To answer the questions about the masks it’s supposed to symbolize revealing your true self (a.k.a. Your persona) to the world

In this story, the main Personas are based on famous rogue, thieves, and rebels as the cast are fighting corruption in society via their counterparts in a shadow realm version of the real world. The ripping off of the mask represents taking off the unjust label the wicked tries to frame you as and turns it into a weapon to fight back. Then, as the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, they dive into the collective consciousness to steal their target's motivation for their evil actions to trigger a change of heart and desire to repent.

Robbie goes hard as Akechi, should have won an award for that voice acting.

Ninja Kitty Morgana does actually have a Persona named Zorro that he uses at 6:30, it's just that he already had it at the start so he didn't get an epic awakening moment like the others.

Nah because throughout this entire game Ryujis English VA goes SO hard it's amazing, like this man is must have destroyed his voice.

To immediately explain this. The masks in Persona 5 represents the facade that you have to put on because of society. When you take the mask off, you’re casting away those societal shackles and letting out your true innermost self, which is what the Persona represents. And to give a little more detail on what "Shadow" people are, basically just the twisted deep desires of a person, the big ones who have their own realms called a "Palace" based on how much control they have in the real world and it represents what the actual person would imagine how they see where they are at (Like Kamoshida seeing the school he works in as his own Castle). It would be fun to see ya'll play this! Although the game does set time limits in the form of days and it's of course a turn-based RPG game, so it has a bit of difficulty, the story is amazing, often having more darker problems as well.

For reference, all the bad guys in Persona 5 are “Shadows” of real people. The first guy, for example, is actually the school gym teacher who beats and sexually harasses his students (even blackmailing Ann, the blonde girl, into dating him) but gets away with it because he’s a former Olympian. As such, in the metaverse (where these awakenings are), his Shadow is a king and the school is his castle with the students as his slaves.

The whiplash from "oh yeah awesome bike" to "you're the reason she committed suicide" was insane Also for context, the rotten adults they meet aren't the same guys who wronged them, kinda. They're the hearts of those evil people, and the way they look is based on what the evil person thinks about their domain (kamoshida thinks the school is his castle, so he's a king in his palace, kaneshiro thought of the city as his personal bank, so he's a bank manager, etc)

Something I love about Makoto's awakening (the one with the sick motorcycle) is that up to that point she is a very calm and upstanding person, not acting out and playing the role of the perfect student. Then she reaches her breaking point and thats why every seemed so surprise.

I will always love Futaba and her shadow. It's an awesome nod to how the Persona 4 cast had so many problems because they rejected their shadow's words instead of listening to what they were truly saying at first.

Persona 5 is my top game of all time. Its the first and only game that made me legit feel sad it was over. Persona 5 is a 2016 role-playing video game developed by Atlus. It takes place in modern-day Tokyo and follows a high school student known by the pseudonym Joker who transfers to a new school after being falsely accused of assault and put on probation. Over the course of a school year, he and other students awaken to a special power, becoming a group of secret vigilantes known as the Phantom Thieves of Hearts. They explore the Metaverse, a supernatural realm born from humanity's subconscious desires, to steal evil intent from the hearts of others.

This gonna be good! In Akihiko's words: "I've been waiting for this!"

I'm not sure if anyone mentioned it yet but each persona awakening's speech had an overall message of how to stop wearing there masks that they presented to society and be there real selves: from Penn_Anthony Persona Awakening Speech Meanings 1) Joker/Arsene: Even if people hate you or the world is against you, you have to fight for what you believe is right even if that means there will be consequences for you. 2) Ryuji/Captain Kidd: If people already have low expectations of you, you might as well act however you want and enjoy yourself. 3) Ann/Carmen: You can't hold yourself back by calling yourself weak, or else all is lost. The only way to live is to go all out and not be afraid of what others might think. 4) Yusuke/Goemon: If you see that something is wrong, you can't fix it by averting your eyes. You have to live by your own sense of right and wrong and to hell with what others think of your choices. 5) Makoto/Johanna: You can't live a life where you do nothing but obey the will of others even if it may seem like that is the right choice. If you want to find your own path, you'll need to deviate from the norm. 6) Futaba/Necronomicon: Don't let others deceive you with their false claims. Find the truth for yourself and don't let others pollute your mind with their beliefs. 7) Haru/Milady: Even if someone is close to you, that doesn't give them the right to control your future. If they insist on forcing their ideals upon you, than you'll have no choice but to betray there expectations. Still can't help but rewatch these awakenings due to how epic they are.

Didn’t expect to see Persona on the channel so soon! Persona is a branch of the Shin Megani Tensei franchise that is heavily character focused. In SMT: you summon demons in order to aid you in battle - often times these demons take the form of mythological deities and cryptids. Persona, takes these demons and changes the script - with each “demon” representing the repressed personality of the individual: “The Shadow”. Persona takes heavy inspiration from Carl Jung’s Analytical (Jungian) psychology - which proposes that we all wear masks when interacting with others (a persona) when facing the worlds problems. When with those close to us, we reveal our true face behind our mask, our shadow: the best and worst parts of ourselves. All the characters in Perosna 5 have personas themed after great thieves in ancient literature: from Zoro to Arsené Lupin (rival to Sherlock Holmes) himself. Our protagonist (glasses kid with the black fuzzy hair) was convicted of assault after saving a woman from sexual assault. With his life and reputation now ruined he choose to hone the power of his Persona to steal the unconscious distorted desires of criminals, and bring them to justice. Fun question: what what your Persona be? All of mythological and literature are yours to choose from - as long as they reflect your personality. Personally? Anansi the Spider was always a personal favorite: the African equivalent of the tricker god Loki - he is a god of knowledge and wisdom. Preferring to outsmart his enemies as opposed to fight them.

The cat already has a Persona, he had it unlocked before you met him. So he never had an awakening scene

YES!!! You have no clue how much I wanted to see this! From a presentation standpoint Persona 5 has the best awakenings in the series PS: The video didn't have every awakening. Royal and Strikers have a few more if you wanna check them out

The “69” symbol you guys saw during Futaba’s awakening is actually the astrological symbol for Cancer (♋️). I couldn’t tell you what correlation it has to the aesthetics of Futaba’s palace though 😅😅.

Definitely suggest playing this game for you to understand everything that is going on. Every single one of these stories is emotional and amazing.

Ive been waiting for you guys to go back to more persona the concept of this game and it's story is a beautiful thing

The Persona games are sooooo good! Very long and time consuming but fun nonetheless

I literally just beat my first ever playthrough (200 hour) game today! Was bawling my eyes out 😭. Easily my favorite game of all time now, I am extremely looking forward to this reaction!!!!

I love the persona games and it’s neat seeing people get into it. I will say though these persona awakenings would probably be way more emotional and cool with the context and the journey to that point though. But damn the game is really long but fun. Especially Persona 5 Royal which adds another character who has there own persona awakening too. It’s just a really really good game. And the personas are cool. Love Johanna and Loki, some of my favorite of the bunch.

Now to have you guys react to the characters from Persona 5 Royal + Scramble awakenings, maybe even showtime attacks. 👀 Great video and reaction as always! 😊👌🏾

The main theme of this game is: Rebellion and Freedom. Rebel against those who hold power, and abuse said power to stand above others, and be completely free. Taking or ripping off the mask symbolizes that same act of taking our mask and releasing our true self we keep hidden away. A persona is the true self, and a shadow is the opposite of that; but they are both parts of the being, accepting your shadow is accepting yourself, hence creating your true persona. I love this game; also, you did miss one which is from the re-release Persona 5 Royal; but it's fine, I'm glad you reacted to one of my favorite games of all time.

Kinda sad that this video only included vanilla P5, I really wanted to see your reaction to Maruki. While all the characters on P5 are meant to be indisputably evil people who abuse their power in the social hierarchy, Maruki (bonus boss for P5 Royal) is one of those cases in which the main villain has good intentions all throughout and seems to be legitimately sad when you want to stop him. Honestly one of the best Persona antagonists next to Nyarlathotep.

So the heroes in Persona 5 have personas based on thieves in various works of fiction and history, which goes well with the story of them being Phantom Thieves. All personas in the games are manifestations of concepts of the collective human mind, usually taking the forms of mythical creatures, demigods, angels, demons, and legends from all over the world. Persona is very much influenced from Niche's philosophy. The yellow eyes usually symbolize the emergence of one's inner shadow. The villains in these cinematics aren't the physical people but rather their egos manifested in their own "palaces", the way they perceive themselves in the world. They aren't good people as Kamoshida demonstrates very clearly with the first three characters.

Man it looks like it hurts but it’s awesome how they awaken themselves

Also context for the ann awakening and the conversation with Kamoshida: In the real world Ann has pretended to date the real Kamoshida for weeks to gain infos on him and she is best friends with a girl named shiho, who is on the volleyball team Kamoshida supervises. Kamoshida has a history of physically abusing the male members of the team and sexually harrassing the female ones, which mind you is not even a secret, evreyone at the school knows about it but it is ignored because of the prestige the team brings to the school and if I say evreyone, I mean evreyone, the school principal, the victims parents... After a particular harsh assault on her, Shiho attempts to commit suicide and at the point in the story where the cutscene takes place it is unclear if she will survive.

I love Persona never thought I'd see you react to this! The concept of this story is complex and beautiful, thanks for reacting to this!

Welcome to persona 5. The first villian; kamoshida, the pervert teacher. The one who physically abuses his students. Nominates one of the volleyball team to be beated when he is angry. Sexual predator to Ann to the point rumors spread that they are... "together".. and raped her best friend because she wouldnt give herself up to him. She then later tried to commit suicide. Ye... welcome to persona 5

You guys had some great takeaways and noticed a lot about the themes of the persona games with this minimum exposure. Hope to see you react to more persona in the future!

This has to be my favorite video you guys have done so far. Love you guys.

Thanks for doing this, nice to see a recommendation on completed

Yusuke's awakening is hands down my favorite

Been waiting for this one!

I'm glad they gave it another chance. The Awakenings are one of the best parts of the game! And now you guys have a better understanding of the storyline and themes of Persona 5.

The titular Persona in not just Persona 5 but the other games are based on the ideas of Psychologist Carl Jung. He described the Persona as "a kind of mask", designed on the one hand, to make a definite impression on others, and on the other, to conceal the true nature of the individual. There was also the Shadow, one's hidden or suppressed desires. He also was the guy who came up with the Collective Unconscious. "We all wear masks, and the time comes when we cannot remove them without removing some of our skin." - André Berthiaume. Something that applies well here.

For the record, Morgana (the kitty, though don't call him that to his face. He hates being called a cat) does have a persona. He just didn't get a cutscene showing his. It's Zorro.

Yes! My favorite part of the Persona games. Always so intense seeing their awakenings. As for the cat, Mona, he already had an awakened Persona which is why he didn’t get an awakening. The most Mona got was a reveal of his Persona Zorro which was before Ryuji awakened Captain Kidd.

One of my favourite games of all time, hope to see more from you guys about Persona!

Though you guys are missing a lot of context I definitely think you got the point the transformation of the kids and the summoning of their persona. Love this video and I definitely love the ending talk.

Hopefully you guys will do the awakening's of both royal and strikers.

I'm sure for people who haven't played the game or watched the anime series, watching these without any context would be quite bizzare 😅 I love makoto with the bike still my favourite awakening but futaba's story was fantastic loved that so much

Yes! Been waiting for this video to dropped ever since you watched the last Persona video lol

So here is a brief synopsis of the Awakened Persona each character has. Joker/MC: Arsene- The gentleman thief Arsene Lupin Morgana/the cat- I know we don't see his but I figure you'd like to know but he has Zorro, the folk hero of Spanish California. Ryuji- Captain Kidd, legendary pirate Ann- Carmen, gypsy woman and titular character of the opera Yusuke- Goemon, legendary Japanese thief/ninja Goemon Ishikawa Makoto- Johanna, the erased from history or folk tale female Pope Johanna Futaba- Necronomicon, as in the book from H P Lovecraft lore Haru- Milady, funny that you called out her Three Musketeers design as her Persona is Milady de Winter from the same story Akechi- Robin Hood, legendary thief.....and then Loki, God of Mischief Endgame Joker- Satanael, the true form of Satan

Yes!!! More persona content!!! I hope they react to persona 3 and 4 awakenings as well, as each game is different with the ways the main characters summon their persona!!

Also in Gnosticism Yaldabolth is a god that wanted to control humans and Satanael is the Archangel that rebelled against him and gave humanity free will. So in a game where all personas are gentleman thieves, and a pirate, and a femme fatale, the ultimate persona is also the ultimate rebel.

It's a cognitive science fantasy game themed after a loose interpretation of Jungian psychology. The characters enter into a psycho-space/cognitoverse/noosphere type of otherworld that resembles Shin Megami Tensei where cognitive concepts are made manifest in physical form and encounter shadows (in Jungian psychology shadows are the part of one's self that is hidden from the outside world) and awaken to their Personas (personae are mental masks that represent how you or your ego ((the self)) wish to be seen) that they can use to protect themselves in the other world.

Man I haven’t seen this series in a while, I recommend following this up with the Persona 5 Royal awakenings and the Persona 5 Strikers awakenings

This was great. Morgana the kitty does have a Persona but you don’t see his awakening. His persona is Zorro

It's always awesome as a diehard persona fan to see people going into the series basically blind. I find it really interesting how far you guys are able to go with identifying some of the overarching themes and topics of the game from essentially just a collection of clips from the game. I don't know much about the channel yet, but for a compilation like this I think it'd be really cool and engaging if you two gave some sort of like opinion/analysis between clips, or maybe even like some sort of guesses about what the story could be about. I think that'd really personalise the reaction vid and make it unique, and maybe even give a bit more engagement with the audience on whether you guys are close or not.

To explain the outfits, they are a reflection of how the world views them. Ann was perceived because of kamoshida as the easy lay. Ryujis represents as pirate does he pillaged and pilfered his teammates dreams. Makoto’s was a representation or her cast iron demeanor. Haru’s outfit is a result of her wanting to be a heroine of justice. This is only my theory

So the Persona series using a lot of Carl Jung psychology with the persona, the shadow and the true self. There’s that saying that comes from it that people wear mask to hide their true self and the characters tear off their mask to be their true self and show off their persona while fighting shadows and peoples darkness. Also Morgona the ninja kitty actually does have a persona and idk why this video didn’t show it but it’s name is Zorro. A lot of their personas since they are known as thieves and they steal things are named after tricksters. The main character Joker’s persona is Arsene named after Arsene Lupin one of Sherlock Holmes rivals. Ryuji had Captain Kidd named after William Kidd. Ann has Carmen named after a gypsy by the same opera. Yusuke had Goemon who is the Japanese Robin Hood. Makoto has Johanna which is a female pope she was able to trick people to thinking she was a man. Futaba has Necronomicon named after the same book which is found in H.P. Lovecrafts stories. Haru has Milady who is actually a character from the Three Musketeers and is a villain from that story. Akechi has Loki the trickster god and actually also has a second persona called Robin Hood which was a coverup. The last persona shown was actually Joker’s ultimate persona basically an evolution of his base persona and everyones persona can evolve, named Satanael which is another interpretation of Lucifer since their is already a Satan and Lucifer persona in the series since there’s alot of interpretations of them.

As someone who for years only got to experience this game on KZfaq. Then when the games got posted to the Xbox & switch. Seeing these scenes first hand is much better.

fun video!! the kitty does have a persona btw :)

Joker: “Your god like power is no match for my gun.”

For a little context on the villains: Kamoshida is an Olympic volleyball player who uses his fame to take advantage of the girls he coaches at their school; trading sexual favors for kind treatment. Madarame is an art thief obviously, but his master forgery was a painting of a woman and her child, and that woman was the mother of the guy who awakened in that scene. Kaneshiro is a loan shark who gets kids to sell illegal product to lock them into his ownership forever. Wakaba is the murdered mother of the girl who awakened, but she believed it was her fault for her mother's death. The food mogul was the father of the girl who awakened there, and he was essentially a slaver working employees to death and tried selling his daughter off to the competition's CEO. Sae is the sister of the girl with the bike, she's a prosecutor who will do anything to win her case and advance in the system, including putting innocents away. Goro was just flat out a murderer trying to impress his father, the Prime Minister, named Shido. Shido is the corrupt PM who got the first character who awakened thrown into the judicial system. He was harassing a woman on the street, Joker stepped in, and the cops took the word of the politician because the woman wouldn't speak up. Shido also had numerous people killed to ascend to power.

I enjoyed this wayyy more than I thought I would 😂

The cat does have a Persona, but because he isn't human he already unlocked it, it's called Zorro. Also each villain personified a deadly sin (plus Vanity and Sorrow), the PE Teacher was Lust, the Artist was Vanity, The Gangster (Bank Manager) was Gluttony, The Sphinx (Futaba's Mother) was Wrath, Haru's father (Space Man) was Greed, the others are Pride, Envy and Sorrow (not shown).

Morgana (the cat) does have a persona, he had already awakened his before the game started and he’s the one that teaches the player how to use your persona

If you think these awakenings alone are wild, there's about three more between Persona 5 Royal (remake) and Persona 5 Strikers (Warriors-styled sequel).

10:04 they have the mask on, and when the ripped the mask off, they release their "persona", their true self, their inner power, and each persona symbolize with major arcanas from tarot cards, for example the protagonist's main arcana is "The Fool", means that he's a blank canvas

Somehow, I knew by the thumbnail you were looking at Yusuke clawing the floor.

You'll love the stories behind the franchise

The Persona series is fantastic at illustrating the mental struggles we go through.

The way joker peels the mask off is absolutely the most painful looking one.

Love that you guys are liking Persona 5. You should totally react to the showtime attacks as well as the stuff from P5R/P5S

YES i never see anyone react to these and i love them

Highly suggest checking out the royal and strikers awakenings, Violet & wolf have good ones and especially Sophia's and Maruki's are really deep in the symbolism

A Persona is who you pretend to be to the world to protect yourself, symbolized by the mask. It protects you by not letting anyone get to know the real you. But if you can rip off the mask, and present who you really are to the world, the persona can switch from defense to offense, and then you will have great power. the whole series is based off Jungian Psychology and the Tarot. the fighting takes place in the collective subconscious, where you can see who people really are. The really bad people have carved an entire domain for themselves out of the collective subconscious making the levels of the game.

God damn the futaba chapter always gets me. to give some explaination: Futaba lost her mother who worked on some technology. she was then murdered with a suicide note being made to blame Futaba. which leads Futaba to close herself in her room for a long time. to the point she was almost dying from guilt (she was considering suicide. she was also a amazing hacker and used her skills to track down the Phantom thieves (the main protagonists gang) and asking them to help steal her heart (it is basically her dark thoughts which makes people get twisted). as you saw she learned that the note was fake and try to battle her darkness and guilt. but after you help her, she is then in need of help to try and be able to talk to people because she has become extremely shy due to her isolation.

i recommend the strikers and royal awakenings aswell

Ahhhh persona 5.... the game where you save Christmas by battling god with the power of Satan

29:45 Morganna (The Cat) actually does have a persona called "Zorro" They're not here because their persona was awakened prior to the story

All the Persona trailers and cutscenes are really good

Well this was an unexpected surprise. I never saw it coooommmmmiiiiiinnnggggg!!!!!!

The music that comes after the awakening is enough to make my cat turn into a black jaguar

So you guys watched the awakenings in base P5, but there are a few more in P5 Strikers and P5 Royal.

Morganna (the kitty) has a persona he just already had it unlocked at the start of the game so he doesn't have an awakening

Each enemy exhibits one of the seven deadly sins

Him: "What the Hell?" Playerbase: "Correct"

Kitty does have one, but he never got an awakening scene because he already has his when you meet him

The kitty had a persona. This is just when they show they awakened. Morgana awoke before they met him, so he doesn't have an awakening scene.

Can't remember which persona it was but in one of them the characters shoot themselves in the head with cap guns to bring their persona out

25:52 the fact that their literally is a ghost rider persona (Called Hell Biker)

Ninja kitty (his name is Morgan’s) has a Persona that we don’t get an awakening for since he had it before meeting Ren (Joker) and Ryuji (Skull) and it’s Zorro

Kitty does have a persona but he already has it when we meet him so he never has an awakening. Also the personas are all either historical or literary characters that work for each character’s story arc and personality so it’s very cool. They were very deliberate with who they chose as a persona for each character.

Really hope you check out the other openings of the other persona games like you did with persona 5

this is one of my favorite games of recent years. I bet seeing these clips got you interested in playing the game as well. I am thou, Thou art I is a genius saying which became something I myself adopted

Interesting you compare Haru's costume to a Musketeer, her Persona is based off of Milady de Winter, a villain from The Three Musketeers. Also the ending when Satanael (Satan) is summoned and finishes the final boss always gives me goosebumps.

There are two more Persona awakening that don't appear in this video because they are from the spin-off/sequel game Persona 5: Strikers, as well as one more from Persona 5: Royal, both games of which I believe came out after this "All Awakenings" video did.

The raw ripping of the masks also symbolizes how hard it is to face and accept your true self in the face of an unjust reality. P5 is perfect in every way but the villains deserve a special shout-out. Of course, there is the super-natural aspect of the game but most of us have seen or heard of jerk teachers, corrupt politicians or company heads, and that makes P5 more relatable. And I hope you try P5 Royal as well because it also explores the fact that being a 'villain' or 'enemy' does not mean they are evil but instead they could simply have a different way of thinking than you, and could very well be right in the eyes of others.

It’s actually really interesting to see reactions to the plot drops when you have no idea what’s going on hahaha

A video about all the intros of the Persona series would be nice. It'd be sort of long, though.

I mean this in best way possible but you remind me or proJared when he wasn't doing bad stuff :x you both seem so wholesome and sweet! I'm married and I've definitely wanted to do something like this for fun with my husband but still thinking about it. Thanks for the inspiration you two are so cute!! 😊

you should also do the showtime attacks from persona 5 they are all very cool and fun

If either or both of you ever have the time, the game definitely deserves your play through, but it does take quite a bit of time to complete, and especially so if you play the Persona 5 Royal, which is how the game should have been released originally. It's really well written.

the Persona series is basically JoJos bizarre adventure mixed with inception

There’s two more awakenings in Persona 5 Strikers too! :D

I like how everyone in the comments wrote the same thing 500xs and none of you noticed it