#Shu’s situation with the transfer student is so similar to Adachi and Yu...like Yu is perfect who took Adachi’s place w/ the Dojima’s

[flwrpersona]

I am once again thinking about Shu’s social link in P4, and about how so many let’s players seem bored/annoyed/indifferent about Shu. Some never continue his link, prioritizing others. He comes off moody in your first interaction with him (you can even call him a prick, right to his face!) His initial behavior seems to turn a lot of ppl off from trying his link any further. Which is a damn shame. Shu’s social link is underrated as hell, since he’s low key a very important social link.

You learn through it that Shu is facing immense pressure from his mother to have the best grades. He himself puts value on the grades he gets. Shu knows that studies are his strong suit, so that’s why he accepts that schooling will be his path for the future. He’s so young, yet college is brought up at one point. He’s at the top of his class, but still hires you to tutor him. And even if you’re there to help him study, he starts hinting that he enjoys your company, despite how anti-social and pessimistic he seems initially.

Achievement in school is tied into how successful his future will be, how successful of a person he currently is, and even his own mother’s love for him. But when he starts to feel like he’s falling behind in school he cheats. To such a young kid, everything is on the line if he’s not the best of the best. And that’s damn heartbreaking. Most of his inadequate feelings probably started with that new transfer student he tells you about. The kid’s previous school was ahead, so he’s smarter than everyone (which was Shu’s thing in school.) And the new kid is apparently also good at sports and talking with everyone.... (He seems to have it all.) Shu is dejected and heartbroken by the entire situation.

Because of Yu Shu has support through it all. Instead of feeling scared and alone, he has a shoulder to lean on. He can vent his feelings and get advice of what he should do. If you didn’t have an impromptu birthday party for him he’d never open up to you about his feelings. You’d never have the chance to help him. And I’d bet that if you don’t do his social link he’d not have the confidence to talk to his mother about the cheating situation. And after the whole experience he realizes that his studies aren’t the most important thing. He and him mother come to an understanding, and she affirms that she’ll always love him. He says that he‘ll join a sports club, has always wanted to try it (but put all his effort on his studies before.) Lastly he stops hiring you to tutor him. Which is a happy ending to the social link.

But what if you ignore Shu? Unknowingly leaving Shu to deal with the heavy pressures of school life alone. (There’s a chance his mother would have noticed and maybe they’d still have a conversation, but would it be too late? Would Shu isolate himself from everyone completely? Convince himself that his grades will determine is future, that he has to be the best of the best to be successful, to be loved, to do the things society expects of him?) Would Shu learn to hate the world around him? To hate that transfer student, who seems to naturally be smarter and better that Shu in so many ways. He was on a path of becoming cynical at life. I know that it’s kind of an extreme, depressing what if situation but....

Ya’ll this is just a precursor of Adachi. Adachi says that his parents only ever wanted him to study. He was the “best of the best”, smarter than most others around him. He wasn’t allowed to be with friends or have hobbies, he studied. He couldn’t pursue frivolous hobbies/interests (*cough* magic), he studied. So much of the stuff Shu talks about, even his standoffish behavior towards you, is reflected in what we know about Adachi’s past. It’s crazy to me to think about how many ppl seem disinterested in his social link and just decide to ignore it. Feeling alone while growing up is a driving factor of how Adachi turned out the way he did. So everyone that ignored Shu just created another Adachi in the world, congrats.

I did not expect this post to get very long, so while I could probably go off about this topic more specifically, I’ll wrap it up. Shu is an important social link bc it helps you understand Adachi a good bit. And I do wanna leave this post off with how oddly similar Adachi’s Beta Design looks to Shu’s design. Intentional? I think they both have socially awkward boy genius vibes to them, at least.