You are brave for admitting that here. Hashino era persona has a lot of good messages...only to be undermined by harem anime bullshit and weeb hack writing.

P3 was not just about coping with loss, it was also about coping with change.

P4 was a ridiculous harem vacation with a Shinto fairy fairy tale on the side. It tried to be about gossip and self-deception but it fell flat (P4 tiptoed around how the internet makes this worse, possibly to simplify the writing.)

All three are about how personal development and the relationships they lead to and create power, not the other way around. That's not just localized in P5. Each one has an isolated, insane nemesis who values, or is valued by, nothing but their supernatural power, doomed to fall to a more emotionally nourished hero. That's nothing groundbreaking but the critical difference is that the heroes of Persona had to work their asses off for their relationships (the harem waifu elements undermine this hard.)

But you've got P5 all wrong. P5's social commentary is on a whole new level, one I'm worried P6 won't top without Hashino's twisted mind at the helm:

1. P5 is about how painful doing the right thing can really be. Many characters and confidants were burned for doing the right thing.
2. P5 is also about learning to shed the need for approval from people (or an entire society) that doesn't care about you. This is seen in many Confidants, how the Phansite Approval Rating almost got the heroes killed, how Akechi died because he couldn't stop pleasing the wrong man, and Makoto's final line in the original ending
3. P5 is also about East Asia's problems, in particular, Japan. Hypercapitalism, misogyny, pedophilia, the old bleeding the young, high pressure on students, Japan's garbage criminal justice system, poor mental health (and poor mental health care,) arranged marriage still being accepted for wealthy families, etc.
4. A psychological problem called hedonistic adaptation. How people, like the Palace Owners, are incapable of satisfaction (but P5 does this poorly, and Royal made it worse.)
5. Most importantly its how societies slide into authoritarianism and fascism. It comes from people being complacent, failing to do the right thing, speak up when something is wrong, vote, or read a newspaper.