@karkarov: Agreed. A lot of the characters in P3 were really cool. I even liked the whiney Yukari, the love hotel scene was pretty great.

Can someone explain to me what a cipher is? Is it some kind of japanese term?
(I have googled but not found anything relevant....)

Looks okay, seems like a typical Persona main character. I need to see how the game looks in general though, like how it will look for the vast majority of the game before I can really judge the appearance. I hope they add the costumes options from P4G.

His turtleneck is the wrong color:

I think he looks like a weird fusion of the MCs from Persona 3 and 4 but with dorky glasses. Both of those guys were fairly plain as well, so I don't really see a problem with this dude.

A lot of women seem to really like this dude. (I'm basing this on the fact that a lot of my female friends who play games can't seem to stop talking about how pretty he is). As for me he is a "meh". Neither good nor bad.

In this case it is just a fancy way of saying the Persona MC is a "blank slate" character that has no set personality and exists to be your way of seeing the game. The reason they say Cypher/Cipher specifically in this case is because in Persona the Main Character never speaks and the devs goal is for you to think or say what you would want in those situations where the MC should be talking. So basically the MC just serves as a robot to allow you to experience the story and reflect on it basically.

@coolyetidance said:

It isn't a Japanese term - it has a number of definitions in the English dictionary, but the one being used here is;

"a person of no importance, especially one who does the bidding of others and seems to have no will of their own."

although interestingly enough, the term also has the meaning;

"a zero; a figure 0"

In essence, in this context it means he's a character who is literally just acting as a stand-in for the player. He is an avatar for you, hence the "one who does the bidding of others and seems to have no will of their own".

The term "cipher" can be applied to pretty much any silent protagonist or protagonist for whom the player makes every choice.

those are some super dorky glasses. Like some bargain bin trash frames you'd get at Hakim Optical because you're too cheap to buy proper frames (I said cheap, not poor). I've known people who look like that and they're assholes. All of them.

P5 looks like it could be alright, but I need to see gameplay before I wade into this insanity.

@oldirtybearon: I've seen frames like that in opticians going for €200.

As for the character, I don't think I could care. He looks super plain, which I think is meant to be the point so I'm a bit confused as to all this excitement over how he looks.

anyone got a trailer link?

He's no Charlie.

Seriously though, I'm not a huge fan of his look. Mainly because I can't imagine going around with this guy making everyone his girlfriend. He looks like the real MC's nerdy sidekick who's always bumbling around and tripping over things while reading a book.

Appearances aren't everything though.

@splodge:

As a person who just got glasses relatively recently I can attest to this.

He looks very standard anime, but so did Charlie. I'm okay with it.

Sure, looks good. I appreciate his anime Harry Potter style. I will enjoy playing this on my Vita via the PS4!

He looks cool.

He actually does look strikingly like the Harry Potter from the American book covers..

Nope. Reminds me of that creepy kid in Persona 4.

He is handsome enough to make all the social links he will be having believable. I'm just glad that the frames aren't red or anything stupid like that. Really looking forward to the other character designs.

@berserker976: Adam Jensen, Travis Touchdown, Mao from Disgaea 3 and a bunch of fighting game characters but that doesn't really count.

seems fine, not much a glasses person myself.

He doesn't look like as big of a dibshit as the P3 protagonist (seriously, straighten the fuck up dude, it ain't hard, and you're not 13) and he doesn't have the weird hair color that Charlie did (never understood the grey hair choice, other than to make him more recognizable... Which I guess was the point). So yeah, he's cool. A bit generic looking, but he'll do just fine as a self-confident leader-type. Also for a video game the choice to make the protagonist wear glasses is inspired. Maybe I'm wrong about this but how many protagonists in videogames has any sort of visible handicap?

I saw this design and instantly fell asleep. That was weird.

He seems alright enough. I'd have preferred a female protagonist - which wasn't gonna happen - but otherwise this dude looks suiting enough to no doubt mack on all the ladies.

I'm not a fan bit I'm sure it'll grow on me. I didn't like P3's MC look but I got used to it. The big question is will MC talk this time around?

To be brutally honest, he looks like he should be the whiney, downer s-link character.

I really like the look actually.

I like it when main characters dont look like the main characters.
Also glasses hype!

He was far to emotional in that trailer, i mean come on, tone it down a bit.

also he looks like he's either secretly super depressed or a serial killer. other wise i think he looks fine.

Man, that character is super cute!

Looks about as unremarkable as the other Persona MC's, but from Hogwarts... Is Persona 5 gonna take place in Hogwarts!?

Edit: Dammit!!! I wish I stayed up last night to watch the thing, just so I coulda felt original making the Harry Potter joke. Like, ten other people made it before me apparently...

I have no idea what people mean when they say this. It's an empty descriptor.

That said, dude looks fine to me. Also...

Dude, I wish I were that guy. Girls Max S.Linking all over the place. Also, it looks like the city is gonna be real Tokyo-esque. I like the sound of a new take on Capital City.

@darkshaper: Sunglasses/crazy cyborg eyes don't count! I'll grant you Mao though.

Obviously my point is that there are maybe a handful in all of video games, so it's nice to see some change.

@berserker976: Yah we definitely could use more characters with glasses. I think it's a really good look when done properly and I really like the look of the P5 MC. Also I just remembered another one, Clive from Wild Arms 3. I don't remember if any of the main party were a clear protagonist but he is very prominent.

He looks good. He has a different design from the MC's of P3 and P4, as stated by others above, a more mature look. I am interested to see if this means the characters will be older than in the previous two games. In all honestly, my very first reaction was "dude, get a haircut", but then I remembered that Japanese girls are still into that metro-look. If games can have "puff-puff" girls, then they should have those delicate guys to appeal to other demographics.

I'm a fan, all he is suppose to be is a blank slate. That said I think he looks rather dapper

Turtleneck on deck

To me this means he looks like any nondescript and generic anime character you'd see in the background to fill a scene or something.

Seems like an accurate description for this character. It's a boring look. But i guess he's supposed to look like a regular fellow anyway so whatever. Previous games haven't had the most creative design either.

I think they are purposely going for the more geeky look rather than the generic "cool" handsome devils that the past two protagonists were. It's gonna make the story more interesting and considering this is the "darkest" persona yet maybe we get some serious themes such as suicide and bullying appointed on the main character and the people around him. P.S Can't wait!!!

He seems like he'd be the main character's best friend in a anime romcom.

I don't mind the design even if it's a touch generic. My only real issue is that he looks a little too androgynous, like his face has been too perfectly crafted. I'd like the design to be more masculine in some way - maybe losing the turtleneck/blazer combo would fix this though. I think they had the design pretty spot on with the MC from Persona 4 (enough that a high schooler with silver hair stops looking off after a while).

I don't find his design very memorable, but I think it'll matter more what he is marketed like. The first time you see Narukami on the train, he doesn't look particularly interesting. His style comes later. And ultimately I'm more interested in what the your social link friends look like.

He's fine. From the little we've seen so far I feel like he kind of lacks the style that Makoto or Yu had, and his hair isn't a fancy colour, but I think he's distinct enough to be memorable once you start playing the game. I wouldn't want him to be that out there anyways, I'd rather him fit the setting more than looking like he fell out of One Piece or something.

Other.

I don't really care what he looks like.

@babychoochoo: He doesn't have pointy hair or unrealistic colors, and the ratio of accessories versus clothes seems realistic, so he looks a lot different than the standard anime character...

OT: I liked him. He seems normal, and I don't mean that as a negative. I guess after a lot of anime and JRPG characters looking like fashion shows escapee, I welcome someone that looks like it would belong into the real world.

He looks like a dude that is going to social link with all the anime ladies with those dapper glasses of his.

I do, I think he looks different and I like it.

@hermes: That's a standard anime character design. Not the standard anime character design. Plain looking dude/chick in highschool uniform, like the main character of this and other Persona games, is another standard anime character design.