While speaking to ComingSoon, prolific voice actors Laura Bailey and Troy Baker reflected on their roles as Rise Kujikawa and Kanji Tatsumi in Persona 4 and Persona 4 Golden.
When asked about her view on Rise over a decade after initially playing her, Bailey brought up how the rerelease of Persona 4 is a great idea due to how outdated and difficult-to-access games can become.
“Oh man, I love that character,” Bailey said of Rise. “It’s always awesome because, for a lot of games, you don’t keep seeing them. That’s one of the sad things about video games is that the technology has a tendency to outdate itself and then you don’t get to see it live for as long as you would like. So it’s always a good feeling when you see the characters that you love being shared again.”
Meanwhile, when asked about Kanji’s enduring popularity and relevance among Persona fans, Baker reiterated that he feels grateful for how the character continues to resonate with people.
“I never thought that Kanji specifically was going to resonate with people as much as he did,” Baker said. “But every time that someone comes up and tells me how much that character meant to them, it just reminds me of how fortunate I am and how grateful I am that I get to do this. That’s all I ever wanted to do was, again, the kid that rushed home after school every day to watch Batman: The Animated Series and learned who Kevin Conroy was and learned that that was the voice of Batman and that it was possible for that to be a job. The fact that I could be that for somebody else is all I ever wanted to do. So if I’ve inspired someone or, if nothing else, I’m entertaining someone, I’ve done my job and I’m happy.”
The Persona series started as a spin-off of the Shin Megami Tensei franchise but went on to form an identity of its own after gaining immense popularity with the release of Persona 3. Since then, two more mainline Persona games have come out, with each installment later receiving robust rereleases that featured new content and quality-of-life upgrades. The main characters of Persona 3, 4, and 5 have also appeared in a variety of spinoff games. Persona 4 Golden and Persona 3 Portable will release for the PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC on January 19.
