You are held captive.
A prisoner of fate to a future that has been sealed in advance. This is truly an unjust game... Your chances of winning are almost none. But if my voice is reaching you,there may yet be a possibility open to you... I beg you. Please, overcome this game... ...and save the world. —The Mysterious voice
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It is the year 20XX. The world is not as it should be. In Tokyo, psychotic and mental breakdowns are becoming more common amongst the general public, leading to a string of high-profile accidents and crimes. Public confidence in the government and justice system is falling, and the powerful elites of the city plot to turn these incidents to their advantage.
Ren Amamiya an Ordinary High-School Student who has been falsely convicted of assault and sentenced to a year-long probation in Tokyo. On his first day attending Shujin Academy, he and a fellow outcast named Ryuji Sakamoto accidentally stumble into a mysterious Mental World known as the Metaverse: a place where cognition becomes reality, and real-world locations are twisted by the thoughts of humans. Within this world, the most corrupt humans have subconsciously created mental fortresses called "Palaces" where their innermost vices and desires are allowed to run rampant. If someone is able to steal the "Treasure" that forms the heart of the Palace, then the Ruler's vile desires will be erased... So Ren, Ryuji, their classmate Ann Takamaki, the mysterious cat Morgana and several other young people who want to make the world better and cleanse it from corruption become the Phantom Thieves of Heart and start fighting back...
An adaptation of the game Persona 5. Animated by Studio Cloverworks.
Tropes applied in the game:[]
- Adaptation Name Change: The protagonist is a Hello, Insert Name Here character in the game. To avoid pretty awkward sentences, the anime names him Ren Amamiya.
- Adaptation Expansion: There are some changes to the scene featuring Shiho Suzui's Bungled Suicide; ie the one teaching Joker, Ann and Ryuji's class is Sadayo Kawakami (aka one of Ren's Confidants), and the sequence where Ryuji and Ren run towards the place itself is logically cut.
- Brainwashing for the Greater Good: Morgana explains it's possible to change Kamoshida's personality by destroying his palace, the mental representation of his egomania, but she does admit doing that may kill him, making Ren and Ryuji afraid of doing it at first.
- Broken Ace: From people who don't know him, Kamoshida is only a great athlete that may be a little too severe with his students and a little too close to his female ones. Once Ren and Ryuji get inside his mind, his Shadow spills out he's a really cruel, sadistic man who grew a giant ego as he kept getting away from any punishment.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Arsene has black wings, a black and red body, her head looks to be made of metal, and its summoning process involves the protagonist bleeding from the eyes. Still, once summoned, it's nothing more than a loyal ally to the protagonist.
- Dirty Cop: This kind beats up Ren after he is imprisoned by the japanese police and before Sae comes to interrogate him.
- Driven to Suicide: Kamoshida's physical and sexual abuse of Shiho leads her to try suicide by jumping from the roof of school. She survives, but barely.
- Foreshadowing: Ryuji talks about Kamoshida "thinking he's the king in his little castle" before he and the protagonist enter Kamoshida's mind and discover Kamoshida more or less actually thinks like that.
- History Repeats: The protagonist is afraid of that when he thinks of intervening when the mental Kamoshida is hurting Ryuji, remembering the incident that led him to this situation. Thankfully, Arsene appears and gets him out of his indecision before Ryuji is killed.
- In Medias Res: The animation begins with the protagonist being imprisoned by the police during a robbery and then being beat up by cops and then interrogated, where he begins to narrate how he went from an delinquent student to criminal suspect of several infractions, including murder.
- Journey to the Center of the Mind: Ren and Ryuji do it accidentally when Ren's supernatural mobile app allows them to enter inside Kamoshida's mind.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: All the protagonist gets for helping a woman being assaulted by a man is punishment by the law, being thrown out of school and the reputation of delinquent by others.
- Sadist Teacher: Kamoshida beats up his own students to punish them.
- Teacher-Student Romance: A background character jokes about Ann and Kamoshida having that kind of relationship in Episode 2, in a tone that implies that she thinks Ann is deliberating doing that for higher grades.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Kamoshida was an olympic-level athlete who won a gold medal in voleyball. Because of the reputation of such a big accomplishment, all of his big flaws(sexually harassing female students, physically abusing his male students, and then physically and sexually abusing some of his female ones) are overlooked by other adults.
- Would Hit a Girl: Kamoshida has no problems phisically abusing female students.
- Your Cheating Heart: Played for acid laughs in-universe. In the second episode, one of the background students comments on Ann talking with Ren, jokingly saying she is maybe cheating on Kamoshida, the school's volleyball coach.