adachimoe

[adachimoe]

HUH… I have read Buddhist comparisons made for the Phantom Thieves and how they steal desires, but never about Maruki. Have you talked about how "the Buddhist stuff" about him before? That sounds REALLY interesting

i dont think ive talked about it much… hmm… im not super into p5 and tbqh ive not read many dev things about it, so idk what their intended read was, but here we go anyway...

buddhism has these things called the "noble truths". this is very simplified, but they kinda go like so: you realize that to live is to suffer -> and suffering is caused by wants -> but you can stop suffering if you stop wanting! -> recognize there is a path you can take to end suffering (the eightfold path). and this is also very, very simplified, but the suffering bit is connected to the cycle of reincarnation. cause you get reborn over and over into these fleeting, temporary, mortal lives and you get to suffer some more. and then you do this over and over again until you finally figure out how to quit suffering. so the ultimate end game here is to achieve enlightenment and quit being reborn entirely.

the "fool's journey" in persona seems to be a variant or representation of this cyclic nature of life and reincarnation where the protagonist moves, meets new friends, and defeats a powerful enemy, undergoing a great change in life. in base p5, joker has spent his time in april thru december going through some version of the fool's journey, presumably completing it when he defeats yaldy. joker is now "enlightened", in a metaphorical way. i assume it's because he is this so-called enlightened being that he also has the wisdom to know that something has happened when he wakes up in maruki's reality.

as the plot continues, maruki is trying to remove suffering, and he's doing it by granting what he thinks are people's desires. under our very, very oversimplified and reductionist view of buddhism for the purpose of this post, those two ideas are at complete odds with one another. you don't get rid of suffering by indulging and giving into what you desire, you get rid of suffering by getting more introspective with yourself and freeing yourself from your desires.

ironically, in his attempts to remove suffering, maruki is creating a world in which people would suffer for eternity because he is preventing them from reaching enlightenment. (honestly it's been a while but i'm fairly sure the desire bit is explicitly against the eightfold path. i think 2 of my professors would yell at me for even forgetting stuff like this.) and maruki himself is also acting on his own desires by doing this. he is unenlightened and trapping himself alongside everyone else.

notably, p5r doesn't present the ending split as a "good end and bad end" or even a "true end and a not-so-true end". it's do you want to stay in maruki's reality or do you wanna throw hands with him? while joker might be this metaphorically enlightened being after completing his fool's journey, the player -- the one making the actual choice -- is an unenlightened being with attachments and desires and other influences that drive their actions.

speaking of things that influence our actions... p5r came out at a very interesting time. it was right before COVID, which confined people to their homes and gave them new hobbies such as... playing 120 hour jrpgs. while living through an on-going global pandemic, there is no doubt that someone out there played p5r and thought to themselves, "yeah, i could use maruki's reality right now".

[adachimoe]

Actually, isn't Labrys the P4 character you should be comparing Yoshizawa to?

In some ways, P5R feels like a retelling of P4A/AU. Like Wada really thought They Cooked with the story modes of Arena and Arena Ultimax, but hardly anyone played those cause it's a technical as hell anime fighter game, so he just copied his own homework for Royal.

Maruki is Sho, the guy trying to recreate the world as he sees fit and (insert Buddhist stuff here about human suffering being caused by desire). Akechi is Adachi, the crowd pleaser who is back by popular demand and helps the protag for his own reasons and in his own way. Yoshizawa is Labrys, the amnesiac with a dead "sister" who has awakened to her own power and figured out who she is.

[adachimoe]

Thinking about it a bit more, Yoshizawa's scenes are, for the most part, about her and the protagonist. Similarly, Adachi's new stuff is also focused on the interactions between him and protag, with major appearances by Nanako. The comparisons continue; Adachi is a teenage girl.

Yoshizawa became a relatively popular love interest character, her Social Link is optional, and her scenes are mostly her and Joker. The game is trying to sell you the fantasy of dating a younger girl who calls you sempai. Maybe Golden was trying to sell you the fantasy of dating an older pathetic murder man who calls you a dumbass.

Both Marie and Yoshizawa are the Love Interest New Girl Characters with Identity Issues, so like I get why they draw comparisons to begin with. But when people start to actually compare them, it's not about their "waifu-ness", it's about their integration into their respective games...

Tho, I do resent the idea that Yoshizawa's "better integrated": You don't even have agency over who you take to Hatsumode during New Year's. You are forced to take her, even if you just spent Christmas with a completely different girl. AWKWARD af tbqh. In this regard, Imo the "Marie" who Yoshizawa is comparable to is the Golden anime's version of Marie which shoved her into every new event possible.

In conclusion: If P4 ever gets remade, they should force you to take Adachi to Hatsumode.

I... kinda think people should quit trying so hard to compare Marie and Yoshizawa's roles in Golden and Royal lol

Yoshizawa is a new story character who's Social Link is 100% completely optional. Like, interacting with her is not actually required at all for the new content, and she will just show up anyway.

Maruki though is required for the new content. Like Marie in Golden, his Social Link is completely optional, but you must max it by a certain deadline or else you miss out on part of the new Royal content. And like Marie, Maruki is also put into situations where the game needs to find excuses to get the protagonist's other friends (e.g. Yusuke) to somehow meet this new character.

If anything, Yoshizawa is functionally more similar to Adachi in Golden: A new Social Link that does add new scenes but with a hard time limit to rank it up around halfway before it can progress more (Adachi requires 6, Yoshizawa requires 5), but it is still optional, the Hollow Forest and Winter Semester aren't tied to it, and it ultimately depends on how much the player gives a shit about that particular character.

(This post is actually to continue my agenda about Adachi being a teenage girl)

[adachimoe]

I... kinda think people should quit trying so hard to compare Marie and Yoshizawa's roles in Golden and Royal lol

Yoshizawa is a new story character who's Social Link is 100% completely optional. Like, interacting with her is not actually required at all for the new content, and she will just show up anyway.

Maruki though is required for the new content. Like Marie in Golden, his Social Link is completely optional, but you must max it by a certain deadline or else you miss out on part of the new Royal content. And like Marie, Maruki is also put into situations where the game needs to find excuses to get the protagonist's other friends (e.g. Yusuke) to somehow meet this new character.

If anything, Yoshizawa is functionally more similar to Adachi in Golden: A new Social Link that does add new scenes but with a hard time limit to rank it up around halfway before it can progress more (Adachi requires 6, Yoshizawa requires 5), but it is still optional, the Hollow Forest and Winter Semester aren't tied to it, and it ultimately depends on how much the player gives a shit about that particular character.

(This post is actually to continue my agenda about Adachi being a teenage girl)

[adachimoe]

...actually what is the intent ATLUS was trying to achieve with Teddie? When I played the original P4 I kept thinking he is a pervert who... isnt trying to be one? I actually found him endearing when I was younger, but now (if my memory serves me well) I think he was written in such a shallow way and it makes me kind of sad.

Have you discussed about Teddie once somewhere? If you have, I'd like to read it!

ahh i dont really have anything about teddie or any analysis-y stuff aside from the translation-related stuff. i gathered them a bunch of them in my big list of posts if you wanna check it out.

in this dengeki interview, the interviewer asks if hashino and soejima have a favorite character, like lore-wise or design-wise, and hashino responds that teddie was difficult to develop. they were rewriting and re-recording his voiced lines stuff a bunch. due to that, hashino has this emotional attachment to him.

aside from "anime pervert trope", perhaps they weren't quite sure what they were trying to achieve either, hence the rewrites and such.

[adachimoe]

there's smth about how soejima writes that "i dont think yosuke is very artistic" that makes me think yosuke would be the kind of person to use a stupid ghibli ai art generator lmao

[adachimoe]

this is totally unrelated to what i posted earlier, but on the subject of teddie, knowing that he's a shadow, and then learning about shadows in the december dungeon, re-contextualizes a certain scene.

ame tells us that the truth messes with the shadows, and yukiko realizes this is why the shadows even freak out and attack people.

think about all of those scenes where you party members went, "YOU'RE NOT ME!", and then the shadows transform and attack after.

in p4g premium fan book, they write that "the other teddie" that appeared in marukyu striptease was not quite the same as the other shadows you see. while it was born from his repressed thoughts, it was also there thanks to fuckery from ame:

Teddie’s Shadow was born from a combo of his suppressed [mind/heart/thoughts] and meddling from Amenosagiri. [The Shadow’s] piercing eyes look as though they are chiding Teddie for turning his eyes away from the truth about himself.

and of course, you also find out that teddie is a shadow who tries very hard to forget that he's a shadow:

so, back in marukyu striptease...

if "teddie" is a real shadow and "other teddie" is something kinda different, and "other teddie" is bringing up the truth and how "teddie" is trying to make another version of himself, but the truth causes shadows to freak out and attack, then... teddie trying to headbutt "other teddie" is that aforementioned moment when shadows go nutso after hearing the truth...?

...lolsdf;lk34kl;ahahahahhahahah ok im sorry teddie i know you really tried man but sdflk;kl;324kl;34 looool

[adachimoe]

i'm not saying that these are like "literal translations" or that "teddie should 100% be like this", but if i were somehow in charge of this, i would make the following changes:

early on, teddie should talk "child-ish"-ly to emphasize that he's, well, a child, and also have him repeat what people say even when he doesn't do it in japanese. the jp version gets away with this by having him use "kuma" ("teddie") as his personal pronoun, reflecting how many jp children use their names as their pronouns due to how their parents talk to them; they are repeating what their parents address them as. 3rd person i dont think quite has the same effect in english. we would see "teddie is speaking in 3rd person" but not the context of how it characterizes him as repeating what he hears.

over time, in jp, teddie's personal pronoun changes from "teddie this, teddie that" to him using the more boyish version of "i" (boku) as his pronoun. i assume this is to reflect him "growing up". so, to match, while i suggest teddie sounds childish early on, he should start talking less childish-ly as the game goes on.

yosuke's line where he asks teddie "why are you copying?!" referring to when teddie says "my my, why dont we go somewhere together?" due to him mimicking what shadow yukiko says should be re-translated to show that yosuke knows he's copying, and that he tells him to stop it. (cause like, teddie actually never says this again after yosuke tells him to stop.)

teddie saying "gyakunan", or "girls hitting on guys", should be worded in a way that makes it clear it's the wrong gender and it sounds funny / stupid. my suggestion before was to have him say "score with hot studs like chie and yuiko". let's just run with that for now. so after yukiko's dungeon up until void quest, when teddie says "scoring", he should be saying "scoring with hot studs like chie and yukiko (and rise)".

i think some of shadow teddie part in marukyu theater was translated weird. it makes the later reveal that teddie was "trying to forget he was a shadow" to kinda fall flat. so maybe make that more obvious?

teddie actually does learn nanpa, the "guys hitting on girls" word, except it comes up in an optional dungeon dialogue chat. to differentiate or show how he now knows the correct term, maybe this use of nanpa should be "score with babes" or something.

early on, teddie references a TV show with a name that can be taken to be the sound effect of a dick getting hard. let's make that line, "my nose is hard". i think american english speakers would see "hard" and it would eventually register as being "oh it's a dick joke".

yosuke and chie call teddie "kumakichi" after a pervert bear character from a manga who is always getting arrested for doing perverted shit. during the fireworks part, chie calls him by this name again, and then talks about dojima arresting him, alluding to the source material. i'm not sure if there is a universal "pervert bear" or even just "pervert" character that would be a good substitute for this. perhaps yosuke and chie could just call him "perverted bear" (im struggling, i have no idea how to do this lol). then on the fireworks line, chie could also say, "do you want dojima to arrest you like this is a cartoon?"

teddie's jp voice actor is bugs bunny, and him calling the protag "sensei" is the japanese translation of "doc" from bugs bunny's catchphrase, "what's up doc?" english teddie should totally say "doc" instead of "sensei" (or even just do the catchphrase "ehh what's up doc?").

(as a cross between kumakichi and bugs bunny, i had this brief thought that yosuke and chie could call teddie "pepe le pew", after the harasser skunk on looney tunes, but teddie is not black/white and not remotely skunk looking etc, so i'm not sure why they would start calling him that lol... i guess you could say that human teddie has that French Aura to him?, but they start calling him kumakichi long before he gets a human body.)

but while i think this all might help characterize him, i dont think it's going to "fix" an english player's impression of teddie.

imo, even if teddie was localized better, the average player would still hate him.

[adachimoe]

imo, even if teddie was localized better, the average player would still hate him.

[adachimoe]

feeling nostalgic for the uhh................ floaty puff shadows from ps2 persona 4 that got removed from golden. i dont have any good screenshots of them, but there is a mod for p4g that someone made to try and restore them:

the floaty puff shadows were different from the blobbie ground crawly shadows. they would fucking chase you for what felt like forever across a dungeon lol. it was fairly comical -- just like an angry, unserious, little ball of something chasing you forever and ever. there were red and gold floaty puffs too.

[adachimoe]

preview of the persona 3 reload collab at the sunshine city prince hotel

sunshine city prince hotel in ikebukuro is having persona 3 themed rooms (i think) and food from june to august. they posted some preview photos today. koromaru pancake.................... the sees armband berry cake is cute too lol

[adachimoe]

ah shoot I forgot to add why I feel this matters lol

yosuke says stupid shit to kanji all game and kanjis reactions are usually not really extreme. this is by far the stupidest thing yosuke says to him and also by far kanjis most overblown reaction. we also know from when he returns to school that kanji actually does care about attendance and his standing at school, and the girls later weaponize this against him to make him agree to be in the cross dressing contest. we also know from chie and yukiko that if students get caught out of their tent, they'll likely get in a shit load of trouble. and while kanji isn't there in the tent when the girls talk about this, it would be stupid to assume kanji would be unaware that going to the girls tents would get him in trouble (especially when yosuke and protag are like "bro don't this is a terrible idea" before he runs off).

so, tldr, what yosuke says here needs to sound extreme enough that it causes kanji to risk doing something that would get him in trouble at school. and i am really not sure "are we safe with you" is it lol.

the "lose your virginity" flag

Due to Yosuke's use of the phrase 貞操の危機 (talking about his and the protag's chastity being ~in danger~, something that i honestly mostly see used in reference to like H-games and R-18), this should probably be translated as, "Are we about to lose our v-cards?" or just anything more *blunt*.

The English version feels oddly sterilized in comparison, especially considering how the English version was unafraid to add Gay!-sounding shit on other lines.

[adachimoe]

the "lose your virginity" flag

Due to Yosuke's use of the phrase 貞操の危機 (talking about his and the protag's chastity being ~in danger~, something that i honestly mostly see used in reference to like H-games and R-18), this should probably be translated as, "Are we about to lose our v-cards?" or just anything more *blunt*.

The English version feels oddly sterilized in comparison, especially considering how the English version was unafraid to add Gay!-sounding shit on other lines.

[adachimoe]

one last atlus express thing w/hashino

i am blind and didnt notice this one before.

the interviewer, kosugi, points out that 2011 coincides with the year that japan planned to be finished swapping over from analog to digital television broadcasting, and hashino says they were aware of this. the "not believing everything you see on tv" thing was smth he consciously thought about, namely, that maybe once the date draws closer, people would talk more about how much stupid shit was on tv. personally i was unaware the year lined up with that. i thiiink it happened earlier for us in america.

since this interview was from 2008, hashino had no idea at the time, but the way history went, while the plan was to finish by july 24th 2011, the tohoku earthquake delayed this process from being finished until march 31st, 2012. which, strangely enough, ends up nearly matching with the last in-game day. (the original target date of july 24th almost lines up with void quest's opening date and when the plot starts to advance as well. wonder if they picked that date on purpose?)

kosugi then jokes about how, even tho it's 2011, the electronics dept in junes is pretty empty, like there isn't exactly a rush of customers in junes trying to get a new tv lol. hashino agrees, and thinks junes might be losing business to specialty electronics stores.

[adachimoe]

more p4 stuff from atlus express

before the rls of p4, hashino did 2 qa things on atlus express, answering fan submitted questions. unfortunately most of his answers are like "please wait until the game comes out, ha ha", so i picked out the bits where he gave more substantial responses.

why does p4 take place in a rural city?

hashino: because it matches the mystery/suspense story. additionally, the rural area that p4 takes place in is depicted not only through the positive lens of idyllic scenery you would find in a sightseeing brochure, but also through the negative aspect of it being this overly stereotypical provincial city where the local neighborhood shopping district is dying out due to the arrival of a large supermarket.

why do the MCs have mad drip despite living in hicksville dress so stylishly despite living in a rural area?

hashino: i wonder why indeed, haha. actually, there is a large city thats near inaba in the game (okina, i assume). its not like this is officially part of the lore/world building, but i would imagine that some of the characters shop there. and since yosuke's dad runs the junes store, he probably gets his clothes there, or his dad forces him to.

p3's protag used orpheus, and p4's protag uses izanagi. both of their myths involve a return / revival from the afterworld. is death a central theme in p4 as well?

hashino: p4 is a YA story depicting coming of age.

since this is a mystery game, do you have to guess the culprit, or will the culprit be revealed (as part of the story)?

hashino: unlike in mystery novels, the plot doesn't necessarily get laid out / explained to you as you read along, so at times, the player will have to make decisions -- including figuring out the culprit -- in order to proceed.

about yellow as the image color

hashino: soejima picked yellow to match the countryside setting. like it evokes nostalgia. it's a color for flowers, elementary school kids hats, the rural scenery. but it's also used as a warning color, which fits with the murders.

(in another interview, soejima says yellow is also associated with happiness because there's a jp movie called "the yellow handkerchief of happiness.)

what's the #1 selling point about persona 4?

hashino: hum hum. if i have to pick only one, then this is a bit abstract, but it's the atmosphere.

(or, since it's 2025, maybe pretend he said "vibes".)

[adachimoe]

what does junes bring to inaba?

this started as a reply to @psychedeliclulu in the cmts on this post but it uhh got really long and turned into a post of its own haha

this is partially based on inaba's pre-existing world building, partially based on anecdotal experience from my couple weeks in the japanese countryside, and partially based on the things that go unspoken in the game.

i believe what the npcs were talking about was how large, convenient, and varied that junes is. not to mention, it is also a community space.

the big pull that junes has, IMO, is that it's a multi story department store with a 24/7 hr grocer on the first floor. just by going on what the characters get in-game, aside from groceries, we know they also sell electronics and clothes. we know they have the roof with the food stalls and a children's play area, and even an event stage. in fact, if the protagonist works at junes during summer vacation, yosuke says something about a costumed hero show which is likely taking place on the event stage. from this, we learn that junes gives the community a reason to come there aside from just shopping, establishing it as a community space. (but i'm sure yosuke's dad surely wants you to spend money before/after the costume show.)

before junes came to inaba, they probably had to go to multiple different specialty stores that didn't quite have a variety. or they relied on getting deliveries, like from namatame's family business. and aside from the events at tatsuhime shrine and the yasogami school festival (per persona club p4, outside vendors can have booths at the school festival), we don't know what else the community has. so junes is functionally a lot of stuff, all in one.

in game, we're told that junes is new and is driving stores in the central shopping district out of business. the things we know about that are currently in the shopping district are:

moel gas station

daidara's store where he sells fish swords to teenagers

shiroku's general store / night time small town bar

rise's grandma's traditional tofu store (this is likely also her grandma's house, and where rise lives while shes in inaba)

kanji's family's textile store (also the tatsumi's family home)

yomenaido bookstore

aiya chinese diner (restaurant)

souzai daigaku (prepared foods)

the shrine

konishi liquors

marutake hobby shop

we dont see any grocers in the central shopping district in-game. is what we see in-game everything there is to the shopping district, or is like how the average rpg town only shows the player what they need?

tbh, i guess you could take hashino's answer to mean there *is* a grocery store in the shopping district, but the player never goes to it lol.

also, some of this is lost in english cause the signs aren't translated, but if you poke around the central shopping district, interact w/some of the buildings and read the signs outside, you'll get messages about what they are, such as:

big stone, a bicycle shop

ichikawa electronics

a store in-between ichikawa and konishi that's closed but its unknown what kind of store it was

a barber shop

nakanishi drugs/pharmascy

an unknown store next to nakanishi (the banner in front of it just says "central shopping district")

a building that i thiiink says "fuku[something; this would be a family name] real estate", next to maruktake

a building with no sign, to the left of aiya

a coffee shop / cafe / "kissa" in the background between the bookstore and daidara called something-hoshi/sei?-something (i cant read handwriting fonts LOL)

all of these have their shutters down, but i'm not sure if they're all closed for good. like in yukiko's new years romance, for example, she'll tell the protagonist they should go to a cafe, which suggests that either the smth-hoshi-smth place is actually open, or there is more to the shopping district than what we're allowed to roam around.

altho, it's also reasonable to assume that some of these shuttered shops we encounter have closed down due to junes. we see in-game that junes has stuff like an electronics department, which might have driven ichikawa electronics in the shopping district out of business. i imagine junes carries products like alcohol too, hence why saki's family would feel threatened by their presence. and when you do the fox's quest for the hobby shop owner, he says that when kids want to buy toys, they just go to junes, so we know junes also sells stuff like that. (there's also adachi's dialogue that might have gotten removed in golden about junes selling toys and kiddie magic kits.)

from the world building stuff, we learn that the junes grocery department is open 24/7 and they put out ready made foods (like to buy and eat at home) at 4pm/7pm/10pm. i believe on november 5th, you see yosuke working late at night at junes, stuck on grocery stocking duty cause junes' grocery is always open. (i dont think i ever translated this before, but in the "junes newsletter" in persona club p4, there's also a submission from sayoko who says she appreciates the grocery dept being open whenever for when she gets off her shift at the hospital late at night.)

i think just having a "24/7 hr grocery store" is kinda huge, as from my exp in the countryside, a grocer otherwise closes at like 8pm. inaba likely does not have much else that's open 24/7, or even that late at night, and golden only has shiroku's store and aiya being open later at night. i touched on this before in a post about yukiko's family ryokan, but the stereotype goes that ryokans are in remote locations and offer breakfast/dinner service to guests because there likely aren't many other places to get food in that area, especially later in the evening. (hence why yosuke assumes yukiko can cook, and why chie assumes yukiko knows what she's talking about when they grocery shop.)

anyway yay more rambling

[adachimoe]

the origin of chie's galactic punt (and other nonsense)

in an old, old, ancient dev q+a from a feature on their website called "atlus express", hashino answered some questions that users had submitted.

chie's galactic punt

in japanese, the party's follow-up attacks don't have unique names like they do in english. e.g. chie's galactic punt is just called "chie's follow up attack" in japanese. but when chie uses it, her jp va goes, "doooon!", meaning like, "boom".

a fan asked why chie is the only one who has an insta-kill move while the others can only crit? and hashino replied that someone on the battle team saw chie's design, and thought that chie looked the most likely to go boom on something. and since she doesn't use a bladed weapon, the thought process went, well what if she just kicked something as hard as possible?

initial personas

personas were selected from japanese myth and culture, based on each character's story. for example, yukiko's is konohana sakuya, who falls in love with a prince.

(if you've never read soejima's design works comments about the gang's personas, he explains a lot of his design thought process as well. like yosuke would hear the name jiraiya and think rogue with a heart of gold -> hero (what his shadow dunks him over) -> heroes have red scarf.)

where does nanako grocery shop?

since junes is so far away, she probably usually shops in the central shopping district. she probably always gets freebies/deals/etc a lot.

how far is inaba from the protag's home city?

the protagonist changes trains a bunch and the fare seems kinda high. when hashino and the team researched for inaba's setting, they went to a place around 2 hrs by train from tokyo, which he considers close. (this is referring to the city of fuefuki.) however, he believes the inaba in the story must be much further than just a 2hr train ride.

(i found this answer interesting because there are definitely people who say that "fuefuki is inaba". pls these games take place in "magicalfictionalcity, japan")

about the protagonist's shadow / true self / other side

the protagonist is more or less the player, and though the protagonist doesn't reveal his other side during the game, it could be said that the personality of the player behind the controller *is* his other side. through the various options the player makes in-game, perhaps the player might have shown their true self to the game world?

(hell fucking yeah i showed my true self when i protected adachi and burned the letter.)