Persona (concept)

A Persona is a manifestation of a person's personality in the Persona series, referred to as a "mask" for an individual to use to face hardship. A Persona is similar to a Shadow. Shadows are malevolent manifestations of one's inner thoughts, while a Persona is a manifestation of the same feelings but tamed and trained. If an individual takes up a resolution in his or her heart, the Persona will undergo a metamorphosis into a stronger form. While the summoning sequences of a Persona differs from one installment to the next, a tradition that later adaptions follow is that blue-ish fogs are always released when a Persona is invoked.

Megami Ibunroku Persona/Persona
At the beginning of the game, the main characters play a game called "Persona". Afterwards they fall unconscious and meet Philemon, who gives them the power to use Personas. Each character's Persona "awakens", and then is able to be called out at will. Some characters had not seemed to have met Philemon, but could summon Persona anyways. It can be assumed that this is due to Maki Sonomura's dreamworld, which was created by the DEVA System.

Persona 2
Persona 2: Innocent Sin and Persona 2: Eternal Punishment features a similar mechanic to Megami Ibunroku Persona, in which the main characters meet Philemon, who bestows upon them the ability to summon Personas.

Persona 3
In order to summon a Persona, one must use an Evoker, though there are some cases where an Evoker is not required for summoning. A Persona can actually be artificially created, but because the Persona does not come naturally to its artificial user, it becomes violent and difficult to control; if the Persona-user isn't strong enough to hold back the Persona, it may even wind up killing the host. Artificial Personas can be suppressed by certain drugs, aptly named Suppressants, but use of the drugs causes fatal side-effects. It's possible for one to have the power of the Wild Card, meaning that multiple Personas can be contained simultaneously. The only two seen capable of this power are the silent protagonist and Aigis.

During The Answer chapter of Persona 3 FES, Metis reveals that Personas are tamed Shadows.

Philemon does not appear in Persona 3, but there are several references to him, namely a fluttering blue butterfly that can be seen several times throughout the game.

Persona 4
When one enters the Midnight Channel, one's innermost secrets materialize and become a Shadow Self which attempts to get its host to accept it. If one cannot accept the Shadow Self, or if they refuse to acknowledge what they want to keep hidden most, the Shadow becomes enraged, attracting all nearby lesser Shadows to itself and transforming into a monster which attempts to kill the person it spawned from. If one can face oneself and admit to what the Shadow Self says, then the Shadow transforms into a Persona loyal to its user.

Igor later reveals that a Persona is formed by having one's ego master its Shadow, but adds that it is also possible for a Shadow to become a Persona-user by developing its own ego (like in the case of Teddie). As Teddie is the only known Shadow to be able to use a Persona, this possibility is extremely rare at best.

Due to the controversy over the gun-like Evokers from Persona 3, they have been replaced by a floating Tarot card, which the Persona-user shatters to summon the Persona.

In the anime, rather than summoning it only for spells, Personas do all of the fighting against the Shadows. But when the Persona takes damage, so does its user and a very weakened Persona will start to show a bit of static in its body. In addition, when Yu fuses his Persona (aided subconsciously by Igor), he does it on the spot.

Persona 4 Arena
The use of Personas and their existence in the world is explored more in the game. Members from the original SEES group form the "Shadow Operatives", under control of the Kirijo Group, working under Mitsuru Kirijo, who partner with public safety officers on cases involving Shadows. Personas and Shadows are shown to be known by higher-ranking officials and are kept secret from public knowledge. It is now shown the Personas are still able to be summoned in the regular world even after the Dark Hour disappeared, but also requires the use of an Evoker. However, it can be summoned without one during crisis or with extreme concentration.

The Tarot Cards the Investigation Team use seem to be of little use in the real world as the members are shown to be unable to summon their Personas outside the TV World. The TV World, however, helps those who have summoned Personas before hand, making it much easier then before, to the point where the use of an Evoker isn't necessary to summon one; Mitsuru expresses surprise at only having to think of her Persona to bring it out.

Persona -trinity soul-
Everyone possesses a Persona, but only those who have summoned it before and know of its existence may call it out by will by concentrating one's mind. Personas that have consumed other Personas will be more unstable and will need Persona suppressors to keep their Personas under control. Strangely, although -trinity soul- is supposed to take place in relation with Persona 3, evokers are never used and summoning Personas is an easier task than it was in the game this anime was based from.

The anime also states that a person's ability to summon Persona weakens as they reach adulthood and may need to take medicine to keep up that ability. This, however, contradicts with Persona 1 and Persona 2 as the rest of the adult cast can summon their Personas without any issue. One character speculates that this may simply be due to adults tending to lose their strong sense of identity as they grow older, and that it's not inherently about age, but personality. Despite that, however, this is one of the reasons that Persona -trinity soul- is not considered canonical to the series.

Loss of Control
While Philemon describes the Personas as reflections of a character's inner self, there have been many instances that persona have rebelled against their controller, though every recorded incident of this instance has been either due to the extremely risky procedure of artificial Persona awakening, or due to external factors.

In Persona 3, for example, Strega members must take medication to prevent losing control of their Persona and being killed by it. Strega, however, is a group of artificial Persona users. Additionally, during Megami Ibunroku Persona, Takahisa Kandori loses control of his Persona and it possesses him, turning him into a demon. However, this was because his Persona was actually Nyarlathotep in disguise.

In Persona 4, Teddie mentions denying the Shadow's message once again when it has truly manifested as a Persona might cause said Persona to devolve into a Shadow and resume its vengeful mission. This is confirmed in Persona 4 Arena - according to the Malevolent Entity, a Persona will revert into a Shadow if its user experiences extreme psychological stress; if the restored Shadow is denied again, it will try to kill its former controller once again. It is also suggested that Shadows that have reverted from Personas are much more powerful due to its experience as a Persona.

The Persona Game
In Megami Iburoku Persona, and Persona 2 a ritual that appears in the form of a game, and incarnation respectively.

In Megami Iburoku Persona, the "Persona" game starts with four participants each of the four corners of a room facing inward, with the rest of the participants stand inside the room. One of the people in the corners will shout out something along the lines "Persona, Persona, Please come here." (The come here part varies with each speaker.) Then the first person walks to the right, till they're standing by the second person in a corner. Then that person repeats the actions, ending up near the third and so on. The game ends when the fourth person reaches the spot the first was at the start of the game.

In Persona 2, the game is called "Master Persona Incarnation" which was rumored to let one see their future. However it is slightly different this time. All the participants would stand in a circle. Everyone would walk counterclockwise twice while shouting out "Master Persona, Master Persona, Please come to us" each time. Then one of the members would walk until they were behind the person in front, and then that person would walk. The cycle completes when the last person ends up at the first person's spot. A final shout of "Master Persona, Master Persona, Please come to us" finishes the Incarnation.

Trivia

 * The Persona Game is based on one famous urban legend in Japan, "". The origin was about a group of five mountaineers stuck in the heavy blizzard, one member died and was buried. When the remaining four mountaineers reached a small abandoned house, they found there was nothing left for them to light some fire. In order to keep everybody awake, they began the activity which is performed exactly like in Persona which four participants stand in the four corners and each turn one person walks anti-clockwise to tap the next person and then continue. The strange thing about this activity is that there would be no person for the fourth participate to tap if he/she does not turn and walk longer than other participates do. Since the game went smoothly and no one reported had walked the extra distance, this lead them to believe there was the mysterious fifth participant in the game; the ghost of the mountaineer who had died before the others had reached the abandoned house.