Funny Memes About Making Up With an Ex

For memes related to the rest of the Persona series, click here

The eight-year Sequel Gap paid itself off in memes during the first week of release alone.

Pre-release

• You are slave. Want emancipation? ^Explanation The first teaser for Persona 5 was a picture of five chairs that were "held down" with prison weights, and had this line of Engrish text to go along with it. Oddly enough, the only localization change to the tagline was to add an a before "slave". This also gained traction with fans who had gotten tired of the constant Persona 3 and 4 spinoffs.
• "Yer a Persona user, Harry." "I'm a what?" ^Explanation When the protagonist for Persona 5 was revealed, tons of people noticed how similar he looked to Harry Potter. Many, many jokes were made.
• Phantom Bandits of Hearts ^Explanation Although Joker and his friends refer to their group as the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, there are quite a few situations in which they end up resorting to brute force, such as during the boss fight of each Palace, where they basically rob the Treasure from the owner instead of stealing it.
• Ann's Persona is Carmen Sandiego. ^Explanation Ann's Persona was simply called "Carmen" when it was finally revealed. It's actually supposed to be the titular character from the novel/opera "Carmen", but given how relatively unknown that is among the game's main audience, and the fact she's a Classy Cat-Burglar, gamers were quick to make the connection.
• Parts of the fanbase dubbed Joker "Chairy Potter" or "Chair-kun". Some joked that Kanji's secret weapon in Persona 4: Arena would be the Persona 5 protagonist. Note that this was before the shocking Phantom Thief reveal.
• Haru tips her hat upon introduction and her Persona is named "Milady". Cue fedora jokes.
• Makoto's Persona, Johanna, has been dubbed the "Popemobile" due to being based on a fabled pope and the fact that, well, it's a motorcycle.
  • "Johanna noises", a reference to the infamous "Motorcycle noises" meme from Persona 2.
• Akechi/Robbie Daymond in Atlus's basement. ^{Free him.} Originally popping up during the Japanese promotion, referring to the little attention Akechi received. Making a comeback, due to Atlus USA not releasing Robbie Daymond's interview on the same schedule as the others.
• Celebrating the release date of Persona 5 before it even came out. ^Explanation The game was delayed from Winter 2014 and 2015 release dates in its early-stage announcements. On social media, it wasn't uncommon seeing people celebrate the game as if it already came out before its official release (I.E. A tweet stating "Persona 5 came out 2 years ago today in Winter 2014").

Post-release

• FOR REAL?!?! ^Explanation Ryuji Sakamoto has the tendency to say "FOR REAL?!" quite a bit, complete with voice acting no less!
• YUSUKE'S FUCKIN PISSED!! ^Explanation Yusuke's battle cut-in when he hits a weakness looks utterly furious, a stark contrast to the relatively neutral expressions worn by the other characters and Yusuke's normally calm demeanor. The fandom was quick to make jokes about this.
• "Yosh!" ^Explanation After doing an activity that raises a stat in the Japanese version, Joker always says this. This quickly became an ear worm after Atlus showed off a bunch of gameplay videos during a stream.
• Photoshopping Shinya Oda's "Get Smoked" hat onto other members of the cast caught on very quick once the character portraits were dropped online.
  • And that turned into photoshopping said hat onto everything that has a head.
• Pancakes ^{Explanation (Spoilers!)} Goro accidentally reveals himself when he overhears Morgana describe a building as being shaped like a pancake, then mentions that remark while talking to the Thieves. Since only those who have been to the Metaverse and seen Morgana can hear him, and Goro isn't yet friendly with the Thieves, this becomes his undoing later in the story. Naturally, the fandom was quick to run with it and Atlus referenced the incident in a Mementos conversation in Royal.
  • 6/9 ^{Explanation (spoilers!)} June 9 is the day Goro Akechi first directly contacts the Phantom Thieves and also the day he unknowingly revealed himself as the culprit later on with the above-mentioned Pancakes. This is also a Take That! against Atlus for the 7/7 streaming since one of the biggest spoilers of the game took place before that date.
• Trust no one not even yourself. ^{Explanation (Spoilers!)} The confrontation between Goro and Cognitive Goro in Shido's palace, with one pointing his gun at the head of the other naturally led to referencing the memetic 2014 twitter post of a teenager photoshopping a picture with two copies of himself, with one pointing a gun at the other.
  • lol2goros ^{Explanation (spoilers!)} /vg/ Persona Thread's term to refer to said scene.
• "A RIVER IN A DRY LAND" ^Explanation The extremely catchy lyrics from "Rivers in the Desert" were a hit with fans.
• SATAN'S SAVING CHRISTMAS! ^{Explanation (Major Spoilers!)} The final battle, where Joker summons Satanael to defeat the Final Boss, Yaldabaoth, the Gnostic interpretation of God, takes place on Christmas Eve. The irony was not lost on players.
• P5 FES / P5 Crimson soon ^Explanation A lot of players have been unsatisfied with the ending, feeling that it was rushed and incomplete, resulting in people expecting the story to be more fleshed out in an Updated Re-release, DLC, or spinoffs. True to form, an Updated Re-release came to be with Persona 5 Royal, which adds an original story chapter during the Time Skip, with a plot that is distinct from but ties into the original game's ending.
• YOU'LL NEVER SEE IT COMIIIIIIINNNNNGGGG ^Explanation The lyrics of "Last Surprise" are often posted in response to the game's many twists and has spawned many image and video parodies. It's used also in Atlus USA's Twitch when they showed the ambush gameplay as Lauren demonstrated. Has taken on new life when Joker was revealed as a playable DLC character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (especially since everyone was predicting the reveal of a Square Enix character). Even more so when rather than his gameplay trailer and release happening in a Nintendo Direct, it was in a video that showed up out of the blue.
• The Ruse Cruise ^Explanation Another line used to answer many of the game's twists, coined by Twitch users. It picked up steam, as when Shido's Palace turned out to be a cruise ship, the Twitch chat EXPLODED.
• Time to button mash. ^Nyaaaa!! This one comes from a scene early in Madarame's arc, where the Phantom Thieves have to take a train to his home. They are approached by a little kid and try to pass Morgana off as a toy that meows when its head is pressed. When the kid asks again, one of the options is this. Choosing the option makes Joker repeatedly and painfully swat Morgana on the head. Fans have naturally latched on to this. Became an Ascended Meme in Royal, where the scene was given full voice acting.
• Being Goro is suffering ^{Explanation (spoilers!)} A meme taken from Puella Magi Madoka Magica, refers to Goro's tragic life and even up to his death. Sometimes also used when people are complaining of how poorly ATLUS treated the character.
• The Goropocalypse ^{Explanation (spoilers!)} /vg/ got ahold of the game shortly after release, and proceed to datamine everything in the game. Then they found the cutscene where Goro shoots Joker in the Non Standard Game Over, and the rest is history.
• GORO AKECHI'S WILD RIDE ^{Explanation (spoilers!)} Taken from the /vg/ general for Persona to refer to the story twists around the character Goro Akechi. It started after datamining revealed Goro as the traitor; as everyone was sure that was supposed to be the big twist, everyone was disappointed. Little did they know that there is much more to it than that. This term exploded when one anon posted a picture of two Goros without any explanation or context before streamers reached that part and sent the general into a meltdown, beginning the meme with people alternating between wanting to get off and wanting it to continue.
  • I WANT OFF AKECHI-SAN'S WILD RIDE ^Explanation The continuation of the above meme. Funnily enough, one of Akechi's lines during his boss fight just so happens to be "I'm not letting you off!"
  • stop talking about groo holy shit ^Explanation One poster suddenly declared during all this for everyone to stop talking about Goro, as they were tired of several threads in a row being nothing but this; however, they spelled his name as "groo" and also used no capitalization or punctuation, causing posters to not only mock the poster's poor typing but also saying they weren't talking about Gru from Despicable Me at all. Another poster responded with an edit of the Principal with Igor's nose (which looks just like Gru) and called it the worst thing they'd ever made. Now whenever anyone brings Goro up on the general, expect someone to respond with this, with the edited picture following soon after.
• Ann's poor spine. ^Explanation When she was officially announced, Ann's official art showed her angled that it appeared that she was hunched.
• #NotMyIgor ^{Explanation (spoilers!)} A response to both Igor's The Other Darrin treatment and The Reveal that he's actually Yaldabaoth, not the real Igor (which is the real reason for the change in voice).
• Aspects of the game (Dialogue box, Weather, and Day Info) are spliced to videos. This is one such example.
• Everyone is Shido's kid. ^{Explanation (spoilers!)} Due to the number of characters with absent fathers (Ryuji, Yusuke, and Futaba), the fandom began to joke that it's because Shido abandoned them like he did with Goro.
• 7/7 ^Explanation ATLUS made a statement detailing that Twitch streamers playing the localized/English version of Persona 5 aren't allowed to stream past the in-game date 7/7 for the sake of spoilers despite the fact that the game's been out in Japan for nearly 7 months now, much to many streamers' dismay.
  • "The tutorial ends on 7/7." ^Explanation Streamers new to the game have complained about the overwhelming amount of tutorial/tips given to the player; even after 40+ hours of playing, Twitch chat figured the tutorial wouldn't end until 7/7, streams would (supposedly) have to stop streaming the game.
• You must be tired, why don't you go to bed?/Let's not do that today. ^Explanation Whenever you go to Mementos, a Palace, or have multiple days of plot events (usually to set up the new target and the next Palace), Morgana will refuse to let you do anything that will take time once you return to your room besides going to bed. The latter is especially egregious when the main character's "long and tiring day" consists of meeting with his friends and having a short group conversation with them, and Morgana insists that you get rest for tomorrow's meeting or event... which tends to be the exact same thing as the day before. This also tends to evolve into Morgana telling Joker to Go the Fuck to Sleep, and eventually, Cassandra Lee Morris read the book in Morgana's voice as an acknowledgement of the meme.
• *interacts with anyone* *time flashes forward* ^Explanation Establishing a new Confidant causes a brief jump back to the interrogation room, where Sae notes that the Phantom Thieves must have had someone with a specific skill as an accomplice. This quickly turned into jokes about Sae accusing every random NPC you pass of being part of your schemes or that mundane/silly actions required the aid of a "specialist" to pull off.
  • Nasty Crimeboy ^Explanation The name used by one of the first people to make such a post, presumably in reference to Monster Factory, is rapidly gaining popularity. In a similar fashion, Akechi is referred to as "Decent Lawboy."
• Yusuke's love for lobsters. ^Explanation During the Beach Episode, Yusuke spends his money on buying two lobsters "for the sake of appreciation". It's only one small scene, but the fandom was quick to run with it.
• #FeedYusuke ^Explanation Being a Starving Artist, Yusuke has a strong appreciation for food and always jumps into the conversation whenever it is talked about. Because of how he was kept in starvation by Madarame in the past and how often he wants to eat despite only having barely enough money for cup noodles, many fans ran away with it and voiced their desire to give him a proper meal.
• Makoto's Browser History ^Explanation A certain scene in the game has Makoto access Sae's laptop to take her data into Futaba's USB. The fanbase immediately took to this and started photoshopping websites of all kinds that Makoto was browsing.
  • In a similar vein: "I would like your honest opinion...if you would." ◊ ^Explanation Like the Makoto image above, the fanbase uses this set up to photoshop all kinds of artwork (usually low-quality or adhering to certain fetishes) into Yusuke's canvas. For context, this is from the Rank 2 event of his Confidant where he's submitting his first major art piece to an exhibition.
• "The influence of ___ knows no bounds... I underestimated it, honestly." ^Explanation Akechi fills in the blanks with whatever you name the Phantom Thieves of Hearts for online play. It didn't take long for the fanbase to put in all sorts of funny and lewd combinations.
• Lala Escargot is best girl. ^Explanation A variant on the "best girl" memes from Persona 4. Lala Escargot runs the Crossroads bar and is fairly popular despite being a minor NPC without a Confidant, due to being a positive portrayal of an LBGT person (they're implied to either be a gay Drag Queen or a transwoman) and all round Reasonable Authority Figure, especially when compared to the two Camp Gay guys who harass Ryuji.
  • Yusuke, perhaps to an even greater degree, is given the same treatment.
  • Same with Ryuji. ^Explanation If Joker doesn't have a Love Interest, he'll end up spending Valentine's Day only with Ryuji, who even gives him chocolate.
  • In general, saying that a character that is not even female in the first place is "best girl". Common choices include Ryuji and Yusuke as mentioned above, the SIU Director, Igor or even Jack Frost.
  • Ohya is worst girl. ^Explanation When compared to the rest of the confidants, Ohya is agreed to be by almost all the players the Confidant with the most useless abilities in the game (they lower the security levels in the palaces, but this is not that useful unless you are REALLY bad at getting through a palace), not to mention that there are people who feel turned off by her alcoholic habits, her being older than the protagonist (which is a Broken Base that also affects Kawakami, Takemi, and Chihaya), and overall bland appearance. This lead to many jokes about Ohya being "Worst Girl".
• Joker telling Sae about his life in extreme, borderline uncomfortable detail. ^Explanation The game is framed in a How We Got Here narrative, which is justified by it being a testimony from the player character to Sae. However, because every single day up to the interrogation, which is pretty far in the year, is playable, it's become a joke that Joker is telling Sae literally every single thing he did every day in unneeded detail.
  • "Did you have to include the part where you fucked my sister?" ^Explanation One of the girls the player can romance is Sae's younger sister, Makoto. If they do, then her final Confidant event ends with the implication that her and Joker had sex. Taking the aforementioned Framing Device into account, as well as the fact that Makoto is one of the most popular girls in the game, people started making jokes about how uncomfortable things would have gotten if Joker mentioned this in his testimony to Sae.
  • In general, having Sae express disbelief about parts of the story is turning into a Running Gag to help gloss away certain parts of the game that are either polarizing to some, or just odd to others.
• Ooh, we can do this! ^Explanation During every set of exams, Morgana will say this line aloud every time Joker picks a correct answer. Given that you get to answer two questions a day and exams can last up to a week, players can hear Morgana say this line up to a dozen times in the space of about 5 minutes.
  • Looking cool, Joker! ^Explanation In the same vein as above, Morgana tends to say this line whenever Joker hits a Shadow with its elemental weakness; which, combined with the fact that the PC might as well be the character you rely on for all elements before late-game, equals that the player will hear this line a lot. It's spread even more now that Joker has been released in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and one of his taunts in that game has Morgana say this exact line.
  • What are your thoughts? ^Explanation Morgana says this every time the player crafts an infiltration tool, up to five times in a single sitting.
  • It's almost scary how good I am! ^Explanation On a similar note to "Looking cool, Joker!", Morgana says this line whenever he hits a Shadow's elemental weakness. Given that early in the game Morgana's abilities only hit one enemy at a time, this is heard a lot.
• #LetRyujiSayFuck ^Explanation Ryuji holds the title of the only main character to explicitly say "fuck" in game (though it is never voiced; the line is voiced in Royal, but Ryuji says "shittiest" instead), and then proceeds to never say it again, substituting it for "eff". Naturally, fans are (jokingly) rallying for him to say it again. This finally happens in Strikers.
  • RYUJI SAID "FUCK!" ^explanation Strikers has Ryuji finally deliver a true Precision F-Strike and the fanbase took notice.
• The kid behind Joker's desk. ^Explanation Joker sits in front of a student in class; one of whom the fandom quickly realized would have seen Morgana, him making lockpicks or other suspicious items, and possibly his texts about the Phantom Thieves. He quickly became hailed as the "real hero" of the game for never snitching on any of these.
• This portrait of Yusuke. ^Explanation This was a dialogue portrait for Yusuke found in the art book that was only used in the scene where he first talks to Futaba. Once it got leaked into the internet, it started gaining a lot of popularity mostly due to its narmy nature and how out of character it is for Yusuke.
• I am certainly in the mood
  • For something salty today. ^Explanation A two part text from Yusuke in-game. Mostly used out of context.
• Valentine's Day ^Explanation The beatdown that occurs on February 15 if you romance multiple girls is practically a Fountain of Memes in its own right, whether due to the sheer Implausible Deniability of Joker somehow managing to cover up dating nine different people (ten in Royal), the fact that you have to hang out with Ryuji to get everyone to show up, Haru's Tranquil Fury, Sojiro watching in horror and then proceeding to be the best wingman ever by covering for Joker after everything, and just the general image of Joker trying to be a Casanova and failing epically.
  • Hoo boy ^Explanation On the day before, before your date arrives, Sojiro expresses surprise that Joker has spent a year in Tokyo without romancing a single woman, comparing him unfavorably to himself. "When I was your age... Hoo boy." The line has become a standard response to anything saucy.
  • You try anything with my daughter, and hoo boy. ^Explanation Repurposing the above quote as a warning to Joker if he is in a relationship with Futaba and tries anything funny with her.
  • You've hoo'd your last boy. ^Explanation Another variation, usually in conjunction with either Sojiro being an Overprotective Dad to Futaba or the Harem End.
• Photoshopping different characters into Kawakami's maid outfit ^Explanation Became a massive trend on Persona 5 forums, especially on Reddit, to photoshop various characters heads onto Sadayo Kawakami's maid uniform portrait, alongside a quote calling Joker; "Master".
• "Let's do it in the student council room. I'll leave the back entrance open for you." ^Explanation A quote from early in Makoto's Confidant Link, the "it" in question being a talk with Joker and having to have him sneak into the student council room. The segment may likely happen when the school is closed, whether on a Sunday or during summer break. With it sounding extremely suggestive when taken out-of-context, what with the double-meanings of "Do it" and "back entrance" and all, fans naturally ran with it, especially considering that the Joker/Makoto ship is one of the most popular pairings of the game.
• Rank 5 [Skill name] ^Explanation Similar to The Elder Scroll's "[skill name] 100" meme, it's popular to take images and videos and insinuate that the people involved have/need to level(led) their skills to the corresponding level.
• Train Missed. Game Over. ^Explanation It's possible to miss the train to Shujin Academy on your first day of school. Many-a-player freaked out, believing it to be a Non Standard Game Over or possibly even a Game-Breaking Bug. In actuality, a new train can be called by walking over to the platform and pressing X.
  • Finding the Ginza line. ^Explanation On a similar note, after getting on the train at Yongen-Jaya on the first school day you are required to manually transfer to the Ginza line platform. Given the confusing layout of Shibuya station, fans have named this action the most difficult part of the game, and several joked about needing to visit the real-life Shibuya station in order to succeed.
• John Cena's a Phantom Thief. ^Explanation Due to his Catchphrase "You can't see me" and his signature pose being similar to how the characters pose when summoning their Personas led to his likeness being drawn in Persona fanart or his music mashed up with the game.
• "Cognitive psience, son. It hardens in response to physical trauma. You can't hurt me Joker" ^{Explanation (Spoilers)} Shido in his Samael form ◊ bears a resemblance to Senator Armstrong from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. What's more is that both Shido and Armstrong are politicians who fight the edgy Bishōnen protagonist. Naturally, the fandom had fun with this one.
• The sex. ^Explanation Sae's unused lines were datamined, and part of it involves her making a few gasps in quick succession.
• Haru's forehead ^Explanation Haru's hairstyle leaves her forehead uncovered, leading to many jokes about how huge her forehead is, despite being normally sized.
• Futaba X Inari = Futanari ^Explanation Putting together Futaba's name and her nickname for Yusuke, Inari, when shipping them results in the term "Futanari" (The actual Portmanteau Couple Name is "Yutaba").
• "Damn brat, I'll sue!" ^Explanation Shido's outburst when Joker stopped the sexual assault that lead to his false accusation and his probation, cue fans quoting these words whenever Joker does anything remotely threatening. Or just when Shido comes up, period.
  • "Damn brat!" ^Explanation Persona 5 fans that are also Zero Escape fans notice that both Shido and Eric are played by the same English voice actor and even yell similar lines (the latter saying "Damn brat, stop bullshitting me!").
• Ryuji declaring that he's a Phantom Thief ^Explanation Ryuji cannot keep quiet about being a Phantom Thief, blurting it out several times — in publicly crowded areas, no less. Cue the fanbase making a lot of jokes about Ryuji revealing his secret at the most inopportune times.
• Ryuji IS the Phantom Thief ^Explanation Since Ryuji can't keep his mouth shut about their secret identity in public, some fans are so annoyed that they decided to sell Ryuji out the first chance they got. It doesn't help with the fact that there is actually an option for player to tell Akechi this very line, though Akechi will brush it off as a joke.
• Fursona 5 ^Explanation Promotional material for Sonic Forces revealed that Persona 5 clothing will be available for the Avatar character, with many joking the example posted there was Joker's own Sonic OC. What helps is that Sonic Original Characters are often seen as a "beginner fursona" for furries, and given how many of the thieves have an animal motif to them, this can be easily extended to Joker's teammates too.
  • NO GLOVES! ^Explanation The above lead to this common reaction since the render shown in the advert lacks Joker's red gloves and just has the hands shown bare instead, which is especially strange seeing as they're a big part of Joker's design and gloves in general are considered a standard element in most official Sonic designs as well.
• With the anime and dancing game referring to the protagonist as "Ren Amamiya", it has spawned a few memes in short notice:
  • Ren Mamma Mia!. ^Explanation Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight gives Joker the canon name of "Ren Amamiya". Most fans used his manga name "Akira Kurusu" and were all thrown off by the change. For some reason, many reactors noted that "Amamiya" reminded them of the phrase "mama mia".
  • #NOTMYJOKER ^Explanation Much like people's reactions to Yu Narukami instead of Soji Seta and Makoto Yuki instead of Minato Arisato, some people who became accustomed to "Akira Kurusu" weren't so willing to accept the name Ren Amamiya.
  • The many names of Joker. ^Explanation Due to the already existing debate of whether "Ren Amamiya" or "Akira Kurusu" sounds better, many jokes have been made regarding Joker's true name, among which also include the many ways he is called through the game by the characters among other things: Ren Amamiya, Akira Kurusu, Joker, MC, The Protagonist, Senpai (From Royal onwards), Leader, This Guy, Him, The Pompous Man in the Black Coat, Master, Inmate, Trickster, Damn Brat, Guinea Pig, Chair-Kun, Nasty Crimeboy, HaremFucker249 etc.
• Cowboy Bebop's opening syncs up a little too well ^Explanation The opening theme for Cowboy Bebop fits very well with the style of the opening of Persona 5, with the characters appearing at exact matching times.
• Sojiro's shotgun. ^Explanation Sojiro's status as a very Overprotective Dad towards Futaba led to jokes that if Joker and Futaba ended up in a relationship, Sojiro will watch both of them over with a shotgun in his hand, armed and loaded, just in case Joker tries to do something funny to Futaba.
• Haru is a sadist. ^Explanation Haru is a cute lady that has some questionable decisions, such as carrying an axe and a grenade launcher into a battle, saying in a cheerful tone that she gets shivers whenever she hears Shadows plead for their lives, easily having the scariest reaction to Joker should he cheat on her by Valentine's Day, and having Blood Knight tendencies so great she scared both Makoto and Ryuji once. This led to jokes that Haru is secretly a sadistic person beneath all of her normally cute looks.
• Make Japan Great Again ^Explanation Due to the game's release coinciding with the election of United States President Donald Trump, with many claiming he shares similarities with Masayoshi Shido, the internet wasted no time spinning memes linking the two.
• Goro Akechi is Mike Wazowski ^Explanation After a limited edition of the game shows Akechi's face being blocked by the price tag, jokes have been made about Akechi being Mike Wazowski.
• Captain Akechi. ^{Explanation (spoiler)} During the Casino arc, Akechi had his moment to shine as part of the Phantom thieves. With his cunning tactics and powerful skills, players feels Akechi is more like the leader of the team comparing to Joker. Also, Akechi's bright costume resembles to the uniform of a navy officer. Hence the meme is created. Another interpretation is that during the interrogation scene, a streamer mused why Joker didn't just tell Sae that Akechi is the mastermind of Phantom Thieves. His fans soon began to refer Akechi as "Leader".
• "I'm a teacher... and you're my student." "That's the best part." ^Explanation In her romance path, Kawakami will try to discourage Joker from pursuing a relationship with her due to the taboo nature of it. One of Joker's potential responses "that's the best part" reached memetic levels due to how much it Crosses the Line Twice.
• Dr. Legs ^Explanation Takemi's legs are given a lot of focus when browisng through her shop menu, earning her this nickname.
• Retort it ^Explanation After Joker was released as DLC in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Kotaku published an article falsely accusing the song "Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There" of containing the slur "retarded", which turned out to be a mutation of "retort it". On top of Kotaku getting criticism for the misleading article, people started making jokes about the incident, such as using "retort it" as a substitute for the actual slur.
• Bayonetta is Joker's mom. ^Explanation Due to both characters being dark-haired and wearing glasses, having powers associated with darkness, being extremely stylish and sassy, using melee weapons and guns at the same time, and a few other similarities; it became extremely popular Fanon that Joker is Bayonetta's son. After Joker got included as a DLC fighter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, in which Bayonetta is also a playable character, the meme really took off. This is a bit of an Ascended Meme, in a What Could Have Been way, as Sae was originally planned to be the one looking after Joker, and guess who she looks shockingly like in concept art ◊?
  • Joker, two years later. ^Explanation A variation of the above, popular with the game's LGBT fanbase, is that Joker is trans and becomes Bayonetta after undergoing Hormone Replacement Therapy.
• Futaba sleeping. ^{Explanation (spoilers)} After completing her Palace, Futaba "decides to sleep" and will not wake up until the plot-mandated deadline of August 21st. Since her dungeon starts in late July, completing it early results in her sleeping for almost a month, which is not helped by how nonchalant everyone is (including Sojiro, her adoptive father). Cue jokes and memes.
• Pleasant Boy. ^{Explanation (spoilers)} Akechi is referred to with this epithet before his introduction. It becomes ironic considering the unpleasant things he's done, such as being responsible for the psychotic breakdown and mental shutdown incidents.
• Is Futaba a kid or a squid? ^Explanation Futaba has frequently been noted to have a striking resemblance to an Inkling, specifically the orange-tentacled girl that's the unofficial mascot of the game. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate took the meme full circle by having Futaba's spirit battle be against that very same Inkling.
• Ann is Junko Enoshima ^Explanation Some fans have noticed that Ann bears a slight resemblance to Junko Enoshima from the Danganronpa series due to both being blonde teenage girls with similar hairstyles, having the same red and black color combination in their clothes, especially noticeable with Ann's winter uniform, and both of them being Models. Fans that have played Danganronpa before Persona 5 or vice-versa often say that one reminds them of the other, and thus has lead to a lot of jokes and fanart comparing both of them.
  • On a similar note, Ann's initial Persona, Carmen, is sometimes compared to Celestia Ludenberg.
• Haru's Screen Time ^Explanation Unlike everyone else who joins the Phantom Thieves, Haru does not interact with the group before joining. In her father's palace, her awakening to the first fraction of her powers and ability to enter the Metaverse is largely offscreen, and on top of that her role in the plot is overshadowed by the feud between Morgana and the rest of the Phantom Thieves. Her Confidant also only becomes available very late in the game, and needs maxed Proficiency to even progress. Her lack of plot relevance afterwards leads to lots of jokes about her lack of screentime.
  • Morgana stole Haru's Screen Time ^Explanation As mentioned above, Haru's introduction is greatly overshadowed by the conflict between Morgana and the rest of the Phantom Thieves. Even when confronting Shadow Okumura, it is Morgana who gives him "The Reason You Suck" Speech, and not Haru, his own daughter. This lead to jokes about Morgana being responsible for Haru's lack of screentime.
• Cuck the cat. ^Explanation A running joke among fans who don't like Morgana is that they romance Ann purely to spite him because of his crush on her. Another alternative to this is the popular Ann/Ryuji ship, as Morgana not only has a crush on Ann, but he is also constantly insulting Ryuji.
  • "Spare coochie Lady Ann?" ^Explanation A term used as a slang to try and get with a woman, with coochie being referring to the genitals. It's been mixed with Morgana asking for this with Ann due to him having a crush on her.
  • In general, calling Morgana a simp and making fun of his crush on Ann is a very prominent joke among the fanbase.
• Gorb ^Explanation A piece of merchandise for the original game is a rotund plush of Akechi, which is affectionately referred to by this name.
• Beep Boop. ^Explanation The third rank of Makoto's Confidant sees her disheartened that the impression that Eiko and her other classmates had of her was an emotionless robot. Two of the responses is to console her while the third is that. Since much of Makoto's confidant and one-on-one events can have Joker teasing her it's become a really popular phrase for shippers of the two.
• Momkoto ^Explanation A Fan Nickname for Makoto due to her Team Mom status with the Phantom Thieves. The fact that several of the spinoffs makes references to this as well only fueled the fanbase more.
• "Joker? Do you have a plan?" "I'm gonna shoot a god in the face." "Uh, I think you may have missed a few steps there." "No, I said 'in the face.' Somehow that always works." ^{Explaination (spoilers)} When Yaldabaoth is revealed as the true final boss, not much is actually discussed in way of a plan to take him down.
• Don't mess with us Persona 5 fans, we haven't even played the game ^Explaination There's enough story and social link content in the game's cutscenes that you can understand enough of it through YouTube playthroughs. This means that there's a lot of people who come into the fandom through Let's Plays, memes and fanart (or simply because of Joker's appearance in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate), and then engage with the rest of the fans with a superficial understanding of things. Hence this mockery. While other story-heavy or character-heavy games like visual novels such as Danganronpa are not exempt from this treatment, the size of the Persona 5 fanbase makes this aspect very visible compared to others.

P5: Royal Pre-release

• Persona 5 Racing ^Explanation Atlus' cryptic announcement of a project called Persona 5 R in early 2019 led people to guess what it was, with one of the sillier suggestions being a kart racing spin-off, possibly in reference to Sonic R. A March 23, 2019 announcement revealed the R to stand for Royal, and that it was an Updated Re-release of the game in the vein of Persona 3 FES and Persona 4 Golden
• Human Morgana ^Explanation There's a scene in P5R's first trailer showing Joker interacting with a mysterious person, whom many fans believe (due to his looks and the line he states) is Morgana as a human (he IS Morgana, but only thanks to a forced shift in cognition). Between his surprisingly attractive design and the fact that most fans believed that Human Morgana would look like a child, the scene reached memetic status almost immediately.
  • "Don't worry, human Morgana isn't real. It can't hurt you." ^Explanation Derived from a separate "therapist" meme. One of the new characters introduced is a therapist, leading to many fans drawing comics where he reassures Joker with this line (or something close to it) before Human Morgana comes in to prove him wrong. As it turns out, said therapist later turns out to have created Human Morgana.
• The Persona Girls! ^Explanation With the introduction of Kasumi, several people began to note that she, Ann, and Makoto shared very similar design elements with Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup from The Powerpuff Girls, respectively.
• I made her less... Ugh! Hire me, Atlus! ^Explanation After an artist on Twitter decided to make art where Kasumi wore less revealing clothing as a protest against her outfit, many more artists began mocking the condesending and prudish nature of the artist by making ironic edits and parodies of the aforementioned art.
• Goro in the backseat ^{Explanation (spoilers!)} After a shot of Haru showed Black Mask Goro in the back of the Mona bus with everyone, fans have taken to photoshopping pictures of the Phantom Thieves on photos of kids fighting in minivans.
• Buses. ^Explanation A miscalculation of the end times of the Persona Super Live 2019 led fans to believe that the last buses from the event would be leaving an hour before the program was over. This led to fans pretending that they had missed their bus and were stranded at the concert.
• Don't interrupt Ryuji's and Yusuke's beef bowl. ^Explanation Ryuji's and Yusuke's new Team Attack has them gunning down a shadow for interrupting their beef bowl. It didn't take long for people to do edits.
• Yusuke's third-tier is Goro Akechi ^Explanation After Yusuke's third-tier Persona was revealed as Gorokichi, western fans joked about its name due to the English spelling of it being almost identical to Akechi's full name.
• Sailor Moon transformations ^Explanation In one of the Royal trailers, Kasumi does a Sailor Moon style Transformation Sequence into her Phantom Thief outfit. Fans were quick to make edits with songs from Sailor Moon itself.
• Time to steal Atlus' heart. ^Explanation A response to Atlus' growing reliance on costly DLC's that ends up costing more than the full game has lead people to claim that Atlus has fallen to the same greed that the game in part criticizes as well as other questionable corporate decisions.

P5: Royal Post-release

• Mighty Morphin' Madarame Rangers ^Explanation In the second phase of Madarame's boss battle, instead of reverting after a while to his painting form like in the vanilla game he summons four "Ersatz" copies of himself for the remainder of the battle. Since the copies are colour-coded according to their element, and there are five Madarames opposing the protagonists, fans quickly compared them to Power Rangers.
• Yandere Joker ^{Explanation (Spoilers!)} In the third semester, Joker's ultimate wish is to see Goro alive again, resulting in Takuto creating a reality allowing Goro to live alongside him in Tokyo. This happens even without the player completing Goro's Confidant, resulting in players memeifying it to saying that he's absolutely obsessed with Goro.
• Snack time ^Explanation Before his Confidant starts, Takuto Maruki tries to bribe Joker, Ryuji, and Ann into coming to his therapy sessions by saying he has snacks. Maruki brings up snacks a few times during his Confidant links and cutscenes that involve him, creating an association between Maruki and snacks that picked up shortly after the game's Western released. The fact that Maruki gets a fangirl club at Shujin only adds to it; a common joke is that the girls want a different kind of "snack".
• "That was truly cringeworthy." ^Explanation During a festival in July, Joker, Ryuji, and Yusuke end up getting the attention of a news team. Ryuji makes some rather cringey comments on-camera in the hopes that the news team won't use the footage with them in it. The meme refers to Yusuke's retort to Ryuji after the fact, where he tells Ryuji that his behavior was "truly cringeworthy." People turned Yusuke's response into a reaction image soon after it was discovered.
• Morgana Komaeda ^Explanation Morgana's human form is voiced by Bryce Papenbrook despite the Japanese version keeping the same voice as his regular form. Naturally, comparisons to Nagito Komaeda (and to a lesser extent Makoto Naegi, also voiced by Papenbrook) ensued.
• Goro Akechi's Phat Ass ^Explanation Various Goro fans, and even some streamers, have taken note on how his backside is rather noticeable when he bends over, and especially in his Black Mask Outfit and have made posts about it, ranging from appreciative, to slight mockery.
• Iwai's Tips ^Explanation Iwai's reworked gun customization menu involves a portrait of him holding it up. People on Reddit started photoshopping it over NSFW images while putting little bits of trivia on it (mostly Easter eggs) or really just anything in general.
• Aqua Kasumi ^Explanation Japanese-wise, Kasumi is voiced by Sora Amamiya, who had one of the more memetic role as Aqua, the useless goddess of KonoSuba. Since both tend to spawn their own memes in rapid speed, memes of Kasumi being jokingly derided as 'useless thief' (despite being in general useful, but actually had times where she failed), or Joker playing the part of Kazuma for her ("Yes, I'm Joker" is a most common part) pop up a lot. It's almost natural that the 'Crying Aqua' face fits well with Kasumi ◊
• #GoodbyeGoro ^explanation Twitter user Jamezietocool — best known for the Persona Memeverse series — hosts an annual unofficial character popularity poll dubbed the Persona Awards. During the second round of the 2021 awards, Persona 4's Naoto ended up beating out Goro Akechi in terms of votes, letting her advance to the next round. Someone created the hashtag "GoodbyeGoro" to mourn his loss, and the fans took it and ran with it; within 24 hours, the hashtag was trending worldwide, ended up getting attention from a few news sites, and Goro's voice actor decided to join in on the fun.
• #BreakFreePersona ^Explanation With Joker's inclusion as a DLC fighter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, awareness of Persona 5 has HEAVILY increased, boosting the demand for a possible port of Persona 5 on Switch, prompting many to start the hashtag "#BreakFreePersona", and going onto Atlus' Twitter to voice their desire. Demands marches even further with Persona 5 Strikers being ported onto Switch and Steam, and even more so with Royal being ported to Xbox Series X|S and PC but still no Switch port in sight...until the end of June 2022, when a Switch port of Royal (as well as Persona 4 Golden and Persona 3 Portable ports) were finally announced at Nintendo's Partner Mini Direct.
• "I'm alone right now" ^Explanation A possible text from Akechi when he is available to work on his Confidant. It quickly caught on due to sounding unintentionally suggestive, especially in the face of all the Ho Yay between him and Joker.

Persona 5 Strikers

Other

• Akechi is wanted by the LAPD! ^Explanation It was discovered that the Los Angelos Police Department was flagging certain Tweets, citing they could pose a potential danger. Tweets with anime and game tags were also flagged, including one mentioning Goro Akechi was a mass murderer, prompting the joke that real-life police were after him.

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Akechi: Oh, am I mistaken? I thought I heard something about memes...

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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Memes/Persona5

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