Click Here for Update 56
: I hope you’re all ready for an entire day that is just one big, long cutscene. It should be good preparation for September as a whole, because half of September is a filler arc.
: “Make sure you don’t let any dudes try to hit on her.”
: “Don’t do anything that’ll make you stand out, moron. Just act with your brains, okay?”
: “Hey, can we go already?”
: “Are you sure you’ll be all right?”
: “It’s just a day trip! Don’t underestimate me!”
: “R-Right… sorry. Guess I just have to let it go. Have fun, but be careful you two.”
: Wait.. why is Yusuke drinking Gaia, which I can only assume is Chaos-brand water? Yusuke’s very clearly going to be neutral like his boyfriend.
: Joker’s just showing off for Yusuke. This entire cutscene is non-canon for the Gay Yusuke Route. I’ll let you know when it’s canon again.
: Of course there’s close-ups on Ann. What did you take this for, a game directed by someone who wasn’t forced out of his job?
: This is a direct reference to an intro from Lupin III Red Jacket, where Lupin does a dive in mid-air (losing his clothes in the process) into Fujiko’s bed only to have her kick him out.
: There’s almost no way Ann and Ryuji are not going to wind up in a love triangle with Shiho.
: I like to think that Joker and Yusuke have not actually ascended to the astral plane and this was just a fuckup by the anime studio.
: Of course Yusuke would wear a hoodie to the beach.
: “Why don’t we eat lunch too?”
: “I’ll go get some stuff for us then.”
: I like that they used the cut-ins for this because it makes it feel like a Phoenix Wright courtroom case. “Objection! You can’t just eat instant noodles all day every day!” “Take that! Yes I can! Watch me!”
: Yusuke looks like he’s trying out for a role in The World Ends With You.
: “What’s up Makoto? You ain’t eatin’ much.”
: “Oh, um…”
: “Not feelin’ well or somethin’?”
: “You just don’t get it, do you, Ryuji? When a girl’s in a swimsuit, she wants to look as slim as possible. Still, you’re worrying too much. Did you make sure to eat breakfast?”
: “Mona lacks tact.”
: “So, whadda we do now? Should we play some beach volleyball?”
: “Oh, sorry. Us girls already made plans to ride a banana boat.”
: “We could only rent a three-person one. Sorry.”
: “Wait.. then what about us?”
: “Keep an eye on our stuff.”
: “Hell no! Why you gotta treat us like that!? We’re celebrities makin’ headlines! You should treat us better!”
: “B-But… Lady Ann…”
: “Can we get to the banana boat already?”
: “Oh, sorry. We’ll go now.”
: “We risk our lives bein’ the Phantom Thieves. There’s no way we’re the same as other guys around here. Shouldn’t we be havin’ more good times in reality too!?”
: “We’re special, man. Don’t you agree, Yusuke?”
: “Well.. if you put it that way, you may be right.”
: “Ann and the others don’t get it 'cause they’re always around us.”
: “Hey, how do we get Lady Ann to notice how amazing we are as Phantom Thieves?”
: “Well, we gotta steal.. you-know-what.”
: “Ann made fun of us and all. Let’s show her what we’re really made of.”
: “I see. I just need to prove my skills in reality as well..”
: “Let’s steal all the hearts with the skills we’ve honed as Phantom Thieves! I’m sure girls will be all over us, considering the vibes we give off!”
: “Very well, let’s do this. Pulling off our work in reality doesn’t sound bad.”
: “It’s settled then. So.. Mona, you’re in charge of watching over our stuff, okay?”
: “Huh?”
: “All right, let’s hurry up and go.”
: This upcoming scene is definitely not canon, apart from its purpose as evidence that Hashino is creatively bankrupt.
: “I dunno.. the ocean just looks bland to me…”
: “C’mon, it ain’t over yet! I’m goin’ for a miracle comeback!”
: “Hmm.. did someone follow us here? Something tells me we’re being watched…”
: “Really? You think… one of those girls changed her mind?”
: And, of course, it’s our least favorite offensive stereotype. The dialog in this scene was also changed heavily from the base game.
: “What are YOU guys doin’ here!?”
: “I-I don’t think I felt what you guys were hopin’…”
: “By the way, where’s Yusuke?”
: This scene is now canon again.
: Yusuke has acquired lobster. I’m really disappointed there’s no DLC that changes his weapon to a pair of lobsters because that’d own.
: “Uh, what’re you doin’ with those lobsters?”
: “While you were busy with your interrogation, I found these beautiful specimens on sale. And so, I decided to spend the last of my money on them.”
: “Man, you’re real hopeless when it comes to cash.. wait, you were watchin’ us!? Why didn’t you help!?”
: “Good for you…”
: “Are you even listening to us!?”
: “That’s what we’ve been saying from the start!”
: “It’s far more interesting than anything involving you two.”
: “Thanks for coming in like that. Those guys just wouldn’t stop pestering us.”
: “To be honest, I was nearly at my wits’ end.”
: “By the way, where are Futaba and Morgana?”
: “Ooooh! Are those lobsters? One in each hand!?”
: “I was wondering about that myself.”
: “Are you going to make them into sashimi? Or perhaps roast them whole!?”
: I wish I could gif properly because there’s this animation that plays of Futaba desperately trying to grab Yusuke’s lobsters and it actually works really well.
: Yusuke’s going to raise those lobsters until they’re big enough to be his Persona.
: “We did tons of stuff today. All in all, I guess comin’ to the beach was pretty worth it!”
: This is supposed to be Makoto spiking the ball, even though it looks like Ryuji is holding an oversized sword.
: “Agreed. Let’s pack up.”
: “Futaba seemed fine in the crowd too, so it looks like she’s overcome her last exercise.”
: “Hey, Futaba. We’re goin’ home. Stop standin’ around and help us.”
: “All this time, I thought that it was my fault that my mom died.”
: We, uh, kinda know that already.
: “Uh-huh…”
: “It’s because everyone said that I killed her. Everyone looked at me thinking I was a murderer. I ended up hating this world. That’s why I shut myself in and covered my ears.”
: “I wished.. I wished my mom would come back to life. Sometimes, I’d wake up and think it was all a dream. But nothing had changed in the world.”
: “That’s why I’d sleep again. It’d be a repeat of that…”
: “Ah…”
: “How she’d work late into the night. How she’d wake up early and make me a boxed lunch every day. How she’d do her best to further her research. How she’d scold me for peeking at her notes.”
: “It was cognitive psience, wasn’t it?”
: " ‘The cognitive world can become distorted through desires. If it becomes distorted, a person begins exhibiting problematic behavior in reality. That cognitive world disappears when you remove its core, and further problematic actions stop.’ "
: “Isn’t that about Palaces?”
: “That’s the Metaverse! She knew about that?”
: “It made no sense back then, but now I understand, after it actually happened to me. All I thought about was my mom. I was trapped in a cognitive labyrinth.”
: “I couldn’t get out of it. There was nothing I could do by myself.”
: “That’s why you asked us to steal your heart? That’s a huge jump in logic in so many ways!”
: “At first, I didn’t believe the rumors about the Phantom Thieves.. that they steal hearts. But I overheard you accidentally. I learned that you were near me.”
: “Overheard? Ah, the bug… so why were you listening in on Leblanc in the first place?”
: “Talk about an awful hobby…”
: Get used to this, because this is exactly what most of September is going to be like.
: “I thought, maybe the Phantom Thieves could cure my heart.”
: “You could’ve just told us from the start…”
: “You might’ve been wary of me if I asked out of nowhere. And besides, you could’ve been bad guys. That’s why I cautiously got in contact with you. I checked many times to see how you’d react.”
: “Yes, you had us twisted around your little finger.”
: “But, Futaba, you didn’t talk to anyone besides Boss for a long time, right? You must’ve needed a lot of courage to contact the Phantom Thieves.”
: “…There were two reasons for it. One was Medjed’s taunt. The Phantom Thieves were so pitiful, it frustrated me. I would’ve been in trouble if they got disbanded too…”
: “Indeed. You were our only hope.”
: “The other was what I heard through wiretapping Leblanc. Sojiro was being blamed with lies, like abusing me… he was being threatened to spill everything about my mom…”
: “Talk about makin’ shit up.”
: For the first time, Makoto thinks “Is my sister kind of a bitch?”
: “It made me sad, and it hurt. I thought, I have to save Sojiro. I gotta do something.”
: “So that’s why…”
: “But the Phantom Thieves… I didn’t think you guys would be taking such risks for me. I didn’t think you’d worry about me so much. I’m sorry I acted like I doubted you guys.”
: “Do you believe in us now?”
: If the poll’s right, 60% of her believes in John Persona.
: “Yeah, I can tell. You aren’t bad guys. That’s why I have a request. Let me join your team.”
: “There’s nothin’ to join. You’re already one of us.”
: “I’ll be honest. Changing people’s hearts isn’t my goal. I want to learn what happened to my mom… the reason why she was killed.”
: “Killed?”
: I wish all the people who played Persona 5 as their first one would play Innocent Sin.
: “Is this about mental shutdowns?”
: “Then, the criminal that Kaneshiro mentioned…”
: “Yes, that could be the case. I don’t like pursuing this line of thought, but perhaps your mother’s Shadow was..”
: “I don’t know for sure… but, right before my mom died, she didn’t seem right.”
: “In what way?”
: A minor spoiler, but we’ll see someone have a mental shutdown fairly soon, and it’s really obvious to everyone looking what’s going on.
: “No matter how much I talked to her, she wouldn’t answer back. And she didn’t jump into the road. It was more like she collapsed and fell in… that’s why I thought what was written in the notes was real and looked into it.”
: “I read books, checked theses that were released online… I even snuck into the networks of various research labs to look at their classified data.”
: “That’s why you’re good at hacking… what kind of brain do you have?”
: “But, I didn’t figure anything out. My mom’s research was nowhere to be found. She was killed by someone, and her research was treated like it never existed.”
: “I bet it’s them.. those adults in the black suits who read the fake suicide note. I’ll never forgive them.”
: We know all this already!
: “Futaba…”
: “If I stay with you guys, I think I can find out more about that world. Then eventually, it might even lead to those men in black.”
: “It’s a super-personal reason why I wanna join you… is that okay? Or would I just be dead weight?”
: “Well, she was more useful than you, as a matter of fact.”
: “Hey, that’s inexcusable!”
: “This is what our Phantom Thieves are like, but I hope we get along, Futaba.”
: “Thanks.”
: “Let’s leave those two be… why don’t we lose no time and decide on Futaba’s code name?”
: “What’s that?”
: “It’s not cool if we called each other by our real names.”
: “Joker, Skull, Mona, Panther, Queen… and I’m Fox.”
: “In Futaba’s case… ‘hacker’ wouldn’t be right, would it?”
: “Mech?”
: “PC?”
: Yusuke actually says “Paso-Kon” rather than the English “PC”.
: “No.”
: “Haha, in your face!”
: “Do you have any good ideas for Futaba’s code name?”
: I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this or not, but Futaba is the only party member to have a different code name in English. In Japanese, her codename is “Navi” (which is a standard Japanese abbreviation for the English word “Navigator”).
: The localization chooses “Oracle” instead. I will be replacing it with the Japanese codename any time it comes up in dialog. The reason for this is that in several places (I believe it happened on Futaba’s stat screen in the base game and I know it happens in Strikers) they left the “Navi” name in on some of the graphics. The replacement was lazy and kind of unnecessary.
: “I’ll curse you.”
: “What would you want it to be, Futaba?”
: “Hm… ‘Navi’. With my vision, I’ll guide you all to victory.”
: “Sounds great.”
: “Then, Futaba’ll be Navi.”
: “But man, I never dreamed that the rumored Phantom Thieves would be so close!”
: “Same goes to you. To think you’d be the daughter of a Metaverse researcher… talk about a mysterious fate.”
: “Should we get going then?”
: Well, looks like someone’s about to die.
: It’s still kind of strange to me that they’re basing most of this game’s plot on a single scene from Innocent Sin that’s entirely possible to skip.
: “Dammit, Ryuji! You always find the worst possible things to say!”
: There’s also a missable photo you can get over Joker’s IM.
: Before we move on, there’s one thing I want to show off in the Thieves Den because it’s kinda funny.
: You can run around as Futaba, and she runs like Sonic. Futaba doesn’t have a run animation because she’s never seen in battle, but I can imagine her just off-camera running like Sonic at all times.
: I’ll leave it up to the reader to determine what species her Sonic OC is, because we all know she has one.
: I hope you’re ready for a confidant event that is not going to make a lot of sense.
: “You brought me some news, right? Sorry, but let’s go somewhere else. You can give me the info later. We gotta get outta here quickly. Someone problematic might’ve found out about us..”
: “This is really annoying.. where is that idiot!? Crap.. hide!”
: “Ch-Chief? What are you doing here?”
: “N-no, not at all! Ohhh, it looks like my battery ran out. I’ve been busy covering the Phantom Thieves, so…”
: “Th-that’s ridiculous… I’ve been hot on their trail lately. Who told them that…?”
: Couple of things I don’t get here. First, isn’t she off the clock by this point? I think she mentioned it during one of her other confidant events.
: Second, why isn’t she going “Oh, I’m here interviewing for a Phantom Thieves piece” which is actually what she’s doing. She wouldn’t even be lying.
: “I’m honestly not. I just…”
: This is like being asked what you’re doing at work and replying with “Oh, I’m just running a meth lab in my spare time. Don’t worry, there haven’t been any explosions.. yet.”
: “Yup. That’s why I’m being so discreet about it. Who knows what laws we might be breaking. I guess keeping our tryst a secret is tougher than I expected. Maybe someone saw us out somewhere.”
: “So what, you decide I’m lying and that’s that?”
: “W-wait… we’re totally dating, aren’t we, sweetie?”
: This is like going from “Yeah so I’m running a meth lab” to pulling out your phone showing a live feed of the meth lab and then as soon as you do the entire thing goes up in flames and explodes.
: “See!? Oh and he’s the one who asked me out, so don’t go thinking I’m some kind of cradle robber.”
: “Now see, what I didn’t tell you is WHY I made the meth lab and the reason is because of a hallucination I had while taking the mushrooms I’m growing under my shed.”
: “H-Hey, that’s sexual harassment! And besides, our love is something that defies both age and logic!”
: “Of course. So… can we go now?”
: “Huh…!?”
: “Arrogant bastard, ain’t he? He’s the kind of guy all the girls at the bar would instantly turn down. Anyway.. that was a real surprise.”
: “Not only are you a good source of info, you’re not half bad as an actor either. You’re honestly the type of guy I’d wanna grab drinks with after work… too bad you’re underage.”
: “Well, I guess that’s it for today. Don’t stop in any weird shops on your way home, okay?”
: “You’ve got some real acting chops! Man.. they really saved me today. Once I got back to the editorial staff, all they asked for was my daily report. I couldn’t believe it!”
: “You seem like a handy kid to know. Expect another call from me soon - I could use the help! And I’ll repay you with the power of journalism, of course. I’ll write you a solid article on the Phantom Thieves.”
: “Wow, so dependable! I like guys like you. …But man, you’ve got a whole lotta guts for a high-schooler. Well, I’m sure we’ll gradually get to know each other better, so…”
: “Let me know if you get any more juicy info! Okay, bye!”
: “Like, could we meet up at Leblanc tomorrow?”
: “Sweet!”
: “That worried tone - could he still have summer vacation homework left to do?”
: “Was that Morgana? Whoa, how did he know?”
: “I actually called it?”
: “Anyway! I’ve already hit up Makoto and the others! I’ll be countin’ on you to get me through this tomorrow!”
: “You gotta be kidding.. might as well get some sleep while we can.”
: Hashino: “Shit. Fuck. I’ve already stolen everything I possibly could from that shitfuck Tadashi and now I’m out of ideas. Think, Hashino, think! Uh.. okay, what if we had a non-playable navigator type character.. and right afterward, we reveal that the animal mascot is a shadow! Man, I’m great at coming up with ideas on the spot.”
: Fred, the Janitor Who Worked in the Building Where They Made Nausicaa: “Uh, sir? I know I just transferred away from Level-5 after Ni no Kuni 2 went belly-up, but didn’t you do this exact thing in Persona 4?”
: Hashino: “Shit. Security! Fire this moron before word can spread! We’ll just have to work harder to make people forget that Persona 4 ever existed!”
: So yes, this is why I hate Morgana. Apart from the whole “go to bed” thing in the base game, it’s the fact that he is a one-for-one ripoff of Teddie.. but without any of the character development Teddie had.
: Remember how Teddie had that whole arc where you fight his shadow, and then he becomes human but loses his human form after Nanako “dies”? Morgana gets exactly none of that. Morgana is an entirely static and one-dimensional character.
: The worst part is, they had the opportunity to fucking do something with him, ESPECIALLY in Royal. But no, it can’t be fucking helped. We only had a multi-million dollar budget and were selling the game at full price, did you really expect us to fucking do anything?
: Now, you might be asking “What do they do with Morgana in Strikers if he has basically no character development” and the answer is pretty much as little as possible. Morgana barely talks in Strikers outside of the usual “I wonder if that’s a Treasure” kind of shit.
: “That black thing was… me? …That can’t be true. I’m supposed to be human… I should be… If we get rid of the distortion in Mementos, I’m sure… I’m sure it’ll all be fine!”
: I think the best comparison I can make is to Ni no Kuni. Teddie was Ni no Kuni 1 - deeply flawed in that a lot of people found him annoying, but still likeable enough and has a message. Morgana is Ni no Kuni 2, where it immediately takes a greasy fucking shit all over Ni no Kuni 1 and ends up becoming a looming specter of death for the company that shat it out.
: “Oh, um… my sunburns were hurting, and that woke me up! I was absorbing all the sunlight because I’m black. Don’t you get it?”
: Cats can actually get sunburns, but most of the cases happen in cats that have some kind of fur problem, have naturally thin or white coats, or are hairless. They’re apparently fairly rare among cats with dark fur.
: “Oh, um, I’m not sure what to do when you give me an honestly concerned response like that… by the way, it’s not like I’m bothered by this or anything…”
: He’d be concerned because sunburn in a cat is something you’ll typically want to go to a vet for.
: “But hypothetically speaking, okay? What would you do if I turned out to be some weird.. thing?”
: “I’d be bothered by it! If what I saw from earlier is true, is it okay for me to stay with the Phantom Thieves? And even if I’m with the team, I’m useless at the moment…”
: “It’s nothing. Well, I’ve gotten pretty used to my life as a cat too. And to be frank, this storage room isn’t bad either. Then again, I can’t wait to turn back to being a human so I can move out.”
: “Maybe I’ll live a life of luxury in a suite on the highest floor… but rather than becoming some weird thing, maybe staying as a cat isn’t so bad either…”
: “You and me made a deal, yeah? That means I can stay here.. isn’t that right?”
: I didn’t know this until fairly recently, but a harisen is a kind of paper fan used in traditional Japanese comedy… which explains why it consists of the party member hitting someone with a paper fan.
: I had assumed it was a play on the word “Arisen” that I just didn’t understand.
