I want to talk about Nanako’s dungeon and her relationship with grief, and how this grief in part informs her relationship with her father throughout her social link.
The first thing we learn about Nanako’s dungeon is a “warm feeling,” which is implied to be Nanako’s nostalgia for her mother, Chisato Dojima.
Nanako first mentions that her mother, Chisato, is dead in Rank 1 of her link after Yosuke jokes that he and the Investigation Team could maybe whip up something better than her mother’s cooking. But during that, she tells the Investigation Team not to worry, as she has her dad, and now her newly nicknamed brother on her side.
But this clearly isn’t the end of the story. After all, she’s 6 and already experiencing loss. In Rank 4 of her social link, she asks Yu how death works, and asks what happens to a person when they die. To which Yu can guess or he can honestly tell her he has no clue. But if he guesses the “going to heaven” dialogue option, Nanako has a pretty interesting response.
Now, it totally makes sense that this is something Dojima told her, because it’s clearly what informs what her dungeon looks like. When we actually enter Nanako’s dungeon, literally called “Heaven,” Rise comments that it’s… like a storybook version of heaven. It has an almost fairytale castle entrance, with flowers all around it, and the Investigation Team quickly realizes the central theme of the dungeon: grief. And when my team and I played blind, Yukiko’s player astutely commented: “Oh, this is going to be twisted.”
Quite a few of Nanako’s lines in Rank 1 are echoed on the fourth Paradise of her dungeon, where she admits she misses her mother Chisato, but says she isn’t lonely because she has her dad, brother and his friends. But Kanji, who wasn’t present in her Rank 1, sees right through it.
And of course he did, as Kanji's situation is the most similar to Nanako's--he is a boy whose father died when he was a child--so he was old enough to remember, but not old enough to quite process what was going on, and this clearly affected him as shown throughout his social link, such as his Rank 3 where his mother explains that Kanji is afraid of hospitals thanks to his father dying inside of one. Kanji, while having his brain developed enough to have a better understanding of death than Nanako, is still a fifteen year old boy. A big kid, but a kid nonetheless.
Nanako is doing something similar to her father here, in the way she's described to "bear her grief stoically" in her Social Link. She's suppressing her own trauma and telling herself everything is okay. Alan D. Wolfelt mentions this as a way a child can process their grief in his book A Child's View of Grief.
The opposite of regressive behavior among grieving children is the “Big-Man” or “Big-Woman” syndrome. This is apparent when a child attempts to grow up quickly and exhibits adult behavior in an effort to replace the person who has died. This forced maturity can be the result of simply carrying out the instructions of respected adults: “You’ll now have to be the man (or woman) of the house.” Although well-intentioned, adults who deliver this message are unaware of its potentially damaging impact. Sometimes a child unconsciously adopts this syndrome as a symbolic means of trying to keep the one who has died alive. By filling the loved one’s role, a child doesn’t have to acknowledge the full effect of the loss on his or her life.
Which, though Ryotaro did not intend for this to happen, is pretty much exactly how Nanako chooses to handle her grief.
As for the enemies in Nanako’s dungeon, we see creatures like butterflies, which represent rebirth. This is mainly to symbolize Nanako’s desire for Chisato to return, as shown in her Floor 4 dialogue right before she reassures Chisato and by extension herself that she isn’t lonely.
We also see Lexies, which resemble corrupted teddy bears, which I believe is meant to represent how Nanako’s childhood has been surprisingly traumatic for someone so young—she’s an innocent six-year-old, and yet she’s grappling with the weight of having an abruptly dead mother. Furthermore, there's obviously the Mother Shadow, which is titled as "Regal Mother," and since Nanako's dungeon looks like a castle... I'd argue that's meant to represent her seeing her mother as powerful and prospering in heaven.
For the most part, other than this scene where she tries to deny her pain and loneliness, Nanako’s voice is drowned out by Namatame’s, likely since Namatame is a Persona user despite being unaware of it. With the exception of the Ninth Paradise, where she calls out to her parents. She's not only afraid of dying because Namatame is unintentionally harming her, she's afraid of losing her parents again. And it's brutal.
Now, Nanako’s dungeon is also connected to Namatame, too, since he's also grieving, but I have a writeup about him coming soon, so I just want to focus on Nanako for now.
It is totally disproven that she doesn't feel lonely and abandoned in her Social Link, Kanji didn't even need to call her out. In her Rank 4, when she talks to Yu about death and criminals, she mentions how she wishes that her dad would come home more often if people didn't commit so many crimes. And later in her Rank 5, she talks about how her parents and her used to behave as a happy family together.
Speaking of family, Nanako's grief actually vividly colors her relationship with her father in her social link, like the scene in her Rank 5 where she asks what a “real” family is, and panics over the potential idea that she may not be Dojima’s “real” child.
Also, I want to add one detail that Nanako tends to switch between referring to Ryotaro as "Dad" and the more childlike "Daddy," as you see in these images. I wonder if she does this to harken back to the times when her mother was alive. Alan D. Wolfelt talks about this too, in his book A Child's View of Grief. It's a little contradictory to everything else Nanako's doing in order to cope with Chisato's death, but grief can be really weird.
Under the normal stress of grief, children often return to a sense of protection and security they experienced at earlier times in their lives. This need is manifested in different ways: a desire to be rocked or nursed; difficulty in being separated from parents; or requests for parents to do simple tasks, such as tying shoes, that children could previously do for themselves. They may also have difficulty in working independently at school. During this time, a child might also need constant individual attention, be suddenly afraid of the dark, or talk “baby talk.”
Nanako pretty much solely does the baby talk thing out of all of these, as everything else is pretty normal for a kid her age, and even then, that's only by swapping between "Mom" and "Mommy" and "Dad" and "Daddy." I thought it was interesting to note, though.
What's also interesting about this situation is that Nanako’s father, Ryotaro, does echo the sentiment on what family means, and asserts that he doesn’t deserve to be Nanako’s father during his social link during his Rank 3. I won’t get too far into it because Ryotaro needs his own writeup on his own relationship with grief, (which, as of August 31, 2025, exists!) but it is worthy of note.
On one hand, it’s normal for kids with frequently absent parents, such as Nanako and her father Ryotaro, to think that they may not actually be loved by said parents, but in Nanako’s specific case, there’s another layer to this. Her mother is dead. For bereaved children (such as Nanako), they often develop an even greater fear of being abandoned, as Holly Torbic writes about in her article But What About The Children?
They experience fear realizing the world is no longer a safe place. Will I lose others? What will happen to me? Children may be less trusting of letting others in their lives, in fear of being hurt or abandoned again. An 8-year-old wrote this message, "God, give my mom back, I need her more than you."
This fear of abandonment isn't only shown by the scene where she asks Yu if she's not Ryotaro's real daughter in her Rank 5, but in the animated series, she asks Ryotaro outright if he hates her and Chisato.
Which stuns Ryotaro, as in his eyes, his actions are for his daughter's sake. What's made clear via his own Social Link is that Ryotaro hates himself, not her. But he's gone so often that she doesn't know that. And furthermore, Nanako brings up in Rank 7 how he doesn't ever bring her up. As mentioned before, if Chisato is gone just like that, then Ryotaro could vanish at any moment too. Even if Yu's still there, she still would lose someone she dearly loves if he dies. The misunderstanding and conflict due to their shared grief can be seen as early as Rank 3 where she and Yu try to make dinner as a welcome-home party for Ryotaro also expresses this, as she tries to show love for her father, but he instead scolds her and Yu for going out at night out of fear of her being endangered, which Nanako takes as him pushing her away, is another scene that expresses Nanako's fear that she's losing him, as it's this scene that will precede Rank 5 and her question of not being Ryotaro's "real daughter," and highlighting her fear of him abandoning her.
This tension comes to a head in Nanako's Rank 7. But I need to contextualize it with Rank 6. In Rank 6, she shows Yu a parent-teacher conference form for Ryotaro to sign, asking which time he can come to visit Nanako's elementary school. (In the animated series, she actually notes all her friends have their parents coming). But Ryotaro, in Rank 7, doesn’t really give a decent answer as to whether he’ll show up or not. And Nanako, cracking under the pressure of her grief and fear, breaks down and runs away from home. Ryotaro and Yu start looking for her (in-game Yu brings the Investigation Team with him to help him look).
She's at Samegawa. And here, in the game, as she talks about how her dad never mentions her mom, Yu tells her that her father is looking for her, which comes as a major shock to her. And in the animated series, Ryotaro himself approaches her to talk. In the animated series, she confronts him on how he never discusses Chisato, and the two of them discuss their memories with her together, which leads to Ryotaro reassuring Nanako that he loves her.
Nanako Dojima: When Mom was still with us, you and me and Mom would come to this place to pick flowers... it was just the three of us...
Ryotaro Dojima: It was...
Nanako Dojima: Why, Mom!? Tell me, why did you have to leave me!? I just want to see her so bad...!
Ryotaro Dojima: Nanako...
Nanako Dojima, between sobs: I can't help but think sometimes you've forgotten about Mom... You hid all her pictures and you never ever talk about her!! Do you hate her now!?
Ryotaro Dojima: You've got it all wrong...
Nanako: What am I, Dad? Do you hate me too, now?
Ryotaro: Silly goose... you know I could never hate you... and I'm sorry I made you feel that way.
She realizes in her Rank 8 and 9 upon seeing a family photo from when her mom is alive that her dad is actually grieving as well, but that his grief and her grief look pretty different, which helps her appreciate her father as she realized he didn’t forget Chisato after all.
And Nanako, since she's going through the exact same situation, is pretty empathetic towards her father, asking if he'll ever smile like he did in the family photo, and noting that she feels terrible that he's grieving too. And when she tells Yu about the time she and Ryotaro talked about their memories of Chisato together, she's relieved and thrilled because she's becoming more at ease that her dad won't leave her, and now has a better understanding of her father when the two were so distant at the start of the game.
And in Rank 10… you remember the misunderstanding that occurred in Rank 3? Well, something similar happens, where Nanako and Yu make a welcome-home dinner but instead there is no misunderstanding—neither Ryotaro nor Nanako’s fear of loss is getting in the way of their love for each other. It’s a great way to show how much the Dojimas have gotten closer to each other as father and daughter with Yu's help. Because both of them needed to allow themselves to communicate their feelings to each other, which is helping them both process Chisato's death and move on from it instead of just denying the pain is there.
Nanako's grief led to her fearing abandonment from her father, especially since I want to note she's pretty similar to her dad in the way that they both hide their grief by trying to act stoic about it and not even discussing it with each other. They only really confide in Yu, and that comes slowly as neither Dojima quite trusted Yu at first. But as she comes to understand her own father more and her father begins openly communicating to her about his own grief, the two become closer, since hiding away with it won't do anything. In a way, this story is another portrayal of how trust brings people together and empowers people--it got the Dojimas closer to each other, and better able to process the horrible grief they felt.
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