Joker’s Popularity

Hello everyone. Justin here and welcome to the Otaku Mind where today we’re talking about Persona 5. If there’s one thing I’ve noticed about Persona 5 is that the characters are very popular. Which is understandable they’re all great characters, but one character I’ve noticed that has a growing popularity is Joker. Over the years Joker’s popularity has really taken off. He was announced as the first DLC character for Smash Bros. and from there on would go on to make appearances in other games. You could dress up as him in Tokyo Mirage Session, he was a playable character in AFK Arena, Star Ocean, Catherine, Granblue Fantasy, and many more games. There’s been a number of protagonists in the Persona series, but for some reason Joker seems to be the one that everyone thinks about and loves. With Persona 5 Strikers/Scramble coming out this week now seems like a better time than ever to ask the question: Why is Joker so popular?

Personality

First off, there’s his personality. Just like previous protagonists, Joker doesn’t really have that much of a personality but in truth he does have a little more personality than previous protagonists. In the real world, he has this meek, quiet, and nerdy look to hide his real personality. This makes sense as he’s doing his best not to stand out and not get everyone’s attention since he’s on probation. However, behind that meek and quiet personality is the soul of a rebel. He’s a courageous guy who won’t back down from anyone. One of my favorite scenes from the anime is when Kamoshida hits him with a volleyball spike to the face and Joker maintains his ground not backing down. This was obviously a ploy by Kamoshida to strike fear into Joker and let him know where he fits in on the totem pole, yet Joker wasn’t having any of that crap. He has a strong sense of justice. Whenever he saw someone in trouble he was always ready to jump in and help them out. Hell, the reason why he’s on probation in the first place is because he was protecting a woman from possibly getting raped and getting falsely accused. When he goes into the Metaverse that’s when his personality really lets loose, and we see him for who he truly is. He shows great leadership and sound judgement, he’s a risk-taker never being afraid, he has a flare for the dramatics, he can be a bit of a showoff but not to the point where he feels annoying, and there’s an air of confidence around him. No matter what he did he was confident that he could pull it off no matter how stacked the odds were against him. When he gets captured, beat up and drugged, he was confident he could pull Sae over to his side and avoid death in order to bring the people he wants to justice. While it’s true he carries on the traditional traits of past protagonists and does not get fazed by anything we got to see examples throughout the game where Joker was able to show some of his own personality.

Patience and Interaction with Others

One of the core principles of the Persona games is interacting with the world and the people within it. Persona 5 takes full advantage of this and has Joker interact with a lot of good and interesting people. Starting with the Phantom Thieves, we see Joker display a good level of patience and care with them. He was the first person Ann was able to really open up to, he was always ready to help Yusuke with his painting, he helped Makoto discover a new side of herself, he became a big brother to Futaba, became the first person Haru could truly trust, gave Morgana a place where he could belong, and became Ryuji’s most trusted friend. Even in Persona 5 Royal when everyone gets sucked into Maruki’s world, Joker doesn’t lose faith in them and has confidence that they’ll return to his side and they do. He wasn’t even mad at them for accepting Maruki’s reality as he gets it. Outside of the Phantom Thieves, his interactions with the rest of the confidants are well done as well. He comes to respect Sojiro as both a mentor and father-figure, he saves Hifumi from rigged games, gives Mishima the confidence to be his own hero, helps Tae save a person’s life, reminds Sae what true justice is all about, the list goes on. With all of these characters he displayed a good level of patience with all of them. He was always ready to listen to their worries and concerns and help them out in whatever way he could. Each one of them was important to him and if they had a problem it would be his problem and he was ready to face it with them no matter what.

Cool Appearance

Another factor I think that helps Joker’s popularity is his look. He certainly does have a different look from the other protagonists in the Persona series. In that, he doesn’t look like a protagonist at all. He looks like a side character playing support to the protagonist and that’s what makes it so good. He breaks the mold of what a protagonist should look like. As I said previously he looks kind of nerdy with his glasses, school uniform, and curly hair. Which is a good look, but not the look you would expect the protagonist of a game to have. Even his Metaverse appearance is different. He doesn’t look like a hero, he looks like the anti-hero which I think is cool and something I think a lot of people are starting to find appealing. I’ve always been a fan of the anti-heroes or characters dressed up as rogues. In fact, Dust Balor, the character for my light novel was inspired by Joker’s Metaverse appearance and his personality was inspired by another famous anti-hero, Dante from Devil May Cry. On top of this he wields a gun and knife instead of a sword like a standard protagonist and his main persona, Arsene, uses dark attacks which is often associated with evil or villains. Overall, his appearance is a good reflection of his personality and character. He’s someone who fights for justice from the shadows all while looking good and showing off while doing it.

Conclusion

So that’s why I think Joker is so popular. While Minato from Persona 3 is still my favorite of the protagonists, I will say that Joker is the coolest of the bunch and I’m happy to see him get recognized for it as his popularity only draws more eyes to the Persona series and the rest of the SMT games which deserve more recognition in my opinion and deserve to be played. I’m not sure what the protagonist of Persona 6 will look like but here’s hoping they’ll be just as popular as Joker if not more. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.

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