The Canon name of the Shin Megami Tensei V Protagonist

[@Krezzing]

"Do you consider it canon" better than Name Surname that's for sure

[@SMNFXCN]

or Persona 5 Strikers': First Last

[@Grove0721]

C'mon, everyone knows his name is Young Man

[@Carrity]

Young man

[@sora5061]

Yuung Mann

[@sketchpixels6255]

"There's no need to feel down!"

[@dustinchase2294]

I called him Yeung, Mahen. Feels like it fits for me.

[@renren47618]

Yeong Menn

[@YozoraKuroboshi]

Everyone talks about canon of creation or canon of vengeance but very few talk about the canon of name

[@ryuzxa]

His name is John V. Vengeance

[@strangejourneyismid]

you mean John V. Engence

[@bubbletea_]

interesting and unconventional way to find a canon name for a character. the fact that name comes up in any language except japanese leads me to believe it was a name made up as a placeholder by the translation team(s) and was just kept for all translations. whether atlus later accepts this as an official name or not is still up in the air, but anything can happen.

[@johntitor4287]

It was probably used for testing in the cases where FIRST_NAME and LAST_NAME would be used. Where dialogue would say the character's first or last name, it would be very useful to know if the function worked as intended or not, and what better way to do it than by actually plugging in a name?

[@johnny8363]

I think "Name Surname" is the definitive canon name

[@nathanblackburn1193]

Pronounced Nah-may Surn-ah-mee

[@mantaray79]

already playing Vengeance as "Kei Amemura"

[@totallymako]

Same!

[@peterwroot]

Yep, same here!

[@zigazav1]

I used the "canon name" for Joker in Persona 5 Royal when I played P5 for the first time. So, I basically did what you did, but for the Persona 5 protag. His "canon name", I didn't learn from this video, a friend of mine sent me a message when I was struggling to come up with a name for the protag, as naming characters is the most difficult thing for me when it comes to things relating to a character I play as. Be it in videogames or tabletop RPGs

[@asuratakehaya6884]

Same

[@celtickiller01]

Same here too.

[@DigitalWorldArchive]

Funny enough, the SMTV Guidebook in fact had a topic regarding the "Name of the Characters". The book notes that the name of all the characters carries a meaning, they are all derived from Shinto shrines. ・Atsuta Shrine [Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture] ・Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine [Dazaifu City, Fukuoka Prefecture] ・Isonokami Shrine [Tenri City, Nara Prefecture] ・Itsukushima Shrine [Location: Hatsukaichi City, Hiroshima Prefecture]. The fact that they all carry the name of a Shrine related to a god is stated to be a reason why they were all gathered, as if their names were an indication of their fate. The book finishes stating that although you can name your character with any name, if one would care about the lore and quality of the work, they could follow the naming convention used by the other characters. [First Name: Written in Katakana] [Family Name: Name of a Shrine] The book then lists a lot of shrines that could be used by the player: 伊勢 (Ise), 神田 (Kanda), 赤城 (Akagi)、金刀比羅 (Kotohira)、鵜戸 (Udo)、榛名 (Haruna).

[@steam-powereddolphin5449]

"Akagi" is the only one I've seen elsewhere, thus far--Touma *Akagi* from Tokyo Mirage Sessions#FE.

[@FadliAthallah_]

@@DigitalWorldArchive Don't Forget Hiromine Shrine for Yoko

[@kayramah2531]

Precisely because of this, I gave my protagonist the surname Yaegaki, since the shrine is connected to Susanoo

[@knox7945]

His name is Young Man

[@AtlasRisen]

Does he have a need to feel down?

[@JoyZoneYT]

Shounen...what a great name

[@UnifiedGod777]

For the most part, whatever is connected to games officially (i.e debug states in the official release as shown in this video, drama cds and other material) I usually consider canon. Because this name still exists and wasn't removed in Vengeance, it is canon in my opinion. While it isn't outright changed to "Kei Amemura" upon using the language trick or other normal methods and Atlus hasn't confirmed a name for him yet officially, this still counts as canon in my opinion so until another name is confirmed by Atlus, I will use Kei as his name.

[@firebeam24]

Remember when the SMT I protagonists names were Hero, Law Hero and Chaos Hero?

[@serv4619]

if you thought the Makoto Minato discussion was bad for the p3 protagonist. Pretty sure those guys all have like 5 "canon" names each lol

[@Dangomancer]

I named my protag Young Man just for the silliness.

[@nathanblackburn1193]

I think Kei works as a name for the protagonist so that we don't just have to call them "the nahobino" all the time

[@johntitor4287]

I just use Kou Shujin myself, a bastardization of the Japanese placeholder Shujinko (protagonist)

[@JoyZoneYT]

Hahahahaha. Smart

[@backupschmliff1156]

You could always use your name, combined with a last name from another protagonist. What I personally do, is use my first name, "Ren" and whatever the canon last name is like Ren Kashima or Ren Yuki or in this case, Ren Amemura. Since your name is John, you could still translate it to Japanese, and make it "Jun". ATLUS games are supposed to be personal journeys and help define who YOU are as a person. Canon names are harder to really immerse myself in that story(also why I hate that the P4 spinoffs are sequels to the anime).

[@messmass2573]

Honestly, it might be worth the effort to summon an actual demon rather than to find the default/canon name to these Atlus titles protag. 😂

[@DigidesteinedSayian]

I think that if had been introduced to the game with Kei Amemura, I would have used it as his canon name. But I'm already attached to the name I gave him (Shion Kagami), so I use it in game and fic.

[@legoharry100]

I named him Ritsuka Fujimaru because I was just watching Fate Grand Order lore videos the day before getting Vengeance

[@FadliAthallah_]

@@legoharry100 Funny Enough ,The story is a bit similar to the Seventh Singularity , Demonic Front Babylonia whose main antagonis is Tiamat

[@ilikestamps2978]

It's Young Man, wtf did you think it was!?!?

[@akira2988]

I dont think it's canon, but I think it's cool a lot of people (myself included) agreed to name him like that. It feels more integrated to the plot and story than my SMTV vanilla attempt "Shin Megami" Lol

[@sotoroiguess69]

Damn, if I had known about Kei Amemura when starting SMT V Vengeance I might have picked it. I just set the protagonist’s name to Kimiya Sakura because I thought it sounded cool, which is the same reason I set Joker’s name in Persona 5 Royal to Kaito Arakawa lol.

[@MarshmallowFrost]

At least you can give cool names to the protagonists. The first time I played persona I wrote “perry abc” as my name because I couldn’t think of something creative 💀

[@ShenBinhao]

“Young Man”

[@LifeWillChange]

Great video I like the commentary 👍!

[@ScrambledFaz]

ty goat

[@FireworkRyota]

While I don't have Vengeance yet, in my original SMTV savefile I used the name "Ryota Kozuka", just because I love the work Kozuka has been putting into the music for this games and somewhere I read something along the lines of "Kozuka is basically a Nahobino trying to rank up to the legacy of Shoji Meguro", so I was like "Hey that's pretty funny.." So in short: I named the Young Man my favorite ATLUS composer.

[@Kytseo]

He'll always be Naobi Hino in my heart.

[@RosyMiranto]

Ah yes, the Protagonist of Nocturne, "Name Family", Toretto would be proud

[@crimsonslayer6641]

I named the protag kei amemura, I think it’s his canon name due to the evidence you’ve shown. It’s been that name since I started vengeance on june 14th

[@littlebabyman8494]

Not having a name for a protag for some people is a lot like them not having a face. It’s why people came up with names for the P3 female protag all those years back and why people were squabbling over Joker’s canon name.

[@G0on]

This reminds me of the game Chulip, in which the player names the main character and the heroine at the start. In 2018, the streamer Otones found a glitch in the game that forced it to display her name in a context she wouldn’t usually be in, revealing that the game internally refers to her as Akiko. It was a very cool discovery made a long time after the game’s release.

[@emiithink8973]

Nah, this is only from the localizers and they can't change the canon. In japanese his name is Protagonist if you apply the same method and honestly, sometimes characters dont have a canon name and thats totally fine. They clearly intended for the player to choose a name and we gotta respect that.

[@AndrewBlechinger]

I tend to go with generic last names like Tanaka to emphasize his everyman, self-insert status. At least we know that the book he's carrying is a copy of The Manyoshu, which is why that gets quoted at the start of a new game.

[@slayeroffurries1115]

Isn't it "John SMT"?

[@Mangk89]

Isnt that strange journey protag name?

[@backupschmliff1156]

Oh Faz it's you. I didn't even recognize your new pfp, but it's cool.

[@ScrambledFaz]

yesssir

[@micaholson1052]

I call my protag in V Kuji Ayakano.

[@StarHakurei]

Looking forward to your content on this channel, Faz! I remember your initial post about this sending the fandom into a frenzy lol. Never got to see your update on vengeance after it had failed, but cool to know it's still there! It might just be a localization thing, but we have several 'canon' names with persona, so I don't see any issue treating this as such. And it's nice to have something at least 🤗

[@ScrambledFaz]

Thank you! Yeah I remember that. It’s cool to finally have a name for him, even if not 100% official

[@lykthewarlock]

Kei Amemura roughly translates into something similiar to Luster Candy so that's what I keep calling him

[@pablo-k7w5f]

In my first playthrough I tried naming him "Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne Featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry Series" (both the name and surname) so he was called Shin Meg Shin Meg as a result. Then I just kinda went with John Shin Megami Tensei 5 Vengeance and John Shin Meg was born

[@Lophii28]

it’s the closest thing we have, and i like to name my protagonists their canon names, so it’s what i used for my vengeance save file

[@kuroinova2056]

Surprised they using the femc name from the live musical/drama series of p3 for the official name.

[@Lutyrannus]

If it was in Japanese too I would think there's an argument for it being canon. However his name just being "protag" in Japanese makes it feel a lot more flimsy to me, because we don't really have a way to tell if Kei Amamura was a name just made up by some random localization intern instead of the people who wrote the characters.

[@markhovscrch4050]

I still remember those Joke and NSFW about 'The god you worship is dead, worship this instead' meme

[@zylorixx810]

All I did was look up in google Nahobino canon name and got Kei Amemura so its canom to me lol

[@backupschmliff1156]

You could always go with Kouhei Yanagi, the voice actor. Just don't tell him or anything.

[@AndrewBlechinger]

Or Casey Mongillo, if we're going that route.

[@backupschmliff1156]

@@AndrewBlechinger Ew no. He sounds like PS1 voice acting

[@montblanc9846]

Atlus likely didnt use Naoki or Shin or anything of the sort for Demi-fiend for a few possible reasons 1) Using elements from an adaptation can lead to authors of said adaptations wanting more credit or involvement, which can have multiple outcomes. Legal battles and royalties come to mind (See: Lawsuit against Dragon Quest 5: Your Story by a novelist who adapted DQ5 bc it used elements of her adaptation.) 2) Because Demi-fiend pretty much loses his identity as a person and thus his name is likely something Atlus doesnt care for, plus it enforces him being a player insert more You can also make a similar argument for the P1 protagonist and why he is always just "Boy with Earring" (Aside from Atlus, definitely intentionally, making him the blankest player insert) instead of Naoya Atlus has used adaptation names before, such as when the P3 protag was called Minato Arisato in JP PQ trailers. It probably also helps that they have a very close relationship with the mangaka And since everyone is sharing their SMTV protag names, mine is Teppei Kitamura

[@ScrambledFaz]

all of your point makes a lot of sense, thanks so much for elaborating!

[@BillyBoy2071]

Nice find!

[@ScrambledFaz]

I didnt find it! Shoutout to wiredfeelings and my friend for finding it all these years ago hehe

[@SuperDragonBlader]

I always thought Mikoto Aotsuki would be a good cannon name.

[@triedge5477]

I put Yu Narukami just because he is a thunder element for starter just like izanagi

[@sketchpixels6255]

IMO I'd use Kei as a canon name until Atus themselves does something. However, speaking of Canon Names, really hope the "Traveling Boy" from Metaphor has one considering he's fully voiced from what I've heard.

[@KatelynTea]

The internal art team calls him "Meta" if that means anything

[@watashi_wa_doppio7695]

In one of the trailers his name is listed as Will

[@orngcreator6115]

Good video my dude

[@ScrambledFaz]

Thank you!

[@MalachiLper]

I’ve seen a couple people use names like Susano-o Aogami / Mikoto.

[@rpgfanatic9719]

I always named him Satoshi Tajiri

[@jeezycreezy4220]

"Name Surname" is his new name in my headcanon.

[@_JPkun]

I wouldn't say "cannon" until confirmed in the story, but it's definitely a "dev id", like game devs call certain objects and characters in game to identify them.

[@loganrussell3064]

My default for naming the protagonist in these games is "Kaito Yagami/Yagami Kaito" or "Eight Gods of the Sea" so I just always go for that lol

[@Pegyson]

Kei and Naoki can be canon, but everyone just calls them the Nahobino and the Demi-fiend. Kinda the point since their previous lives don't matter anymore

[@skel-l7825]

Pretty sure it was just a placeholder name, but it's the closest thing we got, so I'll take it

[@wockguy133]

hey good video man

[@ScrambledFaz]

appreciate it goat!

[@RetroPixle]

I think anything remotely close to official is better than nothing at all so to me, his name is Kei Amemura

[@jonathanacree9587]

His name is Seliph Chalphy. Long blue hair, black blue and white color pallet. What do you mean this isn’t a sequel to Geneology of the Holy War?

[@votamkrystallo854]

Can you talk about the Bull god and Snake god????

[@soulrockch.5978]

And here I am thinking that his name was Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance 😞

[@gotinogaden]

Interestingly, Kei Sagami is the name of Maken X (Shao)'s protagonist. She also looks like Hiromine.

[@arceuskarp4542]

I wonder if combing the credits would reveal that Kei is actually someone important to development. It would be funny if it's the bug tester

[@ScrambledFaz]

Thats the first thing we did, but that’s not the case unfortunately

[@linking093]

The switch version does have Japanese support is just that you need to download the language from expansion

[@ScrambledFaz]

I meant Japanese text, my bad

[@VXMasterson]

That's so weird that is defaults to Name Surname unless you go through all these extra steps. Like why even program another name in there? I wouldn't consider it canon but I don't blame people who do. I ended up going with Fumihito Aikawa for Young Man

[@ssjsylver]

I think it’s a nice name :) plus it’s the only thing we have as far as a canon name so why not

[@anima_magic]

I wish I had know about Kei before I started Vengeance. I used Naobi Hino just like I did for the original on Switch. Though I think Naobi is a cute name regardless.

[@zaleww5824]

I wonder if they plan to release an anime for this? persona games have anime for each but not smt games. maybe they plan to use that name in anime or manga they will release later?

[@crimsonite9729]

After some digging I found out his canon name: First name is Young Last name is Man

[@JohnYakooza]

I assume the name is likely still gonna be unchanged but has anyone attempt to change the language to instead of Japanese but Chinese? Considering both language shares a lot same character/text in Kanji will there be a very slight chance that it will change to an actual name instead of just 主人公 (Protagonist)

[@ScrambledFaz]

Towards the end of the video you can see me using the mod in different languages. I also launched the game in Chinese and it also said Kei Amemura!

[@lorenzoantonelli6467]

Well it sounds good for sure.

[@admontblanc]

Everyone knows that his name is Nahobeeho.

[@raulrojas9253]

I mean....is a name. better than calling him Nahobino (That's how I called him in vanilla SMT V and Vengeance) I hate giving names to silent protagonists, I don't get the "he is you" bullcrap, I can kind of understand if you are creating the character from scratch but not when the character is already established.

[@raandigar]

Kei Amemura. I haven't played SMT but hoping that this isn't just a placeholder Atlus starts using in other media as well and then later decide that nah! The SMT V Vengeance's Protagonist actually has a different canon name.

[@punkapunk9917]

I named the protagonist "Ao Ryoken" because the magatsu rails & the protagonist in general reminds me of Ryoken from Yugioh VRAINS or "Revolver"

[@TyroneCLove]

Isn’t it Shou Nen ?

[@someguy9546]

i didn't even know about the Japanese to English trick i was wondering how people did that

[@oberon_relic1161]

Susano-o has a son named Toshigami so I named the protag Toshi Raigami

[@JoyZoneYT]

I wonder if the debug of starting on the map would work on SMT 3 nocturne.

[@badabingbing474]

Never knew that it was Bobby

[@false8260]

I remember before starting the game I looked for a canon name and couldn't find one so I just looked for name suggestions because im bad with names and the one I like was Aoi Kamiya I don't remember the exact reasoning but it had to do with Aogami though if I knew about this beforehand I'd have probably chosen it and I don't know if theres a way to change your name but im too attached at this point to Aoi Kamiya.

[@thegamingdragon1981]

guys his name is John SMTV like come on

[@pokemaniacdavid]

I’m all in for that being the canon name, like why would this glitch cause this name to appear?

[@ArceusDX]

I mean hey, if it was used for debug and is still part of the game's code, that's about as canon as it gets

[@ned3and]

I named my MC Shujinko XD

[@asuratakehaya6884]

I think that it's a placeholder name

[@Dembilaja]

Idk why games where you're not building your character from the ground up (face, hair, race...) are pushing you to make up some name. And especially without providing you with a canon name. Like, leave option to rename protagonist to people who like to name character after themselves, but leave protagonist canon name in game. I really liked that in Breath of the wild and tears of the Kingdom they ditched that, and everyone refers to you as Link

[@dennytan8]

his name is shonen

[@RainbowsClone]

It's better than nothing. I named him Naori personally.

[@caesarfrompersona3fes731]

its "Young Mann" for me

[@sylphidstriker6909]

Young man, there's no need to feel down I said, young man, pick yourself off the ground I said, young man, 'cause you're in a new town There's no need to be unhappy Young man, there's a place you can go I said, young man, when you're short on your dough You can stay there and I'm sure you will find Many ways to have a good time It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A. It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A. They have everything For young men to enjoy You can hang out with all the boys It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A. It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A. You can get yourself clean You can have a good meal You can do whatever you feel Young man, are you listening to me? I said, young man, what do you want to be? I said, young man, you can make real your dreams But you've got to know this one thing No man, does it all by himself I said, young man, put your pride on the shelf And just go there, to the Y.M.C.A. I'm sure they can help you today It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A. It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A. They have everything for young men to enjoy You can hang out with all the boys It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A. It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A. You can get yourself clean You can have a good meal You can do whatever you feel Young man, I was once in your shoes I said, I was down and out with the blues I felt, no man cared if I were alive I felt the whole world was so jive That's when someone came up to me And said, young man, take a walk up the street There's a place there called the Y.M.C.A. They can't stop you back on your way It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A. It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A. They have everything For young men to enjoy You can hang out with all the boys Y.M.C.A. It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A. Young man, young man, there's no need to feel down Young man, young man, pick yourself off the ground Y.M.C.A. It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A. Young man, young man Are you listening to me? Young man, young man What do you want to be? Y.M.C.A. You buy in at the Y.M.C.A. Young man, young man Does it all by himself Young man, young man Put your pride on the shelf Y.M.C.A. And just go to the Y.M.C.A Young man, young man, I was once in your shoes Young man, young man, I was down with blues Y.M.C.A

[@ShahzDaneil]

There is no consideration to be put, its what the devs put in a final and launched product. Its his canon name until the devs themselves dispute it.

[@SlonkGoblin]

his name is "Shounen"

[@backupschmliff1156]

I'm glad they don't give canon names easily. I see a lot of Western fans begging ATLUS to turn it into Final Fantasy and make the player character a removed party with full voice acting and dialogue like Ringo or Cloud Strife instead of being an avatar for yourself. MegaTen is THE LAST bastion of nameless protagonists for JRPGs. Seems like every JRPG these days has named protagonists that are fully voiced.

[@veturwinter]

Oh hey you're that guy from twitter

[@ScrambledFaz]

Real

[@zweidouble8038]

Chose "Kei Amemura" for my first playthrough (SMT5V!)

[@Tayruu]

Interesting that it's using "Amemura", the surname, in the status box, whereas normally the game uses the first name. Does playing in Japanese give you the option to input a nickname like P2 and SMT3, and it's using that? Or is something else causing it?

[@ScrambledFaz]

nope, no nickname option

[@anthonythomas305]

Young Man

[@KnightofChaosDeck]

My view is 'canon until stated otherwise' Cuz I prefer using canon names over my owm.

[@minakoarisato1506]

Cool but i named mg protag Minamoto no Raiko but shorter to fit in the spaces

[@AndrewBlechinger]

Found the Fate player.

[@anglosaxiphone8246]

John Megami Tensei, right?