By Dexerto | Created at 2026-06-05 13:25:20 | Updated at 2026-06-07 07:54:06
1 day ago
After failing to romance Persona 5’s resident baddie, Tae Takemi, The Weeknd has now taken an IRL sidequest to Japan, and fans are joking that the singer is trying to find the fictional waifu that broke his heart.
Back in April 2025, Canadian singer-songwriter The Weeknd went viral after posting photos of his playthrough of Persona 5 via his Instagram alt, gene.hackerman. One of the most viral moments was when he met Tae Takemi, the game’s shady back-alley doctor.
For those who don’t know, Takemi is known for her goth girl style and dark sense of humor. Besides her eye-catching design, she is most famously known for using the protagonist as a human guinea pig to test out her special medicine.
Like many P5 players, The Weeknd wasn’t put off by Tae’s red flags and fell head over heels for the shady doc (no judgment here). In fact, the singer posted plenty of photos of his time with Tae in-game, but this budding romance was sadly cut short when the singer discovered he had completely fumbled romancing her.
Fast forward to 2026, and The Weeknd now finds himself in Japan, and judging from his recent Instagram posts, fans now believe he’s trying to find Tae Takemi.
The Weeknd visits IRL Tae Takemi location
In a viral post uploaded to Instagram, The Weeknd shared a photo of a dimly lit alleyway, but it’s not just any old street. Persona 5 fans and armchair detectives quickly identified the location as Sangenjaya, a neighborhood in Tokyo that inspired the game’s Yongen-Jaya district.
It looks like The Weeknd even went to Rain on the Roof, a real cafe that serves as the location for Joker’s home (Cafe Leblanc). Sangenjaya is also where Tae Takemi’s clinic would be in real life, and it’s this fact that has fans collectively losing their minds over.
“The Weeknd is doing a Persona 5 Royal Pilgrimage, but I think he’s really trying to find Takemi,” wrote one commenter. “This guy is actually gonna go try to find Takemi in real life, this is unheard-of levels of down bad,” joked another.
“You know his ass followed the in-game map to try to find the clinic in that neighborhood,” replied one fan. Others then joked that the singer is somehow going to be connected to Atlus’ highly anticipated Persona 6, with one even saying we could even hear some Tae tunes in a future track: “At this rate there is gonna be a new song about a girl named Takem!”
So, while The Weeknd may have fumbled his future life with Tae Takemi, his love for Persona 5 and devotion to the game’s back-alley doctor is undeniable. Let’s just hope that if there is an IRL Tae, she is more forgiving and recognizes the chart-topping songwriter’s success.
