#man. sae's story is seriously fucked up tho

[235uranium]

the relationship between sae and akechi is actually so amusing to me. if you asked either of them they'd deny being anything more than coworkers who begrudgingly put up with each other. meanwhile they eat dinner with each other fairly regularly. makoto genuinely believes that sae likes akechi more than her. sae (and by extention makoto) are perfectly aware that akechi is incredibly mean. sae was probably who akechi played pool with before meeting joker. she must be the coworker who gave him the aquarium tickets. they're friends but they fucking hate it

[tumblunni]

OKAY I FOUND SOMEONE SCANNED THE JAPANESE VERSION OF THE PERSONA 5 ARTBOOK!!! I’m still preordering the english version though. And this seems to have a LOT more text info and interviews than other artbooks I’ve got, so the english version will still be enlightening even though i cant resist the temptation to read this preview here... So yeah, I’m gonna link this in case anyone else wants to see! And also cos i really wanna talk about the interesting stuff AAAA!

IT HERE

But seriously I would feel ALL OF THE GUILT if I just read this and DIDNT buy the real version when it comes out in my country. So I’d heavily advise that all of y’all buy it too, okay? Its just real hard to wait til september.

Bunni’s Thoughts About Things In This Thing:

* The one everyone already seemed to know was Yusuke’s beta design, I think it was shown in an english interview or something? But yeah, I already knew about this, but I still really think he looks even cooler with long hair! And I like that they ended up using this design for his mother instead. That just feels like a really sweet way to deal with beta designs! Apparantly Ann’s design was based on Rise’s beta design from the last game, so its nice to know that atlus always tries to find ways to keep promising ideas, even if they dont work with the current project. ANYWAY BETA YUSUKE OF CUTE

* Also unrelated but: did you know that Yusuke slapping people during the Harisen Recovery skill was actually a GLITCH and not a feature?? It strikes me as weird that they didn’t catch that in the super long time it took to finish the various dubs. Its a meme in japanese fandom too, so its definately in every version of the game! They only just patched it recently and I AM SAD NOW. It fit really well as an easter egg for this character in particular, lol.

* ALSO I am sorry that i commonly misspell his name as Yosuke. Its weird cos I never get Ryoji and Ryuji mixed up... ANYWAY BACK TO COOL BETA TALK AND NOT JUST YUSUKE LOVE TIME

* Beta Wakaba (futaba’s mom) used to have the hairstyle that was given to Haru instead! O_o She looks really cute with it, I guess they thought it was hard to make the shadow boss scary with such awesome hair. There’s also a beta doodle of what seems to be an alternate introduction scene, where the party would be walking down an alleyway and her giant face would appear behind them as a jumpscare. I THINK I WOULD HAVE FUCKIN DIED! that’s some fuan no tane shit!

* Man I didnt even recognise beta kawakami! O_O I would have thought that was beta takemi, or even yusuke’s mom again...

* Oh man, Sae is already one of the coolest and most beautiful looking characters but seriously beta Sae has EVEN MORE of that badass butch lady handsomeness holy shit. If I can appreciate her aesthetic so much as an asexual person, I can only imagine how other fans would feel about this!

* I have legit no idea who this character is, but she looks badass! Its a shame this imgurl dump of scans is completely out of order, lol! Another reason to buy the official version when its translated: actually knowing the context of things! XD

* Same design for papa okumura’s shadow, but it seems there was originally an idea for a chase minigame with his shadow. Instead of being weak with an army of reinforcements to fight thru, he’d be weak but keep fleeing in his motor chair thing. Considering how much I DESPISED the chase minigames in Nocturne and DDS2, i am really damn glad they didnt do that...

* BETA PERSONAS!! Wow they’re so different?? Its weird how they seem to be like.. different art styles/personalities for the same character idea? Maybe this was from before the personalities of everyone had been pinned down, or maybe the personas originally belonged to different party members? i’m really curious by the goemon in a modern punk style, did he belong to ryuji??? MORE BETA PERSONAS!! Oh holy SHIT, johanna is SUCH a good design! like... what?? BADASS!! typical lady pope face attatched to a buff as fuck body in a jojo-esque costume, with like an encapsulated hat thing with halves of a mask of a cliche male pope. This design has way more to do with the actual story of that mythological figure! Popecycle was cool too tho, I think maybe they should have made someone else be popecycle, and then johanna could be the second persona using this design and taking the place of Anat.

* Beta Ohya has a nice design! Its not even necessarily a cooler costume or anything, I just like how they try and show her personality more through it. She looks more dishevelled and overworked and has some bandages. Dunno why they couldnt have worked that into her final design!

* BETA MORGANA WHAT THE FUCK jesus christ thats almost as creepy as some of the beta Teddie designs I mean, I like using swirly eyes on a lot of my mascot ideas too, but that sort of face just looks a bit unnerving along with the body being like.. all leather and weirdly detailed. Its like ann’s costume but on a damn cat! As its skin! What!

* Some goofy expressions of final design morgana that ended up not being used.

* Beta Iwai looks like a younger AZ from pokemon??

* Beta design for protagonist’s thief costume and persona, which were WILDLY different! I like the all-concealing cloak, it looks like it would have animated really flashily. Tho i totally agree that showing more of protagonist’s actual design works better for the version of him you’ll be seeing 24/7 in battles.

* Not a beta design, but look at this concept art of Makoto beating up everyone. I love makoto so much.

* Aww I kinda prefer the beta costume for [spoily endgame character]. It makes her seem closer to [other two characters of relevance to her]. I mean, not like I dislike her costume, but I really liked [those two characetrs’s costume] so hers seemed a bit boring in comparison. Having it at least have more similar design elements to other [people in that place] would have gone a long way towards making her seem less like just... Alice, as a person isntead of a persona. (It would have been a cool plot if that was her backstory tho, lol!)

* I HAVE NO IDEA WHO ANY OF THESE CHARACTERS ARE BUT I LOVE THEM! Are they rejected Confidants? Or designs for characters mentioned in confidants who never appeared? i wish we got to see the sick lil girl in takemi’s subplot, it would be cute if she looked like that design there.

* Another beta of Milady! She used to have the same design but different weapons would come out in a different way. Knives instead of guns looks a lot scarier, but I dont like the weird garbage disposal mermaid thing, just from the fact people would inevitably make vagina jokes.

* Beta Futaba was very similar but just with different outfits. She looks really cute with a beanie hat and EVEN MORE becomes Literally Me As A Character. Seriouslyyyyyy

* Also we never get to see the mounting animation for futaba’s ultimate persona. I like it a lot better cos robot hands come out and carry her to the cockpit, instead of weird tentacles. Seriously, again, inevitable pile of stupid sex jokes about that. *sigh*

* A nice bigger reference of P5 Loki design, without all the SFX and stuff during that boss battle. I really like the way he sits on his sword sassily, and how it levitates around instead of swinging it normally. I also never noticed he has hoof-like heels! With that and the long ponytails it kinda looks like they were trying to give him an eight limbs sort of look, so maybe the design is meant to invoke Sleipnir?

* HEY. UMM. HOH. LEE. SHIT. I guess this kinda counts as beta cos we never get to see this, even if its part of the final design?? Seriously, I thought the shiny red bit was like the visor of his helmet, not a mouthpiece! LOKI’S HORNS COME OUT OF HIS FUCKING EYEBALLS! What the FUCK, they should have shown some sort of animation to make that clearer, that would be SO scary and fitting for that particular boss fight!

* A few beta outfits for our heroes! Ryuji originally had a clown mask instead of a skull, and Makoto wore a jacket with a biker gang logo, in addition to everything else biker gang. INCREASE BIKER GANG! Eeeeeven more beta outfit designs! Some more cyberpunky thing for ann, and a blue colourscheme protagonist, and a character with a sledgehammer who seems unused. There’s Iwai’s gecko tattoo there, so maybe originally his role was gonna be a school-aged ally instead of an adult shopkeeper? or maybe his son would join the party? The hero also originally wore Arsene’s top hat, and there’s this mysterious pic of two characters that I dunno who they are?? They look like twins, so it makes me wonder if that means there was originally a gender choice for the protag...

* A lot of storyboards for scenes that never happened! There’s a female character we’ve never seen before, so maybe that adds more to the theory of a rejected fem!protag option...

* Beta Ann had a bunch of different ways they tried to make her look like catwoman but not too much catwoman. She also used to use a crossbow as her ranged weapon!