It’s a huge coincidence that has been written into canon. It was a unanimous, unconscious decision made by the fandom.

I'm sure it's just a coincidence, but that would honestly be really cool. They could definitely do something like this in the future though

That's a fun theory, but definitely a coincident. I doubt that someone thought: "remember that one minor side character from a social link in P3 let's turn him into a major character" while creating the characters from P5. If they were though, awesome easter egg, good job dev team.

If the boi says *"FOR REAL?!"* at least once, then its definitely ryuji 😆👍

Hell even his voice actor gave nod to this theory.

My first thought would be that he would have mention a giant eye that destroyed the moon but then I realized that mostly everyone would have forgotten that moment after Makoto sealed Nyx away.

I wouldn't be surprised if that actually was a younger ryuji sense a younger yukiko is in p3p and considering how hard p5 was delayed they probably were already working on the characters

Imagine if in persona 3 reload they rename this kid to Ryuji in dialogue. That would be so cool.

Probably a coincidence but whenever I see this kid now, it's my headcanon that he is Ryuji

If Persona 5 started its conceptual development as early as Persona 4's release (2008) then I can see this happening, P3P even added a portrait for the kid in 2009.

Well, no matter if it was intended or not. As long as it fits and isn't harmful to the plot or anything, it's fine to say that it's the case.

1:26 In P5, I believe Ryuji is 16 at the start of the game and 17 by the end of the game

This cannot be a coincidence. There is so much pointing to the kid being ryuji. Aside from what you explained in the video, They have VERY similar facial features, their eyebrows are identical. The kid even wears a yellow shirt, and when he says "Wooohoo check this out!"... Ryuji says it during battle if I recall correctly. If it's a coincidence, it is surely a huge one

That´s pretty interesting. I think that is just a coincidence and if not, an easter egg leaving up to the players to think whatever they want. I like when they do stuff like this.

It would be amazing. FMC met Yukiko and therefore MMC meets Ryuji also in his childhood. This would be cameoception

ATLUS has the opportunity to pull the funniest thing in Reload

According to interviews, Persona 5 and Persona 3 Portable were developed concurrently. It was called "Persona the 3rd" internally. Early on, it would've been about an older protagonist who traveled around, instead of being pinned to a high school setting. There's a chance that kid might've been a tease for Ryuji, but there were so many massive plot alterations to Persona 5 during development that the odds of it being a coincidence are pretty solid too. A lot of the early stuff was menu design and rough character sketches, thought Ryuji and Makoto were some of the first characters "set in stone" alongside Hifumi (cuz she originally held Makoto's place for the longest time). It's interesting that they mention that Ryuji once had black hair that was bleached, as his earliest concept art had him in black, slicked back hair before it was changed.

Neither planned nor purely a coincidence. I think Ryuji’s backstory could have been originally totally different and they siezed the oppurtunity to change it by recycling a good (yet minor) character so that he could also be related to previous events somehow, if that makes sense. Speaking as an artist, it’s not really weird to sometimes want to bring an unused(not properly developed) character back to your story

I wouldn't be surprised, since Yukiko was also seen in P3P, not necessarily before her debut, but still present nonetheless

Rip ryuji kid

It's a coincidence. But there's enough there that they could honestly just make it canon after the fact and most everybody would be fine with it.

It makes sense. The Persona games are often connected in subtle and interesting ways. Even more so when they backtrack with old games. Adding this into Portable would be a clever way to link them together.

I’m almost 100% certain that it’s a coincidence, but it’s still really cool how well it lines up. If the rumors of a full-on remake of P3 are true, I hope they retcon this so that it’s canon.

Unfortunately in Reload he is just a random child.

Nah, he didn't say "For real?" Therefore he CAN'T be Ryuji (Yes, that's ALL the evidence I need)

The one thing that breaks the "it's gotta be a coincidence" for me is the fact that this random, inconsequential character has a fully-illustrated portrait... Whereas the "Girl in Blue Skirt" doesn't. Why one, but not the other?

Its probably just a rlly strange coincidence but if its not thats a really nice hidden details

RIP ryuji theory

I’m going to say that it’s definitely Ryuji!

I should point out that Atlus has done this kind of thing before. While Yukiko does show up in P3P, that was in a segment exclusive to that version which was released after P4. However, the girl who’s the Justice social link (I’m blanking on her name) does show up in P4 when the Investigation Team go to Gekokan Academy for a field trip.

I swear if in Reload I hear Max Mittelman as Young Ryuji....

Its most likely a coincidence, but wouldn't it be cool to see shinya from persona 5 return as a playable character in persona 6

Coincidence. Track and Field were popular with students into sports and That kids hair is brown not black. Also Gekkoukan is well known. Especially since it's in a city and a actress of the Featherman series went there. I say Featherman cause Ryuji seems like the type to love that show

With the remake coming out soon they could easily do this as an Easter egg like how in portable we got a younger Yukiko. I wonder if Max can do a higher pitch Ryuji since all SLs (save “Maya”) are voiced in Reload.

honestly, i dont think it's a coincidence since you met yukiko in p3 as femc if you choose volleyball or tennis team & go on that trip to another school in the summer, & then later she becomes a known character in p4, so it would make sense.

Why did they completely un-ryujify him in Reload 😭

Probably just an incredible coincidence but a very cool one

They nerfed him I don’t think he even gets a portrait anymore RIP

For people that still doesn't remember the portrait was already on the original P3P.. the bustup/portrait even used on P3FES TrueHD TinyTweaks Mod before P3PR. this is the proof: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/fJd7l5Cc0ri7ZGw.html

Guess we'll know in a few weeks

It’s not like this hasn’t been the first time ATLUS has gone back to older games via remake/porting and added new characters meant to foreshadow later games (I hear they did it with the remake for P2 and P3P). So it’s plausible

You can’t say for sure unless they confirm it…but they do look very alike.

Also the obvious similarities in the face and their big smiles. P3 Reload has a chance to run with the coincidence and make it a reality! Hopefully they do it! :D

That would be pretty cool and it wouldn't be the first time they brought back a character. My only hole in the theory is that this goes to Persona Q2 Ryuji meets both protagonists FEMC and Makoto. To my knowledge, he doesn't say "hey remember me"? or "hey I remember you" you would think he would remember at least someone from his childhood? He would at least note the uniform looks familiar. I bring up PQ2 because again this is the only "other" time they met face to face and even though they lose their memories after the fact they keep their previous memories. So to add gas to the fire he vividly remembers Rise as a super-popular idol and P4 takes place 3 years after P3. So if he remembers Rise then I would say he has a pretty decent memory. So I would say it's a nice jab to P5 fans or just purely a coincidence. Or our boy is really really forgetful and just forgot which hey is a possibility but we still love him the same lol

Okay, let's think about this critically. Persona 3 Portable (released 11.2009) has multiple "surprise cameo characters", including Vincent from "Catherine", released 02.2011 - over a year later. So, foresight was in the minds of the devs. But does the development time frame line-up for this kid to be Ryuji? *YES.* _Preparatory development (story & character designs, writing, etc.) began in 2008_ - a minimum of a *full year before P3P was released.*

It's possible given Yukiko also makes a cameo of course it's more of a coincidence for Ryuji given the vast margin of years between P3P and P5 and the fact that the boy doesnt have Ryujis brown eyes.

Its more like a huge coincidence, its like the theory of Sudou being the Reaper

Definitely a huge coincidence but choose to believe it's him

Those are some excellent points it might just be a huge coincidence but it's definitely fun to consider that it might be true

P3 is full of details like this. There's a female NPC called Hasegawa that looks a lot like Zenkichi

If it wasnt for the yellow shirt, people wouldnt be talking about this lol

The only thing to make this canon is that Ryuji doesn't remember running there in forth grade. It'd be cool if he said "I used to run there with so and so" so I don't think it's canon... but it's nice that the world around them is all in the same place. It'd be really cool to see older characters appear in the game outside of the spinoff series.

I actually do believe in this theory for a couple of reasons: 1) The Boy Loves Track/Running. Obviously Track is the sport Ryuji lived and breathed for before Kamoshida ruined everything, so both this Boy and Ryuji live Running/Track 2) The Boy having Black Hair. Obviously everyone knows Ryuji for having Blonde Hair, but like the video shows, The one clip from Persona 5 establishes that Ryuji was born with Black hair, and only dyed it Blonde to be rebellious and different at school. So that matches with the boy well 3) The boy is wearing a yellow shirt. Now obviously this point seems stupid, but when you think about it, not only is Ryuji’s color theme in persona 5 Yellow, he always wears a bright yellow shirt as apart of his school uniform instead of the regular dress shirt, so clearly he has a affiliation with wearing shirts that are yellow, just like how the little boy is 4) Persona 3, 4, & 5 all take place in the same world. It’s clearly been established that Persona 3 & 4 are within the same continuity due too the multiple P3 character cameos that P4 has. And while it isn’t nearly as clear that the world of Persona 5 is connected with the other two. There are some hidden Easter Eggs in the game that hint towards it. One being on the Cafe LeBlanc TV being a hint that the news is talking about an old Model/Idol from Inaba being talked about, which can only be referring to Rise from P4. Another one is that if you talk to Ryuji while wearing the P3 Gekkohan uniform, he will say that he recognizes the uniform, and even names where the school is. There are other Easter eggs as well, but those were just valid examples. So all three games are established to coincide with one and other, which means Ryuji could easily being the same boy from P3, and grew up to be in P5 5) The Dates/Age. Ryuji’s birthday is established to be in 1999, and P3 takes place in 2009, so the Little Boy in this is likely around the age of ten, the same age Ryuji would be around this time as well. P5 takes place in 2016 which was found out to be the canonical year of the game in later discoveries. So if the boy in P3 is 10 in 2009, he would most likely be in High School by 2016, and would be around the age of 16 or 17, which is exactly the age range That Ryuji is in seeing that he’s a second year in high school. So the Ryuji’s birthday, mixed with what the boys age timeline would be, perfectly lines up to make it as if they are the same person 6) Detail Similarities. Both Ryuji and the little boy both has a very eccentric smile, short brown eyebrows, attached earlobes, sharp chins, dark brown eyes, and frizzy-ish hair. so it seems as though they have some common design attributes To me, all the evidence is there, so I think this might actually be a valid theory, and at least this shit makes more sense than the bullshit of Joker being Yu Narukami’s son that Atlus kinda actually made canon with PQ2, that shit makes no sense, but at least this does

Yeah, I’m going with coincidence too. It’s plausible But if It were him, I think he would’ve mentioned Yuko

Considering the fact that there were a lot of references between different persona games like for example Chihiro being present in p4 and the chat between futaba and junpei in the dancing spinoff it might not be impossible

Well both Yukiko and Vincent were in P3 so why not?

I've actually wondered for a while whether all the later PCs were in range of the Dark Hour's effect when they were younger. We never did find out if that was worldwide, local, or something like only the Japan time zone. Mostly I'm just thinking that if Persona 6 comes out in the next 3 years, then the new team would be the last set born under its effects, and that could make a pretty interesting arc to close out the arc of Igor's Fools

Anything is possible. I bet when Persona 5 was in early production when trying to make the characters, maybe some of the Devs were playing Persona 3 and 4 to get an idea on how to improve 5 from the other games. They then saw the boy and probably thought “Maybe if we take this character and put it in 5, we could try to make a somewhat timeline to connect these game.”

FOR REAL!?

Would also be interesting if the stuff that happened before the start of the story with the Kirijo Group where connected with the events of Persona 2, especially as far as a certain crawling chaos is concerned.

That reminds me of that one moment I was interacting with the young black-haired boy in the prison clothes that breaks into your room on a regular basis in P3P, and in the middle of that interaction I thought out of nowhere: "Wait... black hair? Prison clothes? Is that freakin' kid Joker!?" Silly, but I found it fun.

Let's be clear portable started development in 2008~2009 period after persona 4 which is the same time frame the persona 5 started development at (that's like way early where everything is in concept phase) but the thing is the persona 5 team & the spinoffs/re-releases team were separate things but maybe just maybe they all went for a cameo thing like Vincent Okay now my mind isn't okay

Someone likes lurking on the Persona Reddit, there was literally a post about this yesterday.

I never would have connected that dot. The way you present this truly does make the theory plausible even if it isn't canon.

I didn’t think about this until this video! This definitely would fit the pieces well together, especially the hair color change mentioned in P5, as well as all the other info pointed out!

The sprite in the boy's text boxes resemble Ryuji's in Persona 5, specifically the one where he smiles.

And Ryuji also knows that Rise once played on club Escapade, in which he is still a lil kid back then iirc. Like he knew rise that's for sure. So it is quite possibly canon that Ryuji is from around there back then. Check Persona Q idk which one but i'm pretty sure remember those part

Persona is huge in having Easter eggs so I think you’re right!

probably just a coincidence but its interesting to see how much it matches up

1:30 they're all wearing Christmas costumes except Skull & Joker.... On the day before Halloween!

It’d be cool if that were the case. I was also thinking the same thing while replaying through P3. Head cannon: yes. Real cannon: probably not. Coincidence: maaaaaybe.

Persona 5 has multiple elements or callbacks to previous games, ideas borrowed from the past and used in a new way. Joker (Persona 2 also had a Joker), Ann is very similar in some aspects to Lisa Silverman from Persona 2 (as is Chie from 4), there is a new Detective Prince working on the case but this time the roles are reversed and so on. The writers probably used some of this minor material from Persona 3 to make Ryuji.

It's the eyebrows!

Hmm.. Interesting theory. Producer could just play along with our theory and say 'yes indeed' though even if we reach it out to them 😏.

I didn't know about those persona theories, this fandom surprises me every day 💀

1:54 I`m here to kill your theory! If this kid would actuyally be our Ryuji he should know about S.E.E.S thing, cuz he saw p3 protagonist and saw this bandage in his hand before. But yeah, really interesting. If i was persona dev i would do that reference in p3p remaster :D

oh wow! very interesting observation, and fun to think about!

I think it's just a coincidence, but the canon could always change to this being him

A potential and possible retcon for sure.

You forgot to mention to really push your theory really further, Ryuji's Persona is "Captain Kidd". He's a pirate and Iwatodai is near to the ocean (perfectly match with his Persona) and the name of "Kidd" may be reference to the little boy. That can't be a coincidence, I really think that boy is Ryuji and if so, Persona's devs, you are all of you a f*cking genius.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is true, a younger Yukiko also appeared in persona 3 portable too

Perhaps the remake can retcon this to make it official

I have a crazy theory that P3 and P5 has connection deeper than we thought and it's the who Morgana really is. Morgana is Ryoji. Remember what Morgana look like? A black cat with blue eyes wearing yellow scarf and keep saying that he is a human and turn out to be a shadow. And who is a boy with black hair bright blue eyes and wearing yellow scarf and turn out to be a sshadow in P3? Ryoji and Ryoji is Thanatos. In P4A Elizabeth take Thanatos with her to stop Erabus from reaching to Nyx. If my theory correct this is what happen. After somehow Elizabeth success to find a power equally to the great seal and replace it then set Makoto's soul free she left Thanatos at the Velvet room nand never came back. Then fake Igor imprisoning real Igor and cut Lavenza in half before that happen she used Thanatos to created Morgana then sent off to find a Wildcard to save her master.

It'd be a cool cameo if they retcon it but judging from his unused dialogues from 5, I find it unlikely.

Probably a coincidence but I see no reason why it can't be retconned into cannon. If Atlus ever gets around to making that P3 remake I hope they rename the boy Ryuji.

I mean, a young Yukiko does appear in this game if you play as FeMC at the time of the trip to Yasogami High so it wouldn't be a stretch if that kid is actually Ryuji.

I'm surprised by the number of people thinking it's a pure coincidence... honestly attention to detail is a pretty common trait in development, so even if this wasn't completely agreed upon, I would not be surprised in even the slightest to hear that Ryuji was at least conceptually based on the kid at some level. In fact I'd be surprised if he wasn't. The real question to me is if this is officially the case or just a nod that was snuck in.

I stopped caring for any world building they try because they burned me once, so all I see is references and homages to things they did before. Thanks 20XX.

Looking at how he smiles, eye color and shirt color, I think he is Ryuji

A boy IN JAPAN with black hair who was born in '99 and was in track and field in school? Literally all Japanese 10yo boys on the track team in 2009 are Ryuji by that logic lol.

Vincent:"First time?"

It's almost certainly a coincidence but I'm just gonna act like that is Ryuji because I think it's neat.

If I was making a persona game (or a sequel to any other franchise) I would never miss the oportunity to make a secondary character (as in characters that barely interact with the story) into a main character somehow, so I don't think it's a coincidence

Look at the eyebrows

That’s it! No more internet for you (I believe this coincidence and want it to be true)

I’m going to say coincidence as Ryuji father had been abusive and left when he was younger so it’s doubtful his mother would have been able to move to Tokyo after all that when Ryuji was a kid also counter point to the hair thing is black hair is the most common hair in Japan so by that logic any kid who had black hair and loved running and was born in 1999 would be Ryuji second he mentions how he never really fit in yet this kid has a whole group with him

If Ryuji is there, there must be Ann too for this to make sense.

I mean if that true then... This poor little kid is going to get his leg broken by a certain teacher..😔

hes in persona 3 reload now... i think

they also got a similar smile and short eyebrows. there's a ton of articles about how hair turns darker with age. canon imo