Persona 5 is all about the group of students who are fed up with corrupt members of society, and take matters into their own hands by changing the hearts of those who are evil so they would mend their ways. By that premise alone, anyone playing the game would expect a sizeable amount of awful people who do horrible things in this JRPG, and they would be right. However, even despicable people are not created equal, and some are worse than others.
In this list, we will rank the ten people in Persona 5 who are absolutely horrible by how despicable they are. We truly hope that we will never meet their real-life counterparts.
10 Hikari Shimizu
This is the name of one of the requested targets you get after the Phantom Thieves gain some fame among people. Hikari is a girl who abuses a boy who likes her essentially by treating him as her slave. What makes it worse is meeting her shadow in Mementos, who tells you exactly how she feels about the matter - she sees nothing wrong in how she’s treating the guy, which is inexcusable no matter what way you look at it.
Once you defeat her, she has a change of heart and giving you a clue that she is remorseful and is afraid that the boy will hate her if she apologizes, but goes for it anyway.
9 Yoshimori Sakoda
Yoshimori Sakoda is another fellow student at your school in Persona 5 who has a delusional view of his own strength and influence, seeing everything in a “the strong devour the weak” kind of view. He gathers incriminating videos of other students and uses them as blackmail, forcing the other students to bully Sakoda’s targets. This is substantially worse than bullying others, as he sees nothing wrong with abusing others to protect himself.
Changing his heart in Mementos is no easy task early in the game, as the fight that ensues can be a tough one. It is worth it, however, as you save numerous fellow students from his proxy bullying.
8 Kazuo Tsuboi
Kazuo is a student you learn about through the Moon confidant, as well as working in the convenience store. He catches the eye of the Phantom Thieves after a large number of reports of injured and dead cats near your area appear. It turns out Kazuo takes out his aggression on them, with absolutely no remorse, arguing that the cats would be put down in shelters anyway and that the owners who put the cats there are the guilty ones.
Needless to say, he is a scummy guy, no matter which way you look at it. By changing his heart you make him realize the pain he has caused, making him live with the guilt.
7 Nozomi Odo
After you learn of the name Nozomi Odo, you can’t help but want to change his heart so he would change his behavior. He is a store manager, who is effective at his work, but abuses his workers. The way he does it is by taking money from the store’s earnings for himself and then blackmailing the workers into working for free by putting the blame on them. He is ruining the lives of his workers for his personal gain, so there is no reason not to accept this Mementos request.
It is possible to miss this mission by not reading the requests for too long, so make sure you check your phone in the game often.
6 Yuya Uchimura
It’s safe to assume that the absolute majority of people would be enraged upon learning about an abusive relationship. This happens in Persona 5 when you overhear a young woman talking to a fortune teller and asking her if she could buy a Holy Stone from her so things would get better. Her boyfriend physically abuses her constantly, and what’s worse is that the girlfriend defends this behavior.
Upon defeating the boyfriend’s shadow in Mementos he has a change of heart and ceases his behavior.
5 Shoichi Oyamada
Shoichi Oyamada is the head of the medical office, who is the superior of Tae Takemi, who is the Death confidant. He is jealous of the quick progress that Tae made in both climbing ranks and developing a cure for a disease, that he lied to Tae about the death of a little girl who was the main reason for her developing the cure. In reality, the girl is still alive, and Shoichi lies to Tae so that she would quit her practice.
Helping out Tae leads to Shoichi admitting that the girl is still alive, making Tae continue her research, and eventually developing the cure.
4 Ichiryusai Madarame
Madarame is the second main villain that the Phantom Thieves have to take down within a given time limit. He is an incredibly famous artist and mentor of Yusuke, who you later find out plagiarizes the art made by his student and sells it off as his own. You also learn that his most famous work was actually created by Yusuke’s mother, who died because of a seizure while Madarame did nothing to help.
Upon changing his heart, Madarame confesses about his crimes to the press. Because he has done this for years, we don’t even want to imagine how many students he pushed to their edge just so he would gain more fame.
3 Junya Kaneshiro
Junya Kaneshiro is the name of the third main villain that you encounter in the game. He is a yakuza crime lord who, as you find out, enlists fellow students to deliver packets with drugs to designated places, while simultaneously blackmailing them with pictures of them doing said task. Not only that, he tries to blackmail the Phantom Thieves themselves for a sum of 3 million yen with a picture of the Phantom Thieves in a night club.
The way he abuses young students for personal gain is inexcusable, making him one of the worst people in the game.
2 Suguru Kamoshida
Kamoshida as a character has a great set-up for the entire presentation of society that the game was going for. While initially, he seems like a stereotypical star of the school, being an amazing athlete, you soon learn the horrible things that he does, mainly to students. Not only does he physically abuse the boys in gym lessons, but he also abuses some of the girls. This gets so bad that one of them attempts to take her life just so that the abuse would stop.
What made matters worse is that his status compelled a lot of people, such as the school principal, to protect Kamoshida. We’re glad we could change his heart so he would face the consequences of what he’s done.
1 Masayoshi Shido
This man is basically the reason behind everything that takes place in Persona 5since it was he who accused the main character of attacking him when in reality he was trying to defend a woman Shido was abusing. He is a powerful politician who has discovered how to use the Metaverse just like the Phantom Thieves in a way that benefits his political campaign. He has political opponents killed with no remorse, even using his own son as a pawn so he would gain more power.
Admittedly, had he not gotten the main character sent away, he and the rest of the Phantom Thieves might have never gotten the chance to save society in the first place. Nevertheless, Masayoshi Shido is the worst of the worst, no doubts about it.
NEXT: 10 JRPG’s That Got Their Own Anime Series
