Persona 5 Romance Options Ranked

Despite Atlus having a long history of making dungeon crawlers with their Shin Megami Tensei series and its various spin-offs, what makes the Persona series different from all of that are the life sim elements added to the mix. You can eat, get a job, work out at the gym, play at the arcade, or choose to do none of that all and go to bed.

These things add spice to Persona, offering players a way to express themselves in a way that few other games manage to do. Among these daily activities are Confidants, where you hang out with friends and gain cool new abilities from them.

It tends to be a good time regardless, but there are a select few characters to who you can become even closer.

That’s right, not only is Persona 5 a life sim, but it’s also a dating sim. There are many options for partners in Persona 5, each with unique personalities and a slew of benefits through their Confidants. 

However, with so many choices, which Confidant is the best one? Just leave that to me because I’ve gone through all the options and measured their benefits to see which is best.

The Persona 5 romance options ranked are based on these criteria:

• Personality: This category should be obvious. It’s how likable I find the character and the story in their Confidant. There’s some subjectivity here, but I’ll try to be impartial by judging how unique or fresh that character is compared to others in the game and previous Persona games. For example, Futaba is a unique character in the franchise. She’s the first time we’ve gotten an otaku gamer girl, and her Confidant manages to be touching, so she’d get a high score here.
• Benefits: This is where the rewards you get for leveling up each character’s respective Confidant go. I know Ryjui’s not on this list, but if he were, his Ambush skill would be guaranteed to give him a perfect score in this category due to its utility. Not all Confidants are made equal, and even if you absolutely adore a character, knowing that they don’t give you something you’ll ever use may make you rethink who you spend your time with.
• Availability: This is where I judge how easily you can level up a Confidant. You have to find and speak to most Confidants before you can hang out with them; on some days, they aren’t available. It’s always annoying, even if you fast travel, to go all the way to some hidden alley only to find your Confidant isn’t even there. Sometimes a Confidant will only be available at night, limiting what you can do beforehand. It’s all these things that add up to decide this score.

With that out of the way, let’s go ahead and get this list started.

10. Ichiko Ohya

• When she’s available: 6/24
• Where to find her: Crossroads bar in Shinjuku at night every day of the week.

Ohya is a strange case for me and many others considering she was the least popular Confidant in the original Persona 5. It doesn’t seem to have changed in Royal.

The concept of being an alcoholic whose mood frequently changes is new to Persona, but it’s not the most pleasurable thing to deal with, especially when it makes it hard to select the right dialogue option. Her character arc about her old partner is also unique. Sadly, the plot is hard to engage with due to how unrelatable it is for the player.

The abilities she offers through her Confidant are the weakest of the romanceable Confidants, if not the entire game. Being able to adjust and mess with the security level in a palace sounds neat until you get a feel for the game.

Stealth is pretty easy, and ambushing enemies is enough to lower the level. In all my playthroughs, I never messed up so bad that the security level hit max.

These benefits made more sense in the base Persona 5, where you got kicked out if the security level hit 100%, but in Royal, this doesn’t happen. That’s on top of her abilities only affecting palaces, so if you don’t have an active heist, she’s genuinely useless.

Ohya’s also not that available either. While she is thankfully accessible every day of the week, you can only visit her at Crossroads at night. So you can’t go to the metaverse.

That means no Mementos or palaces on any day you want to meet her. You can get around that with Kawakami’s massage. However, if you’re spending the money on that massage, there are more valuable Confidants to do than Ohya’s.

9. Ann Takamaki

• When she’s available: It starts automatically on 4/15, but you can do her freely on 5/6.
• Where to find her: In front of classroom 2-D or the Underground Mall during the day on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

I wanted to like Ann, but Atlus dropped the ball straight into the basement. Her Confidant’s story has initial promise due to her relationship with Shiho Suzui. It’s touching to see two friends work past what happened with Kamoshida.

However, most of the Confidant is spent on a plot about her modeling rival, Mika, who gets more screen time than Shiho. Why they chose to focus on her and not Shiho is beyond me, but it makes for a Confidant that is much worse than it could have been.

Being one of the party members, she has more valuable benefits than most. Most of them are shared with other party members, making her less valuable overall when other characters can give you those same benefits.

Her two unique abilities, Sexy Technique, Girl Talk, and Crocodile Tears, don’t activate often enough to make themselves useful. Girl talk is probably the least helpful benefit because female shadows are pretty uncommon, so it doesn’t work on most enemies. She’s reasonably available because you can do her Confidant right after you beat Kamoshida.

She’s available every day that’s not a Thursday, but she can appear in two places, so she’s a pain to find. She’s only available during the day, whether the school is in session or not, eating up your ability to do something else during the day. 

8. Makoto Nijima

• When she’s available: 6/25
• Where to find her: The student council office, outside the school, and the Shujin subway station on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. 

Makoto does have some things going for her. She has a huge screen presence during the game and gets not one but two palaces that are focused on her in Kaneshiro and her sister Sae. Seeing the meek girl finally blow up and assert dominance was enough to get many gamers to swoon, and it’s genuinely a fantastic moment.

The problem lies in the story of her Confidant. It’s about an aloof girl getting out of her comfort zone and learning to become more normal and like other girls. It reeks of Mitsuru’s Social Link from Persona 3. They both have a similar theme and tone behind them, but I will say that Makoto is more interesting than Mitsuru.

The abilities Makoto’s Confidant gives are laughable at best. The first one you get is Shadow Calculus, which tells you what enemies drop on the analysis screen. It’s worthless because you only see what they drop during battle. That means you can’t look up the shadow and where to find it if you want something specific.

You’re better served using a guide for this than the ability. Her second unique skill Shadow Factorization, lets you see what an enemy nulls, drains, and repels when you highlight them during battle. To that, I ask, “is your memory really that bad?”

Even if you forget what an enemy nulls, drains, or repels, you can check with your navigator at the click of a button. The ability is convenient but far from useful. If you use a guide, the ability is flat-out worthless.

Makoto’s available during the day, which means you can’t go to the metaverse when you do her Confidant. Her stat demands are also very demanding, requiring level 3 knowledge just to start and level 5 charm to get past the halfway point. 

Her Confidant is limited to four days of the week on top of having three different places she can show up, so she’s hard to find.

7. Chihaya Mifune

• When she becomes available: 6/22
• Where to find her: Shinjuku streets at night on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Honestly, I was caught off guard when I learned she was a Confidant. I expected her to be like Lala-chan, a unique merchant who was kind of quirky. I’m glad she had a Confidant to explore. Despite being a fortune teller, Chihaya’s story hits on some very real points about victims who fall for scams. 

It feels nice to become the person Chihaya can rely on. We even see Chihaya become the one to help her fellow victims at her Confidant’s end. It’s probably the strongest example of the player being able to see the growth they inspired in a person.

Chihaya’s Confidant is more useful than people give her credit for. Her Rank 1 ability temporarily makes it easier to level up a social stat. This is very important considering how many Confidants are gated behind social stats.

Her best ability is unlocked at Rank 5, which boosts your bond with a Confidant of your choice. It only costs a measly 5,000 yen, and it can be boosted by wearing a Persona of the matching Arcana.

It’s not nearly as good as Kawakami’s massages when it comes to maximizing your time, but it’s nice not to have to waste as many days hanging out with Confidants without ranking up.

Chihaya has a few things going for her at first glance. She’s available at night, freeing up your days, and can be started as early as June. The problem lies in how much effort it takes to get Chihaya’s Confidant started.

You not only need to get 100,000 yen to buy a Holy Stone from her, but you also need to visit her again and do the Mementos request “Ending the Boyfriend’s Abuse” before reaching Rank 1. Thankfully, she doesn’t have any social stat requirements after that, but that is still an insane amount of work to start a Confidant.

6. Hifumi Togo

• When she’s available: 6/26
• Where to find her: Kanda Church on Monday, Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday. 

 Hifumi was my romance of choice on my first playthrough, mostly because I found her character amusing. While it isn’t new as far as anime archetypes go, she’s something Atlus hasn’t done before.

I love the way she defies expectations. I expected a calm, cool, collected shogi player, but I got an anime heroine. It was tons of fun just hanging out with her.

The conflict of her Confidant centers around an overbearing mother who doesn’t believe in her daughter’s skills, which can be relatable to some people. The plot twist in her ending is a highlight of her Confidant.

Her benefits lie solely in the way she enhances your party’s synergy. The first ability she gives you at Rank 1 allows Joker to swap out party members during battle. A crucial skill for making full use of Baton Pass.

At Rank 9, you get the ability to escape battles instantly, ensuring you almost never get a game over. Her final ability, when you max out, her Confidant, lets you swap out party members even if it’s not Joker’s turn. It can make the Okumura boss fight a breeze to get through.

She’s one of the few Confidants you can do at night, which is good since it means you’re free to do stuff during the day. Unfortunately, her Confidant opens up towards the middle of the game after you beat Kaneshiro, and you need level 3 Charm to start it.

The biggest hurdle is the steep level 5 Knowledge requirement for her Rank 8. Maxing out a social stat is a huge time commitment.

5. Tae Takemi

• When she’s available: 4/18
• Where to find her: Yongen-Jaya clinic on all days of the week, during the day.

Takemi’s a great character. Her design is another example of contrast, where you expect her to be experimenting for the fun of it, only to learn that she’s doing all of it for a sick patient.

Growing closer to her throughout many visits and understanding that the cold air Takemi puts on is as much for her amusement as it is to push people away, so she doesn’t get emotionally attached to another patient.

While most Confidants end with you knowing you helped your friend, Takemi’s ends with knowing you were able to help Takemi, her patient, and anyone else with the same disease. There’s real catharsis in that.

The benefits of doing her Confidant all relate to Takemi’s role as one of the game’s merchants. At Rank 1 and Rank 3, you get more healing items, but at Rank 5, you get one of the best items in the game: the SP Adhesive.

These accessories recover SP at the end of every turn, giving you more of that precious resource to keep yourself topped up and ready for battle. SP Adhesives really show their strength in Mementos.

You can go to the top floor and then pass turns to recover SP on enemies too weak to kill you. They allow you to spend as long as you want in the dungeon grinding for money or items. SP Adhesives are expensive, so her Rank 7 ability to make them cheaper is nice too.

Takemi is available straight away, unlocking right at the beginning of the game. However, you need at least level 2 Guts to get past Rank 2, which will take a bit of time, but it’s nothing too major. The level 4 Charm requirement at Rank 8 is a much more intimidating roadblock but is easy to cross if you spend your time wisely.

4. Haru Okumura

• When she’s available: 10/30
• Where to find her: Shujin Academy Rooftop on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

 Haru’s personality is probably her biggest strong point. Atlus has a bad habit of making their characters fall into archetypes too often, but Haru manages to straddle a line between being familiar and something new.

She feels very dynamic due to her heavy involvement in the story, where you get to see her learn and grow. Her downfall is in her Confidant’s story, which has her become the head of a company.

This makes the third time Atlus has done a story like this. It retreads the same ground as Yukiko Amagi from Persona 4 and Mitsuru Kirijo from Persona 3. If you’ve played either of those games, you might find her Confidant boring.

The benefits Haru offers are some of the best in the game. She lets you use Shujin Academy’s garden, which lets you grow vegetables. Namely, the Moonlight Carrot and Sun Tomato that can fully restore SP.

These will be your saving grace for those long and difficult bosses or even when you’re trying to rush through a dungeon in a single day. The fact that you can get her Bumper Crop ability at rank 5, which gives you even more of the some of the best items in the game, is even more of a reason to do her Confidant.

One of the major downsides of Haru’s confidant because you must be pretty far in the game. You have to have already finished Okumura’s Palace which is only available in September and October.

It doesn’t give you much time to do her Confidant or enjoy its benefits. Thankfully, she’s easy to find since she’s always on the Shujin Academy rooftop unless it rains.

3. Sadayo Kawakami

• When she’s available: 5/24
• Where to find her: You call her from the yellow phone inside LeBlanc Friday and Saturday nights. 

 Kawakami isn’t the first time a teacher, or even specifically your homeroom teacher, has been made a Confidant. Thankfully, Atlus took this Confidant in a different route from the last one. Her Confidant is about her struggle with her past involving a dead student and living relatives who demand Kawakami pay restitution.

It’s quite a gut-wrenching story to see a teacher punished when all she wanted to do was help her student. There’s immense satisfaction to be had in doing Kawakami’s Confidant if only to solve this issue in a way only a Phantom Theif could.

Because she’s your homeroom teacher, she maintains a heavy presence throughout the game, and thus you can get to know her better than many other Confidants. Her conflict centering around money troubles and overworking also makes her quite relatable to an older audience.

Kawakami is one of those Confidants that are borderline required to make good use of your time. She’s able to do chores for you, like washing those dirty items you find in Mementos and letting you craft items during class. More important than all of that is the ultimate time-saving miracle: the special massage.

For a meager 5,000 yen, you can go out at night even if you go dungeon diving in the metaverse. It’s one of the greatest things you can have because it frees up so much time to do other Confidants. If you want to try completing every Confidant, Kawakami makes it vastly easier

Kawakami’s Confidant becomes available at the end of May after you finish the second Palace, so you don’t have to get too far into the game. The real problem lies in that you have to fork over 5,000 yen every time you want to hang out with Kawakami.

It’s enough to make her Confidant troublesome. She’s only available on Friday and Saturday nights, which is pretty limiting. You also need level 3 Guts to start the Confidant, but you aren’t locked out after that.

2. Futaba Sakura

• When she’s available: 8/31
• Where to find her: Outside LeBlanc on Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday during the day. 

I’d say Futaba is an underrated gem if I didn’t see people praise her on every forum I visit. She’s the character that feels the freshest out of Persona 5’s catalog of Confidants. She’s a terminally online NEET who wants to learn how to branch out of her comfort zone.

Futaba’s struggle with self-esteem is much more relatable than trying to lead a megacorporation or learning how to be normal. Her importance to the main plot gives Futaba’s character extra room to grow as the story progresses. Even if you don’t do Futaba’s Confidant, you’ll have a good understanding of who she is.

Futaba’s Confidant grants the most valuable abilities of any party member. When the first ability in her Confidant lets her randomly cast support Kaja-spells or healing spells on your entire party, you know you’re in for something great. Every single one of her abilities is just as useful as the first.

She can give you Mind and Power Charges during battle or recover SP. Futaba can even swap out KO’d party members or prevent them from getting KO’d in the first place.

The best part is that because she’s your navigator, her abilities are always active regardless of your party composition. Who would’ve thought a 4’11 girl could carry the entire Phantom Thieves on her back?

You gain access to Futaba’s Confidant right around the middle of the game on August 31st. She is quickly gated by needing a level 4 kindness to get to Rank 2.

Her availability is quite limited, only being available during the daytime on Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. This leaves you free to do stuff at night, but it will eat up your daylight hours.

1. Kasumi (Sumire) Yoshizawa

• When she’s available: 5/30 for her first five ranks. 1/12 for Ranks 6 through 10
• Where to find her: She’ll text you for the first five ranks. After 1/12, you can find her in Kichijoji. 

Kasumi is a Confidant exclusive to Persona 5 Royal and benefits from this. She’s given an integral role in the 3rd semester’s events, and the extra attention to her character shows. She has a nice, bubbly personality and a no-nonsense attitude that contrast with the sudden hits of depression the player sees in her.

This all comes to a head when her sister’s death is revealed, and you get to begin to hang out with Sumire. The entire Confidant has the theme of moving past the death of a loved one, which reminds me of Persona 3’s best moments.

The benefits you get from her Confidant aren’t actually that good. At Rank 2, you unlock Tumbling, which allows you to avoid being surrounded. A nice thing to have, but skilled play can avoid the situation entirely, rendering the ability moot.

Chaînés Hook is easily the best ability because it lets you ambush enemies from a distance. The biggest benefit behind doing her Confidant is that she’s required to unlock the 3rd semester. None of the other romanceable Confidants are required to play the last quarter of the game.

Yoshizawa’s availability is her biggest flaw. She’s only available after May 30th, when you unlock Rank 1 of the Confidant. Don’t let that fool you. She’s not an automatic Confidant, requiring you to hang out with her to Rank up.

The worst part is that until the 3rd semester, you can’t find her in the game world. You have to drop everything and hang out with her when she text, getting in the way of your carefully curated social life.

You’re also limited to only getting up to Rank 5 before the 3rd semester begins, so if you want to romance her, you need to unlock the 3rd semester. A feat that requires you to do Maruki’s and Akechi’s Confidants on top of getting the true ending of Persona 5, where you beat Yaldabaoth. It is a TON of work.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Persona 5 is a great game, and Royal makes it even better. There’s so much more stuff to do and new people to meet! Emphasis on people because that’s when Atlus’ writing shines the most. All of the Confidants are special in some way, but the romantic options are always given a bit more attention than others.

I understand why. Finding a partner is a big part of life, so it’s no wonder it’s been included in Persona’s life sim elements. Of course, not all options are made equal. On top of their personality, some characters offer extra items from their shop, make battles easier, or help you get closer to your other Confidants. 

Kasumi Yoshizawa stands at the top due to her stellar character in the story and out of it when doing her Confidant. The fact that one of the benefits of Ranking her up is an entire chunk of the game was enough to put her at number 1 on its own.

Don’t let that stop you, though. You’re able to finish Confidants without entering into a romance. So, if Kasumi’s personality isn’t a match for you, maybe someone else on this list is.

Thank you for reading!

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Jaden Hasse

A hardworking college student with an interest in books, music, and video games. Particularly anything in the metroidvania and JRPG genre. Originally started with Pokemon Crystal way back on his Gameboy color. Since then he's gotten a PS2, Xbox 360, PS4, and his own gaming PC. Favorite series are Shin Megami Tensei, Persona, Hollow Knight, Dark Souls, No More Heroes, and The World Ends With You.

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