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This is one of the best JRPGs I’ve ever played…and that’s really saying something.
The game takes place over the span of ~10 months. Most things you do will take up time until a day ends, then you move on to the next day, and so on, until the game ends. You can hang out with friends, take part-time jobs, join school clubs, and generally fill the classic “RPG protagonist does bloody everything” trope, but given the timeframe, you’ll need to plan your days well.
Of course, there’s not just living a regular life. Very early on, 2 ladies get murdered. You discover you can phase through TV screens and enter another world. Then you discover the TV world is infested with Shadows that kill people. You conclude someone threw those 2 into the TV, where the Shadows killed them. You gain the power to summon Personas, which can fight the Shadows, making you the best suited to rescue people who get thrown into the TV and to figure out who the culprit is.
I love so much about this game: the subplots, the visuals, the humor, the music…as the months went by, I felt what the characters in-game felt – that the journey would, sadly, soon end. So for this shrine, I’m going to go month-by-month, making commentary on plot (mostly making fun of it – the plot’s fun, but has more than a few holes) and characters. The characters are really what bring this game to life, so I’ll spend a lot of time on them. Also, this is probably obvious, but major spoilers ahead.
During my playthroughs, I had 2 rules:
Character spotlight: Yu Narukami
This is one of the best JRPGs I’ve ever played…and that’s really saying something.
The game takes place over the span of ~10 months. Most things you do will take up time until a day ends, then you move on to the next day, and so on, until the game ends. You can hang out with friends, take part-time jobs, join school clubs, and generally fill the classic “RPG protagonist does bloody everything” trope, but given the timeframe, you’ll need to plan your days well.
Of course, there’s not just living a regular life. Very early on, 2 ladies get murdered. You discover you can phase through TV screens and enter another world. Then you discover the TV world is infested with Shadows that kill people. You conclude someone threw those 2 into the TV, where the Shadows killed them. You gain the power to summon Personas, which can fight the Shadows, making you the best suited to rescue people who get thrown into the TV and to figure out who the culprit is.
I love so much about this game: the subplots, the visuals, the humor, the music…as the months went by, I felt what the characters in-game felt – that the journey would, sadly, soon end. So for this shrine, I’m going to go month-by-month, making commentary on plot (mostly making fun of it – the plot’s fun, but has more than a few holes) and characters. The characters are really what bring this game to life, so I’ll spend a lot of time on them. Also, this is probably obvious, but major spoilers ahead.
During my playthroughs, I had 2 rules:
- No KOs/deaths. For some reason, if the player character gets knocked out, it’s an automatic game over, even though in-universe there’s nothing stopping your teammates from reviving you with items or spells the same way they and you can revive them. So I decided that if the main character can’t get knocked out, nobody can. In the event someone does, I reload the last save.
- I can only field 6 Personas. I know this series predates Pokémon, but I started with Pokémon, so I imposed the 6-max rule on myself. And honestly, 6 is kind of overkill anyway.
Character spotlight: Yu Narukami
You’ll notice I use the lightsabre rather than Yu’s ultimate weapon, the Blade of Totsuka. There’s no reason other than…it’s a lightsabre. I have to use it. I just have to. My armor is the Godly Robe (+10 to all stats), which everyone on the team has. My accessory is the Paper Armband (+5 to all stats).
The Canon Persona
The game assigns Izanagi as the protagonist’s first and main Persona. In the final battle, it evolves to Izanagi-no-Okami, does one thing, and the game ends. In NG+, you can fuse him, but you need to be level 91 (note that level doesn’t carry over in NG+). This all means Izanagi-no-Okami is never going to see any significant amount of time in the field, and originally I wanted to use a different Persona for this reason. But the game sets him up as the canon Persona, so I went with it.
Izanagi takes down enemies weak to electricity. He also has the very useful skill Traesto, which is very fitting since his myth involves him escaping Yomi, the underworld.
Lore corner: He’s a Japanese creation god. His wife is Izanami, a Japanese creation goddess. The duo gave birth to many deities, but then Izanami died in childbirth. Izanagi traveled to Yomi to try to get her back, but found she had become a rotting corpse. Terrified, Izanagi fled and Izanami was pissed. Izanagi managed to escape Yomi and sealed the entrance with a boulder, prompting the enraged Izanami to declare she would kill 1,000 humans every day. Izanagi replied he would give birth to 1,500 humans every day, then left to go bathe himself, since being in Yomi made him dirty, I guess.
There is so much I don’t understand about this myth. First, Izanagi and Izanami are very high-ranking deities. Why is Izanami subject to rather human/mortal things like death in childbirth or corpse decay? Why couldn’t Izanami leave Yomi before Izanagi went to get her? Was there some ruler of the dead that outranked her, a creation goddess? Izanami actually becomes ruler of Yomi after this myth, so was there some sort of regime change? Why couldn’t they craft Izanami a new body? Izanagi’s bath that I mentioned above spontaneously gave birth to a number of deities, including the goddess of the sun, the god of the moon, and the god of storms. He literally just creates 3 incredibly powerful and important deities from washing his face. Giving Izanami a new body should’ve been well within his power.
…Anyway, we’ll…come back to this.
The Leader
The Canon Persona
The game assigns Izanagi as the protagonist’s first and main Persona. In the final battle, it evolves to Izanagi-no-Okami, does one thing, and the game ends. In NG+, you can fuse him, but you need to be level 91 (note that level doesn’t carry over in NG+). This all means Izanagi-no-Okami is never going to see any significant amount of time in the field, and originally I wanted to use a different Persona for this reason. But the game sets him up as the canon Persona, so I went with it.
Izanagi takes down enemies weak to electricity. He also has the very useful skill Traesto, which is very fitting since his myth involves him escaping Yomi, the underworld.
Lore corner: He’s a Japanese creation god. His wife is Izanami, a Japanese creation goddess. The duo gave birth to many deities, but then Izanami died in childbirth. Izanagi traveled to Yomi to try to get her back, but found she had become a rotting corpse. Terrified, Izanagi fled and Izanami was pissed. Izanagi managed to escape Yomi and sealed the entrance with a boulder, prompting the enraged Izanami to declare she would kill 1,000 humans every day. Izanagi replied he would give birth to 1,500 humans every day, then left to go bathe himself, since being in Yomi made him dirty, I guess.
There is so much I don’t understand about this myth. First, Izanagi and Izanami are very high-ranking deities. Why is Izanami subject to rather human/mortal things like death in childbirth or corpse decay? Why couldn’t Izanami leave Yomi before Izanagi went to get her? Was there some ruler of the dead that outranked her, a creation goddess? Izanami actually becomes ruler of Yomi after this myth, so was there some sort of regime change? Why couldn’t they craft Izanami a new body? Izanagi’s bath that I mentioned above spontaneously gave birth to a number of deities, including the goddess of the sun, the god of the moon, and the god of storms. He literally just creates 3 incredibly powerful and important deities from washing his face. Giving Izanami a new body should’ve been well within his power.
…Anyway, we’ll…come back to this.
The Leader
You’ll mostly see this build on Trumpeter, but…this guy’s a cat general. I have to field him. I just have to.
I generally lead with Neko Shogun. With the 3 Auto skills, I’ll enter battle buffing the entire team. If I’m facing a particularly strong enemy, I’ll Debilitate the enemy and the Absorb skills/natural resistances will allow me to survive just about anything the enemy can do for the remainder of the round. Then I switch to someone else depending on what the enemy’s weak to.
Lore corner: Apparently, there was a general in ancient China with the surname Mao. Now the word “mao” in Chinese, if you ignore tones, can also mean “cat,” so someone got these mixed up and paid homage to General Cat rather than to General Mao. And let’s be real, General Cat is better.
The One Who Serves
I generally lead with Neko Shogun. With the 3 Auto skills, I’ll enter battle buffing the entire team. If I’m facing a particularly strong enemy, I’ll Debilitate the enemy and the Absorb skills/natural resistances will allow me to survive just about anything the enemy can do for the remainder of the round. Then I switch to someone else depending on what the enemy’s weak to.
Lore corner: Apparently, there was a general in ancient China with the surname Mao. Now the word “mao” in Chinese, if you ignore tones, can also mean “cat,” so someone got these mixed up and paid homage to General Cat rather than to General Mao. And let’s be real, General Cat is better.
The One Who Serves
Just about everyone fields this Persona, as Power Charge + Hassou Tobi, along with the Auto-buffs and Debilitate, will destroy most things in the game. There’s really not much else to say here.
Lore corner: Yoshitsune is based on Minamoto no Yoshitsune, a famous samurai from Japanese history. He served his brother when the latter rose to power, kicking off the feudal era, but was eventually betrayed and killed because his brother saw him as a potential threat. Fucking court politics, man.
The Teacher of Legend
Lore corner: Yoshitsune is based on Minamoto no Yoshitsune, a famous samurai from Japanese history. He served his brother when the latter rose to power, kicking off the feudal era, but was eventually betrayed and killed because his brother saw him as a potential threat. Fucking court politics, man.
The Teacher of Legend
Scathach represents my bond with Yukiko, whom I romanced. Should I encounter an enemy weak to wind or ice, I’ll send out Scathach and blast whatever’s on the other side of the field to high hell.
Lore corner: Scathach taught Cu Chulainn (this is the guy who’s most associated with the legendary spear, the Gae Bolg), along with many others from Irish myth. Also, her tutelage involves thighs. Thighs.
Thighs.
The Immortal Moon Goddess
Lore corner: Scathach taught Cu Chulainn (this is the guy who’s most associated with the legendary spear, the Gae Bolg), along with many others from Irish myth. Also, her tutelage involves thighs. Thighs.
Thighs.
The Immortal Moon Goddess
I fielded Kaguya because I love Tonikawa. You should go watch it right now. I’ve been told the main character of Tonikawa is very me, to the point one of my friends stopped watching it because he felt he was looking into my personal life. Thanks…I guess?
Anyway, Kaguya is my answer to enemies weak to light. She’s also my answer to my most hated enemy in the game, those FUCKING GOLDEN HANDS. These things are Bolshevist bullshit in concentrated form. They also give lots of experience points, so they’re the best way to level up. FUCK I hate these things.
Lore corner: Princess Kaguya is a main character in The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, where a bamboo cutter finds her and raises her as his daughter. A bunch of nobles and the Emperor fall in love with her, but then people from the moon arrive and reveal she’s one of them, so they take her home, leaving a lot of people heartbroken. Yeah, it’s a really sad story. Who came up with this?
The Queen of Madness
Anyway, Kaguya is my answer to enemies weak to light. She’s also my answer to my most hated enemy in the game, those FUCKING GOLDEN HANDS. These things are Bolshevist bullshit in concentrated form. They also give lots of experience points, so they’re the best way to level up. FUCK I hate these things.
Lore corner: Princess Kaguya is a main character in The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, where a bamboo cutter finds her and raises her as his daughter. A bunch of nobles and the Emperor fall in love with her, but then people from the moon arrive and reveal she’s one of them, so they take her home, leaving a lot of people heartbroken. Yeah, it’s a really sad story. Who came up with this?
The Queen of Madness
I fielded Alice just because I like the character. She’s also my answer to enemies weak to darkness. Now her special attack (Die for Me!) insta-kills enemies with a pretty high success rate, so technically I can just field her and ignore everything else in this list, but where’s the fun in that?
Oh, and by the way, I rarely used those Fear skills. I put them in mostly to fit the theme.
Lore corner: I realized that I’ve somehow associated Alice in Alice in Wonderland with the creepy little girl trope. Upon thinking about it, I don’t know why. Alice in Wonderland is a whimsical children’s story and even when you consider American McGee’s Alice, the titular character isn’t creepy or evil either. The in-game description says something about a ghost girl with magical powers, but I found exactly nothing about that, so I honestly have no idea what the lore is here.
The “yes of course Ben would make this Persona” Persona
Oh, and by the way, I rarely used those Fear skills. I put them in mostly to fit the theme.
Lore corner: I realized that I’ve somehow associated Alice in Alice in Wonderland with the creepy little girl trope. Upon thinking about it, I don’t know why. Alice in Wonderland is a whimsical children’s story and even when you consider American McGee’s Alice, the titular character isn’t creepy or evil either. The in-game description says something about a ghost girl with magical powers, but I found exactly nothing about that, so I honestly have no idea what the lore is here.
The “yes of course Ben would make this Persona” Persona
This one doesn’t count toward the 6-Persona limit, since I never actually fielded him. I just made him because I’m me. Let’s move on.
Lore corner: Mara is the demon king who tried to distract the Buddha the night before he attained enlightenment. And before you ask, no, nothing at all about the story has Mara being a giant penis on a chariot. He’s more-or-less just a humanoid demon.
April
So Yu Narukami’s parents have left Japan for some reason and therefore send him to Inaba to live with his uncle Dojima and cousin Nanako for a year. Now the game establishes very clearly that Yu can take care of himself, so why his parents didn’t just leave him in Tokyo by himself, I have no idea.
The very first thing that happens in the game is a vision of the Velvet Room, which is this…between-dimensions place in which a long-nosed man and a hot woman sit and seemingly do nothing. Don’t they get bored? Anyway, the man, Igor, and the woman, Margaret, welcome Yu and explain the Velvet Room is only open to people with a “contract.” Now remember – this is the very first thing that happens in the game. Yu’s just some kid on a train. He doesn’t have a contract – how did he enter the Velvet Room?
Eventually, Igor and Margaret guide Yu in using/empowering Personas. For now, Igor gives Yu a tarot card reading and informs him that some calamity will befall him, so he should…do something about that.
A bit afterward, Yu arrives in Inaba. He meets, in this order: (1) Dojima and Nanako, (2) an “unfriendly-looking girl,” and (3) a gas station attendant. Then things escalate quickly, as news announcer Mayumi Yamano is found dead the very next day. Now when she’s found, hanging from a TV antenna, the police wonder whether it were just an accident. Umm, really? An accident?
Yu befriends three classmates, whom we’ll talk about subsequently. One of them is Yosuke Hanamura, whose crush Saki Konishi is found dead hanging from an utility pole soon after her introduction. The police are…still unsure they’re dealing with murder. Good God the Inaba police are below rock-stupid.
You want more proof? Later on, Yosuke brings 2 fake swords to the food court in Junes (think Wal-Mart, I guess). He figures they need weapons in the TV world. A policeman sees them and arrests them both.
Alright. First, Yosuke says the weapons are “Junes exclusive,” meaning they’re merchandise Junes sells. They’re also fake. Yosuke’s the son of the manager at Junes and also works there part-time. So this policeman just arrested a guy who has every right to be holding Junes products for having Junes-brand, fake weapons while he was in Junes’s food court. He also arrests Yu because…he was nearby, I guess. People make a big deal about this scene, saying it’s evidence that Yosuke’s stupid, but I disagree. It’s evidence that the police in Inaba are completely and utterly inept at their job.
Finally, on an unrelated note: why does my teacher call me on Sunday night and tell me to meet him at the gas station so he can give me a gym uniform? No, seriously. That happens.
Character spotlight: Yosuke Hanamura
Lore corner: Mara is the demon king who tried to distract the Buddha the night before he attained enlightenment. And before you ask, no, nothing at all about the story has Mara being a giant penis on a chariot. He’s more-or-less just a humanoid demon.
April
So Yu Narukami’s parents have left Japan for some reason and therefore send him to Inaba to live with his uncle Dojima and cousin Nanako for a year. Now the game establishes very clearly that Yu can take care of himself, so why his parents didn’t just leave him in Tokyo by himself, I have no idea.
The very first thing that happens in the game is a vision of the Velvet Room, which is this…between-dimensions place in which a long-nosed man and a hot woman sit and seemingly do nothing. Don’t they get bored? Anyway, the man, Igor, and the woman, Margaret, welcome Yu and explain the Velvet Room is only open to people with a “contract.” Now remember – this is the very first thing that happens in the game. Yu’s just some kid on a train. He doesn’t have a contract – how did he enter the Velvet Room?
Eventually, Igor and Margaret guide Yu in using/empowering Personas. For now, Igor gives Yu a tarot card reading and informs him that some calamity will befall him, so he should…do something about that.
A bit afterward, Yu arrives in Inaba. He meets, in this order: (1) Dojima and Nanako, (2) an “unfriendly-looking girl,” and (3) a gas station attendant. Then things escalate quickly, as news announcer Mayumi Yamano is found dead the very next day. Now when she’s found, hanging from a TV antenna, the police wonder whether it were just an accident. Umm, really? An accident?
Yu befriends three classmates, whom we’ll talk about subsequently. One of them is Yosuke Hanamura, whose crush Saki Konishi is found dead hanging from an utility pole soon after her introduction. The police are…still unsure they’re dealing with murder. Good God the Inaba police are below rock-stupid.
You want more proof? Later on, Yosuke brings 2 fake swords to the food court in Junes (think Wal-Mart, I guess). He figures they need weapons in the TV world. A policeman sees them and arrests them both.
Alright. First, Yosuke says the weapons are “Junes exclusive,” meaning they’re merchandise Junes sells. They’re also fake. Yosuke’s the son of the manager at Junes and also works there part-time. So this policeman just arrested a guy who has every right to be holding Junes products for having Junes-brand, fake weapons while he was in Junes’s food court. He also arrests Yu because…he was nearby, I guess. People make a big deal about this scene, saying it’s evidence that Yosuke’s stupid, but I disagree. It’s evidence that the police in Inaba are completely and utterly inept at their job.
Finally, on an unrelated note: why does my teacher call me on Sunday night and tell me to meet him at the gas station so he can give me a gym uniform? No, seriously. That happens.
Character spotlight: Yosuke Hanamura
He has his ultimate weapon, the Malakh. He and everyone other than Yu have Ouryu Braces, which give +5 to all stats. There’s an accessory that gives +10, but that’s a random find that you can only get in the very last dungeon, so I can’t exactly plan for that, nor is it useful for almost the entire game.
Yosuke’s the first person besides Yu to enter the TV world and get his Persona. I…have mixed feelings about this guy. He’s a loyal friend and his heart’s in the right place, but there were times I just felt annoyed as hell at him (e.g. the stuff he pulls in 2 months). That said, he’s not the worst character in the game – not by a long shot – and he’s pretty well-rounded in battle. His wind spells hit pretty hard, his physical skill is solid, and he can heal in case Yukiko can’t. He’s also pretty indispensable when fighting the FUCKING GOLDEN HANDS because he can buff the party’s hit rate while debuffing their evasion.
Shadow Yosuke is the first Shadow self in the game and it gives the player a good overview of what a Shadow is – a fragment of someone’s inner personality. This is important: a Shadow isn’t someone’s true inner self, contrary to what most Shadows say upon initiating battle. A Shadow is part of someone, but taken out of context. Imagine if I found a random paragraph in a book and copied it out. Chances are if you tried to extrapolate the rest of the book from that, you’d fail. The paragraph’s part of the book, no question, but it’s not representative of the entire book.
Shadow Yosuke says that Yosuke only went into the TV world to investigate because he was bored. He didn’t actually care that Saki was murdered – that was just an excuse. But in reality, while Yosuke did probably feel the TV world would be an exciting place to explore, there’s so much more to it. For one, he did, absolutely, care about Saki. Hell, half his Social Link involves him thinking about her. This guy loved her deeply and her death hit him hard.
Lore corner: Susano-o is the Japanese god of storms, who was born when Izanagi washed his nose in that bath I mentioned above. He’s known for 2 things, as far as I know – having a feud with his sister Amaterasu and killing an 8-headed snake who was eating girls. After the latter deed, he discovered the Kusanagi, one of Japan’s three Imperial Regalia, and gifted it to his sister to make up for the feud.
Character spotlight: Chie Satonaka
Yosuke’s the first person besides Yu to enter the TV world and get his Persona. I…have mixed feelings about this guy. He’s a loyal friend and his heart’s in the right place, but there were times I just felt annoyed as hell at him (e.g. the stuff he pulls in 2 months). That said, he’s not the worst character in the game – not by a long shot – and he’s pretty well-rounded in battle. His wind spells hit pretty hard, his physical skill is solid, and he can heal in case Yukiko can’t. He’s also pretty indispensable when fighting the FUCKING GOLDEN HANDS because he can buff the party’s hit rate while debuffing their evasion.
Shadow Yosuke is the first Shadow self in the game and it gives the player a good overview of what a Shadow is – a fragment of someone’s inner personality. This is important: a Shadow isn’t someone’s true inner self, contrary to what most Shadows say upon initiating battle. A Shadow is part of someone, but taken out of context. Imagine if I found a random paragraph in a book and copied it out. Chances are if you tried to extrapolate the rest of the book from that, you’d fail. The paragraph’s part of the book, no question, but it’s not representative of the entire book.
Shadow Yosuke says that Yosuke only went into the TV world to investigate because he was bored. He didn’t actually care that Saki was murdered – that was just an excuse. But in reality, while Yosuke did probably feel the TV world would be an exciting place to explore, there’s so much more to it. For one, he did, absolutely, care about Saki. Hell, half his Social Link involves him thinking about her. This guy loved her deeply and her death hit him hard.
Lore corner: Susano-o is the Japanese god of storms, who was born when Izanagi washed his nose in that bath I mentioned above. He’s known for 2 things, as far as I know – having a feud with his sister Amaterasu and killing an 8-headed snake who was eating girls. After the latter deed, he discovered the Kusanagi, one of Japan’s three Imperial Regalia, and gifted it to his sister to make up for the feud.
Character spotlight: Chie Satonaka
Chie uses the Stella Greaves, which boost her Persona’s Strength. You might be wondering why I don’t give her the Moses Sandals, her ultimate weapon. That’s because they have to be the stupidest shoes I’ve ever seen in my life. She’s basically wearing axes on her feet. I don’t even care that I’ll never see them, since Chie’s equipped weapons don’t appear unless she’s in default clothes and I usually have her in her summer outfit as above – they’re just too stupid.
As for Chie herself, Chie’s my favorite character in the game and I went in intending to romance her. She’s a hot tomboy. What more do you want?
I didn’t end up romancing her because I befriended Kou, who has the most obvious crush on her, and I head-canon’d them together. I mean, imagine if you’re Kou, and you have a crush on this girl, and some guy transfers to your school out of nowhere and starts dating her. That would suck. A lot.
Chie’s energetic, outspoken, and quick to dispense her wrath upon those who incur it. She’s a great character in battle, especially when she uses her follow-up attack, Galactic Punt. Galactic Punt sends just about any regular enemy flying into outer space. A literal tank? A 15-foot-tall Gundam? A sentient building? Gone. I get a…kick…out of seeing it every time.
( . _ .)
( . _ .)>⌐■-■
(⌐■_■)
YEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!
…Anyway, Shadow Chie, popularly known as the banana-head dominatrix, declares she’s only friends with Yukiko because it gives her an ego boost knowing the popular, beautiful, intelligent Yukiko relies on her. Just like Yosuke up there, there’s probably some tiny part of Chie that does feel this way, but the vast majority of Chie’s feelings toward Yukiko are genuine. It’s bluntly easy to see that.
Lore corner: I read that the Haraedo-no-Okami are multiple goddesses that arose during Izanagi’s post-Yomi bath, so which one Chie’s Persona is supposed to take after, I don’t know.
Character spotlight: Yukiko Amagi
As for Chie herself, Chie’s my favorite character in the game and I went in intending to romance her. She’s a hot tomboy. What more do you want?
I didn’t end up romancing her because I befriended Kou, who has the most obvious crush on her, and I head-canon’d them together. I mean, imagine if you’re Kou, and you have a crush on this girl, and some guy transfers to your school out of nowhere and starts dating her. That would suck. A lot.
Chie’s energetic, outspoken, and quick to dispense her wrath upon those who incur it. She’s a great character in battle, especially when she uses her follow-up attack, Galactic Punt. Galactic Punt sends just about any regular enemy flying into outer space. A literal tank? A 15-foot-tall Gundam? A sentient building? Gone. I get a…kick…out of seeing it every time.
( . _ .)
( . _ .)>⌐■-■
(⌐■_■)
YEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!
…Anyway, Shadow Chie, popularly known as the banana-head dominatrix, declares she’s only friends with Yukiko because it gives her an ego boost knowing the popular, beautiful, intelligent Yukiko relies on her. Just like Yosuke up there, there’s probably some tiny part of Chie that does feel this way, but the vast majority of Chie’s feelings toward Yukiko are genuine. It’s bluntly easy to see that.
Lore corner: I read that the Haraedo-no-Okami are multiple goddesses that arose during Izanagi’s post-Yomi bath, so which one Chie’s Persona is supposed to take after, I don’t know.
Character spotlight: Yukiko Amagi
Yukiko has the Boundless Sea, her ultimate weapon, which looks super cool. It has high attack power and inflicts exhaustion, neither of which are all that useful for Yukiko. That said, her other two good weapons have +10 Magic and +50 SP, which are even less useful. Yukiko can max Magic without having it on her weapon (as above) and her base SP is so high that 50 more is irrelevant.
I didn’t just romance Yukiko because I needed to pick someone other than Chie. Yukiko really grew on me. At first glance, she epitomizes the Yamato Nadeshiko archetype, which is this prim-and-proper, demure, quiet woman the Japanese value for some reason. That kind of archetype bores the hell out of me…but Yukiko quickly reveals she doesn’t fit it. At all. Besides her infamous laughing fits, she’s downright terrifying when someone gets on her bad side. Here’s her during the school camping trip when she and Chie are stuck in a tent with a snoring Hanako Ohtani (we’ll talk about her later):
I didn’t just romance Yukiko because I needed to pick someone other than Chie. Yukiko really grew on me. At first glance, she epitomizes the Yamato Nadeshiko archetype, which is this prim-and-proper, demure, quiet woman the Japanese value for some reason. That kind of archetype bores the hell out of me…but Yukiko quickly reveals she doesn’t fit it. At all. Besides her infamous laughing fits, she’s downright terrifying when someone gets on her bad side. Here’s her during the school camping trip when she and Chie are stuck in a tent with a snoring Hanako Ohtani (we’ll talk about her later):
Here’s her response to Teddie stealing her food and becoming too full to move (“it” refers to Teddie):
Here’s her response to Teddie forcing the girls into a swimsuit competition:
Her post-battle pose, where she coolly fans herself after reducing a horde of eldritch horrors to ash, is just so...confident. Oh, about that ash part: Yukiko’s fire spells hit like a truck. Any enemy that doesn’t somehow resist fire is in for a really bad time. And that…is hot.
( . _ .)
( . _ .)>⌐■-■
(⌐■_■)
YEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!
So, umm, Shadow Yukiko is the first Shadow self I take issue with, since the writers started using the Shadow selves to shoehorn in lots of out-of-place fanservice. Shadow Yukiko represents Yukiko’s frustration that her life appears to be on rails. People expect her to inherit her family’s generations-old inn, Inaba’s most famous tourist attraction, and she resents people deciding her future for her. So this manifests as…Shadow Yukiko flirtatiously declaring that she wants to “score with a hot stud.” What?
Even if you emphasize Shadow Yukiko seeing herself as a damsel in distress, trapped in her own life and needing someone to rescue her, intepreting this as her wanting a hot guy is really a stretch. Now Shadow Yukiko does call Chie her Prince Charming and wishes her Prince would take her far away, reflecting Yukiko’s envy of Chie’s free and headstrong nature, but it, uh, should be emphasized that Chie’s a girl? She’s a hot tomboy, not a hot stud. Moreover, as I mentioned, Yukiko’s main struggle isn’t with needing rescue; instead, it’s with her resentment that other people have decided her future for her. Her Social Link later is about her taking steps to decide her own future and then realizing that she cares about her family’s inn, meaning she inherits it because she chooses to, rather than because people expect her to. None of this has to do with men. Shadow Yukiko’s firtatious attitude and the whole “scoring” thing are out-of-left-field fanservice. I’m not against fanservice, but it should somewhat fit. Shadow Chie being a dominatrix makes sense – it’s a fragment of her that enjoys Yukiko being reliant on her. This? This makes no sense.
Lore corner: Sumeo-Okami is another name for Amaterasu, who was born when Izanagi washed his left eye. Similar to how Susano-o up there governed storms, Amaterasu is the Japanese goddess of the sun. As mentioned above, she had a feud with Susano-o and fled into a cave, angry and saddened over what he did to her temple. Since she’s the sun goddess, this plunged the world into darkness. The other gods eventually convinced her to re-emerge and banished Susano-o for what he did, which led to him eventually killing that 8-headed snake and returning to make amends with his sister.
May
Yu settles into high school life and takes his first round of exams. Soon after, the team sets out to rescue someone they don’t know all that well for the first time, which leads to some hilarious shenanigans. Check out the Kanji chase scene from the Persona 4 animation – it’s one of my favorite scenes and one area the animation really does better compared to the game.
Character spotlight: Kanji Tatsumi
( . _ .)
( . _ .)>⌐■-■
(⌐■_■)
YEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!
So, umm, Shadow Yukiko is the first Shadow self I take issue with, since the writers started using the Shadow selves to shoehorn in lots of out-of-place fanservice. Shadow Yukiko represents Yukiko’s frustration that her life appears to be on rails. People expect her to inherit her family’s generations-old inn, Inaba’s most famous tourist attraction, and she resents people deciding her future for her. So this manifests as…Shadow Yukiko flirtatiously declaring that she wants to “score with a hot stud.” What?
Even if you emphasize Shadow Yukiko seeing herself as a damsel in distress, trapped in her own life and needing someone to rescue her, intepreting this as her wanting a hot guy is really a stretch. Now Shadow Yukiko does call Chie her Prince Charming and wishes her Prince would take her far away, reflecting Yukiko’s envy of Chie’s free and headstrong nature, but it, uh, should be emphasized that Chie’s a girl? She’s a hot tomboy, not a hot stud. Moreover, as I mentioned, Yukiko’s main struggle isn’t with needing rescue; instead, it’s with her resentment that other people have decided her future for her. Her Social Link later is about her taking steps to decide her own future and then realizing that she cares about her family’s inn, meaning she inherits it because she chooses to, rather than because people expect her to. None of this has to do with men. Shadow Yukiko’s firtatious attitude and the whole “scoring” thing are out-of-left-field fanservice. I’m not against fanservice, but it should somewhat fit. Shadow Chie being a dominatrix makes sense – it’s a fragment of her that enjoys Yukiko being reliant on her. This? This makes no sense.
Lore corner: Sumeo-Okami is another name for Amaterasu, who was born when Izanagi washed his left eye. Similar to how Susano-o up there governed storms, Amaterasu is the Japanese goddess of the sun. As mentioned above, she had a feud with Susano-o and fled into a cave, angry and saddened over what he did to her temple. Since she’s the sun goddess, this plunged the world into darkness. The other gods eventually convinced her to re-emerge and banished Susano-o for what he did, which led to him eventually killing that 8-headed snake and returning to make amends with his sister.
May
Yu settles into high school life and takes his first round of exams. Soon after, the team sets out to rescue someone they don’t know all that well for the first time, which leads to some hilarious shenanigans. Check out the Kanji chase scene from the Persona 4 animation – it’s one of my favorite scenes and one area the animation really does better compared to the game.
Character spotlight: Kanji Tatsumi
Kanji has his ultimate weapon, the Perun Plate. Kanji’s weapons are funny – he just brings large flat objects, such as a literal desk from school, and bashes Shadows with them.
Speaking of that, as a tangent: the team apparently gets away with bringing weapons into Junes because they hide them in their clothes. You see, they use a TV at Junes to travel into the TV world (which begs the question of what they would do if someone happened to buy that TV). So yes, Kanji apparently can hide a school desk under his clothes. It doesn’t end there – later, the team gets scooters and there’s a chance someone not in the active party will ride in on a scooter to perform a follow-up attack. So…the team somehow smuggles scooters into Junes to bring into the TV world?
Back to Kanji: I like Kanji. He’s an aggressive punk, but he has a good head on his shoulders and is a pretty upstanding guy. He’s supportive, loyal, and pretty respectful to most people. When he realizes Yu, Yosuke, Chie, and Yukiko are a grade above him, he becomes polite because they’re his senpai. It seems like a rather minor detail, but it just goes to show that he’s not just some raging delinquent. Hell, he’s probably just disrespectful to the police, and, well, they’re not exactly worthy of respect in this game.
Actually, I lied: he’s also disrespectful to biker gangs. He trashed an entire biker gang by himself before the events of the game because they were making too much noise and were thus keeping his mother awake at night. He must’ve been, what, 14? This guy’s a badass. Here’s one of my favorite Kanji lines:
Speaking of that, as a tangent: the team apparently gets away with bringing weapons into Junes because they hide them in their clothes. You see, they use a TV at Junes to travel into the TV world (which begs the question of what they would do if someone happened to buy that TV). So yes, Kanji apparently can hide a school desk under his clothes. It doesn’t end there – later, the team gets scooters and there’s a chance someone not in the active party will ride in on a scooter to perform a follow-up attack. So…the team somehow smuggles scooters into Junes to bring into the TV world?
Back to Kanji: I like Kanji. He’s an aggressive punk, but he has a good head on his shoulders and is a pretty upstanding guy. He’s supportive, loyal, and pretty respectful to most people. When he realizes Yu, Yosuke, Chie, and Yukiko are a grade above him, he becomes polite because they’re his senpai. It seems like a rather minor detail, but it just goes to show that he’s not just some raging delinquent. Hell, he’s probably just disrespectful to the police, and, well, they’re not exactly worthy of respect in this game.
Actually, I lied: he’s also disrespectful to biker gangs. He trashed an entire biker gang by himself before the events of the game because they were making too much noise and were thus keeping his mother awake at night. He must’ve been, what, 14? This guy’s a badass. Here’s one of my favorite Kanji lines:
Oh, yeah, his utter fear of Naoto (since he has a massive crush on her) is hilarious.
Let’s talk about Shadow Kanji. Remember when I said Shadow Yukiko had shoehorned fanservice? Shadow Kanji’s the same, except gay. Shadow Kanji beats the player over the head with every gay stereotype ever. And Kanji’s inner issues have nothing at all to do with sexuality, homo or not.
Kanji likes stuff like sewing and crafts. He makes a few stuffed animals in his Social Link, for instance. Apparently some people around him thought that wasn’t “masculine,” which besides causing him a lot of understandable grief, contributed to him adopting his delinquent status since going around being a dangerous-looking badass is way more masculine. It also has the bonus effect of pushing people away, meaning they aren’t accepting him in the first place, so who cares if they accept his craft hobbies?
Shadow Kanji says that girls often said mean things about his hobbies (i.e. they’re not masculine), so he likes men. What the hell? I can see insecure guys making these sorts of comments just as easily as I can see girls do so, especially at high school age. Gender has nothing to do with this, and even if it did, sexuality has nothing to do with it either. How many straight guys do you know who’d say their guy friends understand them better? There’s nothing gay about that.
So yeah. More shoehorned fanservice. At least we’ve got some representation going on, I guess, since we have fanservice targeted at gay guys?
Lore corner: Kanji’s final Persona is Takeji Zaiten, whom…I know nothing about. I looked him up and it says he’s a demon king, but he presides over a place called the Sixth Heaven, so that’s confusing because I was under the impression demons don’t live in or rule heavens. I mean look at the Seventh Heaven – there aren’t any demons there. There’s just a legendary martial arts chick and her friends.
June
Here, the game shows us some slice-of-life scenes, which I thought is a cool way to show the characters’ everyday lives. Unfortunately, the game kind of railroads you during these, which does get annoying.
First, remember when I said Yosuke started annoying me in June? Well, we’re in June now. Yosuke approaches Yu with his super-secret, brilliant master plan, as follows:
I get he’s a high school junior, but even when I was a high school junior, I would’ve rolled my eyes at this plan. Yosuke’s all “this is top-secret” about it too, since if word of this amazing plan got out, other guys would totally copy him and thus dilute his pheromones. Yeah. To the game’s credit, you do get the option to ask him whether he’s in kindergarten or some shit, but you do have to accompany him when he tries to execute his master plan.
To start, Yosuke doesn’t have an actual motorcycle, since they cost money he doesn’t have. He instead has a scooter, and Kanji points out that it’s illegal to ride double on a scooter. Yes, the delinquent guy who beat the crap out of a biker gang is reminding Yosuke about the law. Yosuke responds that, ok, Kanji has a point, but he can still attract a girl with his pheromones; all he needs to do is stand somewhere next to his scooter. And here I thought his plan couldn’t get any stupider.
Yosuke drags Yu to Okina City, both driving scooters and Kanji riding a bicycle (Kanji’s too young to get a scooter licence – like I said, Kanji knows the law). Oh, speaking of scooter licences, the licence test is apparently just written. Is this for real? You don’t need to demonstrate that you can actually drive a scooter to get a licence? There’s a far cry between knowing what a stop sign is and actually being able to operate a motor vehicle, you know.
Sigh. Where were we? Right. So Yosuke and Yu stand next to their scooters at a parking lot in Okina City and…wait there. 3 hours later, a whopping 0 girls have stopped by to talk to Yosuke, so Kanji decides, for whatever reason, to “avenge” Yosuke by going off to hit on women. This somehow turns into a contest between the three guys in which they go around and hit on random women. Now, admittedly, there are some funny scenes afterward; for instance, you can walk up to someone and the game lets you literally say, “I came to hit on you.” That lady then attempts to convert you to her religion.
On the other end of the spectrum, Yu can approach a woman who shows an interest in him and gives him her phone number. Yu calls the number later and gets her boyfriend (or husband?) on the line and the guy hurls some death threats at Yu, which veers sharply into unfortunate implication territory. This guy’s clearly an unhinged psycho. What he’s going to do to his partner for giving Yu her number?
Thankfully, the game does give you the option to forego the competition and wait for Yosuke and Kanji. Kanji says that he got a number from a lady who told him something about costs per hour. Now…am I just really innocent? The first time I saw this scene, I thought he’d encountered someone selling telephone cards. But instead I heard he’d actually encountered a hooker. Stop laughing at me.
Yosuke says he got someone’s number and eagerly calls it to invite her to a motorcycle date…and gets Hanako Ohtani on the line. Remember me saying we’d be discussing Hanako later? That time is now. I’m not sure why the number Yosuke called ended up being hers – either he copied down the lady’s number wrong or the lady purposely gave him the wrong number. At any rate, upon hearing Hanako’s voice, Yosuke’s glee quickly turns into dread. It’s not just him, either.
Let’s talk about Shadow Kanji. Remember when I said Shadow Yukiko had shoehorned fanservice? Shadow Kanji’s the same, except gay. Shadow Kanji beats the player over the head with every gay stereotype ever. And Kanji’s inner issues have nothing at all to do with sexuality, homo or not.
Kanji likes stuff like sewing and crafts. He makes a few stuffed animals in his Social Link, for instance. Apparently some people around him thought that wasn’t “masculine,” which besides causing him a lot of understandable grief, contributed to him adopting his delinquent status since going around being a dangerous-looking badass is way more masculine. It also has the bonus effect of pushing people away, meaning they aren’t accepting him in the first place, so who cares if they accept his craft hobbies?
Shadow Kanji says that girls often said mean things about his hobbies (i.e. they’re not masculine), so he likes men. What the hell? I can see insecure guys making these sorts of comments just as easily as I can see girls do so, especially at high school age. Gender has nothing to do with this, and even if it did, sexuality has nothing to do with it either. How many straight guys do you know who’d say their guy friends understand them better? There’s nothing gay about that.
So yeah. More shoehorned fanservice. At least we’ve got some representation going on, I guess, since we have fanservice targeted at gay guys?
Lore corner: Kanji’s final Persona is Takeji Zaiten, whom…I know nothing about. I looked him up and it says he’s a demon king, but he presides over a place called the Sixth Heaven, so that’s confusing because I was under the impression demons don’t live in or rule heavens. I mean look at the Seventh Heaven – there aren’t any demons there. There’s just a legendary martial arts chick and her friends.
June
Here, the game shows us some slice-of-life scenes, which I thought is a cool way to show the characters’ everyday lives. Unfortunately, the game kind of railroads you during these, which does get annoying.
First, remember when I said Yosuke started annoying me in June? Well, we’re in June now. Yosuke approaches Yu with his super-secret, brilliant master plan, as follows:
- Get a motorcycle, which will increase his pheromones.
- Get a girl to go on a ride with him, which she’ll do because of his increased pheromones.
- The girl would then need to hold on to him from behind, pressing her boobs against his back.
I get he’s a high school junior, but even when I was a high school junior, I would’ve rolled my eyes at this plan. Yosuke’s all “this is top-secret” about it too, since if word of this amazing plan got out, other guys would totally copy him and thus dilute his pheromones. Yeah. To the game’s credit, you do get the option to ask him whether he’s in kindergarten or some shit, but you do have to accompany him when he tries to execute his master plan.
To start, Yosuke doesn’t have an actual motorcycle, since they cost money he doesn’t have. He instead has a scooter, and Kanji points out that it’s illegal to ride double on a scooter. Yes, the delinquent guy who beat the crap out of a biker gang is reminding Yosuke about the law. Yosuke responds that, ok, Kanji has a point, but he can still attract a girl with his pheromones; all he needs to do is stand somewhere next to his scooter. And here I thought his plan couldn’t get any stupider.
Yosuke drags Yu to Okina City, both driving scooters and Kanji riding a bicycle (Kanji’s too young to get a scooter licence – like I said, Kanji knows the law). Oh, speaking of scooter licences, the licence test is apparently just written. Is this for real? You don’t need to demonstrate that you can actually drive a scooter to get a licence? There’s a far cry between knowing what a stop sign is and actually being able to operate a motor vehicle, you know.
Sigh. Where were we? Right. So Yosuke and Yu stand next to their scooters at a parking lot in Okina City and…wait there. 3 hours later, a whopping 0 girls have stopped by to talk to Yosuke, so Kanji decides, for whatever reason, to “avenge” Yosuke by going off to hit on women. This somehow turns into a contest between the three guys in which they go around and hit on random women. Now, admittedly, there are some funny scenes afterward; for instance, you can walk up to someone and the game lets you literally say, “I came to hit on you.” That lady then attempts to convert you to her religion.
On the other end of the spectrum, Yu can approach a woman who shows an interest in him and gives him her phone number. Yu calls the number later and gets her boyfriend (or husband?) on the line and the guy hurls some death threats at Yu, which veers sharply into unfortunate implication territory. This guy’s clearly an unhinged psycho. What he’s going to do to his partner for giving Yu her number?
Thankfully, the game does give you the option to forego the competition and wait for Yosuke and Kanji. Kanji says that he got a number from a lady who told him something about costs per hour. Now…am I just really innocent? The first time I saw this scene, I thought he’d encountered someone selling telephone cards. But instead I heard he’d actually encountered a hooker. Stop laughing at me.
Yosuke says he got someone’s number and eagerly calls it to invite her to a motorcycle date…and gets Hanako Ohtani on the line. Remember me saying we’d be discussing Hanako later? That time is now. I’m not sure why the number Yosuke called ended up being hers – either he copied down the lady’s number wrong or the lady purposely gave him the wrong number. At any rate, upon hearing Hanako’s voice, Yosuke’s glee quickly turns into dread. It’s not just him, either.
And then Hanako herself shows up and takes up Yosuke’s offer to take her on a motorcycle date (she assumed Yosuke had, in fact, meant to call her and not someone else). Hanako proceeds to hop onto Yosuke’s scooter and crush it under her weight. For all that Yosuke annoyed me during this scene, I honestly felt bad for him.
Hanako then berates Yosuke for trying to date her with a broken scooter and walks off. I bring this up because this is Hanako’s establishing character moment and, despite how many people will accuse the game of fat-shaming with Hanako, I don’t think that’s it. A slim girl appearing, crushing Yosuke’s scooter with her ass, then sauntering off still makes her a bitch. Weight’s irrelevant here.
Now you might remember I first mentioned Hanako at “the school camping trip.” That trip also happens in June and is…well, exactly what it says on the tin. It’s also another instance of Yosuke annoying me.
First, Chie and Yukiko attempt to make dinner for everyone and, since they have zero idea how to cook, their attempt results in the unholy Mystery Food X. Now the game says that everyone in the group went hungry due to Mystery Food X being inedible, but…there’s rice on the plate. The stuff Chie and Yukiko made is just the curry on the side. Couldn’t they have just eaten the rice?
Now you might remember I first mentioned Hanako at “the school camping trip.” That trip also happens in June and is…well, exactly what it says on the tin. It’s also another instance of Yosuke annoying me.
First, Chie and Yukiko attempt to make dinner for everyone and, since they have zero idea how to cook, their attempt results in the unholy Mystery Food X. Now the game says that everyone in the group went hungry due to Mystery Food X being inedible, but…there’s rice on the plate. The stuff Chie and Yukiko made is just the curry on the side. Couldn’t they have just eaten the rice?
Yosuke berates the girls for failing to cook an edible dinner, but I think Yu has to shoulder some of the blame. You see, Yu was there when the girls were grocery shopping for ingredients and it was abundantly clear right then and there that they didn’t know what they were doing, but Yu didn’t do or say anything. Then again, maybe he did that on purpose just to troll Yosuke.
Wait, you say. Shouldn’t Yosuke have also been there at the grocery shopping? No, he was off secretly buying swimsuits. His plan for the school camping trip was to needle the girls into wearing swimsuits at the river. On the last day of the trip, he tries to get Chie and Yukiko to go swimming, and when they say they didn’t bring swimsuits, he reveals he’d bought swimsuits for them.
Chie calls him out for being creepy as fuck. The game does not let me distance myself from him, so when Chie and Yukiko lay down upon Yosuke their wrath by pushing him into the river, they push Yu in too. I think this scene was supposed to be funny, but if it happened in real life, I’d be super pissed at Yosuke.
There is one more thing Yosuke does at the camping trip. The night after dinner and before the river incident, Chie and Yukiko are in their tent with Hanako while Yu and Yosuke are in their tent with Kanji, who’s there for…some reason. Yu doesn’t care that Kanji wants to stay, but Yosuke says he doesn’t feel safe since Kanji might be gay. What the complete hell? Kanji then gets pissed, decides he needs to prove his manhood, and rushes off to invade Chie and Yukiko’s tent.
Wait, you say. Shouldn’t Yosuke have also been there at the grocery shopping? No, he was off secretly buying swimsuits. His plan for the school camping trip was to needle the girls into wearing swimsuits at the river. On the last day of the trip, he tries to get Chie and Yukiko to go swimming, and when they say they didn’t bring swimsuits, he reveals he’d bought swimsuits for them.
Chie calls him out for being creepy as fuck. The game does not let me distance myself from him, so when Chie and Yukiko lay down upon Yosuke their wrath by pushing him into the river, they push Yu in too. I think this scene was supposed to be funny, but if it happened in real life, I’d be super pissed at Yosuke.
There is one more thing Yosuke does at the camping trip. The night after dinner and before the river incident, Chie and Yukiko are in their tent with Hanako while Yu and Yosuke are in their tent with Kanji, who’s there for…some reason. Yu doesn’t care that Kanji wants to stay, but Yosuke says he doesn’t feel safe since Kanji might be gay. What the complete hell? Kanji then gets pissed, decides he needs to prove his manhood, and rushes off to invade Chie and Yukiko’s tent.
Uhh, no, Yosuke, this is 100% your fault. According to some hidden dialogue later, Yukiko says that Chie delivered a ruthless groin kick to Kanji upon Kanji suddenly barging into their tent, knocking him out immediately. Let’s put this in perspective: Chie’s kick was so powerful it not only immediately knocked out a guy who single-handedly beat down an entire biker gang, but also gave him amnesia since Kanji doesn’t remember anything the following day. That said, Kanji should look on the bright side: Chie didn’t punt him to the surface of Mars or something.
After those disasters, Rise Kujikawa comes to town!
Character spotlight: Rise Kujikawa
After those disasters, Rise Kujikawa comes to town!
Character spotlight: Rise Kujikawa
Rise doesn’t have equipment, since she doesn’t fight in the active party. If you’re wondering why she has stats…good question! I don’t have an answer. Rise’s role is mission control, where she comments on enemy strengths and weaknesses. Advance her Social Link and level her up, and she’ll empower your All-Out Attacks and heal you after every battle. Sometimes she’ll pop into battle to buff or to protect you. Rise’s constant dialogue in battle is kind of annoying, but it’s not as annoying as Teddie’s, who fills the mission control role prior to Rise joining the group. We’ll get to Teddie later.
Now Rise’s a teen idol, and you actually see one of her ads at the very beginning of the game. She decides to take a hiatus and moves to Inaba, where her grandmother runs a tofu shop, since she’s struggling with finding her true self. Everywhere she goes, people know her as the perky character she plays on screen and she wonders what her real personality is.
…which brings me to Shadow Rise, who takes what I said about Shadow Kanji and Shadow Yukiko and cranks it up over 9000%. Shadow Rise’s a stripper doing a pole dance and her dungeon is the Marukyu Striptease. There is. Nothing. About Shadow Rise that has anything to do with Rise searching for her true inner self, unless you think Rise secretly wants to be a stripper, which is probably not the case. Come on, guys, you can easily put in fanservice without it coming in from exactly nowhere.
Lore corner: Kouzeon is another name for the bodhisattva Guanyin in Buddhism (a bodhisattva is someone striving to become a Buddha). Guanyin honestly doesn’t fit Rise’s personality or her Arcana at all. I’ll talk more about this later.
Character spotlight: Teddie
Teddie is hands-down the most annoying character in this game. Remember how I said Yosuke annoyed me at times, but he’s not the worst character in the game? Teddie’s the worst character in the game. I never fielded him except to farm lines for the Hardcore Risette Fan achievement, which is why I’m not showing any screenshots of him.
First off, Teddie begins the game filling the mission control role, and his voice is maddening. Rise, the energetic and perky teen idol, somehow sounds more down-to-earth compared to Teddie. Teddie’s mission control role is also more-or-less useless – he’ll tell you things like how many enemies are on the field and comment whenever one of your party members kills something; in other words, he’ll tell you things you can easily see for yourself. And he’ll do it constantly. Rise does this, but as I said, as you level her up, she’ll start saying and doing actually useful things.
Teddie eventually becomes a front-line combatant and he’ll somehow develop a human form. His human form spends >95% of the time hitting on every woman he sees. Yosuke definitely has his moments, but that’s nothing compared to Teddie’s constant horniness. I know there’s supposed to be some pathos in his story arc, and I admit it’s done okay toward the end, but most of the other times I just wanted him to shut up.
Lore corner: I know nothing about Kamui-Mosir, Teddie’s Persona. I think it’s supposed to be the home of the bear god, which makes sense I guess.
July
Teddie reveals his human form, except he’s naked, so the girls go off to buy him some clothes. Why are the girls the ones buying him clothes – shouldn’t the guys be doing it? It does end badly for Yosuke, since Chie charges a suit to Yosuke without telling him. While Chie’s my favorite character, I have to be real here – that’s not cool, even if the suit’s not all that expensive. You can sell it for ¥640 and the sell price is 20% of the buy price, meaning the buy price for Teddie’s suit is ¥3,200. To put things in perspective, that’s only slightly higher than is Aiya’s Mega Beef Bowl, which costs ¥3,000. If you look at it from a real-world perspective, the game takes place in 2011. The average exchange rate for 2011 was 79.1 yen per dollar, meaning the suit would be around $40. That’s less than this game was when it first came out, as new games generally retail for $60.
Still not cool, Chie.
July’s also the month the game throws its first red herring at you – Mitsuo Kubo, who straight-up confesses to murdering Mayumi, Saki, and King Moron (whose murder happens after Rise’s rescue). As we’ll find later, Mitsuo’s lying – he killed King Moron but had nothing to do with the first two.
I spent some time wondering why Mitsuo’s even in the game. He appears in April to hit on Yukiko in the creepiest manner, resurfaces in July because he’s thought to be the murderer, then disappears from the story after you apprehend him. It’s kind of far to go just for a red herring. I mean compare this to Life is Strange, where Nathan Prescott was the main red herring, but he had a more pronounced role.
And then it hit me. The main theme of the game, as the game will tell you at every possible opportunity, is the quest for truth. Part of pursuing truth is avoiding baseless assumptions. In Mitsuo’s case, we know next to nothing about him. We know that he was constantly looking at Yukiko and the beginning of the game was the first time he’d actually approached her. We know he likes to talk a lot. We know he craved attention that he didn’t have, to the point he confessed to 2 murders he didn’t commit and killed a teacher to make his lie more convincing. That’s it.
One might immediately assume that he’s just evil. I sure did at first. The news media in the game definitely does; Kanji expresses annoyance at it later. But honestly? Him liking Yukiko but not being able to talk to her in any non-creepy manner could just be he has no social skills. Him craving attention just tells me he feels ignored and/or insignificant. Think about it – many children crave attention, but how many are so desperate for it they prefer the negative attention associated with a felony? What kind of life did Mitsuo lead to result in this? I’m not necessarily saying he’s sympathetic – he might be, or maybe he’s just pure evil, but the point is nobody knows, and given the theme of the game, he’s an example of just how easy it is to assume a narrative (the latter) without much basis.
August
The gang celebrates successfully capturing Mitsuo, as they don’t know he’s a red herring yet. They decide to go to the beach, where Teddie attempts to engineer a “wardrobe malfunction” on the girls’ swimsuits. Yeah. Do you see why this guy bothers me? Anyway, Teddie succeeds, except on Kanji, not on the girls. Kanji catches Teddie, runs onto the beach, and frantically asks for help before the girls realize that he’s naked.
Now Rise’s a teen idol, and you actually see one of her ads at the very beginning of the game. She decides to take a hiatus and moves to Inaba, where her grandmother runs a tofu shop, since she’s struggling with finding her true self. Everywhere she goes, people know her as the perky character she plays on screen and she wonders what her real personality is.
…which brings me to Shadow Rise, who takes what I said about Shadow Kanji and Shadow Yukiko and cranks it up over 9000%. Shadow Rise’s a stripper doing a pole dance and her dungeon is the Marukyu Striptease. There is. Nothing. About Shadow Rise that has anything to do with Rise searching for her true inner self, unless you think Rise secretly wants to be a stripper, which is probably not the case. Come on, guys, you can easily put in fanservice without it coming in from exactly nowhere.
Lore corner: Kouzeon is another name for the bodhisattva Guanyin in Buddhism (a bodhisattva is someone striving to become a Buddha). Guanyin honestly doesn’t fit Rise’s personality or her Arcana at all. I’ll talk more about this later.
Character spotlight: Teddie
Teddie is hands-down the most annoying character in this game. Remember how I said Yosuke annoyed me at times, but he’s not the worst character in the game? Teddie’s the worst character in the game. I never fielded him except to farm lines for the Hardcore Risette Fan achievement, which is why I’m not showing any screenshots of him.
First off, Teddie begins the game filling the mission control role, and his voice is maddening. Rise, the energetic and perky teen idol, somehow sounds more down-to-earth compared to Teddie. Teddie’s mission control role is also more-or-less useless – he’ll tell you things like how many enemies are on the field and comment whenever one of your party members kills something; in other words, he’ll tell you things you can easily see for yourself. And he’ll do it constantly. Rise does this, but as I said, as you level her up, she’ll start saying and doing actually useful things.
Teddie eventually becomes a front-line combatant and he’ll somehow develop a human form. His human form spends >95% of the time hitting on every woman he sees. Yosuke definitely has his moments, but that’s nothing compared to Teddie’s constant horniness. I know there’s supposed to be some pathos in his story arc, and I admit it’s done okay toward the end, but most of the other times I just wanted him to shut up.
Lore corner: I know nothing about Kamui-Mosir, Teddie’s Persona. I think it’s supposed to be the home of the bear god, which makes sense I guess.
July
Teddie reveals his human form, except he’s naked, so the girls go off to buy him some clothes. Why are the girls the ones buying him clothes – shouldn’t the guys be doing it? It does end badly for Yosuke, since Chie charges a suit to Yosuke without telling him. While Chie’s my favorite character, I have to be real here – that’s not cool, even if the suit’s not all that expensive. You can sell it for ¥640 and the sell price is 20% of the buy price, meaning the buy price for Teddie’s suit is ¥3,200. To put things in perspective, that’s only slightly higher than is Aiya’s Mega Beef Bowl, which costs ¥3,000. If you look at it from a real-world perspective, the game takes place in 2011. The average exchange rate for 2011 was 79.1 yen per dollar, meaning the suit would be around $40. That’s less than this game was when it first came out, as new games generally retail for $60.
Still not cool, Chie.
July’s also the month the game throws its first red herring at you – Mitsuo Kubo, who straight-up confesses to murdering Mayumi, Saki, and King Moron (whose murder happens after Rise’s rescue). As we’ll find later, Mitsuo’s lying – he killed King Moron but had nothing to do with the first two.
I spent some time wondering why Mitsuo’s even in the game. He appears in April to hit on Yukiko in the creepiest manner, resurfaces in July because he’s thought to be the murderer, then disappears from the story after you apprehend him. It’s kind of far to go just for a red herring. I mean compare this to Life is Strange, where Nathan Prescott was the main red herring, but he had a more pronounced role.
And then it hit me. The main theme of the game, as the game will tell you at every possible opportunity, is the quest for truth. Part of pursuing truth is avoiding baseless assumptions. In Mitsuo’s case, we know next to nothing about him. We know that he was constantly looking at Yukiko and the beginning of the game was the first time he’d actually approached her. We know he likes to talk a lot. We know he craved attention that he didn’t have, to the point he confessed to 2 murders he didn’t commit and killed a teacher to make his lie more convincing. That’s it.
One might immediately assume that he’s just evil. I sure did at first. The news media in the game definitely does; Kanji expresses annoyance at it later. But honestly? Him liking Yukiko but not being able to talk to her in any non-creepy manner could just be he has no social skills. Him craving attention just tells me he feels ignored and/or insignificant. Think about it – many children crave attention, but how many are so desperate for it they prefer the negative attention associated with a felony? What kind of life did Mitsuo lead to result in this? I’m not necessarily saying he’s sympathetic – he might be, or maybe he’s just pure evil, but the point is nobody knows, and given the theme of the game, he’s an example of just how easy it is to assume a narrative (the latter) without much basis.
August
The gang celebrates successfully capturing Mitsuo, as they don’t know he’s a red herring yet. They decide to go to the beach, where Teddie attempts to engineer a “wardrobe malfunction” on the girls’ swimsuits. Yeah. Do you see why this guy bothers me? Anyway, Teddie succeeds, except on Kanji, not on the girls. Kanji catches Teddie, runs onto the beach, and frantically asks for help before the girls realize that he’s naked.
Uhh, why didn’t he just hide behind that boat in the back? Yosuke finds some seaweed and Kanji tries to cover himself up with that instead. The girls…
…are not amused and run away screaming. Ok, I admit it was pretty funny.
September
Naoto Shirogane begins to play more of a role. She’s a private detective the police brought on because they don’t know how to solve the murders. Unlike the police, Naoto’s pretty smart, and she figures out (1) the team is somehow involved with the case and (2) Mitsuo’s not the real culprit. To pursue the former line of thought, Naoto attempts to talk to the team during a school trip.
Specifically, they go to Tatsumi Port Island, which is where Persona 3 takes place in a really nice nod to continuity. Rise reserves a room in a club, which she can do because the establishment owes her a favor – one of her events got cancelled in the past, and Persona 3 players will realize that the cancellation took place during Persona 3 because of the Arcana Hermit Shadow. Really cool.
In the room, Rise and Yukiko promptly get drunk and tell Naoto about the TV world and Personas. Naoto doesn’t believe them and reveals the drinks weren’t alcoholic with one of my favorite lines in the game:
September
Naoto Shirogane begins to play more of a role. She’s a private detective the police brought on because they don’t know how to solve the murders. Unlike the police, Naoto’s pretty smart, and she figures out (1) the team is somehow involved with the case and (2) Mitsuo’s not the real culprit. To pursue the former line of thought, Naoto attempts to talk to the team during a school trip.
Specifically, they go to Tatsumi Port Island, which is where Persona 3 takes place in a really nice nod to continuity. Rise reserves a room in a club, which she can do because the establishment owes her a favor – one of her events got cancelled in the past, and Persona 3 players will realize that the cancellation took place during Persona 3 because of the Arcana Hermit Shadow. Really cool.
In the room, Rise and Yukiko promptly get drunk and tell Naoto about the TV world and Personas. Naoto doesn’t believe them and reveals the drinks weren’t alcoholic with one of my favorite lines in the game:
I’ve decided in head-canon that Naoto spiked Yukiko’s and Rise’s drinks in an attempt to get them to spill the beans. I really don’t see how someone can get drunk off not-alcohol.
Character spotlight: Naoto Shirogane
Character spotlight: Naoto Shirogane
Naoto uses her ultimate weapon, the Black Hole. And yes, while the others fight with things like desks and fans, Naoto just straight-up brings a gun.
As I mentioned, Naoto’s actually pretty smart. On her own, she arrived at the same conclusions the team drew and, further, determined Mitsuo was just a copycat killer. She’s also a great asset when fighting those FUCKING GOLDEN HANDS due to her Megidolaon.
Shadow Naoto also doesn’t have shoehorned fanservice. She represents Naoto’s struggle with childishness. Naoto’s a brilliant kid detective, but she’s still a kid. Moreover, she dresses like a boy because the field is male-dominated. As a tangent, we later find that she has large breasts, which means every time I look at her default model (with a flat chest) I feel sorry for her, since how uncomfortable/painful must it be to bind her breasts if she’s stacked?
Anyway, I’ll also note that unlike many of the others, Shadow Naoto doesn’t go berserk because Naoto initially rejects her. Most of the time the character says the words, “you’re not me” and that starts the battle, but in this case, Naoto already knows she’s trying to hide her youth and gender. Naoto accepts her Shadow not because she comes to terms with something she’s been denying, but because she begins to accept that she doesn’t need to act like an adult man to be a great detective – she can do that just fine as a teenage girl.
Because let’s be real here: Naoto’s more competent than is the entire rest of the adult-male-dominated Inaba police force combined. I’m not exaggerating.
Lore corner: Yamato Sumeragi just refers to a Japanese Emperor. I…don’t really know what else there is.
October
As soon as Naoto recovers from getting her Persona, she makes an appointment at the hospital for everyone to get a checkup…without first telling them. I mean, she had good intentions, and she’s right that checking whether the fog in the TV world has any ill effects is prudent, but that’s kind of rude. As we’ll see, signing other people up for things without telling them seems to be a theme for October.
Before that, we get to the concert scene. It being one of my favorite scenes in the game will not stop me from nitpicking it. So Yosuke reveals that Junes had planned for a big event, but it got last-minute cancelled. Since his dad’s the manager and he might get fired for the whole thing, he asks Rise to do an event to replace the cancelled one. Rise agrees to do a concert, provided the gang serves as her band.
There’s one small issue: nobody in the gang besides Rise has any idea how to music. For instance, Yukiko brings an honest-to-god gong as an instrument (ok, I admit that was hilarious – sorry Yukiko). Even if Yu had joined the symphonic band (i.e. Ayane’s Social Link), the game will not acknowledge it and Yu will play a guitar for this event, even though Yu plays the trumpet in the symphonic band. Speaking of trumpets, Chie tries to play one by blowing into it (you play brass instruments by buzzing your lips into the mouthpiece, not by blowing into it).
After 2 days of practice, they hold the concert and it’s a gigantic success. 2 days. TWO. DAYS. That’s hilariously unrealistic, though one might interpret this as Rise being incredibly, mind-bogglingly, cosmically talented at putting together a show. And like I said, the scene itself is pretty sweet.
Soon after that, the school’s Culture Festival begins. And, since Yosuke’s gone a few months without pulling some rage-inducing stunt, he makes up for it here by signing the girls up for the school beauty pageant without telling them. Note the teacher in charge had stipulated that anyone whose name gets onto the pageant list cannot back out. Rise doesn’t really care, since being on stage is easy for her, but Chie, Yukiko, and Naoto are understandably pissed. They respond by signing the guys up for the cross-dressing pageant that’s part of the Culture Festival for some god-forsaken reason. Do you remember the screenshot I showed about Yukiko saying Teddie needs to be disappeared? You might’ve wondered why there were cross-dressing guys in the back. This is why.
Although…why did Chie sign Yu and Kanji up for the pageant? They didn’t do anything. It was all Yosuke. But yes, thanks to him, Yu and Kanji must suffer the girls’ wrath alongside him.
Kanji is initially reluctant, but Yukiko sweetly reminds Kanji he’s on thin ice with the teachers due to his school attendance record. Kanji somberly accepts his fate:
As I mentioned, Naoto’s actually pretty smart. On her own, she arrived at the same conclusions the team drew and, further, determined Mitsuo was just a copycat killer. She’s also a great asset when fighting those FUCKING GOLDEN HANDS due to her Megidolaon.
Shadow Naoto also doesn’t have shoehorned fanservice. She represents Naoto’s struggle with childishness. Naoto’s a brilliant kid detective, but she’s still a kid. Moreover, she dresses like a boy because the field is male-dominated. As a tangent, we later find that she has large breasts, which means every time I look at her default model (with a flat chest) I feel sorry for her, since how uncomfortable/painful must it be to bind her breasts if she’s stacked?
Anyway, I’ll also note that unlike many of the others, Shadow Naoto doesn’t go berserk because Naoto initially rejects her. Most of the time the character says the words, “you’re not me” and that starts the battle, but in this case, Naoto already knows she’s trying to hide her youth and gender. Naoto accepts her Shadow not because she comes to terms with something she’s been denying, but because she begins to accept that she doesn’t need to act like an adult man to be a great detective – she can do that just fine as a teenage girl.
Because let’s be real here: Naoto’s more competent than is the entire rest of the adult-male-dominated Inaba police force combined. I’m not exaggerating.
Lore corner: Yamato Sumeragi just refers to a Japanese Emperor. I…don’t really know what else there is.
October
As soon as Naoto recovers from getting her Persona, she makes an appointment at the hospital for everyone to get a checkup…without first telling them. I mean, she had good intentions, and she’s right that checking whether the fog in the TV world has any ill effects is prudent, but that’s kind of rude. As we’ll see, signing other people up for things without telling them seems to be a theme for October.
Before that, we get to the concert scene. It being one of my favorite scenes in the game will not stop me from nitpicking it. So Yosuke reveals that Junes had planned for a big event, but it got last-minute cancelled. Since his dad’s the manager and he might get fired for the whole thing, he asks Rise to do an event to replace the cancelled one. Rise agrees to do a concert, provided the gang serves as her band.
There’s one small issue: nobody in the gang besides Rise has any idea how to music. For instance, Yukiko brings an honest-to-god gong as an instrument (ok, I admit that was hilarious – sorry Yukiko). Even if Yu had joined the symphonic band (i.e. Ayane’s Social Link), the game will not acknowledge it and Yu will play a guitar for this event, even though Yu plays the trumpet in the symphonic band. Speaking of trumpets, Chie tries to play one by blowing into it (you play brass instruments by buzzing your lips into the mouthpiece, not by blowing into it).
After 2 days of practice, they hold the concert and it’s a gigantic success. 2 days. TWO. DAYS. That’s hilariously unrealistic, though one might interpret this as Rise being incredibly, mind-bogglingly, cosmically talented at putting together a show. And like I said, the scene itself is pretty sweet.
Soon after that, the school’s Culture Festival begins. And, since Yosuke’s gone a few months without pulling some rage-inducing stunt, he makes up for it here by signing the girls up for the school beauty pageant without telling them. Note the teacher in charge had stipulated that anyone whose name gets onto the pageant list cannot back out. Rise doesn’t really care, since being on stage is easy for her, but Chie, Yukiko, and Naoto are understandably pissed. They respond by signing the guys up for the cross-dressing pageant that’s part of the Culture Festival for some god-forsaken reason. Do you remember the screenshot I showed about Yukiko saying Teddie needs to be disappeared? You might’ve wondered why there were cross-dressing guys in the back. This is why.
Although…why did Chie sign Yu and Kanji up for the pageant? They didn’t do anything. It was all Yosuke. But yes, thanks to him, Yu and Kanji must suffer the girls’ wrath alongside him.
Kanji is initially reluctant, but Yukiko sweetly reminds Kanji he’s on thin ice with the teachers due to his school attendance record. Kanji somberly accepts his fate:
Immediately after the Culture Festival, Yukiko invites everyone to stay a night at her family’s inn, which leads to the infamous hot springs scene. For some reason, it’s become a running gag in the Persona series to include a disastrous hot springs scene in which the girls use the bath during the guys’ time, but blame the guys for trying to peep on them. In Persona 3, Mitsuru executes the guys off-screen because…some things are not meant for mortal eyes. Here, the girls chuck buckets at the guys, meaning they got off easy in comparison. In Persona 5 Strikers, the girls just beat the guys up, meaning the guys there got off easy too.
The guys retreat into their room and Kanji realizes it’s the room Mayumi Yamano was staying at in April. I’m thinking Yukiko did that on purpose just to exact revenge on Yosuke. Yosuke, Teddie, and Kanji then decide to sneak into the girls’ room and sleep with them as revenge for that, which…is the most terrible idea they could’ve come up with at the time, and the game, as it does, forces me to go along with them.
The guys retreat into their room and Kanji realizes it’s the room Mayumi Yamano was staying at in April. I’m thinking Yukiko did that on purpose just to exact revenge on Yosuke. Yosuke, Teddie, and Kanji then decide to sneak into the girls’ room and sleep with them as revenge for that, which…is the most terrible idea they could’ve come up with at the time, and the game, as it does, forces me to go along with them.
No, Kanji, Chie would not be anywhere near gentle with you…except luckily (?) for Kanji, the plan turns out to be a failure, since they’d snuck into the wrong room. They then become scarred for life when Hanako and their teacher offer themselves to them, thinking they’d snuck in on purpose to get with them. Uhh, yeah, it’s kind of messed-up if you think about it.
November
Here the game gets…heavy. The killer sends 2 warning letters to Yu telling him to stop rescuing people. Dojima sees the second one and detains Yu at the police station. This leaves Nanako alone at home and she promptly gets kidnapped. The team deduces that Taro Namatame is the one behind it and Dojima takes off after him, but crashes his car into Namatame’s truck. Dojima ends up in the hospital with multiple wounds and fractures, while Namatame flees into the TV world with Nanako.
Taro Namatame is the game’s second red herring. You first hear about him at the very beginning of the game – he worked in politics and had an affair with Mayumi Yamano. He and Mayumi were both fired for the affair and, soon after, Mayumi was murdered.
Now before we continue, I just want to say: I come down really hard on infidelity, but as we’ll learn later, Namatame was already separated from his wife at the time, meaning he wasn’t actually cheating. Couldn’t he just have announced that he was dating Mayumi now that he’d separated from his wife? Why was this such a big deal in the first place?
Anyway. Since we’re getting into the home stretch of the murder case, let’s explore a rather valid question. I went into the game knowing who the real killer was, since this game’s old enough that his identity isn’t really considered a spoiler anymore. So it’s fair to ask whether I’d have been able to figure it out had I not known.
Honestly? I noted several holes in labeling Namatame as the killer, but since the game pulls some serious emotional manipulation to get the player to believe it’s him, I most likely would’ve fallen for it despite my logic and gotten the bad ending. If I then realized that I’d gotten the bad ending and returned to my original line of thinking, I likely would’ve figured it out.
Let’s first talk about Namatame, then we’ll talk about the real killer in December. When the team arrives at the scene where Dojima crashed, Naoto searches the truck and finds Namatame’s diary. She discovers home addresses in the diary: Mayumi’s, Saki’s, Yukiko’s, Kanji’s, and Rise’s. Here’s where I started having doubts. Mayumi’s being in there doesn’t add up – Mayumi was staying at the Amagi Inn when she died, so she wasn’t home. If Namatame had been writing down home addresses for people to target, he would’ve missed Mayumi. It doesn’t make sense for Namatame to have that address written down anyway – he and Mayumi were an item, so he’d already know where she lived.
Naoto notes that King Moron’s address isn’t on the list. There’s another address she doesn’t mention: Mitsuo’s. Why wasn’t he on the list? The only other person Naoto doesn’t read out is her own, and I could chalk that up to her simply omitting herself, but Mitsuo?
Also, you can actually talk to Namatame in preceding months. He’ll be sitting at the riverbank, staring out into the water, dazed and depressed over Mayumi. Why would that even be in the game if he’d killed her?
We’ll learn in December that this is what happened: Namatame gained the power to enter the TV in April but didn’t actually do so prior to November. He saw Mayumi and Saki on the Midnight Channel prior to their deaths and concluded anyone shown on the Midnight Channel would be murdered, so he decided to kidnap people and throw them into the TV. Since he never went into the TV world, he didn’t know that being in the TV was what killed Mayumi and Saki; he assumed that the murders were happening in the regular world and being in the TV would keep the victims from the murderer. From Namatame’s perspective, his plan was working – Yukiko, Kanji, Rise, and Naoto showed up on the Midnight Channel but avoided Mayumi’s and Saki’s fate. Namatame, of course, had no idea that Yu and the rest of the team were the ones who’d saved them and he was putting them in danger.
With this revelation, the stuff above makes sense. He didn’t somehow use Mayumi’s home address to target her when she was staying at the Amagi Inn. He had Saki’s home address because he was trying to warn her, but failed. He had the other addresses to pursue his plan. He didn’t have Mitsuo’s address because Mitsuo wasn’t one of the people he was trying to save. Mitsuo, in fact, was thrown in by the real killer – the one behind Mayumi’s and Saki’s deaths. That brings us to…
December
We now have to determine who actually killed Mayumi and Saki. The game gives the player these clues:
The game gives you 3 chances to pick the killer’s name from a list, given the above. Now technically, one could save the game, pick 3 names, see if any are right, and reload if not. But, that’s not necessary, since 3 opportunities are plenty to get it right.
We can group the names into 3 categories. The first category consists of people we know cannot be the killer. This includes Yosuke and Chie, who the game explicitly demonstrates do not have TV-entering capabilities prior to getting their Personas. This includes Namatame and Mitsuo, since the game’s already established they’re red herrings. This includes Rise and Naoto, who weren’t in town when the murders happened. This includes Nanako, who would’ve easily been turned away had she tried to enter the Amagi Inn and wouldn’t have the physical strength necessary to toss a grown woman and a high school senior into a TV.
The second category consists of people who have no reason to be under suspicion. Let’s use Hanako as an example: she could’ve had TV powers that she kept secret and she could’ve been staying at the Amagi Inn during Mayumi’s stay, but the game doesn’t give any real reason to think that. This category encompasses most of the people on the list.
The third category consists of people the game gives you a concrete reason to believe would fit the clues above. There are only 3 people in this category, so 3 chances guarantees the player will get it right.
The first person is Yukiko. She’d get through police security easily – it’s her family’s inn. She lives there. The second is Dojima, who’s a detective and would thus also get through police security easily. For the same reason, Tohru Adachi, Dojima’s detective partner, falls into this category. All three of these people could be around the Amagi Inn, or anywhere in Inaba, without rousing suspicion. All three of these people could approach Dojima’s house in broad daylight.
The answer is Adachi. Now before we continue, let’s close up a few loose ends. First, let’s revisit the idea of the Inaba police force being less useful than an instant-death spell is on a boss. When the police recovered Mayumi's and Saki’s bodies, they should’ve found Adachi’s fingerprints, DNA or otherwise, on them both, since Adachi must’ve touched them to throw them into the TV. Adachi had no reason to be in contact with Mayumi, even if he were part of the police detail outside guarding the inn (he wasn’t). Does this ever come up? No.
As we’ll find later, Adachi called Saki into the police station many times and, in the final time, tried to make a move on her. He threw her into the TV in the interrogation room when she rejected him. So a detective and a civilian walked into a room in the police station, only the detective ever left, the civilian was found dead hours later, and nobody thought to ask the detective about it? This happens twice, in fact, since he did the same thing to Mitsuo.
Yeah, remember him? Mitsuo, attempting to garner attention, killed King Moron, walked into the police station, and confessed to all three murders. The police didn’t take him seriously and told Adachi to handle him. Adachi, after throwing him into the TV, told the officers he’d just sent Mitsuo home, and everyone was okay with that.
What. The. Fuck. A guy confessed to murder and the police didn’t take him seriously? They didn’t even try to detain him? If I walked into a police station and confessed to murder, you’d better be damned sure I’d be detained there while they investigated. Even if they found I was lying, I’d still be in trouble for lying to the police. And remember, Mitsuo didn’t kill Mayumi and Saki, but he did kill King Moron, so the police straight-up didn’t believe an actual murderer’s confession and were okay just letting him go home. These people have to be the most idiotic police force I’ve ever encountered in my life!
Adachi’s motive, part I
If you think I’m giving Adachi props for pulling off 2 murders and 1 attempted murder while on the police force, no, Adachi himself is pretty rock-stupid too. It just so happens that everyone around him was even stupider.
First, let’s consider Mayumi. Adachi had a crush on her – she’s a news announcer, so he saw her on TV, but when news broke of her relationship with Namatame, Adachi went psycho and decided to go to the Amagi Inn to rape her. He tries this by…walking in (claiming to be part of her police guard), calling her down to the lobby, and grabbing her. In the ensuing struggle, Mayumi fell into the TV, surprising Adachi.
I’m emphasizing that last point. Adachi didn’t know that would happen. Adachi’s plan was to go to the inn and assault/rape someone in the lobby while there was a large police force right outside. Minus the powers, Adachi’s assault would’ve resulted in large noises/crashes when Mayumi struggled, not to mention she’d be screaming. The police would immediately hear them and run in to investigate…
…you know what, they’d probably think everything’s okay. I wouldn’t put it past these guys. It still demonstrates that Adachi isn’t all that bright – if the police were any sort of competent and if he hadn’t been granted supernatural powers, he would’ve been caught and stopped easily.
We’re not done, though. After Saki’s death, Namatame called the police to tell them of the link between the Midnight Channel and the murders. Adachi happened to be the one to pick up. He then suggested Namatame protect them himself, which led to the kidnappings. Again, in any competent police force, calls are recorded and this would’ve gotten him in big trouble really fast, but Adachi’s either too stupid to realize that or he knew the people around him were stupid enough that he could get away with it.
Adachi then sat back and watched. One person tried to save people, not knowing he was almost killing them. On the other side, a team kept foiling his plans, but was actually encouraging him. That was Adachi’s entire motive – it was entertaining to him. It got to the point that when Mitsuo confessed to the murders, Adachi threw him into the TV because, if Mitsuo were arrested and charged, Namatame might’ve stopped trying to save people and ruined Adachi’s fun.
…except even with Mitsuo’s capture after the team beat him in the TV world, Naoto’s kidnapping and rescue still happened. The team realized Naoto was in danger because they simply checked the Midnight Channel just in case. Namatame did the same.
Next, you’ll recall Adachi sent 2 warning letters to Dojima’s house. Why? What possible purpose does it serve to send fucking warning letters to a detective’s house? Had the car accident not happened, Dojima might have studied the letters himself, which would’ve revealed clues pointing to Adachi (fingerprints, for example). Unlike the rest of the police force, Dojima has some competence. And wasn’t Adachi’s entire motive that he wanted the “fun” to continue? If Dojima had stopped Yu and the team from going into the TV world due to the letter, someone would’ve ended up dead and Namatame would’ve stopped his kidnappings because he would’ve failed to save someone – you know, exactly the outcome Adachi was trying to avoid when he threw Mitsuo into the TV. The warning letters are stupid even in the context of Adachi’s own motive.
Let’s now consider how the team ends up cornering Adachi. They…straight-up accuse him to his face. And he folds like a n00b.
He slips and says, “…Namatame’s the one who put them all in!” This initially seems like a big deal – only someone who has TV powers would use the term “put them all in,” right? Well, not really – the game forced Yu to tell Dojima about the TV world when he detained him and Adachi was there in the room. The team discusses the case right in front of Adachi several times and they did successfully find and rescue Nanako, so Adachi could’ve just pointed to all that for how he knows about the TV world. He doesn’t and instead gets mega-flustered.
Naoto then points to something Adachi said when she was reading Namatame’s diary. At the time, she noted that even the people who’d survived (Yukiko, etc.) were in the diary, and Adachi responded, “That settles it.” Naoto points out that the police had no reason to believe Yukiko’s and the others’ disappearances had anything to do with the murders, so Adachi’s lack of surprise that the other names were in the diary was strange…
…except the police did link the two. Dojima himself refers to “the case,” which encompasses the murders and the kidnappings. He and Adachi went to warn Rise when she moved to Inaba. The disappearances were all reported to the police, so clearly they were unusual enough to worry family members. It’s not much of a stretch for anyone to make a connection between 2 murders and a string of alarming, though temporary, disappearances afterward.
Instead of saying…well, that, Adachi promptly loses his cool and flees, jumping into a TV to escape, thereby proving he’s the killer. What a dumbass.
Adachi’s plot twist
I’m not done roasting Adachi, but let’s take a break and talk about narrative twists. Adachi’s reveal is supposed to be a twist and, honestly, at first I found it unsatisfying. Prior to this month, Adachi just hangs around acting like a slacker dimwit whom Dojima’s constantly yelling at. Despite that, he’s pretty friendly, and Yu can become closer to him through a Social Link. After his reveal, he’s completely different. He’s smug and arrogant and psychotic. The game hand-waves this as him just being a really good actor. I didn’t find it believable. I thought it’d be better if the game hinted here and there at Adachi’s true nature prior to this.
…Well, it so happened that in real life, I’d just met someone whom I really felt I shared a bond with. We spent a lot of time together and I really opened up. But I’d later realize that she’d just been acting. Nothing she’d done or said was real, despite how deeply I felt the connection. I reacted with complete shock – to be honest, I think myself pretty good at detecting acts, but in this case, I fell for it completely. She was just that good at acting. It actually changed my perception on this plot twist. Simply telling me that some character was just great at acting, so great that nothing in the plot really pointed to what the character actually thought and did, is now a way more valid argument.
If Yu had pursued a Social Link with Adachi, he can confront him alone after the reveal. Adachi says, “The person you believed in was a version of me who only existed in your head. You decided on your own to believe in me, and that decision betrayed you.” It struck so true. I come down hard on stupid plot twists and…well, I still do (Edelgard’s twist in Fire Emblem: Three Houses is still stupid, for instance), but I think I’ve changed my bar on what constitutes a stupid plot twist now.
…And since we’re on the topic of the scene where Yu confronts Adachi alone, let’s get back to roasting him. Adachi threatens Yu by shooting at him, narrowly missing on purpose.
November
Here the game gets…heavy. The killer sends 2 warning letters to Yu telling him to stop rescuing people. Dojima sees the second one and detains Yu at the police station. This leaves Nanako alone at home and she promptly gets kidnapped. The team deduces that Taro Namatame is the one behind it and Dojima takes off after him, but crashes his car into Namatame’s truck. Dojima ends up in the hospital with multiple wounds and fractures, while Namatame flees into the TV world with Nanako.
Taro Namatame is the game’s second red herring. You first hear about him at the very beginning of the game – he worked in politics and had an affair with Mayumi Yamano. He and Mayumi were both fired for the affair and, soon after, Mayumi was murdered.
Now before we continue, I just want to say: I come down really hard on infidelity, but as we’ll learn later, Namatame was already separated from his wife at the time, meaning he wasn’t actually cheating. Couldn’t he just have announced that he was dating Mayumi now that he’d separated from his wife? Why was this such a big deal in the first place?
Anyway. Since we’re getting into the home stretch of the murder case, let’s explore a rather valid question. I went into the game knowing who the real killer was, since this game’s old enough that his identity isn’t really considered a spoiler anymore. So it’s fair to ask whether I’d have been able to figure it out had I not known.
Honestly? I noted several holes in labeling Namatame as the killer, but since the game pulls some serious emotional manipulation to get the player to believe it’s him, I most likely would’ve fallen for it despite my logic and gotten the bad ending. If I then realized that I’d gotten the bad ending and returned to my original line of thinking, I likely would’ve figured it out.
Let’s first talk about Namatame, then we’ll talk about the real killer in December. When the team arrives at the scene where Dojima crashed, Naoto searches the truck and finds Namatame’s diary. She discovers home addresses in the diary: Mayumi’s, Saki’s, Yukiko’s, Kanji’s, and Rise’s. Here’s where I started having doubts. Mayumi’s being in there doesn’t add up – Mayumi was staying at the Amagi Inn when she died, so she wasn’t home. If Namatame had been writing down home addresses for people to target, he would’ve missed Mayumi. It doesn’t make sense for Namatame to have that address written down anyway – he and Mayumi were an item, so he’d already know where she lived.
Naoto notes that King Moron’s address isn’t on the list. There’s another address she doesn’t mention: Mitsuo’s. Why wasn’t he on the list? The only other person Naoto doesn’t read out is her own, and I could chalk that up to her simply omitting herself, but Mitsuo?
Also, you can actually talk to Namatame in preceding months. He’ll be sitting at the riverbank, staring out into the water, dazed and depressed over Mayumi. Why would that even be in the game if he’d killed her?
We’ll learn in December that this is what happened: Namatame gained the power to enter the TV in April but didn’t actually do so prior to November. He saw Mayumi and Saki on the Midnight Channel prior to their deaths and concluded anyone shown on the Midnight Channel would be murdered, so he decided to kidnap people and throw them into the TV. Since he never went into the TV world, he didn’t know that being in the TV was what killed Mayumi and Saki; he assumed that the murders were happening in the regular world and being in the TV would keep the victims from the murderer. From Namatame’s perspective, his plan was working – Yukiko, Kanji, Rise, and Naoto showed up on the Midnight Channel but avoided Mayumi’s and Saki’s fate. Namatame, of course, had no idea that Yu and the rest of the team were the ones who’d saved them and he was putting them in danger.
With this revelation, the stuff above makes sense. He didn’t somehow use Mayumi’s home address to target her when she was staying at the Amagi Inn. He had Saki’s home address because he was trying to warn her, but failed. He had the other addresses to pursue his plan. He didn’t have Mitsuo’s address because Mitsuo wasn’t one of the people he was trying to save. Mitsuo, in fact, was thrown in by the real killer – the one behind Mayumi’s and Saki’s deaths. That brings us to…
December
We now have to determine who actually killed Mayumi and Saki. The game gives the player these clues:
- There was a heavy police presence around the Amagi Inn when Mayumi was there, since she’s a local celebrity. So whoever killed her must’ve been able to get through police security.
- Nobody saw anything out of the ordinary during the incidents. Since Inaba’s a small town, this rules out the possibility of someone from out of town doing it, as they’d stick out immediately.
- The killer was able to deliver those warning letters to Dojima’s house without anyone finding it suspicious.
The game gives you 3 chances to pick the killer’s name from a list, given the above. Now technically, one could save the game, pick 3 names, see if any are right, and reload if not. But, that’s not necessary, since 3 opportunities are plenty to get it right.
We can group the names into 3 categories. The first category consists of people we know cannot be the killer. This includes Yosuke and Chie, who the game explicitly demonstrates do not have TV-entering capabilities prior to getting their Personas. This includes Namatame and Mitsuo, since the game’s already established they’re red herrings. This includes Rise and Naoto, who weren’t in town when the murders happened. This includes Nanako, who would’ve easily been turned away had she tried to enter the Amagi Inn and wouldn’t have the physical strength necessary to toss a grown woman and a high school senior into a TV.
The second category consists of people who have no reason to be under suspicion. Let’s use Hanako as an example: she could’ve had TV powers that she kept secret and she could’ve been staying at the Amagi Inn during Mayumi’s stay, but the game doesn’t give any real reason to think that. This category encompasses most of the people on the list.
The third category consists of people the game gives you a concrete reason to believe would fit the clues above. There are only 3 people in this category, so 3 chances guarantees the player will get it right.
The first person is Yukiko. She’d get through police security easily – it’s her family’s inn. She lives there. The second is Dojima, who’s a detective and would thus also get through police security easily. For the same reason, Tohru Adachi, Dojima’s detective partner, falls into this category. All three of these people could be around the Amagi Inn, or anywhere in Inaba, without rousing suspicion. All three of these people could approach Dojima’s house in broad daylight.
The answer is Adachi. Now before we continue, let’s close up a few loose ends. First, let’s revisit the idea of the Inaba police force being less useful than an instant-death spell is on a boss. When the police recovered Mayumi's and Saki’s bodies, they should’ve found Adachi’s fingerprints, DNA or otherwise, on them both, since Adachi must’ve touched them to throw them into the TV. Adachi had no reason to be in contact with Mayumi, even if he were part of the police detail outside guarding the inn (he wasn’t). Does this ever come up? No.
As we’ll find later, Adachi called Saki into the police station many times and, in the final time, tried to make a move on her. He threw her into the TV in the interrogation room when she rejected him. So a detective and a civilian walked into a room in the police station, only the detective ever left, the civilian was found dead hours later, and nobody thought to ask the detective about it? This happens twice, in fact, since he did the same thing to Mitsuo.
Yeah, remember him? Mitsuo, attempting to garner attention, killed King Moron, walked into the police station, and confessed to all three murders. The police didn’t take him seriously and told Adachi to handle him. Adachi, after throwing him into the TV, told the officers he’d just sent Mitsuo home, and everyone was okay with that.
What. The. Fuck. A guy confessed to murder and the police didn’t take him seriously? They didn’t even try to detain him? If I walked into a police station and confessed to murder, you’d better be damned sure I’d be detained there while they investigated. Even if they found I was lying, I’d still be in trouble for lying to the police. And remember, Mitsuo didn’t kill Mayumi and Saki, but he did kill King Moron, so the police straight-up didn’t believe an actual murderer’s confession and were okay just letting him go home. These people have to be the most idiotic police force I’ve ever encountered in my life!
Adachi’s motive, part I
If you think I’m giving Adachi props for pulling off 2 murders and 1 attempted murder while on the police force, no, Adachi himself is pretty rock-stupid too. It just so happens that everyone around him was even stupider.
First, let’s consider Mayumi. Adachi had a crush on her – she’s a news announcer, so he saw her on TV, but when news broke of her relationship with Namatame, Adachi went psycho and decided to go to the Amagi Inn to rape her. He tries this by…walking in (claiming to be part of her police guard), calling her down to the lobby, and grabbing her. In the ensuing struggle, Mayumi fell into the TV, surprising Adachi.
I’m emphasizing that last point. Adachi didn’t know that would happen. Adachi’s plan was to go to the inn and assault/rape someone in the lobby while there was a large police force right outside. Minus the powers, Adachi’s assault would’ve resulted in large noises/crashes when Mayumi struggled, not to mention she’d be screaming. The police would immediately hear them and run in to investigate…
…you know what, they’d probably think everything’s okay. I wouldn’t put it past these guys. It still demonstrates that Adachi isn’t all that bright – if the police were any sort of competent and if he hadn’t been granted supernatural powers, he would’ve been caught and stopped easily.
We’re not done, though. After Saki’s death, Namatame called the police to tell them of the link between the Midnight Channel and the murders. Adachi happened to be the one to pick up. He then suggested Namatame protect them himself, which led to the kidnappings. Again, in any competent police force, calls are recorded and this would’ve gotten him in big trouble really fast, but Adachi’s either too stupid to realize that or he knew the people around him were stupid enough that he could get away with it.
Adachi then sat back and watched. One person tried to save people, not knowing he was almost killing them. On the other side, a team kept foiling his plans, but was actually encouraging him. That was Adachi’s entire motive – it was entertaining to him. It got to the point that when Mitsuo confessed to the murders, Adachi threw him into the TV because, if Mitsuo were arrested and charged, Namatame might’ve stopped trying to save people and ruined Adachi’s fun.
…except even with Mitsuo’s capture after the team beat him in the TV world, Naoto’s kidnapping and rescue still happened. The team realized Naoto was in danger because they simply checked the Midnight Channel just in case. Namatame did the same.
Next, you’ll recall Adachi sent 2 warning letters to Dojima’s house. Why? What possible purpose does it serve to send fucking warning letters to a detective’s house? Had the car accident not happened, Dojima might have studied the letters himself, which would’ve revealed clues pointing to Adachi (fingerprints, for example). Unlike the rest of the police force, Dojima has some competence. And wasn’t Adachi’s entire motive that he wanted the “fun” to continue? If Dojima had stopped Yu and the team from going into the TV world due to the letter, someone would’ve ended up dead and Namatame would’ve stopped his kidnappings because he would’ve failed to save someone – you know, exactly the outcome Adachi was trying to avoid when he threw Mitsuo into the TV. The warning letters are stupid even in the context of Adachi’s own motive.
Let’s now consider how the team ends up cornering Adachi. They…straight-up accuse him to his face. And he folds like a n00b.
He slips and says, “…Namatame’s the one who put them all in!” This initially seems like a big deal – only someone who has TV powers would use the term “put them all in,” right? Well, not really – the game forced Yu to tell Dojima about the TV world when he detained him and Adachi was there in the room. The team discusses the case right in front of Adachi several times and they did successfully find and rescue Nanako, so Adachi could’ve just pointed to all that for how he knows about the TV world. He doesn’t and instead gets mega-flustered.
Naoto then points to something Adachi said when she was reading Namatame’s diary. At the time, she noted that even the people who’d survived (Yukiko, etc.) were in the diary, and Adachi responded, “That settles it.” Naoto points out that the police had no reason to believe Yukiko’s and the others’ disappearances had anything to do with the murders, so Adachi’s lack of surprise that the other names were in the diary was strange…
…except the police did link the two. Dojima himself refers to “the case,” which encompasses the murders and the kidnappings. He and Adachi went to warn Rise when she moved to Inaba. The disappearances were all reported to the police, so clearly they were unusual enough to worry family members. It’s not much of a stretch for anyone to make a connection between 2 murders and a string of alarming, though temporary, disappearances afterward.
Instead of saying…well, that, Adachi promptly loses his cool and flees, jumping into a TV to escape, thereby proving he’s the killer. What a dumbass.
Adachi’s plot twist
I’m not done roasting Adachi, but let’s take a break and talk about narrative twists. Adachi’s reveal is supposed to be a twist and, honestly, at first I found it unsatisfying. Prior to this month, Adachi just hangs around acting like a slacker dimwit whom Dojima’s constantly yelling at. Despite that, he’s pretty friendly, and Yu can become closer to him through a Social Link. After his reveal, he’s completely different. He’s smug and arrogant and psychotic. The game hand-waves this as him just being a really good actor. I didn’t find it believable. I thought it’d be better if the game hinted here and there at Adachi’s true nature prior to this.
…Well, it so happened that in real life, I’d just met someone whom I really felt I shared a bond with. We spent a lot of time together and I really opened up. But I’d later realize that she’d just been acting. Nothing she’d done or said was real, despite how deeply I felt the connection. I reacted with complete shock – to be honest, I think myself pretty good at detecting acts, but in this case, I fell for it completely. She was just that good at acting. It actually changed my perception on this plot twist. Simply telling me that some character was just great at acting, so great that nothing in the plot really pointed to what the character actually thought and did, is now a way more valid argument.
If Yu had pursued a Social Link with Adachi, he can confront him alone after the reveal. Adachi says, “The person you believed in was a version of me who only existed in your head. You decided on your own to believe in me, and that decision betrayed you.” It struck so true. I come down hard on stupid plot twists and…well, I still do (Edelgard’s twist in Fire Emblem: Three Houses is still stupid, for instance), but I think I’ve changed my bar on what constitutes a stupid plot twist now.
…And since we’re on the topic of the scene where Yu confronts Adachi alone, let’s get back to roasting him. Adachi threatens Yu by shooting at him, narrowly missing on purpose.
Bitch please. I’ve killed tanks with cannon bigger than Adachi’s height. To protect me, I can summon, just off the top of my head, three different forms of literally Satan, deities from a few different religions, several mythical warriors, and a giant penis on a chariot. By this point in the game I’d killed Death itself >10 times. You think some dumbass with a revolver is going to scare me? Get the fuck outta here.
Adachi’s motive, part II
When the team finally confronts Adachi to fight him, he rambles on and on. It’s kind of hard for me to take him seriously, but he does make a few seemingly valid complaints: namely, life only favors ones with innate talent and everyone else is screwed even if they work really hard, as he did as a kid. Life’s unfair and brutal, he says, and warns the team that reality can and will crush their idealism.
Note I said “seemingly.” First, this isn’t an excuse to murder 2 people and then put others in mortal danger for fun. Second, as a slow learner who spent his school years just studying really hard, I can say without a doubt that someone without any innate talent can still accomplish things. My life’s pretty far from ideal, but I have achieved things I’m proud of. Third…in this situation, Adachi is the one with the “innate talent.”
Let me explain. You might have wondered how Yu, Namatame, and Adachi got their ability to enter the TV world in the first place. Well, the gas station attendant did it. Just…roll with it for now.
Why did she do this? She was setting up a three-way contest. Three people have these powers. What will these three do with them? Namatame tried to save people with them, but didn’t understand what he was doing. Yu actually saved people with them, but had to piece together how the TV world worked and, even at this stage, he still doesn’t know the full picture.
Adachi knows way more compared to the others. He knows the fog in the TV world is leaking into the real world and will transform everyone into Shadows, something multiple bosses confirm later. He knew, this entire time, who else had TV powers – he knew Namatame had them, because he knew to manipulate him into throwing people into the TV; and he knew Yu had them, as he sent the warning letters specifically to Yu. Adachi must’ve been given this information when neither of the others were.
Adachi says he can move about the TV world without the Shadows attacking him, something Yu can very clearly not do. He also can warp the TV world at will – he opens and closes a portal to his dungeon and creates a subspace within it, in which the team can get trapped in an infinite loop. He can project himself like some sort of psychic hologram to talk to the team. Neither Yu nor Namatame have anywhere near this capability. He can do all of these things even though December is the first time he’s stepped inside the TV world. This all means that three-way contest is heavily rigged in Adachi’s favor, as he seems to have been given knowledge and abilities far beyond those of the other two.
This is despite the fact that Adachi accomplished the least out of the three. He killed one woman by accident and then one girl on purpose. He subtly implanted an idea into Namatame’s mind. He tried to kill a high school student and failed. That’s basically it.
Compare that to Namatame, who threw more people into the TV and inadvertently assembled the team that would put a stop to his delusions and kick Adachi’s ass. Compare that to Yu, who (1) guided Yosuke and Chie to awaken their Personas and found the Investigation Team, (2) led multiple successful trips into the TV world to rescue 4 people who also awakened Personas and 1 too young to do so, (3) apprehended a murderer in the TV world, and (4) set Namatame straight.
Yeah, Adachi’s full of shit. I kicked his ass easily and then had to fight a giant eyeball that took credit for all the fog. Just…roll with it for now.
January
This month serves as the first happy ending of the game as the gang celebrates New Year’s. There’re a variety of nice, peaceful scenes, like this one:
Adachi’s motive, part II
When the team finally confronts Adachi to fight him, he rambles on and on. It’s kind of hard for me to take him seriously, but he does make a few seemingly valid complaints: namely, life only favors ones with innate talent and everyone else is screwed even if they work really hard, as he did as a kid. Life’s unfair and brutal, he says, and warns the team that reality can and will crush their idealism.
Note I said “seemingly.” First, this isn’t an excuse to murder 2 people and then put others in mortal danger for fun. Second, as a slow learner who spent his school years just studying really hard, I can say without a doubt that someone without any innate talent can still accomplish things. My life’s pretty far from ideal, but I have achieved things I’m proud of. Third…in this situation, Adachi is the one with the “innate talent.”
Let me explain. You might have wondered how Yu, Namatame, and Adachi got their ability to enter the TV world in the first place. Well, the gas station attendant did it. Just…roll with it for now.
Why did she do this? She was setting up a three-way contest. Three people have these powers. What will these three do with them? Namatame tried to save people with them, but didn’t understand what he was doing. Yu actually saved people with them, but had to piece together how the TV world worked and, even at this stage, he still doesn’t know the full picture.
Adachi knows way more compared to the others. He knows the fog in the TV world is leaking into the real world and will transform everyone into Shadows, something multiple bosses confirm later. He knew, this entire time, who else had TV powers – he knew Namatame had them, because he knew to manipulate him into throwing people into the TV; and he knew Yu had them, as he sent the warning letters specifically to Yu. Adachi must’ve been given this information when neither of the others were.
Adachi says he can move about the TV world without the Shadows attacking him, something Yu can very clearly not do. He also can warp the TV world at will – he opens and closes a portal to his dungeon and creates a subspace within it, in which the team can get trapped in an infinite loop. He can project himself like some sort of psychic hologram to talk to the team. Neither Yu nor Namatame have anywhere near this capability. He can do all of these things even though December is the first time he’s stepped inside the TV world. This all means that three-way contest is heavily rigged in Adachi’s favor, as he seems to have been given knowledge and abilities far beyond those of the other two.
This is despite the fact that Adachi accomplished the least out of the three. He killed one woman by accident and then one girl on purpose. He subtly implanted an idea into Namatame’s mind. He tried to kill a high school student and failed. That’s basically it.
Compare that to Namatame, who threw more people into the TV and inadvertently assembled the team that would put a stop to his delusions and kick Adachi’s ass. Compare that to Yu, who (1) guided Yosuke and Chie to awaken their Personas and found the Investigation Team, (2) led multiple successful trips into the TV world to rescue 4 people who also awakened Personas and 1 too young to do so, (3) apprehended a murderer in the TV world, and (4) set Namatame straight.
Yeah, Adachi’s full of shit. I kicked his ass easily and then had to fight a giant eyeball that took credit for all the fog. Just…roll with it for now.
January
This month serves as the first happy ending of the game as the gang celebrates New Year’s. There’re a variety of nice, peaceful scenes, like this one:
Dojima and Nanako make full recoveries and Adachi goes to jail. Speaking of Adachi: several people talk about how he’s seemingly recognized his mistakes and is trying to reform. Umm, did all of you forget when he duped the entire town into believing he’s just a friendly, bumbling detective? He’s probably faking this too. Tie him to a Sea Guardian and have Chie punt both of them into the nearest black hole.
Anyway. If Yu had finished Marie’s Social Link prior to taking down Adachi, her plot begins here, as Margaret informs Yu that Marie has disappeared.
Character spotlight: Marie
Marie’s not playable, but she’s pretty important to the overall plot. Remember the “unfriendly-looking girl” from when Yu first arrived in Inaba? That’s Marie. Marie’s hobbies include writing poetry, hiding her poetry, and erupting in embarassed rage when Yu finds and reads her poetry. Am I a terrible person for finding those scenes hilarious?
Sometime before the game began, Margaret sensed Marie’s destiny is somehow tied to Yu’s and invited her into the Velvet Room. She asks Yu to show her around, since Marie has amnesia and knows next to nothing about the world. For example, Yu shows her a place selling steak skewers and Marie wants to try one, but she doesn’t know you need money to buy food. Also, she asks what steak is short for, and Yu can respond it’s short for “steaaaaaaaaak.” Am I a terrible person for picking that option every time?
I mentioned amnesia. The only thing Marie owns is an ancient bamboo comb, so her Social Link involves trying to figure out her past by learning more about the comb. We learn that it’s ancient, it’s made of bamboo, it’s probably not used like a regular comb since it’s so elegantly made, and it probably wasn’t a gift – the Japanese don’t gift combs because the Japanese word for “comb” can translate to “pain and death.” In other words, we learn nothing about Marie’s past, but she realizes she’s made new and happy memories with Yu and his friends. She thus decides she doesn’t really need to remember her past, and since she doesn’t need the bamboo comb anymore, she gifts it to Yu.
Wait. Didn’t we just get done explaining why combs shouldn’t be gifted to people in Japan? She’s doing this because I read her poetry and misled her about steaaaaaaaaak, isn’t she?
Anyway, Marie does get her memory back at the end of December, and it’s so distressing Marie creates her dungeon in the TV world, the Hollow Forest, and attempts to shut herself in it and die. By the time Margaret finds Marie, it’s February, and the team’s on a ski trip.
February
Everyone finds a TV that’s flickering even when not plugged in. Chie pokes at the screen and a hand comes out of it, pulling her in. The entire rest of the group grabs onto Chie to pull her back, but they all get pulled, literally single-handedly, into the TV. The owner of that hand is Margaret, who had found Marie and apologizes for “the slightly impolite invitation.”
To recap: her idea of an invitation is to pull 8 resisting people into the TV world with one hand. We’ll get back to Margaret later, but for now, she directs the team to the Hollow Forest to go after Marie. The Hollow Forest is a notoriously tedious dungeon, but the only thing I’ll say is that it’s not actually a forest. I was actually going to make fun of that until it dawned on me that Marie likely legitimately does not know what a forest is.
To explain Marie’s memories, we need to go to March. And the game, for no discernible reason, skips from Valentine's Day, right after rescuing Marie, directly to March 20. That's the last day of the game, so if you’re missing Social Links or whatnot prior to the ski trip, consider yourself boned.
March
On March 20, Yu says good-bye to everyone and the game asks if you want to go home. If you say no despite having no reason to do so, the game will let you wander around. If you go to Junes’s food court despite having no reason to do so, the game will initiate the True Ending path in which Yu learns why he, Namatame, and Adachi got TV powers in the first place.
I said it was the gas station attendant. The gas station attendant is, in fact, Izanami-no-Okami in disguise. She gave the three the ability to go into the TV so she could determine humanity’s true wish and, since she concluded that humanity wished for blissful ignorance, she created Ameno-Sagiri, the giant eyeball, to spread the fog into Inaba. If the team had failed to take down Adachi and Ameno-Sagiri prior to Christmas Eve, the fog would have then spread to the entire world and turned everyone into Shadows.
Upon Ameno-Sagiri’s defeat, he agrees to retract the fog, which he does by sending it all into Marie. That’s what restores her memory. In ancient times, Izanami-no-Mikoto wanted to protect humanity and grant its wishes. Humanity then turned toward ignorance, which is innately self-destructing, so Izanami-no-Mikoto’s desire to protect humanity clashed with her desire to grant humanity’s wishes. As such, she split into Kusumi-no-Okami (Marie’s true name) and Izanami-no-Okami. The latter was the stronger of the two by far, and she initiated her fog-plan.
As for Kusumi-no-Okami? She was powerless and had no memory, so Izanami-no-Okami used her to spy on humanity to glean humanity’s true wish. She was also her backup plan if the Sagiri fell – she would serve as a receptacle for the fog until Izanami-no-Okami decided she wanted to try again or something.
I’ll be honest; this ending is very confusing to me. Let’s first address a question I still struggle with – what is a Persona?
The arc words of the series – “I am thou; thou art I” – speak to how a Persona is a facet of a person’s inner self. But then why does a Persona take the name and/or form of mythological figures or deities? Why is Yu’s “inner self” the Japanese god of creation? Why is Rise’s Persona, of the Lovers Arcana, the bodhisattva Guanyin? Guanyin is not a romantic figure at all. It’s borderline blasphemous to think of her that way, to be honest. Put another way, are the Personas literally the mythological figures? If not, as one might conclude based on, for example, how different Rise and Guanyin are, what’s the point of the Personas having those names/forms/myths?
I ask this to pose a related question: is the Izanami we’re discussing literally the Izanami from Japanese myth? Unlike with the Personas, the game implies she is, because it goes out of its way to explain her myth during the September trip and the final dungeon is Yomotsu Hirasaka, the entrance to Yomi. So why is Izanami her own entity, able to do all the things she does in the game, while Izanagi is just Yu’s Persona? If Yu isn’t actually summoning Izanagi – his Persona just takes his form and name for no reason – then where’s the actual Izanagi? Izanagi must exist; after all, Izanami does.
Next: how is Izanami out in the world? Didn’t Izanagi seal Yomotsu Hirasaka with a giant boulder? Also, didn’t this happen eons in the past, at the time when Japan was first created? Why didn’t Izanami do her thing centuries or even millennia ago? Why did she wait until 2011 to “determine humanity’s true wish”? If Izanami-no-Okami split from Izanami-no-Mikoto because humanity turned to ignorance, wouldn’t Izanami-no-Okami have already concluded humanity wished for ignorance and initiated her fog-plan long ago? Why did the split happen, anyway? The game sets it up as a change in humanity – a change from wanting truth to wanting ignorance and therefore self-destruction, but humanity’s always been like that. There was never a golden age of all humankind wanting the truth – there was and always will be people who willfully embrace and propagate falsehoods. We just sort of have to hope they’re not the ones in power. Unfortunately they are, in fact, usually the ones in power.
Why did Izanami-no-Okami need Kusumi-no-Okami to spy on humanity? She seems sure that she knows humanity’s true wish already. Also, she could take a human form, such as the gas station attendant, so couldn’t she have just done that herself? And as for Kusumi-no-Okami’s role as storage for the fog – she refers to the fog as its own sentient entity, which is somewhat out of the blue, as prior to this, the fog was just…well, fog. The team actually allows the fog to take over Marie so they could destroy it while sparing Marie – that’s how the Hollow Forest ends.
While we’re at it, I never showed a screenshot of Marie, so here’s one of my favorite Marie moments. It’s right after the team frees Marie from the Hollow Forest and Marie decides she’s going to punish Yosuke for being Yosuke:
Anyway. If Yu had finished Marie’s Social Link prior to taking down Adachi, her plot begins here, as Margaret informs Yu that Marie has disappeared.
Character spotlight: Marie
Marie’s not playable, but she’s pretty important to the overall plot. Remember the “unfriendly-looking girl” from when Yu first arrived in Inaba? That’s Marie. Marie’s hobbies include writing poetry, hiding her poetry, and erupting in embarassed rage when Yu finds and reads her poetry. Am I a terrible person for finding those scenes hilarious?
Sometime before the game began, Margaret sensed Marie’s destiny is somehow tied to Yu’s and invited her into the Velvet Room. She asks Yu to show her around, since Marie has amnesia and knows next to nothing about the world. For example, Yu shows her a place selling steak skewers and Marie wants to try one, but she doesn’t know you need money to buy food. Also, she asks what steak is short for, and Yu can respond it’s short for “steaaaaaaaaak.” Am I a terrible person for picking that option every time?
I mentioned amnesia. The only thing Marie owns is an ancient bamboo comb, so her Social Link involves trying to figure out her past by learning more about the comb. We learn that it’s ancient, it’s made of bamboo, it’s probably not used like a regular comb since it’s so elegantly made, and it probably wasn’t a gift – the Japanese don’t gift combs because the Japanese word for “comb” can translate to “pain and death.” In other words, we learn nothing about Marie’s past, but she realizes she’s made new and happy memories with Yu and his friends. She thus decides she doesn’t really need to remember her past, and since she doesn’t need the bamboo comb anymore, she gifts it to Yu.
Wait. Didn’t we just get done explaining why combs shouldn’t be gifted to people in Japan? She’s doing this because I read her poetry and misled her about steaaaaaaaaak, isn’t she?
Anyway, Marie does get her memory back at the end of December, and it’s so distressing Marie creates her dungeon in the TV world, the Hollow Forest, and attempts to shut herself in it and die. By the time Margaret finds Marie, it’s February, and the team’s on a ski trip.
February
Everyone finds a TV that’s flickering even when not plugged in. Chie pokes at the screen and a hand comes out of it, pulling her in. The entire rest of the group grabs onto Chie to pull her back, but they all get pulled, literally single-handedly, into the TV. The owner of that hand is Margaret, who had found Marie and apologizes for “the slightly impolite invitation.”
To recap: her idea of an invitation is to pull 8 resisting people into the TV world with one hand. We’ll get back to Margaret later, but for now, she directs the team to the Hollow Forest to go after Marie. The Hollow Forest is a notoriously tedious dungeon, but the only thing I’ll say is that it’s not actually a forest. I was actually going to make fun of that until it dawned on me that Marie likely legitimately does not know what a forest is.
To explain Marie’s memories, we need to go to March. And the game, for no discernible reason, skips from Valentine's Day, right after rescuing Marie, directly to March 20. That's the last day of the game, so if you’re missing Social Links or whatnot prior to the ski trip, consider yourself boned.
March
On March 20, Yu says good-bye to everyone and the game asks if you want to go home. If you say no despite having no reason to do so, the game will let you wander around. If you go to Junes’s food court despite having no reason to do so, the game will initiate the True Ending path in which Yu learns why he, Namatame, and Adachi got TV powers in the first place.
I said it was the gas station attendant. The gas station attendant is, in fact, Izanami-no-Okami in disguise. She gave the three the ability to go into the TV so she could determine humanity’s true wish and, since she concluded that humanity wished for blissful ignorance, she created Ameno-Sagiri, the giant eyeball, to spread the fog into Inaba. If the team had failed to take down Adachi and Ameno-Sagiri prior to Christmas Eve, the fog would have then spread to the entire world and turned everyone into Shadows.
Upon Ameno-Sagiri’s defeat, he agrees to retract the fog, which he does by sending it all into Marie. That’s what restores her memory. In ancient times, Izanami-no-Mikoto wanted to protect humanity and grant its wishes. Humanity then turned toward ignorance, which is innately self-destructing, so Izanami-no-Mikoto’s desire to protect humanity clashed with her desire to grant humanity’s wishes. As such, she split into Kusumi-no-Okami (Marie’s true name) and Izanami-no-Okami. The latter was the stronger of the two by far, and she initiated her fog-plan.
As for Kusumi-no-Okami? She was powerless and had no memory, so Izanami-no-Okami used her to spy on humanity to glean humanity’s true wish. She was also her backup plan if the Sagiri fell – she would serve as a receptacle for the fog until Izanami-no-Okami decided she wanted to try again or something.
I’ll be honest; this ending is very confusing to me. Let’s first address a question I still struggle with – what is a Persona?
The arc words of the series – “I am thou; thou art I” – speak to how a Persona is a facet of a person’s inner self. But then why does a Persona take the name and/or form of mythological figures or deities? Why is Yu’s “inner self” the Japanese god of creation? Why is Rise’s Persona, of the Lovers Arcana, the bodhisattva Guanyin? Guanyin is not a romantic figure at all. It’s borderline blasphemous to think of her that way, to be honest. Put another way, are the Personas literally the mythological figures? If not, as one might conclude based on, for example, how different Rise and Guanyin are, what’s the point of the Personas having those names/forms/myths?
I ask this to pose a related question: is the Izanami we’re discussing literally the Izanami from Japanese myth? Unlike with the Personas, the game implies she is, because it goes out of its way to explain her myth during the September trip and the final dungeon is Yomotsu Hirasaka, the entrance to Yomi. So why is Izanami her own entity, able to do all the things she does in the game, while Izanagi is just Yu’s Persona? If Yu isn’t actually summoning Izanagi – his Persona just takes his form and name for no reason – then where’s the actual Izanagi? Izanagi must exist; after all, Izanami does.
Next: how is Izanami out in the world? Didn’t Izanagi seal Yomotsu Hirasaka with a giant boulder? Also, didn’t this happen eons in the past, at the time when Japan was first created? Why didn’t Izanami do her thing centuries or even millennia ago? Why did she wait until 2011 to “determine humanity’s true wish”? If Izanami-no-Okami split from Izanami-no-Mikoto because humanity turned to ignorance, wouldn’t Izanami-no-Okami have already concluded humanity wished for ignorance and initiated her fog-plan long ago? Why did the split happen, anyway? The game sets it up as a change in humanity – a change from wanting truth to wanting ignorance and therefore self-destruction, but humanity’s always been like that. There was never a golden age of all humankind wanting the truth – there was and always will be people who willfully embrace and propagate falsehoods. We just sort of have to hope they’re not the ones in power. Unfortunately they are, in fact, usually the ones in power.
Why did Izanami-no-Okami need Kusumi-no-Okami to spy on humanity? She seems sure that she knows humanity’s true wish already. Also, she could take a human form, such as the gas station attendant, so couldn’t she have just done that herself? And as for Kusumi-no-Okami’s role as storage for the fog – she refers to the fog as its own sentient entity, which is somewhat out of the blue, as prior to this, the fog was just…well, fog. The team actually allows the fog to take over Marie so they could destroy it while sparing Marie – that’s how the Hollow Forest ends.
While we’re at it, I never showed a screenshot of Marie, so here’s one of my favorite Marie moments. It’s right after the team frees Marie from the Hollow Forest and Marie decides she’s going to punish Yosuke for being Yosuke:
So while the game does its best to throw red herrings and “(wo)man behind the man” plot twists at the player, it doesn’t really make much sense. Anyway, once Yu defeats Izanami-no-Okami, she congratulates him and Marie re-merges with her, reforming Izanami-no-Mikoto.
…which is heartwarming, even if all this doesn’t make sense. I thought Izanagi/Izanami’s myth was really sad, since it’s essentially a big breakup (and, like I explained, it shouldn’t even be a necessary one). But in Persona 4, Marie becomes Izanami reborn and is once again happy and benevolent. If we interpret Yu’s Persona as literally being Izanagi of myth, we can conclude that the two made up, as Yu’s influence was instrumental to restoring Marie’s true form.
There is one final character we should talk about…
Character spotlight: Margaret
…which is heartwarming, even if all this doesn’t make sense. I thought Izanagi/Izanami’s myth was really sad, since it’s essentially a big breakup (and, like I explained, it shouldn’t even be a necessary one). But in Persona 4, Marie becomes Izanami reborn and is once again happy and benevolent. If we interpret Yu’s Persona as literally being Izanagi of myth, we can conclude that the two made up, as Yu’s influence was instrumental to restoring Marie’s true form.
There is one final character we should talk about…
Character spotlight: Margaret
Margaret serves as Igor’s assistant in the Velvet Room and has a refined, elegant demeanor. She’s also a gigantic troll. Remember Marie’s poems? She’s the one who leaves them lying around for Yu to read, thereby eliciting Marie’s anguished cries of embarrassment (Marie somehow never figures out it’s her). She sets up a fortune-telling booth at the Culture Festival in October just to mess with Yu. During her Social Link, she asks for an elephant Persona because she wants to see a longer nose than Igor’s. She also declares she wants to ride Gdon, but since Gdon is covered in flames, she asks if she can extinguish it. She reassures Yu that she’s kidding – she wouldn’t harm him nor his Personas. Maybe.
Hint: she will, absolutely, harm Yu. You see, Margaret is also the game’s secret superboss. Rise! What does the scouter say about her power level?
Hint: she will, absolutely, harm Yu. You see, Margaret is also the game’s secret superboss. Rise! What does the scouter say about her power level?
Remember how she pulled 8 people into the TV with one hand? That wasn’t just cutscene power. Margaret really is just that strong. In-game, she has 15,000 HP and will heal herself to full after you deplete 50% of her HP the first time, meaning she effectively has ~22,500 HP (to put that in perspective, Izanami-no-Okami has 8,000 HP). Her spells hit like Yukiko’s. She cycles through all the elements, so if you get unlucky, she can hit your party members’ weaknesses to give her even more actions. She will Mind Charge/Morning Star and Power Charge/Hassou Tobi your ass. She’ll change her affinities throughout the fight and, at times, will straight-up resist/null everything except Almighty. And every 50th turn she takes, which is every 25 rounds given she moves twice per round, she’ll use her special Megidolaon, which does 9999 damage to everyone in the party. This is a game where your HP cap is 999. If you have an Omnipotent Orb equipped (this nullifies all attacks except Almighty), she’ll just spam her 9999 Megidolaon from the beginning of the fight until you die. This is why I didn’t try to get Omnipotent Orbs from the Reaper – I don’t need it against every other enemy in the game and it’s a death sentence in the one battle where it would actually be useful.
Manage to beat her and she gives you her bookmark. It does nothing.
Manage to beat her and she gives you her bookmark. It does nothing.