ANK

Junpei sucks.

He's the worst.

I hate him.

I wish he died instead of Shinjiro.

Chidori is delusional for thinking he's anywhere close to dating material, much less someone to literally die for.

I'm happy that no matter how the hotspring scene ends, he and Ryoji still suffer.

I just can't stand this dude to save my life. He's a part of my Unholy Trinity of terrible Persona Party Members™️

P4's Teddie

P5's Toshiro (Morgana if we annex spinoffs)

And smack-dab right next to them is P3's Junpei!

I feel the same way towards Junpei as AM feels towards humanity.

I

HATE

JUNPEI

He is an annoying, self-centered, perverted imbecile who throws tantrums when something doesn't go his way.

After the Love Hotel boss fight, after Junpei feels inadequate compared to you - the player - he proceeds to give you the silent treatment and throws passive-aggressive remarks aimed towards you for a full in-game WEEK! He then gives you a half-hearted apology for "being a dick", and goes back to being the same old annoying d-bag.

He then later blames you for the world ending because you just so happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time when you were a child who just lost their parents and got front row seats to a sick anime fight. Why the Hell doesn't he blame Aigis, who was the reason behind Thanatos being sealed inside of you in the first place???

Oh, right. Because she's a robot. With tits.

He then proceeds to give you the EXACT SAME APOLOGY that he gave you during the whole Love Hotel tantrum! I CAN'T-

That entire scene of him dragging you and Akihiko around the beach to hit on a bunch of women was so agonizing to sit through; I wanted to jump out a window out of sheer second-hand embarrassment (I later found out that the last woman they try to hit on in Reload was changed to be a crazy conspiracy theorist, because in the original, the old joke was that she was Trans. I-

I got nothing-).

Even his supposed 'saving grace' - his subplot with Chidori - feels so hollow and unearned. For some reason, skeevy Junpei doesn't hit on her when they first meet and initially didn't seem to have an ulterior motive in seeing her every day, which always felt out of character for him to do. I know why - they had to have us care about their relationship and make it believable that Chidori would actually be interested in a guy like him. But I ain't buying it.

Even then, I (and the game included) forgot that Chidori even existed half the time. After Chidori gets put in the hospital, after like a few in-game days, we proceed to not mention her, until the whole hurricane event, where Junpei just casually mentions she exists. And then we proceed to still not hear from her, until flippin' NOVEMBER! And at the same time, she just dies for the sake of giving Junpei some form of character development. And even then, there's an optional side quest that results in that whole event NOT EVEN MATTERING IN THE END!

While everyone else loses a loved one for the sake of 'DA MESSAGE', Junpei has an option to just be the special boy who's the only one to get his happy ending with the supposed dead chick, because we can't let Chidori permanently die in a game about accepting the permeation and inevitability that IS death! I HATE THIS GAME!

And I swear to God, if we get into Trismegistus, we'd be here all day-

And as much as I want to talk more about Chidori as a character, I want to save it for when I get to her part of the series, 'cause spoiler: she really has nothing else going on for her that doesn't just involve Junpei, and MAAYYYBE Strega. But then again, Strega themselves are a nothing burger group of Goofy Goober antagonists.

Getting back to Junpei (sadly), there is one. Count 'em, ONE good thing that Junpei has going for him. And that's his gameplay.

I haven't really brought up gameplay in this series, because it usually doesn't matter to me in the long run in regards to how much I like a character overall, but in the case of Junpei, it's literally the ONLY saving grace to his character. He is weirdly good in battle with his physical and fire attacks, and downright monstrous when you add Koromaru into the mix with his physical buffs (The Answer even knew this).

The sad part about this is that after almost every battle, during every excursion through Tartarus, I had to hear Junpei make so many dumb comments that I just couldn't stand to listen to it for another half-hour.

If I hear him say "Perfecto~" ONE more time, I'm gonna Persona 3 myself.

And that's the reason why I replaced him with Akihiko for the remainder of my playthrough-

But then. I finally got my catharsis when I played Arena Ultimax soon after beating P3R. And ladies and gentlemen, Junpei finally gets what he God dang deserves!

Throughout the entire storyline, Junpei is just constantly getting hit with L after L after L. The game wants to make sure that he truly suffers, and I'm all here for it!

Let's list some examples, shall we?:

Instead of becoming a famous baseball player like he wanted, he's actually a baseball coach to a bunch of grade schoolers, with it being implied that they constantly lose.

He's the only Shadow Operative member to not be notified about the kidnapping situation because his phone ends up dying and gets stuck in the middle of the boonies.

Shadow Yukari insults the Hell out of him

He has to convince Yukiko that he's not a creep by teaching her how to report stranger danger, which ironically summons Rise to come in and beat the Hell out of Junpei.

Teddie - the actual worst Persona character - tells him that he stinks in front of Yukari.

Aforementioned Teddie proceeds to lift him up and chuck him through the tv exit at the end of the SEES storyline.

When Kanji is fighting Junpei's shadow, the real one shows up in an attempt to save Kanji, only for him to bellyflop against the arena's invisible wall, and proceeds to crash onto the ground after it disappears. In this embarrassing display of incompetence, Shadow Junpei himself groans in disappointment in knowing that that man is his other self. EVEN JUNPEI DOESN'T WANT TO BE JUNPEI!

Kanji calls him pops.

In his attempts to save Aigis, he nearly falls to his death and is then forgotten when shadow Ken and Koromaru show up. He is then ironically saved my Aigis herself.

He looks like a deadbeat uncle that had invested in crypto, only to fall for one of the more obvious schemes, and is only getting by by leeching off of his parents that somewhat tolerate his presence in their residence.

Even the game itself agrees that Junpei deserves to suffer. And that's why Arena is great.....