Persona 3 FES: An Asocial Experiment

Last night wasn’t anywhere near as intensive (for us) as the previous two Full Moon events. It’s consistent though, so whatever.

Want To Be Close

Do you think Mitsuru-senpai saved Fuuka because it was the right thing to do?
Or was it just because she’s a Persona-user and we need her…?

Let’s be honest, Mitsuru is more pragmatic than kind-hearted.


So, you think so too?
…Well, whether or not she joins us is up to her…
Sorry to bring this up out of the blue.

What to do today is a bit of an open question. We want something that’s bound to be light and relaxing, so that writes off… pretty much everything available. Chihiro’ll have to do, I guess.

Joy

The rich aroma of coffee fills the air.

The time flies while you sip your drinks.

I haven’t been feeling well lately… I couldn’t even finish my lunch today.

Chihiro looks pale.

I may have caught a cold…
I’m sorry, Makoto-san, but can we go to a drug store?

It’s really not too far, to the Pharmacy so sure I guess.

You agreed to go to the drug store with Chihiro.

One fade to blue later. I feel like I’ve said that a lot in the past while, huh…

It’s always a good sign when his own nameplate is calling him a creep.

Troubled

Wh-What do you want?

Creep: You just came out of the drug store, right? What’d ya buy? Hm? Hmm!?

L-Leave me alone…! Go away…!
Makoto-san…

Joy

I-I wouldn’t want you to… to fight… because of me… but just now, you were… um…
Y-You, um, helped me, Makoto-san, and I’m not scared anymore… b-but…
Why am I still shaking?

It’s pretty odd that Makoto gets absolutely no dialogue during this entire scene. He technically does say a thing here, but it’s non-specific stuff which… uh…

If you say so, Makoto-san.
Thank you… I’m okay now.

…It helps at least. Really wanna know what he said here.

Wh-Why all of a sudden… do I feel short of breath…?
Makoto-san, I…

Chihiro seems to truly appreciate your help.

Your relationship is stronger now!

…Um, b-by the way! Th-Thank you for saving me today!
Ex-Excuse me!

Chihiro ran away blushing…

You decided to go back to the dorm.

Iwatodai Dorm

I wonder how she’s doing…
Oh, by the way…

Maybe we should go check it out sometime.

Yeah, it IS the 9th of June now so we definitely need to do that.

…so we won’t be going to Tartarus tonight.

Ikutsuki-san said the owner would help us out.
How the hell can an antique shop owner help us out?
Unless she has this amazing item created a million years ago that can annihilate Shadows…
Yeah, I’m sure that’s what it is…
Just ignore him… But yeah, you should really check it out.

I definitely plan on doing that, since it’s a thing that’s been on the list for a while.

The fight between those with umbrellas and the driving wind is still being waged today…

That was our special report. Next, the news, followed by a look at everyone in recovery from the Apathy Syndrome.

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

So, the Antiques store is… very special. Very, VERY special.

Officer Kurosawa tells me you’re fighting against the Shadows.
To the public, this is merely an antique shop… but privately, I create weapons.

Weapon Fusion! There’s something that you don’t really see all that often nowadays.

Persona 5 brought it back, and improved it at least.

I’ll give you one for free. to start out with. Here you go.

From now on, you’ll need to find your own. The golden Shadows carry such materials.

Well, that’s mildly inconvenient but it gives us a reason to keep caring about Thebel in perpetuity, I guess?

There’s another thing you should know, though I’m still researching it, so I’m not certain of this…

Weapon Fusion in general can be pretty great, but the special stuff is the reason why you care. It’s all only obtainable here and it’s always very worth it.

All I can tell you is to experiment for yourself.
If you bring me jewels, I’ll trade the goods I carry here for them.

So, nothing in this store cost any money whatsoever.

As you’d expect from the early game, we can’t make any unique weapons but what we CAN make is pretty good. Berith makes for a pretty decent 1h Sword if we feel like giving him up for that. Which, well, I’d rather not right now. It is better than anything else we can get that isn’t from Liz but I’m gonna hold onto the Nihil Sword.

You may have noticed an option to Trade for Cards. Yeah, we can take gems that are absurdly common drops from basically everything in Tartarus and turn them into stat boosters. This is absurdly good since this just takes a couple gems and gives you the stat booster straight up. I’ll almost certainly not bother but if you want to, this makes making a Persona with 99 in everything absurdly simple.

_Or we could turn them into items. This is a big reason why I’m not particularly shy about using most of the better restoratives. _

There’s also some stuff in here that’s harder to get in large quantities but can be worth the time and effort. In theory. By the time it becomes viable, however…

Oh and there are 4 weird items in here that are like the Perfume. Unlike the Perfume, we might actually want some of these for reasons other than dealing with a shit mechanic that got axed very quickly.

For now, we’ll just make note of the fact that we can make some absurd weapons if we want to. Nothing too ridiculous yet, of course, but the option is there if you’re not haemorraging money at 4x the usual rate because Hard mode. If I was playing on Normal I would absolutely just flip Berith into a sword and buy him back no questions asked, but that’s too expensive here right now.

…And, yeah, I tried to use the bathrooms a couple times throughout the day to fix this but this time the RNG didn’t play nice. Well, we’ll get Academics up by the time its necessary anyway, so I’m not too worried.

Want To Be Close

So, what’s next?
We’ll need to invite Yamagishi to the dorm and explain what happened. We could definitely use her help.

Well, let’s get through it real quick, then. First, the Taika Reforms.
They happened in the year 645. Just remember that.

Yeah, the Taika Reforms are only among the most pivotal moments in all of Japan’s history. Nothing important there.

Later on, in 710, there was the Heijo-Kyo. That wraps it up for the Nara era.
What, you want to know more? Okay, here’s a question for you about the Nara era.

Oh that’s easy. I know that one! It’s–

…I don’t feel like picking on anyone today, so I’ll just tell you. It’s the Man-yoshu.
We’re supposed to cover the Kokin Wakashu, too, but I don’t really care. Ask Mr. Ekoda, if you want.
Argh… I don’t care about any of this!
I wanna get to the Sengoku era! It’s calling out to me!

I’m sure there’s one sensible member of staff somewhere in the school. Probably. I don’t know where they’re hiding though…

Anyway, uh, hi Andre.

Joy

Makoto-sama, you 'ave gotten much better at zis! Subarashii! Wonderful!
Thanks.
I 'ave to get better too!
I am glad to 'ave such a great friend–tomodachi–as my rival!

Makoto-sama.
I would like to make somezing Japanese, but what?
Something traditional?
A kimono!!

It 'as to be a kimono!
But… zat is very 'ard to make…
I don’t know 'ow. Plus, it eez expensive…

Makoto-sama, you are ze only one I can talk to 'ere…
You are so nice!

Bebe seems truly grateful.

Your relationship is stronger now!

You decide to go back to the dorm.

Andre’s link is pretty great, honestly. The guy knows what he likes and is just so happy and eager about, like, everything.

Iwatodai Dorm

Man, I wonder when she’ll be ready to come along…
Hey, don’t just assume that she’ll be joining us…
I hope they’re not trying to push her into it…

Neither Junpei nor Yukari have anything new to say, right now. There’s also absolutely nothing on TV either.

So I guess we’ll just go drink a lot more coffee and get the Charm rank 3.

Academics is still firmly at rank 2, but it’s just chugging along. It’ll get there eventually, I’m sure.

The 11th is the first day in a while in which we don’t have any scene at the front gate. It’s always a bit weird whenever that happens. I dunno.

Afternoon Break

But at least there’s… something that happens today.

It’s from Akihiko.

Honestly, that’s insanely impressive considering Makoto was out for like half a month. Fuuka’s just 3 days which is ludicrous. Different circumstances sure, but you’d think she’d be longer what with running around Tartarus for so long before her Awakening…

“We’ll talk to her this evening.”

“Come to the command room as soon as you get back.”

So, uh, between the Perfume we bought from Tanaka and the stuff in the Antique Store… I think it’s about time we dive headfirst into The Worst Mechanic. Chihiro’s the easiest to do that with right now.

Joy

So, how was it?
Huh? Oh! You mean the Sweet Shop…
Sorry. I have something more important on my mind…

Chihiro is blushing.

…Remember when you saved me from that creep, Makoto-san?

It… It’s been two days.

I guess I’ll tell you, Makoto-san, since you’ve been so nice to me…!
…B-But, don’t think I’m weird, okay!?
L-Last night, um… I-I… You see, I had this…

It’s been two days.

It’s just a coincidence.
I-I thought it was probably just a coincidence, too, but…

I dream about you every night… This has never happened to me before.
I appreciate how nice you’ve been to me, Makoto-san…
But… one of these days, I… might want to be more than just your friend…

You sense that Chihiro cares for you.

It’s a very one-sided degree of serious…

Okay, so this is a really shit mechanic that was immediately removed for Persona 4 thankfully. See, now that (in Chihiro’s mind at least) we’re “dating”, there is a 60 day timelimit to spend time with her again.

That doesn’t sound too bad, but that time limit gets 15 days knocked off if we hang out with a different high school girl, like say Yuko. This applies even if you do it on days when you can’t spend time with Chihiro in the first place and if neither of them would rank up at the time.

It’s fucking dumb and there IS a really awful consequence if that time limit hits 0 from either naturally running out of time or spending time with the “wrong” people at most 4 times.

I-I get so nervous when I’m around you, Makoto-san…
…especially when you look at me that way…

…Bored and uninterested?

Sorry…
Don’t be hard on yourself.
I-I’m always talking about my problems… Makoto-san, you’re just too nice…

…I-I think I’m starting to overcome my fear of men!

Oh, I guess the game hasn’t forgotten her androphobia after all. It’s just… completely irrelevant aside from it being implied that’s maybe the reason she was awkward around a creepy fucko. Instead of him being, y’know, acting super inappropriate and like a shit.

So far, I can only talk to boys I know, but… I can almost look them in the eye!
With your help, Makoto-san, I feel like I can do even better!

Chihiro closed her eyes…

As long as it’s nothing scary… I’ll be fine!

Okay, so this is so blatantly obvious what’s sensible, what the game wants you to do and what’s transparently the wrong option.

…Hmm…

Chihiro looks utterly shocked.

Troubled

W-We aren’t even officially dating… and you have the nerve to do THAT!
H-How dare you! What kind of girl do you think I am!

Things are gradually getting worse.

Just Like This…

Troubled

Chihiro ran home crying.

Now that you’re on your own, you decided to go back to the dorm.

Hmm, yeah, I’m getting a weird feeling that we probably don’t want to pick the blatantly wrong choice.

Joy

Makoto-san…

It feels like Chihiro will never let go.

It’s so rough… and strong… and warm…

Oh right, uh, opting to not hld hnds doesn’t prevent “dating” because it’s part of the S.Link. It’s part of almost all the S.Links with girls, because one of the directors did not - and still to this day does not - believe that men and women can only be friends…

Troubled

chuckle Relax, there’s no need to be nervous. Why don’t you have a seat?
Everyone, you did an excellent job uncovering the truth. I also wanted to let you know…

What a relief…
From what I understand, they each came to school around midnight and waited for the security guard to leave.

However, the facts became twisted because of rumors concerning a ghost story.
I knew right from the beginning that it wasn’t a ghost.

What? No, you didn’t.

…Are you kidding!? You were the victim!
But, I made so many people worry…
Hey, don’t think like that…

You saved our lives. You should feel good about yourself.
You have a special power that you can use to help others.

We call it “Persona.”
You could be a tremendous help to us. Will you lend us your strength?
Are you asking me to join you…?
Mitsuru-senpai…
You know, we’re not trying to pressure you, so if you need some time to think about it…

I’ll help you!
A-Are you sure!?
If you join, you’ll have to live here…

We really appreciate this.
We’ll have the school talk to your parents, to resolve any issues.
Thank you.
…Wait a minute. Aren’t we dragging her into this a bit fast?
Um, it’s okay, really…

We still don’t know where they’re coming from. But, Akihiko is right about one thing…

So, they’re kinda like werewolves then, huh?
It’s a big advantage for us to know when to expect them.
Now, on the day of the fight, we’ll be ready to get in the ring.

You wonder if this is what the boy was trying to tell you…

It seems that you should start paying attention to the moon’s phases…

I’m pretty sure there’s no “trying” about it. That strange kid told us this outright like twice already.

Iwatodai Dorm

Hey, Makoto, whaddya think of her?
That all you think about?
Dude, you need to lighten up.
This is what being in high school’s all about…

The more things change, I guess.

Even though in the end it was her choice…
I don’t feel good about this…

Today was a great day for all of us.
Hm? Oh, I asked Mitsuru and Akihiko to walk Fuuka home.
She shouldn’t be walking home alone.

Ah, that explains why those three aren’t around anywhere.

According to wedding planners, the number of June brides is steadily decreasing… The month is less popular with married couples in their 20s and 30s.

There’s not much we can do today, really, so let’s see… It’s Thursday which means…

At least we can take photos for 3x the price of coffee but 2x the Charm points. It sounds like a bad trade when I put it like that, but it really works out as better in the end because we need this maxed by a specific date and all.

Academics is just… Academics. It’s going to get somewhere eventually, I guess. It just takes forever.

Normally I’d cut it at the end of the 11th, but we have time for one more day so let’s do just that.

Want To Be Close

Hey, Makoto-kun… What do you think about Fuuka?
She’s very helpful.
You think so? I mean, yeah, her Persona ability is great n’ all, but…
Doesn’t it kinda seem like she was forced into joining us?
I hope she’ll be okay…

Troubled

Nosy Girl: Ekoda’s in hot water!
Gossip-Lover: Really? What’d he do?

Gossip-Lover: Hahaha, I can totally see that!

Gossip-Lover: Quiet, she can hear you!

Um…

She’s right in front of you, so I guess no? She’s not in here?

Moriyama-san…?
I heard you started living in the dorms.
Y-Yeah…

Let me know if you need someone to talk to.
You could probably use a friend, huh?
Moriyama-san…
Oh, come on.

Just in case you were thinking that she was being sarcastic or something, this flies in the face of that.

…Thank you…

[i]A nice scene to give Fuuka a real friend for the first time, huh. How sweet.[/o]

Speaking of real friends, Andre has… something we should talk to him about today, I think.

Bebe, who’s usually very talkative, is quiet.

Are you alright?
You can tell somezing eez wrong!?

Uhh… Last night…
My dear aunt…

Calm down.
…I will try…

Bebe seems sad.

S-Sorry, gomenasai…

And now, she 'as been taken away…
She 'elped me so much and… I could not do anyzing for 'er…
I was 'olding zis inside…
…because I know zat crying will not 'elp…
But, seeing ze look on your face, Makoto-sama… I…

He seems devastated by his loss…

Bebe has confided in you.

…Hasta la vista…

Andre… :frowning:

You decide to go back to the dorm.

Iwatodai Dorm

But, no guys allowed…
It’s cool, though… I’m just glad she’s coming. She’ll be here tomorrow, ya know.

They’re cleaning it up. You know, dusting and mopping…
They said they’d call us if there are any cockroaches that need to be killed.

I’m pretty sure they can handle a couple cockroaches. I mean, they can definitely handle way tougher stuff so…

Might as well go say “hi” anyway. Seem to be taking a break right now, at least.

But, preparing for Yamagishi’s move has taken longer than I anticipated.
So, that’s that… As you can see, the girls’ rooms are on this floor. Males are not permitted.

Please don’t let there be any cockroaches…

What you’re seeing is a prototype of an artificial rain generator. For a country like this, where water is becoming scarce…

Oh yeah, I’ve heard of that. It’s called “dance powder.” It’s pretty useful stuff!

Anyway, we’re gonna have a low-key evening this week. Could spend time with Mutatsu, sure, but I think we should focus more on Charm for the time being.

That leaves us with a bit of studying to close out the day. Now, tomorr–

The Voice Someone Calls

It doesn’t seem so certain, considering the vast potential within you.
As a matter of fact, your power seems to have changed quite a bit.

I’m very curious about you… Is that okay?
Yeah, whatever.
chuckle I see your point. You haven’t had much say in the matter.

You may call me that if you wish.

The Power of the Heart

A mysterious voice rings in your head…

The Voice Someone Calls

I’m already looking forward to our next meeting.

Alright, so we have Fuuka as our formal navigator officially as of tomorrow. We’re also, uh, very low on money so his is a good time to check out what she can do For Real, so an early Tartarus trip is in order I think.

Mitsuru’s been upgraded into a playable character, and her weapons are 1handed swords. Because she can fence, you see. She’s, uh, notably a higher level than anyone else by a decent margin, even.

Penthesilea is mostly balanced and so kinda boring, but she has a notable Magic bent and already starts with a multi-target spell. She can heal a bit and if she knows the enemy is vulnerable to it can cast Marin Karin to fish for Charm procs. The bolded bit is important. If she is using Marin Karin, it will work. Remember this.

Yukari, by contrast, is currently a lower level than anyone else but because EXP scales we can help her catch up pretty quickly. Right now, her only real use is that she can cure some ailments (that won’t come up much) and deal Wind damage.

Junpei is pretty alright for what he needs to do, realy. Re Patra is like the worst spell ever, though, since it removes Knock Down from 1 ally. It has very niche uses, but it is only in this game for obvious reasons. Rakukaja can also come in handy, if he can’t contribute much damage. (And once he hits level 18, he can Akihiko better than Akihiko can.)

Akihiko can now live up to his original visible purpose and do a bit of everything. Sonic Punch is decent Strike damage, Dia lets him heal, Zio will be very useful and Tarunda can work well as what is functionally a multi-target Rakukaja. Plus both can work out very well if necessary.

When you said “awful mechanic,” I figured it would just be bad writing forcing you into dating relationships with a social link. I guess it’s… that, but even worse. At least Andre’s still well written.

Want To Be Close

Yamagishi will be living in the dorm with us.
And starting tonight, she’ll be providing us with support during battle. So, now I can rejoin the front line.
Great. You’re reliable.
Yes, you can depend on me.
Even though I’m a bit out of practice, I will soon return to my prior form.

Seems like we have Mitsuru as a playable character as of today. I am super okay with that.

We’re not even remotely close to running out of time, but that doesn’t matter. Best way to deal with it now is to just focus on Chihiro’s link for a while, I think.

Joy

All of the books on this shelf are only 100 yen each, so I can afford them with my allowance…

Chihiro is looking at the books on the shelf.

Shall we get going? I don’t see anything that interests me…
…Hm?
O-Oh my… This is…! I’ve been dying to read this!!

I would never have expected this to be here…
Maybe the shop owner made a mistake…
…They have all three volumes. This is amazing…

Wh-What should I do…?
Is it good?
Of course! All three volumes are great!

The characters look so real! …Like they really exist!

But, I’ll get them no matter what! By next month… wait… by the time I graduate!
I-I gotta hide them where no one will see them…

For over a year, no less. The perfect plan!

Please, don’t get bought by someone else…

But, I also don’t want to be a burden to my mother…

Kogals are high-school girls that basically dress like uniformed high-school girls… except with a few minor tweaks. Looking at this person, it sure doesn’t apply. But if it does and this is just a timing quirk (no), it gives us a very alternative indicator of what is actually going on here. And it’s a hell of a lot more creepy than you would think…

Nervous Man: S-Sorry! Forgive me! I’ll do anything you want! Anything!!
Kogal: I’m going to break Up with you if you don’t buy me that bag I was talking about before.

Until recently…
What do you mean?
…Oh, don’t worry. I was just talking to myself.

But… I sort of understand how he feels…
That man… He doesn’t have any self-confidence, so he tries to compensate with his money…

Uh, no. If her nametag was correct and she is a school girl, then what we just caught a glimpse of was compensated dating. A creepy practice in which women (who could be adults but are more often in high-school) date older men for money, material goods and sometimes sex. It is basically child prostitution, but it’s defended and considered a distinct practice because it’s not always sex.

It’s really fucking gross, yes.

And the entire reason I know it exists is because it was relevant in Persona 2. Thanks, Lisa!

Chihiro seems to be thinking about you.

Your relationship is stronger now!

…Shall we go?
If I stay here, I know I’ll want to go back to the bookstore and look at that illustration collection again…

Chihiro ran away.

It’s getting dark, so you decide to go back to the dorm.

Iwatodai Dorm

Now that Fuuka is formally a member of the team, Liz gives us a cool to let us know we can ascend higher in Tartarus. Also she has new requests.

…just tell me if you want to go to Tartarus.

Really, it doesn’t affect overly much that we need to talk to Fuuka and not Mitsuru for Tartarus and checking whether everyone else is Tired/Sick or not now.

Well, there are some things in life you don’t want to know about…
This is one of them.

They said I could move in on Sunday, but I decided to come a little earlier.
I wanted to begin helping you all as soon as possible…
But I didn’t even have time to pack, so I don’t have anything with me.

I’m glad she wants to be part of the team. I’m looking forward to the next mission.

…You already knew that!

At first, people were saying that she was absent because she was being bullied…
But. then they started saying she was really sick.
Strange, huh? She seems pretty healthy to me.

No, it’s not strange at all. You were right there both times we learned that she was absent because she was missing because she was trapped in Tartarus.

God damn it, Yukari. Junpei is supposed to be “The Dumb One”.

Well, let’s have a nice surprise. Guess it’s not once a month after all!

Today’s subject is a man in his 30s, with sunglasses and long hair that reaches to his back.

…Next is news. Pain, pain, go away!

So, our guest this time is one of the best Persona characters ever and also the oldest playable character in the series period. Baofu clocks in at the Absolutely Ancient age of 32 during the events of Persona 2. Like Lisa, he’s not actually Japanese but rather Taiwanese. He’s such a badass, he fights by flicking things like coins as his weapons. When he’s not being a cool dude, he works as a rumormonger which helps influence the way events shape out in Sumaru City. Sadly this is basically all he does in Innocent Sin, so he’s a fairly minor (but very important) NPC there. Fortunately, he gets upgraded to a playable character in Eternal Punishment. He joins claiming to be interested in finding out the truth behind the JOKER curse, but is really interesting in doing an assassination on the boss of the Taiwanese Mafia. Yes, really.

Baofu’s Primary Arcana is The Hanged Man, but he’s very noteworthy in that his Secondary Arcana techically includes The Tower as he has the best affinity towards it out of everyone. His affinity is still only Good, but no one else has that or better. Oh and his default Persona is Odysseus. Yes, the main character of Homer’s Odyssey who was also in the Iliad.

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

Y’know, I just realised I’ve completely ignored this the entire time.

It just costs 200 Yen a pop and doesn’t take up any time. It’s the only place to get Jack Frost Dolls, so I take a few minutes to spend the ~4000 yen it takes to luck out and get enough for something later.

Because, well, it IS a crane game. You win far less often than you lose.

The Poem For Everyone’s Soul

We’ve got a decent chunk of time before Liz’s next deadline for her requests. Doesn’t mean we’ll necessarily take 'em slow though.

Especially since some of them are very low-effort and can be done as soon as we get a chance during the day.

Some also require a bit more effort than before, though. This seems like a simple get the item thing, but we need to figure out what it’s meant to be first. Fortunately, that’s easy enough to do here. It’s an anatomy model of some kind, so now we just need to find one…

Which we can’t do right now. But there are some new things available in Tartarus, so let’s go!

The Voice Someone Calls

I’ve also decided that I’ll allow you to select the members of your battle party.
I realize that this is a big responsibility, but I believe you can handle it.

I’m sure I can. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, this is our party composition for the next stretch of Tartarus. Junpei gets to warm the bench, which is probably sensible for the time being.

Oh, and I stuck Mitsuru in the High-Cut Armor so she had actual defense and also to try and trigger a mini-event I forgot existed.

tartarus_0d02

Fuuka starts us off by telling us where the next boss fight is, I see.

…Speaking of seeing, I can’t help but notice that this looks suspiciously like Arqa. Not just a text glitch this time. It’s probably just a minor stretch I guess.

_We’ll skip on up to the 42nd floor for the time being. While the previous floor does give us the new Shadows, just gonna confirm that we’re not actually anywhere near the 3rd block yet… _

This block is much bigger than it seems. Yay…

Also, Fuuka in FES (and Portable) has this additional option to change the Tartarus background music. This is quite nice, its options are limited but they are all some very nice Persona 1 and 2 remixes at least.

It has never appeared in any other game since. Not in 4 (which was fair I guess), not in Golden (same), not in 5… which was a terrible idea. At least the Tartarus music DOES change.

Oh well, we’ll stick with the default for the time being. While we give Fuuka chance to find where the boss really is (I actually did remember it being 50), we might as well do, uh…

Mass Destruction / Wiping All Out

New Shadows! Sky Balance is pretty simple, really. It’s a reversed Heat Balance, except it reflects its own elements rather than merely nullify them. It uses the spells you’d expect. Very simple, dies very quickly.

These guys are a bit… maybe more dangerous? I guess? If they get to do something, at least. They have low HP, no resistances, but Mudo can be an instant game over and if they get two turns (somehow) Mind Charge Agilao could be really dangerous.

Which, uh, is never going to happen even if they DO get the first strike.

_Bronze Dice are… they exist, at least. Their skills are kind of interesting, but very Phys heavy. _

Kill Rush is the final light tier Strike attack. It hits one thing 1-2 times and each hit has a base 110 Power.

Liz wants us to get 5 of a thing that they’ll drop. Since they usually appear as pairs, or a trio, this shouldn’t take too long.

Adamant Beetles are a tedious waste of your time and SP. They always come alone, they have a fuckton of HP and… that’s it. They could Power Charge a Kill Rush, sure, but uhh… even with their absurd HP, you can just chain AOAs so they never get a turn. Not even remotely worth it, though. I don’t go out of my way to avoid most Shadows, but these are definitely a thing I would just skip wholesale.

Ohey, this guy’s just hanging out now. He’s lost his friend and got a new one.

We can see his full moveset now, at least. Provoke is never going to come up, but Counter might the very, VERY first time you fight them I guess?

_His friend there is more dangerous for sure, though. Marin Karin and Pulinpa can be an awkward combo to deal with. Dia makes them potentially tedious. Holy Arrow is by far the most dangerous Pierce attack right now; it has a base 60 Power which doesn’t sound like a lot. What makes it dangerous is that it has a baked in Marin Karin effect. Same 25% base chance and everything. _

We have very easy access to this ourselves with Archangel. I might want to keep hold of that for some time later. It could be useful.

Haughty Maya are a Maya. He has a simple focus for one element, but… is really bad at it. Just Zio? Not even Zionga? How disappointing. They usually come in groups of 4 which makes them give semi-decentish EXP, I guess.

After The Battle

Shuffle Time has changed a bit, now too. There’s an additional way that it can adjust things in the shell game aspect; cards will sometimes fly up off the screen at random and drop back in one-by-one from left to right. It might catch you off-guard all of once though. The order they go up is the same order they come back down.

_As you might expect, the rewards we can get have gone up a step for the second half of Arqa. We can get up to rank 3 stuff now, which is mostly only useful now for healing and definitely EXP. Sword cards are super-outdated - they can give us weapons as useful and recent as Akihiko’s default glove at best! - and Coins give ~2700-3200 yen. _

Or we could get a 1.6x EXP multiplier. Hmm.

Just from the sheer number of random trash that we can fight now, everyone (except Mitsuru and, to a lesser extent, Akihiko) levels up pretty nicely and often. This lets us snag Media and gives Yukari Charmdi relatively quickly.

She won’t get another spell for a while, though. Figures.

Mass Destruction / Wiping All Out

So, if the Steel Gigas is just a random shmuck now, what’s our red Shadow?

_Lustful Snakes are… not at all a threat. Like, Steel Gigas had durability and could maybe hurt someone. _

Lustful Snake has very slightly high HP for the area, barely, and remarkably low Endurance. We can tear through these guys very fast, which is probably a good thing. Hama is their most dangerous thing for sure.

Plus they give around triple the normal EXP for the area, as you would expect for something that’s a much higher level than everything else. This is its base value right now, even!

tartarus_0d02

Whew, after fighting through all of that Fuuka managed to find the boss fight after all. It’s a little close than expected, but that’s all.

We do manage to find a new one-handed sword in the interim.

And by “new” I mean it’s the one that Mitsuru started with. This one is objectively better at least.

The default one has no additional effect, but the ones we can find do. Luck isn’t great, but it’ll be useful for if she ever finds something worth casting Marin Karin on.

_And that’s basically it for a while, really. The new Shadows are pretty much just a giant block of “meh” and that’s it. Everything else is random chance that you have a slim chance at every floor. _

But that’s all we get, so whatever. 3 Shadows on the 47th floor, so this is an intermediary spot. This is a rather simple, obvious pattern really.

The Poem For Everyone’s Soul

Take the opportunity to hand in a few requests while we’ve got a reasonable chance.

The Shadows you defeated to obtain them had an affinity for the Fortune Arcana.
It’s unfortunate that Persona must assume such a ridiculous form.
Please accept your reward.

This is thoroughly, thoroughly eh. It just reduces the chance of getting critted.

It also sells for somewhere in the region of 40,000 yen.

One of these is significantly more worthwhile, yes.

Oh right, she also wanted three of these. That’s why I spent so much on it before.

I have a great fondness for Jack Frost. May I… touch it?
Oh my… this soft texture…
…I had been thinking about making a request related to Jack Frost…

I’m glad I decided on this request instead. This doll is too adorable…
Please accept your reward.

Umugi Water are just a decent single-target healing item here.

They are, in fact, different in Portable where they’re a semi-acceptable muli-target healing item instead.

Since we’re here, and we’re higher than level 15 now, we’ll finally make an Oberon (in this case, it was from a Shuffle Time Forneus + a Shuffle Time Yomotsu Shikome + our Berith). With Emperor at a minimum of Rank 3, he’ll gain enough EXP to hit level 17 or higher. Level 17’s a good one fortunately, since that gives him Mazio outright.

Plus he starts with Media by default, so it’s kinda hard to go wrong with this guy in a sense.

We’ll also make a Pyro Jack (Unicorn + Zouchouten) to use that Fusion Skill, and we also get something quite nice.

This Persona seems to be holding something within itself. Things such as this occur every now and then.
Go ahead and raise this Persona.

A fairly decent number of Persona can have this happen, even.

Sometimes when you fuse a new one, this scene’ll play out and we’ll get a little Heart symbol on the stat page. Once Pyro Jack learns his final skill, which here is Agilao at level 19 for fun reference, he’ll give us a piece of equipment we can’t get anywhere else at all… for a long, LONG time when it has an alternative source. Which most don’t, even!

…And yes, you can register him in the compendium with a absurdly low EXP value to that level and then just buy him back to get multiple copies ad infinitum. This sounds like a good way to make money, but… we’ll see. We’ll see! I’m not banking on it though.

In terms of heart items that are obtainable right now, aside from Pyro Jack (level 14) giving us an accessory that lets you run away easier we have:

Jack Frost (base level 8; final skill obtained at level 13) letting you nullify the Frozen status effect;
Unicorn (base 11; final skill 15) making you immune to Poison;
Fortuna (base 17; final skill 22) making you immune to Rage.

The next one is available when we hit level 20 and that one is unironically very good and I’ll definitely grab a copy or two of. Probably off-screen though.

Anyway, Oberon!

Did you know that a Persona is another side of you? Just like you, it will grow and change.
However, the rate at which it grows depends more on your Social Links than on fighting.
I suggest you make many friends and deepen the bonds you’ve established.
Please accept your reward.

Luck +1; Agility +2. Well, at least we get 3 of 'em?

Next in the chain is fairly easy but, uh, we can’t do it for a long, long time. Again. Vetala’s base level is 24 so this’ll sit here for quite a while!

You know what won’t though? Shadows.

Emperor Golden Beetle x3 ([url=http://polsy.org.uk/play/yt/?vurl=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2FeYzIyntdd4k]Portable[/url])

Master of Tartarus / Danger Zone

This is a new one. Normally these fixed fights don’t give anyone the advantage for obvious reasons, but here the Gold Beetles always get the first turn…

They always use it the same way too. They just all cast Tarukaja on themselves. It’s this instead of an Auto-Tarukaja passive for what I can only presume is Atlus being fair. See outside of Portable, you have no way of knowing if an enemy is buffed or debuffed just by checking it. The little symbols that appear when targetting something didn’t exist until Persona 4.

Since I already know their elemental resistances, let’s just set the girls to focus on healing. The beetles can hit pretty hard with that Tarukaja in place and all.

Sure, we could remove it but eh.

Mitsuru’s contributions to this fight are… basically non-existant, honestly. Gold Beetles are immune to Ice and resist Physicals. Like all Physicals. Slash, Strike AND Pierce are all resisted because why not.

They’re also immune to Charm. Mitsuru ain’t helping without being a healer in this one!

They’re neutral to Wind, so Yukari can at least contribute that way. It’s just a shame that these guys hit VERY hard so we need both on healing duty to keep up with that.

Like, this is a basic attack albeit one with Tarukaja in play. Akihiko can Tarunda them to drop is to like ~40 damage or so but he has a better use.

Namely electrocuting these things, since they’re weak to Electricity.

…Wait that did 11 damage. What. Yukari did quadruple that on a Neutra-- oh they have 22 Endurance. Okay that’s ridiulous.

Except that’s not all. They’re weak to Elec, sure, but they are also HIGHLY resistant to it. They’re neutral to Fire/Wind and take sensible damage from those.

This sounds really familiar for some reason

AOAs hit them very hard, at least, since they pool everyone’s Strength and weapons together to deal Almighty damage and all. Mercifully, these things also only have 250HP (and 250SP which will never, ever, EVER come close to dropping below 200 never mind running out).

_Skill-wise, our shiny crowned friends really like 2/3rds of the Physical elements. _

Torrent Shot is the best light Pierce skill in terms of raw damage. It’s 2 or 3 hits on a single target, each of which has a base power of 50. So, it’s functionally a base power 100 skill on a bad day.

…For reference, Holy Arrow is the second strongest light tier Pierce skill. Yes, really.

This is Torrent Shot without Tarukaja.

Remember how Kill Rush is very powerful? This is it with Tarukaja. A single hit of this is a little more potent than a 2 hit Torrent Shot but only just.

They use their SP exclusively on buffs. Mercifully they only have single-target stuff and don’t have Rakukaja.

_But, honestly? They never get a turn outside of the ambush. _

Except in Portable, where they got their HP doubled and that’s basically it. Weird.

tartarus_0d02

Aside from the shells, which are just money in item form, our reward here is a pair of Chewing Souls. Nice SP recovery for if we really need it.

We could carry on further up from here, but we’ll take a bit of a break from Tartarus for now, I think, and come back later.

1 Like

Sunday, huh? Let’s see…

Current Net Price Tanaka

As you might no doubt expect, the Brand Purse is for use in the same vein as that Perfume from before. It also comes with some more Perfume for the “low” price of almost 6000 Yen.

I nearly opted to not buy this, because who cares, but might as well. Could come in handy at some point I guess.

Iwatodai Dorm

Fuuka has committed the worst possible crime.

Her summer outfit is really bland and not very good! I know its a sundress and all but it’s just so blah. I sure wouldn’t wear that one.

video game fashion is important okay

It’s all my old stuff, but once I had it all in my room. I felt revitalized.
I’m still struggling a bit with the layout, though…

We’ll concentrate on those enemies that are still standing and attempt to exploit their weaknesses.
If there are no enemies to fight, or if there is no way to attack them, then we will stand by.
We will be unable to heal or support during this time.
Please consider these factors when you contemplate using Knock Down.

Yeah, Mitsuru is correct with her tutorial this time. Knock Down’s drawback is that it hampers the action economy a lot. If someone can’t hit an elemental weakness on a standing enemy, they’ll just spend their turns critfishing instead. If all enemies are downed, or they cannot knock down any remaining targets for any reason, they will do nothing. At all. Ever. They are functionally on Stand By which… has its uses, but in fights where the action economy matters Knock Down is the wrong choice.

It doesn’t matter too much for random Shadows since there your gunning for All-Out Attacks to end the fight quickly and guarantee a Shuffle Time anyway.

And now, the news…

Gotta admit, I wasn’t quite expecting the Phoenix Rangers to have a bad time so early on…

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

Probably not a surprise to find Yukari and Junpei at the shrine again this week, hanging out with that Ken kid.

Are you here to see Ken-kun too?
That’s right.
Glad to hear it. It’s good to see Ken-kun making more friends.

So I talked to him… Not on purpose, I mean.

What? How do you accidentally talk to someone? What does that even mean?!

Why do you come here?
No specific reason… I can just relax when I come here.
How’d you three meet?
Junpei-san came up to me first, actually.
After that, Yukari-san came, and I’d sometimes talk to her too.

So, this is the kind of fun we could have if we stepped outside.

But outside is dumb and for losers, so let’s play a dying MMO!

Joy

…my muscles are sore, but i’m sooooo buff! :wink:
there’s nothing a little endorphins wont cure, rite?

actually, i only went cuz i was so pissed at that bastard! >=/
Which bastard?
…errr sry ^^;; have kind of a dirty mouth today >_>

Maya blushed.

what i meant was… i was upset cuz of this guy…

i made a small error in my gradebook and now he’s all on my ass
“ur s’posed to set an example” he told me!! >=/ stfu old man!
he thinks he’s all that just cuz he’s a history teacher ffs

if Mr. E starts playin this game too i’m putting him on Ignore! xD

Maya is confiding in you.

Your relationship is stronger now!

he prolly uses an abacus! talk about a “history” teacher! xD roflcopter
phew… much better. maybe i’ll go take a shower now ::blush::
dun worry! i won’t let that old geezer get me down, tatsuya!! :slight_smile:

Maya’s player signed off.

You decided to log out as well.

Alright, so tonight we’ll… hmm…

…Oh, right. I genuinely forgot for a moment that hanging out with Maya uses the entire day. Whoops! Now to just reconfigure these notes slightly…

Want To Be Close (Reincarnation)
even if you dont like the regular version or are super sick of it by now, i still recommend at least checking this out

But then, that changes again as we get closer to the next full moon.
…By the way, Makoto-kun, what do you think about Mitsuru-senpai?
Not really my type.
That’s not what I meant.

…Significantly less than she pushed me to join.

I know it’s nice to have her around, especially in battle, but…
It just feels wrong…

Not… really…?

Now then… Junpei’s looking shifty, so how about you, Makoto?
Fill in the blank with the appropriate conjunction: “It rained all last week, _____ it’ll rain again today.”
“And”…
That’s absolutely correct! You’d make a great composition teacher someday, Makoto.
You wouldn’t use “but” to compare two situations that are identical, and “probably” isn’t a conjunction.
So “and” is the way to go.

I sure hope that this is close to ranking up at this point. Once it hits Rank 4…

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

_Anyway, we’ll worry about that later. For now, uh, we’re not off shopping. Kurosawa et al. get new things in stock at specific levels. Since we’re over level 17, we can buy some marginally better armour, shoes etc. _

Not weapons though. Liz’s stuff and Weapon Fusion outpaces that.

So, instead, we’ll just sell all this old worthless crap cluttering our inventory. Portable streamlines this by stacking copies of the same weapon/armor/etc. Vanilla and FES stack items only. Yay.

Portable ALSO makes things sell for more. I don’t know why, but it does.

Anyway, here’s the Sigma Drive. Say hi to the Sigma Drive.

Now say bye to the Sigma Drive, because we’re never seeing it again. Later, loser.

All in all, we leave with 144k which SOUNDS really nice and a lot but, uh, it really isn’t. 4x Compendium Prices devours that for breakfast.

Back to school we go!

Want To Be Close (Reincarnation)

Did I notice… what…?

Worried about something?
To tell you the truth…
Oh, forget it. It’s private.

These two have… advanced to being needlessly vague about everything. Swell.

Anyway, we were after the Laboratory. Not the Science Room, that’s a different thing. They were on the way, so I thought we’d say hi.

This is just a few doors down from the Home Ec room, so we’ve run past here plenty at least.

And it appears we’ve stumbled upon… something!

We can’t burn it, because that would release harmful chemicals.
Maybe we should just throw it away…

This is too vague and useless. Let’s just enter already!

Do you have any interest in this anatomical model?

Not rea-- uh I mean, sure?

We were about to throw it away…
It’s old and ugly, and the students think it’s creepy. I can’t say that I disagree with them, either.
But, if you promise not to make any mischief with it, you can have it.
Please take good care of it.

Uh, it’s… going to a good home…?

Well, we’re about ready to leave. so if you’ll excuse us.

So, that was easy to find at least. Gonna go head on over to Paulownia and give this to Elizabeth.

The Poem For Everyone’s Soul

An Anatomical Model is merely a replica of the human body.
I don’t understand what people find so repulsive about it… If you ask me, it’s rather charming.
Oops… The face came apart…
…Anyway, you have my gratitude. I’ll take good care of it.
Please accept your reward.

This is definitely better than the Sigma Drive. It’s arguably worth keeping, for at least a little while even!

Most accessories are equivalent to skills, so this one is just Regenerate 1. It doesn’t stack with that skill if we have it on a Persona, but that’s fine. It’s still a 2% HP regen at the start of someone’s turn (5% in the original vanilla release). Doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’ll come in handy I’m sure.

Anyway, hey, we’re here and it’s during the day. Let’s spend time with Liz without spending time!

Our Second Date :siren: :siren:

Joy

Compared to last time, Elizabeth doing something as mundane as walking down the up escalator seems rather tame…

But, uh, she IS still Elizabeth, so just because the action is tame…

It looks simple, but one false step, and challengers will be mired in an exhausting ordeal…

Please watch your step…! There’s a pitfall just ahead.
I don’t see one.

It’s been placed in the precise center of the otherwise perfectly paved ground…
It’s a crafty snare, that goes against the common practice of digging a pitfall in loose soil…

Um, Liz? That’s… never mind.

A stairway that tests one’s wits. and a pitfall that tests one’s inner strength…

I’m very moved by their plight.
Let’s continue forth, our thoughts dedicated to the unsung heroes who love this town so very much…

This fragrant aroma–it can’t be…!

Cook: Oh, I guess you don’t wear those funky clothes for nothing, lady. Well, there ain’t a law against takoyaki shops cooking stuff besides octopus. How 'bout it? Wanna buy one? It’ll make you smile so wide, your cheeks will fall off!
Cuisine so luscious that one’s cheeks fall off…!

Elizabeth still very much has her absurd amount of money, yes. I wouldn’t at all be surprised if she had even more than last time.

You’re buying that many…?
I have never seen a person who has actually lost his or her cheeks.
This must mean that the ordinary citizen cannot easily buy these–

W-Well, then. Two packages, please.
Cook: Thanks! Here you go, and come again!

One swift fade to blue later…

I must say, I’m surprised to come across this used as an ingredient in food…
Are your cheeks okay?
They seem to still be in place…
And in any event, there are many other delicacies I feel I must try.
I must take care not to lose my cheeks before sampling each and every one of them.

You finished eating takoyaki.

My first priority is to visit something called a “manga cafe” and obtain the foodstuff known as a “smoothie bar.”
This “smoothie bar” allows for an infinite combination of flavors by mixing various ingredients…
Just thinking about it gives me a sort of electric tingle across my tongue.

You decided to show Elizabeth around the eateries.

[i]I’m sure she’s paying for this.[/I]

…She IS paying for this, right?

Oh my… Are you feeling well?
Now that I think about it, you haven’t eaten much since our seventh meal…

Even if he didn’t pay economically, the price for spending time with Elizabeth is still very steep…

In any event, I have to thank you for the tasty experience.
If you don’t mind, I’d very much enjoy accompanying you again.

You headed back to the Velvet Room with Elizabeth.

End

The Poem For Everyone’s Soul

The fascinating rides, the dangerous traps… and of course, the cornucopia of curious cuisine.
The people’s lives there were quite different from those at Paulownia Mall the other day.
So that I might not forget what we saw, I’d like to recreate some of the dishes we tasted.
First, I must hunt for ingredients… Haha! This will be so much fun!
As for your reward. I’ve again prepared something special.

Its looks remind one of a beautiful beast… yet she, too, rises the sea of your soul…
I wish I could gain a greater appreciation for what your soul is like.

As you no doubt expect, we can’t fuse Empusa yet. She’s only level 23, so she’s slightly below Pale Rider at least.

But since we can’t even make Hua Po yet and she’s level 20…

Anyway, let’s hang out with Kaz again. He’s the closest we have to being maxed, that we can advance right now, and today isn’t a day that Chihiro is available so we can’t blitz that problem.

Joy

Wh-What is it, Coach? You have a scary look on your face…

J-Just practicing, Coach…
…That’s enough practice for you. Come to the Nurse’s Office. The rest of you, get back to work!

Member: Kazushi, did something happen?
Yeah, right…!

I know you have something to do with this, Makoto-kun. Sorry, but follow me.

What? I didn’t injure the guy. It ain’t my fault he’s dumber than a bag of hammers and thinks making an injury worse is a good idea!

i mean sure i didnt stop him but…

You head to the Nurse’s Office with Yuko.

Troubled

You’re throwing caution to the wind, young man…
That blabbermouth!

P-Please, I need to practice…
Kaz…

Take some time off, Kaz. Practice can wait until you’re fully healed.
No! I don’t have time!
Huh? What’s your hurry? Don’t be so rash!
Makoto, you’ve been hanging around with Kazushi lately, right?
You must know something…

Look away.

Makoto…
W-Wait! This doesn’t concern him!

I don’t want you to get dragged into this… so I’ll come clean.

Kazushi is trying to protect you.

Your relationship is stronger now!

One fade to blue later, since we already know all this and all.

I need to practice! I have to win or else…
I know how you feel, Kazushi, but…
Young Man’s Voice: So, that’s why.

Joy

JV: If it’s just the individual competition, then I don’t have to worry about him bringing us down.
…Why are you here?
Varsity: I’m worried about Kazushi…
Guys…
…I’ll let you keep training for now, and we’ll see how things go…

And, I want you to go home today. Your mother will be upset if I let you stay.
S-Sorry, Coach. Everyone… I…
…We’re done here; now, get back to training, everyone.

After practice, you decided to go back to the dorm.

So, uh, is Toriumi really the only member of staff we’ve seen for more than like a fraction of a scene that isn’t abysmally bad at her job? It sure seems like it!

Iwatodai Dorm

no

I know the next full moon is still a ways away, but the Shadows are getting stronger.
Besides, I need to train Polydeuces. So. whaddya say?

still no

She cannot enter into battle.
Her job is to support everyone on the front line with her ability to detect enemies and provide enemy information.
As for Lucia’s attributes, her strength and endurance are both low.
She doesn’t have any resistances, but she doesn’t have any weaknesses either.
Well, that’s all I can think of for right now. I look forward to fighting Shadows with you.

Lucia does actually have stats, for all the nothing it matters. She’s even got HP and SP; technically speaking, Fuuka has the worst in both for obvious reasons. Logically speaking, it literally doesn’t matter and so Yukari has the worst HP.

As you may be aware, its attack power and accuracy level are only adequate…
However, I think it is tres magnifique!
A one-handed sword is a refined, sophisticated weapon.
You should consider wielding one.

One-handed swords are… okay. They’re not my preferred weapon type, but they do a good enough job. I do prefer them early on to two-handed swords but now that we have two-handers that can actually hit things…

You need to train every day to keep pace with them.

Not only is this untrue, it’s super unfeasible and actively a detriment. Very quickly. Do not take Akihiko’s advice.

Don’t get me wrong, Mitsuru-senpai has a nice voice too. It’s just that Fuuka’s is just so calm and soothing.

Junpei, my man, no. Have you heard her talk? She has the right inflections and tone for an ASMR video but the completely wrong volume.

She can do anything…
I’m so jealous…

Yeah, Mitsuru’s pretty cool.

hey where are you going come back cmon it wasnt that bad

But be careful of dehydration, even during the rainy season. It’s going to be a scorcher!

Let’s join our field reporter in the stadium now. Next on Action News: All the action in the world of sports!

]Back in the world of important stat grinds, Monday means we can take photos of ourself again. Still not at Charm 4 though. Getting there…

Academics, meanwhile, exists. It’s still languishing at 2, but it does take forever and a day just to get anywhere. This is clearly by design to stop you from grinding it up quickly for exams and ignoring it the rest of the time but man.

It could, at least, be less tedious about it.

Want To Be Close (Reincarnation)

From now on, you’ll be able to go to Tartarus without me.
Okay.
If Yamagishi’s present, you can go to Tartarus.

Unlike the last time Mitsuru told us something about Tartarus availability, this one IS accurate and not a garbled mess.

I’m worried something may happen… So, please keep that in mind.

Anyway, that’s all we have today so let’s hang out with… well, Chihiro’s right there but she can wait a little bit. Andre does have a bit of an important personal issue to deal with.

Troubled

Want to go somewhere to eat after zis?
Sure.
Arigatou gozaimasu! Zank you very much!

Zere eez somezing I need to talk to you about.

You decide to go to a restaurant with Bebe.

I was able to come 'ere because of my aunt, but…
My uncle did not agree wiz ze decision!

Man, your uncle is a jerk.

If I go 'ome…
…my uncle might never let me return 'ere!

I rescind the classification of jerk. He’s almost certainly a dick of the highest order.

Then stay.
I would love to stay in Nihon…

But, no matter 'ow 'ard I try to convince him…
…'e will not listen.
I 'ave got to know you well, Makoto-sama…
I cannot say “Hasta la vista” like zis!

Bebe has shared the troubles that are on his mind…

Your relationship is stronger now!

I’ll see you at school, okay!?

You decide to go back to the dorm.

Yeah, I’ll see you there Andr-- Bebe.

Iwatodai Dorm

There’s very little we can do at the dorm today. Everyone just recites the same lines as yesterday, except Akihiko has this one thing.

Gonna start bodybuilding, eh?
Well, I have some leftover stuff for beginners, from back in the day.
Here you go.
It’s the “Ama-Pro” brand.
It’s specially formulated for guys who are just starting out.

A lesser person would see “Ama-Pro” and just think of it as a contraction of the general term for the product.

I see “Ama-Pro” and sigh heavily because it’s a mediocre pun.

Experts predict less skidding on rainy days.

So let’s go give this new powder to Elizabeth.

The Poem For Everyone’s Soul

So this type of protein does exist…?
Then the name “protein” doesn’t have anything to do with “professionals”… I see.
Thank you very much. I am sure this is valuable, so please take it back with you.
As a result of this request, my master has ordered me to drink an entire bottle of protein in one go.
Well, what’s done is done… And this way, I might be able to go professional someday.

I really can’t picture a buff Elizabeth without it feeling wrong. I dunno, that might just be me?

Please accept your reward.

But this is decisively not weird. We could buy these from the Antique Store but they’re really good and worth using sometime. It’s an itemised Matarukaja, which is just as good as it sounds. Damage up on everyone immediately is wonderful and I can think of a few places where I could use one of these.

But that’s all we can accomplish here today, so let’s go drink some coffee to get prettier.

And Academics finally lurches over the finish line to rank 3. It’s finally halfway there!

I like Fuuka’s dress. It’s close to my color and everything.

I still don’t know how Kazushi’s plot will end, but I don’t like how the “correct” option thus far is completely encouraging him to keep practicing on a bad knee. Honestly the coach should be getting the social link for this one; he’s handled the situation better in one scene than the player can in about eight.

Alright, so in my dreams I got a bit of an idea of what we’re gonna do today…

Want To Be Close (Reincarnation)

Listening: Really? I guess some students transferred out… But it sounds interesting. I’m tired of going straight home with no extracurriculars…

The first bell has rung.

Huh, how about that. Looks like we’ll get to do what I planned on after all.

…But first, we have a lesson from Edogawa. Swell.

We all need to start somewhere. Rome wasn’t built in a day!
The same goes for magic. It’s important to learn the basics.
So today, I’ll tell you about the origins of magic.
Long, long ago, at the dawn of civilization, man created primitive religions.

That last one, shamanism, is important to the origins of magic.
Shamans would fall into a trance state and act as the intermediary between the worlds, but…
It counts as “magic,” where humans can have the power of gods and spirits in their own hands.
This shaman-style magical tradition would later be embraced by witches.
Take the common European witch, as an example.
People today think that witches derived their power from contracts with the devil…

The witches’ predecessors were more like maidens serving the gods.
It was through prayer to those gods that they earned their powers.
They learned to control their magic without losing consciousness during their trance states.
That’s how they originally awoke to magic.
Originally, Europe was full of religions that worshipped a slew of various gods.
They were generically called “paganism.”

…Are you all still listening? No trance states, now… Eeeheehee.
I’ll give you a little test to see if you’re paying attention.
Get it wrong, and your afterlife won’t be pleasant. Pallas aron azinomas…
Who should I pick…? All right, Makoto, I ask thee.

Huh? What? Umm… I actually genuinely sort of clock out a little during these scenes, so I hope it’s nothing too difficu–

oh thats easy

Shamanism.
Very good… You’ll be born into your next life as a human again.
Now then, paganism and Christianity have a tighter connection to one another than you’d think.
As the Roman Empire grew stronger, so did the population of Christians in the empire.
At first, each religion carried on its own worship separately, but…

A… very unexpected spot to gain Charm 4, to say the least, but I’m certainly not gonna complain too much about it. No, this is… very good, in fact. Very, very good indeed.

_But for now, we’ll go to the Science Room. Which is adjacent to, but different from, the Laboratory. _

Ah good, this is definitely what we were looking for. In we go!

Joy

Do you know him, Fuuka-san?
Yeah, this is the guy I was just telling you about…
…Oh, so this is him, huh?

We’re looking for new members to join our club, so I mentioned your name.
I’m really happy you decided to stop by…

Male Club Member: He’s supposed to be pleased to meet YOU, Keisuke-senpai. You’re the club leader, after all.
O-Oh, that’s right.
chuckle He always acts like this.

Maybe I should stay club leader for a little while longer…
Hey, Keisuke-senpai, you’re a senior, right? You must have finals coming up soon, huh?
No, I… uh…

Nice question dodge…

No, not really.
Well, don’t worry. You don’t have to be a professional photographer to join this club.
I mean, I’m a novice, and I’m the club leader!
Meeting you like this can’t be just a coincidence; it must be fate…
So, if you’re interested in joining the Photography Club, just write your name on the sign-up sheet.

You have been welcomed by Keisuke.

You have joined the Photography Club and have become friends with the club members.

The Power of the Heart

A mysterious voice rings in your head…

Joy

So be sure to sign your name on the sign-up sheet.
The Photography Club meets on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.
You’re not required to attend every day, just try to come as much as you can.
I’m really surprised we’re in the same club.

After joining the club, you decided to go back to the dorm.

Iwatodai Dorm

There’s no proper accosting at the door at all today, it’s great.

No, it’s not.
But, Junpei-kun gave it to you, right? It’ll just go to waste if you don’t play it.
Besides, you might have a lot of fun.

Eh, I doubt it. The game sounds pretty boring.

It’s strong against ice, but it’s weak against fire.
As you know, nothing is perfect. Just keep that in your mind.

In terms of elements, we have an interesting square with our party right now. Junpei has Fire, so he beats Mitsuru. Mitsuru has Ice, so she beats Akihiko. Akihiko has Elec, so he beats Yukari. Yukari has Wind, so she beats Junpei.

In practice, uh, that really wouldn’t happen. Mitsuru has Marin Karin, so she kinda just wins.

You need power, stamina, skill, speed, and luck.
Of course, my Persona is developing along those lines.

So in order to be balanced, you need… the 5 stats? Sure, sure okay.

Yeah. I think so.
Yeah, maybe if we defeat a Shadow, the spirits it ate will return to their owners.
But then again, they might just get digested.

Seems weirdly optimistic, but we’ve succeeded twice now, so…

…And now, the news.

Wait, there’s a live show at Paulownia Mall?! Let’s go!

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

I don’t see Feather Red Hawk, but… this guy can actually be spoken to now.

(He’d be perfect for the company image…)
(But, he’s just a high school student…)
(If I trained him, though…)

The man seems to be mumbling to himself…

You probably remember from a while back, but we needed Charm 4 just to get this guy to even give us the time of day.

Hello there. young man… How would you like to have your dreams come true? I have a golden opportunity for you…
Tell me more.
I’m only saying this to you, so don’t tell anyone, okay?
…I can make you rich–guaranteed.

Oh, is that all? We have like 140k lying around right now…

And the best part is, you don’t have to do a thing! You’ll become fabulously wealthy while you sleep!
Just give me the 20,000 yen, and I’ll take care of the rest.
Well, what do you say?

Sold!

Okay.

I’ll be in touch once your fortune has been made.

On the one hand, I can’t believe Red Hawk lied like that. Blue Swan would not approve!

On the other hand, now we can make 200k by doing absolutely nothing! It’s perfect!

Let’s have a congratulatory coffee and then sleep immediately. Best not to jynx it, right?

(also tired so cant study anyway)

Ah, but first we’ll make plans for a date on Sunday, sure. We’ll spend this Sunday with Chihiro. It’ll help quite a lot, even.

Want To Be Close (Reincarnation)

Listening: Kirijo…? The Student Council President? You know, the Kirijo Company built this whole school.
Gossiping: I wonder how a company that big was contracted to build a school…

The first bell has rung.

Since we’ll be spending Sunday with Chihiro…

We should also spend time with her today. This is important, yes.

Joy

I’m worried that someone is going to buy that illustration collection…

I was getting grilled in the office…

Troubled

Oh, that money…
I gave it to the teacher in the office…
You were the one who was responsible for that money, right?
That means you were the last one who saw it…

Makoto walking over to Chihiro should be no big deal, but it’s Makoto

Huh…? I just told you…

The teachers are in the office right now, so why don’t you go fess up and apologize…
I-I-I… I… I…
Makoto-san…
You’re not to blame.
So you agree with me. right? It’s NOT my fault! I-I gave the money to the teacher!

So, uh, how about rather than being vague and saying “the teacher” you be more specific and give them a name…?

It’s not my fault… so why should I have to apologize…?
…Whatever. Just make sure you take care of it.

Don’t worry, I’ll keep your little secret… for now.
Wait! You think I…?
N-Never mind…

I-I couldn’t stand up to them… But… I… didn’t take anything!
We have to do something…
R-Right… We have to do something, just like you said, Makoto-san…

I have to prove to everyone that it wasn’t me… So, what should I do?
I-I never expected this to happen…
Makoto-san! I…! What should I do…!?

You feel as if Chihiro is depending on you.

Your relationship is stronger now!

Bookworms… Sorry, but I don’t have time to stop today…

You walked with Chihiro until it was time for you to head in a different direction.

Iwatodai Dorm

Most of the dorm discussion stuff hasn’t updated since yesterday, so we’ll skip most of it.

Not really…
If you get sick or tired, you’ll become extremely weak in battle.
You may also pass your illness on to the other members, so please pay closer attention to your condition.

But, she’s doing her best.
So I have to do my best too!

Yukari, please, please talk about something else for once.

Especially this year, when forecasters are expecting little rain, the festival is called for…

Now, I believe there’s someone over in Paulownia who owes us 2,000,000 yen!

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

I have some unfortunate news regarding your investment.
Things are not running as smoothly as planned. It still has the potential to turn a profit, but…

That’s all? It’s still nothing compared to the inevitable profit after all!

Are you willing to increase your investment by this amount?
Yes.

I’ll be in touch once your fortune has been made.

Excellent! So, while we wait…

_We can spend some time practicing our photography a bit more, I guess. _

And we just hit Academics rank 3, so this’ll take a while to get anywhere again but that’s no excuse to ignore it.

Want To Be Close (Reincarnation)

Today is so light on stuff, we just cut from here right to after school. No gate dialogue or anything. It’s always kinda nice when that happens.

Let’s see, it’s Friday so I guess Bebe is a good choi–

Huh, Fuuka’s in the hall, huh? Haven’t noticed her before. Might as well say hi, I guess.

It’d be nice if you were hungry too…
I have time.
In that case, would you do me a favor?
I want you to taste the lunch I packed.

Oh, she’s the anime cliche joke where the entire joke is that she is a girl but cannot cook.

Somehow, this is meant to be hilarious.

But, today, I think it turned out okay…

You have a bad feeling about this…

…For reference, this is why I blitzed Courage so quickly early on. Yes, really. You need Max Courage to even consider this.

So… Will you taste it?
Sure.
Oh, thank you! …Please come with me.

Fuuka seems excited.

She takes you to the rooftop.

Joy

Well, it’s pretty late so you’re probably not that hungry…
Please, just taste it…

Fuuka gave you the food she made.

Now, I want your honest opinion…
…H-How is it?

Well, she asked for honesty and I think being direct works best here so…

It tastes horrible.


Th-Thank you for your honesty…
I’m sorry I made you taste test my cooking…
But, I know that you’ll always be honest with me.
I depend on you…

Your relationship with Fuuka has grown closer.

The Power of the Heart

A mysterious voice rings in your head…

Joy

You said goodbye to Fuuka.

You decided to go back to the dorm.

Iwatodai Dorm

Junpei has left.

So, uh, today Junpei just leaves which is kind of unfortunate. No one has anything new to say either…

And there’s nothing on the telly to boot. What even is today?

At least we can go collect our investment!

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

Oh, Junpei is actually at Paulownia Mall. Kind of didn’t expect that, but I like the consistency so I approve.

Good luck.
Thanks! I’m gonna do my best.

We ran into a bit of a snag again. Some of the other investors decided to drop out…
Since there are fewer investors, each person’s profits will be even bigger! Do you mind investing a bit more?

Another 10k, huh? But we get a bigger ROI…

Are you in?
Yes.

My foolish little apprentice…

…Ex…cuse me…?

sigh Ignorance should be a crime.
Sure, you have some positive qualities, but if you remain so naive, everyone Will take advantage of you.
…Stick with me, and I’ll show you how to be a winner.

Well, I mean, we still have over 100k so 40 was like nothing.

The real problem is that 100 is also basically nothing. So, we definitely need this guy’s advice and assistance!

This Mysterious Feeling

You look familiar…
sigh Yes, it’s so very difficult being famous… I can’t hardly go anywhere without being recognized.

Oh! That’s it! You’re the guy who sings that insanely catchy theme song!

Allow me to introduce myself…

The well-dressed man handed you a busmess card.

I’m afraid I cannot return the 40,000 yen you gave me. but I’ve autographed my business card for you.
Hold on to that… It’ll be worth a pretty penny. Tootaloo.

I really hope Elizabeth wants this for something. She gives ridiculous rewards for the weirdest stuff after all.

I should have charged him extra for a private autograph signing…

You can hear President Tanaka muttering to himself…

Hey, uh, I can still hear you, y’know…

Huh!? Wh-What do you want!? Quit disturbing me! Shoo, shoo!

You’ll forget it ever happened if you know what’s good for you. I belong to a powerful talent agency.
I’m practically a celebrity. I have an image to maintain…
Don’t even think about telling someone “He took my money” or “He called me a little brat”! Capiche!?
Quiche?
Very funny. You may be cute, but you’re no comedian.

…Silly me! I’ve let you in on my secret, haven’t I? Tee hee hee.
Don’t tell anyone, okay!?

Your secret is that you’re a dick? Dude, you’re a (local) celebrity. That’s… the world’s most open secret.

Alright.
S-Seriously? You promise? I’ll make you swallow a thousand needles if you’re lying!
A verbal agreement is considered a contract. and I’ll sue your pants off if you breach ours!

He’s technically not wrong…

I’ve got your adorable little face etched into my memory.

He seems to have taken an interest in you.

You’ve become acquainted with President Tanaka. the Executive Producer of a TV shopping program.

The Power of the Heart

A mysterious voice rings in your head…

This Mysterious Feeling

I usually take my breaks here. I’d be happy to mold your young mind whenever you wish.

After saying goodbye to President Tanaka. you decided to go back to the dorm.

Here, Tanaka is available on Tuesday and Saturday nights. In the original vanilla release, he was available for four days, but it was at the Port Island station. So he was a daytime link.

This change just makes working around Tanaka easier, but doesn’t affect overly much overall.

Want To Be Close (Reincarnation)

Gossiping: She’s going overseas after she graduates. Probably so she can run the Kirijo Company later…
Listening: Wow, that’s crazy. She’s so different from us…
Gossiping: The funny thing is, I hear she still lives in the dorms. I wonder why… Maybe her parents were strict when she was growing up.

The first bell has rung.

Loyalty and A Shadowy Meeting

I was just told by the Chairman that he’ll be stopping by this evening.
When you get back, come to the 4th floor meeting room.
Oh, um… okay.
I’ll see you all later.

Tranquility

Oooh, good dog!

Yukari and Fuuka are playing with a dog.

Oh, hi.
Hey, you’re back!
What’s with the dog?

Koro-chan, go say hi!

I’ve seen him sitting by the steps of the shrine.

So, another dog comes running in and starts barking at our cute little new albino Shiba Inu friend.

And it seems they’re not alone.

…? Whaddya mean?
Passerby: He used to belong to the priest at Naganaki Shrine. Every afternoon, the two of them went this way for a walk.
That explains it…

He passed away…?
Passerby: Oh, you haven’t heard the story? It was about six months ago…

Passerby: And he goes for a walk every day, just like when his owner was still alive…

The woman seems to be very talkative…

Passerby: …Oh shoot, I have to get going! My son will be back soon!

…Huh?
What’s wrong?

…Bye, Koromaru.

…Oh, nothing… Sorry.
Wait, isn’t the Chairman coming today?
Then, we should go get ready.

Troubled

I wanted to let you know how my research has been going.
This concerns those Shadows that have been appearing during full moons.
I want you to listen closely; it might be hard to follow.

This, we’ve known for a while. It’s like their class or order.

And…?
Oh, sorry. …Ahem.
Those four Shadows belong to categories I through IV, in order of their appearance!
They may have looked different than the more common ones, but the classification scheme still applies.
Is that something we should be excited about?

Eight we haven’t seen yet.
That’s exactly right, Fuuka! You’re quite sharp.
Oh, uh, okay… But, what are they after?

They don’t kill their prey; they feed on their minds.
It can be considered predation, but is it really? Is there an underlying intent behind their behavior?

…This is interesting.
But, no matter what, we still have to beat the rest of 'em.
…I agree. That’s about all we can do at this point.
Eight more, huh? Lucky us.

We… really don’t know that for sure? We don’t know how strong the Magician was, since it got ganked in a cutscene by something that burst out of Orpheus…

We’ll manage. We’ve got plenty of time.
What about Tartarus? Why does it even exist…?

But, the Shadows that appear when the moon is full…

You wonder what their purpose is…

Eight of them remain…

You still have a long road ahead of you.

End

It really feels like this should auto-end the day, all things considered.

Iwatodai Dorm

So, naturally, that doesn’t happen.

We’ll continue to progress up Tartarus.
We have to do our best… If we do, we’ll win. If we don’t, we’ll lose.
Heh, it’s as simple as that.

_Not really…? We could absolutely try our hardest and still lose. _

In theory, anyway.

It’ll be tough to defeat them, but not impossible.
If you train consistently, we can win.
So, keep up the hard work.

Let’s see, Elizabeth wants something to clean glasses with and Ikutsuki’s here now.

Well, I have something, of course, but… you don’t wear glasses.
…Aha! Now I see clearly. Get it? Heh heh…
It’s not for your glasses…
It’s for a friend! Right?

goddammit ikutsuki

Well then, by all means, take this.
It looks dingy, but it works very well, in fact.
Your friend’s glasses will shine like the sun!

We’ll take this to the Velvet Room in a little bit, but first what does Ikutsuki actually want to talk about?

Do Shadows devour human minds for some unknown purpose?
Or is it simply for their own sustenance?
We must learn more about them.

Then let’s do it, man!

Do you think we’ll ever know the answers?

I’m sure we will eventually learn things about Tartarus, yeah. It’s more a question of “when,” not “if.”

Lately, divorce is becoming more common, sometimes happening immediately after the honeymoon. What causes this? We’ll report, right after these messages.

I’m no expert on divorce, but I feel like that kind of turnaround is more the exception than the norm.

Anyway, let’s take this wipe over to Liz.

The Poem For Everyone’s Soul

I see… This is no ordinary dirty rag.
Fine microfibers, maximum flexibility and absorbency, and an ideal size… It’s perfect for wiping glasses.
Yet, if I’m not mistaken, this stain here is soy sauce…
Which means that although it was made to wipe glasses, it can polish off other things, too.
Thank you very much. Please take this back with you.
I never have the occasion to wear glasses or wipe off any soy sauce, so…
Please accept your reward.

At least from something as simple as this, we recouped our “loss” from Tanaka and then some for good measure.

Speaking of the President, though, he’s here tonight since it’s a Saturday. We might as well say “hi.” We don’t have a Devil persona right now (Vetala is the first and you may recall he’s level 24…), but that doesn’t matter.

This Mysterious Feeling

You should be glad that you’re such a handsome boy.
Alright, let’s add a new word to our vocabulary today. Repeat after me!
“Placebo”! The stress is on the middle syllable.

I love those smoldering eyes of yours! You’ll never succeed in life without skepticism!

Eliminate those unsightly lovehandles without lifting a finger!
It’s a miracle breakthrough that will make you feel fabulous!
Enjoy a relaxing drive while taking in the beautiful scenery!
Our incredible supplement will help you get the most out of life!
These are part of our unique line of products.
Is that legal?
Oh yes, of course. I’m free to sell them as I please!

So, uh, as you may have noticed both of these seem like wrong answers but gave us the “correct” response anyway. Strictly speaking, if we were to play along with Tanaka that DOES give points towards the next rank…

We may not be providing tangible benefits, but we do provide peace of mind.
People will pay handsomely for that, you know.
Take emergency supplies, for example… People feel safe just because they have them.
But, it’s merely a false sense of security.
…That’s it for today’s lesson. You can pay me back when you make your first million.

You received somewhat questionable advice from President Tanaka.

You feel like you understand him a little better now.

Tanaka is a special link. Every level has a point requirement of 0. No matter what we say, every time we come visit him, he will rank up.

We probably won’t blitz this to max at the earliest opportunity though. We need to work social stat stuff around it, of course.

If you go back on your word, I’ll upload your picture to an internet dating site for former prison inmates!

President Tanaka left.

We don’t get any studying done tonight, unfortunately. Not because it’s not doable - no, we could - but because we’re Tired from the RNG dicking me over. Again.

Twice in four days. I hope this doesn’t become a recurring pattern. I could just reset to not get it to happen but I’ll just roll with it for now.

1 Like

Alright, so today we’re hanging out with Chihiro. This is gonna be very necessary, yes.

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

But…

Chihiro looks scared.

I’m worried about the missing money…

Chihiro’s expression darkened.

I hope it was just some kind of mistake…

There’s no thief.
…N-No. you’re right. There couldn’t be.
As a member of Student Council, I shouldn’t be making accusations like that.
I should follow your example more, Makoto-san…

Today, you two became a lot closer…

+45 points towards next rank, even. Generally speaking, that’s more than enough to guarantee a level up every time.

But, uh, since we’re “dating” Chihiro, we can give her a specialised item.

In particular, things like these. We can buy a thing for Chihiro that is one of the “best” options at the school store.

But both of these that we got from Tanaka are still valid. We’ll go with Perfume since we have plenty of it.

W-Wow…
Um… Can I really have this?
Thank you!

Both the Perfume and the Brand Purse are an extra 10 points to the next rank. Which is, really, plenty considering the “date” gives a minimum of 30 anyway.

…The ideal gifts are, uh, +50 which is ludicrous and will almost always go entirely to waste.

We didn’t even need to use the Perfume to get this, but we’ll take advantage of it anyway. The rank up at the next real hangout are why we bothered with this in the first place, yeah.

Iwatodai Dorm

As a change, there’s no-one downstairs in the dorm at all. I wonder if there’s anyone here, period…

…And now, the news.

B-Black Condor?! No!

The gang are all up on the second floor, which is nice.

I wish I was a dog, so I could get girls’ attention…
Don’t you think Akihiko-senpai would look good with a dog?
Not an unusual one, just an ordinary, playful dog…
Yeah, that’s true.
I could see them running on the beach together…

What kind of dog do you think would be good for Mitsuru-senpai?
Hmmm…
I can’t see her with a dog…
She’d probably have a doberman.
And she’d feed it filet mignon…
Junpei-kun… I think you’ve been reading too much manga…

Yeah, there’s no Tartarus tonight but that’s fine. We weren’t planning on going anyway.

At least not while there’s still some coffee to drink. We’re gonna want to max out Charm fairly soon now, really.

Academics is gonna be Academics, though. I’m sure it’ll be fine by the time it matters…

Want To Be Close (Reincarnation)

The night before last… The 12 Shadows… Tartarus…
Isn’t there just too much we don’t understand?
True…
It’s starting to get to me…

Many European countries don’t serve octopus. because they’re feared as “devilfish.”
My darling, for example, won’t touch octopus. Last time I made pasta for him…

Mrs. Terauchi continued to talk about octopi as food…

But octopi aren’t the only undersea creatures that are called “devilfish.”

Of manta rays, squid, and jellyfish…
Which of these is NOT known as a “devilfish”?
(I didn’t even know octopi were devilfish! How am I supposed to know this!?)
(Hey Makoto, what do I say?)
(…Jellyfish?)
Good going, Junpei!

ughhhhhhhh

…It was just a joke.
Hahah! Just plain common sense, Mrs. T!
(Thanks, Makoto! I almost looked like an idiot…)

Alright, so it’s a Monday which means most of our normal preferred options are unavailable right now. We could spend time with Kazushi, but he won’t rank up and that won’t even push it close…

So, Fuuka? Sure, Fuuka.

Joy

Would you mind trying some of it…?
I think it’ll taste better than last time…
…At least, it can’t be any worse, right?

This food looks better than the food she prepared last time.

Well, here’s something unexpected. Hey there little buddy!

You can sort of see the cat here through the text box, but it’s not super clear.

…Oh, a kitty cat!
Aw, he’s so cute.
He looks hungry, doesn’t he?
Here, kitty kitty.
Maybe I should give him some food. What do you think, Makoto-kun?

I think that might be considered animal cruelty…

Sure.
I was hoping you’d say that.

It makes Fuuka happy, sure, but…

The cat’s survival instinct tells it to get outta dodge while it still can.

Huh…?

The cat ran away…

Wait, was it the food…?

Fuuka tasted some of the food she prepared.

Hmm… I must’ve left it out too long…
…S-Sorry, Makoto-kun… Please don’t eat any of this…
…I don’t want you to get sick…

Fuuka seems discouraged.

sigh I’m so disappointed…

And, there aren’t many chances to eat homemade food when you live in the dorm…
So I thought it would be nice to make lunch for everyone, but…
sigh I need to get better at cooking.
Maybe with your help, Makoto-kun, I can.

Fuuka seems to need your help.

Your relationship with her has grown…

I’d be happy if you’d be willing to taste test my food again.
Well, I’ll see you later.

You have decided to go back to the dorm.

Iwatodai Dorm

Well, it’s still on the fritz, so I checked it out, but…
I dunno, dude. I don’t wanna just press buttons at random. y’know?
Sooooo… It’s all up to you, buddy!

We’ll go and check that out shortly, but first we’ll do our usual rounds.

It is also growing stronger and faster.
It is similar to Takeba’s Persona, however mine is more offensive-minded as opposed to support-oriented.

Apparently, there was an unexplained explosion near our school ten years ago…
At the same time, a large number of students refused to go to school…
The news reports stated that the incidents were somehow related.
Isn’t that fascinating…?

…why do they turn into coffins…?
Are they pretending to be dead?
I heard that works if a bear is about to attack you…
…Actually, I just made that up.

Police are investigating the possibility of arson. For our next story…

…Wait. What?! This seems pretty important!

The police are currently searching for any evidence relating to the incident.

Damn, that was super heavy and kind of seemed like a bigger deal than we’re implicitly being told it is?

Oh well, let’s check out the computer in the meeting room.

Mitsuru Kirijo Ace Detective
highly recommend you just watch this instead really

Silence

Mitsuru and… Officer Kurosawa… huh? An unlikely pair.

By the time I realized the door was halfway open, his room was already in this state.
I’ve left the place untouched. as you requested.
…Whose room is this?

I’ve been attempting to reach him on his cell phone, but he hasn’t responded in the last 30 minutes.

It was careless of me to let my guard down… This dorm has been attacked in the past…

…I hate to say it, Miss Kirijo, but this is most likely–

Iori!?
Where were you? I’ve been trying to contact you!

sigh Well… I’m just glad you’re safe.

Theft!?
What else could it be? Someone clearly tore through the room looking for something.

Well, that sounds a bit… insanely extreme!

How about it, Iori? Was this room, in fact, vandalized?
Uh… Heh heh… Well…
My room always looks like this…

B-But…
You can’t possibly live here in this state, can you!?
A-And… the door was open.
Oh, right… I wanted to air the place out while I was gone. No one we don’t know ever comes around, so…

I think this case is closed. May I return to my duties, Miss Kirijo?
Oh… yes…

It seems my upbringing may have been more sheltered than I realized…

What’s the deal with you calling the police over a messy room, anyway!?
What did I do to deserve this!?
Hey, wait…

The recording ends here…

End

Welp, poor, poor Junpei. Worst luck indeed.

_Meanwhile, we’re having great luck apparently. We just hit Charm 4 like a couple of days ago and we already got it to 5?! _

I’m definitely not complaining about that at all. We’re definitely gonna hit max before its needed at this pace.

Middle of the Night
very definitely should just watch this instead

There’s over 2 weeks before the next full moon, still. I think Pharos is a little early this… time…

The Voice Someone Calls

This isn’t our room. This is…

Some unlucky schmuck who’s gonna get ganked by a Shadow? But we already saw that…

How the heck did I–

…Well, this is different.

And this is a guy voiced by Derek Stephen Prince. Well, alright then.

Truth be told, we all visit this world every night.
Wh-What are you saying? Who the hell are you?

And here’s Grant George for the third time this game. Sure, okay.

Take a look.
Name, address, age, etc… This is you, right?
Wha–!? Where did you get this!?

Revenge!? What kinda bullshit is this!?
Who put you up to this!?
Can’t tell ya. We’re professionals.
“Professionals”…?
Oh shit…

…Is that… “revenge” huh? That’s a gun. Shirtless Cowboy has a gun. Well then.

Hey… W-Wait… I haven’t done anything!
Why me!? What’d I do!?
That is not our concern.

People hear what they choose to hear, and believe what they want to believe.

N-No… Stay away…

You gotta appreciate Generic NPC Yuri Lowenthal trying to run from the guy with a gun. That’s gonna go well I’m sure.

You squeal most magnificently!
Such raw emotion!

And, finally, the gothic lolita here is voiced by Mona Marshall. Neat.

Doesn’t matter…
We’ve held up our end of the bargain.

If there’s nothing else…
I’m feeling rather tired.

End

Well, I guess that explains the dead body mentioned on the news but it raises many new questions.

Want To Be Close (Reincarnation)

Listening: Revenge request…? What’s that?
Gossiping: You can write the person’s name you want to get revenge on, and bam! Mission accomplished. They say it’s guaranteed successful, and completely anonymous.
Listening: Seriously!? Give me the URL! Quick!
Gossiping: Well… It’s just a rumor… I mean, I don’t know the details… Why are you so desperate…!?
Listening: Huh? I’m not… I’m not thinking about revenge at all.
Gossiping: …

The first bell has rung.

And this gives us a bit more of an explanation of that scene we just saw. Feels a bit backwards, with how quick this happened. Maybe should’ve been more of a delay before we got this little bit, rather than have it be immediate, if it was going to come after the scene itself.

As for our important time, we’ll be seeing Chihiro today. It should be obvious why, really.

Joy

No one’s said anything to me, but… I know what they’re all thinking…
I can’t take this anymore… I… don’t want to be here…

I… I’m going to go check out some books…

That girl in Student Council… The sophomore… with the long hair and glasses. The one who’s always reading.
I hear she stole the class’s money…

I hear she has no father…
There’s no way they could have any money, since her mom only works part-time.
How could it NOT be her!?
She has such an innocent face, though…

He’s checking us out, isn’t he!?

…Let’s go outside. I’ll tell you the whole story.

…c-couldn’t find it…

Chihiro looks like she’s about to cry…

…Let’s get out of here.

You left the library.

Living With Determination

The only time I feel safe is when I’m with you, Makoto-san…
I have no one else to turn to in school…
Talk to the teacher.
R-Right… I gave the money to him, so I should ask for an explanation…

B-But, what if he thinks I’m accusing him of stealing? N-Now I’m scared…
…I-I may sound like I’m weak, but I’m fine! Really, I am!
I don’t think it’s right for me to always be counting on you, Makoto-san…

Chihiro is on the verge of tears.

Despite what she said, you sense that Chihiro needs your support.

Your relationship is stronger now!

Excuse me…

You decided to go back to the dorm.

Akihiko and Shinjiro

Troubled

We’re getting a fair few scenes as of late, huh…

Server: Coming right up! One house special!

Shut up.
You always eat that protein shit.
Hmph…

…You still haven’t made up your mind?
…Is that what this is about?

Things have changed quite a bit since you left. We’re more aggressive now.
I’m not interested.
Think about it, Shinji. Don’t let your power go to waste.

Shinji!
I made up my mind a long time ago. I ain’t going back.
You have to let the past go.
What’s done is done. It’s time you moved on.

What?
Face it…

End

Iwatodai Dorm

Try to increase your strength as much as possible before then.
Two weeks, huh. I wonder what it’ll look like this time…
I have to admit, the suspense is killing me…
You’re starting to sound like Akihiko.
Just remember, this is not a joke.
That reminds me… Why is he not back yet?
He’s prolly eating or somethin’.

Junpei, you’re not meant to be watching the other cutscenes as well. Jeez.

You can tell them apart by looking at their masks.

Also, Junpei being this aware and attentative seems weird. It’s getting really hard to believe he’s meant to be “the dumb one” for many reasons, honestly.

If he’s going to be late, he should at least have the courtesy to call me.

Secret powers that only we have…
It’s too bad we can’t tell anyone about them.

The expressionless girl has since been led away by police. A number of these cases have been cropping up, causing extra problems for the police force…

Apathy Syndrome’s effects are getting… very different to “sits in the corner of a room”, huh?

Anyway, let’s see, it’s Tuesday so…

Tanaka’s good. Sure, let’s learn a thing or two.

This Mysterious Feeling

You know, these days, even a first grader knows how to buy stocks online.
How about you? Are you interested in stock trading?
Not really.
What a pity… The stock market is the future of investment.
Or, are you just hedging your bets? You’re a shrewd investor, my boy.

My company just went public.
Since our sales have been skyrocketing, we decided to sell shares. And guess what…?
The number of shareholders skyrocketed too.

It’s kind of a great cycle, from a business perspective. It’s not that useful as a story, though. What should we be learning from this? You can become successful by already being successful?

They keep buying more Of our products, so of course the stock will rise!
…Isn’t that hysterical? You should learn to appreciate the irony.
I’m thinking of offering you a job, so you should come up with some stories of your own.

You listened to President Tanaka passionately share his advice.

You feel like you understand him a little better now.

If you go back on your word, I’ll find where you live and ring the doorbell every night at midnight!

This seems like it’d be a bit more of an issue for you than it would be for me. A bit of a hunch, that.

President Tanaka left.

And before we do anything else, we’ll make plans to spend Sunday with Chihiro again.

This time we’re accepting the invite for two reasons. The date on Sunday, of course, but also because simply accepting it also gives 10 points towards a rank up.

Want To Be Close (Reincarnation)

…Sort of.
Oh, you noticed it too?
She’s been thinking way too hard about Tartarus n’ stuff.
I mean, who cares!? Right?

Junpei’s start of the day conversation here is all we have today, so we’ll skip right to hanging out with… uhh…

Keisuke? Yeah, Keisuke’s fine with me.

Joy

The hours flew by while you were having fun.

Fuuka is grimacing.

What’s wrong?
This has been happening to me a lot lately…

Fuuka seems to be in pain.

I just have a little headache… It’s no big deal, really…

Where are you experiencing the pain? Is it on one or both sides of your head?
…Can you describe the pain? Is it dull? Aching? Throbbing?

Keisuke is trying to determine exactly what is wrong with Fuuka.

Looks like Fuuka-san’s not going anywhere for a while.
Playing doctor?

It doesn’t matter when or where, either.
And, he doesn’t stop until he knows exactly what it is. Sometimes it takes forever…

The other members of the club seem annoyed.

(2) I guess he just can’t stand to see people in pain. I bet he’ll go to medical school and become a doctor.
So the pain is emanating from the back of your head?
…Please turn around.

You must be spending too much time in front of the computer. You should get outside and exercise more.
…That advice must sound funny coming from the leader of the Photography Club…
Oh, I thought I might have come down with the flu or something…
Well, if you’re worried about that, I should perform a more detailed examination.

!?
U-Uh, that’s okay. I’m fine! Anyways, my dorm is close by and my dorm mate Makoto-kun is here.
You guys are dorm mates!?

But what about you, Makoto-kun? Isn’t it hard living on your own?

So, notably both of Makoto’s bits of dialogue here were not directed at Keisuke. That does mean that from our choices we gained 0 points towards rank 3, which still has a 1 point requirement.

This bit here that is a guaranteed point gain. It’s… kinda a weird workaround when Tanaka exists and proves 0 point requirements function.

Your relationship is stronger now!

Now, regarding your headache, I don’t think you should be walking home. Why don’t I call you a taxi?
On second thought, maybe a limousine would be better… The ride would be much, much smoother…
U-Uh, that’s okay. I’m fine. Really.

It’s getting dark out…

After saying goodbye to the club members, you decided to go back to the dorm.

Iwatodai Dorm

Only a brief evening stint today. Akihiko’s the only person in the dorm with updated dialogue for one thing.

You don’t really dwell on the past, do you?
I wonder how that feels…

A warning for tourists, though: be careful of the dry weather and guard against heat stroke. Next, a report on more people standing in the road, blocking traffic…

So, it turns out that maybe Apathy Syndrome’s new bizarre symptoms are a bit more common than you’d expect…

Wednesday’s evenings are very lax in general, I’ve noticed. That’s a pretty good thing, really.

Not every day needs to be super intensive or anything. It’s nice to have a respite now and then.

Thursday, on paper, will be even briefer so we should be able to squeeze it in here.

Want To Be Close (Reincarnation)

…At least that’s what I thought until I saw we had a class. If it was anyone else, we’d still be fine. Now? I’m not so sure.

Mrs. Terauchi was supposed to teach today, but she’s had an emergency. I’ll be your instructor instead.
Today, we’ll learn about natural magic.
It’s similar to paganism, which we discussed before.
Natural magic is, obviously enough, magic that draws its power from nature.

Calendar-based spells are also a form Of natural magic, since they involve the seasons.
Some of you may be familiar with dowsing, which uses a pendulum or cane to find things underground.
This, too, is a form of natural magic. It was first used to detect sources of water.
That should be enough examples, I think. Let’s move on to the basic mindset of natural magic.
You must first recognize yourself as a part of nature, and accept its power.
In other words, think of human existence as a microcosm of a vast cosmology.

Ancient magicians thought that different objects which shared a common element would react to one another.
They did experiment after experiment, trying to prove their hypotheses about nature.
…Are you all listening? I certainly hope so… Eeeheehee.
I’ll give you a little test to make sure.
You’ll receive an ill omen if you get it wrong. Ada Ada Io Ada Dia…
Who should I pick…? All right, Makoto, I ask thee.

See, now this is something that I’ve genuinely known since I was like 12. Shoulda just led with this and saved us all the time.

Dowsing.
Excellent work… your answer rings true. No news is good news.
But back to the main subject… Prayer is a part of natural magic.
A characteristic of the prayers in natural magic is that many of them praise the earth goddess.
This ties into the concept of natural magic as a way of invoking nature’s blessing.

But in the transition to natural science, a key element was lost.
That’s the problem of “time.”
Natural magic forbade the use of performing spells that went against the normal flow of time.
Its practitioners believed that magic should not defy nature, and to this day take care to follow natural laws.

So, why would this be a short day if it wasn’t for Edogawa being, well, Edogawa?

So we’re gonna spend today with Chihiro, but we did set that date up for this Sunday for two reasons…

Namely this little bit here. If we didn’t accept it before, we wouldn’t have gained enough points from this to be able to get rank 9. Accepting the date enabled this to just push us past the threshold.

Iwatodai Dorm

Also our evening is gonna be very brief as well. Mitsuru’s the only one with updated dialogue.

With them, not only can I inflict damage upon our enemies, but I can also freeze them.
So, do not hesitate to ask me to go to Tartarus.

But the divorce rate is still on the rise. Studies show that one out of every five newlyweds will divorce within the year.
That concludes our special report. Now, back to the news.

At least this Thursday’s gonna be a nice day for Charm, thanks to Edogawa and the photo stuff tonight.

But let’s see, we’re rapidly approaching July and with it the deadline for our requests and the next full moon. We should probably go back to Tartarus sooner rather than later at this point.

1 Like

So, we’re getting very close to the end of the month now.

Friday’s a pretty brisk day, so let’s see. We’ve spent a bit of time with Fuuka and Friday isn’t a day where Chihiro’s available, so…

Joy

You talked to her about your favorite foods.

Well, I’ve been cooking a lot since then…
That’s why I wanted to know what your favorite food is, so I could make it for you. But…
Everything I make still tastes terrible…
I believe in you.
Thank you…
No one’s ever said anything like that to me…

It’s kinda weird, to me, that Fuuka’s portrait is still here. They normally fade out for these, as you no doubt noticed by now.

I’m not really a positive thinker…
I always picture the worst happening…
So, I’m really thankful to be a member of SEES.
Everyone’s been so encouraging…
Especially you, Makoto-kun…
That’s why I want to show you my gratitude.

It seems that Fuuka trusts you.

Your relationship with her has grown…

Then again, they’re probably too advanced for me…
Hmm… Maybe I should just get a cookbook…
But, there probably aren’t any in the library…
Go to the bookstore.
I could, but…

I really would’ve thought otherwise. Huh.

It’s not a big deal, though…

Fuuka smiled wryly.

You walked around the strip mall with Fuuka for a while before returning to the dorm.

Iwatodai Dorm

Akihiko has left.

I’m sure I know exactly why Akihiko took today to get outta dodge…

So, today I will be performing my top ten jokes for everyone…

Ikutsuki’s here and is apparently being Ikutsuki.

And, yeah, this is something we can do for sure. Just not gonna pay attention to Ikutsuki’s awful puns.

What should I do, Makoto-kun?
Just laugh at his jokes.
O-Okay…
Like this? “Oh, Ikutsuki-san, that’s so funny! Ahahaha… ha… ha…”

But, it’s just so lame…

We spoke to local youth, who have a message for irresponsible adults.

Before you tell me to stop talking on the phone, maybe you could stop stealing people’s seats, you know? God, you guys totally have no right to get on our case like that.

Next, more vacation news…

Honestly, I’m really hoping we max Charm out sooner rather than later now.

Not necessarily because we’re going to need it that soon, but because it’d be nice to be able to add something special on some days…

Want To Be Close (Reincarnation)

Gossiping: I guess they were all in pairs.
Listening: What, like they were attempting a double suicide?
Gossiping: I don’t know. But if I could pass out with someone I liked, I wouldn’t mind being unconscious!
Listening: I would mind!

The first bell has rung.

Today is also a pretty lax day as far as school is concerned.

But we can find these two on the roof now, and uh…

That guy over there just picked his nose.

She’s actually pretty cute, huh?

It seems like their impressions and ideas are beginning to slowly reverse. Hmm.

Oh well, it’s Saturday so let’s get Chihiro that much closer to being finished.

Joy

Sophomore Chihiro Fushimi and junior Makoto Yuki: the Student Council President would like to speak with you. Please go to the Student Council Room immediately. I repeat again…

The President wants to speak with me…?
D-Don’t tell me the President thinks I stole the money too…!?
Don’t worry, she’ll help us.
R-Right… She will, won’t she?

If I talk to her, at least I won’t have to trouble you anymore, Makoto-san…

You decide to go to the Student Council Room with Chihiro.

Troubled

I apologize for the sudden announcement. The reason I called you here is…
Y-You think I-I stole the money…
Chihiro…
I’d like to hear the whole story directly from you.
Uh… Um… I… I…
Makoto-san…

You made eye contact with Chihiro.


…Thank you, Makoto-san… I… can do this myself…

…I… I… I…

Chihiro’s lip is trembling.

…It’s okay. Chihiro.
It’s not necessarily someone who’s good at counting money who makes the best Treasurer…

No, but it certainly helps. Like, a lot.

I prefer someone who will work diligently, without complaining.
From what I’ve seen in Student Council, Chihiro, it’s obvious that you didn’t take the money.
Th-Thank you… Ms. President…

…Do you think you can do that?

Considering she was unable to even say “I didn’t do it” without nearly having a breakdown…

…It-It’s difficult to say this… and I-I-I’ll probably regret it, b-but…
I-I don’t think I can… do it…
…Never be embarrassed of who you are.
Allow me to take care of it… It’s my responsibility as Student Council President.
…Give me a hand, will you, Yuki?
Why me?
I’d like to know more about Chihiro, and I’ve seen you two together after school.
I want to prove to those who suspect her that even outside of school she behaves respectably.

Try not to be seen by anyone…

Y-You two will be meeting alone…?
I don’t want to make things worse.
Even in the dorm, there are students who spread rumors…

Like Junpei, or Yukari, or… Junpei…

N-No! That’s unacceptable! I won’t let you do it!
Chihiro…?

Uh…

There’s no way I’ll agree to that! If I can clear my name, it won’t be necessary, right!?
I’m going to talk to the teacher!

Chihiro!

Calamity

You had a bandage on your chin because you cut yourself while shaving!
I handed the fee money to you directly! Do you expect me to just pretend that never happened!?
Calm down, Fushimi!
Please explain! Or else…

Not gonna lie, I was absolutely expecting this guy to be Ekoda or something. Instead, it’s just some no named rando. At least he clearly has the required credentials to teach here.

Um…?

Joy

Teacher: That day, I had to stay late. and I missed my train.

What!?
Teacher: I fully intended to return the money, but then I forgot. I must be getting old, huh? chuckle
It-It’s not funny!
Teacher: Don’t worry. I’ll explain to the class what happened and return the money. So, please forgive me, Chihiro!
I assumed it was just a misunderstanding, but…
…this is inexcusable! You call yourself a teacher!?

Teacher: Please don’t…
It’s okay, Mitsuru-san…
If that’s the case, then I’ll…
Let’s go, Makoto-san.

Hahahaha…
What’s wrong?
Oh, nothing… giggle

Are… are you drunk…?

Remember what I said to Mitsuru-san? “Get away from him!” giggle
I-I was worried what might happen if you and Mitsuru-san were alone together…
I was so flustered I almost passed out… I’m pretty weird, huh?
I’ve been like that ever since I was a kid, or so my mother says.

That’s one way of describing that, I guess.

I’ve been talking to my mother about you, Makoto-san… and she wants to meet you…
…Would you like to come over to my house one day? You know, when you’re not busy…?

You feel as if Chihiro has confessed her true feelings.

Your relationship is stronger now!

…and, um, I think I owe her an explanation. Excuse me.

You decided to go back to the dorm.

Iwatodai Dorm

Um, that’s the uh… um…

Nope.

Oh, the Antiques Store!

…It’s already open. It opened on the 9th of June. Either Mitsuru is just flatout wrong, again, or this was meant to occur way earlier but it just didn’t or something. Weird.

Oh, right, Elizabeth wanted one in June for some reason. I don’t get it either.

That’s… the ornament at the top of the tree, right?
What do you want one of those for?
And where would I find one…?

Honestly, I just asked you about this one becasue everyone else has already had their turn.

Ohh… I think I might know what you’re talking about.
If I’m right, it might not refer to an ornament at all.

I think it’s pretty common, too…
Could you wait a few minutes? I’ll go look it up.

Requisite fade to blue.

Sorry for the wait!

It’s usually a Christmas flower, so you won’t find it in stores now.
Fortunately, I had some in my room. Here you go.

We’ll take this to Liz shortly, but first…

There must be some reason why…
Maybe it’s part of the Shadows’ plan.
Well, whatever it is, we should be ready for anything.

If things keep going like this, a Shadow will appear during the full moon…
…just like Ikutsuki-san said.

I’m not going to say what they were doing when it happened, but…
Do you think that means the next Shadow is starting to wake up?

It’s 10 days until the next Full Moon, so almost certainly yes. Apathy Syndrome started flaring up a little before now…

If the dry weather continues this summer, it could turn into a serious problem…

Nothing else in the dorm, so let’s give Elizabeth a probably dead flower.

The Poem For Everyone’s Soul

…Oh?
Then where is it…?
Hm… I’m somewhat disappointed.
I was led to believe there would be presents growing from this plant.
This fulfills my request, but you can take it back with you.
Although once the presents are in bloom, I’d like for these plants to fill this room…
Please accept your reward.

This is, uh, kinda a thing I guess? Megido Gems are nice and all, but we probably won’t really ever use it. Almighty damage, multi-target, much earlier than the actual Megido spell but it’s still not great.

Now we have no requests we can finish without going to Tartarus for either using a fusion skill, getting an item, a gem to get an item or grinding up to a level to make a new Persona.

Today is a Saturday, so we won’t be doing that though. Instead, we’ll be talking to Tanaka as that’s apparently become a decent pattern.

This Mysterious Feeling

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be able to see through people’s bathing suits at the beach?
Why, is it possible?
Oops… I forgot. You’re underage.

President Tanaka seems a little worried.

If you’re curious, go ask one of your friends. But not a girl, unless you want to get slapped.
Our company has introduced a special filter for digital cameras.
Simply attach it to your camera and voila! Start peeping!
We’ve been advertising it in adult magazines. Our ad slogan is “Undress them with your camera eye.”
It’s been selling like hotcakes! In fact, it’s our number one seller!
Unfortunately, customers have been complaining that it doesn’t work.

And it’s not like anyone would actually admit they bought one.
…By the way. try to cut back on the donuts and cupcakes. I have an idea for an ad campaign…
Women would go crazy over a handsome young man in his briefs! I think you’d be perfect for the job!

Meh, pass.

You feel like President Tanaka is counting on you.

You feel like you understand him a little better now.

If you go back on your word, I’ll paste a picture of your head on the most hideous body I can find!

I really think that Tanaka’s revenge schemes are getting less, uh, revenge-y.

President Tanaka left.

I’m thinking we’ll probably keep up with Tanaka on Tuesdays and Saturdays up until we max Charm, then Saturday’d conflict with Academics unfortunately.

This Sunday means we get to hang out with Chihiro yet again. This is very important though! She needs 40 points total to get to rank 10, and the rank 9 scene only gave us 21 points to it. We need 19 more…

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

Chihiro seems excited.

I don’t think I’ll be very good at the racing games, though…
I’ll be too worried about breaking the speed limit.

Chihiro seems a little embarrassed.

I’m not good at driving, anyway…
Are you planning to get a driver’s license, Makoto-san…?
I’m thinking about it.
Really?
Um… Then, maybe we could, um, go for a drive together…
I hope you get your license soon…

The bond between you is growing.

We’re not going to bother giving her a gift this time, since it’d be throwing money away. We just got +45 after all.

You decide to go back to the dorm.

Iwatodai Dorm

Blue Swan is a strong believer in positive thinking, so this fits really well.

…And now, the news. The number of Apathy Syndrome victims is increasing every day, all over the city…

Nothing else downstairs, we’ll head on upstairs to try and find everyone.

If this was an adventure novel, there’d probably be some kind of treasure…
I know! There’s a giant pinata! And when you break it…
…candy pours out, and a huge banner appears, saying, “Congratulations! You’ve beaten Tartarus!”
That MUST be it, Stupei.
Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a control panel we could smash and destroy the whole place?

…There is no top to Tartarus!

Actually, that’s an interesting idea…
But, wouldn’t that create a big problem for us?
Uh, y-yeah, I guess so…
Um, maybe I was wrong.

Mitsuru and Akihiko are both out again.

I’m beginning to see a bit of a pattern with Sundays, really. I get the feeling we’re probably not gonna get to do stuff on it again for a little while at least.

Want To Be Close (Reincarnation)

…Ya know, in about a week, there’ll be another mission…
Yeah, I know.
I wonder what it’ll be like this time…
I guess we’ll keep fighting until we defeat all 8 that are left.
But, what are we gonna do after that?
I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I wonder if Mitsuru-senpai is hiding something from us…

Well, there’s still 8 Shadows to deal with. That’s gonna take another like 7 months, since there’s one Blue Moon we have in that time, so…

…Wait, we have an exam in two weeks?! Umm, umm… I’m not sure Academics 3 is enough for this one. It might be, but its also finals so it could totally be 4…

Got it? Good. We’re moving on to inertial force.
Let’s do an experime… Nah, let’s not. We’ll work on the problems in the book instead.
Open up to page 8. The first problem… That’s just an application. We’re skipping it. After that…
You look sleepy, Junpei. Let’s see if you can answer this.
When you drain the water in the tub, it swirls down the drain.

Wh-Whaaat!? How would I know…? Who pays attention to something like that?
(Hey Makoto, do you know?)
(It can go either way.)
Right. The Coriolis effect doesn’t apply on a small scale, like water swirling down the drain.
Otherwise, the rule is “clockwise in the north, counter-clockwise in the south.”
But remember… it has to be on a large scale, like shooting a missile.
Next…
Dude… That’s it? I got the question right! Don’t I deserve some credit here?

We’re definitely getting closer to max Charm. Every little bit helps, but with imminent exams…

Well, we can worry about that later. For today, we’ll keep up with Fuuka I suppose. We can’t spend time with Chihiro today after all.

Joy

I had to go to the pharmacy to buy some special spices…
I don’t know why, though. Even if I use them, I doubt they’ll make any difference…
…I’m sorry you came all the way here.

Fuuka seems very apologetic.

To be honest, my cooking still doesn’t taste very good…
It’s not the way I make it, it’s just…

sigh I just wish I was good at something…
Well, you have a Persona.
That’s true, but…
Everyone else has something they’re really good at.

I just don’t have any talents…

…Not that that’s anything to be proud of…

Fuuka seems embarrassed.

He would repair speakers and head phones.
I used to love watching him work when I was little.
That’s probably why I’m so good with mechanical devices.
But, I don’t think those skills are enough to repay everyone for what they’ve done for me…
And even if they were, the Kirijo Group could always provide us with anything we need for battle…
Not to mention that I’m kind of embarrassed about it all. I mean, it’s not a very feminine hobby.
Oh, I don’t think so.
Oh, Makoto-kun…

…Thank you.

You always seem to be the one I tell my troubles to, Makoto-kun…
And yet, you’re always so understanding.
You help me to think positively…
You’re really supportive…

Fuuka seems to trust you.

Your relationship with her has grown deeper.

Well, um…
I’m going to return to the dorm.
…I’ll see you later.

…You have decided to go back to the dorm.

Troubled

It’s okay… What’s on your mind?
Well, um…
I was hoping you could do me a favor, with your skill…
I was doing some research on our school, and I came across something strange…

They were reported as absent, but I found some records that suggest it was something serious.
Do you know anything about it, Fuuka?
Me? Um, not really…
I know it was a long time ago, but… doesn’t it seem suspicious to you?

Wait, are you saying…?
I don’t know. But, I wonder…
And I’m not trying to make trouble, but…

Does she…?
I just wanna know what happened back then. If it doesn’t have anything to do with the Shadows, then fine.
…I understand.
Okay, I’ll see what I can do.

Well, that was an… unexpected aside. First one in less than a whole week. I guess the general pace might actually be picking up a bit.

Iwatodai Dorm

She has daggers in her eyes whenever she looks at Mitsuru-senpai.
It’s just your imagination.
Yeah, maybe you’re right.

There’s nothing on the telly today, and Yukari and Fuuka aren’t downstairs either…

But we know where they are courtesy of the scene, so!

What’s with that look…? Don’t you trust me?
Let me join in.
Wh-What!? It’s girl talk!
Sorry, no boys… Now, go away!

It’s just an ordinary conversation, really…
So, don’t worry.

Monday is a good day for Charm, as usual, so we’ll do that tonight. I’m thinking that we’re very nearly done with Charm at this point, but we’ll see…

And, of course, Academics is quickly going to come back into the front regardless since we have an exam early in July to deal with now.

Want To Be Close (Reincarnation)

So, today is a tuesday. Tuesday is a Chihiro day. We have nothing else to focus on beforehand, so straight to her we go!

Joy

You and Chihiro are enjoying each other’s company…

I was really, uh, really not expecting her to get those anytime ever.

I bought all three. I blew my whole allowance… but it was worth it!
…This book was done by the same artist. Would you like to borrow it, if you’re interested…?
Just promise to think of me when you read it…
I don’t read girl manga.

I’m pretty sure Makoto doesn’t read anything that isn’t related to schoolwork (or required to even Do A Social Link) in some way, honestly. It’s kinda weird.

That’s okay. But, will you hold onto it for me?

Chihiro seems disappointed.

I’ll be happy just knowing that something important to me is with you, Makoto-san…

Well, huh, this is the first item we’ve gained from an S.Link since we focused on Bunkichi and Mitsuko for a long while way back when.

…Reminds me that we should go back there sometime soon, but we’ll get a good bonus for that later so I kinda wanna wait for that.

It’s getting dark out.

She’says she has to stay late at work…

I-I really don’t want to be alone…
Please stay… Just a little while longer…
Lock your doors.
P-Please! I-I only told you that story just to get you to…!

Chihiro seems desperate.

I know I’m being selfish…
Not like you, Makoto-san… You’re such a great person, and you make those around you happy too…

You… really don’t know Makoto, huh?

I wish I could have you all to myself…
So, please grant me this one last wish…

The Path is Open

A mysterious voice rings in your head…

For future max ranks, I’ll probably just cut this down a bit. Especially once they start happening rapidly close together. Our next one most likely won’t be for a little while, though.

Joy

Melchizedek is the final Justice Persona. Maxing an S.Link unlocks its highest level Persona for fusion, which isn’t necessarily as high a level as you’d expect. Melchizedek is far, far, far away right now, sure, but he’s “only” level 59.

It’s so warm being near you…

The implication is whatever you think it is.

Also, hey, remember when she had androphobia? And how that was absolutely irrelevant to pretty much the entire link? Weird. Wouldn’t see that nowadays.

Iwatodai Dorm

We’ll do a quick lap around the dorm, since we’re a week away from the full moon. Naturally, we have a lot of updated dialogue as a result.

Yes.
Good, then I expect you to be prepared.

But, don’t think too much about it, or else you’ll get more nervous as the day gets closer.

So, have you been creating a plan?
Nope.
Well, you better get started! We’re all counting on you.

Just because we know A Thing Is Coming doesn’t mean we know what it can or can’t do. It’s hard to plan for something that is kind of a giant question mark.

Bring your water bottles and make sure you don’t get dehydrated! Now, back to the studio.

After these messages, more hard-hitting Action News!

Alright, so, Tuesday. This is our best day right now for a certain someone, so…

Tanaka gets one last bit of our time before the full moon. Saturdays give us a quiz at the arcade, and we want that for the upcoming exams right now.

This Mysterious Feeling

…Oh, dear me… I-I just can’t concentrate. I get so worked up when I picture his face!
Who’re you talking about?
…One of my employees. I suppose I should have seen it coming…

There was a young man who was working for me…
He was a good kid who graduated from a well-known university.

After that, his self-confidence went down the drain
…Then, he just stopped coming to work.
What happened to him?
He probably locked himself inside his room. I don’t care.

President Tanaka seems unconcerned.

I just mailed him a dismissal notice, C.O.D.
It’s his fault that the company is in the red this month!
All that money I wasted on training him…
It makes me sick just thinking about it… Uhh…
Is it always about money?

Money won’t betray me like he did.

It’s difficult growing up with no money…

Hey, Tanaka, you… uh… you’re projecting, just a bit. Your issues are definitely showing.

I’ve been thinking… How would you like to model exclusively for my company?
Your innocent appearance would be perfect for camouflaging the ugly realities of business!
…Think about it, will you? You won’t ever have to worry about being able to buy shoes for PE.

You sense that President Tanaka has strong feelings for you.

You feel like you understand him a little better now.

If I decide to hire someone new, it’ll cost a fortune to train them.

President Tanaka left, talking to himself.

Not even a half-hearted threat or anything this time. How weird.

The Voice Someone Calls

I think so.
chuckle You’re used to it by now, huh?
…The next full moon will be in one week.
Are you prepared…? Be careful, okay?
I’ll come again.

Pharos has disapperead…

_Pharos hitting the requisite last week reminder, just to be safe. I think that, yeah, we should go and finish off Arqa (hopefully) before we hit the full moon. Wednesday is a Quiz day, Thursday is a photo day… It’s probably gotta be Friday, then, or Sunday if we want to push it to the absolute last day. _

…Pfft, no, fuck that. Friday it is, I guess. Maybe Thursday if we can somehow max Charm before Thursday night. We’ll see what happens there.

Yukari’s got a very clear strength. That Magic is far above everything else makes he role clear, but her current spells are… very limited. I’m sure she can manage fine, though.

_When everyone else was a bit tired last time, I got Junpei some levels to keep him close to everyone else. That’s the good news! The bad news is that, well, the last fight wasn’t quite “Fuck Junpei” was it? Don’t worry. The next one brings that back in full fore. _

Well, it TRIES to anyway…

_Akihiko is, uh, falling behind despite being tied highest level right now. His generalist build gives him a decent skill spread, but man are his stats the worst overall across the board; he’s not the worst at any one stat, but he has no real strengths either… _

At least he can heal in a pinch and Tarunda is always helpful.

Mitsuru’s Magic is only one point below Yukari’s, albeit with a two level advantage, but she’ll get a mid-tier spell way before anyone else to give her a bit of an edge. Plus healing’s always useful and Marin Karin can be useful. It just needs the right target(s), and the right AI setting to prove its worth.

1 Like

So, another month done and it’s time to see what happens when a butterfly flaps its wings…

Well, first we can hang out with Akihiko now! That’s a pretty big deal, I would think.

After School

Two extra-large specials, please.
Can I order some appetizers, too?
Haha, yeah. Eat as much as you’d like.

Akihiko seems happy, for some reason…

Physical strength is everything.
Your skills are truly remarkable…
But they won’t be of any use if you get exhausted easily.

Akihiko seems to be worried about you, in his own way.

…In any case, you decide to eat the extra-large ramen brought to your table.

You somehow managed to eat it all, but your stomach is groaning…

Hey, are you up for going to another restaurant?
Another meal? Let’s go!
…Are you sure? You don’t look so well.
Don’t let yourself suffer just to be friendly. Seriously…

Akihiko seems to sigh inwardly…

You must have a really small stomach.
If you don’t eat right, you’ll never grow stronger.

…You feel that Akihiko is treating you like a child.

Why are you glaring at me like that?
I’m not Junpei. I won’t go easy on you just because you’re a girl.

…So do your best and do a good job, okay?
Our lives are on the line too, after all.
And, of course, we’ll do our best to back you up, as well.
You’re not the only one who’s going to be trying hard out there.

You can sense Akihiko’s care for you…

You feel like you understand Akihiko a little now…

Power of the Heart

We won’t be seeing Makoto’s Star S.Link for a while, yet. Not because of schedule issues or anything (one day, Gourmet King), but because it’s flatout not available for ages.

After School

Let’s get a quick jog in to help settle out stomachs.

You and Akihiko jogged back to the dorm while he cheered you on…

Akihiko is all of note today, so we’ll skip ahead to, uh…

…the very next day. To the library we go!

Joy

Oh, that’s right. Ms. Ounishi said that some new books have come in.
Can you help me put barcodes on them and enter them in the system?
Of course!
I’ll go get them. If anyone comes to the counter while I’m gone, help them.

Saori seems to be enjoying herself…

Eek… Oh, I’m sorry.

Saori bumps into a female student who just came through the door…

The girl is obviously flustered, for some reason…

Me? What is it?

Buns: Well… um… C-Could I borrow your physics notes? The teacher erases the blackboard too fast for me to copy them down…

Oh, of course.
I’ve been taking a lot of notes for physics, too…
I’m not too good in that class myself, so I need to pay attention.

Buns: Oh, um… That’s all right.

…I see. Give me one second.

Saori pulls a notebook from her bag and hands it to the girl.

Buns: Oh, great. Thanks…

The student leaves.

Saori sees her off…

She was very polite to you…
Heh… You noticed?
We don’t know each other all that well.
But, it feels good to have people rely on me.
So…

Saori smiles, slightly sadly…

I’ve never gotten used to this school.
…You’re a transfer student, but you seem to have grown accustomed to this place really quickly.
I see you sometimes in the hall, and you always look like you’re having fun.
You should’ve come talk to me.
Hm… I thought other people would think the wrong thing if we started getting along well…

You feel like you understand a little bit about the situation Saori is in…

Oh, I was going to get the new books. Watch the counter while I’m out.

You did your duties in the school library committee and left school with Saori…

I know it’s not really fair to compare Saori to Maya since we haven’t seem the same amount of each, but man. She is really just kinda boring in comparison…

Oh well, next up is Junpei again.

After School

Everyone seems to be having fun, but they don’t know what’s going on…
That doesn’t make a difference or anything, but…
It’s like… I feel this wall between us and them…
…That’s okay, because I don’t really talk about serious stuff with them.

Hey, wanna go eat something?

Male Student’s Voice: Hey, it’s Junpei. You going home?

Oh, sorry. I didn’t notice you, Kotone-san.
Ohhhh! If that’s how it is, you should’ve told me.
It’s nothing like that.
We live in the same dorm, so we-- Hey, why are you getting your phone?
Kotone-san, mind if we take a picture together?
Why?

What’ll she say if I don’t show her at least one picture of me with a girl?
But still…
…A picture?
Wait… Could it be you? Is it YOU!?
Yup! Wait, what?
I-I’m gonna tell you this as a friend, got it?
Peeping on girls is a crime!
Who’s peeping!? I just asked Kotone-san if it was okay!
Not just now! PE! Pictures! The ones going around!
Huh? What’re you talking about? I don’t know anything.

That’s right! At least I’m proud of who I am!
So, what’s this about? Are there pictures of her going around?
Uh…
Wouldn’t the photography club be your first bunch of suspects?
The photography club…! I totally forgot about them…
Alright, we’ll go check it out. Thanks, Kenji.
Make sure you smack 'em for me, too.
Why…?

You decided to go to the photography club with Junpei to find the source.

A fun quirk of fate that both paths ended up at the Photography Club for one reason or another. Kotone isn’t here as a member though.

Th-There’s supposedly this photo going around. You know anything about it?
Going around…? What photo is it?
You’re the culprit!
Huh? I don’t know anything about that…
I know all the film used by the club members gets developed here.

…Ohhhh, so you mean someone was being a Peeping Tom?
That’s why you’re here… You sure you don’t want to join the club…?
Oh, well, it’s not me.
Also, none of our members would do such a thing.
Huh, but that’s…
I know! People who love the art of photography would never stoop so low.
I can tell you none of my people would have done it.

Keisuke, let me tell you about this photography club member at a different school. His name is Rex…

…What do you think? Can you trust him?

Junpei asks you quietly…

I can trust him.

It seems that he heard you…

I’ll ask all the club members, too. Just in case.
I’ll get everyone with a digital camera to show me their data, too.
Sorry, but that’s pretty much all I can do to help. I know it must be rough.

The president seemed kind…

It seems that there’s nothing more that you can ask about here…

In any case, you went back outside with Junpei…

I guess we’ll just have to go about this in a more direct way…
I’ll try asking my guy friends again, too. Wait right here.
It’s all right, forget about it.
It’s not all right! Don’t be so modest.
All right. then I’ll count on you.
No prob, leave it to me.
It’d suck if your social life got ruined by something like this.

Junpei seems to be genuinely concerned about you.

You feel like the bond between you and Junpei has grown stronger…

…Well, let’s just go back for today.

You went back to the dorm with Junpei.

I sure hope this is going somewhere, honestly.

But, we’ve got a good chance right now to hang out more with people we actually live with. I think we should SEES the opportunity. im not sorry :colbert:

You joined Akihiko on his training and ran here with him…

Let’s take a short break…

That’s actually a blessing, after working up a good sweat…
It feels nice.
I usually train in the club room or alone in my own room at the dorm…
I’ll train with you, if you want.
It’d be nice to have a running partner.
…But if you join me, we’re going to do more than just run every day, okay?

In any case, I should’ve changed into my workout gear.
I thought this would just be a light run for fun…
But, I’m drenched in sweat…
Don’t catch a cold.
This is nothing. I’ll be fine.

…Achoo!

…I said I’ll be fine.

Hey, want to try that before we head back?

Akihiko points at the horizontal bar…

You can’t do a back hip circle, can you?
I bet you can’t either, sempai!
Oh, really? Haha… I’m actually quite good at it.
Want me to show you?

Akihiko grabs the bar while he’s still talking…

Everybody should be able to do this.

Akihiko seems proud…

Can you at least sit up here?
…Here.

Akihiko helps pull you us to get a seat on the bar.

It’s a little scary, because you’re finding it hard to balance on it.

…This takes me back.
…It reminds me of when I was a kid.

Akihiko falls silent and looks off into the distance…

If I don’t get stronger…
…I won’t be able to save anything.

Akihiko mutters, as if to himself…

You feel like you understand Akihiko a little better now…

Were you sweating today, too? Make sure you take a bath today so you don’t catch a cold.

You and Akihiko returned to the dorm together.

Wait, dang, I just noticed we’re super close to the full moon. Umm…

Silence

Real quick, then. We can choose to go look for the key to the Gym with Yukari like before, but it’s identical and nothing changes so we won’t. Instead, we’ll opt to go look with Akihiko. Junpei’s not an option, because obviously Mitsuru is keeping an eye on him.

Very well. Then Takeba will accompany us to the janitor’s room. We’ll meet back up in the main hallway.

Disappointingly, Akihiko doesn’t have an interesting quip if you try and go to the bathroom right now. It’s tragic, but it’s true.

…?
Hold up, someone’s coming!

The footsteps are getting closer…

Who’s be here at this hour…?
We should hide.

The two of you hid behind a pillar…

The footsteps faded away…

Whew… Just a security guard.
Will we get arrested?
Haha… Well, considering that we’re sneaking around the faculty offices after hours, we’d at least be expelled.
Let’s just make sure we’re not caught.
…Alright, he’s gone.
Let’s go.

Akihiko is also really kinda boring and has nothing interesting to say if we try and go somewhere other than the Faculty Office, so…

The two of you searched for the key…

Wasn’t it the gym key?
Huh!?
What, it was just the regular gym key?
…I-I see.

Akihiko is rummaging through the keys…

…You spot a key right next to where he’s looking.

No good… It’s not here.
Must be in the janitor’s room, where Mitsuru and the others went.
What’re you waiting for? Let’s go.
I found it. Let’s go.
Oh, so you had it.
Well, why didn’t you just say so?
…Well, at least we found it. C’mon, let’s find the others!

Obtained Gym Key.

They said to meet up in the main hallway, right? We should get going.

Yeah, piece of cake!

And after that, it just remerges with the normal dialogue. Split into teams, Yukari stays behind, etc. etc.

We’ll skip ast the rest of the full moon since it’s all the same as before but without an animated cutscene.

We haven’t spent any time with Rio yet this month, and she’s almost certainly going to be better than Kaz in every way. I mean, she doesn’t seem to be purposefully injuring herself so that’s already a good start.

Joy

Alright, I’ll serve next, so…
…Oh.

Male Student’s Voice: Heeey, Rio!

…Even in an alternative reality, there really isn’t any avoiding this guy. He still just keeps appearing.

I’ve got some homework that I just don’e understand at all.
Could you do it for me instead? Or tell me how to do it?
Homework…? I bet you just slept through class again.
Eh-heheheh…
…What do I get in return?
Ooh, so you’re up for it? Lucky me!
I’ll give you my love in return. Love, baby!
Nobody needs that!
…How about you buy me a special at Hagakure?

Yeah, yeah…

Kenji leaves…

Aren’t you being too nice to him?
Oh, you mean the homework?
He’s pretty stupid, so I doubt he’ll be able to do it by himself…
It’s been like this since preschool, so he’s pretty reliant on me…

He’s been coming here a lot lately, and he’s starting to be a pest…

What’s the matter?

Rio mumbles…

I see someone really needs to watch Haikyuu!! You can get plenty done with just two people if you try!

Why don’t you try apologizing?
But…

Rio seems vexed…

It’s like… I don’t want to pretend nothing happened, and I’m not going to say this is my fault.
…I know that I need to be more mature about this, but…

All that stuff about having never been in a relationship and stuff… That’s none of their business.
Don’t let it get to you!
Yeah…

Do you have… someone you like?
Nope.
I-Is that so…

I don’t get romance. It seems like so much trouble, and there’s no big reward for doing it.

Rio opened up to you a little…

You feel like you understand Rio a little more now…

I’ll serve, Kotone-san, so you…
Uhh…
…Is it okay if I just call you Kotone? I feel like it fits you better.

You and Rio finished your practice, then you went back to the dorm.

And next up is, uh, the very next day. Again. Man, it really felt like April and May combined weren’t this packed. Weird.

Well, if this is anything like it is for Makoto, this is around about the time we get railroaded into dating Junpei so let’s just get this out of the way now.

After School

You’d better start being careful, you know?
You might be fine now, but you don’t wanna be a tub in ten years, you know?
Shut it, jerk.
So hostile… This isn’t the first time you’ve thought of it, huh?

Still… Man, you ever wonder what we’ll be doing in ten years?
…I don’t really wanna think about it.

Junpei seems to stare off into the distance…

You’ll be a great man.

You really think so? Hearing it from you definitely makes my day.


Lately, when I do stuff like watch TV or read manga, I can’t concentrate…

Junpei fiddles with his chopsticks…

Haha…

I wonder if there’s anything only I can do…

Junpei mutters as if to himself…

Your terrible jokes?
Gee, thanks. That’s helpful.
I mean, Yuka-tan’s got her response to my jokes down to a science.
She delivers a dope-slap that feels like an icy dagger to the brain…


When I think about this Persona stuff, it’s like I have a personal mission…
But, I don’t understand it at all…

Maybe I don’t even have a mission like that, and that’s what I’m afraid of.
I’ve got all these pent-up emotions that I can’t figure out…

Do you have anything like that?
Like, do you ever think about what you can do…?
Sometimes…
…I see. I mean… You don’t seem like that at all.
I guess that’s another thing that’s amazing about you…

You sense that Junpei has been open with you about his troubles…

This got surprisingly deep and philosophical for Junpei, huh? He’s absolutely not at all the regular boring “dumb best friend” type he appears to be at first, which is kinda great.

Ha, I guess talking about serious stuff once in a while isn’t so bad.

You and Junpei talked for a while before going back.

Oh, wait, I just noticed the date. It’s after the 9th! We can check out the Antique Store.

It has more stuff available here than before, but most notable is that this is where you can get the Fusion Skill items. And they’re all available immediately. Yes, even that one you’re thinking of right now. And that other one you just thought of as well. They’re not EASY to get, mind you, but you can. Probably earlier than we’ll get many of them with Makoto, even.

Anyway, next matter of importance is that we’re going to put our Max Courage (still required, yes) to use here. Fuuka is similar to her link for Makoto, but it’s different enough to warrant a bit of a closer look.

Joy

I hope you’re hungry…

Fuuka handed you a boxed lunch.

…!?

For better or worse (hint: worse), it still focuses on this one not-joke for way too long.

…But you mustered up your courage and opened it.

…!?

It looks pretty unappetizing…

Please eat up!

Fuuka is watching you expectantly…

…You decide to try it out.

…The food tastes as bad as it looks…

…H-How is it?
It’s not quite right…
…Urgh. Oh… I-I see…
It did get a little burnt…
Th-Thank you for your honesty…
Sorry that I asked you to try this all of a sudden.
To tell the truth… Um, did you notice? Look at the blackboard.

Then again, I’m the only member so far…
I’m going to keep trying my best, so would you mind stopping by and trying my new creations sometime…?
Actually, to be honest… I want you to join, too. Cookbooks don’t make much sense to me…
And instead of just cooking and eating everything by myself…
…Cooking for you would inspire me to try harder.
So, h-how about it? …Would it be too much trouble?
Okay, I’ll join!

Oh, um, we’ll meet on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.
I’ll try my best, so let’s work hard at it!

You’ve become the second member of the Cooking Club and will be helping Fuuka learn how to cook…

Power of the Heart

Joy

As Fuuka said, there are remnants of all the ingredients left that she hadn’t prepared…

…Rather than waste them, you decide to cook them all together.

…You made something vaguely edible.

…Y’know, I’ve played Tales of games. I know this is a sign of failure, not success.

If we find a cute doggy in the neighborhood, we should give it this.

You cleaned up with Fuuka, and headed back to the dorm…

Possibly not surprisingly, there is a use for Dog Food. It’s even a key item, so you know it’s important.

…Oh wait, I completely spaced on this. We absolutely have to go on a date with Theo!

Our Second Date
highly recommended for obvious reasons

Joy

…?

Theo doesn’t seem to want to get on the escalator.

I-I’ve heard of this… It’s called an escalator, no?

I shouldn’t have any problems riding something like this, should I?

…Despite Theo’s words, he isn’t budging from where he stands.

It seems he can’t grasp the timing of it…

Let’s be honest, these are both good options but lending him a hand with an escalator is way better.

…Be better still if it wasn’t left in a VN format, but alas we have to make sacrifices.

I-I can’t allow you to do that!
I’ll… go on ahead. Please, allow me.

Theo took your hand…


This is rather… slow.

…You both got off safely.

Theo seems proud for some reason…

It’s because Theo is the best. That’s the reason.

…!
This smell… No, no, don’t tell me…

Cook: How 'bout it? Wanna buy one? It’ll make you smile so wide, your cheeks will fall off!

So good as to make one’s cheeks fall off…!?
That… would be dire indeed…!
Wanna try it out?

Well then! I accept your challenge.

In any case, you decide to buy one.

You sat alongside Theo and shared the takoyaki.

97 degrees Fahrenheit…


Alright, out with it!

So I’ve been taught, which means… I mustn’t…
…But using THAT for cooking…
It’s apparent now why one’s cheeks might fall off…
gasp

…Theo is pinching his cheeks.

…!?

Yours seem to be in no danger.
Thank goodness…
That hurt!
Oh, I’m so sorry.

It appears to be… a takoyaki-shaped cell phone strap.

Was the cook pleased with him…?

Would this be considered… a souvenir of my time with you?
How unfortunate… I’ve acquired something precious to me.
It’s your fault, you realize.
That’s why I won’t let you have this.

Theo laughs.

You walked around the strip mall with Theo…

The flow of time is fixed at a certain speed…
And yet it seems there are moments when it passes so quickly.

The sound of a car’s horn is heard.

Oh… That car’s–

You mustn’t allow yourself to become so lost in thought.
…Now, let us go.

You returned to the Velvet Room with Theo.

End

I know some people prefer Liz’s versions of events, but I think Theo’s are kind of more fun. It’s mainly because he actually has more than one general reaction and is kind of a goob.

The Poem for Everyone’s Souls

So, how about a new mechanic? Let’s have a new mechanic.

I have business with you, so please come to the Velvet Room at your earliest convenience.
It is an important matter that involves you…
I will be waiting.

The call ended.

At this point, we get automatically moved to the Velvet Room. Just so you don’t forget/miss this, I guess.

It seems to be someone without the potential who heard the voices of the Shadows…
If left alone they will become Lost in your world and may die…
Please find them and return them.

Yeah, so from now on we’ll occasionally get a call from Theo telling us whether or not there’s someone in Tartarus. We have a very generour time limit to find and rescue them, but there’s two three reasons for why you’d want to do that.

1. Anyone that gets dragged in and not rescued will die eventually.
2. You get a reward of some kind for doing it.
3. It’s just a random NPC right now, but later ones can and will include some of your S.Links. Yikes!

So with that in mind, I think we’ll take a bit of a break here. We’ll definitely be taking a trip to Tartarus soon enough, now, and we’ve still got like half the month’s content left to go.

1 Like

Welcome back after those words from our, uh… spon…sors…?

And now we’ll spend even more time with Junpei!

After School

Ask me anything.
Awesome! Seriously, I don’t even know what I don’t know anymore.

I’ve been avoiding math ever since I started going here.
All this “vector” and “trigonometric ratio” stuff sounds like magic to me…

Junpei looks fed up…

Alright, I’m gonna do this today! I’m gonna overcome my fear of math!
You’re on fire!

Junpei dives into his homework with a great show of confidence…

So the circle inside triangle ABC where AB equals AC is…

Surprisingly, Junpei is actually taking his homework seriously.

You helped Junpei as much as you could and waited for him to finish…

If that’s the case, then… the answer is… 40!
…Huh? Am I done?
Whoohoo! I did it! I got through all of it!

Oh, s-sorry…

Haha!
You actually did it.
I’ve finally unleashed my true potential! You’re my witness!

I was… thinking about really trying hard for once.
I always thought that stuff like math would never help me in the future…
But, I noticed that it might be important, even if you never use it.

I don’t think I can start lecturing you on how to live your life or anything…
I mean, there’s nothing wrong with just doing what feels good in the moment…
But in the end, it doesn’t satisfy me, and it bothers me even more.
Yeah… I guess I’ve just got anxiety or something.

But I think I figured it out recently.
I haven’t found anything yet, but I get the feeling that I will, someday.
…As long as I’m with you and everyone else.

I think I understand.
R-Really?
…I totally thought you were gonna start laughing at me. Heheh…

You’re always doing your best, all the time. It made me want to act like that.
I mean, you study, you’re in clubs… Aren’t you in the student council, too?
…I think that’s amazing.

It’s rare for Junpei to sincerely praise anyone like this…

After hearing what he thinks about you, you feel closer to him…

…?

…Huh? He hid.

Troubled

You turn around, but there’s no one there…

He was looking your way. Looked like he was holding something…

Junpei jumps to his feet!

I’m coming too!
Huh? It’s okay, you stay here!
Oh…
He got away…
Uhh…

I’ll settle it myself!
Uh, you shouldn’t…
It might give him the wrong idea if you go to him yourself…

Junpei seems worried about you…

Anyway, let’s go home.
Sorry to keep you here so late…
…Try not to go home by yourself from now on, okay?

You and Junpei returned to the dorm together.

I kind of understand why it’s there, but man Junpei’s link would be improved by removing the photograph thing. There’s some real good content here in spite of it.

Anyway, we should spend more time with Akihiko next. There might only be the one Star persona at a level in which this is relevant but hey. Get them a nice boost when they really come online!

After School

…But no matter how you look at it, it’s just the Beef Bowl Shop.

Honestly, the beef bowl is really great here.
The servings are big, and the sauce they use on the meat is just…

Girl’s Voice: Akihiko-senpai! Eeeeee!

…?

They’re not in uniform, but you recognize them as students from your class.

…What’s funny about that?

Heavily Made-Up Girl: It means that you’re totally cool.

…?
Look, can you get out of the way, please? We can’t get in.

Buns: Hey, hey, you don’t have a girlfriend, right?


A girlfriend?

Buns: We’re, like, totally looking for guys to be with right now.

…Just let us through, please.
If you want to talk with me, let’s find some other time to do it.
Let’s go, Kotone.

Let’s go, Senpai!
Yeah, I’m starving.

You push your way past them and enter the Beef Bowl Shop with Akihiko.

…What’s the matter?
Yes, it was great.
I know, right?

Oh… I get it.
Do you think those girls wanted to have Beef Bowls, too?

I think they were a bit more thirsty than hungry.

Not in the way you think.
Huh? I wonder what they wanted…

He seems to be completely incapable of recognizing female emotions…

You’re starting to feel sorry for those girls from before…

Don’t you want a girlfriend?
Now you’re going to start asking me about that, too…?

Akihiko gives you a wry smile…

…I’m not strong enough to carry this entire burden…

Akihiko mutters, as if to himself…

You feel like you understand Akihiko a little better now…

The type I like is…


N-Never mind.

…But I can’t bring myself to say it! Argh!
Damn that Junpei…

You and Akihiko returned to the dorm together.

Man, I’m glad Akihiko couldn’t bring himself to say that, because man. That is… really awful.

Speaking of awful, how about this one awful plot beat again? Isn’t that exciting.

Joy

It you haven’t, then would you like to make this with me?
Look on this page… “chocolate truffles”! Don’t they look good?

Since Fuuka has brought the ingredients for making them, you decide to try making chocolate truffles.

The recipe seems like it would be fairly easy to follow.

…?

…Well, at least this is helping us understand HOW she’s bad, rather than it being the same one note over and over and over again.

Dissolve 200 grams of milk chocolate in hot water… Am I supposed to put hot water in it, or it into the water?

Fuuka is muttering things to herself…

Do you need any help?
Oh, no, it’s okay. I should be able to do this… Thanks, though.

Fuuka seems to be having fun…

You made your own batch of truffles.

They came out pretty well!

It’s a date item, sadly. It’s just there for bonus S.Link points if you need it.

Yes, I’m done!
This is much more fun when there’s two people here. Thanks, Kotone-chan!

Fuuka is laughing as if she’s truly having fun…

You feel like you’ve gotten a little closer to Fuuka…

There’s an apple-sized dark substance on the plate Fuuka handed to you.

…What is this?
It’s a chocolate truffle, of course.

I thought that a teaspoon of liqueur wasn’t enough, so I used a cup of it.
Look, see?

Fuuka is proudly holding up a bottle labeled “vinegar”…

…Because this recipe is so obviously inedible, you decide to point this out to Fuuka…

I didn’t notice at all…

…I’m hopeless, aren’t I…
…I just want to help everyone, even outside of battle…
So I thought that they might like having some homemade food or sweets when they’re tired…
…But I want to try harder so that I can get better at this.
Plus, now that you’re helping me out, I want to succeed even more…
I’ll try harder next time!

You finished your cooking club meeting and headed back to the dorm.

Today is honestly a really good day to Tartarus, so we’ll do just that. Plus, uh, I really need the money. That helps too!

We’ll kinda just gloss over most of it, but on the 45th floor…

tartarus_0d02

Fuuka just tells us that the person we’re looking for is somewhere here. Which is helpful enough, I guess.

We just wander around until we find her being harried by a small shadow. We promptly kick its ass because its a trash loser.

Then we can talk to her, she says nothing of value and we’re done.

We can continue exploring Tartarus proper or head back to the entrance at this point.

Either way, once we’re done they’re saved and are in a secure location conveniently located Off-Screen.

A Way of Life

Then we just finish up whatever else we’re doing in Tartarus that trip, and the next day make our way to see Kurosawa.

Hm? Oh it’s something that missing schoolgirl brought in as a reward to the one who found her.
There was a lot about the case that stymied us on the force, so I figured you guys were involved… Am I wrong?

And that’s that. Nice and easy, and since it rewards doing what you would (should) be doing anyway, there’s no reason to not clear these out.

That was a fun diversion, but next up we’ve got Saori to hang out with some more.

Joy

Saori is happily doing her job and helping the students…

…Huh? You lost it?
Um… If you don’t have your ID, we can’t check any books out for you.
Losing your ID’s pretty serious… You should go to the faculty room before you do anything else.

Saori seems to be involved with a complex situation…

A female student comes in.

If you recall correctly, this is the same student who borrowed Saori’s notes the other day.

…Oh, Higashida-san. I’m sorry, I’m a little busy right now…

Buns: Oh, it’s okay, it’ll be quick! Um… About the notes I borrowed…

My notes…? Oh, right…

Huh?
…Oh, that’s fine.

Buns: Well, s-see you!

The student who borrowed Saori’s notes takes off…


Oh, I’m sorry.
Um, so, if you’ve lost your student ID, you need to get a copy of this form from the faculty office and…

Let’s stay here a little longer.
Uh-huh, that’s how I feel, too.

Oh, right, didn’t we get homework today? I should make use of this time and get it done…
Oh, wait, my notes…
Wanna borrow mine?
Huh? Oh, no, it’s okay!
I was just thinking that my homework would be a lot easier if I had the notes I gave her…
Well, there’s no point complaining about what I don’t have.
But she’s being terrible to you!
Huh? You think so?
…Thanks, you’re such a nice person.

You feel like you have a better understanding of Saori now…

Which do you want to do? Clean the counter or make sure everybody’s left the library?
Let’s roshambo for it. Ready? Ro… Sham…

You did your duties in the school library committee and left school with Saori…

…Oh, wait, hang on I just realised that I have something in my inventory still.

Hello again, Sigma Drive. For whatever reason, a lot of things sell for double their old values here. Not everything, though. I don’t get it, but it means we get basically 90k for this trash accessory.

That bankrolls us for less time than you’d think (compendium costs…), but it’s still very nice all the same. It feels better than it is, really.

Warm Feeling

…It’s just a punch.
Did you get in a fight?
Um, w-well, who cares!
Don’t bother asking, okay? It’s really lame! I don’t wanna say it!

Junpei scratches his head…

Well, in any case…

Thank you!
Huh? Uh, umm… Haha.

I think… this is my first time.
Getting punched?
Haha, I’ve been punched way too many times before.

Junpei shrugs.

I thought that if I laughed my way out of everything, I’d never be in trouble.
…That’s why I try to avoid having to be serious whenever I can…
You know those times when everyone sits around and talks seriously?

I thought I could try breeze my way through things, and try to be fun.
It’s so much easier than having to do stuff like understanding other people.

…Not everything about everyone’s cool, right?
Everybody has parts of them that are cool or lame…
But they’re all doing what’s best for themselves.
After seeing you all like that… I think I got scared.

Staying quiet and trying to act cool won’t tell anybody anything.
Seeing someone way smaller than me put everything they have into something…

I’ve never tried my hardest in anything. I don’t take anything seriously.
That’s why I never gain anything… and why I’m never happy.
…I realize that I’m not living my life at all.

Junpei…

This got REALLY introspective, huh? Gotta admit, I like Junpei way more now than I did before starting either of these playthroughs.

Haha, what’s with that face? I can be serious sometimes, too, right?

When I got back those pictures of you… it crossed my mind.
In the end, I just wanted you to trust in me.

…But trying to get you to rely on me to solve this is just wrong.
You’re… an important friend of mine, after all.

Junpei laughs, embarrassed…

You sense that Junpei trusts you…

Don’t you sometimes just get the urge to swing once in a while?
…I used to ride swings a lot when I was a kid.
I’d get close to the sky and think that I could go somewhere else…


That’s what I’d think about when I was on a swing.
…Let’s ride on one together some time.
You know how to get two people on one swing right? One stands, the other sits!

You and Junpei spend some time talking about all kinds of things…

Like, okay, at face value Junpei is a simple, one-dimensional character. He’s meant to be the dumb best friend who makes inappropriate jokes. Then, uh, it turns out he’s actually kinda smart and reasonable and that’s in the base game before you even get to the S.Link stuff. It really doesn’t add anything new or that wasn’t there in the first place; it just makes it more obvious and gives it focus that it otherwise wouldn’t.

The Poem for Everyone’s Souls

Rather swiftly, we have two more people that have disappeared into Tartarus, huh? Alright, we’ll give the notice board outside the police station a look.

It’s quite nice that this is clearly related to what’s going on right now with how Shadows are focussing on couples. It’s a bit subtle, but I appreciate that it’s not just completely arbitrary.

We’ll deal with that sometime soon, though. For now, we’ll spend more time with Akihiko.

Warm Feeling

Akihiko is completely silent…

Are you feeling sick?

Huh…?
…Oh, right. Sorry.

Look, if you don’t want to tell me, then you don’t have to.

It’s just…

He’s just a friend.
I see…

Oh, no, it was just a rumor I heard. Sorry.
Don’t get the wrong idea, Sempai.
…?

Akihiko seems apologetic…

It’s bad enough that I listened to a rumor, but then I confronted you about it… It was incredibly rude of me.
If I hear anyone say that again, I’ll tell them it’s not true.
Please do.
Yeah, I don’t like rumors either.

Umm… Should we go get something on our way home?
…Oh, we’re already all the way back at the dorm.
Um… Do you want anything to eat?
Something spicy!
Yeah… That might be nice for a change.

Could Akihiko have been worried about you…?

You feel that your bond with Akihiko has gotten a little stronger…

You and Akihiko went out to eat, then returned to the dorm.

While this would be a perfectly nice and functional ending to the month, we do have enough time for one more event…

Fuuka gets that honor. Maybe we’ll get something better out of this time.

Joy

Tadaa…! “Sweet Fries”! Everyone loves them!
I bought a lot of sweet potatoes for them, so even if we mess up a little, it won’t be a problem!
So you can relax a little too, Kotone-chan.
Let’s do our best.
Yep!

You follow the recipe from the book Fuuka brought.

Cutting up all the potatoes took a bit of time, but otherwise it went smoothly.

…?

“1 tablespoon of melted butter”…

I didn’t melt the butter yet, though… What do I do? There’s no time now…

Uhh… I really think we should get an option to intervene at some point.

Fuuka is muttering something to herself…

Okay, the final step is to put this in the oven. I’ll put yours in too, Kotone-chan.
Let’s see… The temperature is 180 degrees… and the setting for residual heat is…

…!?

Fuuka is operating the oven extremely quickly…

I like taking my time and reading through the instruction manuals for electronic devices, too…
D-Does that make me seem weird?
That’s impressive!
Huh? I-It’s nothing, really…
…But, I’m happy to hear that.
I thought it was embarrassing because it wasn’t really girl-like…
giggle …I think this is the first time I’ve said something like that.

To tell the truth… I knew that you wouldn’t judge me over that…

You sense affection from Fuuka…

You feel as if you’ve gotten even closer to Fuuka…

Hot hot… Ah, I forgot that we have oven mitts.
Look. They look so beauti…ful?

Actually, they don’t even look like food…

You’re especially confused by the texture of Fuuka’s fries…

Oh… These ones look normal. They’re the ones that you made.
…Th-Thank goodness! They look really delicious.
I’ll give you all of them.

No, it’s fine. I don’t even like sweet potatoes.

Fuuka seems a little depressed…

Thanks for the food…
…!
It’s delicious…
Yours are really delicious.

I guess… I’m no match for our leader…
There’s always next time.
…Thanks.

Oh, it’s almost time for us to go home. Let’s clean up and go back.

You decided to take the sweet fries that turned out good.

You finished your activities at the cooking club and decide to go back to the dorm.

We’re not just finished with cooking club. We’re also finished with June completely. Next time we’ll return to the main timeline and I see a full moon on the horizon, but it’s not quite here yet…

1 Like

Alright, so we’re at July and - for better or worse - we do have exams coming up very soon…

Want To Be Close (Reincarnation)

Of course.
Good. I’m counting on you.
According to the cycle, it should appear on July 7th at midnight, six days from now.
And remember, incidents increase when a full moon is near, so remain alert at all times.

Nicely, today is fairly short and we should definitely hang out with Bebe now that we can without issue.

Joy

Ze sewing machine won’t go…

Bebe seems confused.

Take a break.
Yes… Zat eez a good idea. …Sorry! Gomenasai!

I am worried about my uncle…
'ow can I convince 'im to let me stay 'ere?
If I became a samurai, maybe I could stand up to 'im…
…Oh!
Maybe it we go to ze Sweet Shop and 'ave a snack, I can come up wiz a plan!

Man, if you want to go to the Sweet Shop first, you could just say so. :v:

Shall we!?
Alright.
Yatta! Let’s go!

You decide to go to the Sweet Shop with Bebe.

I will be disappointed if I 'ave to return to my country!
I want to stay 'ere in Nihon even if I 'ave to eat dirt!

It’s really obvious what the answer here, again. It’s always kinda annoying having to deal with these kinda options.

Arigatou! Zank you! I can do anyzing with your support, Makoto-sama!

Jitsu wa, actually… I 'ave a plan!
I will return 'ome…
Mochiron, of course, I will not give up just like zat!
I will come back 'ere after persuading my uncle!
I will convince 'im 'ow great Japan eez!
Now, I just 'ave to figure out 'ow to explain it to 'im.
Zat will be easy with your 'elp, Makoto-sama!
Please help me! Onegaishimasu!

It seems like Bebe is counting on you.

Your relationship is stronger now!

I will see you again… Hasta la vista!

You decide to go back to the dorm.

Yeah, see you later Bebe.

Iwatodai Dorm

That means it’s going to be a Star Festival special bout.

Oh, wow, I totally forgot the Tanabata is coming up too. Hopefully we’ll get something to do related to it, at least.

so I was worried my sword skills might have deteriorated…
However, I seem to have maintained my ability level.

Because if you do, you won’t be able to move.
Try to stay relaxed at all times.

As a result, umbrella sales have plummeted this year. Compared to last year’s rainy season, vendors are reporting a 70% dropoff in revenue.

Since we have exams coming up in a couple weeks, we’ll have a bit more of a focus on an Academics grind when it comes to Social Stats again.

I think we only need Academics 3 to be able to get the top score here. It’s definitely not over 4 though; we should be able to manage it just fine regardless.

Want To Be Close (Reincarnation)

But we’ll worry about that shortly.

For now, well, let’s bite the bullet. We’ve been ignoring Kenji for abut 2 months (for good reason admittedly), but we can’t do that forever…

Plus he keeps calling me at night and it’s really annoying, so I’ll do anything to make that stop.

Joy

But, I kinda took her away from them, ya know, dude? Like, I made her my girl before they even had a chance…
Emiri is a really strict teacher…
But at home, she’s a real sweetheart. She’s always…

It was really nice of Kenji to immediately remind me why we’ve been ignoring him super-hard.

Yeah, good-looking people are just attracted to one another. It’s like they’re meant to be together.
I agree.
I know, right!? It’s like a TV show, dude! Seriously!

What about you, Makoto? How are you and Yukari-san doing?
Well, I wish you all the happiness in the world, dude.
…Hey, don’t tell anyone about me and Emiri, okay? Teachers aren’t allowed to date students.

That’s… an insanely weird and red flag-y request. Or at least it would be, if Kenji wasn’t super blatantly delusional, considering our last conversation with the guy, but still.

I’m trusting you, man.

It seems like Kenji trusts you…

Your relationship is stronger now!

Well, I guess that’s because I’ve got something better going on in real life.

It doesn’t seem like Kenji’s ever going to stop talking…

You ended the conversation and returned to the dorm.

In my head, Makoto just ends it by getting up and walking away. It seems very plausible, honestly.

Iwatodai Dorm

Not really.
Well, you really should.
Your calendar will list events as well as when a full moon will appear.

The Calendar is semi-hidden in your menu, but I’ve just not looked at it because it’s kind of not necessary. It’s nice, sure, but everything of importance is told to you elsewhere anyway.

I think she should include us in more.
I agree.
It’s hard to know what’s going on when she makes all the decisions.
And that kind of behavior can lead to misunderstandings…

…Huh, this is ALSO a Persona 2 reference. This show is 100% hosted by Lisa Silverman (you should remember her from her brief stint on Who’s Who at the very least!), which is cool.

“Lei Ho” means “Hello”!
That’s all for this week! Back to the news!

In Innocent Sin she also gave a couple of minor Cantonese lessons here and there, just as flavour. I don’t know how accurate it actually is, but hey, I’m not gonna complain.

And as an added bonus we’ve hit Max Charm as well! Now the Academics grind is both a necessity and our only option.

…At least on Wednesdays and Saturdays when we can double-dip. I wonder what we’re gonna do the rest of the time…

Well, we can also study every day that isn’t a day we spend with Maya. So long as the RNG doesn’t be a mean jerkface anyway.

That’s not an option in Portable, sure, but that’s not the point.

Oh and we’ll be spending this Sunday with Yuko. Don’t worry, I have my reasons.

It’s really kinda unfortunate, but understandable, that Academics is such a slog that we only get the occasional real boost to. It’s just sort of… there.

Want To Be Close (Reincarnation)

Listening: Whoa, Shirakawa Boulevard? Ewww… I know what was on his mind!
Gossping: We’ve just started dating, but I’m already kind of disgusted. He’s got such a dirty mind… Maybe I should dump him. I don’t want to be the subject of one of those rumors that goes, “A couple was found unconscious…”
Listening: Hahah! That’d be great!

The first bell has rung.

I… feel like I should be surprised that he still has a job here. But, somehow, I’m not.

That the “Genji Monogatari” had a different author… That “Murasaki Shikibu” was a shared pen name…
Some have even suggested that Murasaki Shikibu was an alien from outer space. An intriguing theory…

So, she’s like the Japanese Shakespeare, except she gets to be on the money whereas he’s the focus of a shit Roland Emmerich film that doesn’t even make the smallest iota of sense. But I repeat myself.

But there’s one thing you might not know about Murasaki Shikibu…
And that’s the way in which her achievement is recognized worldwide.
Does anyone know? Junpei?
Huh? Me?
(How am I supposed to know about someone who lived that long ago? Wh-What do I say, Makoto?)
(The Global Heritage Pavilion.)
Correct. Too easy, was it? Next…
(Phew, you saved me… Thanks, Makoto.)

Well, this no longer really matters. We’ll still get these right, since it might help with the exams, but the Charm boost is a complete inconsequential bit now.

Since we don’t have any real risk right now, we can hang out with Fuuka and not have to worry about a dumb timelimit.

Joy

Don’t worry. It won’t be like before…
You’ll be able to eat it this time.
…Wait, didn’t I say the same thing last time…?
…Oh well, this time I truly mean it.
Well, here it is…
Please try it.

It appears to be a flavored rice ball.

W-Well, h-how does it taste?
You did a great job.
…Really? I’m so glad to hear that.
…Thank you.

I made it today in home economics class.
Learning how to make a rice ball in a high school sounds strange, doesn’t it?
Remember when I told you that I had to get better at cooking?
Well, since then, I’ve been practicing making rice balls every single day.
They’re simple to make, but perfecting their taste is quite difficult.
Everyone in home economics class kept telling me how good my rice balls tasted today.
So, to show you my appreciation for all your help, I brought you one.
You’ve taught me so much, Makoto-kun. Thank you for everything…
I didn’t teach you anything.
No, that’s not true…
You taught me something very important.

I said this before, but when I’m with you, Makoto-kun. I think more positively…
…And I want to make people happy…
That’s probably why I did such a good job on that rice ball. I concentrated on who was going to eat it.
…!

Fuuka is blushing.

Fuuka has expressed her appreciation to you.

Your relationship with her has grown…

I’m sorry for talking so long…
Well, I’ll see you later…

Well, yeah, obviously.

Fuuka left.

…Since it’s getting dark out, you decided to go back to the dorm.

Iwatodai Dorm

…on the 7th, during the Dark Hour, when the next Shadow will appear.
This next operation is very important to my research.
Please prepare yourselves for the next full moon.

I guess it’s not too surprising or unusual for Ikutsuki to be here now, considering how close to the full moon we are.

I bet they’re all just jealous.

Perhaps the time of year dictates which type of victim Shadows target.

After she didn’t return home the next day, her worried parents contacted the police. Eyewitnesses have placed the girl with several of her friends in town around midnight. The police investigation is still underway.

It was super weird; one minute she was there, next minute… she was just, like, gone.

But, hey, today is a Friday and our last real chance to go to Tartarus before Liz’s deadline and also the full moon, so!

The Voice Someone Calls

[i]Alright, just gonna give Junpei the Warrior-- wait, hang on, what?

…Why would you remove this? Why did you replace it with the default piss-weak 2hander? You take this bat with nails in it back RIGHT NOW, young man!

So, yeah, I guess the super-cool and useful joke weapons are things that people will choose to unequip because they’re wrong.

Anyway, here’s our team composition for this next stretch of Arqa. I’m sure it’ll be fine, really.[/i]

tartarus_0d02

Starting things off well with Fuuka not being able to tell us where the next boss is. Not too big a deal, really.

Absolutely nothing of substance happens for a little while, really.

I mean, I guess folks start hitting level 20 which lets us have a stock of 10 Persona if we need it. It saves on time and money later, at least.

Floor 50 is a little more important and worthwhile than the other floors.

Since it has Mirrors as rare treasure. We could also just trade gems for them if we really wanted, but this is better.

…Especially since we somehow get both. I’m not complaining about that one.

On the 51st floor, Fuuka finally finds where the next boss fight is. So, we’ll take this opportunity to take a bit of a gander at the new Shadows.

Mass Destruction / Wiping All Out

Out of everything here, Maniacal Book is probably the meanest. It’s not exactly difficult or anything, but its only weakness is to Dark and it can both drain your SP and inflict Charm.

Which, uh, is quite an annoying inconvenience at times.

Crying Tables are, well, they’re tables. They’re not exactly a threat and between Makoto and Mitsuru, they don’t get turns. They come in packs of upto 4 which is something, I guess.

Killing Hands are probably the least threatening thing here, including the tables that don’t get turns. The hands also don’t get turns, but if they did they have Re Patra so even if they do get turns, they basically don’t.

Enslaved Beasts are… really weird. They only have a weakness to Fire and no resistances whatsoever. At least they have Counter to be an inconvenience to Akihiko.

Finally, we have Dark Eagles which can heal and dodge Yukari. That’s, uh, nice for them, I guess.

tartarus_0d02

On the 52nd floor, Fuuka questions why enemy Shadows respawn. That’s, uh, that’s it really.

The 53rd floor is even less interesting. It just has Fuuka remind us that the boss is on floor 59.

The 54th floor starts a trend that continues for the entire rest of the block. We start immediately next to the stairs. It’s somehow gonna get sillier.

Huh, around here Sky Balances decide to reappear. Weird decision.

…Oh, while I rememer, let’s use the Jack Brothers spell. It costs 20% of Makoto’s SP to try and Knock Down every enemy.

They… have a microphone…?

The spell involves them doing a standup routine?!

It tries to knock down every enemy bowling them over laughing. I can’t… this spell is AMAZING as an idea, oh my God.

The 56th floor is very reminiscent of the 54th floor at first, but it does sort of do something different.

Most enemy formations are just groups of the same Shadow which is really boring, but this one is almost clever. Instead, we just don’t use multi-target Fire spells. So close, but so far from something decent.

The 58th floor drops us… right in front of the stairs. Great, sure, okay.

Not gonna take advantage of that immediately, though. Try and find some stuff in the area first, and we luck into finding a Gold Shadow for good measure.

Don’t get a Coin for the 10k which’d be nice and useful, but a Nihil Bow is worthwhile anyway. It saves trying to farm one later at least.

Aside from that, there’s nothing else of note on the 58th so we’ll head on up to the 59th. Just the one Shadow here, which is a good sign.

But now that we’re here, we’ll head on back to Elizabeth real quick.

The Poem for Everyone’s Souls

The Lustful Snake is quite a strong enemy, but still you were able to defeat it.
As I suspected, great power sleeps deep inside you.
I look forward to seeing you unlock your true potential…
Please accept your reward.

A very decent amount of money for sure. This’ll be useful for obvious reasons. :v:

What a charming operetta from the two brothers…
…Operetta? Hmm…
In any case, I would gladly summon them just to watch that again.
Please accept your reward.

Well, this is less useful than straight cash but it has some uses all the same. Probably.

Next in the questline is technically worse. I dunno why it’s third here; it’s Angel+Archangel, so we can do this one right now.

Like so. It costs 30% SP to half enemy HP at best. Its… really not good.

It’s, just like, why even bother using this? I’m sure it has uses somewhere, but the Persona it uses are low-end trash so I doubt it.

Divine punishment from the two angels… Although it was directed toward the Shadows…
It could give anyone a fright it they had committed a crime before.
Please accept your reward.

So, what’s next? It can only be better than that.

…Well, alright then. We need to be level 20 to do this one, so…

First we need to grab a Unicorn. It was easier to just make one, but then this happened and oh dear. This is really good and useful but also really worryingly bad. See, Bufula is good and cool…

…But it led to a roughly-40 minute timespan of rerolling skill inheritance for Narcissus to get the four skills I wanted him to get. I was gonna stick Dodge Pierce on here in lieu of Poisma, but this works better long-term anyway.

Oh and Narcissus does have a Heart Item. It grants immunity to Charm. He doesn’t even get the Heart on this fusion but it’s fine, since grinding it out right now would be misery anyway.

Added bonus to level 20 is that we can make Hua Po now too. She’s kinda pretty good by default, but she inherited Auto-Tarukaja so her 23 Magic is pretty great. If Kenji was at rank 8, she’d get Fire Boost at fusion which is kinda wacky but that takes a bunch of hassle and rescheduling just for and it’s not really worth the effort.

So, now that we have the two most useful Persona for this fight, let’s murder a Shadow.

Emperor Intrepid Knight (Portable)

Master of Tartarus / Danger Zone

So, the Intrepid Knight is the most on-paper dangerous fight we’ve had to date.

Well, for starters he has fucking Garudyne. Base power of 300 and, whoops, we have Junpei and no Yukari.

…Fortunately, every single time he cast this it was on Mitsuru. Every. Single. Time.

Unfortunately, this 195 is after Tarunda. Yikes.

Oh, but do you really think that’s not enough? Good news, he has Mind Charge! Already does around 250 before (de)buffs, but now it’s got a 2.5x power boost. Yeah, uh, that ain’t survivable.

Fortunately, we found a Magic Mirror so we can put that to good use.

…Except, uh, not quite. Intrepid Knight drains Wind. Goddammit.

Reflect here uses his Magic (18) to determine the damage dealt, and his Endurance (20) to determine the resistance thereof. So, there’s no fun shenanigans with that here.

But, uh, this 270 is still way more than we can reasonably deal in a round. And he has 1000 flat, by the way. Yeaaaaah.

Fortunately, there’s two things to keep in mind here. First, he “only” has 102 SP. Second?

He is VERY susceptible to many ailments. He only has 12 Luck, so its pretty easy to capitalise on.

Panic is good because it seals off many of the nasty things the Knight can do. Makarakarn is a mean one since he resists Slash, Strike and Pierce AND has Counterstrike for good measure.

He can also just leather everyone with his 20 Strength to try to smash through as many people as possible.

He also has Wind Break, just in case you use like Ghoul or something, but he never did it for me so whatever.

Oh, when I said most ailments? Yeah, he can be Enraged which is both the ideal choice and also insanely terrifying.

It means he can only do a basic attack, sure, but with the damage boost from Enrage, it becomes equal to (and sometimes even outdamages) his Garudynes.

Oh and he gets to attack twice when Enraged. So, uh, that’s something to be wary of.

But, well, he only does the one thing now, and we found an Attack Mirror so…

He will gladly nearly half his HP in a single round, thanks to Enrage also guttering his defense. Sometimes he might sensibly attack the same person twice in a row, but that’s not common.

Could also Rakunda before Enraging, or something. This is even more absurdly good on Portable since you can guarantee he hits a mirror on both turns he attacks while Enraged. Not doable here because no manual control, of course.

The reason for wanting Hua Po here is that her Agilao here does about 25% of his health on her own. Granted Auto-Tarukaja and Enrage help a ton here. It drops to ~60 without those.

He’s also very susceptible to Charm, if you want to go that route instead. Narcissus is just really good for this fight in general, really. High Luck, starts with Marin Karin AND Charm Boost, can be made with a Pyro Jack which naturally gets Enrage and Rage Boost…

End

tartarus_0d02

Since the Intrepid Knight came alone, we have two items to grab here. The Megido Gems are… nice, I guess? Soma is never not amazing, though.

Also since the Knight was alone, we’re just running to the barrier now it seems.

Not much here, so let’s pull off a Frolic. It only costs 10% SP.

It might not be the skill that becomes Frolic in later games, but it… certainly is what you’d expect from Narcissus.

Oh and it’s a Mediarahan with a chance to inflict Charm on folks. It’s not a super-high chance, but it can be an annoyance or an inconvenience if it happens at the wrong time. But, hey, full HP heal so it’s not gonna bite you in the ass too much.

Plus, y’know, Narcissus’ heart item grants Charm immunity anyway…

That’s all there is to see until we hit the 64th floor and make it to the barrier.

I don’t even remember what Liz’s reward for this one is, at this point.

Whatever it is, it probably won’t be worth the hassle it takes to get here though.

The Poem for Everyone’s Souls

Of course, it was written by a human.
But, who…?
I’m sure you’ll find the answer higher in the tower…
Please accept your reward.

I straight up never use these, so you might have well just giving me the money upfront instead. It’d be more convenient, really.

That young man has control over many beautiful women…
Perhaps someday, I’ll find myself in his power as well.
Please accept your reward.

But this is definitely good and useful. Also kinda fitting, which is nice.

The next one in the chain we can’t do for a long-ass time, though. Take-Mikazuchi is level 24, so you’d think this wouldn’t be too bad. But, uh, the other god of thunder is who you think it is. And he is level 53.

But, whatever, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it in like 4 months or so (I say optimistically). We have some far more important things to worry about first.

1 Like

There’s but a scant few days until the full moon. We’ve pretty much done all the prep we can do at this point. Just got a few small things left to go.

An Unpleasant Premonition

Are you nervous?
Nah.
…Seriously? How can you be so calm, Makoto-kun…?
I guess we have to do this no matter what…

There’s not really much point in getting nervous over it now. We’ve done what we can, so it’s just a matter of time now.

Want To Be Close (Reincarnation)

Since I met you, each day has been better than the last.
Because of your support, I have the confidence to do anything…
I hope I can be a help to you as well…

You feel an unbreakable bond between you and Chihiro.

Despite the S.Link being maxed, we can still spend time with Chihiro if we really want to. That’s, uh, kind of a giant waste and there’s no reason to ever do so. Options there if you’ve got absolutely nothing else to do, though!

But, well, we DO have better things to spend time on, and people to spend it with. Like Yuko.

Joy

…I did, however, forget about the children. That’s an inconvenience.

Repeat after me: “I can win!”

Kids: I can win!

Don’t give in to fear!

The winner will get to use the playground.
They asked me to write a formal challenge for them… I’m a little worried.
Not just about the race, but also about my spelling… blush
So, what’s your honest opinion? Can they win?
Let’s hope for the best.
Th-That’s right! A coach has to believe in her team!

They’ve done their best!
They’ll be fine, right!? After all, they learned from us!

You feel a bond with Yuko.

Your relationship is stronger now!

Mine doesn’t sound very impressive… I’ll be so embarrassed if those sixth graders laugh at it…

You walked home with Yuko.

I, uh, yeah. I’d be embarassed if I got laughed at by gradeschoolers as well.

Iwatodai Dorm

I’m sure some kind of Shadow will show up.
Please be ready.

There is one thing we still need to do, but yeah. We’re mostly ready as-is.

I can’t wait to see what the next Shadow looks like.

Witnesses spotted the girl last night with a friend, but the other girl is missing as well. This is the sixth such mysterious disappearance this month. Police are still searching for any leads in the case…

I guess this is probably just a public explanation, since the general implication is that the police know about Shadows and the like. Maybe that’s just because we only get Kurosawa as the only officer we see on-screen though.

Ah well, that’s not super important. What is, is that we need to go to the Antiques Store and trade 2 Turquoise gems for a creepy doll. We’re not gonna be using this for its allegedly intended purpose.

The Poem for Everyone’s Souls

We’ll just give it to Elizabeth instead. She wanted one for some reason, after all.

It looks quite old… but I’m certain someone put a great deal of time and energy into making it.
If I’m not mistaken, there’s a Persona this item resembles…
Please accept your reward.

It’s, sadly, not a joke weapon for Akihiko. It’s a normal weapon for Akihiko, with +3 Agility attached. How… exciting…?

And it turns out this was the start of a quest chain itself! We need to pay Edogawa another visit at school, it seems.

Since we both have an exam coming up and no other social stats left to work on, we’re gonna be spending Saturday at the Arcade instead of with Tanaka. Sorry, Mr. President!

And then, because this isn’t Portable, we can study immediately afterwards as well. +6 Academics is always nice to get, even though we’re not even close to rank 4 yet if my napkin math is accurate.

I just realised it’s been almost a month since we got to buy anything from Tanaka. We’ve really not been nice to him this week, huh…?

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

Yuko is staring at the steam rising from her coffee.

But, I’m sure it won’t affect those kids one bit. They’re so excited about racing, you know?
They’re pretty amazing kids…

Yuko seems happy.

You’ll find something.
Y-You think so? That makes me feel better, hearing that from you, Makoto-kun…
I’ve been so busy being team manager and coaching those kids… not that I mind.
I don’t have much free time, but… How do I put this…? It makes me feel good about myself.

You two became a lot closer today.

We don’t need to give her a gift, so we won’t bother.

After all, we’re gonna hit rank 7 when we get the chance sometime down the line. That won’t be for a bit of a while, though…

Iwatodai Dorm

I have no idea what kind of Shadow it will be, so make sure you’re ready for anything.
As the saying goes, “If you’re prepared, you won’t have any regrets.”

I don’t see Junpei or Akihiko anywhere around here, but we weren’t told they won’t be here, so…

hey wait no cmon i wanna know

The missing elementary school girl has been found. However, her slack expression indicates that she may have fallen victim to Apathy Syndrome.

Okay, I guess that was fair…

Anyway, uh, we’ll head upstairs to try and find Junpei and Akihiko next.

…the Shadows have been getting stronger too.
How long can we keep this up?
What happens if we reach our limit and then totally get our asses kicked? Man, that would suck.

…and that only applies to someone who’s a master.
Most people use it as an excuse. They say they’ve reached their limit, but in reality, they’ve just given up.
You can start by forgetting about reaching your limit. That’s the first step to getting stronger.

Hmm, let’s see… what to do tonight? Sunday is a bit of an awkward day, really.

Wait, Sunday? I’ve got it!

We haven’t spent time with Mutatsu in a while. Let’s see what our favourite drunk monk’s been up to.

…is what I’d like to say, but this was guaranteed to happen here. Even if we somehow had a Tower persona before we hit the last rank, this would happen here. It’s fine though. Not like we have much else to do most evenings now.

We could always just go to our room and opt to not do anything, but that is so insanely boring I don’t even know why you would consider that.

Last day before the full moon, sure, but it’s also a school day so we should be able to finish one last request for Elizabeth at least.

An Unpleasant Premonition

Yeah.
Dude, I’m totally stoked… like right before a tournament or somethin’, ya know?
Now, I know how Akihiko-senpai feels before he gets in the ring…

I appreciate how short these last few days have been since it keeps things moving a bit.

Although, now we have to get Edogawa to give us his, uh, “medicine” again. And this time an actual bottle of the stuff. I feel like that’s a violation of some right or another.

This Mysterious Feeling

However, keep in mind that you are interrupting my, um… scholarly pursuits.
…You seem healthy enough. My eyes cannot be deceived!
Now, get back to class!

…School’s finished for the day…?

But this is an annoying minor inconvenience. We need to somehow get Sick or Tired before we can get the thing. Fortunately tomorrow is a full moon, which has so far made us tired the next day every time. Except the Magician one, which just knocked us spark out. We’ll be back on Wednesday then!

…Sure is a good thing this request didn’t have a time limit attached.

As for what we are going to do today, uhh… we haven’t been to Student Council in a while. I guess we could do that? It’s probably the lightest of our available options right now anyway.

Joy

The hours fly by as you work on the tasks.

Um… no… I think he’s busy…
Busy doing what?

Oh… You mean what Fushimi was telling me about earlier… I see.

…You can go if you’d like. I don’t mind. Sorry for all the drama.

You decide to leave the Student Council Room.

Well, that was an actual scene but Hidetoshi wasn’t there. We’ve seen this before with Kaz, so we know where this is going…

Calamity

There’s no need for evidence. I know all about you.
You were arrested for beating up a guy in the park who snitched on you, right?

My boyfriend said he was accused too. He was so pissed off. That guy’s gonna get himself punched in the face one of these days…

It looks like the punk is going to hit Hidetoshi.

…If it’s not you, then give me some names.
Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone. You have my word as a member of the Disciplinary Committee.

Don’t think you’re off the hook just yet.

The punk walked away.

Troubled

You look like you want to say something…
Good work.

If we let people get away with breaking the rules, things will only get worse.
One day, it’ll spiral out of control, and there will be nothing we can do.
So, we should deal with the problem now, while we still can.
…I know what people think of me.

That you’re an egotist who’s got a tiny sliver of power, and it’s clearly gone right to your head?

So, let this serve as a warning to other offenders.
Makoto-kun, you’re a sensible person… You understand, right?

You sense that Hidetoshi is beginning to trust you.

Your relationship is stronger now!

You decided to go back to the dorm.

We’re only 4 ranks in here, but Hidetoshi’s… really not a sensible person, either. He appears to be calm and actually rational (as opposed to internet Rational), but his actions to persue such a minor goal betray him.

Iwatodai Dorm

If we lose, then pretty soon the city will be full of The Lost.
We better win, man… It’s all on our shoulders…
Dude, I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep tonight… If you wanna go to Tartarus, count me in.

Dangit Junpei, you need to sleep at night. If you get yourself too tired to fight, you can sit out tomorrow!

It’s really kinda cool how almost everyone is sat together. Even though they’re no really interacting and mostly doing their own thing, this is such a small thing that tells you a lot about the current dynamic. That Yukari is NOT there is also quite conspicuous.

…the next Shadow will appear tomorrow.

A Shadow will appear during the full moon…
That is very exciting for a researcher, such as myself.

I’m so psyched!
Duuuude, I’m not gonna sleep a wink tonight!

go to bed, junpei

…so we have no choice but to wait until tomorrow.

Yukari sitting all the way over here on her own makes sense in a way. She’s suspicious of Mitsuru and only really gets along well with Fuuka of all people. Sure, she’ll banter with Junpei a bit, but most of that seems more like genuine sass than a friendly ribbing…

Many of the wishes hung up are requests that Apathy Syndrome be finally eliminated.

Anyway, uh, what we’re gonna do tonight is a difficult proposition. We don’t need to go to the Arcade for the Charm boost, Karaoke is also unneeded, Tanaka and Mutatsu aren’t available since it’s a Monday…

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

Well, first, we’re gonna take a trip to Be Blue V for the first time in a long while. We could buy these charms ever since we hit level 17, but I’m just gonna grab a couple Thunder Charms for convenience. It’s not a necessary step in my plans here, but it’s nice to have.

And then, uh, I guess we can go to the Arcade anyway. We don’t need the Charm boost, so we’ll look at the other games we haven’t touched yet. The remaining 3 are all very cheap for what they do…

They give +3 to a combat stat! Yes. For a tiny amount of yen, and your day and/or night slot, you can get a +3 boost to a stat. There isn’t one for Endurance or Luck so if you want those you still need to get cards but for Strength, Magic and Agility you can just spend money. And it’s kinda ridiculous, really!

Plus we can still study afterwards. That this isn’t even a decision between the two means we can make major gains MUCH faster than the game seems to anticipate us being able to. I probably won’t abuse the Arcade too much, because it’s ridiculous, but it’s always an option.

Anyway, tomorrow is a Full Moon! That means we’ve probably got a bit of a small dungeon-y area before a boss fight. Yukari forces herself into the party for this and we cannot remove her. Level 18 seems like a bit of a liability, but I’m sure she’ll be fine. She’s definitely the weakest link we have, but she’s not really a liability.S

So, what about everyone else? Junpei’s revealed his dark weakness that he does not ever get Maragi for whatever reason. Instead, he opts to be able to use all 3 Physical elements which is a 100% fair trade considering it’s Junpei. It’s kinda funny that Slash is his least useful of the three right now, and his best attack does Strike damage and he’s much better at it than Akihiko. How bizarre!

Akihiko is, uh, Akihiko. Tarunda is technically more useful than Rakukaja if you want one of them, but aside from that Akihiko doesn’t really have any advantages over anyone else. He’s not exactly bad or anything, but he’s just lacking in a specialisation.

Mitsuru’s probably the best damage dealer of the bunch, since she has Bufula now. It’s only slightly more powerful than Assault Dive (100 power vs Assault Dive’s 90), but it’s more usable since it won’t make her easier to kill. Marin Karin will almost certainly prove to be useless, but the chances of it being used in that situation is borderline non-existant.

Really, no one is particularly bad right now, which is nice. They’re just different degrees of good.

So with that in mind:

:siren: Vote for the 2 we will be bringing on the operation! :siren:

The two that get the most’ll get to come along. Remember, Yukari is mandatory so anything for her won’t count.

My vote’s for Mitsuru and Junpei.

Mitsuru and Junpei for me as well.

Alright, so today is a Full Moon. I guess this is gonna be a long one…

An Unpleasant Premonition

Better than ever.
Wow, you’re amazing!
We’re going to have a quick meeting tonight about the operation.
So, please return to the dorm immediately after school.

You should return to the dorm and prepare yourself.

Unlike last time, we don’t get a chance today to spend time on anything more low-key and relaxing beforehand.

Dark Hour Scouting

The Voice Someone Calls

…Just a moment…
I found it! I sense a strong presence!
Hey, we were right!
Or so it would seem.
It’s located in Iwatodai… inside a building on Shirakawa Boulevard.
Hmm, Shirakawa Boulevard…

In pairs…
…Oh, I get it.

Lucia gets despawned at this point, since her job’s done.

I’ve heard about it, but…
That’s where all THOSE hotels are. That explains a lot!
You’ve heard about 'em, right Fuuka? Where people go to… you know…

The rooms are a bit fancier, that’s all.
Aw man, that’s it?
I don’t know about this… Maybe I shouldn’t go…
You’re just like a little kid, Yuka-tan…
Wh-Whatever!
Fine. Let’s go.

I think given the context, you might wanna pick better words…

So, who’s gonna take the lead?
I don’t see any reason to change leaders now.
And Yamagishi, I want you to handle support during the operation.
I’ll do my best!
Alright, then I’ll let you decide on the rest of the team. Let’s do this.

End

Alright, now we get to pick our team for the operation for the first time. Yukari’s forced herself into the party right out the gate, though…

And, like promised, she can’t be removed. At least we can still change her gear now and give her that a Thunder Charm.

But, please be careful.

As you’d expect, of course, Ikutsuki’s just here for like moral support. Which is fine, really.

Anyway, Akihiko gets to go back on the bench for tonight. He’s sort of used to it, but he’s not got an injury to blame this time!

But there’s no time to dwell on that. Let’s begin the operation!

A Deep Mentality

And we’re just, like, immediately teleported to the first floor of the hotel. Sure, okay. Definitely can’t complain about that.

We can find Room 101 immediately, but alas we can’t put anything in there. It’s also the only room on the first floor…

But, well, we can’t go in any room really. There’s nothing at all on the second floor, and the third floor is mostly empty as well.

The very visibly striking Hierophant’s Chamber, between the chimes and the curtains and the golden door, is the only thing of note at all right now. So, we’ll head on in, then…

That Which Comes From The Darkness

As the Fool continues his journey, he is over time exposed to beliefs and cultural traditions. Throughout his education, he meets the Hierophant - the wisened Papal figure who understands the knowledge and mysteries and can interpret them accordingly.

Well, let’s get this over with!

V. Arcana Hierophant
no portable video of this fight right now for, uh, reasons. its definitely not because i cant be arsed right now, honest

Master of Shadow

A clear religious figure, wearing clerical vestements, the Arcana Hierophant is the representation of the Reversed Hierophant. The misuse of knowledge and religion to trick people and gain followers…

…In this case, representations of those ill-gotten followers are just part of his design. The stick-figure creatures are this representation and are not separate targets.

Anyway, uh, the Hierophant is definitely the hardest of the Full Moon fights we’ve had to contend with so far. A very high bar to cross, I’m sure. He’s not exactly the most varied of folks to deal with, though.

He really likes Zionga, of course, but he can’t kill anyone with a single use of it. Even Yukari survives (albeit only just), though that’s not really a good situation to be in.

Oh, and he can just pelt everyone with Elec for good measure.

Yukari being forced in, and so kind of a liability here, is why I grabbed a Thunder Charm for her, yes.

He’s very reminiscent of the Priestess, appropriately enough, in that his only real resistance is that he repels Elec. Not like this is something that’s going to come up with this party but hey.

When it’s a safe prospect, he’ll use those cardboard cutout dudes to make basic Strike attacks. This is usually on a One More for, well, sensible reasons and so he can capitalise on someone (Yukari) being downed.

In that situation, it does real damage and is a bit of a nuisance but not really a real threat. It’s not like it comes up much after all.

If he’s not doing that, he can do whatever but he mainly ues Prophecy of Ruin.

An appropriately titled skill with a pretty simple, but effective, animation that…

Well, it’s multi-target Fear. Much like when the Empress tried Fear, it’s not because he can capitalise on it in a nasty way.

…But it’s multi-target and Luck is his best stat, so it can just shut-down your entire party entirely at random and thats just plain obnoxious. Especially when you remember that you take more damage AND are more likely to be critted.

If there are any buffs in play, at all, he can also just use Dekaja. It’s not super-common with just the one but it becomes more and more likely the more there are.

He can also use Sukunda, and uh… that’s it as far as debuffs go. Weird choice, really.

Finally, he can be a gigantic rudeboy and just use Swift Strike.

…Which since he only ever did it to me while Fear was in play, means that its a massive ol’ death sentence rather than a very mean move. Even though he only has 14 Strength.

Anyway, the strategy for this guy is dead simple. Auto-Tarukaja means we have a damage boost on Makoto out the gate. Rakunda gives that to everyone and boosts Makoto’s damage further. Notable skill Getsu-Ei, which already has 120 base power, is kinda really good this early for obvious reasons I would hope.

But between the Tarukaja and Rakunda it averages 200dmg a hit (presuming its 10% base crit rate doesn’t happen). The Hierophant has 1500HP, so this adds up quickly. The other 3 can add a little over 200 if they all attack, so it doesn’t take too long.

…Especially if someone manages to slip in a lucky crit since an AoA adds another ~350 damage easy.

So, the Hierophant still isn’t exactly super-difficult but he can be a bit rude. His stats aren’t super great at 14 Strength, 16 Magic, 16 Endurance, 15 Agility and 18 Luck but at least he’s not super-boring unlike the rest of the Full Moon Shadows up 'til now.

But he still gives an Absurd Amount of EXP, and thanks to Fuuka getting a new skill, we CAN now see if buffs/debuffs are active and what they are. It’s a default feature in later games (including Portable) but it’s not a big deal really.

End

A Deep Mentality

You succeeded once again.
I’ll be waiting outside for you.

Kinda weird that it didn’t just cutscene us out of the building after the fight, but whatever. We can just walk out ourselves, I guess.

A strong force seems to be holding it shut.

It’s not the same one you defeated!
But… Where is it hiding?

Well, let’s take a look around I guess. I feel like another Shadow would be very apparent, but whatever.

Time to look around the room a bit, to see what stands out. The bed was pretty obvious as a focal point, but the Hierophant was there so the other Shadow couldn’t really be.

So, I guess we’ll just go around clockwise then. There’s not much over here though.

…Not here. But I would argue that having giant windows that let you see into the bathroom is itself pretty unusual!

This isn’t remotely unusual, though. We are in the Dark Hour after all.

And the Shadow isn’t hiding in the crapper. Well, that just leaves one thing…

Hm?
Is it just me, or is there something strange about this mirror?

Well, it doesn’t seem to reflect us…

Oh and there was a screenflash so I’m going with “yes?”

Under A Loving Moon

Silence

Welp, we’re back in the land of animated cutscenes…

…for a shower scene. Great. I’m sure this is what everyone wanted.

And, yeah, this is pretty much the entire reason Yukari gets forced into the party for this one. It’s really dumb.

Thankfully, it’s short.

The Voice Someone Calls

You hear the shower running in the bathroom…

You don’t remember why you are here…

(Where was I?)

It feels like you had something important to do…

A strange voice rings inside your head…

Something about this sure doesn’t seem like Orpheus…

Voice: Enjoy the moment… That which cannot be felt is merely a dream… The present is all we have.

(That’s not true…)

Voice: The future is but a fantasy, memory a fabrication…

(I can’t give in…)

Voice: Pleasure is what you truly want. You stand before the doorway to bliss. You cannot deny you instincts… Embrace your desire…

(Now’s not the time…)

You have regained control of your thoughts…

The shower in the bathroom has been turned off.

gasp

Glad to see that Yukari’s back to normal as well. Though, uh, it really could’ve been in a better circumstance.

Can you two hear me?
What’s going on?
I’m sorry I couldn’t contact you sooner…
The Shadow was interfering with your thoughts…
And you all got seperated…
The enemy is still in the same room. Please regroup and hurry there.
…Did you hear that, Yukari?
…Uh, sorry… Yeah… I heard you.
Um… Did something happen?
No! Nothing!

If you tell anyone… I won’t ever speak to you again.

End

A Deep Mentality

Its power is blanketing the whole building.
I’m pretty sure it’s in that one room you were in before…
But, it somehow sealed the door, so I don’t think you’ll be able to get in.
I’ll try to find out if there’s a way to break the seal…
Please join the others. They’re on the floor above you.

We do get control back here, but there’s nothing else that happens when we only have the pair so…

I didn’t know there was another Shadow…
Anyway, you okay?
How about you guys?
W-We’re fine! Nothing happened!

They’re giving off the same energy as the Shadow!
Maybe the seal will vanish if you break the mirrors…
I remember this one mirror we saw on the 3rd floor was different from the others…
When I stood in front of it, I felt kinda strange…

Alright, so we just need to go around and break mirrors, huh?

Well, there isn’t one in the room on the first floor so we’ll start with Room 201 I guess. It’s right there and all.

Naturally, there’s a mirror right in here so we’ll just give this a bit of a break.

It just… cracks, like immediately. A bit disappointing, but whatever.

But then we get this and shunted back downstairs.

So, it’s not actually ALL mirrors. We can still break wrong mirrors, get sent back here and Fuuka’ll give us more hints to it. But, really, it’s not that difficult.

So, we’ll go back to the second floor and try to find a mirror we are meant to break this time around.

But, hey, there’s smaller Shadows hanging around now that we beat the Hierophant.

…Unfortunately, they’re all massively outdated at this point.

Well, the mirror in Room 205 sure looks different. It’s yellow and doesn’t have our reflection in it. Mainly it’s the creepy yellow that gives it away though.

That and the black gunk it oozes once broken. Can’t say that helps either.

There’s only one mirror to break on the 2nd and 3rd floors. The one up on 3rd is in Room 304…

And with that, we can head on back to the Hierophant’s Chamber. Nice and easy.

That Which Comes From The Darkness

As the Fool matures along his journey, he comes across two new challenges different to that which he has faced in the past. His natural maturity leads to a powerful urge for sex with another. He realises that he desires a relationship… his journey leads him to attempt to become one of a pair of Lovers.

Naturally, then, the Lovers card mostly primarily represents love and relationships. It also more generally can be attraction in all forms; a representation that something will cross your path. Whether it be a person, a new idea, a life-changing event…

I had to come to this disgusting place! Now. you’re gonna pay!

VI. Arcana Lovers
you probably cottoned onto why i skipped the portable versions of these by now, but since we’ll CLEARLY be spending more time at this event in the future, it just made more sense to stagger 'em for once.

Master of Shadow

At first glance, the Lovers seems to be a pretty overly literal representation of their Arcana. But, remember the pattern; they have to be the Reversed Lovers. They already tipped a forced pairing with their antics seperating people before…

And looking at them clearer, it’s easy to see why they split the way they did. They have no strong basis for their choices and instead focuses on the biological sex and nothing more. There is no true union to make a complete whole.

It’s not super-apparent in most angles, but you can clearly see that inside their heart-shaped cage-like body, they contain the astronomical symbols for Mars and Venus. These are traditionally used to represent men and women, respectively. That’s how you can tell that they made their choices on the most spurious of reasoning.

Anyway, how are the Lovers in a fight? Well, resistance-wise you can see that they’re very boring and have no apparent strengths or weaknesses.

…In terms of actual attacks, the have Maragion of all things. It’s kinda clever if you think about it, and it would disincentive using Mitsuru (since this is one you CAN avoid) if it happened with any degree of frequency.

As you would expect, their main assault is primarily ailment based. Pulinpa’s not really the first one that comes to mind though, huh? Lovers have 19 Luck so it’s not too bad an idea in theory.

…Life Drain is a weird-ass move for them to use. It deals 35 damage and heals them for the same amount. It’s just so rare, it happened once in half an hour of trying to get them to use all of their skills.

Oh, and they do also have Spirit Drain but that didn’t happen at all and is even more irrelevant from their perspective.

This is a bit more like it, though! They can use Holy Arrow to be clever. Pierce damage AND Charm wrapped up in one.

The damage isn’t a big deal, but the Charm is a major problem. Obviously.

It’s a bigger problem in this fight in particular than most others, though. Especially because the AI has a dumb secret.

Yukari has Charmdi. She also has a few Dis-Charms in her personal inventory. The AI when told to heal prioritises HP over everything else. It does this in some weird nonsense situations as well.

Like this one. It seems “reasonable” since Makoto is at about half-HP but Yukari is casting Dia here on Junpei.

Yes. Really. If someone gets Charmed, its better to have Makoto heal it, even though that’s a giant waste. If Makoto gets Charmed, then better hope Yukari is feeling co-operative to heal it otherwise that’s effectively just a straight up game over.

Why?

Because Lovers has a nasty Almighty skill called Heartbreaker.

It’s pretty hard-hitting across the board regardless, but it deals 150% damage to anyone Charmed. It doesn’t get used all the time, of course, but its very frequent.

Oh and naturally Lovers also have Marin Karin just for extra odds at proccing Charm.

Really, though, losing this fight is some really bad luck and nothing else. We’ll deal with it the same way we dealt with the Hierophant but with the added bonus of Lovers not having Dekaja. They have 1500HP, 15 Strength, 16 Magic, 17 Endurance, 15 Agility and 19 Luck for quick reference.

The Voice Someone Calls

Thanks for your help. The enemy was sly, but you did well.
I did what I could.
And you too, for withstanding the enemy’s mental assault.
Alright, let’s call it a night.

About that thing you mentioned the other day…

Fuuka nods.

Cool, tell me later.
Alright! We should head back, too.

I didn’t do much, really.
Yeah, whatever…
Who cares, anyway…?

I’m gonna guess you do right now, since you brought it up?

Hey, why do you have to be like that? Don’t tell me you’re jealous.

Shut up!
What’s up HIS butt?

Silence

It seems like the trust between you all has grown…

You learned a new tactic!

Pretty much exactly what it sounds like, really. Just focus exclusively on blitzing something down, though it doesn’t really focus on anything other than direct damage. Includng knock downs, even. There is a bit more of a focus on buffing than Assign Target, though.

But, wait, what’s this?

That was quite a show.

Their fighting style is positively fascinating…
And it seems they’ve gained new recruits, too.

Yes… That’s an excellent idea.
Considering that he shares our fate, it would be prudent to seek his opinion.

You expect that there will be fewer victims for a while.

But, you are too exhausted to think about it now.

You decide to rest as soon as you get back to the dorm…

1 Like

Since we just had full moon antics, we’re auto-tired which we’re going to put to use today. And not for the normal reason we used to either.

Want To Be Close (Reincarnation)

Listening: Sounds cool to me! I wanna go to the sea, the mountains, everywhere! But, before that… we’ve got finals starting on Tuesday.
Gossiping: Ugh, I’d forgotten about that. But that means a break is after the exams! And summer vacation is just around the corner!

The first bell has rung.

Ah, right. Exams are coming up very soon now. Hmm. This is going to present a problem twice over - schedule issues, yes, but also we’re gonna get a lot of classroom scenes this week. Eep.

Well, maybe “pain” wasn’t the word I’m looking for. English phrases are pretty tricky…
Now, let’s talk about comma splices. I’m sure you’ve heard all about them before, but to review: a comma splice is when two independent clauses are joined by a comma, wuth no conjunction.
Okay, Makoto! Here’s a question for you… Dun dun dunnn!
Which of these phrases is incorrect?

It’s basic English grammar and even if you’re not super great at something that you’ve never really thought about before, context makes it VERY obvious at least. Hurray!

“I failed, It’s over now.”
Whoa! I didn’t think you’d get it! Good for you!
That’s a comma splice. Got it? If no one has any questions, let’s move on.

It’s important to remember at this point that answering these correctly gives Charm points. That we, uh, don’t need any more. Still gonna be getting them right because it’s more useful to do so, overall.

…Or maybe we could just skip these scenes wholesale from now on, but that has some issues. Namely with how they help with exams which do matter still. Doing well on your exams IS important.

I am now your mother, apparently.

Anyway, we’ll deal with that in the future. For now, we can see immediately that we need to reschedule stuff… is what I’d say if this wasn’t a Wednesday. Kaz isn’t around then. Whoops.

But, yeah, week before exams so we can’t do school S.Links anyway. So, first we’re off to the Nurse’s office to do a thing.

Or, rather, to NOT do a thing. We have to be Tired (or Sick!) to not just get kicked out of the office immediately. If we are Tired/Sick, we get this option like normal and drinking Edogawa’s fucked up experiment shuts us out for the day and means we can’t do what we want until we come back when we’re Tired/Sick again in the future.

In short (too late), we’re not drinking anything.

That normally quiet mouse went squeaking out of here with energy!

I’m not sure it’s safe to drink, but here, take this. It’s some old medicine I found lying around.

Well, this is actively definitely harmful rather than just a terrible idea. What the FUCK, Edogawa?

…The only mercy here is that no one is going to be taking this medicine anyway.

Decided to try the bathroom now to see if we’d luck out and get a status upgrade out of it. Now we can study tonight as well as do… whatever else we’ll be doing.

And, from what I can tell, he has no personality.

Oh, and this little sidestory has updated too. We’re no longer on the roof and I guess “he is a dickhead who throws rocks at birds” and “picks his nose when he thinks someone isn’t looking” is all we know about the other guy.

I don’t even realize she’s around anymore.

Meanwhile, he’s… well, he’s definitely incredibly weird and probably not all that healthy either. It’s really fucked that Edogawa is the school nurse, because clearly someone competent is necessary around here.

The Poem for Everyone’s Souls

It definitely would be, yeah. Old Medicine is really absurdly bad.

May I try some…?
Oh…! The way it feels going down my throat…
What an amazing concoction… I feel as though it could almost kill a man… This is very impressive medicine.
Please accept your reward.

At least our reward for giving Liz objectively terrible medicine is some rad medicine. Cures all ailments across the entire party. Possibly handy!

My favourite dumb thing about this, by the by, is that the Megaten Wiki in its infinite dumbness seems to think these don’t even exist. Yeah, I dunno.

Anyway, it’s interesting (to me) to note that we have access already to the next set of sidequests. Normally we don’t get these until Liz gives us a call about Tartarus.

Anyway, let’s talk about some of these for a sec. We’re gonna feed a cat! We’re gonna feed the heck out of a cat! This is a bit more involved than it sounds, though…

This one we can’t do yet, because it requires a minimum level of 27 to do. Yes, really. But it’s also the next one in a quest line so it was only unlocked by giving Elizabeth the awful medicine.

And this one is… simple but interesting. It gives us a Bus Stop Sign which has a new icon we’ve never seen before on it. It’s clearly a gag weapon, but it’s… an axe…? We don’t have any party members who can use axes… I guess Makoto’s unique weapon type, along with his versatility, is an axe. That’s kinda rad and also I wanna beat stuff up with a bus stop sign.

So we WILL be going back to Gekkoukan to get some music in a moment, but first we have to buy some cat food. The pharmacy sells very fancy cat food purely for this one quest, which is cute and cool. We’re buying 4 cans or whatever they are.

Want To Be Close (Reincarnation)

So, we want music from the school. Music room is a tempting idea for obvious reasons, but that’s used for a club so that doesn’t work here. Instead, we’re going to the PA Room up on the 2nd floor (next to the Student Council).

You hear bizarre music playing inside.

Male Student’s Voice: …“Gekkoukan Boogie”? Why does the school have music like this…? …Must be a teacher’s theme song or something. …Crazy. chuckle

Well, that’s an interesting idea but I think this’ll do the trick quite nicely.

Male Student: Huh? This music? I have no idea what it’s for, but it says “Gekkoukan Boogie” on it. Huh? You want it? …Are you serious!? Sure, you can have it. We don’t have any use for it, anyway… Here… Now, get out of here, before you get me in trouble.

Alright, so before we take this back to Elizabeth, we’re going to head to the Port Island Station for a moment because there’s been a bit of a change there lately.

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

Until relatively recently, there was a barrier on the left-hand side that shut us out from the cafe area. And more importantly, those stairs in the corner.

They let us get to a place that we’ve seen a couple of times before now, at last. More importantly, there’s a cat hanging out here.

He seems to be very weak. Maybe he’s hungry…

We’re gonna be giving 'em some top-tier Super Cat Food!

The cat slowly started to eat.

Weak cat: Meow… Meowww…

The cat is purring loudly. It seems happy.

That we can and DEFINITELY will do. Can only feed the cat once a day, so we’re done here for now.

The Poem for Everyone’s Souls

Which means we go back to Elizabeth!

…Do they play this often in your school?
Oh… The lyrics are included inside…


…Um, I’ll listen to this later.
About the reward… I have prepared something different for you this time.
A simple, yet sturdy metal frame, with small lettering on the placard… I believe it’s called a Bus Stop Sign.
I’ve heard that in your world, they can be found all over the place. I’d like to see some of these signs In their natural environment someday…
Please accept your reward.

Alright, NOW we’re done with Liz for the time being.

So, the Bus Stop Sign can only be used by Makoto and it’s the latest “joke” weapon naturally. That means it’s top-tier for the time being and is most likely going to be glued to Makoto for a long while yet.

But for the here and now, uh, we can’t do school S.Links so I guess we’re off back to the bookstore for a while.

Joy

There are two k’s…
I know, I know!
I just forgot to write the second one.
I feel bad for Makoto-chan and all the people who’ve been campaigning to save the tree…

I’m writing a letter–something I haven’t done in ages. But, I can’t remember how to spell half these words!
Am I finally losing it? I used to have an amazing vocabulary.
What’s it about?
Sorry, can’t let you see it. Top secret.

I’ll tell you when the time comes, Minato-chan.
Well, aren’t you curious?
I can’t wait another minute.
…We feel the same way.
Everyday, we just can’t wait to see you!
Lately, I even feel smarter! Maybe I should go back to school…
Just kidding.

It seems Bunkichi and Mitsuko are counting on you.

Your relationship is stronger now!

Well, uh, the next time probably won’t be several months from now so that’s reasonable!

After saying goodbye to Bunkichi and Mitsuko, you decided to go back to the dorm.

Iwatodai Dorm

About what?
Oh, um, there’s something I have to clear up.
Everyone must be tired after the mission…
Please get a good night’s rest…

So, I guess this is about that secret thing that Yukari asked Mitsuru to look into before. I really wanna know what that was…

Tch… whatever…

But, well, first we have everyone else to talk to. Junpei is acting really pissy right now. Joy…

Just take it easy for now.

Sorry, Akihiko we can go to Tartarus tomorrow, but we won’t be.

Mysterious vandalism has occurred at the hotel Champs de Fleurs. Mirrors in the hotel rooms were shattered. Though the hotel had many guests, none of them saw the culprit. Some guests have also reported theft in their rooms. Police are currently investigating the incident.

Depending on who looks into it, they might already know the answer but be unable to do anything about it.

I wanted to say something earlier, but I didn’t want everyone else to hear.
So, sorry…

Oh, I heard you did a great job last night, Makoto-kun!
Keep it up!

The girls are upstairs and man, Fuuka, you are REALLY bad at this.

Like Akihiko said, Mitsuru’s not around right now so all that remains to do something. Since it’s a Wednesday, that means we go to the Arcade to play Who Wants To Be A Millionaire or something.

And since we got lucky with the bathroom, that means we can double-down on our Academics gain today and get 6 points. Which is not even really all that close to enough for a level.

But +6 is something we can only potentially do two days a week, so who knows when we’ll hit the next rank right now.

Want To Be Close (Reincarnation)

Listening: It’s because the building wasn’t built that long ago, so everything is still gleaming. You know, I heard from my parents there was an explosion here 10 years ago. They replaced the building after that, but… There’s more to it, too. Around that time, a lot of students stopped coming to school. Maybe that’s why they put up the new building… To start with a clean slate…
Gossiping: An explosion!? Did someone screw up in chem lab or something? That must have been a dangerous lecture…

The first bell has rung.

In 794, the Heian-Kyo was established. In 894, they abolished imperial embassies to China…
I might put this section on the exam next week… I’m feeling lazy.
Anyways, on to feudalism. Listen carefully, because this has to do with the origins of the samurai.
I choose… you, Makoto! Let’s see if you know.
What law served as a foundation for the development of feudalism?

I, uh… I genuinely have no idea. So, I’m just gonna guess. :v:

The Konden Einen Shizaihou.
Good, you remembered. It’s got a very long name, doesn’t it?

The farmers got lazy. Not that that’s unusual for any era… But that’s all for the Heian period.

So, now that we’re done with school stuff for the day we need to do the most important thing.

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

Gotta feed the cat some more. It’s still not done but it’s slowly getting there day by day.

Now that we’ve got the most important thing done, let’s go be friendly to the elderly again.

Which isn’t for the last time. We need a lot more points than the previous scene could give… so much so that this didn’t push us to the threshold either! I do believe that’s the first time spending time as a non-event hasn’t been sufficient for a rank up.

Oh and NOW Elizabeth lets us know we can climb higher in Tartarus. We already had the sidequests available though, so okay I guess.

Iwatodai Dorm

They are employing more dangerous attacks, as well…
So even though we have a lot of time until the next full moon, we had best use that time wisely.

I agree. I am definitely going to invest my time very wisely.

Well, what time of it I can anyway. Exams do steal a week automatically which kinda sucks.

But, there are exams next week, so you should focus on them.

So, we won’t heal or support…
You’ll have to do that, Makoto.
Do your part.

Natto has become surprisingly popular overseas. Called “Miracle Beans” in foreign countries, they sell five times what they do in Japan. A well-known natto producer said, “Good thing I kept making it!”

Natto sucks and is hella gross, sorry. You can disagree if you like, I won’t stop you, but you’re wrong.

But, it’s not good if everyone is out of step because they’re all trying too hard…

The girls are up on the… third floor. Huh. I think this is the first time we’ve stopped on this one.

She would probably do just about anything to annihilate the Shadows.
But, don’t you think that’s a little obsessive?
Yeah, maybe.
There are a lot of old sayings about maintaining balance in your life…
They also warn against being too obsessive.

Alright, so now that we’re done at the dorm we need to figure out what we’re gonna be doing tonight. Hmm, let’s see it’s not a quiz night so we’re not off to the Arcade…

Tanaka isn’t around on Thursdays…

Wait, Thursday? I’ve got it!

Mutatsu, my other old friend!

This Mysterious Feeling

Hey, don’t get me wrong, kid. It’s not like I was lookin’ forward to seein’ ya or anything.

Gotta admit, I wasn’t expecting the chain-smoking, drunk old monk to the be The Tsundere and yet.

What’s the deal with your hair, kid?
Is that what’s in style nowadays? Doesn’t it get in your eyes?
…My son kept his hair long too.
You should cut it. No, better yet, shave it all off… smooth like me.
Yeah, that might look cool.
Hmph, you don’t get it, kid.

I’m not talkin’ about fashion here; I’m sayin’ you’d be better off without your hair.
Oh, sure, you’re young and good-lookin’ now, but just wait…
I mean, look at me. I’m old and ugly… My cheeks sag like a damn bulldog’s.
…That’s life, kid. People get old. Someday you’ll be just like me…
You’ll look in the mirror and think…
Damn, I was handsome back in the day…
Here’s a little trick so you don’t lose hope in the future.

You’re gonna lose your hair eventually, kid, so why bother with it now?
Bald is beautiful. You just wake up in the mornin’ and go. No fuss.
I can even give you money for the shave.

You saw through Mutatsu’s harsh words and felt his kindness.

You understand Mutatsu better now.

Well, ya can’t sleep here, kid. Go home.

You decided to go back to the dorm.

Reminder that we’re still about like 8 levels out from the first Tower persona. That seems really close, but it’s still likely gonna be a bit of work to get there at the moment.

And we’re gonna keep on gettin’ that free Academics boost because it’s right here after all.

Awkwardly, we don’t even start exams until Tuesday. That might be useful though, thinking about it…

Want To Be Close (Reincarnation)

I plan on using the word “magic” in a very general sense.
But today, we’ll talk about the single most magical place and time.
Today’s topic is the magic of medieval Europe.
There are a lot of materials pertaining to western magic, from books to folklore.
We’ll cover all of it, including the changes it’s gone through.
As I mentioned last time, European magic has its origins in paganism.

Some well-known examples are…
Kabbalah, the study of the mystical aspects of Jewish texts.
Gnosticism, a Christian sect founded by Simon Magus, the Sorcerer.
Greece’s philosophy and natural sciences were the fruits of magical researchers…
The same was true of Islam’s scientific advances, which surpassed Europe’s at the time. Now, as for the circumstances of magic in this age…

Magicians bravely reached up for a connection with the gods…
Are you all awake? You’re not daydreaming, right? Eeeheehee.
A little test, to see if you were listening… Get it wrong, and you’ll get a scary guardian angel. Sebna uru quah…
Who should I choose…? All right, Makoto, I ask thee.
What is the mystical study of Jewish texts?
Kabbalah.
Very good. The magicians of the age achieved great things…
Particularly the famous “grimoires.” Grimoires are collections of a wide range of magical texts, and…

Okay, in all seriousness here: the stuff Edogawa “teaches” is kinda genuinely interesting. Or, rather, it would be if it wasn’t in one-sentence long text boxes that kinda go fairly slowly. And also if it wasn’t just eyerolling and weird to have Edogawa be so consistently bad at his job.

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

Gotta feed the cat some more. He’s slowly getting better thanks to the power of Expensive And Fancy Food. Awesome

We could spend the day at the bookstore, but right now that’s kind of a waste. We know we won’t rank up yet and we’ll get better timing to go back there later on. So, what to do…

We haven’t really spent time with Maiko since we gave her some takoyaki and cola.

I was waiting for you! Let’s play!
Okay.

Joy

It’s up to you, kay? Your choice!
Jungle gym.
Oh boy! I’m gonna climb way up high, okay?

But, I don’t wanna go home yet.
…I don’t like it there.

Maiko seems sad.

Can’t we stay together for a little longer?

Maiko seems to enjoy hanging out.

You got to know Maiko, the grade-schooler.

The Power of the Heart

A mysterious voice rings in your head…

Troubled

…they fight a lot.
They’re going to get a divorce, huh?
I tell them I want us to be happy, but they don’t listen.
They probably hate me, too.

…Hey, we can play again later, right? I think we’re friends now.
I have cram school on Sunday, but I’m free the rest of the days.

You decide to go back to the dorm.

Man that’s… pretty much the kinda thing I would expect from a small child’s S.Link really. At least if it’s a consistent through-line and not dropped after like rank 3 I mean.

Iwatodai Dorm

…I better go study, since exams are coming up.

So, Junpei is actively avoiding us. That’s… not really a good sign, huh?

A miraculous flower which only grows once every 100 years has bloomed. It seems to be responding to the other strange events in town.

I do like the implication that this isn’t a year it was supposed to happen. It takes almost a month for the Dark Hour to amount to 1 day of time, though, so that can’t very quickly or easily cause that kinda discrepency.

Oh and Junpei is the only person with something new to say today. And it’s new because it’s nothing. Thanks, Junpei.

And with today being a Friday, that means we can go hang out with Mutatsu again.


Although we’re still at the stage where no matter what, we’d need a scene-free time to get a rank up. Mutatsu is a bit awkward but he’s a night link so it’s fine since we don’t really have much to do at night.

Academics are still a thing, and still aren’t Rank 4 which is kinda amazing. You’d think it would be by now.

I reckon we’ve got enough time for one more day.

Want To Be Close (Reincarnation)

Uh, exams are pretty soon… Have you been studyin’?
Yeah.
…Seriously? Like I care…

It all began from infighting among the Taira clan. Their conflict escalated until the Imperial Court intervened.
Masakado was pursued by the Imperial Court, and had no choice but to openly oppose them… The result was known as the War of Masakado.
Makoto… You don’t look anything like a samurai, but let’s see if you know this one.
What title did Taira No Masakado claim for himself?
Imperial Prince.
Correct! This will be on the exam next week, so be prepared!
Let’s skip forward a little to the Kamakura era! At last! The samurai’s presence begins to be felt in history!

And of course, its founder was Minamoto no Yoritomo. I can’t believe we’re finally here!

Masakado was born in 903 and died in 940. So, uh, we skipped forward “a little” alright. Almost 300 years is only a footnote, right?

It’s from Akihiko.

“He has something to tell us.”

“We’ll meet on the 4th floor as soon as everyone is back.”

So, I guess we’ll have a small plot scene this evening. Alright, sure. But first!

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

The cat is purring loudly. It seems happy.

The cat seems to have regained all its energy by eating the cat food.

It seems you won’t need to come and feed it anymore.

I’m glad that the cat is healthy again, but man it’s a shame that now we just ignore it forever. It makes sense for Makoto specicially, sure, but it’s still pretty awful!

The Poem for Everyone’s Souls

Thank you very much. I can feel the relief in the depths of my heart.
I hope it prospers forever and ever…
Please accept your reward.

Masukukaja in an item form. It’s, uh, nice I guess? There’s no request we can do right now that doesn’t involve going to Tartarus in some way, so we’ll get around to that at some point I guess.

…Well, there’s Vetala which I might be able to finagle a way to get but it’s definitely easier when I have funds to use again.

And, sure, Maiko’s gonna be our main pre-exam week S.Link now. Makes sense to me!

Joy

Sure, let’s go.
Yay! I can’t wait! I wonder which toy they’re giving out today…

You decide to take a trip to Wild-duck Burger.

…'Cause Mom and Dad never argue when we go out to eat.
They never used to argue! You have to believe me…
But, why would they get a divorce?
Why don’t you ask them?
I asked 'em already and they said it was a matter for adults only.

Maiko is about to start crying.

I don’t want them to get a divorce!
…Do they really hate me that much?
Divorce is dumb! I hate it!

Maiko is sobbing loudly.

sniff I’m sorry… I know it’s embarrassing when I cry…
I’ll try not to cry anymore.

Maiko is trying her best to smile.

Your relationship is stronger now!

Thanks for playing with me today.

You returned to the dorm after walking Maiko home.

From The Shadows

Troubled

It was a difficult operation.
I see. They’re getting tougher…
But, it’s not all bad news. I called today’s meeting because–

Before we go on, I’d like to ask Mitsuru-senpai something.
Me…?
Since I joined, so many things have happened…
I went along with it, without really understanding what was going on… But now, I need to know.
I’m gonna ask you straight out…
You’ve been hiding something from us, haven’t you, Senpai?
You act like you don’t know anything about the Dark Hour and Tartarus…

What accident…?

Fearful Experience

There was an explosion near our school, and a lot of people died… It must’ve been big news back then. You know about it, don’t you?
…Yes.
Luckily, no students were injured. But around the same time, a large number of students were recorded as absent.
…Seems like more than just a coincidence.
What do you mean?
I dug up some old school records, and found something interesting.

Sound familiar?
You know, like the girls who bullied Fuuka…

There has to be an explanation! What really happened on the day of that accident?
The Kirijo Group built our school, so you must know something! Tell me the truth!

It, uh, seems like it’s been relevant from before the start?

But…
…It’s okay. It’s not your fault.
…Alright. I’ll tell you the whole story…
The Shadows have many mysterious abilities.

We think of them as our enemies, but what if we could somehow use them to our advantage? They would be a source of unimaginable power, wouldn’t they?
What…?
Fourteen years ago, one man pursued that line of thinking…

My grandfather.

Silence

Suddenly, we’re in the anime-zone…?

My grandfather was obsessed with Shadows. He wanted to harness their power, and create something extraordinary.

Harness their power?

He assembled a team of scientists, and over several years collected a significant number of Shadows.

He what!?

Damn, that’s freaking crazy!
However…

Ten years ago, during the final stages of the experiment, they lost control of the Shadows’ power. Consequently, the nature of the world was altered.
You mean…

Yes… Tartarus and the Dark Hour…

gasp
gasp

Fearful Experience

These are the Shadows we’ve been encountering on nights when the moon is full.
Is that why they’ve appeared in different places?
Wait a minute… If what you said is true, then why did our school turn into Tartarus?
gasp …Don’t tell me…

…Yes.
Then… those students who were hospitalized…
I’m afraid it’s just as you’re thinking.
Port Island must have been an ideal location for them.

As you guessed, the experiment ten years ago was conducted at Gekkoukan High School.

Does that mean…
all we’ve been doing is cleaning up their mess!?


You knew too, didn’t you, Senpai!?
They’ve just been using us!

That’s not true.
I have my reasons…
Think what you’d like… It was my decision not to share that information.
…I’m sorry.
I never intended to deceive you.
Convincing you to join SEES was my highest priority.

How could you…!?

I…
Mitsuru… Don’t.

Silence

Yukari… It’s those in the past who are to blame.
And they lost their lives as a result of what they did…

But…

It’s been ten years since that incident… No one knows why those Shadows suddenly returned.
But, since they’re active, at least we can find and destroy them…
Do you realize what this means?

Troubled

Exactly!
That’s what I was going to tell you earlier. See, it’s good news, isn’t it?
Is that true!?
There’s evidence to support it.
Now, our true battle begins.

Regardless of what’s happened in the past, we must fight to protect the people.

And there are many mysteries still surrounding Tartarus.
Why did such a gigantic structure appear in the first place? The answer must lie within it.

End

Iwatodai Dorm

It, uh, it always feels weird having a scene that seems like it’s the end of the day but whoops we have a bit extra afterwards. It’s kinda jarring in a way.

But, well, we can take advantage of this to ask Ikutski some stuff.

12 Shadows?

Its power was immense, far greater than any of the Shadows currently insude Tartarus.
Experiments were performed on it, and an unfortunate accident took place, dividing the entity into 12 Shadows.
These Shadows only appear during a full moon.
How did the public react?

…and the media placed full blame on the Kirijo Group for the tragedy.
They singled out one researcher in particular, declaring him the main culprit behind it all.
Whether this was actually true or not was not the issue…
The public was looking for someone to vent their hurt and anger on.
So they chose him, even though he was a victim himself.
Their wrath was unparalleled. The darker side of mankind was most certainly on display during that time.
About Mitsuru-senpai…

So, Mitsuru wasn’t born with the ability to summon a Persona; she was forced to learn how.
About Akihiko-senpai…

In fact, Akihiko joined us when he was only in middle school.
At that time, we had a third member as well.
…But, I digress.

Whew, that was a lot more optional exposition than I expected.

No matter what happens, you can always protect yourself, right?
sigh You’re always so confident… I wish I could be like that.
Junpei-kun…
The only thing anyone knows about Tartarus is that it creates Shadows…
Other than that, we’re all in the dark…

Hm? Us?
Oh, since Junpei-kun doesn’t understand what’s going on, I’m going to review it with him.
But, if we defeat all 12 Shadows…
…then I won’t have any more use for my Persona.
Man, it’s such an amazing power… I can’t let it go to waste…

Today’s subject is a man in his 20s with a yellow cap.

…Next is news. Pain, pain, go away!

[timg]http://lpix.org/2923241/Mark[/timg]

Today’s guest is Masao “Mark” Inaba, who is in a group of 2 whole people! He was in the original Persona game, as a playable character during the SEBEC route, who does not appear in either Persona 2 game since he is busy being an artist in New York. Which is a bit of a shame since he can dance funky.

…Right, and uh you definitely know about this but in Revelations: Persona (the US release of the PS1 version), this is Mark:

Yes, this is real. And, yes, his dialogue was rewritten to be AAVE. Because obviously.

Anyway, Mark’s primary arcana was the Chariot and his default Persona was Ogun. An interesting choice for a main character’s default but hey.

I’m gonna mention this now because this is when I made the connection myself: the dates each episode of Who’s Who has aired has been the relevant character’s birthday. Go back and check if you want.

Meanwhile, in 2009, Yukari, Mitsuru and Akihiko have all shut themselves up in their rooms. That’s why we can’t Tartarus today and instead are off to study via the Arcade.

And, uh, actually studying. That helps too.

But it looks like we’re not getting to Academics 4 before the exams, which is unfortunate but not really a bit deal in the end. Hopefully.

We could give it one last shot on Monday, sure, but that’s definitely more of a “well if we have to” kinda thing. After all, that’s a good time to go to Tartarus if we get the chance.

1 Like

Welp, we’re at our last two days of freedom before we run fullforce into a week of finals.

Sign o’ the Times

Troubled

Hm…?
Hmph… Why’re you here?
If you came here to try and convince me, then forget it.
…It’s nothing like that.
I just wanted to see how you were doing.
Huh?

It’s been almost 14 years since we met at the orphanage…

Back then, it seemed like we had all the time in the world.
Heh… You haven’t changed one bit.
If you wanna get all sappy, go do it with your other friends.
…What was that!?
It’s rare for you to think about the past. Usually, you just charge ahead like a damn fool.
So obviously, there’s something on your mind.

I do reminisce sometimes… But, what’s the point?

!
No shit?

Akihiko nods.

To be honest, all I’ve been thinking about lately is getting stronger.
But yesterday, someone made me question my reason for fighting…
Your reason for fighting, huh…

…I’m not like you.
…Man, I can’t believe I’m the one getting lectured here.

Well, see ya around.

Meanwhile, somewhere else but presumably at roughly the exact same time…

…Can I talk to you for a moment?
Senpai…
Oh, please come in.

No, I didn’t skip over anything there. Mitsuru just walks in, sits down and immediately cuts right to being midway through a thought.

Oh, I-I’m sorry for doing that without permission…
Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble. But, I do have a special favor to ask of you.
I want you to find out as much as you can about that incident ten years ago.
But, very little was made public…

You mean, hack into their system?
That’s illegal.
I’ll give you my ID and password. You’ll be free from accountability.
I want to know the truth, in detail.

So, she’s going to be using valid login credentials to normally log on and view the stuff that you could view on your own anyway…

Senpai…
Of course, I’ll understand if you refuse.
Okay. I’ll see what I can do.
Are you sure?
…I appreciate it.

After all, despite my good intentions, I did drag you into this without fully explaining.
Certainly, you must be a little angry with me…
Not really.

That… answers nothing. It’s not even remotely relevant, even!

That’s why they’re so tough on me…
It’s really hard for me to be at home…
But here, I feel important, and I can help you and the others…
So, why should I be angry?
You’re right, Yamagishi. We do need you.
No one can take your place.
U-Um…
Thank you… I’ll see you later.

Meanwhile, elsewhere again…

It’s fairly close to where Akihiko went, though.

Tch!
That’s good…
That’s what we’ve been fighting for…
So, why am I so pissed!?

How nice of them to wear their uniform on a Sunday, so we could tell they were students even with the nameplate also telling us that. Really thoughtful of them, that.

Friend: Seriously. But, at least we’re seniors now… We won’t be wearing these stupid uniforms much longer.
Student: Yeah, I’ve had enough of this. I just wanna get accepted to college and start having some fun.
Friend: That’s IF you get accepted, don’t forget.

I’M the reason…
I was like, “Fighting is my duty.” But hell, it’s all I’m good for.
If it weren’t for that…
I’d be worthless.
Haha, my duty…? What a buncha bullshit.

Dammit! Nothing I do is good enough!
sigh

Meanwhile, again… just one remains at this point after all…

Seems like my worst fears keep coming true…
Am I stupid to believe in things like trust and friendship…?
Dad…
This old letter of yours…
I must’ve read it a thousand times since it came last spring…

Tomorrow, I’ll bring this letter to the opening ceremony for the Moonlight Bridge.
It’ll be stored in a time capsule, and sent to you ten years from now.
Yukari… You’re so small right now, but in ten years, you’ll be sixteen. You’ll be in high school.

I know you’ve been sad because I have to work so late, but you still always greet me with a smile.

I’ll be starting on a big project soon, and I’m happy to be receiving so much recognition for my work…
But, I swear to you that nothing is more important to me than you and your mother.
Yukari… Are you remembering to enjoy life?
Are you still bright-eyed and hopeful, like you are now?

…Well, I hope this letter brings a smile to your face.
Love, Dad

I won’t turn my back. I won’t be like Mom.
Not ever…

End

Well, that was some… very disparate and different scenes of the rest of the gang. Junpei’s was the most… filler-y feeling though, by far, which is a bit of a weird shame in a way.

Current Net Price Tanaka

But, hey, this IS our first Sunday since like the middle of June that we’ve been able to buy anything off Tanaka so let’s see what he’s got. A sweet new pair of boots! …And some diet pills… for 10,000 yen. Yeesh.

…Well, footwear is what I seem to have the worst luck in getting in Tartarus (and I never bother buying equipment from the police station because I’m both a cheapskate and an idiot), so I’ll take 'em!

Iwatodai Dorm

I appreciate this being upfront, but it’s a Sunday and we never Tartarus on Sundays anyway. Also it’s the middle of the day we couldn’t Tartarus for hours.

Everyone seems to be studying…
I mean, I haven’t seen anyone around, so they must be studying, right?
I’m not sure…
Yeah, neither am I.
Maybe they’re not just studying…

I feel like we’ve been punished by a divine entity in the most passive aggresively minor way possible at this point. It’s just… every single time. Without fail.

Oh, and everyone else is in their rooms now. Except Akihiko who’s outright nowhere to be found. How odd!

They don’t have anything super-interesting to say though (that Junpei is actually studying is surprising). We’ll take advantage of the peace and how we don’t need to leave the dorm for once to just go back into our room to play a dead video game.

Instead of, uh, leaping backwards through time a little bit to do that.

Joy

nowadays i just log on to MMOs with bedhead and all (liek today lol)
but when i was little, ppl said i was a real cutie -_-;;
guess i missed my chance rite? nobody thinks i’m hawt ne more T_T
…do men only want younger women? be honest w/me =3
Guys like younger chicks.
yeah, i thought so. everyone knows it but it sux to hear for real… orz T_T

Considering what you’ve mentioned before, that’s… not just “bad,” that is actively a crime.

Maya seems pretty happy.

but i didn’t make sense? i should know better–i teach composition!! o_O;;
mkay, i’ll be calm. i’ll compose my bitching carefully for you :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
one of my coworkers is really pissing me off. i’m trying to avoid her @_@

its been a while but that kinda thing sticks w/u, u know?
ne way, she said she needed some advice, but then she just started bragging! >=(

and she acts like its nuthing! omg, rite?
i hate skanky hoes liek her! just give puppy-dog eyes and guys do whatever!
she even stuffs her bra!! lol
Just calm down.
talk about fake, rite? what kind of woman has to use pads for her boobs?
i’m fine w/ massaging in teh shower and drnking more milk. all natural :wink:

omg for reals, i saw Ms. K running in late one time, ok?

…theyre fake for sure >=)
…an my school is FULL of teachers like taht! --;
man tatsuya, talkin to u is better than getting a massage =P ::blush::
complaining online is now an important part of my days off ^
^

Maya likes talking to you.

Your relationship is stronger now!

…but after what i said, i might go to hell ne way o_O;;
well… i rented sum DVDs, sooo… later, tatsuya! thx for chattin

Wait, DVDs?! The overdue fees on those things gets kinda ridiculous! I hope it’s the first time, so they’ll waive 'em…

Maya’s player signed off.

You decide to log out as well.

Alright, so that brings us along nicely to our last day before exa–

The Voice Someone Calls

So, how’s life as a Persona-user?
Something’s missing.
I wonder what… I hope you find it soon.
I remembered something else about the coming of the end…

Ten years ago, if I remember correctly.
Hey…

A Persona is like a mirror.
Which means, a Persona-user can never escape from his true self.
Regardless, I will stay with you…

Kinda… weird to get that from this, huh? Also, real nice of Pharos to tell us he remembered a thing happened in the past. But not what said thing was.

No matter, though. We’ve got one last day of freedom before we lose the rest of the week to finals. Joy.

Want to be Close (Reincarnation)

Listening: What am I going to do if I fail again? I wish the school wouldn’t post our names…
Gossiping: Yeah, that’s the worst part. You get a bad grade, and everyone looks at you like your dog just died…

The first bell has rung.

I… uh… maybe…?

Summer vacation is just ahead, so study hard!
Summer is beach season! Shaved ice! Wheeee!
It’s also the hottest season, so don’t neglect your health, okay?
Oh, by the way, there’s a popular event in Japan in the summer that can be a little scary…
It’s a girl’s chance to get closer to the boy she’s interested in.
It’s called Kimodameshi!

Anyway, enjoy your summer, and make sure you come out of it with some good memories!

Still not another level… well, not much we can do about that now. But it’s the last day before exams so our options are as limited as ever.

Fortunately, we DO have options so it’s not a big deal!

Joy

Have you seen Striped Shirt?
We were playing tag, but… It’s no fun if I can’t find him.

You don’t look so good… Are you sick?

Huh? S-So, you are sick?
Ha ha, no. I’m kidding. You’re so easy, Maiko.
No fair! I’m an innocent girl, so I actually believed you!

I’m Maiko’s friend.
So you’re the guy she was talking about. I wondered what you were like…
Are you “too old” to play with kids, or are you still young at heart?

You can eat with us too, Striped Shirt!
Nah, I’m okay, thanks.
I’ll see you guys around.

He’s gone…
I ususally see him around the sthrine on Sundays.
I see him on the way to cram school, too.
Yay! It’s takoyaki time!

You decided to go with Maiko to get takoyaki.

I remember one time Dad burned his mouth on this takoyaki!
…'Cause I put too many in his mouth at once.

And then he snorted, sending me flying out of the encouter!

Maiko suddenly fell silent…

Troubled

…Dad doesn’t spend much time at home anymore these days.

Oh! Do you think he’ll come home for my birthday?
Don’t worry, he’ll be there.
Y-You really think so!?

I mean, I know Mom will buy me presents, but still…
…She hasn’t asked me what I want, yet.

Maiko fell silent again.

…If they really loved me, then they wouldn’t get a divorce.

Maiko seems to enjoy spending time with you.

Your relationship is stronger now!

If I don’t do laundry, the house will be a real big mess!
See ya!

Maiko took off, so you decided to go back to the dorm.

Summer Plans

Silence

An awkward silence fills the room…

Um…
Y-You know, it’s almost summer break. Do you have any plans?

Man, it sure would be nice!
Somewhere in the south, where the water is crystal clear!
But first, we have exams to worry about… Ugh, what a drag…
Now, now. You’ll be fine.
But yeah, I’d love to go somewhere famous for its beautiful beaches, like Okinawa.

Mr. Chairman… I didn’t realize you were here.

Mitsuru, your father will be vacationing in Yakushima during the break.
He will…?
You’ll all have some time off after exams, right? Why don’t you go and pay him a suprise visit?

Joy

YES! Beach babes, here I come!
sigh Men.
How about it, Mitsuru?
But… my father is a busy man; I don’t want to ruin his vacation.
Haha, don’t worry…
No father would be upset with a daughter who came all that way to see him.
You’ve all done a great job. You deserve to relax for a while.


Alright.
I guess everyone needs a break now and then. Let’s do it.
Woohoo!
Hmm, the beach…
I should design a special training regimen.

Everyone seems excited about the trip…

Dude, I’m stoked!
I have to go buy a swim suit.
Hey, don’t worry, I’ve got an extra pair you can borrow.
Nice try, man.
Are you going to swim too, Ikutsuki-san?
I’m afraid I can’t.
I’ll turn to dust if I’m exposed to d–

Silence

Uh…
Sorry about the other day…
I got a little carried away…

In a way, it’s only logical that we go to Yakushima.
The Chairman said that no one who was responsible for the accident is still alive, but…
in reality, there is one witness who survived.
There is?

Senpai…

End

Gotta admit, it’s nice to have a plan for the summer that isn’t “um, hang out with old people and a grade schooler some more and also live in Tartarus.”

Iwatodai Dorm

Now. you will all need to concentrate on your final exams…

Um…?

You’re always cracking jokes.
Hahaha… This is no time for humor.
But, I’m happy to see everyone has a smile on their face.

For extra luck. try wearing your shoes on the wrong feet!

I dunno, that sounds both painful and awkward!

Anyway, Junpei’s up on the second floor all alone.

Right now, I have to concentrate.
How do you stay so calm all the time?
It seems like all you do is wander around and talk to people.

And once again, the girls have shut themselves up in their rooms. Welp, so much for Tartarusing before the exams…

Which, as you can see, presents a bit of a problem! Money really isn’t normally a bit deal or anything but Hard mode haemorrages the stuff at a disgustingly fast rate.

Fortunately, I had some trash I could sell to get Hua Po +3 Strength (the most meaningless and trivial of increases) but that’s all.

We’ve always got free studying in our room at least, but that’s not ideal…

Fortunately, we have one - and exactly one - chance to go to Tartarus soon.

Yukari’s spending a bit of time working on being a better general healer, I see. Her Magic is pretty okay for the time and she can heal everyone at once which is nice. Shame that her first Medium spell is single target healing but it’s a good sign anyway.

Junpei is, well, Junpei. Notable is that he’s got Great status so he can deal decent Phys damage AND has an improved Crit rate just for that little bit extra oomph.

Akihiko, likewise, is Akihiko’ing. He’s the only person without a stat over 20, which isn’t as big a deal as it sounds but it bugs me anyway. At least he can debuff and will be able to do so better soon. His healing skills have fallen pretty far behind though, just because he can only cure ~60-70HP on a single target which is woefully inadequate.

Mitsuru is Good. Her skillset is still small but focused and she’s close to solving her own potential SP problem without needing to be fed items or returning to the first floor all the time.

As before, and for maybe the last time, vote for :siren: the one person who gets benched. :siren:

It’s really impressive that all of your party members contemplated their personal woes on the same night. It must have been a national holiday.

My vote’s for benching Akihiko.

Alright, it’s time for our most difficult challenge to date… Finals.

And, like the mid-terms, it’s gonna steal effectively a full week of our time. Great.

During the Test…

Dowsing

I know it’s been a while a this point, but I’m sure you still remember the answers to all of these. They were all mentioned in class at some point or another.

Octopus

Also, each day is taken up by one question like before. This is going to be a recurring trend everytime we get to exams.

Minamoto No Yoritomo

Needless to say, I will be getting all of these questions right because they’re not really difficult but feel free to give it a try yourself if you want. It’s a bit meaner in that I’m not including the answer options but, uh…

I went, I learned.

They’re not really required for three of them so whatever.

I hope you got them all right, because I sure did!

oh and yes i skipped the day transitions between the questions because they don’t mean anything there

Want To Be Close (Reincarnation)

Well, last day and Junpei’s being… friendly, huh?


Thank god today’s the last day of exams…
How’ve you been doing?
Don’t ask.
I can’t wait to let off some steam…
Dude, don’t you just love summer?

During the Test…

This might very well be a good sign. It sure feels more optimistic than what we got at midterms at least! I think there’s a better possible result, though… but I might be thinking of vanilla again.

Summer Begins Here

Joy

The dark days of testing are finally over! The sun is shinin’ bright!
So, how’d you do?

Well, that pretty much answers the question.
Psh, a real man doesn’t dwell on the past…
I’m thinking ahead to Yakushima!
Oh yeah, that’s coming up soon, isn’t it…?
Are ya ready?
How 'bout you?
Me? Um, not really…
I guess I should be more enthusiastic, huh?

Sounds good! Where we goin’?
If you need to buy a swimsuit, I’d be happy to help!
As if.
Alright, gimme a sec. I’m gonna go grab my stuff from the locker room.
…Oh, I’ll invite Fuuka too.

I know I’ve been kind of a dick lately…
but we’re still cool, right?
Don’t worry about it.
Thanks, dude.

Alright, let’s get going.

Freedom at last! What should I do now!?
Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll think of something.
Hell yeah, I will!

Really, Mitsuru is more conspicuous here by her absence…

Ikutsuki-san called me.
I think he wants to talk about a new candidate.
Does that mean another person is going to join?
Maybe…

Do you think you can stay after school with me for a mandatory study session? There’s, like, no one–
Oh, you’re going back to your “home” home today, huh?
Okay, then never mind.

It’s alright. Let’s go.
Sorry, I’ll see you all later back at the dorm.

I’m really surprised at how much she’s changed.

Silence

Adolescence is such a wonderful thing! So full of vibrancy!

Oh, hello. I just stopped by to pick someone up.
I might as well introduce you to him now.

Troubled

Hey, it’s that kid from the shrine!

Anyway, Ken is voiced by Brianne Sidall who I know pretty much entirely for being Tsukasa in .hack// and Gimmy in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.

Oh, hi, Ken-kun. What’s up?
You know him…?
He doesn’t leave during the break because of his… circumstances.
Oh, I heard about that…
Something about his parents…

It happened two years ago.
…Right now, one of his distant relatives is paying for his school expenses.
But, staying at the elementary school dorm all by himself isn’t proper for a child his age.

To OUR dorm!? Do you really think that’s a good idea!?

Then, he’s the new candidate…?
Yes…
But, as you can see, he’s still just an elementary school student. So, it is merely a possibility for now.

Um… yeah.
I’ve heard a lot about you… You haven’t lost a boxing match yet.
Yeah, well… It’s nice to meet you.

End

Iwatodai Dorm

And we’ll be spending most of it on a real vacation!

Yakushima, here we come! I can’t wait for Monday!
And then, one week of school ‘til summer break!
Frickin’ awesome, dude!
Aren’t you getting a little carried away?
I mean, the trip is only for a few days, and we’ll still have to fight Shadows over summer break.
In other words, we can’t afford to stop training in Tartarus…
I know, I know!
But, my energy level is so high during summer, no one can stop me!
Anyway, tomorrow I’m gonna start packing, so if we’re going to Tartarus, then let’s do it today.

This is genuinely a good idea, because July has a dark secret with Tartarus that will fuck you over if you don’t know about it in advance…

Heck yeah!
Impressive. You seem to have a lot of free time to spare, even though you had finals.
I hope you did well on them.

Really, the key word is “had.”

Although, I was a little disappointed about the price…
It turns out the fare for the ferry wasn’t very fair.
But, when I told the lady selling the tickets that, she just ignored me.
sigh I was a little hurt after that.

goddammit, ikutsuki

You said it, brother.
Yeah! We’re gonna have an awesome time!

I’m getting so excited now!

I wish “someone” would learn from his example.
I wonder why he’s like that…

It would be nice if Ikutsuki stopped making incredibly shitty puns, yeah. But at the same time, that’s what makes Ikutsuki, well, Ikutsuki.

…with us.

And Akihiko is sat all on his own, and is oddly saddened that Ken is gonna be living here for like 2 months.

It’s dealing with the many cases of Apathy Syndrome over the last few months. Cultural anthropologists are investigating the causes, and…

Alright, so we’ll be going to Tartarus naturally. Nice to stretch our legs after 5 days of exams.

The Voice Someone Calls

Alright, so before we do our proper ascension, I’m just gonna climb up from the 2nd floor to the barrier as just Minato. This is so I can grind yen (and I guess maybe also things to sell as a bonus) without fighting anything.

The Poem for Everyone’s Souls

We get to just under 100k from that one trip, which is good enough for now. This lets us take Hua Po and… something else I had (Take-Minakata most likely) already to flip into Vetala for that request.

Well done. You have fulfilled my request.
I have a different reward for you this time.

If you’re strong enough to control this Persona, then give it a try.
Please accept your reward.

The Sugar Key is a clever reference to Digital Devil Saga (1 specifically), where you needed to get this from Titania at the white castle at Co-Ordinate 136. That let a Pyro Jack open a giant treasure chest which enabled you to go and fight King Frosty at the top floor.

Anyway, here it just lets us fuse King Frost when we reach level 30. Ideally by then we’ll have a higher Emperor social link rank but who knows.

Next in our chain of fusion requests is an Orthrus but that requires us to be level 28. Notable that this gives us equipment and not access to a new Persona…

Anyway, that done we need to ascend higher in Tartarus before we can do anything else for Liz so we’ll be taking this party tonight.

Gonna take down that barrier and head on up…

We did it. We finally made it to the third block!

tartarus_0d03

So, the third block of Tartarus has this kinda cool appearance. I dig it, personally.

Plus the stairs look like they’re from a ghost ship or something. It’s kinda rad.

Anyway, Yabbashah - like the previous blocks - is a Hebrew word. In this instance it means “dry land,” and it’s also the name of the 5th world in the Kabbalah.

Oh sweet, we found the golden Shadow here really quickly. I just put that down as “if this happens, it’s a bonus.”

Mass Destruction / Wiping All Out

So, we’ll just cave its skull in with a bus-stop sign.

There’s the one Bronze Medal we need for Elizabeth’s request. I guess Mitsuru’ll be getting a Steel Pipe sometime soon after all.

Anyway, we’re done a fight here so we’ll deal with them now I guess.

Creation Relics are a bit weird, in that they’re very Wind heavy but can heal, cast Light instant death… or self-destruct. Sure, okay.

Also, they’re weak to Dark and generally come in groups of 3. Pale Rider just so happens to start with Mamudo…

Oh and they drop the Relic Fragments we want 5 of for Elizabeth too.

Killer Twins are, uh, Twins I guess. They have one clear gimmick but we have easy Maragi access and also Junpei, even though he doesn’t ever get Maragi himself.

Indolent Mayas are, uh, Mayas I guess. They might very well be the most relatively weak one of the lot so far. I’unno.

Silent Books are maybe a little bit more dangerous since they can just (try to) kill everyone, or inflict Poison. That’s… something, I guess.

Dogmatic Towers are similar, but lack the instant death, ailment proc rate increase and also weaknesses. That they’re immune to 3 things, one of which is an instant kill even, is a bit annoying but managable.

Remember Lustful Snakes from before? Yeah, they turn up here. The’re the same as they were in the second half of Arqa.

Mach Wheels aren’t all that difficult, even though they could be on paper. Tarukaja + Power Charge means Double Fangs could tear through anyone effortlessly, but that takes forever and being weak to both Yukari AND Akihiko means they’re gonna die in 1 round.

Oh, and our requisite Big Boy With Lots of Health is the Avenger Knight. He’s, uh, annoying but weak to Expel so we can just Hama him. Gigantic Fist is very terrifying though…

And, of course, this is a new section of Tartarus so our Shuffle Time cards can go up to rank 4 now. EXP gives 1.8x bonus, equipment is ~70-80 attack (so, equal to what we had before) and coins gives around 4000 yen.

It’s amazing how quickly it scales towards making Wands the only real choice.

tartarus_0d03

Anyway, let’s get our real climb on. On floor 67, Fuuka tells us that there IS a boss somewhere but she doesn’t know where. Thanks, Fuuka.

Floor 68 lets us get the Pleiades bow sometimes. This is… honestly a really good bow.

We’ve had the Toy Bow for a while, and this is both stronger AND gives +4 Magic for good measure. It’s less accurate but still higher than the norm. We’re definitely gonna give this to Yukari right away.

On Floor 70, Fuuka finally figures out where the boss fight is. The 72nd floor seems a bit closer than I’d have expected since we started Yabbashah on the 65th but I’m okay with that.

Ah, there we go. I was beginning to worry that the Red Shadow for this area wouldn’t show…

Mass Destruction / Wiping All Out

Wild Drives are… honestly kinda bastards right now. They have 35 Strength and 33 Endurance…

So this means we can’t really do that much damage to them with anything.

This unfortunately includes All-Out Attacks!

And this is what they can do with a basic attack. Just by default. Yikes.

But, hey, level 34 so that means they’re worth A Lot of EXP especially when you add Wand cards (this was just from rank 3, even).

Plus we need 3 Greasy Gears for Elizabeth anyway, so we’d have to deal with them sooner or later. Just glad to get it done now.

And, of course, the 72nd floor is 3 enemy Shadows. Sure, okay. I sorta expected that, though.

Just gonna take the Terminal Point back down the 1st floor for that free full heal and also…

The Poem for Everyone’s Souls

The Supreme Hand is a rare foe, indeed. Congratulations on tracking one down and defeating it.
Well, this proves you are getting stronger. I’m glad to see that.
Please accept your reward.

Oddly, the Steel Pipe is a one-handed sword. Sure, okay.

You know, it’s a shame, really, that humans only believe in what they can see.
The statues those fragments are from were made from people’s feelings…
Have you ever thought about why your Persona looks as it does?
Please accept your reward.

Medical Powder is just improved Medicine. It’s, uh, fine I guess? Might just end up being sold for scratch down the line but who knows.

You obtained these from a particularly strong monster…
In fact, you are much more formidable now than when you first stepped into this room.
I will have to think of harder requests for you to fulfill.
Please accept your reward.

At least the 70k is enough to push us over 300,000 which sounds like a lot… but it won’t last very long at all.

And from getting the Bronze Medal, our next Rare Shadow hunt is… in the 4th block. For a weapon that is also a new weapon type. Welp, can’t even PRETEND to do this one for at least another month so.

So, our trio this time are… 3 wrestlemens. Pretty sure we’ve had that before…

Strength Furious Gigas x3 (Portable)

Master of Tartarus / Danger Zone

Okay, so let’s get this out of the way right now…

The Furious Gigases are like the beetles from before. Yes, they are mechanically weak to Wind however they also resist it. A lot. They might have 30 Endurance, but…

Yukari - Yukari - can do quadruple the damage Garula can with a basic attack.

They’re also immune to Fire (and Resist Elec), and if you ever scan them… Junpei will stand around and Wait if he’s set to do anything BUT Heal/Support. They are neutral to all 3 Phys elements, but they have a nasty secret.

They have High Counter which means there is a 50% chance of them effectively reflecting any given Slash/Strike/Pierce attack. Yikes.

Anyway, skillset wise… their basic attack can do almost 500 damage. If it crits, but still. That’s horrifying (and only in Hard mode).

…They can use… Life Drain…? I, uh, I genuinely did not know that until now. Wow.

Power Charge is a given, though. And also insanely scary.

Sukukaja is the closest thing there is to a real breather move from these guys. I will gladly accept!

Rebellion is a bit of a double-edged sword. It mainly benefits them, though, because of High Counter which is why they have no qualms using it.

Oh and they also have Gigantic Fist. Remember this, from the Avenger Knight random?

Over 500 damage. Over 500 damage. Gigantic Fist is heavy Strike damage, which means it has a baseline power of 315 and it also has a base 15% chance to Crit. Tartarus bosses kinda don’t fuck around if you give them a chance.

Oh and they’re not really susceptible to ailments, much. Boring.

End

But, well, they only have 500HP. Set Yukari to Full Assault and she will cast Magaru and hey if Minato also has Wind magic then you win in 1 round courtesy of 2 All-Out Attacks. Or maybe the 2nd if turn order isn’t friendly to Yukari.

Furius Gigases are really giant Hulk Hogan shaped paper tigers, and I for one am glad. Later Tartarus bosses get genuinely terrifying and I’m really looking forward to it!

Our floor treasure is a single Precious Egg. This gives one person back all their SP. I can think of one major use for this , but it’s not for a long, long time (and it’s arguably better done with a Soma anyway) so…

That’s all we’ll do in Tartarus for now. We’ll go back to finish off Yabbashah in a bit. First, we have the time to be lazing on a Sunday afternoon…

Current Net Price Tanaka

…Y’know, I was looking forward to not buying from Tanaka today. This pushes us back below the 300,000 Yen mark but the Mage’s Mark should be worth it. I hope.

Since we had exams before, we didn’t get the new shoes until now. And they’re a very good evasion boost over what we had in the past. Simple, but effective.

Iwatodai Dorm

Viewers will only be able to see 25% of the sun from Tokyo, and 18% from Osaka. As a result of the eclipse, the temperature will drop slightly.

No one’s in the dorm so we’ll run to the TV and… get here either too early or way too late. We even missed the next episode preview!

When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars

Yukari and Fuuka are over at the Port Island Station hanging out by the cinema, I see.

Although, I don’t think it’s this shop’s selection…

Yukari, that’s… that’s a fountain and a cinema. They, uh, they don’t…

It could just be that I’m not up for a new swimsuit at all.

I’ve never bought a bathing suit besides the school one.
But I don’t think Yukari-chan is really up for this…

And Fuuka pretty much just echoes Yukari’s sentiments, huh. Sure, okay.

Fortunately, Junpei’s also easy to find.

I asked Akihiko-san, but he doesn’t give a rip about fashion.
So it’s up to you, dude! Tell me what I should bring!
A one-piece bathing suit.
I thought of that once. It’ll get a laugh, at least!

That’s the plan!

But, sadly, we can’t find Akihiko or Mitsuru anywhere, so we’ll go and spend the day with Maya as per usual.

Joy

Maya is walking nearby.

i’m not even complaining today or ne thing… so rare =P
but i have to tell tatsu cuz he’s my MMO partner! i’ll be brave --;;
*^
^*
…i’m so lame! i’m blushing for reals!!
oh noes… now i’m starting to get sweaty =/
Hurry up and tell me.
oh, hey tatsuya hehehehehehe xD

Maya seems to be enjoying herself.

Maya seems to be embarrassed.

i’m kinda…“interested” in sumone from school >_>

Well, you did sorta admit to being okay with this particular crime before…

OMG i said it!!!1 O_O;; :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
none of the male teachers r even in my league, so i gave up looking for b/fs @ work

goin for younger guys is kinda new for me >_>
What is he like?

i luuuuuuv watchin his expressions in class xD is that bad?

“Bad” is an understatement…

Maya seems to be having fun.

he’s one of my students! =x

…Hang on a minute…

maybe i can abuse my power and convince him i’m a guidance counselor >_>
oh btw, u don’t need to be jealous he’s jus sumone i like, rite?
tatsuya is the only game partner for maya ^^; no worries

Maya cares about you.

Your relationship is stronger now!

…It’s a coincidence. Like the Pascal thing in SMT1. Yup. That’s it. It’s an SMT1 reference buried in the Persona 2 stuff.

> You failed to convince anyone.

alrighty tatsuya, i gtg let’s positive thinking!

Maya’s player signed off.

You decide to log off as well.

Fortunately we’re going to leave on vacation today. I could certainly do with being anywhere but here right now…

I didn’t think the Hermit social link would get worse, but here we are.