#p4 wasn't afraid to unwrap the dark content package

[obeysword]

yu’s depression manifests itself in a few different ways. i do believe he has clinical depression. during his p5 verse he is on prescribed medication for this but it’s a low dosage. he is suicidal. that is something that never leaves him. but he gets better at coping with it over time.

yu cries himself to sleep pretty regularly when he gets to inaba. after saving yukiko and things winding down, he starts to put together his parents really didn’t want him. unlike with the p5 protag who only gets a cardboard box of things sent with him. yu looks like he actually has everything he owned sent to dojima. it’s only a year. i doubt his parents sold their place in the city. everything yu has, down to his old school uniform, is in that room. that doesn’t make sense to pack and take all his belongings. unless of course, he wasn’t expected to come back. yu also knows english, french, spanish, and some mandarin. he’s well versed in multiple languages due to his parents working with different countries for their jobs. he will scream himself horse under water in the bath as a form of release from all the pent up frustration and emotions he feels.

he has a habit of grabbing hard at his upper-arms to where he can inflict bruising. thankfully, his shirts cover any sign of these things. his skin is incredibly fair and sensitive. he bruises easily and it does show up and doesn’t fade for some time. he will scratch at himself, raking his nails hard enough over his arms to inflict red lines. when he’s deeply frustrated, he’ll tug at his hair or rake his nails across his scalp. less of a depression response, but could fall into one because yu has very few noticeable tells when he’s distressed.

his health starts to take a noticeable decline. he starts eating less, if not eating at all, because he has no appetite. he starts to sleep more and more because he feels so exhausted and fatigued he doesn’t want to be awake. he’s much more sensitive to what people say. yu already has mood swings. but shifts in his personality start to appear a lot stronger. he’s never been emotionally stable, feeling so much less than those around him due to trauma and unable to identify emotions on himself. now they’re overwhelming and that exhausts him.

he tends to appear a lot more tired and wrung out. during winter his hair grew longer because he wasn’t keeping up with it. a very common symptom of people who suffer clinical depression is their inability to wash their hair. yu can do the rest of himself. but reaching up his arms to get at his hair feels impossible because of how little strength he seems to have to do it. his hair lost it’s attractive sheen because of this.

his personality takes on a few different changes. he is much more curt, less caring about what he says to people, and stops trying to put up the polite good boy act that people have familiarized themselves with. people are very aware of how devastating the incident with nanako and dojima was. but some of them just want yu to comfort them in the time he needs to focus on himself, when he can’t even take care of himself. i worry they believe that yu can handle anything because he’s always shown to be able to. that he’ll overcome this hurdle too and be the bright shining leader they know. yu is nothing like this. aside from how he’s beyond broken at this point in time, he has no energy to keep the mask up. his words can be truly awful and cutting and seem like they’re coming out of nowhere when in fact, yu’s always been like this. his tolerance is gone because he can’t be bothered to withhold his opinion.

there’s some things i’ve wondered if it could be ooc of him in the past. for example, when coming up to the door to confront adachi, yu starts poking at yosuke and remarking on the first time they came here with chie. it’s a joke, but it has a poor reflection on the other members of the group.

yu does not poke at yosuke.

yu teases yosuke. but he is never downright cruel and actually trying to humiliate him. that is so much more of a chie thing to do and it’s never a directly outright thing either. she’s just insensitive and she made up an image of who yosuke was and never saw beyond that character she created in her head. yeah, it’s messed up. but i do believe they could have a better relationship and she could be a better friend if yosuke could call her out and she could listen to him without getting riled up into another screaming match. but yu does not hurt yosuke like this. he does not say things like this to yosuke. but under stress, pressure, heavy depression, he took an out like everyone else often does toward yosuke. the animation shows yosuke brushing this off. but yosuke seems like he's forcing the reaction.

yu uses sex for bad coping. oh boy, dec 3rd is an ugly night if this was ever allowed to happen. while i feel like any of the girls would have stopped him. or yu would have stopped himself if it was naoto given how shy she is and how she would easily be the most uncomfortable about anything going anywhere. yukiko would slap him. chie would cry and yell at him. rise would push yu off of her. it’s implied yosuke and yu spent the night together with the animation having yosuke come back to yu at the hospital. yu would have stopped himself with yosuke when the thought crossed his mind, but it would have taken a lot in order to try and sleep and put the idea off.

nanako dying and coming back the next day is my canon and i’m not changing it. because i think it’s bullshit the game just has nanako coming back to life when there is so much that happened that night. it is so much more plot relevant that the characters feel the immense weight and crushing blow of nanako’s death. izanami’s going to bring her back the next day. her coming back right away is like a get of out jail free card and glossing how they almost killed a man up in that hospital room, glossing over how much pain her death caused everyone. we didn’t do it, guess she gets to live. they come back the next day, hear namatame’s story, and realize he is not the killer. all doubt is erased and the reward is nanako being alive. consistently, it makes more sense and i’ve always been really unimpressed with how the game does a rushed job on it when it makes so much sense to drag everything out and give the player the idea: this was much greater than anyone realized. this is the biggest plot-point of the game, the climax, you don’t rush the climax in your story. you let your reader feel how huge this is going to be and the falling effects that trickle down into your next point.

i’m not trying to add angst here and i don’t want to argue this either. i just don’t like how the game did it because it doesn’t feel realistic. also, dojima, could not be there when nanako woke up. he was heavily sedated, had his injuries reopen in the fall when he was struggling with the guards, and him being present eradicates the idea any of that happening. a nurse warned dojima he would suffer long-term compilations if he didn’t stay in his bed. that fall is going to make that a reality. it’s just sensible nanako didn’t come back until dec 4 and the pacing is fixed. no one would have been alone on dec 3. everyone would have gotten closer. chie and yukiko would have been together. the first years would have all been together. yu and yosuke would have been together. the animation has it’s problems but i do love it all at the same time. this is one of the big fixes i’m so glad they did because the hospital scene bothered me for a long time with the rush job they did on it. it makes yu’s pain so much more tangible too.