!!!!! CONFIDANTS... its admittedly been a while since my last playthrough but my favorite is definitely justice and my last favorites are like. all the adult women except sae bc atlus sure did make every adult woman in joker's life a predator. :/ but those are kinda obvious/gimmie answers so i'll pick 3 favs and 3 least favs!!!

FAVORITES:

1. Justice (Goro Akechi) - in terms of presentation in Royal tbh I think all the confidants could have been tied into the story like Akechi's confidant line was, but also like he's just my favorite character... I have A Type of character i gravitate toward in terms of who i get attached to and spend all my energy character studying and Akechi is like a distillation of everything I like in a character... he's tragic, he's fruity, and he's got a wonderful character arc not just in base but in royal where he stands up and chooses self-determination!!! GO KING. the loki reveal is also pretty raw ngl.

2. Faith (Sumire Yoshizawa) - i get the feeling not a lot of people like sumire but i absolutely adore her she's my daughter... her character arc does leave a bit to be desired but i understand if atlus didn't want to alter the experience of the base game too much when they made royal, since her development is really back-loaded and with maruki's actualization in play she really only gets 5 ranks to develop as a character (because for the first 5 pre-third sem, she thinks she's kasumi...) instead of the 10 that all other confidants get. despite that though the only gripe i have with her arc is that i wish that they had dwelled on her trauma MORE but with the way confidants are in the game i understand that it's not entirely possible to dig deep and make things have a lasting impact on the game unless you make multiple routes and like p5r is already a fucking 150hr game so like i get it. sumire numero uno though.

3. Emperor (Yusuke Kitagawa) - yusuke is probably my 2nd fav thief after the royal trio who i'm considering as a set in order to make it more fair to the others. he's just a really cool character and i feel for him a lot and i think that next to the issues with everyone else's character arcs his struggle with acknowledging madarame as abusive throughout the arc and the game and working thru that struggle through his art (or at least his ideals with regards to his approach to art, feeling that his work was tainted by madarame's greed and the fact that madarame used yusuke's talents for personal gain and like. yusuke watched as others under madarame's tutelage failed out or even iirc one guy committed suicide... augh....) and reclaiming it as a thing that he does For Him and that empowers Him. even in 3rd semester his wish you have to break him out of isn't to have a comfortable life doing art or etc it's wishing that madarame was a good person and a good teacher and good father figure for him. honestly i see a lot of angela in yusuke to an extent so thats probably why i adore him so much SDFSDGJSKHJDKFKDS love him. lives in my head rent-free.

honorable mention goes to haru who like sumire i get the feeling people don't usually really like; her actual arc is kind of washed out because she joins so late and a lot of her grief with her father is glossed over in favor of the phantom thieves' larger issues which is understandable bc now the police are out to nip them for murder but i do enjoy her as a character and i am really pleased that she gets the development she deserves in strikers!! shes a really strong character and i think a lot of people aren't willing to give her a second look because they're stuck in the mindset that strikers sucks for some reason but strikers is actually better than royal... imo. anyway haru's arc in sapporo rules tremendously because unlike in the base game we get to see just how much her father's death affected her and her choosing to stand up and move on. the sapporo arc is also The reason why in my post-canon brainworm haru is actually the one who, doesn't quite forgive akechi first but is the one who sits him down and tells him to cut it the fuck out with the self-flaggelation over his crimes, because while Yes she's angry and No she's probably not going to forgive him, she has already decided that she's not going to let that anger rule her and that she's doesn't like the person that the anger she still holds toward akechi makes her. send tweet. harugoro can be besties actually. haru can also be angela.

additional honorable mentions to maruki (best villain ever. love that guy) as well as zenkichi and sophia (who don't have confidant arcs bc they're strikers guys). they occupy sooo much brainspace. zenkichi also reminds me i cant believe atlus plagiarized roland twice. sophia also has the rawest awakening in the game.

LEAST FAVORITE:

(aside from all the adult women because.. .augh. no matter how good their arcs may be, sorry takemi, i can't really overlook that narrative choice. i Fix It in my writing and i have never done harem route bc of this shit but yeah.)

1. Tower - Shinya Oda: this is my least favorite by virtue of the fact that it's the least remarkable confidant and character arc for me. the principle i operate on is that unless i really viscerally hated something, if i just... don't have thoughts on something, it's my least favorite. i constantly forget this kid exists and i would shed no tears if he was wholesale swapped out for another character. any other character. sorry.

2. Sun - the politician guy: the fact i do not remember his name should tell you that this operates on much the same principle as shinya. he's a nothing character and in terms of the phantom thieves' political connections i think that toshiro in tactica is way cooler even though i haven't even finished tactica

3. Star - Hifumi Togo: i like hifumi as a character but her demure quiet demeanor (even with the fact she gets Really into her shogi matches) doesn't really do anything for me.

honorable mention for least favs to makoto niijima because WHILE I ADORE MAKOTO AS A CHARACTER her confidant arc is the worst of all the phantom thieves. atlus is going to look me in the eyes and tell me that makoto whose awakening was that she wasnt going to spend her whole life being the perfect nice girl to appease others and who literally watches one of her best friends get brutalized by police is gonna become a cop and try to "fix the system from the inside." despite already deciding she doesn't give a f abt the system. uh-huh. yeah. okay. whatever. i guess. i'm not mad.