Colors Flying High - Let's Play Persona 5 Royal

[Timrod]

@LaZodiac

I kiiinda like that conceptually, since helping someone get over a painful event is a good way to become their friend and confident, but it seems like this might be taking away from learning about Ann as a character… and also if she’s meant to be Lovers and her support is about her best friend who is a girl they should end up dating.

Yeah. My problem with it wasn’t that Shiho was in her confidant so much as it is that at times, she kind of totally subsumes it. It actually got to the point where I was like “Why isn’t Shiho just her own confidant?”.

I think that if they’d had someone more talented write this game, Ann absolutely would’ve been gay. I’m not even entirely sure Hashino understood what he was doing, since Hashino is kind of a known homophobe and he wrote a character where it’s easier to interpret her as gay than straight. Trust me, if I remember her confidant in the original game correctly, there’s more than one point where that happens.

On one level, I can understand why they wouldn’t make Ann gay, and let me explain using an example from Innocent Sin. There were people who played through Innocent Sin and didn’t understand that Anna is gay (and that most likely, Yukino is as well, assuming she’s not bisexual). Atlus had to explain that in supplementary material that never made it outside Japan. Now, you’d think this would be because people didn’t play through Caracol twice to see the bad ending, but they also had to clarify this with Jun.

On the other though, a good writer absolutely could pull it off and there’s not really a good excuse when almost half the Innocent Sin cast was gay.

@LaZodiac

Also hey here’s a two hour video on YIIK for you Timrod. Highlights include; you’re in it!

Yeah, I saw that earlier! I’ll have to watch the video at work today.

Edit: Oh christ no. Oh fuck no. No!

Oh fuck Innocent Sin was cursed and I got shunted into a new universe where YIIK is getting updates. I thought that update already happened and they just removed some unused shit! Fuck! My predictions:

1. They’re going to force me to play through it again to get the new content, because the Allansons know about my LP and want me to suffer.

2. The new character will be a dialog box with legs that walks around and pads the game out by 2 or 3 times. Every other line is an advertisement for that Chromo-whatever game that is just the remake of Two Brothers. Fuck!

3. It will contain multiple softlocks because I know it will.

4. They’ll fix the LP Toss bug.

Needless to say, if this update drops, I will immediately re-open the YIIK LP and do it. I’m hoping it never does.

[drcakey]

I came expecting a new update. Instead I got a two hour long video about YIIK. The Videlectrix catalog came early this year, because that was a great trip.

Back on P5, I was starting to write about how I didn’t like the Japanese voice acting in this game (not that I like the English - I haven’t heard it), but then I realized I was heavily basing that on P5D, which was the actors spouting vague, no-context exclamations in a recording booth for 3 hours, which isn’t a fair judgment.

But Nana Mizuki as Ann is still really bad and I hate every word that comes out of her mouth. Which is weird because I’ve heard in things before and she’s pretty much always good. I can’t remember what she was good in because all my anime knowledge has poured out my ear and coalesced in some metaphysical space into my Shadow, which I will inevitably encounter, reject, and be killed by. But yeah she was in…Symphogear…other garbage I can’t think of…even more garbage I can think of but is so bad I’m not even willing to name it…and she was fine in all of them. I think.

@Timrod

It actually got to the point where I was like “Why isn’t Shiho just her own confidant?”.

Look they did a Fusion Forecast and calculated the precise correct ratio of genders, ages, etc for all the Social Links and Shiho being a confidant would just be one high school girl too many. You might be wondering how it’s possible for a Japan game to have ‘too many’ high school girls, and they don’t know either, but Shiho being a confidant triggered Hashino’s death clip.

Either that or in the original script Shiho died, and by the time they decided to walk that back all the confidants had been decided. That’s another possibility.

[Timrod]

@drcakey

I came expecting a new update. Instead I got a two hour long video about YIIK. The Videlectrix catalog came early this year, because that was a great trip.

Back on P5, I was starting to write about how I didn’t like the Japanese voice acting in this game (not that I like the English - I haven’t heard it), but then I realized I was heavily basing that on P5D, which was the actors spouting vague, no-context exclamations in a recording booth for 3 hours, which isn’t a fair judgment.

But Nana Mizuki as Ann is still really bad and I hate every word that comes out of her mouth. Which is weird because I’ve heard in things before and she’s pretty much always good. I can’t remember what she was good in because all my anime knowledge has poured out my ear and coalesced in some metaphysical space into my Shadow, which I will inevitably encounter, reject, and be killed by. But yeah she was in…Symphogear…other garbage I can’t think of…even more garbage I can think of but is so bad I’m not even willing to name it…and she was fine in all of them. I think.

The next update is actually almost done - I just need to go record the night of 05/08 quick. Your point about the voiceactors is definitely correct. Voiceactors have never been Atlus’s strong suit. I don’t even know why they bother. I’m sure the Japanese players probably turn them off, and the Western players usually set it to Japanese to escape the equally bad English voiceovers.

I looked at the list of stuff Nana Mizuki has been in and it looks like a lot of magical girl stuff I don’t watch.

@drcakey

Look they did a Fusion Forecast and calculated the precise correct ratio of genders, ages, etc for all the Social Links and Shiho being a confidant would just be one high school girl too many. You might be wondering how it’s possible for a Japan game to have ‘too many’ high school girls, and they don’t know either, but Shiho being a confidant triggered Hashino’s death clip.

It’s because he would’ve had to write something original for once and not just steal from the earlier games.

[Timrod]

Click Here for Update 14

: “Just do as I told you.”

: “Look for a post with a full name in it.”

: “I already said there’s no info on any big shots. Don’t you remember? But man, people actually go put someone’s real name on here. That’s some scary shit…”

: " ‘He won’t listen to what I say…’ no wait, there’s no name on this one."

: " ‘Someone’s bad-mouthin’ me in online chat rooms’… this one’s got a name."

: “Ignore those. Aren’t there any posts about more serious trouble?”

: “It says he’s a teller at City Hall.”

: “A government worker’s stalkin’ someone?”

: “That should be a suitable target. All right, now get the Meta-Nav ready.”

: “We’re just gonna jump right into a Palace? Fine by me!”

: “Hey, what happened to all that talk of unanimous decision? What do you think we should do, Akira?”

: But it’s too late. Akira is already halfway across the station looking for a hot dog.

: “We need a name and a place, right? So the name is…”

: "Actually, we don’t need a location this time. Just enter exactly what I say. The keyword is… ‘Mementos.’ "

: Mementos, the freshmaker.

: “Huh? What’re you tryin’ to pull?”

: “Just listen to me. It should work… I think.”

: “Geez, that again? Uh… “M-e-m-e-n-t-o-s” was it?”

: “Just as I thought!”

: Really? Air? Not say, the moon… or sunshine… or broken glass? I never took Ann for a fan of King Crimson.

: “Is this that Nakanohara guy’s Palace?”

: “That’s half right, but half wrong. This is a type of Palace, but it’s different from the normal ones. Come on, let’s head down. The Shadows here lurk underground.”

: “I don’t quite understand why. It maybe because they’re drawn to something.”

: “Underground? How are we going to get there?”

: Ann’s heard of King Crimson, but never Going Under Ground? She really is Lisa Silverman in disguise.

: “How? You use it every day on your way to school. Follow me!”

: Welcome to the Cancer Subway, AKA Mementos. This is Persona 5’s Abandoned Factory, only it’s actually used for story content. It’s actually closer to Tartarus (the Persona 3 one, not the Snow Queen one).

: “Wait, our clothes changed!?”

: “The Shadows know we’re here?”

: “Since the moment we stepped in.”

: “You should’ve told us!”

: “We’re still safe right here. I’ve come to investigate a number of times. Shadows never come up to this floor.”

: “But it’s a different story once you go down. This place is simply teeming with them.”

: “More importantly, what is this Mementos!? It’s about time you start explaining.”

: “Mementos is… everyone’s Palace.”

: “Huh? Whaddya mean, ‘everyone’s’?”

: “A Palace as grand as the previous castle only forms when a person’s wishes are extremely distorted. So, instead of many individual Palaces, the general public has one gigantic shared Palace.”

: This is more or less a dark version of how the collective unconsciousness works in Jung.

: “Now that you mention it, this place feels a bit different from Kamoshida’s Palace.”

: “When you say shared, you mean they’re all put together? Even though they’re just strangers?”

: “So what you’re saying is… using this place, we can change the hearts of people who don’t even have a Palace?”

: “Correct! The steps to do so are slightly different, though.”

: “But this place looks pretty huge. Are we gonna be able to get around just by walkin’?”

: “It seems the time has finally come…”

: There is no way this isn’t someone’s fetish.

: “A car…!?”

: “No way!”

: “This comes from the way cognition materalizes in the Metaverse, plus a bit of extra training. It’s not dissimilar to how you guys transform.”

: “You turnin’ into a car is totally different than our clothes changin’!”

: In Japan, maybe. This is a direct reference to this scene from My Neighbor Totoro. I saw it as a kid, but only because my dad’s hobby was rummaging around CD and VHS racks in the 90s.

:

: “Why a bus though?”

: He looks more like a van than a bus.

: “Wait, why didn’t you do this at the castle!?”

: “I would have if I could! But that castle was cramped, there were tons of stairs, and no way this fits on top of a chandelier!”

: “Why are you all just sitting back there? I’m a car, remember? I’m not going anywhere unless someone drives me.”

: “You can’t drive yourself!?”

: “Do you know how to drive?”

: Akira just looks at her and goes “We live in the Tokyo metropolitan region. There are trains that go literally everywhere. What is this, the United States?”

: “That’s a bit worrying, but I’ll let you handle it. I don’t even have that experience to lean on.”

: I have to wonder if at some point, this was intended to be the first Persona game to feature non-Japanese characters.

: Look at the steering wheel. It’s on the left side, but Japanese cars (as in, the ones sold in Japan) all have the wheel on the right side because they drive on the left side of the road.

: “You’re prolly more skilled than I am too.”

: “All right then, we’ll leave the driving to you!”

: Certainly not anyone’s weird fetish, no sir.

: “Uh, is that purrin’ I hear? What a creepy-ass car!”

: See? Ryuji knows.

: “Don’t underestimate my meowtary engine. We’re going full throttle! It’s time to fly!”

: I have no idea what “meowtary” is supposed to be a pun of.

: So here’s a place where P5’s localization is kind of weird. In the English release, the nine areas of Mementos (eight in the original game) are all named after the Qliphoth. The Japanese version just named them after what the Qliphoth represents.

: The Qliphoth is a thing from the Kabbalah. I can’t really describe them properly, but as far as I understand it you have this thing called the Tree of Life (or “Sephirot”) that represents some weird metaphysical bullshit about how God reveals itself to people.

: The Qliphoth represent evil and are like shells that cover the Sephirot but are also a “dark tree” of evil or something. Honestly, you can pretty safely put this in the same category as Jung and his jangly key man bullshit.

: A lot of writers use the Qliphoth or Sephirot when they need dumb fantasy names. As you can probably guess, Sephiroth in Final Fantasy 7 is named after it. Lobotomy Corporation is a relatively recent game that uses it heavily, as does Devil May Cry 5.

: “Yeah, I guess it’d be strange driving on the tracks like this in the real world. Anyway, Nakanohara’s somewhere in here, right?”

: “Most likely in a segment of his own creation. Don’t worry, it won’t be the size of a Palace. Our next step is to find an entrance to that segment.”

: “And what’s this entrance gonna look like?”

: “I have no idea, but strong distortions should be a pretty obvious visual clue.”

: “So we just gotta go wanderin’ around for it then? What a goddamn pain in the ass.”

: Mementos differs from regular dungeons in two ways. First, we’re playing as the Morgana-van, so there’s no stealth. Second, there’s no security level so we can’t be thrown out if we get spotted.

: Right away, we run into the exclusive demon for the first area: Slime. If you’ll recall, we fused one of these back when I was grinding in Kamoshida’s Palace but then fused it away for Kodama.

: Slimes suck. They’re strong against physical and gun and weak only to fire and wind. This more or less mirrors their resistances in Shin Megami Tensei 1, except in that game they were outright immune to guns.

: I had Ryuji use Zio just because, and it shocked one of the slimes. This allows us to “technical” with Morgana by using his gun, knocking the slime down just as if we’d used fire or wind on it.

: If you try to negotiate with a shocked or frozen enemy, this happens. It doesn’t fail the negotiation, but keep in mind that if all your enemies are incapacitated you won’t be able to negotiate with them.

: I grab one just so we can fuse it away later. Might as well.

: Mementos also has little boxes you can run over with Morgana to get items.

: The dungeons here are always procedurally generated, and sometimes have item rooms. The problem is that one of the boxes is locked (and will never have anything good in it) and the other just has the same “dirty armor” we’re going to sell as soon as a certain area opens up.

: Because we levelled way over where we should be, Ann has Maragi and can wipe out Slimes in one go. Maragi is kind of useless unless you’re in the very specific circumstance of having more than two enemies weak to fire - otherwise, it’s cheaper to just use two regular Agis at 8 SP instead of 10.

: Most of the encounters here are garbage - they’re Pixies, Pyro Jacks and Mandrakes which give us virtually nothing at this point in terms of EXP. I go right for the goal without grinding too much, because unlike Kamoshida’s Palace, we can’t get past Slimes without using SP.

: “That seems to be Nakanohara’s Shadow.”

: “Lemme see. Some front desk guy at City hall became a stalker, right?”

: “I don’t know how much evil he’s done, but we have to do something if he’s bothering other people.”

: “All right, we’ll go talk to him.”

: “Are you that stalker!? Haven’t you ever stopped to consider how your ex feels?”

: “You can’t treat someone like shit just 'cause they did it to you! What a load of crap…”

: “We’re gonna change the hearts of all the bastards like you!”

: “…Madarame? The hell’s this guy goin’ on about?”

: Nakanohara’s shadow is an Obariyon. Obariyon just kinda dances and is another Mementos-exclusive demon.

: Obariyon is weak to Electric, but since only Ryuji has that right now I just open with Psy to see how much damage it does.

: As luck would have it, Ryuji’s ability procs and he auto-crits for an immediate knockdown.

: This pretty much erases half of the boss’s HP after the All-Out Attack. Ryuji goes next, uses Zio for a knockdown, and then we do another All-Out and the boss is dead.

: Under ordinary circumstances, this would be enough EXP to level up. We’re so overgrinded at this point that no one gets a level off it.

: “Hold on, are you talkin’ about that guy you mentioned earlier… Madarame?”

: “So some selfish bastard was making you suffer too… still, you shouldn’t have dragged an unrelated woman into this mess.”

: “Change… Madarame’s heart?”

: “Hm? What’s that shinin’ thing?”

: “It’s the bud of a Treasure. Had we left it, it very well may have blossomed into a Palace. Joker, this will make a perfect reward!”

: I didn’t bother to check what the Attachment Pearl does, and I’m probably going to just sell it. We should, if I remember right, have Tae’s accessories available before the second dungeon and once we have those, they’re not coming off.

: If there’s one thing that Persona 5 improves on over Persona 4, it’s that all the sidequests take place in Mementos as opposed to having to hunt down materials from previously visited dungeons after the fact.

: “So Nakanohara had a change of heart, right?”

: I mean, unless this is like Bravely Default where Morgana is actually having us kill people.

: “Most likely.”

: “But how are we supposed to know if we succeeded?”

: “The lady posted the dude’s name online. If he really does change, she’ll prolly comment again.”

: “Hm, you do have a point.”

: “Either way, trainin’ against Shadows down here’s the best! It’s great prep for our next target!”

: “It’s also nice to be able to give courage to the people who post their problems online.”

: “On top of that, we can sell whatever treasure we get for some cold, hard cash!”

: “All right, we did it!”

: “Hold on. There’s somewhere I want to show you guys before we leave. Don’t worry, it won’t take long.”

: “There’s something I’d like to check in an area further down. That platform we saw earlier should be the way down. Let’s head there first.”

: “Wait, you’ve been here before, right? Don’t you got like, a map or something?”

: “That would hold no meaning in this place. The layout changes every time you enter.”

: “Wait, so our path changes too!?”

: I went and fought some Slimes to level up the party to 15. This will allow us to enter the next dungeon with as much SP as we can reasonably have. To get an idea of just how overlevelled we are, the highest level enemies in the next dungeon who are not red shadows (the way Berith was in Kamoshida’s) are level 15. We could probably beat the next boss without fighting anything.

: For context, this is the platform that goes down to the next level. I found it earlier, so the dialog’s a little bit different.

: “Of course they are. We’re in the subway, you know.”

: “Yeah, but I thought this was a Palace!”

: “Then maybe this is how the public views this place? I don’t know.”

: “People go through this darkness… every day?”

: “Forget that! You sure we’re cool runnin’ around on these tracks!?”

: “It should be fine as long as we’re not on the same ones… I think. I’m no train expert.”

: Totally legit, I’m sure. Anyway, this is getting kind of long, so I’m gonna cut some unimportant stuff. This entire segment is mostly a glorified tutorial anyway.

: “See? It’s just as I thought!”

: “What do you mean?”

: “That wall wouldn’t budge when I came here by myself before. But it’d be weird for the deepest part of Mementos to be some normal place like this, wouldn’t it?”

: “So you were thinkin’ there’s gotta be more?”

: “Yeah! Now that Kamoshida’s Palace is gone and people are actually starting to talk about us… I knew something had to have changed down here!”

: “How deep is it? Should we try going further down?”

: “Let’s not. That’s not why we’re here today, remember?”

: The next part of Mementos actually opens on 5/9 - but we won’t be coming back here until the end of the month.

: “A person!? In Mementos!?”

: We’ve already met Jose previously, so I’m going to skip a lot of this and just explain what it is he does.

: Royal added two new items to Mementos - flowers and stamps. Flowers, like the one you see here, can be traded to Jose for a number of healing items. He can also sell you Will Seeds if you missed any.

: Jose can turn the crystals you get from collecting sets of Will Seeds into rings, which honestly we probably won’t use due to how good Tae’s accessories are. His final function is that he’s basically the Cheat Shop from the later Disgaea games. You can trade him tickets to make the enemies in Mementos drop more EXP, more items, and more money.

: The fact that he’s a young boy dressed primarily in white who drives a car that he runs a shop out of makes it pretty obvious that Jose was heavily inspired by Emil from NieR.

: “Who in the hell was that?”

: “If he’s studying humans, does that mean he isn’t one? I mean, he just seemed like some nice kid.”

: “Well, he didn’t feel like a Shadow… I wouldn’t say he’s dangerous, at least, for now.”

: The star is a special item to Royal. It’s part of a new combat mechanic that rarely turns up and isn’t really that important. We can’t even use it until June at earliest.

: “A star?”

: “So what about it did you want to show us?”

: “Our wishes!?”

: Clearly, Jose is part of the God Hand or whatever it’s called and the star is a Behelit. I haven’t read Berserk since before they got on the boat for like ten years.

: “Nice to think that…”

: “Seriously…”

: “Hey, wait!”

: “Welp, there he goes. A star, huh? He said it’d grant our wishes or somethin’…”

: “I highly doubt something like that would actually happen, even in Mementos. Well, I guess you can at least try making a wish.”

: Akira’s just sitting there thinking “It’s like they’re perfect for each other.”

: “…Nothing’s happening.”

: “Was Skull’s wish too petty?”

: “You’re one to talk!”

: “Hm. I guess things don’t just happen that easily. But we can’t just throw the thing away… hold onto it for now.”

: “Oh, and what was that wall thing we saw at the end?”

: “I’m not entirely sure, but that wall must’ve been there for a reason. If Mementos is the public’s Palace though… it might be affected by the general public’s belief in us.”

: “Why do you know so much about it, Morgana?”

: “My memories are a little foggy in that regard… however, I need to know what lies in the depths of Mementos, no matter what.”

: “No matter what?”

: “Mementos is not just everyone’s Palace, it’s the source of all Palaces. It used to be that Palaces like Kamoshida’s with one ruler simply didn’t exist.”

: “So, if we can do something about the greatest cause of distortions, I’m certain my appearance will…”

: Morgana clearly hasn’t heard of, I dunno, thousands of years of recorded human history involving monarchies.

: “I see… so that’s why you came pokin’ your nose around with us.”

: And now the cat’s tsundere. Just what I needed.

: “I’ll… be relying on you guys.”

: “By the way, Morgana… are you a boy? Or might you be a girl?”

: Morgana is male, despite both his name and his code name being feminine.

: “That is a possibility!”

: The thing is, they could’ve done a lot with this, but they just don’t. Is he non-binary, and that’s why he uses feminine names? Is there some other reason for it, like Morgana not understanding the concept of gender because he’s beyond it, the way the androids in NieR Automata were? They never really explain it.

: “I wish I could deny it, but… I just can’t be sure.”

: “Why not!? In any case, of course I’m male! I mean, I…”

: “…What is it?”

: “No… it’s nothing. We’re done talking about that!”

: “Anyway, we now know that we can perform minor changes of heart in Mementos. If we come across any other eye-catching leads, it may be worth dealing with them for a bit of combat practice.”

: “There weren’t really any other outstanding ones though.”

: “I bet we’ll get tons of 'em if we can change someone famous and make the Phantom Thieves well-known. The big fish are our main targets after all.”

: But wait… who’s this mysterious guy that looks like Jun?

: “Is that Ryuji? Did he mention anything about Mementos? If there’s anything you want to know, I can tell you.”

: Oh, right. I mentioned earlier that Madarame is actually just a painter and not a traditional Japanese artist. There are apparently hints in the code for the original game that at one point, he was intended to be and was changed for some reason without changing any of the dialog about him.

: We spend the night studying. I’m not entirely sure why, because we don’t reach Knowledge 3 until after exams are over.

: I was going to cut the update off here, but we can fit in one more day. It’s a short one, plus we have a bunch of confidant scenes and exams coming up.

: Joker wakes up to Mishima messaging him, even though I don’t think we ever exchanged phone numbers.

: Oh, right. I mentioned earlier that Mishima’s different than every other confidant in the game in that his confidant will rank up every time you visit him. The reason is that he’s basically the fox from Persona 4 - he will automatically rank up after you do certain sidequests in Mementos.

: “Oops, hah, sorry about that. I uh, haven’t been getting a lot of sleep lately. I’ve been staying up managing the Phan-Site all night, every night. I think it’s called… PR?”

: “The Phantom Thieves Aficionado Website! Phan-Site for short.”

: “You need a catchy name if you want people to notice you. This is all a bit of P-Thieves propaganda!”

: “Basically, there’s no point to taking down bad guys if nobody’s gonna know about it.”

: Can you already tell that Mishima is in this for all the wrong reasons?

: “That’s why I’ve started a blog for posts from people you guys saved, while filtering out the haters. We need the Phantom Thieves to be seen in the proper light if we want to make the name popular, right?”

: “Though actually, I really wanna know how you punish people. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna ask. It wouldn’t be any fun if you just up and told me.”

: “After all, the Phantom Thieves have a reputation for being secretive!”

: I don’t know why they couldn’t have just put in a variable for the name you give to the group and used it here, other than that maybe they wanted to stop things like those people who play through Ocarina of Time and name Link “My Ass” because it makes a lot of the dialog funny.

: “I…I wish I could be more like you guys somehow. But I’ll still be here to draw attention to the stuff you do! You can leave that part to me!”

: “I’m gonna use my Phan-Site to promote the Phantom Thieves, and weed out any negative comments. Your popularity is gonna be at my mercy… or uh, my fingertips.”

: “It’s like I’ll be your strategic image management representative, so to speak.”

: “Hehe… just you wait. I’m gonna do everything I can to make sure that title’s more than just for show.”

: yaaawn “I’ve gotta say though, managing the Phantom Thieves’ reputation is tiring work.”

: “The forum gets all sorts of weird posts, including tons of things unrelated to reforming society. It’d defeat the purpose of the site if the tirth of the Phantom Thieves was buried among all that garbage.”

: “Oh, but you don’t need to worry. I’ll sort through all the trash. Speaking of which, I’ve actually already found some worthwhile info about our very own school.”

: “Our quest to boost your popularity can start close to home!”

: From this point on, we can take Mishima’s sidequests. There’s usually two or three per month and all of them are basically the same - dive into Mementos, fight a mini-boss, and then report back.

: “I might be overworking myself, though… man, I’m exhausted. I think I’d fall asleep on the spot if I wasn’t talking to you.”

: “I should head home… see you later.”

: Mishima has phone calls too, which makes no sense because of how his confidant works.

: “I was checking the Phan-Site earlier, and I found a bunch of hater comments about the Phantom Thieves!”

: Yeah, but you find hater comments about everything. I remember a few months ago when someone from GooseCanyon (the group that is now fan-subbing Game Center CX) posted on /vr/ and people said dumb shit at them.

: These are the people who took over when the original SA team got real jobs, and are now the only source of GCCX subs. They do pretty good work.

: “It got me so mad, I’m not even sleepy anymore. At this point, I might as well pull an all-nighter fighting back!”

: “Huh? What, you’re worried about my health? Aw, thanks! Now I’m even more motivated!”

: Things no teenager has ever actually said.

: Yeah sure, let’s study and… OH FUCK IT’S SUNDAY AND WE HAVEN’T GRIPPED AND SIPPED!

: Akira rushes out of the cafe, bursts through the doors to the underground tunnel like it’s fucking Loss and buys his cupful of extremely overpriced nasty green shit five minutes before close. All aojiru is nasty by default, so this is probably like that one scene in Spongebob with the hot sauce.

: The aojiru is so horrible that the only way Akira can ever remove the taste from his mouth is copious amounts of beef. This is a special night at the beef bowl place.

: Now, I can tell you for sure that I had to reload this when it happened in the base game because I wasn’t ready for it. Thankfully, I take screenshots as I play so I was saved from a permafuck. This actually happens again in the next update.

: After getting every order correct due to instinctively pressing my screenshot hotkey at every line of dialogue, we get what we really came here for.

: “Can’t you ask your manager to hire more people? You were extremely busy… employees becoming overworked is becoming a real problem in the workplace. That’s concerning…”

: “Hm, I should remember this. I’ll leave my payment here. Thank you for the food.”

: We’ll need to meet Yoshida twice more: once on 05/18, and once on 05/26 to actually start his confidant. Like Mishima, you never need a matching Persona for him because every time you talk to him, you rank up. He doesn’t have any real sidequests though.

: Yakiniku Day is a kind of bullshit holiday put forth by a trade association for Japanese barbecue restaurants. It’s based on a kanji pun and happens on August 29th.

: We get paid more than usual. I’m going to spend some of this on an experiment to see if I can get ahead on a certain upcoming confidant. We’ll see how I do that next time, when I avoid a permafuck with Ann thanks to screenshots, fuse a new Persona just because and take Joker’s mid-terms.

[LaZodiac]

@Timrod

I have no idea what “meowtary” is supposed to be a pun of.

Rotary engine.

@Timrod

The fact that he’s a young boy dressed primarily in white who drives a car that he runs a shop out of makes it pretty obvious that Jose was heavily inspired by Emil from NieR.

Automata was released a year after Royal came out.

I want yakiniku now… but I’m sick so I can’t eat heavy meats v_v

[SpammyV]

Ah yes, the genders: Boy, Girl, and Minivan.

Also considering how easy Mishima and Makoto seem to have figured out that we are the Phantom Thieves Johns Personas so quickly I keep thinking of that Archer quote. “Real Phantom Thieves don’t tell every high schooler from here to Okinawa that they are thieves!” “…Then why be one?”

[Timrod]

Summary

: “That’s right, the news said pollen season was starting later than usual this year. Looks like the pollen problems have only just begun. People are about to have some itchy eyes.”

: “This might affect Mementos the same way weather does.”

: For the next week or so, it’s pollen season in Mementos. I’m not entirely sure what it does - I think it starts the enemies off with a debuff.

: “Ungh… actually… I’ve been having this feeling that someone’s watching me…”

: “No, it can’t be… Oh! Maybe I just can’t shake off the feeling of infiltrating a Palace!”

: “At the Palace, we’re always cautious of not being noticed, you know! So it has to be my imagination… yeah…”

: This game really has a problem with repeating plot points we already know. I get that the IM thing is meant to cram narrative in where it otherwise wouldn’t make sense, but we’ve already had this conversation twice.

: Here’s our next Mishima sidequest. The reason we’re not going back into Mementos until the end of the month is because there’s a second one from him later on, and it’s much faster to just do them both at once.

: The game then tries to force us to go to Mementos by automatically putting us on the school roof. So much for Makoto closing it off.

: You can see the pollen in the air, which is weird because this is taking place in the middle of Tokyo. What’s giving off that much pollen in inner-city Japan?

: Instead of going to Mementos, we’re going to do Tae’s confidant some more.

: “Look this way. One, two, three, four… nothing yet, huh?”

: “Oh, there it is. The inhibitory effect is just as I had hoped. Your weight was the primary reason it took longer to kick in than expected.”

: Wait, what? Have you seen how thin he is? There’s no way in hell he weighs more than Tae does, unless she was dosing for a baby or something.

: “…Yes, this is what I expected from a teenager. We’re making great progress. Practice makes perfect, right?”

: “Okay, hold tight. Once I compile all the data, we can move on.”

: Medical Clinic of Internal Medicine? Why wouldn’t you just say “Takemi Internal Medicine”? I mean, other than that it’s pretty obvious she’s a doctor in the same way that Ada in Resident Evil 2 is an FBI agent.

: “…An emergency, huh? But we’re not a designated hospital. Besides, the head physician here is Tae Takemi.”

: “Ah…? Awfully rude, just hanging up on a lady like that.”

: “Oh, don’t worry about it. An ambulance driver was looking for a transfer location. All the designated hospitals are full.”

: “But to think they’d accidentally call a general practitioner… must’ve been a new paramedic. He seemed to at least know my name though.”

: A while back, I pointed out that the Megami Tensei wiki makes a comparison between Tae and Naomi Kimishima from the Trauma Center games. Their backstories are basically the same, with the only real differences being how they got ostracized from the medical community (Tae for malpractice, Naomi for having the Healing Touch) and that Tae kept her medical license for some unknown reason while Naomi didn’t.

: “Does that scare you? Participating in clinical trials run by a doctor like that?”

: “…You seriously are one strange kid. Well, that’s fine. Being ostracized has enabled me to focus on my own research and development. Regardless, I look forward to working with you.”

: “I’ll be sure to add some additional ‘medicine’ for you, my little guinea pig.”

: We reach Rank 3, and Joker gets a vasectomy. They really, really picked an unfortunate name for the new ability.

: I feel like no one actually read over the script before release.

: “…You’re all good for today. You can go home now.”

: “You… haven’t told anyone about my drugs, right?”

: “…Okay. I mean, part of the deal is that you’re strictly prohibited from sharing anything that happens here, so.”

: “I guess I’ll believe you for now.”

: I’d like to point out that this game, which has been abusing the hell out of ellipses, actually puts a full stop after “so.” That’s not a typo on my part.

: “Feels like I’ve been getting a lot more patients asking for drugs lately. Wonder where they keep hearing about me… it’s been really bugging me.”

: We have two IMs tonight. I don’t remember the part-time jobs IMing you like this in the base game. Anyway, we want to answer Ann’s IM.

: This event is special in that not only do we get 5 knowledge points ,but we also get points for Anne’s confidant. Naturally, your choice here matters for points.

: “I’m jealous you get a one-on-one study session with Lady Ann, Akira.”

: “I’m actually not so good at this because of my time abroad. Anyway, time to study! Here we go!”

: “Do you think you could help me with math next?”

: “You also seem pretty close with Takamaki-san if you’re both coming to school together. You just transferred here though… I guess you two really click.”

: Akira just looks at her like “Christ, what is wrong with you, is it not possible for a man and a woman to simply be friends?”

: “I see. You seemed a lot closer than that yesterday morning. I heard she was a victim of Mr. Kamoshida, but was that all there was to it…?”

: This is where I really, really wish they’d gotten a competent writer, because you just know there’d be an option for Akira to go “Yeah no, you’ve got the wrong idea, I’m gay” and Makoto just slinks away defeated.

: “Either way, closer inspection should clear everything up… goodbye.”

: “The end of the Heian period marks the rise of the samurai, which I’m sure you’ve all been waiting for.”

: “As described in ‘The Tale of the Heike’, it was a time when all that was great would fall from grace.”

: I think the vikings would beg to differ on that, given that the Heian period also encompasses the rise of the vikings.

: “It wasn’t unusual for the heroes of yesterday to be struck down as rebels of the present day. By the way, sympathizing with the loser or the weak is called ‘magistrate’s patronage’.”

: “That term came from Minamoto no Yoshitsune’s position… and it also became a way of referring to him as well.”

: “All right, Kurusu-kun. You know the time period Yoshitsune was active in, don’t you?”

: This question is one of the few that were not changed for Royal, and I’m pretty sure I know why. In the base game, Yoshitsune was the highest level Tower Persona, with a unique physical attack that hits all enemies 8 times. He was so good that most people would tell you not to bother grinding for Lucifer and just take him instead.

: “That’s right. He supported his brother, Yoritomo, during the Heian period. But despite his contributions in defeating the Taira, he was driven out by his brother and ultimately executed.”

: “However, in the centuries that followed, Yoshitsune became more popular as a tragic hero.”

: At this point, I decide to try something. The next several days will all be on autopilot as we go through exams, and at the end of it we immediately get thrown into a new confidant. In fact, we wind up doing two ranks of it on the same day.

: The guide claims it’s possible to get an extra point if you happen to have a matching Persona… but why would you? In this case, it’s because I already have Kodama fused and Mokoi is only like 3600 yen to resummon.

New Persona: Kusi Mitama

Origin: Japan

First Appearance: Devil Summoner (Saturn)

: In most of the mainline SMT games and Devil Summoner, the Mitamas are a special demon type that can be fused with other demons to boost their stats. In Persona, they’re just another Persona. Kusi Mitama (its actual name in Japanese) is said to cure illness.

: Kusi Mitama was kind of useless in the base game because she was Strength arcana. Here, she’s been moved to Councillor and we’d need her sooner or later anyway.

: I then spend 3,600 yen to resummon Mokoi so we don’t permafuck.

: Today, we’re going to use those extra points we got from studying to reach Ann’s next confidant level.

: One benefit of doing confidants is that you unlock new hangout spots as you progress. The only downside is that any location that isn’t Yongen-Jaya, Shibuya, or Aoyama costs money to visit because it’s not covered by Joker’s commuter pass.

: I looked at photos of the actual Inokashira Park and it’s a very touristy kind of spot. It looks kind of like this one hiking trail near where I live if anyone actually took care of it.

: “So, remember how I said before that I want to strengthen my heart? Well, I came up with a way to do it!”

: giggle “I got this! I think having a strong heart means you don’t let anything get under your skin. So basically, I want you to stay stuff to me, and I’ll try not to get fazed by it!”

: So uh… you want to do the “emotional anguish” bit of Chardee MacDennis?

: Oh, right. I forgot to mention that this is probably one of the worst confidant events in the game. Not from a writing perspective, but from the fact that you have to keep track of what number answer you’re on for full points. The first four answers don’t matter. The fifth does.

: “C’mon, hit me with your best shot!”

: “Yeah, yeah, yeah! And?”

: This is where taking screenshots as I play helped. I think this was one of those things where when I did it the first time, I wasn’t sure if I permafucked or not until the very end of the game.

: “Uh-huh, uh-huh. What else?”

: This is the one you have to stop on.

: “You’re giving up? That means I win! Wait… is this how the game is supposed to go?”

: “Oh well. On to round two!”

: “You know… I kinda feel like this won’t make our Personas stronger. Huh, something’s not right…”

: “The next shoot is… really far. Wait, what’s this at the end?”

: “It’s a notice saying to pay extra attention to the time and place they tell you. Apparently some models haven’t been showing up at all lately.”

: “Then when asked why they didn’t come, the models all say they heard there was a change in schedule. It sounds like the shoots have been real hectic with all the scrambling they’ve had to do for substitutes.”

: “No, I haven’t missed a single shoot so far. It probably really confuses the staff to see a sub showing up too. Hopefully it doesn’t happen to me.”

: “Though actually, my first modeling gig was as a sub. That was back when I was still in Finland. My parents didn’t have enough models for their event.”

: “Oh, haven’t I told you? My parents are both fashion designers who put on some seriously extravagant shows.”

: If you’re looking at this and going “Doesn’t Ann’s backstory sound like some kind of fantasy that Lisa Silverman would have?” you’re not wrong.

: “They jump from country to country, so I only really see them for half the year. Maybe less these days.”

: I’m just picturing the end of Innocent Sin with Lisa creating a new world and going “Okay, so I love my parents, they love me but leave me alone because that’s what I want, I speak perfect English and not Japanese and I’m a model…” and Philemon just glowering at her when she asks if she can also be an idol and a magical girl.

: The real question though, which I don’t think ever gets explained, is why the fuck Ann is in Tokyo if she’s horrible at Japanese. You’d think if her parents are traveling all over they’d leave her somewhere where English is the primary language.

: “Yeah, I guess I can afford to be pretty relaxed these days. Plus it would probably be tough being a phantom thief with my parents around, don’t you think?”

: “It was rough when I was little though. It was just me and our live-in caretaker. I didn’t really have any friends…”

: “Wow, that got dark fast…! Ahaha… honestly, when I’m modeling… it almost feels like I’m connecting with my parents somehow. It’s a nice hobby to have, but I don’t think I’d want to make a living out of it.”

: Lisa turns to Tatsuya, who is now on top of Philemon and beating his face in. “And tell him I want to stop being a model at 18 and become a pop idol magical girl and also a princess! And you’re my boyfriend! And… and… I’m fabulously wealthy and have a castle in Europe!”

: “After all, that’s where Kamoshida first spotted me… and that’s how our class started those rumors… besides, the Phantom Thieves are more important to me right now.”

: “Nobody can be my substitute there! That’s why I need to get stronger!”

: It’s funny she’d say that, given how a lot of people see her role in the story. We’ll get to that a few dungeons from now.

: Ann is almost certainly talking about Lupin III, where half the time Fujiko Mine is the antagonist. She usually either loses when Lupin beats whichever Bond villain she’s dating that week or when Zenigata and the police show up and force her to abandon her treasure.

: “She wasn’t really a good person per se… but she was beautiful, strong, sincere, and even sexy. She always said whatever she wanted, did whatever she wanted… she knew what justice was for her.”

: “I… wanted to grow up to be just like her someday. I hope I’m getting closer now, if only just a little bit.”

: This feels like it should’ve been more than one confidant meeting, and it probably would’ve been except that they had to cram Shiho into Ann’s confidant.

: “So after we met up, I tried doing some runway walks on the way home. Like how a cool, sexy woman would walk. Then some girl who was watching me nearby started to copy me and runway-walked with me!”

: “She had to have seen me, right? Do you think she thought I was cool?”

: “Hee hee… it’s almost enough to make me blush, kind of. To be honest, I feel kinda bad for her. She has no idea that the real me is a human disaster.”

: “Mmm… I guess I still got a long way to go. But I’m not giving up. I made a decision that I’m going to get stronger, so I need to overcome any obstacles!”

: “Thanks for hearing me out! Okay, bye!”

: Back in Leblanc, we have a crossword to do. The letters they give us allow us to spell “LET’S-A MAMBO” which I feel would be a better answer.

: I don’t know that I’d call Earth Wind and Fire’s September a blues song. I’m not really sure what I’d call it.

: I went out to check Tae’s clinic to see if she sells her accessories yet. She doesn’t, which means we won’t have them for the next dungeon.

: Another 5 knowledge and 2 points to Ryuji’s confidant. I found out why we want all this knowledge: the reason is that there’s a confidant coming up rather soon that requires knowledge level 3.

: Here’s the reason we will not be finishing the entirety of exams this update. It’s because Royal desperately needs to introduce one of the new confidants, and also the worst one in the game mechanics-wise, so they added yet another cutscene. This game wasn’t padded out enough as-is.

: Quick history lesson: Minamoto no Yoshitomo was Yoshitsune’s father.

: “That sounds about right. Let’s see… an essay question? This looks tough, but let’s calm down and think it through.”

: “Yoshitsune had a brother, right? Uh, I think his name was…”

: Kiso Yoshinaka (also known as Minamoto no Yoshinaka) was Minamoto no Yoritomo’s cousin. Fujiwara no Hidehira was a mentor to Yoshitsune before the Genpei War that made Yoshitsune famous.

: “Yoshitsune worked under Yoritomo. He did a lot for his brother. But they ended up coming into conflict. And in the end, when they had to oppose each other…”

: “Yeah. Yoshitsune committed suicide after being exiled by his brother. But even though he lost, Yoshitsune’s the one who went down in history as a hero.”

: “That’s probably because people tend to sympathize less with figures in power, and sympathize more with…”

: “Yeah. Not just any weak person, though. People love rooting for an underdog who stands up to his powerful oppressors. And Yoshitsune did that to his brother.”

: “So the reason Yoshitsune is treated as a hero is because he stood up against the powerful Yoritomo!”

: I don’t know why they felt th need to drag out exams beyond the four-part question about Yoshitsune, but here we are doing some repeats.

: Digital Devil Story is the trilogy of novels that spawned the original Megami Tensei games. In fact, Megami Tensei 1 is a direct adaptation of the first book. I’ve read plot summaries and uh… let’s just say they haven’t aged well. They’ve been fan translated.

: To give you an idea, they’re basically a revenge fantasy involving a guy making a computer program to summon demons because he got beat up for rejecting a girl’s advances, because in this book all women are either inherently evil or are demons in disguise. Everything goes horribly wrong and everyone dies.

: Let me tell you, if I had the ability to make a program to summon stuff I’d probably make one to summon like, sports cars. Alien sports cars. I want a fucking Lovecraftian horror of a Ferrari where the wheels are tentacles and you drive it by shoving your hands into a weird slimy thing like the Hivehand in Half-Life 1.

: Right after the exam, we’re thrust into the school assembly.

: “We believe the mental health of our student body is absolutely vital, so we’ve acquired the services of a therapist. The floor is yours, Doctor.”

: Meet Maruki. He is either the best or worst thing about Royal, depending on whether you believe Persona 5 is a well-written game. I do not. If I had the choice, I would skip to the end of the game so I could tell you why.

: "My name is - "

: “Huh?”

: His mic cuts out, that’s why he’s confused.

: “Thank you for welcoming me to your school.”

: “You can even call me Doc, if that would help you feel more comfortable. Any assistance you need, I’ll be - Oh… I guess I’m not really any good for helping with money problems.”

: “You ever expect this place to actually give a shit about our mental health?”

: “Well, our school’s made national news. Maybe they figured they’d look even worse if they didn’t do anything for us.”

: “And Doctor, uh… Doctor Whatshisname.”

: “Maruki.”

: “Yeah - wasn’t that guy basically just clownin’ it up onstage? You really think he’ll do us any good?”

: “Sakamoto-san and Takamaki-san, right? And that must make you… Kurusu-kun.”

: “How d’you know our names?”

: “Well, I was informed of certain students before beginning my tenure here. Those that had, ah… previous interactions with Mr. Kamoshida.”

: And that’s how you were able to find them instantly and knew exactly what they looked like?

: “Kurusu-kun, it must’ve been especially tough for you after having just transferred here.”

: Anything to get this dipshit to go away.

: “I can definitely believe that.”

: “So… whaddya want with us?”

: “Ah yes, I’d forgotten. I know I already offered my services to the student body earlier, but would you three be interested in counseling?”

: “Nope, not at all.”

: “How’s that surprising?”

: “You were just a touch more emphatic about it than I’d expected.”

: My respect for Ryuji just shot way up.

: “Ah! But, if you come to my office, you can have free snacks! All you can eat… would be nice, but there’s still plenty to be had. So, how about it?”

: Seriously, this guy’s a douche. I’d say they should bring Maki back, but I don’t trust Hashino with that.

: “Haha… you’re right. To be frank, I’ve been explicitly ordered to provide counseling to the students directly involved with Mr. Kamoshida. It’s in the school’s interest… for the students.”

: “Ahh, the school’s interest, huh?”

: “I know that asking you to be open with a complete stranger like myself is a lot. Making this mandatory wouldn’t do you any good either. Might as well turn it into a worthwhile experience…”

: Oh, but it’s absolutely mandatory. As you’ll see very soon, Maruki is a new confidant for Royal. To access the new content in Royal, it is REQUIRED that you FULLY COMPLETE HIS CONFIDANT. If you do not, you will get the regular ending from the base game and will not be able to access any of the new story content from Royal.

: “…Ooh, I know! If you attend my counseling sessions, I’ll teach you different ways to improve your mental acuity.”

: “Like, ways to hone your concentration before exams, or not getting nervous on dates. How’s that sound?”

: Notice that neither Ann nor Ryuji want anything to do with him… and the fact that you have to fully complete his confidant… I wonder why?

: Unfortunately, my agency over Joker gets immediately taken away.

: “There’s also snacks…”

: “Alright, alright, enough with the snacks! So, which way are you leanin’?”

: sigh “I guess it’d just be more trouble for us if we didn’t go.”

: “Hmm, yeah.”

: “Really? Then I guess it’s a deal. I’ll be in the nurse’s office - feel fre to come by whenever it’s convenient for you.”

: “Welp, we should get goin’.”

: “Okay, I’ll see you later.”

: More irrelevant bullshit from Sae. They REALLY had to stretch the logic behind her questioning Joker pretty hard here.

: Now you’ll understand why I fused Kusi Mitama. The game does not expect us to be level 12, let alone level 15.

: “I have an addendum to the earlier assembly, regarding the counseling you’ve all been offered. The counselor will be available to you starting after school today in the nurse’s office.”

: This makes two confidants with a deadline in November. The first is Maruki, the second is Yoshida.

: “For the majority of you, it’s your choice whether or not you see him, but… there are a few students I’ll speak with later. The school’s decided: visits to Dr. Maruki will be mandatory for these individuals.”

: “Welcome. Are you here for a counseling session?”

: “Yeah, is now a bad time?”

: “Not at all! It’s always a good time, so long as I’m not already listening to a student. I’m so glad you’re here. Would you care for a snack?”

: I kind of hate Maruki because even though I understand he’s not a self-insert for Hashino, he still FEELS like one: he’s not old but he acts like he’s old and out of touch the way Hashino is.

: “Sure. Although I really only have one thing on my mind right now, anyway…”

: “Yes, I’d say that makes perfect sense. But don’t force yourself into talking with me. You could even just grab some snacks and be on your way, if you wanted! Haha…”

: “That is, if you’re willing to listen to the super-long story…”

: “I absolutely am. Take all the time you need.”

: “…I see. That’s such a horrible thing to do to someone.”

: “Yes. That’s why I wanted to get even with him… for Shiho.”

: “Mmhm. And?”

: “At first, I thought Kamoshida ought to face the same fate Shiho was going to put herself through. But…”

: “But?”

: “…Later, I realized that wasn’t right. If he did take his own life, it wouldn’t undo Shiho’s suffering - in fact, it’d just give him the easy way out.”

: “Is that so? You know, you are quite the wise, level-headed young woman, Takamaki-san.”

: “Huh? Uh, I think you’ve got the wrong…”

: “Nope - in fact, I think you’re wiser than I was at your age. I wasn’t anywhere near as mature as you are now.”

: If Hashino wasn’t a hack, I’d almost think this would be him taking the piss for writing teenagers who act nothing like actual teenagers.

: “It’s not like I did anything special, though. If I hadn’t gone through my own share of hell, I don’t think I’d be so mature either.”

: “I see… so, what’s on your mind now?”

: “Right now? Hmm… I’m just hoping Shiho will get better quickly. We both suffered a lot, but… I just wanna get back to laughing and having fun together like we used to.”

: “At this point, I don’t give a rat’s ass about Kamoshida!”

: “Now there’s a healthy outlook! You can’t change the past, but you still want to keep your chin up and press onward - is that the gist of it?”

: “Yeah, that sounds about right. I mean, it’d definitely be better if none of this had happened at all, but…”

: Yeah, you’re right, it definitely would be better if Royal had never happened at all and they had just localized the PSP version of Eternal Punishment. Or if they had forced Hashino out and gotten someone competent.

: You’re right, everyone would be so much happier if someone had just erased YIIK from the timeline.

: “We should wrap things up here for today - thank you so much for coming to see me.”

: “Oh no, thank you! I feel a ton better now that that’s all off my chest.”

: “Hah, good to hear it - you deserve it. Feel free to stop by again anytime.”

: “Are you here for a session as well?”

: “Yes, that’s right. Dr. Maruki is a wonderful counselor. I’ve actually been seeing him for a while, before he ever came to Shujin.”

: “Oh? I didn’t know you two were acquainted. Don’t go overselling me too hard, though, Yoshizawa-san. I’m really nothing special.”

: “Well, I need to get going. Please excuse me.”

: “Ahaha, well… I’ll try to make sure it’s worth the trouble.”

: "Well, full disclosure. The school gave me a brief rundown of the circumstances surrounding your transfer here.

: “Do you have to force yourself to accept everything that happened…? No, that doesn’t seem to be it.”

: “Now that you’ve told me more about yourself, I think I’ve realized something. It seems like you’ve largely been able to reconcile your internal world with your external one. I should note - that’s really, really impressive. Even most adults can’t reliably manage that.”

: What he’s talking about is the concept of self-actualization. It’s very popular in psychoanalysis (Freud, Jung, Mazlow) and basically refers to exactly what he’s saying here: being the person you wish you could be. If I remember right, Jung thought that self-actualization was something you could never achieve.

: “How to put it - you know how everyone has an internal reality? Some conception of themselves they’re striving for? Like, wanting to be a model student, or wanting to be loved and relied on… that kind of thing.”

: “But that idealized reality and the one in actuality are often far apart. That gap is responsible for a lot of people’s pain.”

: “Not everyone can ace their exams. And not everyone can be the heroes they wish they could be.”

: “You’ve already been through so much. That kind of suffering is usually enough to twist people up into dark places.”

: “But you - you’re standing up to it, and confronting a tough, painful reality. To me, that’s incredibly admirable.”

: “…Then again, maybe that’s just a little weird for you to hear from a guy you just met, huh?”

: “Well, let’s see… sorry, this went on longer than I expected. Somehow, the conversation just took on a life of its own, I guess.”

: “…Hey, I’ve actually got one last request. Do you mind? I’m actually doing certain research along with my duties as a counselor.”

: Why do I have a feeling this research involves asking Joker a lot of pointed questions about receiving messages from ancient aliens?

: “It’s not quite like counseling - more like a type of psychological treatment. Basically, it’s a project to learn more about people’s metaphorical hearts. What they think, how they feel.”

: “If I get far enough with it, I think it’ll be able to help a lot of people! So…?”

: Seriously, am I the only one who thinks that he looks like a younger Kashihara, especially in his cut-ins?

: “Uh, I guess my point is… I’d like to ask you to help with that research! All you’d have to do is listen to my theories, and then tell me if they spark any ideas or realizations on your end.”

: “Please! Any time’s good for me - I can work around your schedule. And uh… I’ve got a lot of snacks, too! You can have them! They’re yours!”

: Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, we don’t get a bonus here even though we have a matching Persona. We still needed one anyway, so it’s not like we really went too far out of the way to get it.

: “Really!? YES! You’re a lifesaver! Let’s see… I know! Maybe I could teach you some tips for mental training?”

: “I happen to know a lot about the subject. I’m sure I can cook up a special regimen for you.”

: “If you’re dedicated enough, I’m sure you could draw out your full potential!”

: The last time someone said that, I had to fight a crazy zombie bitch in a black dress and stab her repeatedly for her cool-looking ghost katana that was actually a piece of shit in PvP.

: Detox X is only going to be useful until we get our party member confidants up. At Rank 6, they all learn an ability called “Harisen Recovery” which is basically Detox X except it works on ANYONE and they’ll almost always use it the first turn after a status effect hits.

: “Oh, right! Would it be okay if we traded contact information? I’ll contact you when I’ve got time, or when I need some input from you. …That should do it!”

: “Now! I’d better do my part to repay you. Let’s talk about mental training and presence. Let’s see… first off…”

: This is actually good, because as I found out, we don’t get Tae’s accessories until Rank 5. We won’t hit Rank 5 until we’ve cleared the next dungeon. This means I’ll need to skimp hard on SP the way I did in Kamoshida’s Palace.

: Fuck you, Morgana! You can’t make me sleep, you feline bastard!

: For reference, this was what every night in the original game was like. Every single night was Morgana telling you to go to bed. Next time, we’ll finish exams, actually meet Madarame for the first time, and get locked in Leblanc and be unable to grip and sip.

[SpammyV]

I sometimes end sentences with so, but it’s always added with a shrug. As in, “The secretary said it’s okay to work in this area, but the building engineer doesn’t want anyone in here until after five, so.” shrug

Also this is bunk when I was in high school I never got to bring my cat to school and bounce ideas off of her while I was taking an essay question this education system is trash garbage.

[LaZodiac]

@Timrod

You can see the pollen in the air, which is weird because this is taking place in the middle of Tokyo. What’s giving off that much pollen in inner-city Japan?

Well checking a map, there’s a lot of nature and stuff AROUND Tokyo, I could see it getting in that deep, if the pollen is as dramatic as they said. Also I got huge culture shock when I saw how huge Tokyo is as a city compared to where I live and I feel super tiny now.

@Timrod

A while back, I pointed out that the Megami Tensei wiki makes a comparison between Tae and Naomi Kimishima from the Trauma Center games. Their backstories are basically the same, with the only real differences being how they got ostracized from the medical community (Tae for malpractice, Naomi for having the Healing Touch) and that Tae kept her medical license for some unknown reason while Naomi didn’t.

Naomi lost her license because as far as others were concerned she was using black magic to heal people, and since she was a doctor in the States… well, you know how America can be sometimes. I’ll admit I forgot this aspect of her backstory… because it’s never mentioned in game that I can recall, and I figured most of her problem came from, you know, helping to create a terrorist super bio weapon.

Regardless, you don’t lose your license if you do a malpractice. At least in the States, the courts cannot revoke your license to practice, only the medical board can. So Tae keeping her license means that, even with her doing something wrong, the medical board either didn’t investigate, didn’t care, or felt it was better she kept it… and given the lawsuit against her FAILED, since she says she was never convicted, then they genuinely have no reason to take her license.

@Timrod

I’d like to point out that this game, which has been abusing the hell out of ellipses, actually puts a full stop after “so.” That’s not a typo on my part.

This isn’t necessarily a typo, given it’s dialogue and I see people talk like this a lot… though the so typically has an implied dot dot dot after it though.

@Timrod

The real question though, which I don’t think ever gets explained, is why the fuck Ann is in Tokyo if she’s horrible at Japanese.

While you’re not wrong that having Ann somewhere with English as a first language would be better for her, most likely… remember that Ryuji is native to Japan and is worse at it than her. Japanese is just a really fucking hard language, it’s not entirely weird to be Not Great at it.

All things being equal, hiring a therapist on staff after it comes out the gym teacher was raping and abusing students is one of the smartest things they could have done as an actual school. Good on them.

@Timrod

And that’s how you were able to find them instantly and knew exactly what they looked like?

I mean they do have photos of the students, and even if they don’t “the two blonde people and the Harry Potter cosplayer” stand out among the crowd, I think.

@Timrod

Oh, but it’s absolutely mandatory. As you’ll see very soon, Maruki is a new confidant for Royal. To access the new content in Royal, it is REQUIRED that you FULLY COMPLETE HIS CONFIDANT. If you do not, you will get the regular ending from the base game and will not be able to access any of the new story content from Royal.

Shit like this is why I don’t even bother thinking about buying games like Persona early. You wait for people to figure out the routing and then play it. I realize it’s a FOMO adjacent sort of thing, but with a 90 hour RPG like this I’m literally only ever playing it once so I want to experience Everything.

@Timrod

Hey what if we did The Magician again only it was someone assisting or teaching you as opposed to self discovery. It’s me, the Consultant, the Counciler! Sourced from a tarot deck calling itself Esoteric, so much so that I literally cannot find information on it beyond the actual book describing it. Much like Aeon stands in for Judgement in the Thoth Tarot, Consultant stands in for Magician in the El Gran Tarot.

I’d tell more but again I literally cannot find more information than this and with variants like this they’re usually the same except for minor (yet still key) differences. In this case, as said above, Consultant is the person who teaches you, while Magician is self taught.

… this motherfucker spends like six dialogue boxes hyping up his snacks and he gives you GUM? What the fuck.

[Timrod]

@LaZodiac

Shit like this is why I don’t even bother thinking about buying games like Persona early. You wait for people to figure out the routing and then play it. I realize it’s a FOMO adjacent sort of thing, but with a 90 hour RPG like this I’m literally only ever playing it once so I want to experience Everything.

Yeah, that was me with Persona 4. The thing about Royal though is that unlike Persona 4 and the base Persona 5, most of your stat raising activities happen either at night or don’t take time at all… so even having maxed-out social stats won’t really help you much on NG+ because you can’t do most of the confidants at night, and a lot of the confidants that are available at night are only available later into the game - at which point you’d probably be at or near max social stats on a 100% run anyway.

@LaZodiac

Japanese is just a really fucking hard language, it’s not entirely weird to be Not Great at it.

Oh yeah, I’d know. I tried learning it again and just kinda gave up last night. It was eating up too much of my time and I was struggling with the harder kanji. That and the fact that there were so many cards on Anki where I’d look at them and my answer would be “Damned if I know, because there’s like three different words that are spelled exactly that way and without context I can’t know which one it is.”

@LaZodiac

Hey what if we did The Magician again only it was someone assisting or teaching you as opposed to self discovery. It’s me, the Consultant, the Counciler!

Oh, it’s a real thing? I figured it was something Atlus made up. Actually, I wasn’t aware Aeon was a real thing either.

[SpammyV]

Thats a much better interpretation than my first thought which was “Wow the sun is high right now.”

[LaZodiac]

@Timrod

Oh, it’s a real thing? I figured it was something Atlus made up. Actually, I wasn’t aware Aeon was a real thing either.

Yeah! Aeon is the Book of Thoth’s Tarot equivalent of Judgement (not Justice if I typoed this oops), whereas Lust (called Hunger in Golden for censorship reasons but honestly it works) is Thoth’s Strength, and Jester is Thoth’s Fool. Thoth’s book is… far more malicious, or at least dangerous, inherently than regular Tarot, or even P5’s corrupted version of the standard Tarot. It’s fun!

Just for fun, here are the changes from the standard Tarot you’re familiar with, to Thoth.

Magician becomes Magus (nice promotion!)
High Priestess becomes Priestess (shame about that demotion!)
Strength is Lust (Fortitude vs Giving In, makes sense)
Wheel of Fortune is just Fortune (no spinning the dice here. Deal with it)
Justice becomes Adjustment (There is not justice there is only Change)
Temperance is Art (I’m too tired to pick this one apart but it sounds fun)
Judgement becomes Aeon (There are no judges only the vastness of reality)
The World becomes The Universe (Nice promotion there)

there’s more but I’m still very tired and recovering from being sick, and Persona only cares about the Major Arcana for the most part so… shrug.

[Timrod]

Click Here for Update 16

: May 14th, and now we’re headed straight into another long cutscene. I feel like Royal kind of destroyed the pacing by basically doubling the length of a lot of cutscenes. By the way, I wound up re-doing all the portraits for this update because I realized that webp as a format is a fucking mistake.

: “I ended up pullin’ an all-nighter once I realized today’s the last day of exams.”

: In the original, that entire cutscene with the school assembly and the two meetings with Maruki weren’t there. Here we get the sort of weird pacing of having three days of exams, then Maruki, and now another day of exams.

: “You? Staying up studying?”

: “Nah, I gave up on the exam. I was playin’ some games, and then before I knew it, it was morning.”

: yawn “Morning…”

: “Yo, look who else is yawnin’.”

: “Exams are almost over, so I thought I’d make one last effort across the finish line.”

: “Impressive, Lady Ann. You’re quite different from this stupid monkey I know.”

: “Huh? Don’t gimme that crap. Your brain’s tiny compared to mine.”

: “Size is meaningless if there’s nothing inside, you know.”

: “What was that!?”

: “Ugh, will you please shut up!? You’re gonna make me forget everything I memo-”

: “…!?”

: “Am I imagining things?”

: “What, you see a groper or something?”

: “No, that’s not it. It’s… nothing.”

: I like how Joker has this weird cat-like expression, like he’s just seen a ball of yarn in Ann’s hoodie and he wants to bat at it.

: This is kind of where I wish they had gone with Joker actually being some kind of reincarnation of Tatsuya Sudou, because the imagery of a guy who spent two entire games stalking a woman turning around and protecting one from a stalker would be kind of cool.

: This would be Yusuke. If you saw the P5D stream, he was in the background video for Last Surprise. He’s one of the only characters to not be an archetype seen in Persona 1 or 2, though I guess you could make the comparison to Nanjo. Instead, he’s more or less Goemon from Lupin III. No points for guessing his choice of weapon or who his Persona is.

: His Japanese voiceactor is basically trying to do a Goemon impression at all times.

: And here’s our villain. This is also kind of ripped from Lupin III: both Green Jacket and Red Jacket have stories where Goemon’s old master turns evil and tries to kill him.

: “I didn’t even notice the calls from Sensei… but thank goodness, I caught up to you.”

: “Okay…”

: “What!?”

: “…Model?”

: “All that I’ve drawn till now has been lacking, but I feel a passion from you unlike anyone else.”

: “This man’s highly suspicious!”

: “Ain’t this a recruit for some shady business?”

: “Will you cooperate with me? What do you say?”

: I also noticed now that I’ve played Innocent Sin that Yusuke looks a lot like Jun. The fans definitely picked up on this because the vast majority of fanart for Yusuke either pairs him with Ryuji or pairs him with Joker.

: “Hold your horses! Who’re you anyways?”

: Oh god dammit, this is the dumbest fucking pun. The Japanese word for high schooler is “kou-kousei”. This is something I absolutely fucking hate, especially when the game otherwise takes itself fairly seriously.

: “I’m Madarame-sensei’s pupil, and I am being allowed residence at his place. I’m striving to become an artist.”

: “Huh!? Do you mean THAT Madarame? The one who was on Good Morning Japan the other day?”

: “The very same.”

: “You know who that is?”

: “He was introduced as a super-famous Japanese-style artist who’s been recognized all over the world. But we heard that name the other day in Mementos…”

: “That old guy’s Madarame?”

: “Madarame-sensei’s exhibition will begin at the department store near the station tomorrow. I’ll be there to help out on opening day. Please come by.”

: “It’d be great if you could give me your answer in regard to being a model then… I bet you have no interest in the fine arts, but I’ll give you tickets too.”

: “Well then, I hope to see you there tomorrow!”

: “That guy’s as easy to read as a book. You’re not plannin’ on goin’, are ya?”

: “…I think I will.”

: “That’s a little too convenient. It makes me wonder if you’re even telling the truth. So be it. What I want to know about most is your method.”

: “It’s true that Madarame was an unforgivable criminal worthy of the scorn thrown at him. He was an adult who cultivated his own fame and fortune by sacrificing the livelihood of children.”

: Madarame is more or less the Andrew Allanson of the art world, in that he’s a serial plagiarist who steals his students work.

: “But he’d been covering his tracks for years. How did you uncover the truth in such a short span of time?”

: I’m not sure whether this is terrible writing, or kind of brilliant writing. On one hand, Sae should already know exactly how the whole Palace thing works from the story he told her about Kamoshida. On the other, what she’s doing is exactly what an attorney would do in a deposition like this: try to trip the person up and find inconsistencies in their story.

: “This ‘metaverse’ business again? …Fine. Let’s suppose that people’s hearts can be changed by stealing their Treasure, like you’ve said. If so, a different suspicion arises.”

: “People have gone mad or lost consciousness, never to recover… like the subway accident in April. Depending on how you look at it, that could be taken as a phenomenon for a sudden change of heart, too.”

: You’d think she would understand that Joker didn’t even have his Persona at that point in April, but what she’s actually referring to are a couple of other shutdowns that happen between then and November, when the interrogation takes place.

: “…Were you related to those as well?”

: I’m not entirely sure why “No” isn’t an option.

: “…I see. Tch… fine. Let’s get back to Madarame’s case. Keep it concise, and stick to the facts.”

: “Seemed like some of those were kind of tough. Well, it wasn’t too bad. You should have gotten a decent score, right?”

: We didn’t get the highest score, that’s for sure.

: “How 'bout you?”

: They should’ve given you an option to have Morgana go with Ryuji instead of Joker, which would result in a harder exam for Joker but would make Ryuji like you more.

: I mean, of course he is, he had a magic talking cat talking him through everything.

: “You traitor!”

: “Anyways, can we stop talkin’ about the exams? Like it or not, they’re gonna come back graded next week. Rather than focus on stuff that’s over with…”

: “What’re you looking at?”

: "…It’s no use. There ain’t any useful info. The number of posts are gettin’ less and less too…’

: “I am not letting this end as a one-hit wonder, okay?”

: “There’s no point in getting antsy though. I know! Why don’t we go eat lunch somewhere? We still have some money left over from the other day.”

: “I want sushi then! Or domestic-raised eel!”

: “We don’t have THAT much left.”

: Joker hides the roughly $1500 he has on him so that Ann doesn’t see it.

: “Oh right. There are those tickets to Madrame’s exhibit! Wait, that’s tomorrow.”

: “Don’t tell me… was it love at first sight with that Yusuke guy?”

: “It’s not like that.”

: “O-Of course not.”

: “When I was watching that special on TV, his artwork was pretty nice. Plus, we’ve got free tickets.”

: “Besides, this could also be related to what we heard in Mementos.”

: “…Madarame, was it?”

: “Hrmm…”

: I swear, I’d just pack Morgana into a goddamn box and mail his horny ass to Abu Dhabi.

: “That aside, what should I do about the other two tickets? Wanna go appreciate some fine arts for once?”

: “Fine arts, huh…”

: “I suggest we should all go together! Appreciating the fine arts builds character. A phantom thief who can’t identify an original is lame.”

: Something tells me Morgana couldn’t tell a Monet from a Picasso.

: “Well, if everyone’s going…”

: “It’s settled then!”

: “Just the phrase ‘going to an art exhibit’ sounds kinda mature. Let’s meet at the exhibit entrance tomorrow.”

: Tonight, we’ll appreciate some fine ar- I can’t even finish that sentence with a straight face.

: Yes, just like I’m sure Japanese high schoolers all have magical brain ghosts that can light people on fire. I was watching a stream of Silent Hill 4 a few days ago in bed and my cat climbed up in that weird position that Morgana uses in these scenes where he sits upright like a human to watch. Needless to say, I do not trust my cat anymore.

: I didn’t catch it in a screenshot, but one of the comments that can appear in the bottom-right is “Sauce plz” which is a direct reference to a 4chan meme: because 4chan is an imageboard, most people just post images directly instead of posting links to them like you would on Reddit or retweeting them on Twitter. “Sauce plz” is their way of asking for the source of an image… or used to be, before the site got taken over by uncreative fucks who do nothing but spam fucking Pepe and Wojak.

: This caught on so much that there’s actually a reverse image search site called “Saucenao” which I believe is run by a 4channer.

: “It’ll be a pain in the ass if someone sees you, so don’t stick your head out too much, all right?”

: “Um… yeah.”

: “You really came.”

: “What’d you expect when you left us those tickets!?”

: “Make sure that you don’t get in the way of the other visitors.”

: “Come now, I’ll show you around. I’d like to speak more about the picture I’d like to draw too.”

: “Well, see you guys later.”

: “I told you not to come out! Are we really gonna ‘appreciate’ the fine arts? Can’t we just go home?”

: “Well, we did come all this way and stuff. Uh… which way are we supposed to start?”

: “It’s that old man from the other day.”

: My atelier (if you can call it that) is a basement. It really helped me get in touch with the natural mindset for YIIK, which is to say that it should also be buried deep under the ground.

: “…A shack?”

: “Wasn’t the word ‘shack’ something…”

: “There’s way too many people!”

: “I’m getting crushed…”

: “Anyways, we gotta head for the exit! Don’t die on us, all right!?”

: “Usually, one concentrates on their own style. However, Sensei creates all this by himself. He’s special.”

: “There you are, Yusuke.”

: “Sensei!”

: “Ah, the girl from yesterday. Are you enjoying the exhibit?”

: “I don’t how how to put it into words… but it’s really amazing.”

: Oh, right. I forgot to mention it up until now, but the wiki claims that Madarame is a composite of two people. The first is a composer by the name of Mamoru Samuragochi. You might’ve heard of him if you’ve ever played Resident Evil - he “composed” a couple of the themes for the Director’s Cut of RE1 (it’s the one with the fart trumpets) and for Onimusha: Warlords.

: Samuragochi claimed that he was deaf, and got all kinds of attention for it: he had a profile in Time Magazine and a documentary made about him on NHK. In reality, he was a fraud - all of his compositions were in fact ghostwritten by another artist named Takashi Niigaki. The revelations about Samuragochi happened in 2014.

: “You’re sensing something from the artwork… that alone is enough to give us artists satisfaction.”

: The other person is Yoshihiko Wada, a painter who won a national-level prize for his painting… until it was discovered that he’d actually been plagiarizing another artist: an Italian painter by the name of Alberto Sughi. Wada at first made the claim that he had studied under Sughi, but then it came out that he had basically flown to Italy, passed himself off as a fan, took dozens of photos of Sughi’s paintings and then copied them.

: “I hope this becomes a wonderful piece, Yusuke. Well then, if you’ll excuse me.”

: “Indeed.”

: “Oh, this is it - the painting I wanted to see in person.”

: “I guess it’s the painter’s anger? I’m not sure, but I sense this… strong frustration from it. To think such a cheerful and gentlemanly person could make such a piece…”

: “Something wrong?”

: “Don’t mind me. There are better pieces than… this one. Come now, this way!”

: Don’t mind me. There are definitely better LPs than… this one. CirclMastr’s LP of MLB 2007 The Show for instance, or RJWaters2’s recently updated Metal Gear Solid LP. The fact that I’ve plugged RJ’s LP in like… three of mine shows how much effort he puts into that.

: “H-Hey!”

: “…But thanks to that, I remember now.”

: “Let’s not worry about it for now. It’s about a post online.”

: “Here, look at this.”

: “You got it all wrong; we got dragged into this huge crowd and-”

: “…Eh, anyways. You gotta look at this too. This post might be about Madarame.”

: “What’s it say?”

: “A master of the Japanese arts is plagiarizing his pupil’s work. Only his public face is shown on TV.”

: Whoa there. I don’t know that I’d call Andrew Allanson a master of anything, let alone Japanese art. Has he been on TV?

: “Plagiarizing!?”

: “I didn’t think much of it when I first saw it, but hearing ‘shack’ and ‘Madarame’ triggered it.”

: Now, here’s something I’d like for you to keep in mind, because the plot is about to fall down the idiot hole. They’ve now had two different people tell them that Madarame is a serial plagiarist and also probably an abuser.

: While not quite as over-the-top as Kamoshida was, Madarame is still like, borderline cartoonishly evil.

: “Abuse on top of plagiarism, hm?”

: “If this is real, it’ll be a huge scandal.”

: “I wonder if Kitagawa-kun posted this. I mean, he IS a pupil of his.”

: “Who knows? It’s anonymous and all.”

: “In that case… it’s possible the Madarame we heard about in Mementos is referring to the same one.”

: “A man like that, doing such a thing? I wonder if we can ask that Shadow from earlier about this. Oh. Actually, we just need to talk to him in reality.”

: “And how are we gonna go about that? Are we gonna explain it all, startin’ with Mementos?”

: I mean, you could just use parallel construction. That’s the term used by Federal law enforcement where they get information without a warrant (such as through the NSA’s surveillance programs or from another government agency) that wouldn’t be admissible in court and then use that information to build a case that hides where they got the information from.

: “Besides, if we make a move out in the open, there’s the possibility that Madarame will find out.”

: “Oh… yeah, right.”

: “Hey, what do you think about Madarame? Doesn’t he seem suspicious?”

: “I know, right? This all fits way too well to just be a coincidence. If this post is legit, ain’t this the kinda target we’ve been waitin’ for?”

: “Well, yeah, but… is it really true?”

: “By the way, what did you do about the whole modeling thing?”

: “Kitagawa-kun gave me his contact info. And the address to his sensei’s atelier.”

: “He said he lives there, right? Perfect timing. Let’s try goin’ tomorrow. We’re off to Madarame’s house after school!”

: “Huh? You want me to model tomorrow!? This is too sudden…”

: “What? We’re just gonna go talk to Kitagawa.”

: “Oh, that’s what you meant…”

: Oh fuck! It’s Sunday and we haven’t gripped and sipped!

: Fuck you, cat!

: Instead, we have to study. Next time, we’ve got two more days of pure plot dump.

[SpammyV]

Has the “I’m an artist and I want you to be my next model” line ever worked outside of fiction?

[LaZodiac]

@Timrod

I like how Joker has this weird cat-like expression, like he’s just seen a ball of yarn in Ann’s hoodie and he wants to bat at it.

From personal experience I can say what he’s thinking of “I should pull that hood up over her head as a joke”. Not in like a forceful or mean way, just sort of casually pulling it up so she’s wearing it.

@Timrod

The other person is Yoshihiko Wada, a painter who won a national-level prize for his painting… until it was discovered that he’d actually been plagiarizing another artist: an Italian painter by the name of Alberto Sughi. Wada at first made the claim that he had studied under Sughi, but then it came out that he had basically flown to Italy, passed himself off as a fan, took dozens of photos of Sughi’s paintings and then copied them.

Shit like this is always hilarious because I mean, copying a painting is pretty difficult! Especially if you do it well enough to be good… if you’re that good why not just create your own work you fucking buffoon! There is no reason to do crime here!

@Timrod

While not quite as over-the-top as Kamoshida was, Madarame is still like, borderline cartoonishly evil.

This is another one of those situations where I’m basically unphased, because I knew an art teacher who claimed that “no good artist uses black”, came to work drunk frequently, and made papermache Oscars for his role in “I Downloaded A Ghost”. Nothing is more cartoonish than this guy.

On the plus side my bacon number for Ellen Page is a two!

[Timrod]

Click Here for Update 17

: Wait what? How is Maruki a teacher now? That doesn’t even work that way!

: “Thanks to the school, I can even talk to you outside of counseling now. I want to talk a little about how mental health and perception can affect you.”

: “Don’t worry - I don’t want to stress you out or anything. Just relax and listen.”

: “How much do you guys know about the emotional mind? See, what’s going on in your mind can affect your body pretty significantly. There’s proof it can even heal you, depending on your outlook.”

: “So, Kurusu-kun! What do we call the phenomenon where believing in a treatment’s power is enough to improve your condition?”

: “Yup! That’s correct. Some people specify that placebos don’t actually have any curative properties. But even if the medicine does nothing chemically, it can affect your perception and help you feel better.”

: I’d like to chime in here for a second, because this is actively being debunked. The Cochrane Library (which appears to be pretty legit) did a whole meta-study on the placebo effect and found even that’s not necessarily true - it’s hard to tell whether researcher bias was involved, and there aren’t a lot of good studies on it.

: “On the other hand, if you don’t trust the medicine to begin with, it might make you feel even worse… we call that a nocebo.”

: “That’s just one example, but my point is that our minds and bodies are more connected than we think.”

: “So it’s important not to push yourself too hard. Remember, your mind needs time to rest too. And it’s my job to help with that, so… come by the nurse’s office whenever you’re feeling down.”

: “The mind affects the body, huh…? You think I’ll change back into a human if I just believe in it hard enough?”

: No, Morgana, your dreams will not come to life even if you keep believing! That was the entire reason that song worked in the first place!

: “The train is the fastest way to go - plus, we can bring pets on here.”

: “Hey, who’re you calling a pet!?”

: “Dude, be quiet! We didn’t pay the pet fare.”

: I’d pay a pet fare to send Morgana to Abu Dhabi.

: “I’m the one guiding you to your destination! You should be calling me ‘Master’!”

: “Er, shoot…!”

: “Yeah, it’s just a toy. It meows when you press on its head.”

: “You heard her, Akira. Press on its head.”

: We are going to make this fucking cat suffer.

: “I just threw up in my mouth.”

: “Seriously?”

: “Oh, this is our stop! Well, see you later! Bye bye!”

: “Doesn’t look like there are any stations close by to that address… if anything, this is the closest station.”

: “What!? Then we gotta walk the rest of the way!? What kinda phantom thief takes the train, and then walks to their destination!?”

: I mean, generally the kind who live in one of the most densely-packed cities on Earth where using a getaway car wouldn’t make sense because of how much traffic there is.

: “Stop your complaining.”

: “It’s supposedly a shack, but this is the neighborhood he lives in… as expected of a famous artist. Looks like the fastest route is to get to the station square and then go to Central Street. Let’s move!”

: “We’re at the right address… the door plate does say Madarame.”

: “Uhh… you ring the bell.”

: “Me!? The walls won’t collapse when I do, will they?”

: “No one sneeze or we’ll blow this house down, okay?”

: “Sensei is currently-”

: “Um, it’s Takamaki.”

: “I’ll be right out!”

: “People really do live here…”

: “Hey. Sorry, but uh… we ain’t here to talk about the modeling thing. There’s something we gotta ask you.”

: “Is it true Madarame’s plagiarizin’ stuff? He’s abusin’ people too, yeah?”

: “Are you serious?”

: “We read about it online.”

: “Preposterous! Not only is the plagiarism impossible, but abuse? He welcomes pupils into his own home! This is no act of violence; it is charity!”

: “And I’m the one residing here and studying under him. I’m saying it’s not true, so it’s beyond doubt.”

: “You might be lyin’ about it!”

: “I had no family when Sensei took me in and raised me into what you see now! If you continue to ridicule the man I owe my life to, you will rue this day!”

: So what you’re saying is that he turned you into Goemon from Lupin, only more gay-coded?

: “…You really think that?”

: “Yusuke? What’s the matter? I heard you yelling.”

: “These people are slandering you with baseless rumors!”

: I’m just imagining Yusuke working at like, a sushi restaurant and going after people with hanzo steel because they asked for a california roll.

: “…Forgive them, Yusuke. They must’ve heard some bad rumors and came in worry for their friend’s safety.”

: “…Understood, Sensei.”

: “Well, even I doubt that a cranky old man like myself could be liked by everyone.”

: “That’s not what we meant…”

: “I’m sorry to have to butt in on your conversation. However, I do have neighbors around. Won’t you please keep it down?”

: I’m just remembering visiting my (very senile) grandma earlier today and her screaming “FUCK YOU, GET OUT! YOU’RE NOT GOOD AT ANYTHING!” at the top of her lungs. I’m surprised her neighbors ever go outside.

: “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

: “… That was discourteous of me… I’m sorry.”

: “…I know! I think you’ll be able to believe in Sensei if you saw that painting.”

: The wiki doesn’t mention if Sayuri is based off an actual painting or not. I don’t think it is, but I don’t really know Japanese painting all that well.

: “Sayuri…?”

: “This was the painting that inspired me to become an artist.”

: “It’s so beautiful…”

: “I don’t even know all this fine-art stuff, but even I can tell that this is impressive.”

: “When I first saw you, I felt the same powerful emotion as when I saw this painting…”

: “Me?”

: “I wish to pursue beauty like this. And I believe that drawing you will be part of that pursuit. I implore you: seriously consider my offer.”

: “I’m sorry that you took the time to come all this way, but I must assist Sensei today. I hope that we can discuss this further another time. If you’ll excuse me, then.”

: “Maybe the Madarame we heard about in Mementos is a different person.”

: “Man, right when we thought we found a new target, too…”

: “How’s the Meta-Nav?”

: “But why!?”

: “Madarame,” “plagiarism” and then “shack”, huh? These seem to be the keywords."

: I feel like if they entered just the words “plagiarism shack” into the Meta-Nav they’d end up in YIIK.

: For real though, what the hell’s goin’ on!? Does an old man like him really have a Palace!?

: “We have the person’s name and the location. All that’s left is the ‘what’ that Madarame mistakes this shack for to enter his Palace.”

: “You mean like how Kamoshida thought the school was his castle?”

: “That’s right. Let’s try saying some things. They can be random guesses.”

: Uh… potato farm. Macaroni and cheese. Floral scented air freshener.

: “It’s a bit sudden, though…”

: “Why don’t we start with ‘castle’?”

: You can’t hear it, but the app says something in the background when they get it wrong. I’m playing with Japanese voices.

: “Then, what about ‘prison’?”

: “Ugh, what a pain! ‘Jail!’ ‘Warehouse!’ And ‘guidance counselin’ office!’ Might as well add ‘farm!’”

: “Not a single hit?”

: “…Should we come back another time?”

: “A building that’s related to artists… if we think from there, what would it be?”

: I’d say an art supply store would be a hilarious choice for a Palace, but Dead Rising kind of did that. I didn’t pick the wrong options because I know what the right one is.

: “Didn’t have much of a choice. I think we just happened to get it right.”

: “What if I hadn’t noticed, and then wandered off and got caught by an enemy!?”

: Just replace “Tong” with “Morgana” and you’ve got the idea.

: “Prolly woulda figured it out once you started walkin’ on two legs.”

: “Grrr…”

: “So even you can slip into the Metaverse without realizing it, Morgana?”

: “Yes. In a place with minimal cognitive distortion, the differences can be subtle.”

: "Forget that… look!’

: “Let’s go check it out!”

: “It’s a museum… right?”

: “This is Madarame’s?”

: “Well, a Palace is a world formed by a mind twisted by desire - remember Kamoshida’s castle?”

: “Madarame’s artwork is on display at museums in reality too, though. His exhibit was popular, and people already respect him. Why would he fantasize about a museum?”

: “You got a point… it ain’t related to plagiarism or abuse, either.”

: “Let’s try looking around. Racking our brains here won’t do us any good.”

: “…Right. That aside, ain’t a museum a must for phantom thieves!?”

: Generally, it’s more of a mafia thing. Most high-profile robberies are.

: “Yeah. All those old man’s fans were super strong and all.”

: “That has nothing to do with this.”

: “But man, just look at that insane crowd…”

: “Well then, it’s time we begin our infiltration!”

: “Ugh… are we gonna have to wait in that gigantic line?”

: “Don’t be stupid. We’re not going in the front door.”

: “But there’s a high wall around the building…”

: “We’ll just have to find our way up over it then. In any case, let’s get going!”

: “It’s just not hitting me that this is that old guy’s Palace…”

: “That’s why we’re here, right? C’mon, let’s go check it out.”

: This entire section is very on-rails. There’s no enemies to fight, you just kind of go forward and into the museum.

: There’s a few stealables along the way, which are mostly just crafting materials. We definitely have enough money to cover guns and armor for everyone.

: There’s a whole jumping section over these pillars…

: And then we reach the entrance.

: “But it’s a pretty far drop… will we be able to get back out this way?”

: “Hehe, don’t worry… I have a rope! I’m our tool specialist, after all!”

: Carrying a bunch of potentially heavy treasure up a rope through a skylight is a perfectly valid strategy with no weaknesses. It’s also something Lupin III has done multiple times.

: “H-hey… this… it’s… moving…”

: “C’mon, we’re in a Palace. That ain’t anything to be freakin’ out over.”

: “Hm, the Palace reflects its ruler’s heart… we may want to check these paintings out.”

: I tried to see if there were any references to the earlier games in here, but there aren’t. I hadn’t played Innocent Sin when I played the base game, so I didn’t know if there were any.

: “It’s someone’s name and age? What the hell?”

: “That can’t be the title of the painting… right? Do you think it’s the artist’s name?”

: “Let’s check the other paintings too. I think there might be something important about them.”

: “But all the portraits on display here look the same… this is way different from what was at the-”

: “Wait a sec!”

: “Dude, I don’t get it. Why’s there a painting of HIM in here!? And more important, why’s his name written under it?”

: I should mention that in the same way that Kamoshida’s castle was a reference to Nemesis Tower from Persona 1, the museum is a direct reference to Thanatos Tower - specifically Tartarus, where your party members’ Personas went if they died.

: “You’re right… doesn’t art usually have like, the title of the piece or the artist’s name?”

: “Hm… this is quite the mystery. All right, let’s keep looking around for now.”

: Weird face wall.

: “It says ‘Yusuke Kitagawa.’ There’s no mistaking it.”

: “Huh? Wait a second… what do you think these paintings are?”

: “I think you’re right.”

: “For real? All of them? But it was only Yusuke when we went to his place before…”

: “This must include former pupils as well. Only one remains now… taking into account what that Nakanohara guy said earlier, things are getting clearer.”

: This is where the entire cast just kind of suffers a collective IQ drop. They’ve had two different people tell them about Madarame plagiarizing art, they’ve seen his palace that is entirely portraits of the people whose art he stole, and now they know he’s doing the same thing to Yusuke… but clearly they need more things to tell them that.

: This room is at the exit of the portrait gallery.

: “We’re here to investigate, so we should check everything that catches our attention.”

: Before that though, there’s two chests in this room. The wiki claims that there’s exactly four locked chests in the museum, and we have five lockpicks. This is a weapon for Morgana.

: “This is gettin’ way too detailed for a freakin’ Palace… why’d he bother makin’ something like this?”

: “Oh, there’s a museum guide on here. Let’s take it with us!”

: “I see… it says it’s one out of two.”

: This is like in Rollercoaster Tycoon when you can give your guests a park map and they still get lost.

: “Then the two outta two’s gotta be around here somewhere, right? Just how big is this place?”

: “We can worry about that another time. Right now our objective is confirming Madarame’s cognition. We may have to reconsider our plan depending on what we find.”

: “I mean, he’s got a Palace… seems pretty sketch to me.”

: Unfortunately, we have to stop here even though there’s no clear reason we couldn’t just keep going.

: “Look at this.”

: “The Infinite Spring?”

: “A conglomerate work of art that the great director Madarame created with his own funds. These individuals must offer their ideas to the director for the rest of their lives. Those who cannot do so have no worth living!”

: “Hey… this is most likely about the plagiarism, right?”

: “Dammit, what a phony geezer!”

: “In other words, his pupils are his property. He doesn’t even qualify as an artist if this is true. He’s stealing the ideas from talented students in exchange for securing their livelihoods.”

: “I wondered about those portraits on display… they must all be his ‘pupils’ through his cognition. This even says they have no worth. Couldn’t this be about the abuse?”

: “Madarame will keep them around as long as they’re useful to him, but the moment they’re not…”

: “He did say that he owes Madarame his life for being taken in…”

: “But still…!”

: “When we were at exhibit, I praised one of the pieces on display. But… Kitagawa-kun acted strange. Maybe that piece was plagiarized too…”

: “What’s the call? Ain’t this enough to target Madarame!?”

: The reason they’re doing this is because they need a contrived reason to put a time limit in place. This game would’ve made a lot more sense if there just… weren’t time limits.

: Or hell, even better, have a thing where Madarame’s Shadow shows up and says he thinks Yusuke is running out of ideas and he’s going to toss him to the curb.

: “Yeah.”

: “Confirm what, though!?”

: “It means we should get solid evidence that such crimes actually took place.”

: “What a pain in the ass…”

: “Besides, there’s too much we don’t know about Madarame yet.”

: “…Mm, you’re right. I’ll try contacting Kitagawa-kun. I might be able to get the truth out of him if I accept his modeling offer.”

: God this is such bad writing. They’ve had Madarame basically tell them outright what he’s doing and they still want confirmation. You’d think they’d have caught onto this game’s theme that only bad people have palaces.

: “Wait, you’re gonna do that!?”

: “You all better come with me, okay? I’m scared to go alone…”

: “Famous, renowned artist, huh? This might be tougher than Kamoshida. Well, we’ll just prep ourselves until we get confirmation from Yusuke.”

: “This is our first mission as real phantom thieves. We’re gonna succeed no matter what!”

: Unfortunately, we can’t do anything tonight because tomorrow’s another plot dump.

: “I just can’t forgive Madarame, but… what Ann said made me think… to Yusuke, are we just a buncha thugs?”

: “I knew it… it ain’t like he thinks it is! Pisses me off just thinkin’ about it!”

: “Good people have to put up with so much crap while… while shitty adults get to do whatever they want!”

: “Makes me sick, I-I’m not wrong, am I?”

: “Aww yeah! Don’t tell Ann I called you, by the way. Seriously. Well, see you tomorrow.”

: Next time, we’ll do another day of plot dump, and then probably another day after that.

[Timrod]

@SpammyV

Has the “I’m an artist and I want you to be my next model” line ever worked outside of fiction?

I mean, I’m sure it has… somewhere.

@LaZodiac

Shit like this is always hilarious because I mean, copying a painting is pretty difficult! Especially if you do it well enough to be good… if you’re that good why not just create your own work you fucking buffoon! There is no reason to do crime here!

I’m not entirely sure why he did it, but I know there was a kind-of similar case in Connecticut recently where a guy dodged jail time for selling a desk he claimed was from the Civil War and given to the brother of a soldier who had died in battle to the Wadsworth Museum for thousands of dollars. The desk was just sitting in his living room and he refinished it. That’s how they figured it out - photos circulated of the desk before and after he finished it in the same spot.

The newspaper article I read on it said that they didn’t really know why the guy did it. He apparently didn’t care about the money, he just did it because he could.

[drcakey]

@Every goddamn screencap

Prove your existence to society

what does that MEEEEEEEEAAAAAAANNNNNN???

@LaZodiac

Magician becomes Magus (nice promotion!)
High Priestess becomes Priestess (shame about that demotion!)
Strength is Lust (Fortitude vs Giving In, makes sense)
Wheel of Fortune is just Fortune (no spinning the dice here. Deal with it)
Justice becomes Adjustment (There is not justice there is only Change)
Temperance is Art (I’m too tired to pick this one apart but it sounds fun)
Judgement becomes Aeon (There are no judges only the vastness of reality)
The World becomes The Universe (Nice promotion there)

I know a tiny bit more about some of these. Aleister Crowley was (surprise) anti-Christian, so a lot of the changed cards are about eliminating Christian metaphysics (and probably Christian morality) from the Arcana. Aeon refers to the change of the astrological age or something like that, replacing Judgment Day. Altering Justice and Temperance might have been in the same vein. And the “Art” I think is specifically the art of alchemy.

[LaZodiac]

@Timrod

I like Morgana and this rules.

Anyway yeah, it’s a little contrived that they need to 100% confirm that the crime is happening, but I kinda get it? Kamoshida’s palace showed him literally torturing them with torture devices, when he was just regularly beating them. There is a narrow margin of error here, I feel, so making 100% sure is important.

[Timrod]

Click Here for Update 18

: “Perfect! Probably dropped all his plans just to get you over there.”

: “We need to find out from Kitagawa-kun if what we saw in the Palace was true…”

: “Hey, quiet down. It’s that student council president.”

: “It’d suck if she noticed us. C’mon, let’s split up.”

: “Okay, see you later.”

: “C’mon, let’s get some dirt on Madarame. But man… Ann’s late.”

: “Sorry. I was thinking about some things and didn’t notice how much time had passed.”

: “Thinkin’ about what?”

: She was thinking about how much she kind of regrets leaving Persona 2 for this job.

: “Don’t you think Kitagawa-kun has to be protecting Madarame? I mean they live together, so he’d have to be aware of Madarame’s true nature.”

: “The only reason I can think of him doing that is that Madarame has something on him…”

: “Yeah, that’s weird. But that’s why we’re goin’ to check it out, right? You ready to be a model?”

: “Yeah, I’m prepared.”

: “Whaddya mean prepared? Prepared for what? Something seem different about her to you?”

: “Ooh, nice eye!”

: “I didn’t cut them.”

: “H-huh. Well… let’s get goin’. We gotta talk to Yusuke.”

: “Kitagawa-kun seemed really happy when I agreed to be his model. Once he finishes drawing and gets a little friendlier, we should bring up Madarame.”

: “Wouldn’t you get nervous too, if it was just the two of us?”

: “We’re here to keep an eye on you, so don’t try anything perverted, 'kay?”

: I like that this is almost word-for-word the terminology that Satomi Tadashi used to describe Jun. It’s pretty clear Yusuke is gay and I’m wondering if they at one point had the option for Joker to date him.

: “Huh?”

: “Is there a problem?”

: “…No, not really.”

: You just know this would’ve been a contact in Innocent Sin between Jun and Lisa where Jun would paint a picture of him and Tatsuya together and Lisa would just look at it and go “I know! It means Tatsuya is all mine, right?”

: “…Hey. Kitagawa-kun?”

: “…”

: “You hear her?”

: “…”

: “…It’s no use.”

: “This isn’t what we planned! We were gonna catch him off guard and make him spill his beans, weren’t we?”

: “How were we supposed to know this was gonna happen? Guess we just gotta wait ‘til he’s done. What an effin’ pain in the ass.”

: “Perhaps I should try going outside this room…”

: “Just waiting around is a waste of time! This is too boring, so I’m going to scout around a bit.”

: I wonder, do people even do the whole modeling for art thing anymore, in an age where everyone has a camera on them at all times?

: “And… is that a lock? A door with a hefty lock… what could be in there?”

: You would think given that Morgana is supposedly the thieving expert that he’d know most of those locks are made more for looks than actual security. It’s probably a knockoff, too.

: “…What?”

: “I’m sorry… am I the problem?”

: “No, not at all. It’s just… I’m having trouble staying focused today. I’m sorry, but we’ll have to resume this another time…”

: “Oh hell no! How many hours do you think you made us wait!?”

: “I’m sorry… we had another reason for seeing you today. We needed to talk to you.”

: “It’s about those rumors regarding your sensei.”

: “This again…”

: “That painting I saw at the exhibit… you’re the one who actually painted it, right?”

: “That’s…”

: “I knew it.”

: “Your sensei is seriously messed up. He just thinks of his pupils as tools. That’s why he doesn’t give a damn whether he steals their work or physically beats them.”

: “I’ll make this clear, there’s no point in hidin’ stuff from us.”

: “Hahaha… I have no idea what you’re talking about…”

: “You couldn’t go against him, could you? I’m sure we can help you out though…”

: “Stop it… It’s just as you all say. We’re… our sensei’s ‘artwork’.”

: “Don’t misunderstand me though. I offered my ideas to him myself. As such, it can’t be called plagiarism.”

: I get that they’re trying to point out that Yusuke has cognitive dissonance, but that’s kind of not what happened at all.

: “Sensei is simply suffering from artist’s block right now.”

: “Dude, still…”

: “Kitagawa-kun…”

: “Then why’re you stickin’ around!? All his other pupils ran away! Aren’t you the only one left!?”

: “What’s wrong with a pupil helping out his master!? There are no victims here! Stop pushing your self-centered righteousness on me!”

: “…! I’m supporting Sensei as his pupil. Where’s the wrong in that? Don’t ever come here again… if you do, I’ll sue you for causing a disturbance.”

: Yeah, all those lawyers just clamoring for business from 17 year olds who have no money.

: “Hold it! We’re not done talkin’ here!”

: “Then you leave me with no choice.”

: “Hey!”

: “I’m reporting you to the police. I asked Takamaki-san to be my model today, but I don’t recall ever calling you two here!”

: I don’t even get how this would work. “Yes officer, they came to my house. Yes, the homeowner invited them in… no, they left hours ago… why are you hanging up?”

: “What the eff, man!?”

: “Ryuji! Stop it! Calm down, okay?”

: “Dammit!”

: “I won’t report you… but only under one condition.”

: “What’s that?”

: “I want you to continue being my model, Takamaki-san.”

: “But you said it wasn’t working out today…”

: I’m sure the cops will take the fact that you’re attempting to blackmail Ann very well. Not like blackmail’s a crime or anything. Yusuke basically does a 180 to the point where he’s a different person entirely after he joins the party.

: “WHAT!?”

: “Nude!?”

: “Ah, to think I’d be able to create a nude painting with my most ideal model! Of course, you two won’t be allowed in, and I ask that you forget about our discussion today as well.”

: “If I don’t submit a new piece to Sensei soon, there will be some… inconveniences.”

: “Nude, meaning it’ll be without any clothes, right!? Why are things suddenly escalating like that!?”

: “Because those are my terms.”

: “But that’s-”

: “Wait, ain’t that bad!?”

: “Sensei is out during the afternoon while the art exhibit is on, so I can use this place freely. I should buy more art supplies…”

: “Will you give me a second here!?”

: “Of course, I’m willing to wait. I’ll make time according to your plans. But, please come before the exhibit ends.”

: Oh right, they have a blushing portrait for Ann here.

: “Sensei will be returning home soon. We’re done for today, Takamaki-san. I’ll be waiting for you to contact me.”

: "No no no! We are not done talking here!’

: “Hey… what should we do?”

: “Yeah… dammit. He got us good this time.”

: “Don’t give up so easily!”

: “…A cat?”

: “You moron!”

: “How dare that Yusuke…!”

: “The way he said it, it’s not gonna be semi, but full-on nude.”

: “F-Fu- F-F-Full nudity? Lady Ann’s gonna…”

: “Drop it!”

: Well yeah, she’s gonna drop it, that’s the definition of nudity.

: “You know, you won’t have to worry about that if we make Madarame confess before the exhibit ends.”

: “But Kitagawa-kun thinks he owes his life to him. Is there a need to make Madarame confess?”

: “Then, Lady Ann… you’re fine with baring it all!?”

: “I am not!”

: “Madarame’s no different from Kamoshida. That asshole’s usin’ Yusuke, who doesn’t have parents. You’re tellin’ me we should just ignore how he’s bein’ treated horribly like the other pupils?”

: “No… it is frustrating to leave this alone, even if Kitagawa-kun is fine with it himself…”

: “You can’t leave it be because you’ve endured a lot yourself, with Kamoshida.”

: “…Yeah.”

: “Anyways, we gotta go after this guy. Madarame’s the kind of target we’ve been waitin’ for. Let’s help Yusuke come to his senses too… before he ends up like us.”

: “…Right.”

: You know what would’ve been way better writing? Have Ann recognize something when she sees Yusuke talking about his painting, and then realize that what she saw is the same thing she saw when Shiho was being abused.

: “We need to look into Madarame first.”

: “There might be tons more stuff that hasn’t been exposed yet, too.”

: “It may become easier for us to investigate his Palace if he’s preoccupied with his exhibit.”

: “Also, there’s the thing about me modeling! Kitagawa-kun said there’d be ‘inconveniences’ unless he submits a new piece. Maybe that’s going to be announced soon as Madarame’s next work.”

: “Oh yeah. It might not show your face.”

: “That doesn’t make me feel any better about it!”

: And now we have our arbitrary time limit.

: “Let’s start after school tomorrow. It’d be a pain if Miss President finds us on the rooftop a gain, so where to meet up… let’s see…”

: “I guess that walkway-like place in Shibuya would work. It’s near Madarame’s place, too.”

: “Changing our hideout periodically, huh? That’s a plan I don’t mind backing.”

: And here’s where we actually meet Ohya for the first time. The wiki has some BS about her being a reference to some reporter, but it’s pretty clear she’s heavily based on Maya in Persona 2.

: “…Huh?”

: “From the looks of things, you don’t seem like the ordinary, stalking fans.”

: “Uh…”

: “There’s this painting, Sayuri, that was supposedly stolen in the past. But there’s this rumor that it was taken by one of his pupils in retaliation for being abused. Have you heard anything about that?”

: John Persona only cares about two things - gripping and sipping, in that order.

: “I see… there’s no case unless there’s a victim, and if there’s no proof of abuse… I can’t write either. Looks like I’m back to square one. Sorry for taking your time.”

: “I’m a journalist. If you ever get any leads, mind contacting me here? See you then.”

: God dammit. They could’ve just ended Madarame’s entire career by pointing out that all of the paintings are plagiarized.

: “…I guess we should go home for today.”

: I think part of my problem with this game is that the way the plot is laid out, it would’ve worked a lot better as an Ace Attorney style game rather than as a JRPG. Something like Ghost Trick, but with courtroom scenes.

: “I have some interesting news. Someone who received a change of heart contacted me on the Phan-Site.”

: “Said he wants to meet with you to discuss another person who needs a change of heart.”

: This is one of the problems with the plot - by the time we get to Sae, half of Tokyo knows who John Persona really is.

: “You’re better off talking to him in person if you want specifics. All I know is his target is a terrible person… and that it might complicate things if he posted the name online.”

: “I’ll have him wait for you at Shibuya Station after school. The guy’s name is Nakanohara.”

: I really wish that Hashino had at least tried to be clever about it. The real Anonymous had some degree of operational security even before they became what they are now.

: “Nakanohara… that’s Madarame’s student.”

: “I told him to approach you. Good luck.”

: We spend the night crafting. I made some useless item that lowers Security Level because we have plenty of lockpicks already.

: What I didn’t anticipate is that we’d get some amazing RNG. There’s a chance on any given night that you craft an extra item without paying any additional material cost. This also gets us an extra two points in Proficiency (5 vs 3).

: I completely forgot about this being a thing - this is what you’d be resetting for in the base game to minimize time spent on social stats, but the schedule in Royal does not require us to do this. This is because Royal has far more open nights than the base game did.

: “We’re about to head to the hideout too. Who’s that?”

: “That’s Nakanohara. Mishima told us to meet him here in Shibuya today.”

: “For real?”

: “He seems pretty nice. Doesn’t seem like the stalker type. I think the change of heart must have worked.”

: “So? Whaddya want?”

: “Ooh, you think this is it? Is the pupil gonna confess his master’s secret?”

: “His Shadow did mention Madarame as well…”

: “All right, we got some real proof of the plagiarism.”

: “Suicide…”

: Metal Gear!?

: Seriously, what the shit is wrong with Persona 5’s world, where apparently any random idiot can just blacklist a person from everything? Is it like Earth Defense Force where civilians can request airstrikes and the EDF will actually do it?

: “That has to be Yusuke.”

: “So Yusuke’s got no choice but to listen!”

: “Kitagawa-kun…”

: I feel like this cutscene kind of has no reason to exist. It’d be one thing if, say, they’d gone to Madarame’s and Yusuke just went “everything’s fine, no problems here” and then this came up, but we already know most of what he’s telling us.

: “We’ve been asked to act directly on behalf of one of Madarame’s victims. It sounds like we don’t have the time to deliberate whether or not to change Madarame’s heart.”

: “Hell yeah! Madarame’s just a piece of shit who preys on the weak!”

: “Suicide… I’ll never let something like that happen! Plus, we finally got to hear how Kitagawa-kun really feels!”

: “Well, since we’ve reached a unanimous decision, how about we continue this at our new hideout?”

: “Our target this time is Madarame! We all saw that Palace. We’ll pay dearly if we assume it’s just going to be like the last one.”

: “And furthermore… Lady Ann’s chastity is on the line!”

: “What!?”

: “We’ll need to do what we did with Kamoshida. First, we secure an infiltration route in the Palace. After that, we send our calling card. Once the treasure has materialized, we steal it.”

: “Oooh, I got a question! Madarame doesn’t know that we were doin’ stuff in the Palace yet. Why are we already gettin’ treated like criminals in there?”

: “You’re learning, Ryuji. Well done. It must be because he doesn’t trust anyone. Any unknown person may as well be an enemy.”

: “Or maybe he’s just super salty from all those rumors that have been spreading about him…”

: “Then his Palace bein’ so crazy had nothing to do with us?”

: “Either way, we should stay on our best behavior. It’ll be harder for us to steal the Treasure if we needlessly increase the security level.”

: Security level is such a non-issue it’s kind of laughable.

: “We need to be careful of Kitagawa-kun this time too. I’m sure that whatever he sees will just get passed on to Madarame.”

: “That’s right!”

: “Hey, what is Madarame’s Treasure going to look like anyway? Another crown?”

: “I’d doubt that. But my sixth sense will know when I see it.”

: “Oh yeah, you go completely nuts, huh?”

: We’ll be finishing the dungeon before the month is over. The annoying part is that unlike Kamoshida’s dungeon, we need to take FOUR DAYS to finish Madarame’s - this a hard limit and cannot be bypassed.

: “Now listen here. We can’t mess this up, NO MATTER WHAT! OKAY!?”

: Yeah, no. Instead, let’s go to Iwai and get some new guns.

: “You picked it up somewhere. Nothin’ to do with me. Understand? I didn’t see it, I didn’t touch it, I don’t know about it. We clear?”

: Unfortunately, we can’t ask him about the gun. The Riot Police EX is a customized gun - which is what Iwai’s confidant lets you do. It sucks, in that it has about 10 more attack than the one we can buy but only has a four-round magazine.

: First thing I do is sell all the treasure we stole from Madarame’s museum.

: The new guns are a pretty significant attack bump, though most of them only have 85 accuracy.

: I also buy Morgana a cone of shame, which is kind of hilarious. By the time all is said and done, we’ve blown through about a third of our total funds but everyone has new guns and armor.

: Our next stop is a visit to Dr. Femdom.

: “Looks like I have a patient with an emergency.”

: “A young girl losing weight is definitely not good. You should go to a bigger hospital. I can’t provide a thorough examination here.”

: “A famous doctor, huh? I’m just a general practitioner out here in the sticks. As you can see, I don’t even have any staff.”

: “…”

: “What!?”

: sigh “Fine… is your vision blurry? How about your throat, does it hurt? Hm. No signs of swelling.”

: “Are you sure you’ve told me everything about her symptoms and treatments you’ve tried so far?”

: “Hmmm…”

: “There’s something I’d like to ask him bout a case that was in last month’s medical journal. I see. Guess the ones in stock will have to do…”

: “There’s a shelf by the reception desk. Bring the contents of the second drawer into the exam room. You’ll need to help me administer the medicine.”

: “Also, bring the beaker with the red label in the fridge, a towel, wash basin, and measuring spoon… well, what are you waiting for? Get moving!”

: “It was a very unique strain of an infectious disease. It can’t be detected by conventional exams.”

: It’s GUILT, isn’t it.

: “I temporarily suppressed the symptoms. We’ll make adjustments as her condition improves.”

: “Okay, that’ll be one million yen for today.”

: What’s funny is that a million yen (~$9,500) would be an outlandish medical bill in Japan due to their national health care system that has very strict regulations on medical costs, but in the US a $9,000 bill wouldn’t even be that surprising.

: “Huh? Wait, you’re actually going to pay? By the way, that famous doctor you mentioned earlier… was it Medical Chief of Staff Oyamada?”

: “…I knew it. In that case, I’ll make this free of charge.”

: “…Hehe.”

: “Doesn’t it feel good? Treating his patient without permission.”

: “…By the way, thanks to your outburst earlier… I’m going to perform a very special exam on you today…”

: Joker’s getting the extra-strength femdom.

: “Yes, my assistant… guinea pig. He’s about to put in a LOT of hard work today. Aren’t you?”

: “Not for a while. You need to start eating and regain your strength first. Can you do that for me?”

: “Don’t mention it…”

: “Your turn. I wonder what kind of response you’ll have this time… maybe you won’t even be able to make it home.”

: “But maybe it was just what my careless little guinea pig deserved, huh? Especially after approving that girl’s consultation without my permission.”

: “Good boy. But I’m only letting this go today. Don’t pull anything like that again. The drug does seem to be more stable compared to the early stages, though.”

: “It’s probably thanks to your cooperation. Feels like I’m almost there, so… try not to die just yet, okay?”

: There’s a crossword at Leblanc, but we can’t do it without chasing the customers out. It’s kind of annoying.

: It then gives us a trivia thing about the English word “gallery”. I wonder if this was more difficult in the original Japanese or something.

: We have one final stop on this extremely long day, and that’s with Yoshida at the station.

: “…There have been far too many incidents recently to ignore! Can anyone deny this!? The runaway-train incident, mysterious psychotic breakdowns, a school with a corrupt teacher…”

: “We have yet to discover the truth of it all! The apathy that permeates society is a direct result of negligence by our government and the media.”

: “…You’re listening quite attentively. Are you interested in politics?”

: “Are you a student? I’m delighted to captivate the interest of someone your age. …Hm? Have I seen you somewhere before?”

: “Oh, you were working at the beef bowl shop before! You have a lot of perseverance for a young person. Well, if you’re interested, I could use your help.”

: This is why we had to do the two nights at the beef bowl shop.

: “I want to change the state of this country, and to do so, I need the power of the youth. …However, due to a certain regulation, I can’t offer a job to a student.”

: “I was thinking you could learn some things if you chose to attend a few of my speeches though…”

: “Really!? That would be helpful indeed! Well then… would you mind telling me your name and contact information? You’re a student from Shujin Academy, hm? It’s nice to meet you.”

: “In the past twenty years, I’ve lost seven straight elections.”

: I’m… not entirely sure how the math works here. Assuming Yoshida was running for the Diet every time, he’d either be running every 4 years (for the House of Representatives) or 6 years (for the House of Councillors)… unless he’s counting by-elections or something.

: “This isn’t good. I’m dwelling on the negative right before my speech. Well then, I hope I can count on your help immediately.”

: “With common sense no longer our guide, we make decisions based on selfish wants and desires. This has resulted in a deluge of self-centered people who delight in taking advantage of the weak.”

: “A world where the young exist only to be exploited… is a world that must be changed!”

: This is actually a pretty major problem in Japan. The LDP is basically so entrenched as a party, with extensive fundraising and huge amounts of infrastructure, that it’s impossible for the less-organized opposition parties to really oppose them.

: The LDP has basically been in power since 1955, apart from two gaps: one from 1993 to 1994 (after the bubble popped) and one from 2009 to 2012 (after the financial crisis). This is part of why the Japanese economy doesn’t work.

: And when I mean doesn’t work, I mean REALLY doesn’t work. I used to think it just didn’t work in a way that was kind of comical, but no, it doesn’t work in a way that has actively ruined the lives of millions of people. That article there will also explain a lot about Yoshida’s speech.

: “You mustn’t base your decision on whom to support merely according to the party they belong to…”

: I read through a couple of papers on this, and one of the reasons cited for the LDP’s dominance is that people believe in the system, and the LDP is the system. This is why they lost after major, very visible financial crises - because the system didn’t work.

: “If I am chosen to represent the will of the people, then I am fully prepared to…”

: “Well, what did you think of my speech?”

: “Indeed. Do you feel the same? Such as I am, I’d like to believe that I’m capable of giving a moving speech.”

: “However, there are times, like today, when the audience has a difference of opinion on the topic. Some feel I should concentrate on getting elected before I worry about others… do you agree?”

: “Thank you. It’s encouraging to know that my message has won you over. Besides, I have grown quite accustomed to those types of reactions… although I don’t know if that is necessarily a good thing. Regardless, no matter what they say, I must continue on…”

: I’m going to fit one more day in here - it’s pretty short and the 20th is going to be our first foray into Madarame’s dungeon.

: “…I hope you understand. Allow me to warn you again. Don’t involve yourself any further.”

: “I only saw you coincidentally. I have no time for such an ambush. If you continue sniffing around my sensei… we have ways of dealing with that. That’s all I have to say.”

: “I’ve gone to see his work before, but wow… they are truly incredible! I saw some of his interviews, too. He really is a charming fellow. It’s rare to see a gentlemen (sic) artist like him, in a field known for having a lot of eccentric types.”

: Oh wow, our first typo. That only took… 14 hours.

: “By the way, you seem far removed from the arts, Kurusu-kun. Which famous ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period is said to have moved residence over 100 times?”

: This question isn’t something that I would think most people outside of Japan would know, because most people probably only know Hokusai for his most famous work:

: Hokusai was a crazy old man who didn’t feel like cleaning and thus moved every time his studio got too dirty. I wish modern real estate worked that way.

: What P5 doesn’t tell you is that Hokusai was very much into the idea of art for the common person - there’s hundreds of original copies of his paintings out there - and probably would be more if the wood block hadn’t worn out.

: He’s credited with starting French impressionism, the 4-koma style of manga, and manga itself - the word “manga” comes from a book he put out called the Hokusai Manga that was full of drawings for his students to copy.

: Utamaro Kitagawa was a different ukiyo-e artist who mostly did pictures of women. A lot of his life is a mystery.

: “Correct. It seems you know a thing or two after all. Hokusai had a habit of moving, but he also changed his name quite a lot - at least thirty times throughout his life.”

: “His sole interest was his art, so he stayed in poverty, wore tattered clothes, and lived in squalor.”

: “Actually, Madarame’s house was quite modest, too. All master artists, past and present, always put their art above their fame.”

: Now, I’m not saying I want to be one of those people with like 550,000 views on every single LP update, but…

: “He steals his students’ work, and makes them suffer! He’s no master - he’s just an abusive old con man! We’re gonna get him, no matter what.”

: The diner is for studying, and it gives you a bonus on rainy days. They also have special dishes that boost other stats, so in this case we’re getting 3 points to knowledge and 2 to guts from ordering the Surprise Sando.

: Sando is the Japanese word for “sandwich” - it’s one of those words where it’s a loan word that only vaguely sounds like the original word.

: Japan has this weird fascination with sandwiches, to the point where it’s this luxurious delicacy served at high-end restaurants.

: We got a new thing for the Thieves Den, I’ll show it off in a bit.

: This is something new. Some nights, there will be a quiz show on TV. This works just like the crosswords in that it gives you knowledge points and does not take time.

: That’s… not entirely how that works. Japanese law might be different, but in the US both of those things would probably be considered battery.

: The new item in the Thieves Den is a replica of the diner, complete with uh… clones of Ryuji and Ann, because that’s not weird at all. The diner’s name is apparently “Bikkuri Boy”.

: Ok, Stocking. I wonder if anyone’s done crossover fanart, and if so, which P5 cast member is Panty?

: We spent the night getting more placenta water and also hitting the bath.

: I was watching an episode of Game Center CX recently (It’s the one with Warwolf on the NES) and Arino goes to a bathhouse for his arcade trip. They had a bath labelled “electric current bath”, and that frightens me.

: Seriously I saw it and I immediately got the mental image of the torture scene from Metal Gear Solid, only with a bathtub.

: Oh look, Joker’s in the Yamcha death pose.

: And that’s the end of the 19th. One thing I should mention, since there’s a trophy pop-up: I read an article recently that said that P5 Royal is one of the most platinumed games on PSN.

: The reason is that the trophies in Royal are WAY easier to get than the ones in the base game, which required you to do an NG+ run and do a bunch of grindy bullshit to hear all the navigation lines. I don’t think any of the trophies in Royal require NG+, nor is there one for fighting the super-boss.

: Next time, we’ll get our exam results and go to Madarame’s dungeon for the first day out of four.