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this month's commission highlights

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Persona 3~

And all I see is you.

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Persona 1 Phone Cards

From the Summer 1996 Gamest Goods Catalog

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Persona 1 does have quite a bit of Hindu/Buddhist influence now that you mention it. Some of the dungeons are straight up named after the terminology. For instance, you have "Kama" Palace. In Hindu mythology, Kama is a concept that refers broadly to any desire for various forms of enjoyment in life. It’s literally Sanskrit for “desire” or “pleasure”. I guess the music, at least the original track, sounding like disco music is pretty fitting. There's also the matter of Vishnu, who is featured prominently in a lot of Persona 1 art. He's also one of the most important figures in the Hindu pantheon. Vishnu's Persona 1 design is meant to represent the series as a whole. Vishnu has many different incarnations like Krishna and Kalki. Kaneko saw the connections between this and Persona's concept of having different selves and he drew him in a very kingly image. I quite like how he looks like a theatrical costume in this game, fits in very well with the series. When Kandori is taken over by Nyarlathotep, his new form resembles that of a Buddha. All of this is quite interesting...

It’s interesting that Mana Castle is said to be named after manas vijnana the seventh of the eight consciousnesses as taught in Yogacara. Alaya/Araya shrine is confirmed to be named after alaya vijnana the eight of the eight consciousnesses as taught in Yogacara.

Avidya world is named after avidya the klesha that is also mentioned in yoga writings thus P1 intentionally looked at Yoga teachings often for place names. 

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“Deva Yuga (Arrange Version)”

Revelations: Persona Original Soundtrack

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Yusuke Kitagawa - P5/ P5R

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Ayase and Yukino - Persona 1

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Source: Schwarzwelt Reminiscences

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Deva Yuga was the physical manifestation of Kandori’s heart and desires– the ultimate symbol of Kandori’s success into becoming a god. He had no use for Maki or the DEVA system (Maki’s life support) anymore. He could have easily left Maki to die, but for some reason Maki was safely locked away in the middle of Deva Yuga.

This represents Kandori’s desire to keep Maki safe despite simultaneously being forced by Nyarlathotep to work towards humanity’s destruction. 

As we see in Persona 2, it is very very hard to escape from Nyarlathotep’s grasps– but not impossible. Jun was able to break free because of his intense desire to protect Maya.

Kandori had similar feelings toward Maki. While they weren’t strong enough to save him from Nyarlathotep, it’s obvious that the little autonomy he did have was spent on keeping the person he cared about the most safe.

Further expanding on this, it’s interesting to see when the door to Maki’s room was unlocked: after Kandori was defeated. Kandori unlocked the room Maki was in once he told Naoya’s group to rescue her, meaning that he decided to trust them to take care of Maki since he couldn’t anymore.

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Persona 1's usage of stereotypical English voices from random Western influences seems so interesting, especially in various dungeons like Deva Yuga in the Ps1 soundtrack, but the fact that Elly's theme has "Make a Right Turn..." in the song and Yukino's has garbled speech similar to a radio (roughly "Make a stop"), it comes off as if the voices are but the subconscious speaking forth in the music itself despite their mundane origins.

Food for thought.

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It’s interesting how the name Deva Yuga デヴァ・ユガ is named after the DVA system as well as Kandori‘s god complex by hinting at the first age, the Satya/Kṛta Yuga.

First of the Deva デヴァ of Deva Yuga is written like デヴァin the DEVA/DVA system デヴァ・システム (abbreviation for ディメンション・ヴァリアブル・アクセラレータ・システム Dimension Variable Accelerator System ).

The Petit Deva System プチ・デヴァ・システム in EP that it based on the technology of the original system also is named after the abbreviation.

However Deva デヴァalso resembles Deva デーヴァ a term for deity in Hinduism.

Yuga is of course a reference to Yuga ユガ the four-age cycle.

There are the age of Kali Yuga (the final age, the age of darkness, a complete lack of virtue) in which we currently live, the age of Dvapara/Dwapara Yuga (divine intellect ceases to exist), the age of Treta Yuga (there virtues diminish slightly) and the age of Satya/Kṛta Yuga (the first and longest age, the golden age/era of gods).

The Satya Yuga is actually often also called Deva Yuga. This phase follows again after the Kali Yuga phase thus Deva Yuga hints that Kandori wants to start a new cycle which starts with the deity ruling golden age.

This is a nice addition to Kandori’s surname which also emphasizes his god complex (神 god and 取 take/fetch).

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So everyone knows about how much Reiji hates Kandori. And while the reasoning behind Reiji's hatred is questionable at best (I mean, really? Wanting to kill your half-brother for an affair that didn't involve him in the slightest?), we still have a clear idea of how Reiji feels about Kandori.

What I don't think gets enough attention is that Kandori feels the same way towards Reiji.

Throughout the events of Persona 1, Kandori is struggling with this god complex that Nyarlathotep instilled into him. I already wrote a pretty in-depth analysis of Kandori, but the bottom line is, Kandori looks down (or at least, attempted to project that he looked down) on everyone that's not him.

Still, this attitude gets particularly bad around Reiji.

When Reiji confronts Kandori in the Mana Castle, Kandori mocks him in response.

Knowing that being associated with the Kandori bloodline pisses Reiji off, Kandori takes it a step further:

What he says next, though, is really interesting to me.

And then what he says in response to Reiji's grievances:

Take a closer look at that last sentence. Kandori very explicitly says "my father", not "our father".

What does this mean?

Well it seems that despite Kandori taunting Reiji with the knowledge that they're related, Reiji is not the only one having trouble accepting this fact.

We can also see that Kandori harbors a great deal of resentment towards Reiji's mother.

Kandori has largely steered away from personal attacks throughout the game. The closest he's ever been is when Kandori says that Nanjo's family lacks discipline, but that's a far cry from the harsh statement of "a stray bitch will breed stray dogs".

What I'm getting from this is that Kandori is able to keep a (relatively) cool demeanor until his father's affair is brought up. It's subtle, but it's clear that he bristles up when reminded of the fact that his father was unfaithful to his mother. Obviously, the affair affected Kandori deeply, and he was never able to move on from this event.

Kandori and Reiji have an interesting relationship to me because they both hate each other for the same reason. To them, the other one is tangible evidence of an affair that shattered both of their lives. Neither of them are justified in their hatred, and yet they're so blinded by their feelings that they can't realize it.

Side note: I would give anything to know how Kandori would react to Reiji's son's name, given that Reiji combined his and Kandori's names for his unborn son. Knowing that Reiji was able to make amends with Kandori in the end, I really like to think that Kandori would've done the same with Reiji.