30 day persona challenge ;
day 4: favorite social link
pretty much no competition. i looked through the rest mostly for formality, but none of them held a candle to p3p’s moon. to be honest, it’s very hard to put into words why shinjiro’s social link is so, so good. much of it has to be experienced and simply felt, acknowledged and understood wordlessly. this is the nature of his entire role within the game, too. to have to explain why shinjiro is so well-done cheapens the meaning and the impact. but i’ll do my best.
a lot of shinjiro’s development within the game is shown, not stated. ( sometimes it’s a little too subtle — not usually a complaint i have — such as his reasons for rejoining SEES. that whole process was rather clumsily implemented, as there was no indication of his relationship with ken beforehand, the decision felt very sudden, and there was no unpacking of it anytime afterward, either. but this isn’t what i’m here to talk about. )
this is very much the case within his social link too, and it’s done masterfully. he never really says anything about feeling closer to you, true to character, as the link goes on, but he shows it in the way he talks to you, in what he talks to you about. one of my favorite things is the fact that, in rank 1, he talks about the first time he and aki got into a fight and says “we were kids. i forgot why.” then, all the way in his rank 10, he finally tells you the story of that first fight. it’s something meaningful to him, and he didn’t forget why; he just didn’t trust you enough at rank 1 to open up about something that a.) shows a side of him he isn’t comfortable showing you yet ( of course it turns out to be a story that shows he’s a Good Egg ) and b.) is a poignant moment for him in a relationship that he treasures. but the game shows you that, by rank 10, he feels close enough to you to tell you.
his social link is also the development of his own relationship with SEES, mirroring his growing relationship with femc. he starts out only talking about aki in his rank 1 and 2: asking femc if he’s eating okay, if he’s fighting well, etc. because of course aki is his only tie to SEES. he’s otherwise an outsider if not for him. shinjiro is a guy that holds the world at arm’s length — ostensibly to protect them from him, but also partially to protect himself from himself — and one of the things i do really like about his entire narrative is that that aspect of him never really changes. more about that later.*
BUT regardless, he does become a little closer to everyone else. by rank 3, he’s asking about the rest of the team, too. rank 4, he’s going out of his way to help fuuka to cook. rank 6 is the climax of his social link where he makes that dinner for everyone, wanting to see everyone happy, wanting to contribute something to the group and, most importantly, give them something to remember him by. the fact that he loves the group enough at that point to even want them to have a fond memory of him shows how much he’s changed and opened up. in my characterization of him, i think he’s an INFJ, and trust me that’s a Big Demonstration for an INFJ. we don’t bother putting in that much emotional effort if we haven’t fully invested in the relationship.
*returning to this now. this is the other big thing i love about how shinjiro is written. i’m kind of cheating here because this isn’t just in his social link, but throughout his appearances in the plot. for all i just babbled about how he grows and comes to trust and care about SEES, he... also doesn’t. he continues to keep his distance, never gets fully emotionally attached, continues to see himself as the outsider, the one who’s never really completely part of the team or welcome, despite other people’s attempts to show him otherwise. ( see: rank 7 when he talks about everyone badgering him about making more food and therefore trying to make him feel included, and him griping about it. ) even with the femc, even when you romance him, he continues to try and keep you at arm’s length.
this is super important because it keeps his development within character. he doesn’t have an inspirational revelation and feel like a suddenly different guy at the end of his social link. he makes meaningful connections but that doesn’t completely override and defeat the internal struggle that defines him and gives him so much of his depth. it makes his arc therefore feel organic and realistic.
and finally, on the subject of organic and realistic, his romance route is one of the most seamlessly executed in the persona games. ( it’s definitely one of the reasons i ship it so hard. ) shoe-horned / awkwardly executed romance options are not a persona-specific issue; fire emblem suffers from it, and i think any game that tries to implement romance options for the mc would suffer from it. but so often in persona, the final romance route option always feels at least a little bit sudden. like you had this great platonic bond going and the character is coming to self-actualization and all this character development and then it’s like oh yeah also you can romance them and uh yes they’re suddenly in love with you or ready to reciprocate your love.
shinjiro’s romance is worked into the rest of his social link. there’s hints of it scattered throughout his dialogue. he’s evidently in love with femc regardless of whether you choose to get that extra last scene with him or stop at rank 10. i’m not saying that every romance option should be written this way, necessarily, since that would run the risk of harem writing, but it was a big part of what made the shinjiro romance route very believable. it didn’t feel sudden or shoe-horned for the sake of making him a lovers option; it felt like a natural culmination of the emotions that had already been building up.
the social link also boasts very strong writing technique on both the global and local levels. i’ll address the global first. one of my favorite things about what they did with shinjiro’s social link is what i like to call “the hemingway effect” because he used it prominently. this is when you write a story, a scene, etc. with something — a narrative fact, an off-screen event, whatever — influencing the story, but you never tell your audience what that “something” is. i think hemingway called it the iceberg effect, but w/e. that “something” then ends up pervading the mood and atmosphere of the story, coloring it, but is never given voice. this leads to really emotionally powerful writing, and, in my opinion, very believable characterization. why? because you don’t know what most people in real life are going through when you meet them. you are experiencing them in a snapshot in time, and you’re not going to know all the things that are influencing that particular moment. you can only feel it through how they talk, act, dress, etc., and guess. but you likely will never find out, or at least not for some time.
this is exactly how shinjiro’s social link is written, except of course we’re privy to the “something” that informs his entire link, but not until rank 7 obliquely and then rank 9 and 10 much more explicitly: that he is preparing for his own death. suddenly, that realization illuminates — it colors — everything that came before. his remarks about making memories, his concerns for everyone else, the fact that he maintains an emotional distance. it gives us so much insight on his actions and attitudes. the fact that the writers decided to incorporate it using “the hemingway / iceberg effect” for much of his link really heightens the emotional impact of his social link.
in addition, on the topic of global writing, i love that you learn a little bit more about him in every rank. and not just a little more, but something new. very often, persona social links only build on one aspect of a character, one main issue or trope that they’re struggling with. and the social link chronicles the journey of their development through said issue. but arguably because they didn’t do that with shinjiro, didn’t feel pressured into developing and resolving The One Struggle, they instead had the flexibility to showcase different sides of him, which made him feel like a real, multi-faceted person that was slowly being revealed to you piece by piece. usually, the rank 1 ( and sometimes 2 ) of any social link is a baseline; it establishes how the character is naturally. for characters also central to the plot, this can often feel redundant. but with shinjiro, they were unpacking new sides of him right off the bat.
rank 1 gives you a little bit of insight into his and aki’s relationship, up until this point only teased in their joint plot scenes but never expanded on. rank 2 adds to that and shows you one of his values: that he believes in taking care of oneself, especially in relation to diet. rank 3 shows you that he cares a lot about other people and thinks about others a lot. rank 4 shows you that he’s a fantastic cook and also expands more on his thoughtful, altruistic, and tsundere personality. it also gives good insight on how he talks to and around other people who aren’t aki. i can keep going, but you get the picture. each rank doesn’t just rehash the same things we already know about him; it builds upon what we know, adds more depth, and adds new sides of him. nicely done.
secondly, the local writing is also very well-done, by which i mean the small details like the dialogue. in particular, his rank 9 scene is quite possibly my favorite social link scene in all the scenes i have seen in the persona games i’ve played ( i’ll admit i haven’t maxed all social links / confidants, so that’s a qualifier, but ). overall, i think persona 3 boasts strong narration, which is a very small thing to look at, but is important.
> You talked to Shinjiro about many different subjects...
> Shinjiro's expression doesn't change much, as usual...
> However, for some reason...
i’m usually on the fence about narration in games because it, by nature, relies on telling rather than showing, but of course due to the limitations of animation, it’s sometimes necessary. and this is one of the times it’s done very well. telling without being heavy-handed and in-your-face. and then, possibly my favorite line in his whole social link:
Shinjiro:
Are you done? C'mon, tell me more. Encore, encore!
that one line says so much about his mentality in this moment in time. how much he loves femc ( because he’s in love with her regardless of whether you romance him, fight me ), how desperately he wants to hold onto happy memories of her, how desperately he wants her to remember him and their last moments together happily, and how much he’s willing to go against his own reticent and reclusive nature to ensure that. it also gives light to the more playful side of shinjiro that we’ve glimpsed a little here and there scattered throughout his earlier scenes ( “Tell 'em they need to eat better. They won't listen if it comes from me. Especially Aki...”; “...There's so much wrong here, I don't know where to begin...”; “...Even if it tastes awful, you better be responsible and tell everyone it's great.”; “Nah, stay put. It's way too crowded over here. 'Sides, we're trying to keep it a secret.” ). and because we’ve caught glimpses earlier, this doesn’t feel suddenly out of character; it feels like a natural opening-up, a side of you he’s willing to show around you now because he trusts you.
and of course, the heavy hinting that he gives in regards to what’s going to happen to him, without outright saying it or seeming like he’s trying to push it in femc’s face. that’s a tricky moment to write, because you want it to be clear to the audience, but you don’t want the character to talk like he’s trying to make it clear to the audience. you want him to talk like he would naturally talk — in shinjiro’s case, reserved, conflicted ( even contradictory ), introspective, and philosophical. the writers pulled it off very well. i adore that they accomplished it through core aspects of his personality, namely his tendency to send mixed, perplexing messages when he’s in a melancholy or existential mood ( super INFJ, by the way ):
Shinjiro:
You look best when you laugh.
.....
So don't cry, got it...?
Shinjiro:
I gotta make sure I don't leave anything behind...
No doubts, no regrets...
.....
Shinjiro:
.....
I keep telling you what to forget and what to remember...
What to want and to not want...
I'm... selfish, aren't I?
Shinjiro:
.....
...Hey.
As long as I'm already being selfish, I want you to do one more
thing for me.
You don't have to forgive me...
But forgive everything else...
...You'll understand later.
It should be like this for a little longer...
I just want it to be... normal...
all without saying so or speaking plainly, he basically tells you he loves you; expresses his anxiety about his own life, its rapidly approaching end, and shows how hard he’s clinging to attempts to exert some control over his last days; and tries to impart his last wish to you while also being self-deprecating and talking in circles around what he actually wants. in true shinjiro fashion, he never clarifies, leaving his message — and all of the emotions and turmoil that define him — up to the femc’s and audience’s intuition and interpretation to understand.
aigis is the main, big, in-your-face manifestation of p3′s core messages in the sense that she takes the part of the player, in a sense, and we are actively trying to work through the complexity of the game’s themes at the same time that we are watching her do the same.
shinjiro, however, is the behind-the-curtain manifestation of these same themes. if aigis is telling us what p3 is trying to teach us, he and his story show us. because of this, he is massively thematically important to p3. the game’s big theme is the idea that relationships in life are beautiful and meaningful because they do not last, and, subsequently, that things that are gone continue to have meaning even if they’re not here anymore. the narrative of shinjiro’s social link embodies this, from the way he tries to make memories with others so his last days can be happy and normal, to the way he wants others to recall times with him fondly for the same reason. he even outright says it at one point, though too early in the game for the player and femc to connect it to the game’s message:
Shinjiro:
Making memories is important.
People can go on as long as they have good things to look back on...
They'll be able to go on without being led astray...
relationships continue to have impact on us, even after they are gone. and the game uses him to show it to us, too; akihiko continues to talk about shinjiro after he dies, continues to draw strength from him and his final actions ( “he even had the strength to stare death in the face” [ not exact quote ] ), and the femc remembers him and takes strength from him in her final face-off against nyx. he is literally the last voice to lend his support to her. ( and we all know that in jrpg-speak, the last voice is always saved for the most meaningful one amirite. ) he makes a massive and lasting difference on ken, who internalizes the sacrifice shinjiro made for him, the altruism he showed him, and that informs his resolve to stand up to nyx and fight, and to become a better person, someone worthy of the life that shinjiro gave him.
even if we’re not looking beyond his death, his social link is set up to show us that ephemeral things are beautiful. when he makes dinner for all of SEES, it’s written as a powerful bonding moment for the entire group where they can all share in each other’s company and enjoy incredible food. his rank 9 is a very impactful scene where he and femc just spend the entire evening talking about whatever comes to mind, being with each other, sharing that time having fun and telling stories, and even though shinjiro and the player both know it’s going to come to an end, it’s meaningful.
the game doesn’t have to come out and say it. shinjiro doesn’t have to come out and say it. but his narrative is inextricably tied with the message of p3. ironically, this theme is demonstrated by the man who, if you asked him, probably believes that his life was one devoid of meaning up until that last month with SEES. he likely knows that he spent his life running away, and wasted so much of it. this, of course, is why he makes the decision to come back to SEES, to try and rectify that in a way that he feels is satisfying ( by doing so, he continues to run away from other things, but he’s 17 he can’t be perfect ), and why he tries to impart that final lesson to ken with his death. but i find it beautifully done that, unlike aigis, whose story is more of the traditional happy self-actualization narrative in itself, the power of shinjiro’s narrative is one that can only be seen in the meta-text, when you step back and look at how it fits into everything else.
it’s almost like his personal narrative is redeemed by his narrative role in the game. man, i love that.
no one else really holds a candle to shinji, but honorable mentions in order: 2.) kitagawa yusuke, 3.) kamiki akinari, 4.) aigis, 5.) kirijo mitsuru / shirogane naoto / mishima yuuki
