the persona 4 dumpster

Adachi fangirl and Shuada shipper (Narukami top x Adachi bottom). This is my personal archive of Persona stuff so it's all in one place instead of spread across the internet. Don't put anything from this blog on the Fandom Megami Tensei Wiki.

[adachimoe]

Pinned

my not-so-masterlist of posts

read this interview from 2008/2009 about p4

contribute to the indie megaten wiki

p4 audio dramas

persona stalker club q & a

I'm preparing to move to Asia later this year and will probably be extremely afk for the time being.

[adachimoe]

btw something else hashino mentioned in that denfami article was that the staff asked themselves about what they would do if they saw a family member's murderer after they had served time and were released from prison. furthermore, they considered having a family member or a major female character die, but thought that was too dark, and it was never actually written, it was just an idea they tossed around. we can see how these discussions might have led into the nanako and namatame situation

but the internet seems to spread rumors about "a draft of p4 where nanako died for real and dojima was in mega despair and murdered adachi and went into the tv world". and of course people don't ever source this, they just say this shit lol. i wonder if this denfami comment is where that came from?

(though, in general, i feel like a lot of people are uhh... like they find it disappointing that nanako doesn't actually die? the game seems to explain that nanako comes back because of the same reason the protagonist comes back when facing izanami - they both hear the voices of everyone calling out to them. at least i hope the aforementioned edgelords consistently complain about the protagonist getting back up vs izanami too.)

[adachimoe]

actually, on the subject of "people who play these video games really seem to hate kids", i remember people back in the day uhh blaming ken entirely for shinji's death, which i think is really fucking weird

[adachimoe]

btw something else hashino mentioned in that denfami article was that the staff asked themselves about what they would do if they saw a family member's murderer after they had served time and were released from prison. furthermore, they considered having a family member or a major female character die, but thought that was too dark, and it was never actually written, it was just an idea they tossed around. we can see how these discussions might have led into the nanako and namatame situation

but the internet seems to spread rumors about "a draft of p4 where nanako died for real and dojima was in mega despair and murdered adachi and went into the tv world". and of course people don't ever source this, they just say this shit lol. i wonder if this denfami comment is where that came from?

(though, in general, i feel like a lot of people are uhh... like they find it disappointing that nanako doesn't actually die? the game seems to explain that nanako comes back because of the same reason the protagonist comes back when facing izanami - they both hear the voices of everyone calling out to them. at least i hope the aforementioned edgelords consistently complain about the protagonist getting back up vs izanami too.)

[adachimoe]

hashino on kindaichi

in that interview where we saw the original p3 social link planning things, hashino goes on to talk about p4 and its story and the influences. he specifically talks about kindaichi and how the idea for p4 was "small city" + "kindaichi". hashino has spoken about kindaichi in relation to p4 before, but this interview, i think he gave more detail about what he meant by that.

kindaichi is a series of older japanese mystery novels by yokomizo about a fictional detective named kindaichi. later, there was an unrelated but claimed to be related manga, the kindaichi case files, not by yokomizo, but the premise was the main character is possibly a descendant of the original detective kindaichi. chie even has a line where she likens naoto to kindaichi as being part of a family with multiple generations of detectives (which was changed in eng to reference raido kuzunoha instead cause americans wouldn't know kindaichi lol).

hashino recalls reading a critique of kindaichi. and, based on this critique, he proceeds to describe this kinda caricature of how a typical kindaichi novel goes: city boy kindaichi is called to a smaller city / rural area. he is an outsider who is new to the town, doesn't know anything about the townspeople, their customs, etc. he causes chaos by pointing out who the culprit is, then the culprit goes, "grr! welp guess i'll just die now", then kindaichi is like "well shucks the culprit just leapt to their death sorry lol anyway bye back to the big city for me".

hashino likens this process to kindaichi destroying things - kindaichi represents the new/urban element, and he goes to an old/traditional city, and he fucks everything up. hashino then adds his personal interpretation that yokomizo used this fictional mystery / entertainment structure as a like... narrative framework...? for how a lot of prewar / traditional / longstanding things got broken down in the postwar era. like kindaichi is removing a jenga piece and everything just collapses afterwards.

so in the past, when hashino talked about kindaichi, i thought he was talking about being inspired by like... the general idea of kindaichi? like maybe you read sherlock holmes or nancy drew or something, so you think of that inspiring you when you get to make your own mystery? but what hashino says here, it sounds like criticism he read of kindaichi was a bigger influence on p4 than actual kindaichi lol.....

like after reading his thoughts on this, i think you can easily correlate multiple things in p4 to being relevant to or possibly influenced by hashino's views on kindaichi as this "old vs new" kind of thing.

for example, there's junes vs the shopping street, in the sense that it's "the old vs the new". junes is this "invader" to inaba's traditional shopping street. and then as the game goes on and the fog appears, some npcs even mention the fog being some kind of conspiracy from junes. maybe that's like, the towns people viewing the fog and junes as their version of the destruction caused by kindaichi?

the protagonist, while he is not called to inaba to solve the murder as kindaichi would, feels like an... "anti-kindaichi". he makes friends with people in inaba and he forms social links, he fully integrates himself into inaba, and doesn't just get on the train and leave with everything gone to shit. and amongst his friends are these characters who have connections to "old" and "new" elements: you have yukiko and kanji and rise, whose families own businesses that represent the traditional side of inaba. then you have yosuke + teddie who are associated with junes, and naoto who comes off as a played straight kindaichi at first.

naoto... really does seem like this almost-played-straight version of kindaichi, and then rise is the one who voices criticism of naoto similar to what hashino read about kindaichi. but then, by the end, naoto is clearly not just this... invasive species of detective who comes there and leaves everything in shambles lol. recall what naoto says to the protagonist in the ending - she talks about getting on the train and going back to the big city with him, but she resolves to stay and see the aftermath through, like a counter to hashino's view of kindaichi as causing destruction and leaving asap.

i think adachi can also be viewed under this "hashino's recollection of criticism of kindaichi" as well. compared to the protag being the "anti-kindaichi" and naoto being the "half kindaichi", then i guess adachi might qualify as the closest thing p4 has to an actual kindaichi figure? he is a detective from the big city, and he doesn't seem to try and integrate himself into the culture of inaba. and due to him being the murderer, he is also the destructive, invasive element that turns inaba on its head. (i am under the impression that kindaichi himself doesn't show contempt for the settings he visits, so perhaps adachi is more of a caricature lol) however, through the power of like, anime and friendship or something, inaba avoids being destroyed

and, if we view adachi this way, then perhaps we can take his role in the story, and reflect it back to the kindaichi novels? hashino is, by extension, suggesting that kindaichi, who leaves destruction where he goes by exposing the culprit and tearing down these traditions, has also committed a type of "murder"

izanami also feels connected to this idea: she intentionally tries to introduce outsiders to inaba to mix things up, perhaps positioning her more similar to the role of the author, yokomizo, who sticks kindaichi in these situations to begin with lol

while this might feels a bit mild or something, the conclusion the game seems to land on is, "why cant the old and new co-exist?" unlike hashino's interpretation of "kindaichi represents tearing up the foundations of set in prewar japan", we dont get the idea that inaba has been completely devestated by this. like, the amagi inn doesn't explode because mayumi was murdered there, and in golden, we learn that junes has started carrying products from the central shopping district.

[adachimoe]

p4r is getting a simplified chinese dub

tbh, I assume this is a compliance thing since yosuke and naoto's voice actors are both cancelled there

[adachimoe]

personally i think what makes yosuke "annoying" is that the game sets him as a character who eats shit as a result of his own machinations, but because you are so used to seeing him Eat Shit, it makes it stand out when he does not Eat Shit

for example:

he broke chie's dvd -> he tries to run away but runs into a desk

he tries to suggestively ask yukiko for help studying -> she slaps him

he makes fun of chie for being afraid of the dark and lightning -> the lightning causes a power outage at junes and there goes his bonus

he buys the girls swimsuits at junes -> chie buys teddies clothes with his money at junes

he was on another floor buying the swimsuits -> he doesn't know about the grocery shopping disaster

he expects yukiko to be able to cook and downplays chie -> yukiko can't cook

he bothers the girls into putting on swimsuits -> his comments are so bad that chie pushes him into the stream where morooka has been throwing up

he wants to pick up girls with a scooter -> he gets a girl but the game is fatphobic so its hanako and she breaks his scooter

he wants to dive off the stage like teddie -> the crowd parts and he and kanji land on their faces

he signs the girls up for the beauty contest -> he gets signed up for the crossdressing contest

he wants to get revenge on the girls for the hot springs time -> he enters hanako and kashiwagis room instead

he wants to peep on the girls in the hot springs while skiing -> the screen falls and marie smites the guys

like you see what i mean there are these incidents with yosuke scattered throughout the game where yosuke is being dumb, but for each of his dumb little schemes, because p4 relies on slapstick humor, there is some kind of equally slapstick outcome waiting for yosuke. even the parts where yosuke is made out to be a punchline without there being any setup are portrayed as dumb slapstick humor: like him crashing his bike seems to have no setup i think he's just actually unlucky and it has the slapstick result of him in the trash can, and yukiko forgetting the hot springs time is also on her but it also has the slapstick result of the boys being chucked buckets at and leaving the bath.

but when it comes to like... how he talks to kanji, and to a lesser extent naoto, yosuke is never actually made to Eat Shit like he is when his schemes blow up in his face.

the closest we get is when teddie has his human form, yosuke makes fun of kanji again by asking if teddie is his type, and kanji replies"oh so you want me to beat the shit out of you?" yosuke seemingly backs off after that, but it doesn't stop him from coming back during the naoto arc to make remarks about kanji being concerned about what naoto said. and then golden also adds in the beach scene where yosuke is cringing at kanji's speedo.

and once naoto joins the party, he expresses disappointment at her being this pro detective who got taken out by the kidnapper so easily, and later jokes about her being useless because she doesn't know 2nd year math. and he says both of these things having seen that her shadow and her conflict were centered around people use her to solve cases and then discard her once the case is over.

he is basically punching down on 2 people who are younger than him and also his juniors (at both school and within the investigation team) over things their shadows said. (the other character who brings up "old wounds" by bringing up the shadows is teddie, specifically with yukiko as its why teddie keeps talking about "scoring", except teddie is also like 5 days old and has no idea what he is saying so if i'm being honest i'm more forgiving of him being a dipshit.)

one might assume, well, the reason why yosuke doesnt get any pushback on how he treats kanji and naoto because the game is going somewhere with this. ...but p4 is a finished product already, and we know it doesn't go anywhere with this lol. it just ends up coming off as, "yosuke is being a jerk to kanji and naoto about their shadows".

there is also the whole thing that... "well, that's just part of being a friend group", and "being able to joke around with your friends". and yeah definitely, for sure. but uhm... the characters in the game in general don't exactly all go around shitting on each other about what their shadows said/did. like no one is telling rise to strip. it's specifically yosuke towards kanji and naoto (and teddie towards yukiko).

(it's also clear that the group didn't really fill in each new member about what all has happened: kanji doesn't understand when teddie is talking about yukiko's shadow, and rise has no idea what happened between kanji and naoto in the past.)

when other characters come to kanji and naoto's aid, their "aid" barely even registers as "aid": yukiko hits us with the very eyerolly gender essentialist line about "but yosuke, naoto is just a girl!" and chie gets closer at identifying "yosuke is the one stirring shit" when she tells yosuke to stop about dogging kanji about naoto while still missing the mark because it comes out as like...... "yosuke you need to stop that because kanji is unable to take that kind of joke".

what is the game trying to tell me? that kanji and naoto are "acceptable" targets to punch down on? that they're not going to say anything back because they're yosukes juniors?

and coming from yosuke, to me at least i think there's another layer of bullshit there: that seems really eyerolly because he saw every shadow, yet no one except teddie and the protag saw his. (like the naoto remark is even goofier cause he didn't even get kidnapped and we know he would've gone down just as easily to namatame with a chloroform towel).

in real life, yeah these guys absolutely exist, and people really do put up with them. but this is not real life, and i have been trained by the game to expect yosuke to walk into a rake or step on a pile of legos or something when he does this stuff.

so, in conclusion, if atlus is not going to "go somewhere" with this and we're meant to assume that that's just his personality, then i am completely serious about "solving" this by having kanji just deck yosuke. again, the game has trained me to expect slapstick conclusions, and that is what i am expecting. chop chop.

(on a more serious note, "we're toning down yosuke's homophobia" is absolutely going to get a hilariously wide range of reactions from people. ppl who thought p4 resonated with them because of queer readings and took yosuke's arc to be a closeted kid lashing out with homophobic remarks might find removing any sign of yosuke acting like that as homophobia itself. ppl who dislike when video game characters especially main characters talk like that, then they'd see this as a positive change as since yosuke's homophobic remarks never went anywhere in the story / like there is no resolution, then they seem wholly unnecessary. if someone is a chud on twitter, then this is like censorship [even tho its coming from atlus themselves]. if someone dislikes that yosuke was specifically bullying kanji, then frankly i'm not sure they'll like the end result because the point of yosuke's lines to kanji were to bully him, so if not about Gay!!!, then yosuke might just find something else to bully him over. given how p3r's version of the answer had changes like... removing yukari trying to steal the key from aigis and so much other shit, its like maruki took the helm and is removing stuff that would be seen as friction.)

[adachimoe]

addendum. this is what im assuming yosuke's story is:

"well i wanna go find saki's murderer, like i was put here in inaba from the big city on purpose to solve this case! that is how i will become special! i'm a chosen one!" (meta level: atlus has also said they gave him jiraiya because having it as a persona would allow him to think he's special/chosen)

but while this desire drives him to go back into the tv, he quickly gets outshone by the protag who has literal magical powers (yosuke seems a little butthurt when teddie first calls the protag sensei/master too).

in his attempts to find his belonging now that he's clearly the #2-at-best guy and figure out how he is "special", that insecurity surfaces as him punching down on kanji (who is below him on the totem pole; he isn't going to shit on protag/chie/yukiko/rise).

and when naoto shows up and comes with a whole slew of deductions and observatiosn from her own kidnapping, yosuke might even threatened even as the #2-at-best guy, so he tries poking holes at her: "wow you went down so fast", "wow you cant do 2nd year math huh".

idk im assuming that's what his story was meant to be. he figures out in his ~optional~ social link what it means to be special and how he can be special to others Just By Existing, but his social link is again ~optional~ and we don't really see the reflection of this in the main story outside of observing that yosuke suddenly seems to have chilled and is not bothering the 1st years.

[adachimoe]

addendum to the addendum:

tbh i think the more likely read is that lightning does not strike yosuke when he bullies kanji about his shadow because hashino and his buds think its acceptable for lgbtqa topics to be made fun of :)

[adachimoe]

personally i think what makes yosuke "annoying" is that the game sets him as a character who eats shit as a result of his own machinations, but because you are so used to seeing him Eat Shit, it makes it stand out when he does not Eat Shit

for example:

he broke chie's dvd -> he tries to run away but runs into a desk

he tries to suggestively ask yukiko for help studying -> she slaps him

he makes fun of chie for being afraid of the dark and lightning -> the lightning causes a power outage at junes and there goes his bonus

he buys the girls swimsuits at junes -> chie buys teddies clothes with his money at junes

he was on another floor buying the swimsuits -> he doesn't know about the grocery shopping disaster

he expects yukiko to be able to cook and downplays chie -> yukiko can't cook

he bothers the girls into putting on swimsuits -> his comments are so bad that chie pushes him into the stream where morooka has been throwing up

he wants to pick up girls with a scooter -> he gets a girl but the game is fatphobic so its hanako and she breaks his scooter

he wants to dive off the stage like teddie -> the crowd parts and he and kanji land on their faces

he signs the girls up for the beauty contest -> he gets signed up for the crossdressing contest

he wants to get revenge on the girls for the hot springs time -> he enters hanako and kashiwagis room instead

he wants to peep on the girls in the hot springs while skiing -> the screen falls and marie smites the guys

like you see what i mean there are these incidents with yosuke scattered throughout the game where yosuke is being dumb, but for each of his dumb little schemes, because p4 relies on slapstick humor, there is some kind of equally slapstick outcome waiting for yosuke. even the parts where yosuke is made out to be a punchline without there being any setup are portrayed as dumb slapstick humor: like him crashing his bike seems to have no setup i think he's just actually unlucky and it has the slapstick result of him in the trash can, and yukiko forgetting the hot springs time is also on her but it also has the slapstick result of the boys being chucked buckets at and leaving the bath.

but when it comes to like... how he talks to kanji, and to a lesser extent naoto, yosuke is never actually made to Eat Shit like he is when his schemes blow up in his face.

the closest we get is when teddie has his human form, yosuke makes fun of kanji again by asking if teddie is his type, and kanji replies"oh so you want me to beat the shit out of you?" yosuke seemingly backs off after that, but it doesn't stop him from coming back during the naoto arc to make remarks about kanji being concerned about what naoto said. and then golden also adds in the beach scene where yosuke is cringing at kanji's speedo.

and once naoto joins the party, he expresses disappointment at her being this pro detective who got taken out by the kidnapper so easily, and later jokes about her being useless because she doesn't know 2nd year math. and he says both of these things having seen that her shadow and her conflict were centered around people use her to solve cases and then discard her once the case is over.

he is basically punching down on 2 people who are younger than him and also his juniors (at both school and within the investigation team) over things their shadows said. (the other character who brings up "old wounds" by bringing up the shadows is teddie, specifically with yukiko as its why teddie keeps talking about "scoring", except teddie is also like 5 days old and has no idea what he is saying so if i'm being honest i'm more forgiving of him being a dipshit.)

one might assume, well, the reason why yosuke doesnt get any pushback on how he treats kanji and naoto because the game is going somewhere with this. ...but p4 is a finished product already, and we know it doesn't go anywhere with this lol. it just ends up coming off as, "yosuke is being a jerk to kanji and naoto about their shadows".

there is also the whole thing that... "well, that's just part of being a friend group", and "being able to joke around with your friends". and yeah definitely, for sure. but uhm... the characters in the game in general don't exactly all go around shitting on each other about what their shadows said/did. like no one is telling rise to strip. it's specifically yosuke towards kanji and naoto (and teddie towards yukiko).

(it's also clear that the group didn't really fill in each new member about what all has happened: kanji doesn't understand when teddie is talking about yukiko's shadow, and rise has no idea what happened between kanji and naoto in the past.)

when other characters come to kanji and naoto's aid, their "aid" barely even registers as "aid": yukiko hits us with the very eyerolly gender essentialist line about "but yosuke, naoto is just a girl!" and chie gets closer at identifying "yosuke is the one stirring shit" when she tells yosuke to stop about dogging kanji about naoto while still missing the mark because it comes out as like...... "yosuke you need to stop that because kanji is unable to take that kind of joke".

what is the game trying to tell me? that kanji and naoto are "acceptable" targets to punch down on? that they're not going to say anything back because they're yosukes juniors?

and coming from yosuke, to me at least i think there's another layer of bullshit there: that seems really eyerolly because he saw every shadow, yet no one except teddie and the protag saw his. (like the naoto remark is even goofier cause he didn't even get kidnapped and we know he would've gone down just as easily to namatame with a chloroform towel).

in real life, yeah these guys absolutely exist, and people really do put up with them. but this is not real life, and i have been trained by the game to expect yosuke to walk into a rake or step on a pile of legos or something when he does this stuff.

so, in conclusion, if atlus is not going to "go somewhere" with this and we're meant to assume that that's just his personality, then i am completely serious about "solving" this by having kanji just deck yosuke. again, the game has trained me to expect slapstick conclusions, and that is what i am expecting. chop chop.

(on a more serious note, "we're toning down yosuke's homophobia" is absolutely going to get a hilariously wide range of reactions from people. ppl who thought p4 resonated with them because of queer readings and took yosuke's arc to be a closeted kid lashing out with homophobic remarks might find removing any sign of yosuke acting like that as homophobia itself. ppl who dislike when video game characters especially main characters talk like that, then they'd see this as a positive change as since yosuke's homophobic remarks never went anywhere in the story / like there is no resolution, then they seem wholly unnecessary. if someone is a chud on twitter, then this is like censorship [even tho its coming from atlus themselves]. if someone dislikes that yosuke was specifically bullying kanji, then frankly i'm not sure they'll like the end result because the point of yosuke's lines to kanji were to bully him, so if not about Gay!!!, then yosuke might just find something else to bully him over. given how p3r's version of the answer had changes like... removing yukari trying to steal the key from aigis and so much other shit, its like maruki took the helm and is removing stuff that would be seen as friction.)

[adachimoe]

addendum. this is what im assuming yosuke's story is:

"well i wanna go find saki's murderer, like i was put here in inaba from the big city on purpose to solve this case! that is how i will become special! i'm a chosen one!" (meta level: atlus has also said they gave him jiraiya because having it as a persona would allow him to think he's special/chosen)

but while this desire drives him to go back into the tv, he quickly gets outshone by the protag who has literal magical powers (yosuke seems a little butthurt when teddie first calls the protag sensei/master too).

in his attempts to find his belonging now that he's clearly the #2-at-best guy and figure out how he is "special", that insecurity surfaces as him punching down on kanji (who is below him on the totem pole; he isn't going to shit on protag/chie/yukiko/rise).

and when naoto shows up and comes with a whole slew of deductions and observatiosn from her own kidnapping, yosuke might even threatened even as the #2-at-best guy, so he tries poking holes at her: "wow you went down so fast", "wow you cant do 2nd year math huh".

idk im assuming that's what his story was meant to be. he figures out in his ~optional~ social link what it means to be special and how he can be special to others Just By Existing, but his social link is again ~optional~ and we don't really see the reflection of this in the main story outside of observing that yosuke suddenly seems to have chilled and is not bothering the 1st years.

[adachimoe]

personally i think what makes yosuke "annoying" is that the game sets him as a character who eats shit as a result of his own machinations, but because you are so used to seeing him Eat Shit, it makes it stand out when he does not Eat Shit

for example:

he broke chie's dvd -> he tries to run away but runs into a desk

he tries to suggestively ask yukiko for help studying -> she slaps him

he makes fun of chie for being afraid of the dark and lightning -> the lightning causes a power outage at junes and there goes his bonus

he buys the girls swimsuits at junes -> chie buys teddies clothes with his money at junes

he was on another floor buying the swimsuits -> he doesn't know about the grocery shopping disaster

he expects yukiko to be able to cook and downplays chie -> yukiko can't cook

he bothers the girls into putting on swimsuits -> his comments are so bad that chie pushes him into the stream where morooka has been throwing up

he wants to pick up girls with a scooter -> he gets a girl but the game is fatphobic so its hanako and she breaks his scooter

he wants to dive off the stage like teddie -> the crowd parts and he and kanji land on their faces

he signs the girls up for the beauty contest -> he gets signed up for the crossdressing contest

he wants to get revenge on the girls for the hot springs time -> he enters hanako and kashiwagis room instead

he wants to peep on the girls in the hot springs while skiing -> the screen falls and marie smites the guys

like you see what i mean there are these incidents with yosuke scattered throughout the game where yosuke is being dumb, but for each of his dumb little schemes, because p4 relies on slapstick humor, there is some kind of equally slapstick outcome waiting for yosuke. even the parts where yosuke is made out to be a punchline without there being any setup are portrayed as dumb slapstick humor: like him crashing his bike seems to have no setup i think he's just actually unlucky and it has the slapstick result of him in the trash can, and yukiko forgetting the hot springs time is also on her but it also has the slapstick result of the boys being chucked buckets at and leaving the bath.

but when it comes to like... how he talks to kanji, and to a lesser extent naoto, yosuke is never actually made to Eat Shit like he is when his schemes blow up in his face.

the closest we get is when teddie has his human form, yosuke makes fun of kanji again by asking if teddie is his type, and kanji replies"oh so you want me to beat the shit out of you?" yosuke seemingly backs off after that, but it doesn't stop him from coming back during the naoto arc to make remarks about kanji being concerned about what naoto said. and then golden also adds in the beach scene where yosuke is cringing at kanji's speedo.

and once naoto joins the party, he expresses disappointment at her being this pro detective who got taken out by the kidnapper so easily, and later jokes about her being useless because she doesn't know 2nd year math. and he says both of these things having seen that her shadow and her conflict were centered around people use her to solve cases and then discard her once the case is over.

he is basically punching down on 2 people who are younger than him and also his juniors (at both school and within the investigation team) over things their shadows said. (the other character who brings up "old wounds" by bringing up the shadows is teddie, specifically with yukiko as its why teddie keeps talking about "scoring", except teddie is also like 5 days old and has no idea what he is saying so if i'm being honest i'm more forgiving of him being a dipshit.)

one might assume, well, the reason why yosuke doesnt get any pushback on how he treats kanji and naoto because the game is going somewhere with this. ...but p4 is a finished product already, and we know it doesn't go anywhere with this lol. it just ends up coming off as, "yosuke is being a jerk to kanji and naoto about their shadows".

there is also the whole thing that... "well, that's just part of being a friend group", and "being able to joke around with your friends". and yeah definitely, for sure. but uhm... the characters in the game in general don't exactly all go around shitting on each other about what their shadows said/did. like no one is telling rise to strip. it's specifically yosuke towards kanji and naoto (and teddie towards yukiko).

(it's also clear that the group didn't really fill in each new member about what all has happened: kanji doesn't understand when teddie is talking about yukiko's shadow, and rise has no idea what happened between kanji and naoto in the past.)

when other characters come to kanji and naoto's aid, their "aid" barely even registers as "aid": yukiko hits us with the very eyerolly gender essentialist line about "but yosuke, naoto is just a girl!" and chie gets closer at identifying "yosuke is the one stirring shit" when she tells yosuke to stop about dogging kanji about naoto while still missing the mark because it comes out as like...... "yosuke you need to stop that because kanji is unable to take that kind of joke".

what is the game trying to tell me? that kanji and naoto are "acceptable" targets to punch down on? that they're not going to say anything back because they're yosukes juniors?

and coming from yosuke, to me at least i think there's another layer of bullshit there: that seems really eyerolly because he saw every shadow, yet no one except teddie and the protag saw his. (like the naoto remark is even goofier cause he didn't even get kidnapped and we know he would've gone down just as easily to namatame with a chloroform towel).

in real life, yeah these guys absolutely exist, and people really do put up with them. but this is not real life, and i have been trained by the game to expect yosuke to walk into a rake or step on a pile of legos or something when he does this stuff.

so, in conclusion, if atlus is not going to "go somewhere" with this and we're meant to assume that that's just his personality, then i am completely serious about "solving" this by having kanji just deck yosuke. again, the game has trained me to expect slapstick conclusions, and that is what i am expecting. chop chop.

(on a more serious note, "we're toning down yosuke's homophobia" is absolutely going to get a hilariously wide range of reactions from people. ppl who thought p4 resonated with them because of queer readings and took yosuke's arc to be a closeted kid lashing out with homophobic remarks might find removing any sign of yosuke acting like that as homophobia itself. ppl who dislike when video game characters especially main characters talk like that, then they'd see this as a positive change as since yosuke's homophobic remarks never went anywhere in the story / like there is no resolution, then they seem wholly unnecessary. if someone is a chud on twitter, then this is like censorship [even tho its coming from atlus themselves]. if someone dislikes that yosuke was specifically bullying kanji, then frankly i'm not sure they'll like the end result because the point of yosuke's lines to kanji were to bully him, so if not about Gay!!!, then yosuke might just find something else to bully him over. given how p3r's version of the answer had changes like... removing yukari trying to steal the key from aigis and so much other shit, its like maruki took the helm and is removing stuff that would be seen as friction.)

[adachimoe]

Welp I mentioned this before, but...

tbh the change they should really be making with yosuke is that kanji should punch him

[adachimoe]

the investigation team getting scooters in golden seems kinda normal to me cause i watched yuru camp which takes place near one of the areas that atlus modeled inaba on and the character rin has a scooter from the start that she uses to ride to camp grounds. you can also rent these types of lower cc scooters in the area etc.

[adachimoe]

holy shit im a fraud

in the past i mentioned atlus talked about why jiraiya, tomoe, and konohana sakuya were picked as yosuke, chie and yukiko's personas. it just occurred to me while i was writing up another post that i fucking mistranslated (or idk this was over a year ago, misworded?) all 3 of them jesus christ lmao

yosuke has jiraiya because jiraiya is a folk hero-type figure and having it would allow yosuke to convince himself he might be a chosen one

chie has tomoe because it gives the image of a woman who fights like a man but you still want to protect her

yukiko has konohana sakuya because a prince fell in love with her

i can't speak any language ヽ(*。>Д<)o゜

[adachimoe]

"japan always brings back voice actors"

a bit of a topic right now since with p3r and p4r, the outstanding majority of the eng vas have been replaced. to be honest, i dont know why that happens, but, something that comes up in these convos is that "japan always brings back the voice actors".

if you've been following p4 stuff over the years, yes, daisuke namikawa has always voiced the protagonist, since the game first came out. but, unlike in english where the only times you hear p4 protag guy in the games and anime, in japan you can hear him many other places.

over the years, namikawa...

was in drama cds as the p4 guy

had an official streaming talk show to promote the anime

was a guest on a radio show hosted by yosuke and kanjis vas

appeared at stage greetings for the p4 anime movie

appeared at fan events like the junes fair

recorded commercials like lol the mouthwash collab for the 25th anniversary of persona

recorded for the persona pachinko machines

recorded lines for the gacha collabs w/other games

appeared on a promo stream with teddie's va to promote the arena ultimax remaster

narrated one of sega's tokyo game show streams

recorded lines for the little skits at some of the persona lives

recently, he was the narrator for the p4r broadcast stream while the protag's new eng va did not narrate the english one

and thats just what i can think of off the top of my head. there's probably tons of events in japan that i don't know about at all where he and other voice actors have appeared to represent p4.

basically what im getting at here is that, i am under the impression that namikawa -- even with his scandal in 2018 or so -- has always been continuing to keep a working relationship with atlus/sega/kadokawa/famitsu/aniplex/whatever and has always been voicing the p4 protag. he doesn't need to be "brought back" because like....... he's already there?

this does not seem to be the case for english voice actors, who don't really have all of these things outside of the "main work" (the game/anime) that give them opportunities to keep doing the same role over the years in the same way that the japanese voice actors do. shrug. (from what i understand about the american union as well, the union's minimum hour thing seems kind of awkward for having people do one off or short bits like namikawa has been doing over the years as the p4 protag or for persona promo stuff...?)

[adachimoe]

"risechiizu" / cheese / stuff

follow-up about my other post where i mentioned how the protagonist's uchiwa says, "say 'i'm risette'", as someone commented telling me that no it's actually saying "say cheese, rise", and i realized that this was going to require screenshots from the game which you cannot post in replies lol

the phrase "risechiizu" is not new to rise for revival. after rise is thrown into the tv, her image appears on the midnight channel:

and it says:

"marukyun! risechiizu!" good evening everyone, i'm rise kujikawa!

however, you see the quotes around the top line? that's like, uhm, wow how do i say this omg… it's clear that it's supposed to be her idol persona talking. like… this is "cutesy idol talk"…? (i don't know how to explain this someone pls help lmao) marukyun is a portmanteau of "marukyu" (her family tofu shop) and the "kyun" sound effect. "risechiizu" is a cutesy contraction of "risechii desu" that shes using here as a greeting (check out her other scenes where she talks in "idol mode" and her dialogue is written like, でっす instead of just です, it feels intentional to me?). and yeah you can defo take it as a portmantaeu of her idol name riseichii and cheese cause idolstuff but it feels... secondary? to me? the important part here is that "risechiizu" is what *she* says. so even if you disagree with me about simplifying "risechiizu" into just "risette" and think it should be translated "risecheese" or something, well, the uchiwa is not actually telling rise herself to "say cheese", it would be telling her to "say 'risecheese'" (which is why i rendered it as "say 'i'm risette'").

it seems the english version of persona 4 translated "risechiizu" as "push risette", so another way of think of this is that the protagonist's uchiwa is telling her, "say 'push risette'" if you are used to that localization

[adachimoe]

omg ok i wrote this last night while drunk af and it barely makes any sense

tldr the shadow image thing of rise on the midnight channel says "risechiizu / push risette" and the protagonists uchiwa is asking rise to say "risechiizu / push risette" like the broadcast

(unless they changed events around in revival and now rise also says "risechiizu/push risette")

[adachimoe]

persona 3 social link / commu proposal and azusa kidos role

lets talk about social links... or rather commu. (community.)

azusa kido's involvement

per the credits of p3, azusa kido was the "commu planning leader". we cant just rely on the games credits, they might not actually tell the whole story. to provide another viewpoint, here is an internet archive link for an interview with kido where she herself talks about what exactly a planner at atlus did when she joined and furthermore she also talks about her responsibilities on persona 3.

from what i can tell:

kido joined atlus as a "planner". back then, planners did both "system planning" and "scenario planning" because it was thought to be more efficient if you wrote the scenario for the system that you plan.

atlus has since split "system" and "scenario" into 2 separate roles. (the interview is from after p5 came out.)

persona 3 was a big challenge for her because she was in charge of the "commu/slink" system, a new centerpiece-type feature in persona 3, a title that atlus could not afford to have fail

commu/slink was originally thought to be something without much scenario, but during development, she realized it was actually going to have a shit ton of scenario/text in order to make it work

she also talks about, for example, being anxious as she had no previous examples of the commu/slink system to look at, as it was new for p3

it sounds like she was quite key/important for the development of social links, and her being the "leader" was not just a credit as she describes being put in charge of the system. i totally get what she means about not having a final product to look at too.

her comments about them not realizing how much text that commu/slinks were going to be kinda took me by surprise... the version we got in p3 and beyond felt like a bunch of mini character arcs... how would that not involve a bunch of text...?

or rather, the real question here is, what were commu/slink originally going to be if it was assumed they didnt need that much text?

"commumake", the proposal

hashino might have given us a look into what commu/slinks were originally going to be in another interview where he shared the design proposal page for the system.

originally, it was called "commu make" (community maker? community builder?), and the design doc seems to describe the player making multiple communities (each assigned to a major arcana and had ranks) that had multiple people in each

communities could be created by quests, talking to npcs, having personas with communication skills

examples of communities made: the protag has a community with their family in it under the empress arcana, love interest community with the lovers arcana, if you are elected class rep then you form a class rep community (with a cute vice rep), community with other persona users, school club (and you could join multiple clubs)

communities could rank up via talking/events or also via quests

the example given of a quest also gives an insight into player driven choice/consequence: "family community. cat has gone missing. its in a dungeon. if you take too long to save it, it'll die." (proposal also likens this to "something out of a haruki murakami novel")

protag would have the ability to introspect by talking to their persona through some kind of device

low level community falls apart quicker, high level community falls apart slower

reading over these, i think i can see why atlus thought this would be more "system" and less "scenario". the systems involved here sound more complex and have more moving parts.

speculation

since the protagonist's family is dead in p3 while the proposal document has the "family community", things also must have changed between when this proposal was made and when details were being ironed out about p3. like this proposal itself could have changed a bunch of times.

we can certainly make some assumptions, but we don't know if this proposal represents the same thing that kido was put in charge of to plan for. we don't know if her realizing it needed more text caused this overhaul from the proposal into something with more simplified mechanics while beefing up the character stories. we don't know if, when she had started working on it, the systems had already been simplified, but they understimated how much text it would take to tell all of these character stories. yada yada.

i think you can kinda see traces of the old design doc in some of the later stuff: reverse and break, the scheduling elements, the added quests where ppl go missing in tartarus, reload actually added cats in tartarus too, the fox in p4 being all quests, mementos requests being p5.

(semi-relatedly, but i think there's also this belief that persona's stuff was like copied from dating sims or other life raiser type games, but this honestly sounds like they weren't actively trying to do that. it just… might have accidentally turned out that way...?)

"rank 10 = we're dating, no friendship"

it seems one of the things people have a beef with with persona commu/slink is that the male/female relationships are dumb as shit. i don't disagree lol. and this goes back to the original implementation of the system in persona 3, where maxing a girl out meant you were dating her, no friendship paths.

in an interview about portable, which kido was the writer and director, kido says that femc/kotone/hamuko is not forced into romance with the male characters because male players might find it offputting lol. yes, that's right. it's not, "being forced to date is weird system design", but rather it's, "won't someone think of the male players?" (my opinion ofc, but i feel like kido's comment here does imply that if no one had brought up male players who played as kotone, then kotone also would have gotten auto-romances...?)

this reminds me tho: in a p3r look back, wada mentions that in the original p3, you weren't meant to be able to max all of your social links in one playthrough. im just speculating here, but uh lol... since romance is at rank 10, but they didnt think you could max every slink... my brain is absolutely wondering if they did not ever consider players would just date all of the girls...?

omake

in hashino's interview, he also has a photo a laptop running a tool that atlus made to help with p3, called the "commu simulator". i am guessing that as the name and ui suggests, you could use it to path through the game, see what slinks and social stats you had by the end?

i think this is kinda cute lol it even loads the rider waite tarot art

[adachimoe]

im drunk and prob should not be on a pc but isnt the bangboo on the left adachi

its totally adachi

i dont even play this game anymore but thats totally adachi

holy shit

[adachimoe]

"risechiizu" / cheese / stuff

follow-up about my other post where i mentioned how the protagonist's uchiwa says, "say 'i'm risette'", as someone commented telling me that no it's actually saying "say cheese, rise", and i realized that this was going to require screenshots from the game which you cannot post in replies lol

the phrase "risechiizu" is not new to rise for revival. after rise is thrown into the tv, her image appears on the midnight channel:

and it says:

"marukyun! risechiizu!" good evening everyone, i'm rise kujikawa!

however, you see the quotes around the top line? that's like, uhm, wow how do i say this omg… it's clear that it's supposed to be her idol persona talking. like… this is "cutesy idol talk"…? (i don't know how to explain this someone pls help lmao) marukyun is a portmanteau of "marukyu" (her family tofu shop) and the "kyun" sound effect. "risechiizu" is a cutesy contraction of "risechii desu" that shes using here as a greeting (check out her other scenes where she talks in "idol mode" and her dialogue is written like, でっす instead of just です, it feels intentional to me?). and yeah you can defo take it as a portmantaeu of her idol name riseichii and cheese cause idolstuff but it feels... secondary? to me? the important part here is that "risechiizu" is what *she* says. so even if you disagree with me about simplifying "risechiizu" into just "risette" and think it should be translated "risecheese" or something, well, the uchiwa is not actually telling rise herself to "say cheese", it would be telling her to "say 'risecheese'" (which is why i rendered it as "say 'i'm risette'").

it seems the english version of persona 4 translated "risechiizu" as "push risette", so another way of think of this is that the protagonist's uchiwa is telling her, "say 'push risette'" if you are used to that localization

[adachimoe]

rise oshi katsu

atlus showed a character trailer for rise today. seemingly, she now wears her p4d outfit while introducing herself during the beauty contest in october. (by the way, the english rise trailer cut out the quelorie magic ad lol... it was in the opening of the japanese trailer, tho)

since the junes concert is a couple weeks before this, and most of their outfits are spinoffs of their summer school uniforms, maybe they wear the p4d outfits for the concert...

anyway, protag-kun holds up an uchiwa / round fan in support of rise:

this says, "say 'i'm risette!'" plus with peace signs so he wants her to do a V-sign with her hands too (long explanation: the fan says "risechiizu shite". risechii is rise's jp idol name (the eng is risette). the ~zu is (afaik) like a cutesy and contracted way of saying "desu". and the "shite" is commonly put on uchiwa like this as a way of requesting your oshi to do something. so, putting it together, its like "say 'i'm risette!'")

to the left of yosuke's head is an uchiwa for chie, asking her to do "do~n" (the sound effect that chie says outloud when she punts shadows away), and to the right of the protag is an uchiwa for naoto. you can't see the 2nd line entirely, but i think it's asking her to smile?

here are a few random examples from google img:

i believe the reason why atlus is promoting rise right now is because she will appear at x vorder runway:

even tho the event isn't until september, the ticket lottery for it started a few days ago. on twitter, they announced that vtuber sara hoshikawa will be singing the revival version of true story with rise, and then rise will be singing dai-dai-dai-daisuki with vtuber hinano tachibana.