Summary
: I think what the writers for this game didn’t realize is that Anonymous wasn’t really a “hacktivist” group at first. They also weren’t, for the most part, actually hackers.
: What’s funny is that almost every time the real Anonymous tried something like that, they wound up being wrong.
: They tried it in 2014 after the murder of Michael Brown, in an attempt to ‘dox’ the officer involved. What they wound up leaking was the name of an unrelated officer in another town.
: I forgot that I mentioned once already that you can’t get the top score unless you already have your knowledge maxed out and answer every question correctly.
: We were not supposed to rank up in charm until the end of the month.
: “Hey, it’s not my fault my scores suck, right?”
: “You don’t gotta throw the truth right in my face like that… anyways, there’s somethin’ more important here! Mishima…”
: “You wanted to ask me something about the internet, right?”
: “Yup. I’m gonna be straight with you here - do you know who Medjed is?”
: “You weren’t kidding about being direct. Well, I suppose the news about Medjed and the Phantom Thieves has caused quite the commotion… they started out as hackers of justice, but now they only look out for their own self-interests.”
: This is more or less how the real Anonymous operated, except they just kind of got progressively dumber as time went on and people started co–opting the name.
: I hadn’t read much about their recent exploits, but one of the last “hacks” they made news for was “hacking” NASA trying to prove… I dunno, some conspiracy bullshit. What they got was a bunch of material that was already publicly accessible.
: “…That’s all I know. They were the group I texted Kurusu about yesterday.”
: “I see…”
: “Nobody’s sure who actually belongs to Medjed. Well, it looks like things’ll be exciting this summer. It’ll be the Phantom Thieves’ world debut, no?”
: “Dude…”
: “Don’t worry, I’ll be rooting for the Phantom Thieves. I’ll get the forum mobilized as well. Now if we’re done talking here, I really must be going. I’ll see you guys later.”
: “So that was fruitless…”
: “Wonder if anyone else got any info.”
: “No luck…”
: “Medjed, hm? It seems like we won’t be able to deal with them by ourselves.”
: “Settle down! We’ve had many strange incidents: the psychotic breakdowns, students being dragged into crime rings… hence, Principal Kobayakawa has instructed all teachers to caution the student body.”
: “This is inconvenient for us too, you know? Having to find things to warn you about so suddenly…”
: There’s an interesting fact I didn’t know about this character here, mostly because I can’t play the PSP version of Eternal Punishment: her father’s Japanese voiceactor is the same guy who did Baofu in EP PSP.
: The chalk drawing of Akechi has been replaced with the John Persona logo.
: Regrettably, we have to spend the afternoon with Makoto.
: “Both myself and Akira-kun here saw you there. Based on where you were heading, we assume you’re working at a store called the After School Salon. How is it, working there?”
: “Hm. So you’re sure nothing strange is going on?”
: “I see… beyond that though, why are you working there? How’s your financial situation?”
: “O-Oh, I see…”
: What answer was she expecting? Does anyone work for any reason that doesn’t involve payment?
: “Mega… pamper?”
: And then that one guy with the diaper from the Yakuza substories in 6 and 7 bursts through the wall. “You rang?”
: Joker: “Ma’am, under the Geneva Convention the only things I am required to tell you are my name, rank, and that I am not and have never been horny.”
: “Right. It was nothing more than an errand I asked him to accompany me on. At any rate, don’t mind him. As for you… I don’t plan on telling anyone.”
: “I was just worried you were getting wrapped up in some shady business, so I asked him here for support.”
: “Huh? You know Buchimaru-kun…?”
: “Well, it was given to me when I was still in elementary school… I’d like to buy a new one, but they’ve stopped selling Buchimaru-kun merchandise.”
: “Um… isn’t that a full circle?”
: They call her Makoto because when you see her you’ll turn 360 degrees and walk away.
: “O-oh, um… okay. Wait, he’s not my boyfriend.”
: “She was all over the place… honestly though, I’m in shock. She thought I was a robot…”
: We all know that the correct answer is the bottom one, and that Joker looks her right in the eye and goes “Beep boop, I am Makoto, I am the smart girl. I run on having too much time on screen.”
: “Yes. That’s why you’re helping me. You know, I believe what Takao-san said about me is how others think as well. I thought I had changed after the incident with Kaneshiro, but perhaps it wasn’t enough…”
: “That aside, it was almost inspiring to meet someone so distinct from myself. I’m going to try to look at things a little differently from now on. And, well… I think that will help me break out of my shell.”
: “I’ll be interested to speak with Takao-san some more now that I have her contact information. Perhaps I can correct her misconceptions about you… and as always, I’ll let you know if anything important happens. Well, see you later.”
: “I got a message from Takao-san earlier. She turned out to be quite a fan of Buchimaru-kun. It was crazy to see a picture of her entire collection. She even has a bunch of Buchimaru-kun emoticons!”
: It’s very strange to me that a Japanese teenager would be using the phrase “emoticon” in 2016. I’m pretty sure by that point, “emoji” had become the internationally-used term for those.
: “Huh…? Yeah, I guess you’re right. I didn’t expect to bond over something like this, though. I’m pretty shocked, to be honest… though I’m still a little worried about that store she works at.”
: “I’ll try a little harder to get through to her about it. I might come to you for more advice later. For now, I’ll let you go. Talk to you later.”
: Joker responds with “Yes, you totally should. In fact, come to Leblanc and let’s talk it out over iced coffees and text Makoto with everything we learn.”
: There’s a missable (and largely pointless) reward you can get from Sojiro for getting a high score on exams.
: “Oh? You have a good look on your face. You can have this. Look at your face with it.”
: The Dandy Mirror gives you the Counterstrike ability when equipped, which gives you a 15% chance to counter physical attacks. It doesn’t stack with the other counter skills and is garbage when things like Null Phys exist.
: “You actually are pretty smart, huh. You showed me. Studying is good and all, but men need to keep up their looks too. Looking clean is important.”
: Nobody tell that to the Magic the Gathering crowd. Seriously, I used to be able to smell where the MtG tables were at gaming cons.
: “It’s one bad thing after another with this company. Hmm, I wonder if they’re cursed or something.”
: We’re spending tonight with Chihaya, because now that Kawakami is done she’s the next priority.
: “Oh, you needn’t mind him. That’s just my apprentice. If anything, you can think of him as a human-sized stuffed animal. I mean, look how fluffy his hair is.”
: “I take that to mean something else has happened with your job?”
: “In that case, let’s ask the tarot! Show us the truth, O divine power…”
: “Yes… I’ve seen everything. Hm, the cards have appeared in reverse. In other words, it seems as though your business is doomed to failure.”
: “I’m sorry… but in this case, it appears your fate is inescapable.”
: “What are your thoughts? Were you even listening? What can we do to help this woman who is so oppressed by the savagery of a male-dominated work environment?”
: “Look, we’re going to need to smash capitalism. Get me the biggest guillotine you can find.”
: “What? It’s a little idealistic to expect that will actually work… incidentally, what would you say if you wanted to encourage her?”
: The guide told me to pick the second one, but it’s not worth any points anyway. Besides, we couldn’t pick that last one or this would just be Gurren Lagann.
: “Don’t be so irresponsible! That’s simply not an option! How can you expect her to overturn that which is inescapable!?”
: “H-Huh…? …You’re far too irresponsible, Kurusu-san! Her misfortune has already been made clear! The cards will surely back me up on that…”
: “I-It seems the sequence of cards has changed… her financial future is now appearing as extremely successful! What did you do? Are you… are you psychic? Did you use your powers to change the order of the cards!?”
: “My divine power is capable of sending people like you down to the depths of hell, you know! Yes… that has to be it. That’s the only way this could happen… fate cannot be changed. Fate is absolute… that is how it must be.”
: “That may not be such a bad idea… but if that possibility were the truth, how would I keep my Holy Stone business intact?”
: “…A-Anyway! You’ve change the flow of destiny twice now, both times coming before my very eyes… it seems this verification process is turning out to be much more meaningful than I expected!”
: “So I’m going to get right to my question! You’re currently standing right in front of your house, correct!?”
: “See, that’s exactly what my reading told me! Fate is absolute after all! If everyone could reverse their fate as easily as flipping a table, life would be easy!”
: I’m getting horrible flashbacks to Umineko no Naku Koro Ni. “Turn the chessboard around! Prove the existence of cake! You can’t because cake is magic!”
: “This… this is why I believe I need to conduct these verifications with you. So please promise me you’ll stop by my booth again! Okay, I’ll talk to you later.”
: “To think you would relax under such circumstances. Either you’re quite bold… or quite foolish.”
: “One with an ‘unseen’ form, hm? It seems you’ve been targeted by troublesome company.”
: chuckle “I’ve been enjoying this endless dispute over ‘justice’. However, it will soon come to an end - and through the appearance of an unexpected force, of all things. Engaging with formidable enemies is also part of your rehabilitation. I ask that you overcome this.”
: “After all, you must hone your powers… and become a magnificent thief…”
: The next couple of days are going to be almost pure cutscene - in fact, in the base game, you’d go through the next few days with zero input of your own.
: However, this part is probably my favorite out of the entire game - mostly because it’s about as close as Persona 5 gets to being Persona 4.
: Strikers also goes for a tone much more similar to this part than to the rest of P5. I’d probably enjoy it if the gameplay wasn’t shit.
: “I didn’t think Medjed would pounce on the Phantom Thieves. Interesting things keep happening this year. The influence of John Persona knows no bounds… I underestimated it, honestly.”
: “I wonder what the public thinks of this. Are they entertained? Or perhaps inconvenienced?”
: “Entertained, huh… a luxury for the uninvolved. I know they mean no ill intent. So this is what the public thinks… whoops, I don’t have time for a conversation. My attendance has been poor due to interviews lately.”
: There’s this sort of menacing theme that plays during cutscenes with the palace bosses that plays here, and I don’t know what it’s called.
: Now, there’s a reason they picked the name “Alibaba” (it’s a kanji pun of sorts on their actual name) but I have to wonder if it was meant to be a reference to Baofu, as Baofu spends the entirety of Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment pretending to be Taiwanese.
: “Hm? You can’t reply back? I don’t know what this is all about, but we should probably let everyone know about this.”
: “Seems so…”
: “How were we found out?”
: “He may have traced our chat log…”
: “How careless of us…”
: “But how would he have known all these details with just that?”
: “Do you think that there is another cause?”
: “Yeah. I’m not sure why, but that’s the feeling I get.”
: “Hey, is it that easy to look at someone else’s chat log?”
: I mean, we’ve technically been doing that the entire time, so…
: “I don’t know much about it myself, but… it’s probably not impossible, I think?”
: “How’s it done?”
: “Maybe they extracted our phones’ data?”
: “Why’s Akira getting an error when he tries to reply?”
: “Perhaps the receiving end doesn’t exist?”
: “That’s possible?”
: “Don’t ask me everything. I told you that I don’t know much about it.”
: Can they hack souls? Are they… Soul Hackers?
: “I see. I don’t really get it.”
: “Then, is this person Medjed?”
: “I doubt it, considering he says he wants to ‘deal’ with them. That is, only if we take his words for face value.”
: “True…”
: “Hey, wouldn’t it be great if we got this guy on our side?”
: “But we know nothing about his identity at all. We can’t trust him.”
: “I don’t think it’s a bad deal though…”
: “Even if Alibaba turns out to be a criminal? I am not helping anyone of that sort.”
: “Oh, right. That wouldn’t be good…”
: "The ‘I’ve prepared the necessary tool’ part makes no sense either.
: “He knows an awful lot for it to be a prank.”
: “If he knows who we are, won’t we get caught?”
: “No. If he wanted to report us, I think he would’ve done it already.”
: “He must have some sort of objective of his own. He did offer us a deal, after all. I’m certain he’ll contact us again.”
: “There’s no telling when he’ll do so, though… it’d be best if we stay together. If something happens, we can act at once.”
: “Yeah. So, somewhere we can wait and hide for long hours…”
: “Good evening. We were thinking about putting together plans for our summer.”
: “Hm? Is that a new face I see?”
: “It’s nice to meet you. My name is Makoto Niijima. I hope we’re not being a bother.”
: “She’s our student council president.”
: “Niijima…?”
: “Is something wrong?”
: “…Nah, it’s nothing. A student council president, eh? I’m stunned. I hope he’s not causing you too much trouble. I’m Sojiro Sakura, but everyone just calls me Boss.”
: That’s… not entirely accurate. The Japanese voiceactors pretty clearly call him “Master”.
: “This old man’ll get going and leave you kids be. All right, the store’s all yours.”
: “Oh, come on! It’s in English!”
: “Let me see…”
: “The Phantom Thieves remain silent at our question. This proves that we are just. People of Japan, wake up. You must not worship the Phantom Thieves.”
: “What!? That’s bullshit!”
: “Keep listening.”
: “We will discipline any who worship them. The punishment is the confiscation of possessions. We are Medjed. We are unseen. We will eliminate evil.”
: “…That’s what it says.”
: “What does that all mean!?”
: Means that boy needs therapy.
: “They’re saying that they’ll target sympathizers of the Phantom Thieves.”
: In reality, I don’t think Anonymous ever caused much in the way of actual financial damages - most of the numbers cited by companies like Paypal (which they took down for an hour at one point) were either theoretical or money they spent on security consultants. This came up during a criminal trial of an Anonymous member.
: “Why the hell are we being singled out?”
: “Perhaps all they care about is labeling the Phantom Thieves as crooks. That all this wouldn’t have happened had the Phantom Thieves not existed.”
: “That’s complete bullshit.”
: “Talk about a troublesome organization that we’ve been targeted by…”
: “Isn’t there anything we can do?”
: Given how dumb some of the people operating under the Anonymous umbrella were, you could probably just put a text file called “JOHN_PERSONA_REAL_IDENTITY.txt” somewhere and they’d think they struck gold.
: “It’s certain we can’t do anything about this on our own…”
: I mean, it did have that red seal on the back… this must be the point where Joker canonically gets invited to Smash.
: On a side note, I wish I had a clean version of that video in Japanese because FUCK the English voices for this game they’re fucking godawful.
: “It’s rare for you to get something like this.”
: “Anything else in there!? Who’s this from anyway?”
: “There’s no stamp on it. Someone must’ve directly dropped it into the mailbox here.”
: “Could it have been Alibaba?”
: “That reminds me, he did mention something about preparing the ‘necessary tool’… don’t tell me… is this what he was talking about!?”
: “What the hell’s goin’ on here?”
: “All we can do at the moment is wait for Alibaba’s orders. Let’s brace ourselves and stand by… in case anything comes up.”
: “Oh dear…”
: “He can look forward to whatever he wants, but we have no means of striking back against Medjed. We’re gonna be in deep trouble if we don’t do something…”
: This would be another bedcat night in the base game, but instead we get to watch our bootleg of The Walking Dead. I wonder if it sucks less than the real thing.
: “Ugh, talk about a dead man walking. I saw dogs in there too, but… not a single cat. Phew, what a scary world… I wouldn’t want anything to do with that.”
: 5 points to Guts. We’ll be levelling Guts up tomorrow night.
: I didn’t know Chris Redfield posted on the Phan-site. “Dear Phantom Thieves, Leon refuses to help me continue the Redfield bloodline can you please make him and Claire get together?”
: Good morning, you uncanny-looking anime giraffe.
: “Every day is so hot. I empty my water bottle so fast… by the way, summer break is coming up. Could I ask what your plans are, Senpai?”
: “Oh, so you’re not the type to make plans in advance, I see! Then maybe we’ll have a chance to practice some more! I’ll be sure to give you proper instruction! Just let me know whenever you’re available, Senpai!”
: “Oh, the train is here. Let’s get going then!”
: “So it really was from this guy…”
: “Tell him. We need the name of the target.”
: “So he threatened you, then just took off!? And Sakura…? I feel like I’ve heard that name before… in any case, we should let everyone know about this.”
: " ‘Futaba Sakura’?"
: “Wasn’t Sakura…”
: “It’s Boss’s last name!”
: “Does he have any family?”
: “Does he?”
: “For reals!? How laid-back are you!? Wouldn’t you normally be introduced at least? I mean, you ARE living at his place.”
: Technically, we’re not. Sojiro has a house up the street from Leblanc - I think I showed it off in an earlier update, but we’ll see it again soon.
: “Well, his situation does make things more difficult…”
: “Perhaps he thinks that the name alone is enough.”
: “That makes sense.”
: “I believe it’s adequate for us to think that this is the doing of someone close by.”
: I mean, unless it’s like the AI girl in Strikers who can use bitcoin magic to order things online. I just cleared the first palace boss in Strikers. It took me 25 minutes.
: “I see.”
: “I don’t know how Alibaba got a hold of Akira-kun’s smartphone information. However, since he’s ordering us through chat, I do feel as though he’s taunting us.”
: “You mean, this might just be a prank?”
: “I mean, look at his demands. Pay me if you don’t want me to leak who you really are - that I’d understand. But he’s telling us to steal someone’s heart without explaning why.”
: “So we’re being tested?”
: “Regardless, I think we should ask Boss about Futaba Sakura once.”
: “That’s probably for the best. There’s nothing else we can do at the moment, and Chief might have an idea on what this is about too.”
: I don’t know why Morgana calls him “Chief” and everyone else calls him “Boss”. I didn’t really pay attention to see if they use the same term in Japanese or not.
: “I’ll check the school’s roster just in case.”
: Keep this in mind for about… oh, two seconds from now.
: “Why do you know about that?”
: “It’s got nothing to do with you. I’m going home. Make sure you lock up the place.”
: “Looks like it’s a hit.”
: More crafting tonight. We have a shitload of lockpicks so I make some useless garbage. Do we get the extra point? Hell yes we do.
: “Tomrorow’s the end of the first semester, but we still got all this lame shit comin’ up…”
: “If you don’t take care of all this ‘lame shit’ you can kiss your summer vacation goodbye.”
: “Oh yeah, about this Futaba Sakura girl… if she’s related to Boss, think people livin’ nearby would know about her?”
: “That’s some keen intuition coming from you, Ryuji. You should have made use of that on your exams.”
: “Ugh, I never wanna think about exams ever again… anyway, askin’ around in your neighborhood might be the fastest way to figure this shit out. Then again, I doubt it’ll be that easy. It never is…”
: “There’s an urgent assembly on Monday. We’ll be taking attendance. There’s been an unusual number of strange incidents this year. Don’t do anything stupid over break.”
: “Got it? Don’t go someplace shady like the red-light district, and don’t go to the beach after dark.”
: I’m tempted to just re-write Ushimaru’s lines in Hank Hill’s accent because we all know he’s just Anime Hank Hill.
: “I wanna go to the beach. I wanna jump in some cold water… seems like we won’t be having fun on our summer break for a while…”
: There’s another stupid info-gathering thing here and I’m going to skip all but two pieces of it.
: This guy SHOULD know who Futaba is, because she sold him something a few months back. Remember the video game console we bought? That was Futaba’s.
: “The chief buys a lot of food, far more than enough for one person living alone. Let’s check out all the shops where you can buy food!”
: And so we do, and it is a complete waste of time.
: “So you’re the one who tipped him off about Futaba. You really shouldn’t have done that. I have no intention of talking to you about Wakaba.”
: Assuming you’re into a certain corner of Japanese internet culture, you’d know what Futaba’s name is referencing as soon as you saw this line.
: Futaba is named after Futaba Channel, also known as 2chan. That’s the imageboard, not the text website. Wakaba is the code base that powers 2chan.
: Futaba Channel was what moot modeled 4chan after - I think he even used some of the Wakaba code to do it. Their beige-and-pink style sheet (seen above) is still available on 4chan today under the name “Futaba”.
: Also I’m really, really hoping that >548084196 is right. Just imagine Innocent Sin with a coherent plot and a good writer.
: “Tipped off…? What are you talking about? Back to the matter at hand… your parental authority will have to be suspended. I take it you’re okay with that outcome?”
: “What!?”
: “Considering the state of your daughter and your family overall, there are no points in your favor. Would you like to take this to domestic court? Our chances of victory are roughly 99.9% though.”
: Cognitive Psience. God that word sounds dumb.
: “Tch… fine… you win.”
: “Thank you. I will contact you at a later date.”
: “I doubt you’ll find anything you want to hear though.”
: “That’s fine. It will be up to us to decide whether the information you give us is useful or not. Next time I come here, it will just be for a nice cup of coffee.”
: “That woman is real good at pissing people off… what’s with that look? You got something to say?”
: “This doesn’t involve you.”
: “That’s enough! Just behave yourself and keep going to school if you don’t want me to throw you out of here. You got that? Lock the store up.”
: “Moreso, our conjecture that Alibaba is connected to Leblanc seems to have a pretty solid foundation. Oh, and didn’t they mention ‘cognitive’ something?”
: “…I wonder what the Chief is hiding. We can’t really presshim on the subject though, especially after he mentioned throwing you out.”
: “She said ‘abuse’… would the chief really do that? It’s gotta be some kind of mistake, right?”
: We spend the night finishing our bootleg of The Walking Dead.
: We remain on schedule for stat gains, and now we have enough to start Iwai’s confidant. Next time, we’ll eat sushi, get complained at by Akechi, and see a spooky ghost. We’ll also finally learn, in one day, who Futaba Sakura is and what her deal is.