When I first played P4G, there was something that confused me when everyone visited Nanako in the hospital for the first time. When Dojima is talking about his injuries, Adachi says "I'm sorry. I'll wheel him back to his room immediately." I didn't understand why Adachi was apologizing, and even Dojima asked "What're you apologizing for...?" Based on Dojima's reaction, it seems that apologizing was out of character for Adachi. I just wanted to know your thoughts on that. Love your blog btw!
OK, I wanted to make sure to give an accurate answer here, and since apologies are such a nuanced, essential part of the Japanese language, I decided to grab some screens from the original Japanese version:
“Excuse me. I will roll you back to your room right now, Sir.”
“Why are you being so humble and polite…?”
Now, it’s pretty noticeable here that Adachi is speaking in Desu-Masu forms, a polite form of talking, usually used towards strangers and superiors. This is noteworthy, because Adachi doesn’t usually use Desu-Masu a whole lot, which is probably part of why Dojima is so surprised. Desu-Masu makes your speech sound soft and humble.
Adachi also uses the word “Sumimasen” here, albeit he slurs it into “Suimasen”, which is common for younger man. “Sumimasen” is the Desu-Masu form of “Sumanai”, meaning “Excuse me”. This word is used to apologize when you’ve been rude, have done something that caused someone trouble, or are intruding on another person’s life otherwise. It comes from the word “sumasu” which means “to bring to an end”, so the connotation is roughly “I can’t even finish this” or “I can’t even begin to apologize”.
By using “Sumimasen” and Desu-Masu forms so instinctively here, it shows that Adachi is genuinely feeling bad about what is happening, like there was some form of guilt here on his part… which is true, since he’s the friggin’ reason all of this ever happened.
Seeing how most of the games are pretty clear about how Adachi still had a genuine attachment to Dojima and Nanako, despite his all-around shitty personality, I interpret this to mean that he’s genuinely feeling bad about how the Dojimas got involved in his mess, hence why he’s feeling compulsively apologetic in this scene.
