What is the canon name of the protagonist in Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance?

If you’ve been playing Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance, you might be wondering what the canon name of your player character is. With a little digging, we’ve managed to uncover a tentative answer.

Like many RPGs, Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance will allow you to name the protagonist yourself. However, the game does not provide you with a default name to use if you don’t have one in mind or would prefer to go with a canon name, and in-game he is referred to only as “the Nahobino” by party members, or “young man” by Aogami. 

What is the protagonist’s name?

It’s fairly common practice for Atlus to not give us the name of the protagonist in the Megami Tensei or Persona series, and it’s only through looking through supplementary material, such as manga, light novels, or audio dramas, that we actually find out what their canonical name is. As things currently stand, Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance does not have any such material for us to refer to, so a canonical name for the Nahobino has not been revealed at this time.

However, according to the Megaten Wiki, the debug menu of the localized version of the original release of Shin Megami Tensei V gives the name of Kei Amemura for the protagonist. This is the closest we have to a canonical name for him at this time, and it’s not even referenced in the original Japanese release, so whether it was actually intended to be his name or just included for a placeholder is unknown.

It’s possible that with Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance being regarded as the complete version of the game, we may see material such as a light novel, manga, audio drama, or radio drama in the coming months that will finally give us a canonical name for the Nahobino. For the time being however, the name Kei Amemura is the closest we’re going to get, so if you wanted to give him a canonical name, that would be your best bet.

It’s entirely plausible that any such material would give him a different name, however: the original Persona 3 manga gave the protagonist the name of Minato Arisato, before he was given the name of Makoto Yuki in the more recent Persona 3 Reload. Both could be regarded as canon, so it’s possible that the Nahobino could end up with more than one canonical name.

Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance is available now on Switch, and you can check out our coverage of the game here.