Actor Existence Limbo: A long one regarding Igor. Isamu Tanonaka, the voice of Igor in Persona 3 and Persona 4, died in 2010 due to myocardial infarction. To work around his death, Atlus reused his previously recorded lines in Persona 3 and Persona 4-related anime adaptations, as well as the Persona 4: Arena and Ultimax spin-offs. The character would also be absent from certain spin-offs like Persona Q and Dancing. He was seemingly recast for Persona 5, voiced by Masane Tsukayama, except the new Igor running the Velvet Room is an impostor, with the real Igor reappearing near the end, still voiced using Tanonaka's old recordings. Persona 5: The Phantom X and Persona 3 Reload finally gave Igor new Japanese voice actors, which ended his drought of sporadic appearances. Between 2010-2023, that's 13 years of having Igor as an almost silent mentor to the protagonists.
God Never Said That: Katsura Hashino (and related staff from his era) never boiled down the root cause to just gender for the reason Persona 4 and Persona 5 not implementing a female protagonist. The translated interviews reposted to various big-name gaming news sites are mostly out of context so much that pro-female protagonist fans (mostly from the West) also falsely believed in the dev team being purely sexist.
For Persona 4, it was never explicitly stated, but it was clear that it is related the Izanagi-Izanami lore being woven tightly into the plot, with the hero's journey centered around Izanagi (thus the male Hero, even without the Persona in stock). The claim that "girls moving into a rural town by herself is unnatural" is the fans immediately jumping into conclusions from reading the dev explanation for the story design.
Persona 5 was more clear with its circumstances. Originally, when the game was conceived with the "world tour" premise, a female protagonist was already planned as shown in early concept art. Only when the game shifted gears (and went into multiple Schedule Slips) that she was eventually scrapped (with her Dummied Out untextured model as the only remnant), with the official reason being the lack of time to properly implement her.
Kirsten Potter was replaced by Abby Trott as Tae Takemi in the English dub of Royal. According to Laura Post, Potter had moved away and couldn't reprise her role.
Almost every single actor in the English dub of Persona 3 was replaced with a new one in the Reload remake, with the exception of Tara Platt as Elizabeth. While the Japanese cast would retain its cast for the main S.E.E.S. members and other important characters, Social Link specific characters who were voiced in Drama CDs and the movies were replaced with different actors.
Johnny Yong Bosch, Yuri Lowenthal and Amanda Winn-Lee are the only Persona 4 actors to reprise their respective characters (Yu, Yosuke and Yukiko) in every subsequent installment, continually returning even after the other investigation team members got Darrin-ed.
In general, the Persona 5 cast have been far more consistent in reprising their respective roles than the 3/4 members were. With the exceptions of Kirsten Potter (who was replaced with Abby Trott as Tae Takemi for Royal) and Barbara Goodson (who was replaced with Eden Riegel as Shinya Oda in The Animation), every actor has returned without fail.
What Could Have Been: The Persona series is a downplayed example: having started out as a spin-off of the Shin Megami Tensei series, it has reached greater heights than its parent franchise, by now firmly eclipsing the original games, which are still going strong, though greatly diminished in comparison as a series.
You Sound Familiar: All, if not most, of the Persona games are dubbed by the same studio, PCB Productions, which ends up having characters voiced by an actor who was in a previous game.
