
With the series now taking place in a fictional rural town rather than a city like in the prequels, the characters with origins from the city had hair styles different from those in Inaba with 1UP.com commenting that Yu's and Yosuke's were more stylish.

Shigenori Soejima was in charge of designing the characters in Persona 4. The English voice acting work was also met with a similar response. This included the characters' realistic personalities and the relationships established across the game. Reception of the game's characters are mostly positive, with various characters having been reviewed favorably. The general approach to designing the characters and ultimately the setting of the game was by drawing from the memory and interpretation of the development staff about a "rural, countryside" setting. Shigenori Soejima acted as the art director for the game and was responsible for the character design. A fighting game sequel, Persona 4 Arena, features the Investigation Team in a tournament competing against each other as well as characters from the previous game in the series, Persona 3. The game was also ported for the PlayStation Vita and PC as Persona 4 Golden which expanded various of the characters' stories and included a new one called Marie, a teenage girl linked with the Investigation Team. Persona 4 has been adapted to a manga and an anime series that gave different portrayals to the game's cast, most notably the protagonist who is given his own name and a personality. He is met by Yosuke Hanamura, the son of the local department store manager Chie Satonaka, an energetic girl with a strong interest in kung fu Yukiko Amagi, a calm and refined girl whose family owns the local inn Kanji Tatsumi, a first-year student whose punk reputation hides a softer side Teddie, a mysterious figure from the TV world who exists in the form of a cartoonish bear costume Rise Kujikawa, a popular teen idol who has taken a break from showbiz and Naoto Shirogane, a well-known junior detective. The protagonist is Yu Narukami, a high-school student who moved into the town from the city.


The case is linked by the TV world, a dimension where the characters use alter-egos known as "Personas" to defeat the Shadows, beings that represent people's hidden thoughts that killed the first two victims. The plot of Atlus's PlayStation 2 role-playing game Persona 4 is centered on a group of high-school students dedicated to capturing the culprit responsible for the murders and kidnappings that happened in their small town of Inaba starting on April 11, 2011. From left to right Teddie, Rise, Yosuke, Naoto, Kanji, Yu, Chie, and Yukiko. Playable characters of Persona 4, backed by their Personas.
