becoming his default weapon.
• Did They or Didn't They?: Like in 3 and 4, romancing a female party member or Confidant and then reaching the 10th rank of their Confidant link will heavily imply that Joker and his lady companion of choice were physically intimate, but this time, the game lays the suggestion every single time he brings a girlfriend to his room.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?:
  • Did he just nail a physical god in the head to save Christmas? Nah, he just shot the godlike, corporeal manifestation of Tokyo's collective desire for social order with aid from the separate corporeal manifestation of Tokyo's collective desire for freedom to save Christmas. No big deal.
  • In Royal, he also did the same against the living incarnation of the Ain Soph Ohr, a being far more transcendent that Yaldabaoth. Without summoning Satanael this time, mind you.
  • In Strikers, he didn't nail a Physical God in the head (because said entity doesn't have one), but he makes the finishing blow against a maniacal AI who believed she was God by stabbing her in her heart.
• Disguised in Drag: In the Mementos Mission manga, he disguises himself in an outfit that looks very similar to his leather cop outfit from Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight while assisting Akechi with an investigation.
• Diving Save: When first attacked by the Sphinx in Futaba's Palace, Joker leaps to push Makoto out of the way of flying debris before she gets squashed.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: An inversion, given that he's the viewpoint character, but based on Sae's initial reaction when she saw him in the interrogation room, she didn't expect the mastermind of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts to be that random kid in the background during one of her arguments with Sojiro.
• Domino Mask: His bird-styled Mask of Power covers around his eyes and the bridge of his nose, but leaves the rest of his face visible.
• Downloadable Content:
  • In Sonic Forces, his mask and suit are available as DLC costume pieces.
  • In Catherine: Full Body, he is a DLC character for the Babel and Coliseum modes, and the other Phantom Thieves provide running commentary.
  • He is the second DLC character to be revealed for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
  • His third tier Persona, Raoul, is available as DLC in Royal and Persona 5 Tactica.
  • Arsene and Satanael are DLC personas for Persona 3 Reload.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Like the P4 protagonist, Joker is also one of the few SMT protagonists to receive a happy ending in his game. With his probation complete, he is now a free man.
• Easily Forgiven: On White Day in Royal, the chosen girl will accept Joker's apology and forgive him for the Valentine's Day mishap if Joker cheated on them. Likewise for the ones you didn’t take out, they are still civil with him and wish him good luck when he says his goodbyes just before he leaves Tokyo.
• Elephant in the Living Room: Morgana isn't exactly doing the best job of saying hidden as he frequently pokes his head out of the bag or hops on Joker's shoulder. Yet, no one at school says anything despite it being a pretty flagrant violation. It's implied in some Confidants and random NPC chatter that most people, school faculty included, are aware he's got a cat with him, but choose to ignore it due to all the scary rumors surrounding him.
• Equippable Ally: Not Joker himself, but he can execute one of his Personas via the Electric Chair to turn them into equipment or skill cards. Many of the best weapons and armor in the game can only be obtained by itemizing his Personas this way. For instance, executing Lucifer along with a Model Gun as a base (which can be obtained from the Dark Net or by trading Mothman figures in Akihabara) will produce the Tyrant Gun, a weapon for Joker with a whopping 390 attack power, far exceeding any of the guns purchasable or customizable at Untouchable.
• Et Tu, Brute?: After his capture in the prologue, he struggles as he's pinned to the ground... but when he's told that he's been sold out (presumably by one of his friends), he gives up. And then it's massively subverted when it's revealed that his behavior was all an act — he and his team knew exactly who the traitor was from the very beginning, and had anticipated every single one of Akechi's actions.
• Evil Laugh: Joker will spout impressive peals of impish laughter when certain villainous DLC Personas such as Tsukiyomi gain new skills through leveling up. This is even more noticeable with his third-tier Persona, Raoul, as he bursts into maniacal laughter while using his signature skill.
• Excellent Judge of Character:
  • Joker is able to make friends of nearly anyone, and make those friends into close allies and outright accomplices with enough time. Only one confidant (Akechi) does anything to betray his trust, and not only does Joker anticipate this from the outset, it's implied that their relationship actually made that desire waver.
  • The Thieves' Den is referred to as Joker's own Palace, which means that the Phantom Thieves and Confidants that appear there are in fact his cognitions of them, which are so much like the originals that they might as well be.
• Expelled from Every Other School: He was expelled from the school in his hometown when he was convicted of assault. Shujin Academy, a stuffy, elite preparatory school looking to gain some good publicity for "reforming a criminal", warily accepts him on the condition that he behave himself while he's enrolled there. If he doesn't, his next stop is juvenile detention.
• Eye Scream: In the manga, he stabs Shadow Kamoshida in the eye with his knife, which gets him slammed to the floor in retaliation.
• Face Death with Dignity:
  • In the deadline bad endings, all his killer gets from him is a stoic glare. Averted in the Non-Standard Game Over, where he is visibly shaking with fear, and subverted if he doesn't sell out his teammates to Sae, where he doesn't actually face death at all. Sae's cognition of him does a good job of this though.
  • Arsène is unique as he's the only Persona who isn't visibly frightened when being fused or turned into a item, which in this game, involves getting his head chopped off, getting hanged, or facing the electric chair. In fact, if and when he gets chosen to fuse, he tells Joker "We Will Meet Again" when the time comes, which he keeps his promise in the reprise of the opening scene.
• Face–Heel Turn: In the second bad ending, having been resigned to apathy and despair, he strikes a Deal with the Devil with Yaldabaoth, turning him into a force of terror changing hearts of people in Tokyo as he pleases.
• Fake Memories: The details of how he is arrested in the Nonstandard Game Over endings — usually as an indirect consequence of failing to reform a target's heart in time, along with terrible things happening to some of his friends — are these due to his drugged state during the interrogation.
• Faking the Dead: In order to avoid the bad ending where he dies, Joker exploits a phone modified by Futaba using the Casino's reality warping ability to activate the Metanav App when Akechi attempts to kill him and tries to make it look like suicide, making him kill Sae's cognitive Joker instead while the real deal calmly sits in the interrogation room with a smug grin on his face like the Magnificent Bastard that he is. Once his "death" is broadcasted, he escapes the police building with Sae's help, and has to remain in Leblanc without showing his face until the Thieves can send Shido's Calling Card.
• Fallen Angel: His Ultimate Persona is the Gnostic version of the Trope Codifier, Satanael.
• The Farmer and the Viper: At the beginning of the game, he rescues a woman from being sexually harassed by a drunkard. She thanks him by testifying that he randomly assaulted her. Justified as the drunkard is actually a powerful politician, and promised that he would make her life a living hell if she didn't, and that the probation has supernatural elements involved that wished to use Joker as a mockery against mankind. At the end of the game, she retracts her statements and confesses what really happened, which helps Joker go free.
• Fate Worse than Death: Should the deadline for Maruki’s Palace not be met, Joker will be put into an eternal slumber.
• Faustian Rebellion: When Joker realizes that his "journey" to "rebel against society's corruption" is actually a warped game for Yaldabaoth to toy him around and use him as a mockery against humanity, he can reject Yaldabaoth's "mercy offer". If he does, he will perform his true rebellion against Yaldabaoth himself, and is no longer bound to the rules of the wicked Shadow of God's "game".
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: Fits the third mold in relation to his two immediate predecessors, being a gunslinging, knife-wielding Phantom Thief with the ability to Le Parkour, sneak around Palaces, Flash Step between various forms of cover, hold enemy Shadows at gunpoint, and One-Hit Kill Shadows on surprise attacks. He also has the best tactics of the three, such as Baton Pass, Random Fire/Bullet Hail, and Down Shot.
• The Fixer: His team role outside of combat. Need to turn a pirate's hoard worth of gold and jewels into cash? Need to snap up an (airsoft) assault rifle or a (replica) battle ax? Want an article on the front page of tomorrow's paper? Or a backpack's worth of experimental drugs? Joker knows the people to call and will happily take care of all of it.
• Flash Step: In a step up from previous protagonists, Joker can jump from cover to cover during Dungeon Crawling, flying forward several feet in a flash of Speed Lines.
• Force and Finesse: In Royal's third semester, he acts as the Finesse to Akechi's Force in their Showtime. Joker attacks the enemy with a precise dagger slash and a well-placed gunshot, while Akechi hacks the enemy into twitching gobbets of meat with his sword.
• Foreshadowing: Joker is heavily ostracized by everyone in Shujin and even all of Tokyo, after his incident with Shido. Near the end of the game, we find out that the Velvet Room he's trapped in is actually the Quarantine Cell, housing the most dangerous and heinous criminal in the world. This means that having Joker ostracized is actually a part of Yaldabaoth's mechanisms and he really made the public think Joker is a very dangerous criminal capable of destroying the current social order.
• Frame-Up: He is wrongly accused of assaulting a drunk man while protecting a woman who was sexually harassed by him and is transferred to Shujin Academy as a requisite for his one-year probation.
• From Roommates to Romance: After Futaba joins the party, she and Joker can both start staying at Leblanc during afternoons and on weekends without ending up in a romantic relationship for most of her Confidant quest chain. The player can then decide if they want to pull a Relationship Upgrade.
• From Zero to Hero: Player Character goes from misunderstood delinquent to the world's savior.
• The Gadfly: Depending on how you characterize him, he's either this, a Cloudcuckoolander, or a mixture of both. Since choosing the weirder or more joking dialogue options tends to net a response, he could very well be saying them just to get a rise out of people.
  Makoto: Honestly though, I'm in shock. She thought I was a robot...
  Joker: Beep boop.
  Makoto: Don't tease me!
• Gender-Blender Name: Both official names (Akira and Ren) are unisex names.
• Gentleman Thief: His "Joker" identity certainly seems to evoke this, judging by his Nice Suit, Domino Mask, and dramatic performance at the Night of the Phantom event.
• Good Counterpart: He can be seen as this to Jun Kurosu, the Joker of Persona 2: Innocent Sin. They share many similarities aside from their aliases: they were treated with suspicion in school due to a reported history of violence, lead a group dedicated to bringing about happiness for people who request for their services, and were the Unwitting Pawns of a godlike entity who granted them powers. But unlike Persona 2: Innocent Sin's Joker who is dressed in white, Joker's Phantom Thief outfit is primarily black and grey. While Kurosu eventually lost sight of his well-intentioned goals and becomes corrupted by Nyarlathotep, Joker never strayed from his path for justice unless of course he accepts either Yaldabaoth's or Takuto's deals.
• Grin of Audacity: His signature expression as Joker, fitting given his stance as a defiant rebel who stands against overwhelming odds.
• Guest Fighter:
  • In Granblue Fantasy, he was made available as a recruitable character during a 2018 crossover event, "Persona 5: Thievery in Blue".
  • He was the first revealed downloadable character in the "Fighter Pack" for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
  • Joker is DLC for Catherine: Full Body'', which has him replace Vincent with the other Phantom Thieves, except Akechi, providing running commentary.
  • Joker was added as a dimensional hero in AFK Arena.
  • Dragalia Lost makes him a recruitable adventurer during the "Caged Desire" event as a Shadow Dagger.
  • He appears in NieR Re[in]carnation under the "Caged Rebel" title with a weapon specialty in one-handed swords. The two-parter event "Record: Rebellion's Illusion" and "Record: Rebellion's Reality" events has him and Makoto investigate a Palace belonging to a suicide cult in a irregular version of Shibuya with the help of Hina Akagi, the female protagonist of Re[in]carnation's 2nd arc.
• Guile Hero: Besides his talents as a pseudo-therapist, he's constantly noted to be a trickster at heart. He can bribe, manipulate, and negotiate with enemy Shadows to get them do what he wants, and he's even able to play the Traitor like a fiddle. Even more impressive, though, is the fact that he managed to earn the trust of jaded prosecuting attorney Sae by appealing to her lost sense of justice during an interrogation in which he was exhausted, beat-up, and blitzed on an unknown drug.
• Gun Kata: When he faces the P4 Hero in Q2, Joker uses his pistol against the latter's sword in close combat and it ended in a stalemate.
• Gun Fu: His "Down Shot" ability (which you learn by befriending the Tower Arcana Confidant) allows him to knock down nearly any foe by unloading all his shots - or just six with Tower Rank 6 - while flipping all over the place like an acrobat. Many of his Master Arts in Strikers enhances his proficiency with his handgun, allowing him to perform charged shots, or combo finishers that not only allow him to tag distant enemies but also transition him into air combos that have him dash towards them to continue his pursuit. His skill set in Q2 also exhibits gunplay through the row-piercing physical skills he learns.
• The Glasses Gotta Go: Ann suggests that he not wear his glasses to the fireworks festival as a means of dressing up since he doesn't have a yukata.
• Handguns: His firearms of choice.
• He Who Fights Monsters: In one of the bad endings where Joker takes Yaldabaoth's deal, he replaces Akechi and Shido as the Manipulative Bastard that rules Japan, carrying out mental shutdowns or heart thefts as he sees fit, and his former teammates still banished from public cognition.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: Like previous games, Joker has no given name other than using "Protagonist" or "Yourself" in previews. His title "The Phantom", used outside of the game itself, however, is static, as is his heist code name "Joker". In spoken dialogue, the characters will avoid saying his name in various ways when it's included in text by using "Joker," "this guy," "him," or just skipping his name altogether.
  Sojiro meeting Joker, text box: So, you're (player's chosen name)?
  Sojiro meeting Joker, spoken line: So, you're the guy?
• Heroic Mime: Downplayed. Unlike previous protagonists, he actually has a number of voiced lines, even in some cutscenes, and will often drop several Stock Phrases in in-game menus and battles. Likewise, most of the in-game narration is actually his Inner Monologue, instead of the second-person narration used in the previous games. However, he still never voices his Dialogue Tree lines, and has the fewest spoken lines of any main character in the game, for a total of about seven minutes of voiced dialogue in a 100-plus hour game.
  • Zigzagged in the anime adaptation, where he's still quiet and at first visibly depressed, but in just two episodes, he manages to speak more than he did in the whole game. Despite that, however, he's still treated as a non-character in the anime and he only speaks short sentences in response to other characters, with some notable exceptions.
  • Unlike Yu, he's silent in Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth and in Strikers, his canon name has never been confirmed and he probably will never get a defined personality in spin-offs.^note The creators said they "had given Yu too much of a personality in the spin-offs" and want to reduce it for Joker to be still a player insert.
  • Averted in The Phantom X, where Joker has a more defined character that actually speaks to Wonder in a cognitive version of Leblanc, even having his own talking portraits in-game.
• The Hero Dies: In the Game Over sequence and one of the bad endings, Joker is shot in the head by Akechi and ultimately killed.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: At the start of the game, he helps a woman being sexually assaulted, only to be treated as a violent delinquent by those around him due to the molester having connections with the local police.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Forms such a bond with Ryuji and Morgana, but especially the latter due to their A Boy and His X dynamics.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Joker is a decent artist. Some of the doodles that show up in the game's calendar at certain days are drawn by him and you have an optional event to draw on the class' board with chalk, with students praising Joker's skill if you do so.
  • In Royal, if you decide to take up and register for the DVD shop's membership, Morgana notes that Joker's hands are trembling as he grabs the pen to sign his name for the DVD membership, hinting that the false arrest affected Joker more than he lets on. It's also noted that Joker doesn't eat much at certain points of the story ^ExplanationNotable occassions where this is mentioned is on May 5 in-game where Morgana notes that Joker doesn't eat much, the platonic variant of Kawakami's Rank 10 confidant event where she tells Joker to take his meals seriously, and on February 13 if you chose the good ending, has Haru note that Joker looks thinner since his captivity, suggesting that Joker has eating disorders from the stress of the false arrest and everything that happened in the story.
  • Persona Q2 has optional dialogue where he suggests that he crossdresses and be the bait, and another where Joker expresses an interest in Elizabeth's cinema-themed dress, hinting that Joker enjoys cross-dressing to an extent.
  • The official comic anthologies hint and often depict Joker to have a good spice tolerance that he potentially developed from making Leblanc Curry often enough throughout the year.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: Throughout the month of December, when Joker is forced to fake his death due to Akechi's betrayal, he still manages to operate without much trouble even despite the Japanese Government now knowing his identity. Thanks to Shido's obsession with subterfuge to keep anything from linking back to him, Joker's identity remains anonymous to the public at large and even most officials are largely in the dark. In fact, Shido doesn't even recognize Joker when he's standing right in front of him, and his Shadow needs some time to recognize him once he removes his mask.
• Hot-Blooded: Underneath the cool exterior he puts on in his day-to-day life, he's a heroic daredevil who leads a group of stylishly-dressed vigilantes with great gusto, has a flair for the dramatic, and is variously referred to as a passionate trickster, a gambler, and someone who never takes "no" for an answer.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: He's One Head Taller than Futaba and Kasumi and he can romance either (or both) of them. He's also a lot taller than Lavenza, who doesn't even reach the height of his body.

I-O

• I Choose to Stay: In one of the endings for Royal, he elects to stay in Maruki's altered reality and live in Sojiro's shop for the rest of his life.
• I Have Many Names: Ren Amamiya, Akira Kurusu, Joker, The Protagonist, you name it.
• I Know Mortal Kombat: He polishes his marksmanship by playing an arcade shooter with Shinya, letting him do things like hit someone whose cognition is supposed to make him "invincible" by dodging every attack.
• Image Song: In The Musical, his solo song is "Blue Flame."
• Immune to Mind Control: In Royal, he's the only character who doesn't give in to Maruki's false reality at any point. Even in the alternate endings where everyone else (even Akechi and Sumire) ultimately ends up brainwashed into accepting it, Joker is heavily implied to be the only person besides Akechi and Maruki himself who still knows the truth.
• Inconsistent Dub: How Joker pronounces Satanael differs between the English dub for the Persona's summoning in the original game and Persona 5: The Animation's adaptation. In the former, it's pronounced "Satern-ael" while in the latter, it's pronounced "Satan-ail."
• Infinity +1 Sword:
  • His Ultimate Persona is Satanael, the Gnostic equivalent of the devil. It starts off at level 95, has top-tier skills like Maeigaon, Megidolaon, and Victory Cry, and at least resists every element.
  • His best melee weapon is Paradise Lost, gained by itemizing his Ultimate Persona. It gives him increased resistance to Curse damage. In Royal, itemizing his Ultimate Persona during a Fusion Alarm results in Paradise Lost R which has the same effect but more Attack and higher Accuracy.
  • His best ranged weapon is either Nataraja (itemize Metatron to gain +5 to all stats) or the Tyrant Pistol (itemize Lucifer to gain +10 Magic and deal more Gun damage). In Royal, they’re boosted to Nataraja EX (gain +6 to all stats) and Tyrant Pistol EX (+15 Magic) during a Fusion Alarm.
• Infinity -1 Sword:
  • His strongest melee weapons from Untouchable (and by extension, before a New Game Plus) are the Misericorde in vanilla P5 and the Punish Dagger in Royal.
  • His strongest ranged weapons from Untouchable are the R.I.Pistol in vanilla P5 and the Jig 227 in Royal.
• Informed Attractiveness:
  • Inverted. While he is really good-looking and his fangirls IRL are a testament to that (see Bishonen above), in addition to the fact that the artbook reveals the character designer intended him to be "polished and sexy", in-game, he's instead been described as looking disheveled at times, and once got the nickname "frizzy hair". However, this is implied to be more to do with his overall lack of dressing sharply and grooming; the 'charm' stat would not need to exist if there was nothing to improve upon.
  • Interestingly, the Mementos Mission manga averts this. Ren is attractive enough that he catches the attention of a talent scout.
• Inner Monologue: The game's narration consists primarily of his own thoughts as he's being interrogated by Sae.
• Institutional Apparel: During visits to the Velvet Room, he is dressed in black and white pinstripes.
• In the Hood: He starts wearing a gray hoodie with the hood up after he's "killed" late in the game, and has to stay incognito so the police and the Antisocial Force don't realize the truth. It's deconstructed slightly in that wearing the hood in public with the other Phantom Thieves actually makes him stand out more next to his friends who are wearing their school uniforms, which draws the suspicion of a nearby police officer.
• It's Personal: An update in Persona 5 Royal tweaks the boss fight with Shido in which the final stage of it Joker ends up fighting on his own. Quite fitting since Shido is responsible for Joker's arrest and criminal record.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: A non-romantic example. In the Third Semester, in an effort to make Joker side with him, Maruki reveals that Akechi didn't survive Shido's Palace and is only alive thanks Joker wishing to see him again. In the Return ending, the Thief refuses Maruki's offer, respecting that Akechi just wants to be free and would never accept a world where he only exists to make Joker happy.
• I Will Wait for You: On his last day, some of the girls he romanced say this to him before he leaves.
• Jack of All Stats: While Joker's other stats vary depending on his equipped Persona, his HP and SP stats are firmly middle-of-the-road compared to the other thieves' more specialised counts.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Depending on the player's dialogue choices, Joker can be a snarky jerk, a stoic show-off and a serial womanizer, but will always retain his heroic nature and help his confidants with their problems regardless.
• Just a Kid: At the beginning of the game, Sojiro mocks him by telling him his probation is what he deserves for sticking his nose into a dispute between adults, even if he did prevent a woman from being raped or physically assaulted.
• Karma Houdini: Zig-zagged. If he romances more than one girl at once, they eventually find out on Valentine's Day and beat his ass the proceeding day. However, Sojiro then convinces them off-screen that it was a misunderstanding, and on the final day, the girls Joker romanced act like they never discovered his cheating, meaning that he got away with his infidelity in the long run. And with the addition of White Day in Royal, the chosen girl will even forgive Joker for the Valentine's Day mishap.
• Karmic Jackpot: After everything he went through, after being the target of scorn from the masses, after going through hell and back (literally and figuratively), Joker finally gets his due after defeating Shido and then Yaldabaoth. Sure, he had to turn himself in in order to make the charges against Shido stick and no one's going to believe a teenager put a bullet in a god's head, but thanks to everyone he's helped over the course of the story, the charges against him are finally dropped, letting him live a normal life again.
• Killed Off for Real: If Joker sells out his friends to Sae on 11/20, Akechi will not be taken to the cognitive recreation of the police station, and actually is successful in murdering him. "Igor" then gives him a life sentence in the Velvet Room.
• Large Ham:
  • Shown in full flux as he dramatically introduced himself at the first Persona 5 gameplay trailer unveiling, and even in the game proper he's incredibly theatrical with a penchant for tactical taunting. You can tell he's really enjoying the whole "Phantom Thief" angle. Futaba even lampshades it, calling him a show-off when he decides to jump headfirst outside of a stained glass window while the Casino's cognitive guards chase after him, all with a cocky smile on his face, and gracefully falling several stories below in a fall that would otherwise kill him. Even as a mouse, he's over-the-top.
  • It's worth noting that his battle cries are among the most aggressive out of the entire party, which is saying something. Particularly when using a DLC Persona to attack an enemy's weakness, Joker will dramatically shout stuff like "Face my fury!"/"It's Sho-Time!" when using Tsukiyomi/Tsukiyomi Picaro's Abyssal Wings, or even something as over-the-top as "DIE, DIE, DIE!" with Asterious/Asterious Picaro's Titanomachia.
• The Leader: A more prominent example than his predecessors, as he exemplifies all four types at one point or another throughout the story. Of the four, he most often demonstrates his skills as the Charismatic type while occasionally dipping into the Mastermind type. Generally speaking though, he'll always trust his more knowledgeable (read: vocal) teammates when it comes to the plans, usually deferring to Morgana, Makoto, and Futaba depending on the situation.
• Lightning Bruiser: Joker can become this at higher levels, with the right Persona or combination of skills. With the Nataraja Gun and the Crystal Skull accessory, he can get +10 to all stats as well as Angelic Grace, making him quite formidable, and near untouchable, especially if he's using a Persona with Ali Dance.
• Like Brother and Sister: If the player chooses not to romance her, then this becomes his relationship to Futaba. Not only do they share a father figure in Sojiro, but the two will often hang out together in Leblanc and play video games, Futaba has trouble going out in public without him accompanying her, and if the player doesn't have a girlfriend on Christmas Eve, then he will spend the day with her and Sojiro instead.
• Likes Older Women:
  • All but four of his ten potential romance options are older than he is. Four of them are women in their twenties, one even being his homeroom teacher. Makoto and Haru are both a year older, being third-year students. And of the remaining four that aren't older, two of them are the same age (Ann and Hifumi), and Futaba and Kasumi are a year younger than him.
  • Lampshaded during Chihaya's Confidant, where she straight up asks him if he is into older women, with one of his responses — which opens up the option to start her romance — being an enthusiastic, "Hell yeah I am."
  • Royal even does an Orwellian Retcon to make it more abundant. When negotiating with a Mokoi in the vanilla release, two of Joker's dialogue options are, "I like older women," and, "I like younger women." Royal changes this so that the latter is changed to, "No preference," but Joker still has the option to say, "I like older women."
• Living Emotional Crutch:
  • Played straight, though increasingly downplayed, in Futaba's Confidant link. Having taken a shine to him almost immediately, Joker starts out as one of the only people she's comfortable with, and at the beginning of her link, he's the thin line standing between her and crippling panic attacks whenever she's faced with social interaction, but as her link progresses, and Joker helps engage her in situations further out of her comfort zone, she becomes less and less dependent on him for emotional support. Her Confidant link eventually ends in her being capable of socializing on her own (barring her romance path, where she says she doesn't want to be entirely independent of Joker, although, for the most part, she still is).
  • This also happens with Kasumi once it's revealed she's actually Kasumi's traumatized and questionably-sane sister Sumire. While Sumire always felt inferior to her sister, the real Kasumi, to a sickening degree, it was Joker that helped her in lifting her inferiority complex and let her step out from her sister's shadow, helping her recognize that she is her very own person.
  • It's a downplayed case with Maruki, near the end of Royal's Third Term. Having been losing every part of his utopian plan in front of Joker and unable to deal with the grief of the loss of Rumi, Maruki tells Joker to console him in a final fist fight, before outright snapping and attempting suicide. It was Joker who saved him from this fate.
  • As the game goes on, Joker eventually becomes a crutch to Akechi. It's made clear that, being the latter's Only Friend, Joker is the one person Akechi is truly willing to open up to, confide in and trust. If Joker dies when Akechi is the navigator in the third semester, the latter is extremely distraught.
• Looks Like Cesare: His disheveled appearance during the interrogation sequences fits all corners: sunken eyes, deathly pale skin, and a menacing scowl to go along with his already thin frame and scraggly black hair.
• Machete Mayhem: While he mainly uses knives and daggers, he does have a few machetes and shortswords in his arsenal.
• Mage Marksman: All of the Thieves can be considered this, but Joker stands out for two reason: one, he's a Wild Card which gives him a little bit of an edge over his peers in the mage category, and two, if Shinya's Confidant is completed, he becomes the best marksman in the team bar none.
• Magical Girl: A Gender-Inverted Trope version, with Joker falling into many of the archetype's aspects, like having a supernatural Talking Mentor Mascot cat who lives with him, doing a Gorgeous Garment Generation into his phantom thief outfit in the Metaverse, gaining an increasing number of True Companions over the story, fighting against an evil conspiracy with Supernatural Aid of their own, and so on.
• Magnetic Hero: He's able to assemble an incredibly diverse list of people to his cause by the end of the game, from his friends at school to a gamer genius pre-teen, to an Intrepid Reporter, to a disgraced back-alley doctor, to a politician running for a seat on the national government to supernatural beings.
• Master of All:
  • He has the power of the Wild Card, allowing him to wield multiple Personas. This means he basically has every elemental affinity in the game, all buffs and debuffs, and can be geared to do just about anything and everything. Personas fused or found at the endgame also usually have above average stats, making them quite well-rounded. His HP and SP stats might be middle-of-the-road among the Thieves, but even that can be remedied if he takes the time to train in the attic, gym, or old temple.
  • He keeps this in Strikers as well. Besides the aforementioned points that have carried over, Joker's actual moveset is balanced in being able to handle combat against both crowds and boss enemies without issue. In addition, being able to switch his Personas affect the various Persona Skill finishers his combo routes have; as casting these fixed skills this way does not cost SP, he can maximize attacks and buffs further than any of his fellow party members.
• Meaningful Name:
  • His codename, Joker. In a poker deck, the Joker is the wild card, representing infinite possibility, and is considered the equivalent to the tarot deck's Fool card, Joker's reigning Arcana. He's also a literal Wild Card, able to wield multiple Personas and change between them on the fly.
  • His Canon Name Amamiya Ren 雨宮 蓮: 雨 means rain, 宮 means palace and 蓮 means lotus. The double meaning here is that not only is he the leader of the Phantom Thieves come to rain on the palace, but the lotus in Buddhist teachings is symbolic of purity and cleansing. And said flowers bloom beautifully even if they grow below the mud, similar to how he manages to make the best out of his situation after becoming a pariah and maintains his strong morals as he takes the role of the Phantom Thief seriously.
  • The surname from the manga, Kurusu 来栖, translates to "coming to roost". This applies to how he finds a Family of Choice in Sojiro and the Phantom Thieves over the course of the story.
• Messy Hair: Lampshaded frequently throughout the game. He's still quite attractive, though.
• Mistaken for Gay: In one of Yusuke's social links, they mistake a pair of siblings for a couple... and it turns out they thought Joker and Yusuke were a couple.
• Morality Chain: To Akechi, after the latter's Heel–Face Turn. Akechi may be Ax-Crazy, but Joker's influence is what inspires him to do good and make an effort to redeem himself - he even excuses himself from a situation where he might hurt an innocent partially because Joker wouldn't approve.
• Morality Pet:
  • Eventually becomes this to Akechi. Though the latter character may be a psychotic murderer, Joker's kind nature and Friendly Rivalry with him eventually inspires them to pull a Heel–Face Turn and join the Phantom Thieves for real.
  • To Maruki, especially by the third semester where he tries his hardest to get through to him without resorting to a violent clash of ideals.
• Mr. Fanservice: You judge. Between his looks, outfit, voice, and attitude, he's definitely got a devoted female fanbase and more than a few fanboys. This was done intentionally as the official artbook talks about the challenge of designing him not as an average male video game protagonist, but making him actually attractive.
• Mundane Utility: He can use his Third Eye skill in the real world for several activities: identifying fish with winner's tags at the fishing pond, slowing down pitches in the batting cages, and allowing for easier pinpoint accuracy when playing darts at Penguin Sniper.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Should he decide to stay in Maruki's reality during the third term, it's heavily implied through dialogue and body language that he regrets it.
• Named by the Adaptation: The manga adaptation gave him the name "Akira Kurusu", while the 2018 Anime of the Game and the rhythm-game sequel Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight both use "Ren Amamiya" for him. Averted in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and ''Catherine; he is only referred to as "Joker" in those games as a Guest Fighter.
• Nerves of Steel:
  • Lampshaded by Mishima when being confronted by two violent street thugs didn't even do so much as make Joker flinch (whereas Mishima himself was practically crapping his pants). He's also fully willing to stand in the way of Futaba's uncle to defend her, even with the knowledge that another confrontation could lead to his probation getting revoked, simply side-stepping an oncoming punch and letting the guy fall flat on his face.
  • Lampshaded in Dancing in Starlight, where Ryuji points out that Joker is never fazed by anything. Ann wonders if Joker has always been like that, and Joker can respond that he's has.
    Ryuji: He's so chill, no matter what happens. Maybe it ain't easy, but he sure doesn't show it.
• New Transfer Student: Becoming a trend for Persona protagonists. In his case, however, he gets sent away to Tokyo after a Miscarriage of Justice lands him on probation. You join him as he's forced to transfer from his local school to Shujin Academy.
• Nice Guy: While he can be a little The Gadfly and something of an obnoxious show-off (depending on choices) and very reckless or worse selfish, he's also deeply caring and is constantly getting into trouble because he wants to help people even when they refuse him or if it's dangerous for him. He is also quick to stick up for people close to him and is willing to risk life-and-limb to change the world that has wronged him for the better. Most of the time he's a humble and quiet young man with a heart of gold and a rebel's spirit.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Joker is responsible for the events of the third semester, as by helping Maruki with his cognitive psience research Maruki was able to create the alternative world in which there is no suffering and emotional/psychological pain.
• Nigh-Invulnerable: After beating Caroline and Justine, on New Game+, Joker obtains the Omnipotent Orb, allowing him to No-Sell literally any damaging attack in the game except for Almighty attacks. In the original game, it's more of Infinity +1 Sword and a Bragging Rights Reward since you've beaten the greatest challenge the game has to offer... except in Royal, where you still have Lavenza to face.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:
  • He ends up in Tokyo after he attempts to help a screaming woman who's being assaulted by a drunken man, only for the man to end up injured. The man threatens the woman into lying to the police about Joker's involvement, eventually getting him sentenced to a year on probation. Joker is expelled, and forced to transfer to the only school that will accept him as a juvenile offender, and the man who landed him in criminal court walks away scot-free.
  • Finally subverted in the Good Ending. Getting Masayoshi Shido convicted means he has to admit he violated his probation as part of his testimony against him, and he's consequently arrested and sent to juvenile hall the day after Christmas. However, the woman who falsely accused him of assault later recants her statement, his record is wiped, and he's able to walk out of juvenile after serving only two months. And in Royal, he only experiences two weeks of that period due to the events of the Third Semester.
• Not Afraid of Hell: What unlocks his Persona, Arsène, is his realization that he is willing to commit all sorts of blasphemies for the sake of his own justice, even if they condemn him to hell.
• Not So Stoic:
  • In the manga, he's often rather agitated when inside the Velvet Room, hearing Igor and the twins talking about cryptic but ominous matters relating to the "ruin" he faces.
  • In Royal, after the events of the Third Semester have kicked in, Joker knows something is wrong but isn't sure what to do about it. Yet after sleeping on it, he wakes up to a human Morgana sleeping right next to him; he freaks and jumps out of bed, and is next seen in a flight-or-flight pose.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • You can see a few shocked exclamation marks above his head after he hears about the fact that testifying against Shido means that he'll be sent to juvenile hall.
  • He's also always taken aback whenever his non-team Confidants make it clear that he's given away his identity as a Phantom Thief.
  • In Royal, he actually trembles in fear at the sight of Maruki evolving Azathoth into Adam Kadmon. And considering how it bears a striking resemblance to how he summoned Satanael in the original game, his reaction is not unwarranted at all.
  • A subdued example happens in the manga. When Makoto calls him in and reveals that she has a recording of Ryuji and Ann talking about being Phantom Thieves, he keeps a poker face and claims not to know anything. When Ryuji calls him and asks him to meet up with the other Phantom Thieves loudly enough for Makoto to hear, his expression turns alarmed, knowing that he can't hide the truth from Makoto anymore.
  • In the Game Over sequences, he's visibly terrified when Akechi prepares to kill him by putting a gun to his head.
• One-Hit Kill: "Instant Kill", Ryuji's Rank 7 Arcana Bonus, is a skill that allows Joker to instantly defeat nearly any Shadow that's significantly weaker by Ambushing it while sprinting. Joker will then receive a free Persona so long as the player has an open slot and doesn't already have it, though he won't receive money, EXP or items (changed in Royal, where he instead receives a reduced amount of money and EXP, but still no items). He is also one of the two Thieves who have access to the insta-kill Hama and Mudo spells.
• Only Friend: To Goro Akechi, who is not exactly the easiest person to get along with even before he drops his affable "Detective Prince" facade.
• One-Man Party: A properly-equipped Joker can beat any boss by himself and rip through Shadows that outnumber him 6 to 1 like a lawnmower through grass, only ten times as fast. In fact, upon playing a New Game Plus, he can even challenge Caroline and Justine by himself, and he can actually win (provided you know what you are doing, of course).
• One-Note Cook:
  • A downplayed example in 5; he can learn to make a mean curry and coffee from Sojiro, but he's not going to be cooking the same variety of dishes as his immediate predecessor.
  • Strikers later averts this with the "Joker's Kitchen" feature where he can cook more than just curry and coffee.
• One-Winged Angel: A heroic example, during the last moments of the fight against Yaldabaoth he breaks the chains binding both himself and Arsene which allows said Persona to evolve into Satanael, the very manifestation of freedom itself.
• Only Sane Man: Should you make him accept Maruki to give everyone eternal happiness, he will be the only one that is not fully affected. In fact, while Takuto Maruki's reality goes into full effect, he just seems to go What the Hell, Hero? mode while all of his other teammates are fully content. He doesn't even interact with anyone but Sojiro there and even then he is just meagerly responding to his questions. ^note "Where is Maruki?" is even one of his dialogue options when asked by Sojiro When Takuto gives them the group pic, he even starts making this face. During the last LeBlanc snapshot in the credits, he even stares at you alongside Akechi!
• Opaque Lenses: Tying into the meek personality he adopts in public, the lenses on his glasses sometimes seem to block out his eyes entirely. According to Ryuji in Royal, the glasses are fake; Joker doesn't actually need them for vision correction purposes. It's no longer the case in Strikers, where he no longer needs to hide behind a facade in public. Even with his glasses on, his eyes are always visible.

P-Z

• Pair the Smart Ones:
  • By increasing his Knowledge stat, Joker can pursue a romance with Makoto, the student council president and Hifumi, the champion Shogi player. Completing their romances requires Rank 3 and Rank 5 Knowledge, respectively.
  • This trope also applies to a romance with Futaba, albeit to a lesser extent — her route isn't stat-locked by intelligence, but by kindness.
• The Paragon: As has been the case for protagonists since Persona 3. He's the leader and the person who inspires and helps the rest of the cast to work through their issues and become better versions of themselves.
• Parental Issues: Possibly. In the beginning, Sojiro mocks Joker by saying that his parents "got rid of (him) for being a pain in the ass", and, as with his predecessors, it's true that his parents are completely absent from the game, but this is hardly conclusive — we know the least about his homelife prior to the events of the game as we do about any post-Persona 2 lead so far, and it's as likely as not that Sojiro was just picking on him, and that all the calls/visitation with his parents happened off-screen. Also worth considering is the possibility of his parents deliberately maintaining distance from him to give him a home to come back to once his probation is over, simply because of how damaging a criminal conviction is in Japan, in a way that's unheard of in the West.
• Le Parkour: Thanks to the nature of the Metaverse, Joker can navigate Palaces at a constant sprint, jump between various kinds of platforms, perform one-handed pull-ups when climbing walls that are twice as he is tall with little visible effort, and even jump out of buildings several feet high without having anything to break his fall. The trailers and opening sequences have him effortlessly leaping off high-rise buildings and wall jumping between obstacles without a care in the world.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: In the anime, he witnesses Youji Isshiki being beaten up by loan sharks, but rather than help him, he just walks away and lets it happen. Decidedly cruel and unheroic, yes, but considering that Youji was abusive to his niece Futaba while "caring" for her, it's hard to feel any sympathy for him.
• Phantom Thief: As the leader of the supernaturally untraceable Phantom Thieves, he gets the title "The Phantom."
• Playing Card Motifs: His Persona has multiple hearts on his shoulders, and his codename is Joker. In card games, the Joker can act as either the ultimate trump card, the beneficial Wild Card, or as the harmful unmatched card such as in the Old Maid game; this reflects his role in the story quite nicely.
• The Power of Friendship: Like previous Persona protagonists, the variety and power of Joker's Personas is directly proportional to the number of bonds he is able to forge with his friends, which is reflected in being able to fuse increasingly more powerful Personas with more devastating skills as his Confidants progress.
• The Power of Hate: Arsène advises Joker to channel his hatred for his enemies into the power of his Persona.
  Arsène: Detest the enemies before you! Change that animosity into power… and unleash it!
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner:
  • Played for Laughs in the beginning of the game when the party talks to a Pixie as part of the Shadow negotiation tutorial. She begs Joker to let her go and he has the option of telling her she can go... to hell. It's so bad she forgets the guns pointed at her and calls him out on it... and then ends up becoming one of his Personas.
  • Played straight with the Final Boss Yaldabaoth, right before blowing his brains out with his Ultimate Persona Satanael.
    Joker: Begone!
  • Royal adds another one with the new Final Boss, Takuto Maruki.
    Joker: Checkmate.
• Psychotic Smirk: He strikes◊ these◊ a lot◊. In the bad ending where he sides with Yaldabaoth, he gives a particularly sinister one, complete with an impish chuckle.
• Punny Name: His name from the manga adaptation, Akira Kurusu, is derived from the rough Japanese pronunciation of "A killer kills you" in English. Doubles as an Ironic Name, as he and the Phantom Thieves swear to never kill anyone.
• Purely Aesthetic Glasses: His glasses don't actually improve his vision, as implied by his lack of glasses when he confronted the drunk and lecherous Shido in the prologue, and then outright confirmed by Ryuji when checking out a glasses shop in Kichijoji in Royal. In the Metaverse, when Joker is wearing a mask instead, he's still capable of fighting and thieving without his glasses. As an equippable accessory, they are described as being "just to make you look smart", showing that Joker doesn't need them for his eyes. He continues wearing them in Strikers despite no longer needing them due to his delinquent status being cleared. However, they are no longer Opaque Lenses, and his eyes are always fully visible while wearing them.
• The Quiet One:
  • Played with and invoked. His seemingly quiet nature is actually a ruse to hide his true self and keep himself out of trouble in the public eye, this being Japanese society where people are quicker to judge. He's significantly wilder when in Phantom Thief mode (which may be an act), but still never speaks more than a single sentence at a time.
  • In the anime adaption, Ren is also portrayed a quiet person, rarely speaks unless needed to.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: His Wild Card ability easily allows him to handle all manner of encounters, granting him a huge advantage in battle compared to his team's specializations.
• Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: He has light skin to contrast with his messy black hair and dark gray eyes, and is undeniably handsome.
• Real Men Cook: Can learn a bit of this from Sojiro in the main game, but heartily expanded upon in Strikers. Recipes can be bought at the various stops on the trip, provide some of the best restorative items in the game, and whenever Joker unveils a new recipe that's a cutscene of his teammates enjoying his latest creation. Also an achievement for preparing about 2/3 of the available recipes in one playthrough.
• Real Men Wear Pink: His moves in Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight incorporate some elements of ballet.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Downplayed. The designs for Joker and his unique Personas are dominated by black and red for dark Antihero flair.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: His eyes are dark gray, but in the stylized red and black scenes and his All-Out-Attack finisher, as well as some official art, they're depicted as bright red. Considering his rebellious nature, it's fitting.
• Refusal of the Call: He attempts to delete the Metanav app from his phone for a few days, before unwittingly using it to enter Kamoshida's Palace. At the time, Joker didn't know it was a call in the first place. Later, he admits that he hadn't even though of the possibility of continuing as Phantom Thieves before his chance encounter with Shido.
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: During the Phantom Thieves' calling card message to Shido, after it was reported earlier that their leader was dead, all the thieves appear at the end of the message in shadows and say they are all alive and well. He also is the only one to step out of the shadows and show everyone his face, and personally calls out Shido.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: In Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth, he's supposed to have forgotten everything that happened due to the laws of space-time resetting themselves when he returned to his world. But his eyes widen and he smirks when he sees Hikari walk on stage at the end of her movie, implying that he recognizes her when no one else can.
• Sanity Slippage: Throughout his entire interrogation, Joker is quite clearly under a lot of stress as he struggles with the effects of the drug in his body while trying to recount eight whole months of events to Sae on nothing more than sheer willpower. If the player ignores the deadline of any given Palace without getting the treasure inside, Joker will lose it to a point where his own mind fabricates horrific memories vaguely depicting what would have happened to each of his friends if he actually had failed to save them.
• Sarcastic Confession: During a chance encounter with Akechi, he has the option to tell Akechi that Ryuji is a Phantom Thief, presumably as a jab for Ryuji constantly blabbing about their Phantom Thief activities in public.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: Can definitely power these up at will.
• Secret Relationship: All of his possible relationships are kept secret for varying reasons, such as the stigma associated with a teacher-student relationship (Sadayo), the stigma associated with relationships to minors (Chihaya, Takemi, Ohya, as well as Sadayo), the girl in question having an Arranged Marriage (Haru), because he lives with his girlfriend's Papa Wolf (Futaba), or simple preference (Ann, Makoto, Kasumi, and Hifumi). None of the other Phantom Thieves are even made aware if Joker has begun dating one/some/all of their female members, with the girl(s) in question opting to display her affections for him in private (e.g. Ann and/or Makoto inviting him for an afternoon stroll on the Hawaiian beach once "nobody else is looking").
• Sexier Alter Ego: Normally he presents himself as a mild-mannered high school student with dorky glasses, but becomes a cocky, exquisitely dressed Gentleman Thief during his illicit activities to reform corrupt members of society.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Downplayed. His casual outfits are simple and straightforward but still flattering and chic. His wardrobe helps reinforce his image as a clean-cut, unassuming young man.
• Shirtless Scene: Doesn't wear a shirt while fighting a training dummy at the gym or doing inverted crunches in his room. There's also any time he visits the local public bath.
• Shrinking Violet: In contrast to his stoic and resigned behavior at the start of the game and the manga, Ren Amamiya in the anime is far more timid and overly-deferential when he first moves to Tokyo, going so far as to soften and up his vocal pitch around adults.
• Signature Scent: He lives, and occasionally works, in a coffee shop, so the scent tends to follow him around. Apparently, the other thieves can tell when he's nearby due to the smell alone (much to his embarrassment).
• Skyward Scream: He does this when he awakens to Arsène, as it's pretty much the equivalent of painful Mind Rape.
• The Slacker: He takes a few crap jobs, doesn't seem too invested in class, and can, by the player's choice and with one of his teacher's help, nap, craft tools, or read during class, and unlike the previous two protagonists, Joker actually never gets involved in any school clubs outside of assisting Haru with her gardening during her Confidant link. Depending on what the player chooses, this could instead be Brilliant, but Lazy.
• The Social Expert: A low-key example. While his "school life" is practically non-existent, Joker has the best people skills in the party, and he also maintains a small but effective network of characters who owe him favors in some fashion. This includes but isn't limited to: a local doctor who keeps him supplied with barely-legal drugs, an alcoholic ex-political reporter who personally delivers contact info and writes puff pieces about the Thieves, a washed-up politician who teaches him oration, and the owner of a Yakuza-affiliated "airsoft shop" who supplies the Phantom Thieves with most of their equipment.
• Spanner in the Works: What started out as a plan to use Akechi's plan to kill Joker via turning it into a faked death was relatively simple on paper, as all he had to do was get arrested and interrogated by Sae and convince her to show his phone to Akechi and Futaba will do the rest suddenly gets more difficult. Things go wrong when the police inject him with a Truth Serum, wrecking his memory in several points which causes him to forget that there was a plan. He does pull through eventually before Sae leaves.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Slowly usurps his predcessor as one, considering the number of non-Persona games he appears in including Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
• The Stoic: He's quite unflappable, though this is just how he acts in public as to not draw attention to himself. He becomes a good deal more open around his teammates and confidants.
• Stoic Spectacles: Invoked. After the Miscarriage of Justice that lands him on probation at the start of the story, he starts wearing big, clunky glasses to appear more mild-mannered. He only takes them off whenever he's in the Metaverse, and he can see perfectly fine and whoop Shadow ass without them.
• Summon Bigger Fish: Unlike his predecessors, he defeats the Big Bad by summoning a Persona far bigger than him.
• Super Window Jump: He escapes the casino by jumping backwards straight out a window without even pausing to grimace and landing completely unscathed several stories below. Futaba implies the only reason he did it was because it was "a stylish way to end the job", even calling him out for showing off.
• Supporting Protagonist: In Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth. He's the primary viewpoint character, but the game is ultimately Hikari's story.
• Supreme Chef: Joker gets upgraded to full-blown Team Chef status by Strikers; while investigating the Jails spread across the prefectures of Japan, Joker learns how to further perfect his cooking craft and make more than just curry & coffee. The dishes he makes include Miso Ramen, Okinawa Soba, and Gyutan Stew. Joker is able to replicate these recipes and get inspiration for his own take on them just by tasting them. Much later on in Strikers, Futaba will concede that she considers that original curry Joker creates during their brief stay in Kyoto to be superior to Sojiro's. The healing effects of Joker's curry are even better than Sojiro's original recipe.
• Taking the Heat: He ultimately turns himself in as the leader of the Phantom Thieves in order to prevent his friends from being implicated along with him and to testify against Shido to ensure his conviction. His friends' efforts manage to get him out early, allowing him to go free and is cleared of his probation in two months.
• Tarot Motifs: While he does represent the upright aspects of the Fool like Yu and Makoto before him such as opportunity and untapped potential, he also shows some of the reversed aspects of the Fool, which can best be summed up as being... well, foolish.
• Teacher's Pet: By completing Kawakami's Confidant, Joker becomes this to her, with her promising to let him slide his way through class as thanks for helping her with her financial and self-esteem troubles. Even more so if he decides to romance her.
• Teacher/Student Romance: Potentially with Sadayo Kawakami, the Temperance Confidant and his homeroom teacher. On the side she moonlights as a call-in girl, with Joker becoming her main client after discovering her secret. Though slightly suggestive, most of the activities she does are practical in nature, such as cooking, cleaning and giving him massages. She does this dressed as a Meido, though, so it's not entirely innocent. Towards the end of her plotline, however, they can enter into a romantic relationship.
• Team Chef: With Sojiro's help, Joker can learn to brew coffee and make curry for use in the Metaverse. As of Strikers, he is designated as the Thieves' cook. He even has an item-crafting shop called "Joker's Kitchen". Even in the original game, he can prepare coffee and curry for use as SP recovery items in the Metaverse.
• Team Dad:
  • He guides his teammates through their emotional problems, encourages them to follow their dreams, provides all the supplies they need out of his own pocket, takes the lead in the most dangerous situations, intervenes when disagreements get too serious, handles all the negotiations with Confidants for their services, and takes the brunt of any real life fallout of their actions to protect the others. Lampshaded in Royal where Ryuji says he’s like the group’s mom after learning he washes their sooty gear for them.
  • In Strikers, he is also the Team Chef for the Thieves during their roadtrip, and always helps them with minor requests they have throughout the game.
• Terse Talker: Most of his voice lines tend to be short, hushed and to the point. Even his dialogue responses are fairly short, with Morgana usually speaking longer dialogue in Joker's stead.
• Three-Point Landing: Sticks one at the end of Royal, after dropping himself onto the crystal platform where the Post-Final Boss Maruki is waiting.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: In the "Bad Ending" where he sides with Yaldabaoth, his newfound Lack of Empathy to the consequences his actions have on the world in light of the realization that humans are simply too lazy, incompetent, or scared to take care of themselves pushes him to the brink of becoming a Knight Templar peace broker, whereas in the Good Ending where he rejects Yaldabaoth's offer, his restored faith in humanity's ability to change allows him to use the collective hope of the citizens of Tokyo to summon the ultimate symbol of freedom to set everyone free from the Demiurge's totalitarian order.
• Too Dumb to Live: Cheating on any of the girls ends extremely badly for him, but it’s a particularly dumb move with his teammates (who have combat experience from their Metaverse crawls). Especially with Makoto, who knows Aikido and primarily fights with her fists (and thus is a capable fighter without her Persona or Metaverse logic).
• Took a Level in Cheerfulness: In Strikers, Joker is shown to have more chances to goof off and smiles more, his portrait art in Strikers isn't the neutral frown that he used in the original game and Royal and has him giving a small smile. One cutscene of the thieves trip in Okinawa has him openly holding in his laughter at Zenkichi and in the Sapporo Jail, you have the option to have him start chanting "Hee-ho!" after seeing the parade of Jack Frosts. This is because unlike the original game and Royal, Joker is free from much of the stigma placed on him with his criminal record being uplifted and cleared, giving him some freedom to express himself. It also helps that early in the game, one choice dialogue when Ryuji asked about how he is doing has Joker say that he is doing well, implying that he is back on good terms with his family and several people he knew back in his hometown in Strikers.
• Tranquil Fury: Heavily implied near the end of most Confidants, where they've been belittled by someone to the point of reaching a Despair Event Horizon, prompting Joker to coldly or angrily ask for their name so he can arrange for them to be targeted in Mementoes later.
• Trauma Conga Line: Remarkably little seems to go right for this kid, and how. The reason he's in Tokyo in the first place is because the woman he personally tried to protect from being assaulted by a drunken man lied to the police about his involvement out of fear, dragging him through a criminal court case that puts an assault conviction on his record. When he gets there, his guardian doesn't trust him, and neither does anyone else at his new school, who all know about his past thanks to a malicious and slanderous coach who threatened another student into leaking the information online. Once that's out of the way, he himself is blackmailed (arguably more than once), framed for murder (twice), betrayed a second time, and allows himself to be arrested, drugged to the point of incoherence, and nearly crippled to keep his Ragtag Bunch of Misfits from being caught by the authorities. Then, while he's still doped up out of his mind, he's put through a protracted interrogation where his testimony serves as the linchpin for a Gambit Roulette plan which, if executed successfully, will save him and his friends from being killed off by a sociopathic murderer. He's then betrayed a third time by the mentor figure who had, up until this point, been assisting him in honing the supernatural skills that allow him to alter other peoples' psyches, and is nearly wiped from existence. Even after saving the world, he's still forced to serve two months in a juvenile detention center to ensure that the man who got him convicted for assault goes to prison, and he undoubtedly would have had to serve for longer if not for the dedicated lobbying of his friends. In Royal, Joker gets a fourth betrayal in Maruki, whom Joker had a trusted bond and believed to be one of the few adults that he could trust when he created an actualized world where all his friends led happier lives in exchange of potentially severing the bond they made with Joker, and is later forced into a Sadistic Choice of having to agree to the reality the man created for the sake of his friend's happiness but will condemn humanity if he agreed, or reject it and Akechi, who was Joker's wish that Maruki actualized, will potentially die, all of this in exchange of experiencing a shorter time being in juvenile detention in Royal. He may get his happy ending, but even after all that, the police are still surveying him and his team for any signs of suspicious activity.
• Treadmill Trauma: Joker will get shot right off the treadmill if he fails at it. The fall is nasty enough that Morgana has to ask if he's still alive.
• Troll: He can definitely show hints of this. For example, when arranging an interview between Ohya and Mishima, none of the options available to the player do anything to dissuade Mishima that it isn't a blind date.
• Unkempt Beauty: A male example; he looks like he's never touched a hairbrush in his life, has terrible posture, and is referred to as looking messy and disheveled more than a few times in-game, but that said, he's probably the prettiest Persona protagonist, and is by far the sexiest.
• Unknown Rival: For Shido, he's one of these — since Shido basically ruined his life and sentenced him to becoming the plaything of a wicked mad God, he's most certainly considering taking him out a priority. However, Shido does not recognize him at all despite meeting him personally in the Wilton Hotel a month after getting his life ruined, and astonishingly still fails to do so after Akechi supposedly killed him. While Shadow Shido still recognizes Joker (and that took him a good while), his real person never seems to from start to end, much to his detriment.
• Unreliable Narrator: The majority of the story is a flashback, told to Sae from his perspective during the interrogation. While is genuinely truthful, he leaves out The Reveal that the Phantom Thieves were aware of Goro Akechi's trap and had set up one themselves. This is because of the side effects of the truth serum caused him to forget. By the skin of his teeth, he remembers and proceeds with the trap successfully.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: His and Kawakami's early interactions are changed to be much more awkward and heavy on the Ship Tease in the anime and all of it is Played for Laughs. Since Ren now has his own personality he gets very flustered and panicked around her, and freaks out at some of her more fanservicey moments.
• Unwitting Pawn: Up until he knows that the "Igor" that he interacted with was Yaldabaoth in disguise all along, he's just unknowingly playing into his plan of stealing the souls of corrupt moguls that Yaldabaoth designated him to remove for annoyances against his absolute order. It isn't until he rebels against Yaldabaoth that he becomes a true rebel.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Depending on the dialogue choices, Joker can banter with a lot of his confidants and trade their snark back with his own. Ryuji and Morgana's antics can both garner a lot of biting responses, Iwai's recommended dialogue options are those that involve insulting him and being brutally honest, and several of Joker's interactions with Akechi (particularly in the third semester) involve the latter threatening to kill him; Joker shrugs them off and fires off barbs about things like Akechi's Black Mask outfit and insane nature.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Whilst in the Thieves' Den, he can assume the appearance of his teammates, using almost every outfit they're seen wearing in-game. Due to the composition of the Phantom Thieves' members, this overlaps with Gender Bender (by transforming into any of his female party members) and Animorphism (by assuming Morgana's form as well as the Rattled states of any character).
• Waistcoat of Style: His Metaverse attire includes a double-breasted vest with a high collar.
• Warrior Therapist:
  • A literal example — his work as a Phantom Thief involves him and his friends directly affecting a target's psyche to induce a specific psychological shift, i.e. ridding them of their (self-)destructive tendencies.
  • A more typical example can be seen in the Confidants, which sees him helping his friends and allies work through their various issues.
• We Cannot Go On Without You: It's an instant Game Over if he dies in a fight. As one of the two candidates chosen to represent potential paths for humanity in the "game" between Yaldabaoth and Igor, his death would give Yaldabaoth automatic victory and free reign to dominate the world forever.
  • Averted in Strikers, as he can be revived via usual means, so long as there's someone to revive him.
  • Averted in Tactica, as the player can create a team of three that doesn't require him to be on it (outside of certain missions), but if he falls in battle, he can be swapped out with another party member via the Baton Pass, if allowed.
• Weirdness Magnet: It sort of comes with the territory of being a Wild Card. Yet, let us count the ways:
  • Wound up in a castle based on how a perverted gym teacher sees the school he just transferred to, gained the ability to summon an entity based on the de facto Gentleman Thief in order to fight various monsters based on fiction and mythology, and made friends with a talking cat all on the same day.
  • Founded an organization of phantom thieves that steal the manifestations of the distorted desires of all sorts of scumbags - plus a few non-scumbags who simply have some serious issues - eventually overthrowing a conspiracy using the same methods his thieves use to change hearts.
  • Eventually finds out he was being used as an Unwitting Pawn by an evil false god, then ends up summoning the Gnostic version of Satan through the Power of Friendship and Clap Your Hands If You Believe in order to shoot that god in the face on Christmas Eve.
  • Forges several (occasionally heat-treated) bonds with people from all walks of life, from an Eccentric Artist to a gymnast with issues, and from a fallen politician to a former member of the Yakuza, along the way. And that's not even scratching what happens in Strikers!
• What You Are in the Dark:
  • Near the end of the game, Yaldabaoth makes an offer to Joker, offering him the chance to go back to being a Phantom Thief, as well as making him the god of the new world he intends to create. Nobody would ever know what really happened. It's up to the player to choose the outcome, but of course, the good ending involves Joker refusing Yaldabaoth's offer, citing how it goes against everything he and the Phantom Thieves stand for.
  • In the bad ending of Royal, if you end up taking Maruki's deal to change the world so everyone has their heart's true desire, it's heavily implied once again Joker is the only person aware that the world has been changed. While in this case it's more because Joker wants his friends to live their ideal lives with no suffering, he ends up benefiting himself by his own dream of staying with his friends forever.
  • It's not really obvious without Rewatch Bonus or by making the right question, but the entire opening sequence is this. It turns out that when Joker is intercepted by a Special Assault team while escaping from the casino, those were regular police officers facing a high-leveled Persona User in the Metaverse. Joker could have easily mopped the floor with them with his Personas, but he didn't even try to despite knowing what would happen to him after his capture. That showed some real commitment to the Thou Shalt Not Kill aspect of the Phantom Thieves' brand of justice, and to their plan to catch the real mastermind behind the Mental Shutdown cases.
• Wife-Basher Basher:
  • At the start of the story, Joker ends up on probation after getting arrested for confronting a man attempting to assault a woman. It's later shown that Joker only tried to pull him off of her. This man turns out to be the Big Bad.
  • In order to start Chihaya's Confidant, Joker has to save one of Chihaya's customers by changing the heart of the woman's abusive boyfriend.
• A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: He shows up in public quiet and reserved, wearing Nerd Glasses he doesn't need and carrying an air of penitence he doesn't feel, but when he lets the mask slip, he can be cheeky, stubborn, and hard to control. As Joker, this mask completely falls away, becoming a flashy, passionate, knife-and-gun-toting, Shadow-eviscerating, bloodthirsty, Gentleman Thief with incredible powers.
• You Will Not Evade Me: Thanks to a Faith Confidant bonus, Joker can use his grappling hook to perform long-distance Ambushes.

Persona-related Tropes

• Adaptational Badass:
  • Just like Joker, the anime gives Arsène a major power boost, overpowering Loki with little effort despite Joker not summoning him since the Shadow Kamoshida fight.
  • In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Arsène not only has skills he cannot learn normally, like Makarakarn, Tetrakarn, and Eigaon, but he also increases Joker's physical attack power and allows him to fly using his own wings.
• Adaptational Heroism: Satanael. Depending on how you interpret Satanael's mythical origin (as he has multiple differing origins depending the source), this is played straight in terms of his status as a Fallen Angel. This is also played straight in regards to his recurrence in the franchise, as Satanael's first appearance in a Shin Megami Tensei game was in Soul Hackers which had him as an antagonist.
• Always with You: Even if Arsène isn't part of Joker's inventory, he makes it apparent to him that he won't permanently disappear, as he's Joker's de facto Other Self.
• Armed Legs: Arsène and Raoul's literal Combat Stilettos, which they use in their physical attack animations.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Satanael as summoned in the final battle is massive, towering above the entire party and seems to be even bigger than the building-sized Big Bad. His summon-able version in New Game Plus is significantly smaller, though still pretty dang big.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Arsène wears a white cravat, red coat, black waistcoat, black dress pants, and a black, oversized top hat. Raoul, meanwhile, wears a red dress jacket, white dress-shirt, black tie, red fedora with a white band, and a black pair of slacks.
• BFG: In the final battle, Satanael carries a skyscraper-sized lever-action rifle.
• Bilingual Bonus: A bird motif is appropriate for a Persona based the archetypical French Phantom Thief because the French verb "voler" means both "to steal" and "to fly".
• Boring, but Practical: Raoul has a unique skill called Phantom Show, which has a high chance to put all enemies to sleep. It's pretty simple, but it gives players an excellent chance to achieve Technical damage and to do Baton Passes, plus it works as a good crowd control option.
• Casting a Shadow: All three of Joker's unique personas are geared towards Curse skills.
• Chained by Fashion: Arsène is surrounded by seemingly aesthetic, ornate iron chains which Joker grips onto whenever he's summoned. Joker breaks these chains when he evolves into Satanael.
• Classy Cravat: Arsène wears a long white cravat around his neck, to go with his classy top hat and other fineries.
• Combat Stilettos: Both Arsène and Raoul serve as a Rare Male Example. Further they take the trope far more literally than most as their heels are pumped upwards by knives that they make extensive use of in the animations for their physical attacks, which involve kicking.
• Crutch Character: Arsène will likely be the Persona you rely on for a good part of the first dungeon, in part due to his decent stats at the time and him being the first Persona Joker gets. However, he stops learning new skills very early on and his stat growth drops like a rock, ensuring you'll eventually get rid of him for stronger Personas. You can make the most powerful Arsène for the endgame if you'd like though.
• Dark Is Not Evil: All three of Joker's unique personas are covered in red and black, specialize in Curse magic, and look rather demonic. That said, the three of them are just as much the Anti-Hero as their wielder, Joker.
• Diving Kick: In contrast to Arsène's Roundhouse Kick, Raoul's Physical attack animation has him dive down at the enemy foot first.
• Evil Laugh: As a demonic Anti-Hero, Arsène is capable of very convincing evil laughs.
• Face Death with Dignity: As opposed to every other Persona, Arsène, Satanael, and Raoul do not take their knocked-down pose when they are facing execution for fusion. When Arsène is first used for fusion, he also tells Joker that he will always be by his side as his true mask, which may be why none of them are afraid of the gallows.
• Forced Sleep:
  • Arsène has access to Dream Needle, a light Gun attack that has a chance to put enemies to sleep.
  • Raoul's signature skill, Phantom Show, forces all foes to sleep, rendering them vulnerable to an Eigaon or a Maeigaon for an easy Hold Up.
• Good Wings, Evil Wings: Arsène sports black angel wings, to match his and Joker's Anti-Hero personalities. The wings of Satanael are feathered at their base but become bat wings at the end. Raoul wears a pair of mechanical bat wings.
• Holy Halo: Inverted since it's treated as a symbol of how Satanael was holy before his fall from grace, rendering it now a demonic halo ringed with bat wings, but he still firmly falls under Dark Is Not Evil, making it visually contrasting Yaldabaoth's more classical halo with angel wings.
• Horned Humanoid: Arsène has the appearance of a crimson-dressed man with two black and red horns coming out of his forehead. Satanael has actual horns.
• Lightning Bruiser: Satanael has well-rounded stats and literally no weaknesses; in fact, Satanael at least resists everything and learns some of the best skills in the game.
• Magikarp Power:
  • With a lot of trial-and-error and fine tuning, it's entirely possible to get early Personas like Arsène to have much higher stats than any high-level Persona as well as some very powerful skills. Like so.
  • The developers seemed to anticipate this in Strikers, as it is much easier to raise Persona stats up. As such, not only does Arsène learn more skills as he levels up (like One-Shot Kill and Maeigaon), but he can easily become a Master of All with a preference towards speed and critical hits.
• Power Up Letdown: Raoul was designed as Joker's third-tier Persona, but starts at a lower level and has far less resistances than Satanael. This is likely because making him more powerful than Satanael would have made him absolutely absurd.
• Red Baron: Arsène introduces himself in his first appearance as "the Pillager of Twilight."
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Unlike Joker, whose eyes are simply stylized as red in certain scenes, Arsène, Satanael and Raoul actually have red eyes.
• Red Is Heroic: Arsène and Raoul wear a lot of red, and are Joker's initial and Third-Tier Personas.
• Roundhouse Kick: Arsène's Physical attack animation is a roundhouse kick, which brings emphasis to his literal stiletto heels.
• Satan Is Good: Joker's version of Satanael is heavily inspired by the Shin Megami Tensei interpretation of Lucifer, down to having the same character outline and sporting the same arms open wide Ass Kicking Pose.
• Secret Art:
  • Sinful Shell, a skill unique to Satanael which only sees use in-game to dispose of Yaldabaoth and that cannot be used outside of that one scene.
  • Raoul is the only Persona who can use Phantom Show.
• Seven Deadly Sins: Satanael's ultimate attack, Sinful Shell, combines the power of all the deadly sins to kill Yaldabaoth, the God of Control.
• Signature Move:
  • Starting from Q2, Arsene has three signature moves: Dream Needle (a light physical/gun attack with a chance of putting an enemy to sleep), Return from Yomi (which has a chance to recover HP when if low on health), and Rebel Vanguard (Arsène's own version of the Revolution buff). Persona 3 Reload also adds Dark Driver (strengthens Curse skills by 75%) as his passive unique skill.
  • Satanael had the same signature moves as Arsène in Q2 but he has three more in the original game and Royal: Sinful Shell (a storyline Finishing Move, also deals massive Almighty damage to all targets with Mamudoon effect in Persona 3 Reload), Tyrant's Mind (Satanael's own version of Messiah's Magic Skill Up except Physical and Gun attacks are also included, though it's only exclusive to Royal), and Black Viper (colossal Almighty damage to one target).
  • Raoul has Phantom Show, which has a high chance of putting enemies to sleep.
• Skyward Scream: Arsène does this near the end of the final boss as he becomes Satanael.
• Smoking Is Cool: Raoul always has a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.
• Starter Mon: Arsène is the very first Persona Joker gets access to. While he starts off useful, he quickly falls off and will likely be benched out, at least until the Gallows is unlocked.
• Suddenly Speaking: Zig-zagged. While Joker is still a Heroic Mime in gameplay, he is a lot more talkative than his predecessors in both cutscenes in gameplay, though speaks with short and curt sentences. This is carried over in his appearances in spin-offs (outside the anime and manga adaptations), where he rarely speaks, outside of moments like asking Toshiro to take hold of his knife. In The Phantom X, he actually speaks as an NPC to Wonder in Leblanc, even having his own talking dialogue sprite.
• A Taste of Power: In the prologue, Arsène starts out with both Eigaon and Brave Blade — two massively powered skills that primarily show up in the mid to endgame, and are attacks he does not naturally learn. With careful planning and fusion, it is entirely possible to recreate this version of him.
• Villainous Rescue: Discussed when Satanael is summoned for the first time: When God is acting up, it's a demon lord's duty to step in and punish him.
• Waistcoat of Style: Arsène wears a black waistcoat, reflecting Joker's stylish Gentleman Thief tendencies. Raoul trades it for a dress shirt.
• We Will Meet Again:
  • If he's executed in the Velvet Room, he'll say the trope name verbatim to say that it won't be the last time they see each other.
  • If Arsène is not one of Joker's Personas during the Casino heist, he will appear before the battle with Moloch, saying "Ah, we meet once again," but will still appear regardless if the player had Arsène with or without them by this point. After the battle, he warns Joker that his destiny is approaching, and promises to meet Joker again if he survives it.
• Winged Humanoid: Arsène is a masked man with giant bird wings. Raoul's are more mechanical.
• Wolverine Claws: Arsène and Raoul have metal claws on the ends of each of their fingers.

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"Checkmate."

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