< Persona 4

Persona 4/Headscratchers


  • On the gang's first visit to Yukiko's Castle, Chie picks up the Distress Ball in a major way, charging directly into Yukiko's Castle ahead of Protagonist and Yosuke. How the hell did she make it to the second floor without taking any damage from the Shadows on the first floor(evidenced by the fact that we see no signs of injury on her during the scene on the second floor), despite the fact that she had no Persona power, no healing items, and only a pair of shoes for a weapon?
    • Galactic Punt.
    • Nope. Her social link hadn't formed yet, let alone progressed to that level. Also, she can't do that move alone. And even if she could, some of the Shadows would have gotten a chance to attack her as well.
      • Some dumb luck. Since the fog is thick that day, Shadows aren't very aggressive. Of cause, Chie can't see very well neither but that mean she's most likely stick to a wall and walk along it. Thank to random generate dungeon, she might get very lucky and find the stair fast. As well as escape few encounter unharmed. It's slim chance, but not impossible.
    • Not dumb luck, not Galactic Punt, nor ANYTHING. Teddie clearly states that Shadows DON'T attack normal people unless the fog in that world clears. Up until then, Chie hadn't awoken her Persona yet, making her "normal". It's because Yosuke and the protagonist had awoken their power that the Shadows reacted to them.
      • The shadows attacked Yosuke and Protagonist before he gained Izanagi, in fact that's what spurred him to use it.
      • Protagonist isn't necessarily normal. He had had Izanami's Touch before and had already heard the voice of Izanagi in his head, not to mention he already had the power to enter the TV, which on itself means something.
      • It still would be theoretically possible for her to be dragged into a battle with the Shadows. Remember that during gameplay, simply touching a shadow is sufficient to trigger a battle. Chie couldn't see where she was going due to the fog, so there should've been a high likelihood of her ramming into a Shadow at some point.
      • That is just a gameplay element. Unless you also believe every field enemy in Chrono Cross was also every monster it turns into when you touch them?
      • Never played Chrono Cross, so I have no idea what you're talking about. Also, later in the game, Adachi explains that the reason the Shadows attack you is because you attempt to oppose them. (His exact words being "They go wild because you defy them.") Chie's attempt to rescue Yukiko from the castle is a similar act of opposition, which should provoke the Shadows to attack her.
        • You took that out of context. The shadows that Adachi was referring to were each characters' personal shadow selves, not random shadows.
        • It's possible that Shadow Yukiko wanted her further in the castle so she would meet up with Shadow Chie and had the patrolling Shadows not attack while she wandered around.
        • How would Shadow Yukiko know that there would even be a Shadow Chie? The knowledge that a person's Shadow has is limited to the knowledge that the host has. Yukiko was seemingly unaware of Chie's hidden resentment towards her, so it follows that Shadow Yukiko wouldn't have known about it either.
      • It's because you need a Persona to fight the shadows. Chie could've gone all the way to Shadow Yukiko's lair, but she wouldn't be able to do a damn thing. Her rescue attempt is moot, so the shadows ignore her.
    • I thought the point was that she was normal, just like Teddie said. Shadows wouldn't attack her, even if she smacked right into one. And either way, she's already got a weapon so she could just attack a Shadow if she really needed to.
      • Shadows will attack anything in the TV World. As for her weapon, she hadn't obtained her Persona yet. It's easier just to think that the plot required her to get that far even if it doesn't make much sense.
      • The above is definitely not true. If they did, all of the victims thrown into the TV would be immediately killed, no rescue attempt possible by the investigation team. Like it was explained by another troper, Teddie explains that Shadows don't attack normal people unless the fog clears in the TV world, which is when they become violent. As for the bit about the Protagonist being attacked, he already had Izanagi; that's what allowed him to enter the TV in the beginning when Yosuke and Chie couldn't on their own. As for why Souji already had Izanagi, the True Ending takes care of that.
  • Sometimes the nonintegration of Social Links bugs me. I just got Dojima up to rank 9, and the next night, I hang out with Nanako. Despite the very night before Dojima made a speech about being a "real family" and giving her cake, Nanako gets frustrated about the whole parent-teacher thing, says he's not her "real dad" and runs off. It doesn't make very much sense.
    • There are a lot of hidden resentments in the Dojima house, it seems...
    • The problem with conflicting social links. I always assumed it was some loss of memory going on.
    • One heartwarming speech does not fully mend a relationship. Likewise, any action that someone doesn't like will strain a relationship.
    • Problem also exists in P3 where things got awkward with a character but still casually talks to you back at the dorm. I would love it if Atlus made the Social Links scene flow seamlessly.
  • What exactly kills the victims if the Investigation Team tarries for too long? We're told that shadows will kill anyone still stuck in TV World when the fog there subsides, but whenever the Inaba Scooby Gang shows up to the rescue, the denied super-shadow would seem to pose a much more imminent threat to the victim - one that doesn't depend on the weather. So how does it work? Fair enough, time probably doesn't work logically within the TV World anyway, considering how the captured can go for what appear to be weeks without food and water trapped in an alien dimension and come out not much worse for the wear.
    • Perhaps as long as they're alone with their shadows people can't quite bring themselves to completely deny a part of them that they know deep down is real to the point of setting the shadow off, and it's only when other people show up and see that part of themselves that they try to keep hidden that they switch to full denial mode and everything goes pear-shaped. So as long as the party doesn't reach them they might argue with the shadow but never pull out the old "You're not me!" and remain safe until the fog clears and the shadows go mad.
    • The victims have no real means of defending themselves against Shadows without their Persona. Unless they managed to accept their own Shadow without it going berserk before the rest of the Shadows swarmed them when the fog cleared, they'd be helpless. As for the time-frame...in Persona 3, time explicitly worked differently in Tartarus, to the point of a person who was trapped inside for a week only experiencing a couple of hours. It's not a stretch to assume the same happens inside the TV World, despite the different natures of it and the Dark Hour.
      • Chie actually mentions the time thing after their first stint into the TV, if only in passing: In the T.V. it felt like less time had passed than what actually had in the real world.
  • How come in the bad ending the apocalypse doesn't happen, unlike when you fail to meet the deadline of the December dungeon? Fair enough, the world might be engulfed anytime after March, but I don't see how cornering Adachi would speed up the process, especially considering how he had apparently been certain for quite some time that the world would meet its maker by the end of the year.
    • Not sure. But I got the impression that the big calamity happened something like that evening, and Inaba was effectively wiped off the map. Very creepy stuff.
    • My theory is that Adachi became the avatar of that big creepy fog god guy and chasing him into the TV world where his power was strongest sped things up
      • I suppose that is the most likely explanation (or the fact that he got found out forced Ameno-Sagiri to pick up his pace just so he wouldn't get done in before he was ready), but it kind of irritates me how Adachi says that the town will be shrouded in fog by the end of the year so matter-of-factly, as if he'd known for a long time beforehand that that was the case, when it clearly isn't if he doesn't get discovered. But well, when the character's possessed by the god of deceit, I guess you should lend the game at least that much Willing Suspension of Disbelief.
  • Not sure where to put this but, did anyone else think that the Inaba News announcer was the culprit at first? Everyone he interviewed ended up kidnapped, and his first two interviews (Saki's and Yukiko's) were kinda creepy.
    • 1)Announcers don't interview people. 2) Yukiko and Saki were the only people interviewed by that specific news station.
      • Whoops, brain fart with choice of words there, sorry. But thanks for that detail - I was kind of wondering why the overbearing tone of the interviews disappeared with Kanji's, but looks like they weren't even the same dude.
  • Ms. Sofue makes a reference to her brother being the samurai-helmet-wearing teacher from Persona 3, but his name is Mr. Ono, and she's Ms. Sofue. Why do they have different last names? She can't be married, since she's Ms. Sofue.
    • She could be divorced though, or he could be a half-sibling. "Ms." is also something of a misnomer, in that it can also stand in for a married woman though it is more common now for unmarried women to use it. What Just Bugs Me was that Mr. Ono wasn't one of the cameos at Gekkokan High. I missed him and his whining about the Sengoku Era.
    • Mostly when married women are "Ms.", it's to signal that they didn't change their name, so that doesn't help.
    • Some married women prefer to be addressed as Ms. instead of Mrs., so Atlus might have tried to avoid offending anybody.
    • Not only that, but remember that this problem would only be introduced in the translation; in the Japanese version she was probably just Sofue-sensei, which would be marriage-neutral. And yeah, technically "Ms." is marriage-neutral and "Miss" is exclusively for the unmarried.
    • Didn't she say 'cousin' and not 'brother'?
    • She says 'brother' when you first see her in a classroom. Although "Ms." is marriage-neutral, so this troper doesn't see a conflict.
    • I like how this also assumes that when someone gets married its the WOMAN who will ALWAYS change their name. That is definitely not the case in all cultures.
      • It is, however, traditionally the case in Japan, just as in the West.
    • Who said anybody assumed that? I think they were just stating that she isn't married(assuming that Ms.Sofue, personally, would decide take the husbands last name) so her name couldn't possibly have changed. Wait, can last names be legally changed in court?
    • In some places. Also Japan has, if this troper remembers right, a custom that if the wife is of considerably higher social status than the husband, the husband changes his name. So for example if Akihiko Sanada married Mitsuru Kirijo(or whoever you ship with her, assuming you don't go with Les Yay) he'd probably change his name to Akihiko Kirijo. Maybe Mr Ono married up?
    • Japanese law also dictates, if this troper remembers correctly, a man and wife have to share a surname.
    • She said "Brother". Now he is Mr. Ono. Ono could have been her maiden name and Sofue is her married name.
  • Its practically a staple of every RPG dealing with death, but it still sticks out. Nanako is dying from injuries sustained in the TV, which modern medicine can't understand. Okay, fine. But you've healed yourself and your friends from the brink of death countless times using your powers - why didn't Rise, Yukiko, Yosuke, Teddie and Protagonist form a ring around her and heal her?
    • Typical example of Gameplay and Story Segregation, I'd say. If you want some thinking around it, I can offer this much. Nanako wasn't said to have died out of injuries sustained from the TV World, after all, the doctors claimed she didn't know what she had. Everything seems to suggest just being in the TV World is harmful for humans (although Teddie's glasses seem to nullify this effect to a point), and it's the same reason Yukiko, Rise, Kanji and Naoto needed some time to recover after you saved them. Nanako, though, is only seven years old, and apparently the contamination was too much for her young body.
      Furthermore, first, one scene seemed to suggest the P4 cast could not use their power outside of the TV World. And even if they could, the "Revive" skills are likely just "Back from KO" worth much, not like they could ACTUALLY bring someone back from definite death.
      • In fact, during the S.Link incident in which Nanako runs out of the house and everyone gathers to look for her, Rise specifically laments that her power to find people doesn't work in the real world, which seems to indicate that they can only use their Personas in the TV world (this may be the scene the above troper was thinking of).
  • In Persona 3, the story suggested that the characters had to be in a life-or-death situation before they could use their Persona abilities, which was why they used prop guns to mime suicide. How are the characters in Persona 4 summoning their Personas, since the glasses are just to help them see through the fog of the TV World. Have the rules changed, even though Persona 4 shares a universe with Persona 3, or did Atlus just remove the mock suicides because they didn't fit the rest of Persona 4's aesthetic?
    • In The Answer in Persona 3, it's revealed that the Personae are really just Shadows. Since the Shadows in Persona 3 were all created by the Kirijo Group and disappeared along with the Abyss of Time, new Personae and Shadows had to come from some other source; and thus they have different properties.
    • The reason guns are needed in Persona 3 is based off of a Carl Jung theory, they didn't have to actually be in a life death situation to summon all the time(though most awakenings happen as a result of almost dying). Plus P1 and P2 never had evokers of any kind(and Takaya, who is ironically the most suicidal character in P3, doesn't need one either). Besides I think fighting shadows is still a life or death situation on its own.
    • This troper figured that P3's Dark Hour was less hospitable to Shadows (since they rarely leave Tartarus) than P4's "TV universe," which is suggested as their place of origin. As Personas are only Shadows under conscious control, they'd need a naturally strong ego and a bit of punch to summon them in the Dark Hour, while they are acquired and summoned much more easily in the inner universe.
    • In addition, the cast of Persona 3 never actually had to face their other selves like the cast of Persona 4 did. Acceptance of their other selves could have given the Persona 4 gang a level of mastery over their personas that the Persona 3 gang never had, hence no evokers.
    • People who got into the series with Persona 3 don't always seem to realize that the evokers show up absolutely nowhere else in the series; the summoning method used in Persona 4 is basically a more flashy version of how the characters in Persona 1 and 2 called forth their inner selves (which was basically just holding a pose).
  • Am I the only one who finds it ironic that a video game has a light "New Media Are Evil" theme, what with the whole thing about humans only wanting to see false images and ignore the truth and what not?
    • That and Protagonist's uncle complaining about the news every time he gets the chance.
    • This troper caught the irony too, but the game itself is aware of its own theme (the simple answer is never the true one) and tries to exploit your trust in it. Several times at the end of the story, it actively tries to get you to just call it done and pat yourself on the back, but a lot of questions remain unanswered if you do so.
    • No, you're not. Then again, isn't the idea of "humans only wanting to see false images and ignore the truth" a Buddhist concept? After all, Buddhism is pretty big in Japan, and Atlus has been known to use concepts from Buddhism and Hinduism in their other Megaten games.
    • It's a Red Herring theme. The game points it out a lot so that you don't notice how Anvilicious the Be Yourself theme is.
    • Also, it's important to remember that New Media aren't entirely evil. Without the Midnight Channel and the news reports to rely on, you wouldn't be able to save anyone.
  • Kanji has a crush on Naoto, right? The game plays it up a bunch. So why is it that it completely disappears without a trace around the time Naoto's S.Link becomes available? I realize that Naoto is a girl and thus a potential love interest for Protagonist, but Kanji's crush completely disappears as if it never existed. How come? You'd think that Kanji would at least say something about the situation if Naoto becomes Protagonist's girlfriend.
    • Apparently they wanted to leave his sexual affinity up to the players, so they kind of hint at Naoto for a while and leave it at that.
    • There's also the possibility that the events before the S-Link opened up, namely The Secret Lab's series of dialog between Kanji, Naoto, and Shadow Naoto, and the scenes during the cultural festival with Kanji literally begging Naoto to go up on stage so he can prove he's attracted to women are Kanji putting to rest that he never really was attracted to Naoto, and has come to terms with his sexual identity, which is more likely that he's gay, or has feeling for Yukiko, depending on how you're reading into things.
    • What version of Persona 4 were you guys playing? Kanji was still obsessed with Naoto through the end of the game. Kanji just has no ability to deal with girls - do YOU think a guy that awkward could make a pass at someone? Plus you only have Naoto in your party for about two months of game time that are completely overshadowed by the finale of the game - the subplot likely petered out because there were more important things going on. The game is pretty clear that he's not gay, all of his sexual hangups stem from him having traditionally feminine interests and being shunned for it. Since girls gave him the hardest time over it, he really can't talk to girls. And he really can't talk to Naoto. It's obvious he's attracted to girls - he got a nosebleed seeing Chie and Yukiko in their swimsuits. He was absolutely gobsmacked at the idea of Naoto in a swimsuit and disappointed when she wasn't. But it's Kanji. He's not good at communicating with girls - something common to plenty of heterosexual teenage boys. And I say this as someone who had really hoped for a gay character in this game, but it's pretty obvious the plotline for Kanji was not a simple coming out story, but of someone having to grapple with society's expectations for gender roles. And society expects that a guy with feminine interests is gay.
      • Also notice that the guys were also in their swimsuits during the nosebleed incident. Besides I'm a Naoto/Kanji shipper, but I thought his ambiguous sexuality was Word of God and they made him socially inept so the player wouldn't be 100% sure of which way he went. I agree with your take on his shadow back story though.
        • The guys were in their swimsuits, but Kanji had no reaction to them. He didn't start blushing or getting nose bleeds until the girls showed up. I haven't got anything on Word of God - did you find something else? I'm just going with what's in the game. Edit: Found it - from three days ago. Kind of a shame, though, that only the Atlus USA guys answered that question and the game's director didn't offer any insight. Then again, I suppose if they'd said anything he hadn't intended, he would elaborated further, so I'll take his silence as a sign that they all had the same answer.
          • Actually, Kanji didn't get a nosebleed when the girls showed up either. He ACTUALLY got it when the boys were put in the water, and were suddenly wet. He is staring at THE BOYS when the girls notice his nosebleed. I think the game intends him to be ambiguous, but leaning towards gay, especially when you consider that his crush on Naoto is purely based on the fact that she looks and acts like a feminine boy, and it goes away when he finds out she's a girl.
            • Seriously, guys, why can't we just leave it at Word of God saying "it's whatever you want it to be" and be done with it?
    • Disappear? Then what the hell is Yosuke teaseing him about on 10/27?
      • That's just it. That's literally the last major hint the game gives. I've found out that there are optional party talks in dungeons if you go back after you've cleared a new dungeon before a deadline. Kanji becomes really uncomfortable if Naoto mentions her romantic relationship with the main character in one of them, but aside from those optional encounters, the game painfully drops that particular development. As everything stands, it feels like the main character went behind Kanji's back and everything was accepted as is. I would've liked some more resolution.
      • I always sort of took it as "Kanji and Naoto worked it out off-camera". He doesn't have any problems with being around her after that, and on the last day, if you go to Junes instead of going home they stand with each other. It's still ambiguous enough to leave the matter uncertain, but it does definitely make them look more comfortable with each other.
              • Kanji's attraction to Naoto was just that, attraction. It was meant to be a one-sided crush that added fuel to the fire of whether he was gay or straight by having him attracted to girl who dresses like a boy. It wasn't really meant to be taken seriously at all.
    • But mostly it's because despite the catchy theme tune, navigating a maze of relationships in a high school group isn't nearly as much fun once everyone starts fighting over who-should-be-with-who. Fun for us, but not nearly as much if the entire teams S. Link breaks because you stole 'his' crush, went behind 'her' back, and were punished in the RPG part for all the average backstabbing and romance tangling that normal teenagers go through.
      • Besides, Kanji was obviously waiting for Protagonist to leave Inaba so he could make his move.
      • I have to agree on the one-sided thing. While it seems clear to me that Kanji was, indeed, still attracted to Naoto at least near the end, I've never seen any sign at all of her reciprocating. However interested he may have been, her total lack of response may have simply caused him to give up eventually.
    • If you don't have Naoto and Kanji in your party, they occasionally appear in whatever dungeon you're exploring and talking to them gives you a brief conversation with Kanji still being Adorkable around Naoto. It doesn't just stop out right but it's never forced on the player in case they chose the relationship route with her. Can't Kanji be allowed a crush and we all accept that it's just that, a high school crush?
  • Based on the fact that Protagonist can return downstairs after opting to watch the Midnight Channel and still see Nanako sitting in front of the TV, Nanako regularly stays up past midnight watching TV. It might be plausible, since Dojima isn't the most attentive parent, but still. He doesn't even care on the days where he's actually there when she does it.
    • Uhh...exactly when does the game allow you to go back downstairs on the same night that you have to watch the midnight channel?
    • For that matter, Protagonist can watch the Midnight Channel, then go tutor an elementary-school student. Is midnight earlier in Inaba than it is in the rest of the world or something?
    • Midnight channel only shows up if you stare into a turned off TV. Nanako is not necessarily staring, she's watching, and the TV is on. Even if it was off, she wouldn't see it unless she was sitting there focusing on the screen.
  • Why does Naoto have a gun? I'm not complaining or anything, but given Japan's strict gun control laws, I'm surprised that a random high schooler would have one, detective or not
    • The same reason your hero can purchase and carry a sword. Then again, Naoto has enough privilege as a detective that she could have bent the rules enough to acquire one. I think her gun is also a reference (like everything else about her) to the Devil Summoner franchise, since the lead characters in all those games carry guns.
      • Naoto is a private detective and not a police detective. The only justification for it is Rule of Cool and referring to the earlier SMT games.
      • To be fair, I think it's stated early on if you talk to Daidara that you want weapons that you're able to "hide under your school uniforms" or something to that effect. Since Daidara is a bit of an "art" fanatic he doesn't seem to care, so you might be able to let that slide under the fence as far as morals go. Now, I can understand being able to hide small knives/wrenches, fans, guns, and maybe claws/gloves along those guidelines. The bigger issue is how Kanji can potentially hide a whole school desk on himself, especially in his summer attire.
        • Actually, he can just hide the shields that he uses later in a big shopping bag. It's Narukami who has a slight problem hiding his sword...
          • Since he can use a golf club, I assumed he kept his weapon in a golf club bag thing.
        • Wait, if Protagonist takes his weapon to the Velvet Room and leaves it there does it stay so he can pick it up later(one of the Velvet doors is next to the weapon shop after all)?
    • Actually, come to think of it, why does a blacksmith working in a small town know how to make a gun from raw materials? Doesn't that require a lot of tiny moving parts?
      • Modern firearms, handguns especially, actually have very few parts, most of which are fairly large and made of metal. The other parts are actually fairly common or easy to make. Look up a video on how to disassemble a handgun and you'll see that there isn't very much to a gun.
  • On the topic of Personas, near the end it's hinted that the Personas/Shadows, like the TV world, are shaped by human thoughts. This explains why the Personas all resemble, in name and appearance, figures from branches of myth and legend. What I'm confused about is if Izanami was really a goddess, just a glorified Shadow running along the same rules as a Persona, or if I wasn't paying attention]
    • Izanami states that she is really a goddess, hence why the fight appeared to be hopeless.
      • So having a massive ego automatically makes you a god? That's nice to know.
        • Being unkillable with the exception of an attack that can only be used by an ascended being helps.
          • Ok, Hopeless Boss Fight and an ego.
          • I beg to differ. The fact that Izanami is even possible to kill via some kind of attack indicates that she's not at the same level as the other Gods in the Persona series - beings like Erebus, Nyarlathotep, and Philemon cannot be destroyed unless the fundemental nature of mankind changes (or if sentient life were to go extinct, I suppose), and Nyx cannot be destroyed period. Izanami seemed more like a "collective" Shadow; the cast-off bits of ego of an entire society. Such a being would be incredibly powerful, but still capable of being destroyed like other Shadows.
          • Do you know how Izanami became the goddess of death in the first place? She had died giving birth to the Shinto fire god. And in many mythologies gods are able to kill other gods. Also attaining the World Arcana most likely the same as achieving Nirvana(beings who ascend through Nirvana are themselves god-like). Hell in SMT 2 you kill YHWH, and the character there doesn't even need to be ascended. Further, Izanami may be a god but unlike Erebus(which isn't even a god just a physical manifestation of an ever present concept) her existence was not dependent on the state of the human mind. Besides how are you so sure that Myriad Truths wouldn't have killed Nyx as well? Even Igor states the World Arcana gives its user the power to defeat "that which cannot be defeated". P3's MC didn't seal Nyx because he couldn't kill her, he sealed Nyx because she wasn't the real problem in the first place. Of course it is questionable how powerful the World Arcana makes any given human; as Protagonist went a step beyond just killing Izanami and completely wiped her from existence.
          • You can't really compare the SMT main series to the Persona series; the latter is much more symbolic and less Fantasy Kitchen Sink in nature. It also tends to hold to a more Cosmic Horror aesthetic in that the big nasties are impossible to truly destroy. Incidentally, a "physical manifestation of an everpresent concept"... Yeah, um, I don't know if you noticed, but that's the only kind of god in the Persona series - mythological gods don't exist other than as forms Personas and Shadows/Demons can take. And no, you cannot destroy Nyx. This was pretty blatantly stated. I don't know where you heard otherwise.
            • Not really... in Revelations: Persona,you kill gods as they are in the main SMT and you kill a being that in effect is a god with reality warping that is just the heroine's concept of self which by that point in the story can't really be destroyed.
            • Nyx being indestructible was stated by a shadow and some human beings, and they weren't exactly right about all hope being lost(otherwise everybody would have died) or even Nyx wanting to destroy the world in the first place. Her indestructibility was never truly set in stone as an immutable fact. And I heard otherwise from Igor, go to 9:27 in the video and continue until 9:53. Also neither Izanami, Nyx, nor Philemon are personae/shadows. And they're not directly influenced by the collective human mind either(okay it's debatable whether or not Phil is), they're the real deal.
            • No, they are ABSOLUTELY manifestations of collective human sentience; only Nyx, as a manifestation of Death and the fear thereof, predates mankind. For crying out loud, that's the whole concept behind Persona! Are you telling me you completely missed the entire overarching Jung-Meets-Lovecraft theme of the series? Additionally, "the power to defeat the undefeatable" is in no way the same as "destroy the indestructible". Sealing Nyx away again would certainly count as "defeating."
                • But that contradicts your first point, that Izanami is a product of the Collective Unconsciousness. If she was Atlus would have atleast made a point of adding an "as long as humanity blah blah blah I will always exist" speech(or atleast implying that this was the case), but nowhere did they imply that Izanami would be back. She knew she was gone forever when she spoke her final words. Not all gods are infallible/absolute in mythology, and since SMT usually clings very strongly to the mythologies they use that's not gonna change; not even for persona. On a different note, Nyx is the fear of death too?
                • I'd like to point out that the only person who asserts the final boss is the Goddess Izanami of myth is the final boss herself. Whose primary domain seems to be deception. Who's to say she isn't a Shadow that became strong and intelligent enough to enter the real world, or something similar? She's powerful and manipulative, but that doesn't mean she's a deity.
                • The presence of unnaturally intelligent animals like Koromaru and the Shrine Fox, as well as Shinji and the Sun arcana guy from 3 wishing you luck before fighting Nyx from beyond the grave, suggests there are some supernatural things out there not directly related to the human psyche and the Jung meets Lovecraft stuff. I mean yeah she could just a be a really powerful shadow that breaks the rules and has powers that are very weird even by their standards even if she isn't one of those unkillable manifestations of a basic idea like Philemon(who was truth if I remember right) Nyarlotep(who was lies, especially to oneself) or Nyx (fear of death), but her being an actual goddess is not out of the question by any means as this world is not just our world with Shadows and Personas, it's our world with shadows, personas, super smart animals, Magitek Robot Girls and ghosts. That's not even including stuff from the first two games, which include mainline Megaten demons like Pixies and Nekomatas as random encounters (which would make sense considering that NPC Tamaki/Tammy Uchida is also the protagonist of Shin Megami Tensei: if...), plus a fairy who runs the healing springs and is explicitely stated to be an exile from her actual world.
                • Two points: first, people keep talking about Protagonist using the World Arcana to defeat Izanami. I think you're talking about the Universe Arcana, and no, he didn't; Myriad Truths is not quite the same thing. So far, P3's MC is the only character to have used the Universe Arcana. Igor states he'd never seen it before, and there's no mention of it at all in P4. Second, Igor states that the power of the Universe means nothing is impossible for the user, which suggests to me that the MC could, indeed, have destroyed Nyx. He didn't because, as is revealed in The Answer, Nyx wasn't the real problem; and, I would postulate, because he had no idea what would happen if he outright destroyed the embodiment of death itself. In short, Nyx could have been destroyed, but it might not have been a good idea, and either Protagonist was not using the same power his predecessor was.
                  • They don't mean the Universe Arcana, which was only in P3, they mean what they say, The World Arcana, which is the actual in-game Arcana of Izanagi-no-Okami if you look at his actual usable persona in a second playthrough. The major difference between the two most prevalently used/referenced Tarot decks is that one has the Universe card while the other instead has the World card, hence the presence of both Arcanas in the series.
                • Don't forget that Igor also referred to Izanami as a godly being. He also said that she was "driven back" which may imply that she's not completely dead.
  • When Teddie joins the party, why he doesn't just fight in human form? It's stated in the prologue section that mascot-Teddie has practically no muscle, and the little training montage shtick he does after getting his Persona hardly seems like it would change that fact overnight. Maybe being a Shadow has something to do with that part? He could just be more comfortable in it, but it seems like a Hand Wave.
    • Teddie is a weak physical fighter, and his stats support that - I always had to watch his health when I used him. He's a pure mage. As for the bear suit, he wears it a lot in the real world too even when he doesn't need to. It would appear to be just one of his quirks. Though I'd have liked to have had his human form in my party too...
      • That and his human form has no way of equipping his weapons(his weapons are attached to his arm like Aigis').
        • You guys seem to be forgetting something Teddie once said, involving the fact that his eyes are lenses (for the glasses that let the party see through the fog). Less work for him to just keep the suit on.
        • Good point, but for all we know his human eyes could be lenses as well. Not sure if the game ever addresses it.
      • Shadows and Personae can only exist naturally in the TV world... so maybe Teddie only takes human form in our world?
    • Teddie states outright during the Inn trip that he doesn't feel comfortable without the suit, which is why he takes it everywhere with him. Obviously, fighting in the form he feels most comfortable in makes him more effective in battle.
    • I wish he did fight as a human, then maybe he wouldn't squeak when he walked and I could stand to take him into dungeons.
    • "I always bring it with me. I feel naked without it."
    • Didn't Yosuke say he end Teddie if he(Teddie)got dirt on his clothes. The ones the girls got Teddie with Yosuke new bike fund. so it maybe so Teddie want to live longer.
  • At the start of the game, Teddie says that only he can open a door back to the real world in the TV World, and that's why they can't use other TVs to enter and rescue who has been kidnapped because of the risk that Teddie wouldn't be able to find the party. But why do they still use the same TV to enter the TV World after Teddie goes to the real world if he can just go in first and check if it's safe and open a door to go back from there? And when Teddie leaves the party temporarily after Nanako's "death", the party goes to the TV to search for Adachi without Teddie to open the door and it doesn't appear in it's regular place, so how come they can go back to the real world after this?
    • Maybe Rise has the same power, that or it's a Plot Hole.
    • My guess is he never closed the way out. When he leaves after Nanako's "death" it feels like he just jumped into a random TV as he doesn't recognize the scenery he's in. It's also likely that Rise has the same ability.
    • As to using the same TV when Teddie's there, I think the simplest answer is that 1. It's the only TV available that's big enough, since you need to be able to fit inside the TV, and Junes is the best place since it always has a big screen they can fit through. And 2. They're used to using that spot at this point. They think of their table at the food court as their secret headquarters, why change things now?
  • How come does Teddie appear shorter in his bear costume than in human form?
    • He's effectively shape-shifting, it's not like he just wears the suit again when you go back to the Midnight Channel(after he puts the suit on the human body probably fades away or something).
  • On April 16th it says you decide to "go to bed early". Except that the scene explicitly takes place after midnight. When the hell does the protagonist normally go to bed? He has had 5 days to adjust his sleep cycle (and that doesn't even work, I just checked, Japan is in a single time zone) and LTIC the normal time for that is shorter.
    • Persona 3's MC also considered after midnight normal.
    • Not only that, but - how many 17 year olds do you know who go to bed before 12? This troper's boarding school is usually up until 1:30ish in the morning. Going to bed at 12 out there is pretty early.
  • The protagonist's voice is kept in the translation, but no one else's is. The accent clash is really odd.
    • The only word Protagonist says in a cutscene is "Persona", when he first gets his freak on. Otherwise, he might grunt or something. In-game, the only time he says anything is in battle, when he yells "Persona!", or calls the name of the Persona he's summoning. I guess Atlus decided they could save a few bucks by not bringing in a voice actor to rerecord Protagonist's lines.
    • What are you talking about? Protagonist is voiced- it's very clearly Johnny Yong Bosch.
    • Seriously, it's obvious that is the same person in the cutscenes that is doing the battles - the Japanese voice sounds *very* different and doesn't pronounce all of the Personas the same way (especially the longer names). Furthermore, Johnny Yong Bosch is also voicing Adachi, so if anything, they saved a few bucks by having him double up since Protagonist probably only took all of ten minutes to record all of his audio.
      • The way Protagonist shouts persona still sounds pretty damn odd though.
      • That's because Bosch has a very distinctive yelling/shouting voice(just listen to Nero from Devil May Cry 4, no matter how different his characters sound they all yell the same way).
      • And it is an awesome voice.
        • I'll drink to that.
      • I agree. But, not to be an elitist or anything - but Bosch's voice is very distinctive, and while him and Daisuke Namikawa (the Japanese VA) both have young sounding, nice voices, when Bosch does his Protagonist voice, it's pretty rough, probably to differentiate from from Adachi, who's smoother and more upbeat. While I haven't heard much of the Japanese audia, Namikawa's voice seems to be lower and smoother as well - and he also isn't very good at Engrish. Much as I love him.
  • Your looking for a person who kills people by throwing them in TV's letting them be destroyed by the personification of their negative traits while you save them with the powers of various deitys and other mythological creatures, and your problem is that no one could have a motive?
    • It's a bit of a plot point that the Inaba Scooby Gang are terrible investigators.
    • Well the fact is that even if they did catch the murderer, they couldn't do anything to him unless they found a motive. Not only that, but wouldn't you be curious as to why a murderer is killing people in such an odd way?
  • I'm having a hard time trying to imaginate how in blazes Mitsuo managed to overpower Morooka, let alone bludgeon him to death. The game never goes in detail on how he committed the murder, aside for Naoto telling us that Kinshiro died via blunt force trauma to the head and Mitsuo's game log that indicates the teacher of the year at least put up a fight before buying the farm.
    • And while we are at it Why did Shadow Mitsuo just disappeared after the battle? Didn't somebody say if a person doesn't accept his shadow, like Mitsuo did, said shadow would go berserk again?
      • I think what happen was that Morooka was talking crap to Mitsuo. Morooka turn his back to Mitsuo as he was leaving, Mitsuo takes out a blunt object and then whack Morooka upside the head with it. Morooka probably didn't know that his life was in danger around this kid. As for his Shadow, all I can think of is that after defeating his shadow it burst into mist like the other random shadows and rematerialized somewhere else, kinda like Namatame's shadow
      • This theory falls apart when you realize that Mitsuo doesn't even go to the same school as our heroes, and would have no reason to be bitched at by Morooka.
        • Mitsuo actually did go to the same school but Morooka caused him to be expelled before the events of the game, hence...the reason why he hates Morooka. The game even mentions that Mitsuo had his eyes on Yukiko since they were kids but she never paid him any mind.
      • The idea that Morooka turned his back to Mitsuo is supported by Naoto's description of Morooka's corpse. She says that he was killed with a blunt force trauma to the occipital cranium. Look up occipital cranium on Wikipedia or Google, and you'll see it refers to the back of the head. So that implies that Mitsuo snuck up on him and hit him from behind.
    • Well, Mitsuo's Shadow was the embodiment of his feelings of neglect and desire for attention, right? He got attention, so his shadow disappeared.
      • Actually lack of attention wasn't his true problem, his true problem was feeling empty. Searching for attention was just his way of filling the void(besides if attention was the case his shadow should of disappeared as soon has he gave his "I'm the murderer" rant, but instead it still mutated). Also you don't have to overpower someone to beat the crap out of them with a blunt object. Besides, King Moron isn't exactly the peak of physical perfection. Finally his shadow disappearing could be a result of the fact that Mitsuo kind of went bat shit insane at some point and/or that he had somehow convinced himself that he didn't feel empty(yeah right) but still lacked the ego to control a Persona.
        • I think that Mitsuo's emptyness led him to believe that his live was meaningless and fueled his desire to draw attention throught the worst way possible to justifice his existence, as acknowledged by his Shadow during the battle ("I.. I need proof that I exist.. that's why... I have to kill you.")
        • Guys, it was his soul dieing
        • I think the reason Mitsuo's shadow disappeared in the end was that, in a way, he's already accepted it. You'll notice that after the fight, he does not openly deny his shadow, and instead just goes on about how he's the killer. It's possible that, even though he doesn't say it, deep down he's accepted that he's a sad, pathetic human being who had to resort to murder just to be noticed. Even so, he obviously wouldn't have the strength of heart to command a Persona, so that's why his shadow just disappeared. Also, if you listen to the way he speaks once they're outside of the TV World, everything he says sounds half-hearted and insincere. This can really be heard in his insults; when he calls Teddie a "freak" and Yukiko "desperate", it sounds almost painful for him to say, because those insults are actually things he believes about himself. Of course, this could always just be me looking too deeply into things.
    • To be fair, the game logs were full of lies anyway. Mitsuo could have snuck up on Morooka and knocked him unconscious before he could fight back.
    • He "defeated" Mayumi and Saki, but he "killed" Morooka, as stated in the game logs. So either way, he had himself delusioned to believe that he killed all of them even if that was incorrect. His Shadow was a symbol of his delusions; he's really just a baby who never got any attention, but fills his void with video games and delusions himself into believing that it makes him a hero.
      • If you think about it...the Shadow Bosses each have a reversed Arcana-Theme, in Mitsuos case the Hermit. The Reverse-Hermit represents (just like you said) a socially isolated person who has failed to master himself or come to terms with his isolation, but it also has complete disregard and no respect for society and is inhumane, which is symbolic since Mitsuos-Shadow uses a synthetic shell (Mitsuo the Hero) covering a warped parody of a young child. It also has a voice that sounds synthetic and atonal.
        • This is pretty much exactly the case. By continually denying it, he was in fact EMBRACING the reversed aspects of the Hermit Arcana, namely willful ignorance and a lack of self-control, in essence BECOMING his shadow. The other characters also start as reversed versions (even the S-Links who never confront their shadows directly), and through the course of things address the issues and become upright representations of what the cards represent. Mitsuo never goes through the phase of moving on, staying at the negative aspects.
  • Protagonist is bounds ahead of any other healer in the game thanks to access to the invigorate line, would it have hurt to give some of the other party members access to invigorate?
    • Is invigorate the one that slowly restores SP? In that case just hand someone the Chakra Ring from Heaven's second visit. Or if you're like me you'd be able to manage SP to the point where 10 consecutive battle don't even cause a visible dent(just tootin' my own horn there, granted it took me until I got Rise's final ability to do that).
      • Because waiting till almost the end of the game>something that can be fused by the 2nd dungeon) and can be fused further along with significant ease (threw Sarasvati) M I rite?. SP management is little hard when you are dealing with the most SP intense action.
      • Try using lower tier attacks(for normal enemies) like still using garu when everybody else is using garula. Even before Rise's SP restore and the Chakra Ring I could manage SP to a point where my profit from slaying shadows was slightly higher than the cost of the Fox's SP leaves. Also go to earlier dungeons for some extra money, when you go back to an early dungeon at a higher lvl the money rewards increase(try testing this out, I haven't done a money grind in Yukiko's castle in a while) you won't even have to waste SP if you weapons are strong enough since you can 1, 2, or 3 hit enemies to death and their damage output is sad(again depends on your level and try to stay on floors 3-5).
      • ^except it was about healing, and that's a little hard to safely do under.
    • You want a Shin Megami Tensei game to be easier? Blasphemy!
  • When Naoto has everyone's health checked because of the fog, everyone acts like they never thought about it, but after Chie's shadow it was established that going around without the glasses caused headaches.
    • The fog causes fatigue(like the dark hour) not headaches. Even with the glasses she just wanted to make sure the Midnight Channel wasn't affecting them in a way they couldn't notice.
      • Ok, forgot the specifics, but the issue was more on the acting as though they never thought it could be harmful when they saw it first hand.
      • Well, actually, I remember from their very first venture into the TV - the fog did cause them to get headaches, and feel ill. But, I agree with the person below - the fact of the matter is that the group doesn't really think about things. And we love them for that.
        • As much as we all love the Inaba Scoobies, they're a bit lacking in common sense. It probably never occurred to them, since they don't feel any effects because of the glasses. Naoto's the only one with a lick of sense, and thus the only one to think of such a thing.
  • I thought that rape would be pretty visible during an autopsy, Adachi would have to kill the coroner (and that would raise further questions and likely have the body reexamined) to reasonably prevent that from getting out, so that explanation doesn't work.
    • I think Yamano was already in the TV before he got the chance.
      • Yep, neither of them was actually raped, the screaming was from them falling a long distance(through the TVs).
  • Why is everyone in Inaba a mental case? Or is Protagonist just a magnet for this kind of thing?
    • Everybody has problems deep down, hell compared to P3 the social link issues are actually kind of average. Maybe Protagonist just looks like the kind of guy you can dump your baggage on.
      • Well, this troper rather or not connected it with the usual rule of dealing with people and their problems - all most people want is someone who will listen to them. And, Protagonist is essentially a mute, so he doesn't really do much besides listen.
  • Everyone wants to go in the TV between dungeons for experience, but never for money you get for it?
    • Teens are just way too pure-hearted in RPGs.
      • Pure hearted? Mega Ten? Regardless, Yosuke is regularly complaining about the cost of Teddie's clothes, so no excuse there.
        • Other than to be a jerk to Chie.
          • Yosuke also regularly states that he's saving up to buy a motorcycle to replace that POS bike of his. That's why he has that part-time job at Junes. Chie spending his money on clothes for someone else, even if it's Teddie, is gonna tick him off. Especially since she says herself that it was expensive.
      • Maybe the money materializes in Protagonist's pockets--like the Persona cards appear out of nowhere. He doesn't tell anyone because, let's face it, assembling envelopes for all your spending money has to suck.
        • I guess Igor knows about every shadow wiped off existence and for each one slain, he gives Protagonist some money for his efforts.
      • They probably figure that any money obtained in the TV World is best invested in the exploration itself, and whatever equipment and consumables they'll need to survive there. Yosuke won't have a motorcycle to spend on if the party can't purchase that Revival Bead that can bring him back to life in a pinch. Since Protagonist is their leader, cornerstone party member, and most level-headed of the group, they probably believe he's the best choice for managing their finances.
    • Strain42 offers an alternative explanation here
  • The mythology refrences are brought up in the true ending, but why does no one bat an eyelash at every other deity (like Thor) that Protagonist can use, only at Izanami?
    • From their dialogue it seems none of the characters even knew who Izanami was.
      • Naoto flat out says that she is from Japanese mythology.
        • Oh right, strange that everyone else is oblivious though. Hell, they had a lesson involving both Izanagi and Izanami during the Gekkokan field trip.
        • I hightly doubt that anyone from the team other than Naoto (and perhaps Protagonist) was actually paying attention to Edogawa's long ass lecture. That might explains it.
        • They were probably used to Personas just being Summon Magic; when Izanami showed up with a mind of her own, talking and manipulating things, it was a bit of a shock.
  • About the real culprit Did Adachi actually do it for the eviluz? There's this subtext that says otherwise. After pushing Saki into the TV, Adachi complaints about today's youth and mentions that, when he was a student, he wasn't allowed to do anything but "studying [his] ass off" and then says he was supposed to the "best of the best" but got send to halfway to the middle of nowhere after a minor screw up instead. Then during the final confrontation at Magatsu Mandala, the insane one rants on how the only ones capable of being successful in life are the ones "born with a magical ticket called 'talent'" and how the rest are a put it simple screwed, that being the reason of why a reality where nothing of this exist appeals him so much. All based on his own experience, of course. And then Yukiko and Naoto stick it to him, calling Adachi an inmature, selfish brat that blames the whole damn world for his lousy spot in life, to which Shadow Adachi replies by snaping and yelling that stupid teenagers like them dont' have any idea of the shit he's been through. So Adachi's motives, as far I'm concerned, boil down on being a whiny, pathetic Resenter that can't get over the fact that life isn't fair and how Hard Work Hardly Works i.e a classic Freudian Excuse.
    • His real reason may fit in more with the quality that caused Izanami to pick him in the fist place, so is Adachi despair or emptiness? We already know that Protagonist was hope. Though in the case of emptiness For the Evulz kind of makes sense. Similarly to Mitsuo, he was only doing it to fill a void.
      • He was emptiness. Namatame was despair.
        • People keep saying this, but the game never actually confirms it outright. Is there some official information source for this that I'm missing?
    • His whining is the same thing you hear out of every real life moonbat, as far as I know none of them go around throwing people into TVs (strange how perfectly he fits the mold of a typical left wing nutjob, must be an attempt to balance Morooka's right wing nutjob).
    • It seemed as if he were being used as a device, more than as a character. Personally hating the For the Evulz Freudian Excuse, you can look at it a bit differently and see the Adachi fight as the second-to-last warning that the game isn't over yet. One of the subtler themes that pops up near the end is that utter nihilism is destructive (Adachi), but so is blind optimism (Namatame, throwing people into the T.V's without investigating the effects). Adachi calls the main cast out, saying that they're stupid because they're young, that what the world wants is to be consumed in the fog, to be deluded sweetly to sleep. In a roundabout way, he's actually calling the player out. If you defeat Adachi, and then leave the town at the end of the next cutscene, you've proven him right. You 'thwarted' Adachi's nihilism with the same blind optimism that condemned Namatame to do more harm than good, and effectively doom the town to be devoured in the next fog. Only by going beyond the blind Nihilism (Adachi's defeat) and the blind optimism that follows (the goodbye scene) can you truly prove him wrong: You were mature enough to look past your own happy ending.
      • One last thing, he's a serial killer. Is it really so bad to think that a crazy person wouldn't have a logical reason for wanton violence?
    • People who do things for the Evlizu are often self loathing, whiney man children who justify their behaviour with simalar excuses.
  • In Adachi's Vomiting Cop entrance Is he faking it or what?
    • A few nights ago, you threw someone into a TV by accident. Now that same person was killed, with no means of tracing it back to you. You now realise that you are both a murderer, AND more importantly, can't be caught for it. He likely vomits from the thrill of it, the breaking of the every day normal he'd been a slave to.
      • Really? He didn't know that the TV world was going to end up KILLING her. He knocked her in there by accident at first. Adachi's a sociopath, definitely, but I doubt he went to Inaba planning to murder people. It could be that the initial shock and panic of finding her body caused him to be sick. He probably didn't even think of the whole game thing until Namatame calls the station to warn them about the TV world - Saki's death was just a spur of the moment thing too.
      • A sociopath? Really? This troper hasn't ever considered Adachi of all people a sociopath. The fact that he could be affected by kindness (from Dojima, whose daughter Adachi almost caused the death of) enough to rethink his ways and to decide to be a good person - it felt like he could actually feel guilt and such. And he obviously feels anger and amusement. Adachi's not a sociopath, he's just twisted. It's sort of the feeling I've had towards Adachi the whole time: he's not a naturally evil person. Self-centered and selfish, yes, but evil, no. He wasn't evil until the power went to his head and he realized what he was capable of and what he could get others to do. I always thought that his reaction was entirely genuine to the body. He never realized that throwing her in would kill her. He saw the body and probably panicked, got scared, and threw up as a result. It's actually rather unnerving to me that he likely threw up more from fear that they would find out it was him who killed her, rather that OH GOD A DEAD BODY.
    • We don't really get a good look at the body, maybe it's just really gross. Also, Adachi's a green rookie, and there's no reason to think he had killed before that. It could easily have been a real reaction, which he got over.
    • I think the answer depends on another question: Did Adachi know that she'd end up dead? From the later cutscene, it looked like he put her in there simply to 'punish' her for rejecting him and didn't know what would happen until the body showed up. If that's true, the puking's probably real.
      • No, he didn't know. By that point, there really wasn't any way he could have known what that world would do. And from how startled he was, he also hadn't known that she could go all the way in. He wasn't punishing her by throwing her in - how he was going to punish her was by raping her. The thing is, he pushed her back against something that had a TV on it, and she happened to fall in. Now, Saki, he put in to punish and let die. Mayumi was just a fluke and the discovery.
    • I think there are many factors at work. Consider that as a Cop, Adachi probably understands very very well how hard it is to get away completely with murder. I mean so well that no one even suspects you. There is no such thing as the perfect murder, or at least that's likely what he thought. He'd just killed someone, without anyway whatsoever to trace it back to him. Also, he admitted that he'd never tried to enter the T.V fully before. In fact, up until he pushed Yamano, he wasn't even sure if it was possible. This means that if he hadn't done that, his curiosity might have eventually gotten the best of him, afterall, when you have that kind of power, how can you not go all the way with it? So it may be a combination of "better her than me", along with excitement for doing what is usually damn near impossible, and the final possibility that the he just has a weak stomach for that kind of thing.
  • Yosuke's shadow resembles Jiraiya (note that thing on the head), but nobody elses resembles their Persona at all.
    • Chie's, Yukiko's, and Rise's resemble their respective personae(but not as much as Yosuke's), more odd is the fact that Yosuke's, Mitsuo's, and Namatame's are the only ones with no traits from the human.
    • Funny thing about Mitsuo: his concept artwork seen here bears more than a passing resemblance to his shadow self (the floating baby) and somehow managed to be less creepy than his final fish-eyed design.
    • Interestingly Yosuke and Chie's shadows have their Persona's faces with a monsterous form as shadows, the party members who had a monster themed to their dungeon have the same general shape of the shadow but have their characters faces. The exception is Teddie who's shadow and Persona don't resemble each other in the slightest.
      • What are you talking about? Teddie's shadow was a larger, monstrous version of himself. His Persona looks a bit like him, and has his color scheme. As for the missile, however...well, your guess is as good as mine.
        • Kintoki-Douji is based on Kintaro, a Japanese folk-legend; his trademark is a tomahawk. The missile is a tomahawk missile.
  • Looking at the designs for the shadows, one can make a reasonable case for each of them as symbolically representing the character's problems. Yukiko's is a caged bird, Teddie's is empty inside, Rise's is faceless, etc. That being said, how does Yosuke's shadow represent anything? It just looks like a random monster.
    • Yosuke's shadow is cartoony and weird, he's immature and bored with Inaba (meaning he might also be a foil to Adachi?). Also most people miss the true symbolism with Yukiko's cage.
    • It also could just be a pun off of Jiraiya, the mythological master of turning into a frog, explaining its warped, froglike appearance.
      • I didn't notice until my second play-through, but Teddie's Shadow's eyes and its general shape (that is, a big roundish thing half-sunken into the ground) was extremely evocative of Ameno-sagiri's giant eyeball form. When you think about it, it's a nice touch.
    • When my family and I played it,I just assumed it was because Yosuke is a toad. (he is not a popular character in our house.)
    • Yosuke was two faced and so was his shadow. Since he wasn't in there long enough to manifest a dungeon of his own the shadow had nothing to theme itself to so it just manifested as a random monster with vague visual hints of his problem. Chie's did the same thing.
      • ...Vague hints? Chie's problem was obvious - you don't get much more blatant than dominatrix banana head.
    • Look up the proverb of the frog in the well. To summarize it here, the story describes a frog who lives in a small well who meets a turtle who describes the huge size of the ocean. After hearing of it, the frog feels dissatisfied with his relatively small home. So Shadow Yosuke's frog shape is supposed to reference Yosuke's contempt for living in a small rural town and prefers life back in the city. He thinks of himself as the frog in the well.
      • Oh man, that makes so much sense. I also did agree with the idea that Yosuke's is cartoony and odd to reflect Yosuke's childishness and initial self-centered, immature feelings, but this really rounds it out. Funny how Yosuke's the most outspoken of the group, to the point of putting his foot in his mouth at least twice a scene, and yet his shadow's kind of the most vague in the game.
  • When the gang goes into the Midnight Channel, exactly how much can the audience see? It's mentioned in passing during Rise's level that people are watching this? So can they see the full events that go on, or just what the resident shadow wants them to see? Because if they can see everything, then the Inaba Scoobies have a terrible secret identity thing going on.
    • Apparently only the shadow is seen. Though I don't think they see the part where the shadow is attacking its human counterpart(when Protagonist saw Saki's murder it was very hazy).
    • I think the Midnight Channel show is produced by the person's mind (or their Shadow, whatever) and doesn't actually SHOW the inside of the TV world, it just proves they're in there.
    • You could also consider the fact that the Midnight Channel is only on during midnight, when you aren't out exploring the TV world.
      • Except that you can hear people laughing or cheering in the dungeons (Kanji's and Rise's respectively). That's a headscratcher all its own. If the protagonists go into the TV during the day, how are people watching the programs on the Midnight Channel while they're in there?
  • The teammate's social links seem to go along the lines of admitting the problem (when they get their Persona) and getting over it (rank 10), but Chie's rank ten is... doing what she has apparently been doing for a while before you met her while the problem her shadow represents is never brought up again.
    • I interpreted that situation like this. When Chie helped Yukiko in the past, it was because she wanted to be the hero, somebody adored and looked up to. It was a bit of an ego trip for her to be "the strong one". By the end of her social link though that's no longer her motivation. Now she's doing it because she honestly wants to help because she cares. In other words, she started doing it for the wrong reasons, but after she's doing it for the right ones.
    • Yeah, just remember that her Shadow say the real reason of why Chie wanted to protect Yukiko so badly was because she was actually jealous of Yuki's gifts and talents in addition of secretly enjoying having total control over her friend.
    • Pretty much all the party-member girls' social links are like that; they spend most of their ranks struggling with their decision to change their lives, but end up sticking with their current status quo because it would affect the plot if they didn't. Am I the only one who was really disappointed in Yukiko's S Link story, where she makes a concerted effort to become self-reliant and find a career for herself because she hates the idea of managing the inn her whole life, but then decides to stay and run the inn anyway? I don't know whether to call it Status Quo Is God or some twisted variant on Stay In The Cage.
      • Regarding Yukiko, I think that wasn't what needed to be taken from it. At first, as the link wound down, I thought of it the way you did and got upset, but by the time it was done, I understood that the question wasn't "Should Yukiko run the Inn?" but "Is Yukiko strong enough to make that choice for herself?". Her real problem was that Yukiko felt she was too weak to make choices for herself. Since everyone expected that she would follow tradition and take over the Inn, she felt she was forced into it. Rather than confront her weakness and decide what she wanted from life (whether the Inn or else), she dreamed of a handsome prince that would magically solve her problems for her (hence her Shadow). Yukiko's Link was more about her realizing she wasn't that weak - that no magic prince would solve her problems, only she could. Taking steps at alternatives gave her the confidence to believe that she could choose another option if she wanted, so she no longer saw her life choices as pre-ordained. When she chooses to pursue taking over the Inn, it's not because of Status Quo Is God, but because she feels strong enough to make a choice for herself. She actually loved the people who worked there like family and felt very strongly about the reputation and history of her Inn - remember how the first time she dealt with the reporters, she was terrified to talk to them? In her Link, after all this personal growth, she's strong enough to stand up for what she really believes in and chases them off herself. That's when she comes to understand that taking over the Inn isn't something she has to do, but something she wants for herself. She also left her options open - she said she'd try running the Inn and see how it went. She hasn't given up learning other job skills if she finds its not what she wanted. Yukiko's Link wasn't so much about changing her job path, but the journey to making a life choice. I can accept that. Regarding the other girls, I'm not sure what you're getting at with Status Quo Is God. By the end of all the other girl's links, Chie comes to understand that she really cares for others and decides to become a police officer to protect them, Rise has regained her confidence in herself and decides become an idol again, and Naoto comes to grips with her issues of her gender and whether it's an obstacle to wanting to pursue a male-dominated profession. It's the same as the men in the party - Kanji learns to accept his feminine side and Yosuke gets over his conflicted feelings about Saki's death and his life path. The S. Links are about personal growth for your party - the more dramatic, life-changing S. Links are from NPCs.
      • The issue I have with that is that none of the other party S-Links involve major life or career changes, only changes in self-perception (from what I remember, anyway, it's been awhile). Yosuke's S.Link doesn't see him plan to move back to the city, only to decide that he loves Inaba in the process and change his mind. Kanji's S.Link doesn't see him struggle with his feminine side only to realize he's a true man and then disdain all the progress he makes. Chie and Naoto basically come to grips with themselves in a comparitively mild, straightforward way, but Rise and Yukiko at least start out wanting to improve their situations by actively deciding to get out of them, which is not easy, especially for young women, and then deciding that no, everything was fine before, and they themselves were the problem for not accepting their situations for what they were. Yukiko never asks herself what made her feel trapped in the first place, just that she DID feel trapped, and now that she doesn't feel that way, she puts aside all the ambition she discovered and then faithfully pursued the career tradition gave her (considering her strong Yamato Nadeshiko themes, I was really disappointed when she didn't break the stereotype and go off to seek her destiny on her own). Rise doesn't regret getting out of the idol business until another idol comes to take her place-- something that she had to have known would happen eventually, just by the nature of the industry, and then she chooses to go back, because she's come to terms with herself as an idol (and because she's jealous of Kanamin's attention, apparently). I know I'm probably in the minority here, but I just don't buy it.
        • But Yukiko does realize why she felt trapped and she realizes it had nothing to do with staying at or leaving the Inn, it had to do with her realization that she thought she couldn't run the Inn like everyone thought she would and that's what made her feel trapped. And once the Link is over, she also knows she can leave the Inn if it doesn't work out, so she can try the Inn thing and see where it takes her - the important thing was that she learned she had control of her life. That's the key to her link. She doesn't regress at all - like I said before, she was afraid of being able to run the place and cowered at the reporters when she first met them. After all that personal growth, she had the strength to stand up to them and deal with them herself instead of letting someone else do it for her. That's not a Yamato Nadeshiko stereotype. Besides that, we already learned early on that people only think she's a Yamato Nadeshiko when she's actually a very different kind of person (only Chie knew Yukiko was a goof-off before the events of the game). It's the same with Rise - she could have grown up making tofu and suppressing her cheerier and more vibrant aspects of her personality, which is why she quit showbiz and forced herself to hide in the shop and act like what she thought she was "supposed" to be. Instead, she realized that she wasn't "lying" to herself and she regained the confidence in herself that she lost and decided to try again - from scratch, no less. Even outside the link, you can tell she really did love being the focus of attention, such as in the beauty contest.
        • I get that, I do, but I don't appreciate the way the game presents it. I know that the intended point of all the Social Links is to reinforce the "Search for the Truth" theme in various ways, I just don't like that the "truth" for Yukiko and Rise means returning to lives that they were unhappy with because their self-exploration reveals that they really were happier that way. They gain the confidence to break away, and then do what's expected of them of their own volition. But it still doesn't examine why they felt that way in the first place; Yukiko is intimidated by the business of running the inn. Entirely reasonable for a teenager, except that she's had a hand in the business for longer than the year we see her in game. Why does this still intimidate her? What about it is so overwhelming for her? Why does she need to take steps toward pursuing a new career to prove that she's entirely capable of doing something that she's basically been doing the whole time? Or Rise, for that matter; the first time we see her, she's exhausted and frustrated, hounded by strangers in her home town after she quit being an idol, presumably for those same reasons. Then we do her S.Link, and she more or less handwaves how much trouble she had with it because she realizes that the manufactured aspects of Risette are as valid as any other parts of herself, and decides to go back. For me, it felt rather shoehorned in and then crowbarred out because the S.Link story had to be there, but it still had to be compatible with the main storyline in case you don't do that particular Social Link. It's not that I don't get it, I just didn't like the way it's presented.
        • I don't see what's wrong with it - Rise and Yukiko do examine why they're unhappy. They realize that what they were doing before wasn't the reason they were unhappy. Yea, Yukiko's been helping around the Inn since she was a kid, but there's a world of differences between working the reception desk and being directly responsible for the livelihoods of your family and friends. Rise may not have liked dealing with the paparazzi, but the problem was that she thought the "Risette" persona was a lie and tried to bury it when "Risette" was just as real as any other part of her. Part of her social link was finding out people like her devoted fan genuinely derived positive inspiration from her, and that was as genuine as working in a tofu shop. And she doesn't "handwave" it - she spends at least half the link reminding herself of the downsides as well. She just comes to the conclusion that the downsides weren't nearly as negative as she once thought. It's not an uncommon story in showbiz to take a long break and spend time outside of the camera lens, so it's not so strange that Rise would essentially go on sabbatical and then return to her career.
        • Concerning Yukiko, the idea that the real issue was her perceived inability to make choices for herself is actually supported by things said during the game. During her Shadow's pre-battle speech, one of it's gripes is "Everything's decided for me, from how I live to where I die." Also, in her Social Link, Yukiko says "I never objected to being the inn's manager per se, I just hated feeling like it wasn't up to me."
        • It's outright stated that Yukiko thought she had to do everything as a manager. Throughout the course of her social link, she realizes that she doesn't have to do it all, and in fact should rely on the others to handle things. This is a common issue with management in real life as well, making this a bit of Truth in Television. Just think of all the times you've had managers. The ones you tend to like best, at least professionally, are the ones who know to tell you what they want done, but leave it up to you in regards to how to do it. The ones that annoy you are the ones who try to tell you how to do your job.
  • On November 5th, after you see Nanako on the midnight channel, Protagonist is distressed because Dojima took away his cellphone, and therefore he can't call anyone to get help. Which makes sense, except for the fact that there's a phone sitting right on the table. Dojima even uses it a couple minutes later.
    • Quick, name your best friend's cell phone number without looking it up on the phone. I can't, personally - so I can see pretty easily that the Protagonist having his cell phone taken away means that he doesn't have their numbers.
      • Now, what about the number of your girlfriend(s)?
        • Troper with a boyfriend: Nope, can't remember.
    • It's in a police station, it could simply not support directly calling people.
    • Or there might be an override code you have to dial before you can call out, and Protagonist doesn't know it.
      • Likely what the above meant...
    • Even worse than that is Dojima dragging him into the station because he couldn't buy Protagonist's story about going into the TV when there's the TV right there in the living room he could have shoved his hand into as proof. And then another one at the station.
      • Since he didn't believe Protagonist in the first place, why would he even think to check?
  • The group seems unsure if Izanami was spreading the midnight channel rumor, or if it was just spread by someone who randomly found it. Fine, except that you can talk to her and she will sometimes suggest you try it.
    • I interpreted that as Izanami helping to spread the rumour, but she may or may not have been the originator of it. It just happened to suit her purposes.
  • What exactly causes the save files to be over twice the size of FESes?
    • I think it's because if you colossally fuck up and cause someone to be killed by their Shadow because you didn't save them in time, the game rewinds a week. In order to do that, I'd imagine that the game would have to save the data for every single day or something along those lines.
  • What's with the people who believe that the whole thing involving Nanako's death was a severe case of bad writing/storytelling? More specifically, the fact she wasn't killedOffForReal to give the Scooby Gang yet another thing to seek revenge for. Gamers everywhere claim that they had "respected" the game more if it had the galls to retire her permanently rather that what it actually pulled off. I know that Tropes Are Not Bad, but stuffing Nanako into the fridge for the plot's sake is all kinds of wrong.
    • The thing I don't like is that if you shove Namatame into the TV, she gets Killed Off for Real, but if you spare him she gets revived, and nobody explains how the one event has any effect on the other.
      • Her Arcana is the Justice Arcana, now if you had pushed him in...her bond with you breaks since what you did was unjust.
      • The way I saw it, what brought Nanako back was Teddie's concern for her. If you kill Namatame, you are in a way giving up on the mystery for revenge, banishing Teddie and dooming Nanako.
        • Except there is second worst ending. Where you believe Nametame is murderer but still stop Yousuke from killing him. This way, Nanako is still revived, but never leave hospital and Teddie is still gone.
  • The whole "the world" = "Japan" thing. Okay, I know it's a Japanese game made for the Japanese audience and it's all based in Japanese mythology, but I couldn't help snickering a bit at the Team looking at an idyllic Japanese virgin landscape in the TV at the end and saying "This is what's inside everyone's heart!", considering that the whole game is about a tiny, isolated town where almost the entire plot happened within walking distance, and the villain's been going on about what all of humanity wants. Is that to say that all of humanity has access to the Midnight Channel and Izanami just chose to operate in Inaba, or is humanity strictly limited to Japan? This is the kind of thing I think about when I have a bag of peanuts and Mountain Dew for dinner.
    • It's pretty obvious that it's the former. Izanami chose Inaba as her base of operation because it'd be easier for her to keep a track of all the events that take place in the game as well as seeing that everything go according to the plan in a small, rural place rather than a bigger city.
      • I suppose it's possible that when they say "everyone" they really do only mean Japan, but that makes the fact that all those Greek deities and stuff are there a little weird.
        • All the Greek deities and such appear as demons in every other Mega Ten game, so if it's going by Mega Ten standards, they're nowhere near as powerful as others in the pantheon. And they're all demons. It also would appear that Izanami really is just using Inaba as an excuse to kill everyone, so while it would really suck to be a guy in, say, San Antonio or Paris when Izanami blows up the planet because of a bunch of people in a rural town in Japan, is there really a requirement that gods play fair? Regarding the landscape, I didn't see much uniquely Japanese in there - it was mountains, a lake, and woods. You really can't tell the difference unless you strain yourself. Besides, the perspective would have been from a bunch of Japanese teens, so they're going to have a different frame of reference anyway, so if there was somehow a uniquely Japanese perspective, there's a plausible reason besides assuming everyone in the world wants to be Japanese at heart.
          • Yes they do.
        • To be fair, this isn't a Japanese specific trait. All forms of media will inevitably hold some sort of bias towards the country of their origin. Like how Hollywood movies will almost always show how America Wins the War or how America Saves the Day.
        • Inaba is the most average town in Japan, probably. Anyways, isn't the Megaten series full of Jerkass Gods? She's probably just being a jerk about everything.
      • OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR, it could just be what's in everyone's hearts, in that exact place (remember that you can only enter certain areas in the TV world thorough certain TVs.) the TV world is an Empathic Environment, and since Inaba is a rural Japanese town it stands to reason that's what the people there think is perfect.
    • Since when are mountains and happy trees strictly Japanese?
  • Why the hell does Teddie's upgraded Persona have a missile sticking out of its ass?
    • I've heard that it's named after a folk hero who carried a tomahawk and it's a tomahawk missle.
    • Only his first persona is based off the folk lore. Maybe it's supposed to look like a tail?
  • When you see people on their Midnight Channel 'TV show', why don't they have the yellow eyes of the Shadow? They're clearly the Shadow you meet in the dungeon, so why do they look like the regular character?
    • It could easily just be an illusion caused by the midnight channel. If people saw yellow eyes a dark haze and heard a demonic voice coming from their TV they might not want to tune in anymore.
  • It takes the group till almost the end of the game to realize TV fog=real life fog. I assumed that from the first mention of "TV fog disappears, real fog appears" and that it just went unmentioned. I geuss everyone besides Teddie, Chie and Yosuke can be excused for not hearing the line, but damn it is hard to believe they took that long to realize it.
    • The TV Fog caused a lot of strange health problems, headaches and nausea, for the group without the glasses. It's not until the end of the game and the Real-Fog becomes "poisonous" does anyone have a reason to draw the two lines.
  • What is Kunino-Sagiri? He's not a persona. He doesn't show up to call out Namatame's inner darkness like the other human derived shadows. The animated cutscene has shadows bum rushing Namatame and fusing into Kunino-Sagiri. Ameno-Sagiri is a manifestation of Izanami. So what in the hell is Kunino-sagiri?
    • I thought he was another one of Izanami's Pawns.
    • Presumably, since Namatame is already a persona user his shadow cannot physically appear outside of his body. Ameno-Sagiri probably intervened by possessing Namatame, just like he did with Adachi.
      • Namatame was NEVER a Persona user. Izanami just gave him the powers to access the TV World. Assuming he was, he shouldn't have a Shadow. Nanako's dungeon and the hospital scene confirm that he has a Shadow, so it's just his nightmare form.
    • I assumed that Kunino-Sagiri was just Namatame's Shadow, but because of the power he recieved from Izanami it was strong enough to take him over completely rather than manifesting outside him (his mental state at the time probably didn't help). Presumably the same thing would have happened with Protagonist's Shadow; we just never got to see it because he was aware and accepting of his true self, so he just jumped straight to Persona. Probably the same for Adachi, although his eyes still went gold... maybe his 'true self' was so twisted that his Persona was more Shadow-like than others?
    • I always assumed it was just Namatame fusing with the shadows, in the same way Igor can help you fuse shadows together to make a more powerful one, just a lot messier. Their powers fusing to him, Namatame's frame warped and took on his self image, complete with.....gear head. It takes 12 shadows fused together to make the ultimate persona - Namatame fuses with at least 14.
  • There seems to be a Rise X Naoto pairing fandom on the internet. While I find nothing wrong with it, I don't recall any Ho Yay between the two in game. Am I forgetting any?
    • There's a random NPC around that mentions she's seen them hanging together or walking back home together, not sure which. She still refers to Naoto as a boy, though (even after The Reveal), and maybe because of that she starts suspecting they are a couple. Though really, there's hardly much in-game material like to assume something between them. With Chie and Yukiko, there's been enough like to take the fact that they are gonna end up together as Fanon! But with Rise and Naoto, it seems mostly just made up.
    • Perhaps it has something to do with the original Japanese voice actresses for both characters being quite good friends. And fans can avoid creepy real-person fanfiction this way.
      • Same reason for any pairing not grounded in chemistry or canon. Its hot.
      • Exact same logic that makes Chie and Yukiko such good candidates for the game's "Yuri Couple". Rise is extremely feminine, Naoto is extremely masculine. That's it. While there isn't nearly as much subtext as between Chie and Yukiko("Chie is a strong prince!". Come on. That's not even subtext anymore), there * could be* . And that's more then enough for the fanfic writers.
    • From how I've seen it explained elsewhere - it's mostly because of how Rise and Naoto compliment each other. It's the whole Red Oni, Blue Oni thing. It has a much bigger following in Japan because of this trope. And also, the Japanese can just pair anyone with anyone, hinting or no. Not that I'm complaining.
  • What does "mugatsu" mean?
    • "untranslated japanese word".
    • I've heard it's supposed to mean something to the effect of "corrupted".
    • Mugatsu refers to the 'new moon' phase when the moon isn't even visible. The game said 'Magatsu' which most likely means 'demonic moon' or 'demonic month'.
    • I read that it's taken from magatsuhi-no-kami, which is just the catch-all Japanese phrase for a god or spirit from the netherworld who exists to bring about sin, pollution, and disaster. If the way they use it in the game is to imply that Adachi's version of Izanagi is one of these, then 'corrupted' would indeed be a pretty accurate translation.
    • In Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne, the "Maga" in "Magatama" can be translated as "twisted." Maybe it's a variant of that.
  • I believe it's during the fifth Fortune Social Link scene that Naoto misses the whole "invisible ink" trick. I mean, come freaking on, even Nanako, an eight years old(ish) girl, got it immediately! It's something we all learn in chemistry class in fourth grade... Is she really an ace detective?
    • I think that's supposed to be the point. Invisible ink is such a childish trick that it never occurred to her anyone would actually try to use it. She's been dealing with real cases for so long that she just can't wrap her mind around the thought that anything she's investigating could be so simplistic. And of course her grandpa knew this; think of it as the evidence equivalent of hiding in plain sight.
  • Is "Silverette" even a word? It just bugs me how weird it sounds when it's used in Fan Fics to refer to Protagonist.
    • No, it isn't. There is a clear etymology, however, stemming from the word "brunette". As a pun, it is quite common to refer to people with blue hair as being "bluenette". Even though the "ette" suffix only makes sense with blue due to pun reasons, it's the only existing suffix for fictional hair colors, so people carry it over to non-pun colors.
  • What's the deal with how Adachi threatens to hurt someone close to Protagonist, even though he has only been letting Namatame do all the dirty work? The threat is only carried out because Nanako appeared on the midnight channel, which was because her quotation was mentioned on the news, and it's highly unlikely Adachi had anything to do with that happening. Was it just a coincidence, and he just decided to go with it and make Protagonist think it was a deliberate act against him? That explanation makes sense, but if it is what happened, why the hell didn't he mention it during the exposition dump where he explains in detail everything ELSE he did?
      • It's a very small town. The local news papers would be dieing for anything, especially a quote with a famous politician.
  • Is it just me, or does Teddy yell "Bear-sona!" when he attacks?
    • Yes.
    • Well, it would certainly not be out of character for him. I just thought, you know... That maybe sometimes he is more serious then that. I mean, besides when he is contemplating suicide.
  • A whole year passes over the protagonist in Inaba. Does not the protagonist have a birthday? Does not any of his friends? I mean, I guess Teddy does not technically have one, and Naoto would probably find some way to not get to hers(that would be such a childish thing to do!), but other then that I kind of wondered about that strange lack. Shu, from the Tower social link, has one.
    • Maybe the protagonist's birthday is in late march? The game only covers a period of 11 months...
    • Well, technically, the protagonist is supposed to be you, so I guess you can say that his birthday is your birthday. As for his friends, they do indeed have birthdays, but they just don't celebrate them for whatever reason. Heck, by the time we meet Naoto, her birthday has already passed.
      • Actually, the only birthdays that happen durring the time period that any characters are in the party are Yosuke's, Chie's, and Yukiko's. Funnily enough, Yukiko's is actually December 8th, which is, I think, the very day they find Adachi in the TV world so it's not really the best time for a birthday bash. As for Chie's(July 30th) and Yosuke's(June 22nd), they happen while they're still investigating everything with most of their attention. Rise's(June 1st) happens before she even comes to Inaba much like Naoto's(April 27th), and Kanji's occurs on January 19th, which isn't even a playable day.
  • Okay, so they go into the TV at Junes once no one is watching. How do they know no one's watching when they come out?
    • Yosuke mentioned early on in the game that there rarely is anyone at the electronics department, both associates and customers alike.
  • I know the real answer to this is Gameplay and Story Segregation, but...how can the Protagonist can run around swinging greatswords at monsters all night long, while reeling in five fish will tucker him out for the rest of the day?
    • Those are some tough fish.
    • This is more Integration than Segregation. It takes Diligence to fish. Therefore it isn't about how strong you are at reeling in those "tough" fish, it's about how patient you are about fishing which can take a long time to get any catches in real life .
  • I wish you could date the guys. That is all. Thank you for your time.
    • Yes. Here's to hoping possible Persona 5 gets a bisexual protagonist and one or two bi/homosexual social links.
      • ...or you know, just search for an earlier installment? Persona 2: Innocent Sin has boys love, even though it can only played in english through a translation patch, the game itself is not that obscure.
  • Why can't you drag Naoto into the Kings Game?
    • She isn't your friend yet. Also keep in mind that Protagonist though she's guy at that point. Why would you need one more guy in Kings Game?
    • Well, yes, but isn't she everyone who's there technically forced into the game, including Naoto? I wouldn't think a drunk Rise was particularly choosy with who she added to the 'game'.
    • Presumably Naoto just got lucky that no one called out her numbers.
    • Actually, the numbers you can call in game result in a scene with Rise, Chie, Yukiko, or Yosuke(who are, respectively, number 1, 2, 3, and 4). This means Naoto had the number 5 stick - The game just didn't give you the option to pick number five because it is impossible to not have a Social Link with those four party members(All of them are started via plot events; Yosuke's and Chie's both start the day after each get their Personae, Yukiko's starts during the rescue of Kanji, and Rise's starts shortly after she joins the team) while it is also impossible to have Social Linked Naoto at all before that point.
  • So the Killer has been caught and he is going to jail for a very long time!...only there's no evidence to convict him aside from a secondhand confession. All the murders were untraceable (Naoto says as much when discussing Misato's attack), and performed with magic. No criminal system would convict unless the Killer confessed again in front of the police, which he has really no reason to do. Hell, he would have a hard time getting them to believe him unless he revealed the TV World, which opens up a whole other can of worms, and even then there'd have to be proof that he did throw someone into the television, and that doing that ended up in a murder. In short: How the hell do they get a conviction? It's the perfect crime, even after he's caught.
    • You get a letter saying he's going to confess.
      • He basically lies and tells them a confession that gets him convicted. Since you beat him fair and square he decided to be a good sport about it.
    • He confesses to the murders but lies and says he actually hung the bodies up so as to remove the unbelievable parts. Plus, he can prove he was the last one to see both victims alive and he can probably prove how he destroyed police evidence (which Naoto mentions he likely did)
  • This is less an IJBM, and more a "Why didn't I think of that sooner": Why didn't Naoto just follow the Inaba Scoobies indiscreetly if she wanted to find out their secret? They're not the sharpest bunch (Sans Protagonist). She might have pulled it off.
    • She was trying to find the criminal, too. And seeing as every person after Saki Konishi was rescued and joined Inaba Scoobies, Naoto figured that she might find the killer and see what the Scoobies are up to at the same time. Two birds with one stone.
  • Why is the guy at the weapon shop selling swords and crossbows to minors in bulk? He doesn't know what they're using them for, not to mention all the talk about gangs going around.
    • One, he thinks of himself as an artist, not a blacksmith. Second, they're his only customers, so he can't really complain.
      • Third, he doesn't sell crossbow. You must mistaken him with someone else...
  • When Chie and Yukiko are getting the ingredients for Mystery Food X for the first time, why doesn't Protagonist say anything? He knows just how awful Yukiko is at cooking.

[Say Nothing]
> What the **** do you think you are going to make with that?!

    [You wanted to say that, but your Knowledge wasn't high enough.]

    • Why the hell do you organize a crossdressing pageant in your high school for "the fun of it", when all the students are clearly homophobic and think the participants are freaky as hell for even considering entering?
      • For the lulz.
    • Alright, I love Teddie and everything, but this needed to be asked eventually. How in the world did he grow a human body inside himself? And how did he do it by doing nothing but sit-ups?
      • Check the WMG page. It may have something with Teddie's origins. mainly him being an amnesiac Lucifer makes the most sense oddly
        • Alternatively, looking for an explanation exclusively within Persona 4, the characters figure that Teddie is just a shadow who developed an ego and thus a persona and a human form, as opposed to a human who manifested a shadow and then controlled it with their ego. Hence why Shadow Teddie isn't a evilized version of Teddie's persona like everyone else's but just a giant evil version of his default form.
    • OK, so you're given a few weeks to save your own party members (or Mitsuo and Nanako) or else you "suddenly feel dizzy," with whatever gruesome implications this has for the main character. But when Mayumi Yamane and Saki Konishi are killed, presumably by their own Shadows, the world doesn't end and the protagonist suffers no penalty, even though he already had the power of Persona and could have conceivably saved them. One could say that a higher power won't let you proceed without those people you'll need as friends and sends you back, or that the game ends at that point because it would have been impossible to win without them anyway, but why are Mitsuo and Nanako any different from the first two victims? And why isn't there a similar "blacking out/end of the world" event in the second half of December if you choose to throw Namatame into the TV for his Shadow to kill? (For that matter, why are the first two killed almost immediately, but the rest take a few weeks?)
      • Though he already has persona during first two, it isn't fully awaken. You can't even make detail out of Izanagi during hopeless fight. Plus, Protagonist doesn't know about persona at that point, so he not really fail to save Mayumi and Saki. Now I'm not sure about Mitsuo, but Nanako's death does cause sudden dizziness, to player :p.
        • I always assumed he felt dizzy as in 'feeling sick after realising he blew up the chance to save someone', not that he was actually feeling anything physical. Like if you accidentally kill a kitten, you may vomit.
    • Why is it an automatic game over if the Protagonist is killed in battle? It made sense in Persona 3 because there it literally would start the end of the world but in Persona 4 it should be possible for the others to revive you with a Revival Bead with no ill effects.
      • I think its been stated above, but remember, the whole game until right near the end is a Test of humanity's spirit, as represented by Adachi on one side, and Protagonist on the other. If protagonist dies and Adachi is still alive- even for a moment- it means that the side of humanity Protagonist represents loses, and Izanami goes ahead with her "spread the Fog throughout the world of humans and turn all into shadows" plan.
    • Why does it take so long for the team to realize that Mitsuo wasn't involved in the earlier murders. His own text during the dungeon crawl and his actions in general directly contradict points about the case that the team knows are true.
      • One, the Inaba Scoobies aren't the best detectives. Two, just like the police, they're desperate to bring an end to the case and aren't thinking straight. Three, they don't "know" anything to be true. They're just making theories that make sense at the time. Four, the very same text that contradicts those points prove that Mitsuo isn't right in the head, meaning you can't rely on any of it for the truth.
    • Why does everyone refer to the gas station attendant as a "he" when she's clearly female?
      • Clearly? We can't even see her face.
        • You can in the true ending. And also hear her distinctly female voice.
      • The same reason everyone refers to Naoto as a "he": she looks and sounds the part.
      • Plus, in the Japanese version of the game, she actually had a male voice up until the reveal.
    • Okay, we're trying to convince Dojima that there's a world in the TV, and you can go into it. There's a TV over there in the corner. You're not in any way restricted to the chair. WALK OVER AND STICK YOUR HAND IN IT. Beyond that, the Midnight Channel comes on later that night! Knock on the door, call over a police officer and have them sit and watch TV for a bit! DO SOMETHING.
      • The last one is unlikely to work. People only see Midnight Channel if they believe, or curious, in it. If someone already has doubt (ie Ryotaro Dojima) he will just see blank screen.
        • I don't recall it ever being said that only people who have some interest in the Midnight Channel are able to see it and regardless there's nothing stopping the protagonist from putting his hand in the television. The best explanation is that it was just a goof on the part of the writers when they were trying to figure out how to get Nanako kidnapped.
          • They said it in during the confrontation with Izanami that they saw Midnight Channel because they want to see it and what they saw were according to their role (Nametame being savior and saw clear image of the victim while the team only has clear image after they were kidnapped because they are rescuer). Thus, it is most likely that someone already has doubt about it (don't want to see anything) will see nothing. Of cause, I have no defend on "stick his hand in TV" part.
          • Yeah, the Protagonist could've at least tried, and if the Muggles saw nothing then we'd know that they would've seen nothing. Unless Dojima really is paralyzingly scary when he wants to be, and it takes all your courage just to choke out to Nanako that it'll be fine talk.
    • When Dojima is grilling Protagonist, why can't he just stick his hand in the TV? Wouldn't that be kind of conclusive?
      • Sorry, that would make too much sense.
      • I saw a fanfic exploring what might have happened if Y did just stick his hand in. Basically, Dojima drags Protagonist to the police station anyways, both to test it out on a different TV and to get more information, and while Protagonist demonstrates again Adachi shoves Protagonist into the TV. Aside from that, in the beginning of the game Protagonist tried sticking his hand into the TV and almost got fully sucked in.
        • Link please, this sounds cool.
    • This is a Gameplay and Story Segragation thing, but you have the ability to leave Nanako in the telly for a good while. With a madman. I just couldn't wrap my head around it, because the idea of leaving my young cousin with a murder and kidnapper while I was out shopping with my friends just didn't gel (I saved her in one go). I guess you can say that for all of the missing, but that one really stuck out.
      • Protagonist can compartmentalize.
      • Don't forget the group didn't realize that Namatame was also in the TV at first, they thought he had escaped somewhere else.
    • So, during Yukiko's castle, there are tones of something between Chie and Yukiko. I know, Romantic Two-Girl Friendship, but still. Chie's other self getting all up about how awesome it is Yukiko thinks herself lower then Chie, and how Yukiko is really attractive, Yukiko going on about how nice it is Chie said red looks good on her (and she now wears red, pretty much constantly) then Chie getting called Yukiko's prince, and then... nothing. They're friends, but it's never brought up again. I also get that they are now romantic options, doesn't make it better. And that's not getting into Chie's shadow having lots of girls in uniforms lift her up...
    • When I think of Chie's shadow I see a Yukiko-like figure being supported by three Chies. Does this mean that Chie thinks that despite her belief on her being the dominatrix in her relationship with Yukiko she REALLY thinks that Yukiko is dominating her?
      • It's the other way around. Chie's Persona has a similar "banana-head" headdress as the Shadow (and her first persona even shares the distinctive coloration.) She's envious of Yukiko, hence her long and shiny black hair, but at the same time she uses Yukiko's insecurities to boost her own self-esteem ("Oh, Yukiko is the school's dream girl, but I know I'm better than her!") Hence the schoolgirls propping the main figure up over their heads.
    • I'm rather interested why the characters in SMT:Persona and Persona2 (IS and EP) can use their Personae anytime they want in their cities, but the chars of Persona3 and Persona4 have to go to a specific location (Thartarus, Abyss of Time, Midnight Channel) and/or at a specific time (dark hour). Is there a special reason for that? And before you say: "Maybe they didn't want to use their Personae outside of Tartarus/Midnight Channel" In Persona4 Rise clearly wanted to use her persona at the field trip (she was drunk though).
      • The worlds of Persona/Persona 2 and Persona 3/Persona 4 are very different. For the first set you're using actual demons, not just the mystical personifications of your teenage issues and in the second set it isn't even clear whether or not a regular Persona (with the exception of the ones going berserk) can actually manifest itself in the regular world.
        • Actually Persona 3 mentions the Persona-Users from the last games.The Kirijo-Group has been split from the Nanjo-group and I guess someone from the old Cast had ideas for a certain MMORPG. Besides, didnt Trish have a own TV-Show?
      • Ever considered that in P1 and P2, their entire city became under the domain of their respective eldritch horror?
      • Persona 3 does show Personas being used (or active) outside of the Dark Hour, when Chidori is attacked by her own Persona. As for why it didn't work for Rise, she may not have actually been trying to summon her Persona, just talking about it. Or she may not have been in the right frame of mind to do so, as you pointed out. They ARE physical/magical manifestations of the user's inner self, after all.
    • Why didn't they make Mitsuo a PC? Is it because that Loners Are Freaks?
      • First, he is murderer, arrested and is in jail. Second, he never accept his shadow and thus doesn't gain persona.
        • I take the murderer-point, but still: Why did his shadow dissapear, if he did not accept it? Shouldn't it be growing stronger and attack the party once more? At least thats what Teddie meant, before Yosuke accepted his Persona. (It would be rather cool if Mitsuo used his Persona to attack the heroes)
        • Keep in mind that shadow is really just part of your mind. When Teddie said that it will become stronger, he wasn't give specify period. But comparing to real life, when your "bad side" get on surface, it will be hidden for a while if you refuse to accept that you have problem. That is, the defeated shadow may gone for now, but should Mitsuo get back in Midnight Channel again, it will emerge again, stronger than before.
        • Now for Yosuke and other, despite being somewhat reculant, they known that they have problem. Turning shadow into persona in real life would be when you realize that you have problem, then working to overcome it (remember that each of party's S-Link is about them try to improve themselves?). Remember how Izanami mention that Adachi's persona got revert into shadow? That's what happen when you just accept your darkside without even try to overcome it.
    • Is Izanami as powerful as Philemon and Nyarlothep? Since she was able to give Protagonist (the MC of P4), Namatame and Adachi the ability of Persona just like them. On the other hand she was easily defated unlike the other two (Philemon even has Elizabeth/Theo in P3 and Margarete in P4, which are way harder then Izanami no Okami...
      • Don't think so. As many has debated (and agreed) in the past, she's practically in rock bottom in terms of sheer power compared to other gods(-like being). Phil and Nyarly represent both half of the consciousness. Nyx (and by extension, Erebus and Nyx Avatar) represents Death. As stated before, you can't fully kill 'consciousness' and 'Death'. Izanami is...just a dead goddess that doesn't represent 'anything' of humanity. Her 'contribution' to the universe is just basically making the TV World, and going to the real myth (which Shin Megami Tensei takes much attention upon), ruler of the Underworld.
    • Why is it that you can never bring up the fact that Mitsuou's fingerprints were found on the clothing of the victims when you're trying to figure out the identity of the killer at the end of the game? Shouldn't this be a major point that a supposedly competent detective like Naoto should jump on immediately? At the very least it's suggesting that a police probably planted evidence.
    • How on Earth is Yukiko considered suspicious for even a second at the start of the game? Are the police really too stupid to realize that there is no way she could have possibly have had the time or physical strength to arrange the victims like that?
      • Interestingly enough, the protagonist himself is also suspected (by Dojima no less), and he IS and ISN'T the perfect suspect. He IS because he knows things only the murderer would possibly know (Dojima suspects this from day one and Protagonist knows this), and the only survivors of the murders wound up hanging out with Protagonist so Dojima's suspicions are not entirely without merit. Unfortunately, Protagonist as a suspect falls apart in an even more simple manner than Yukiko due to one fact: Your presence was known to Dojima every single time a victim disappeared. Shit, he knows exactly what you were doing and where (in your room, asleep), so the even better question is why the hell didn't this man do what most cops do, compare the times the victims disappeared to Protagonist's alibi. Any cursory check would have immediately disqualified the Protagonist from being accused of murder, thought given how you know what the murderer knows, he'd still be justified in being suspicious.
        • Dojima actually fails logic at several different times. At one point roughly at the middle of the game he accuses Protagonist of always being nearby when something bad happens when, as far as Dojima is aware, Protagonist was only around the scene of the first murder and that was purely accidental.
        • It's not always when something bad happens. He did find out that his nephew somehow learned that Rise could be kidnapped next and warned her before he could.
        • Dojima suspected that Protagonist had some sort of involvement in the case, but didn't nessesarally think that he was the killer. He was worried that his nephew could either get hurt, or be in serious legal trouble if he somehow got implicated in the case.
        • In responce to suspecting Yukiko. They died by "unknown cause", most people suspect poisoning.
    • While the girls are preparing for the pageant, they talk about wanting to beat Hanako because of last time (before Hanako insults them). What exactly did Hanako do? I don't remember anything bad involving them and Hanako besides the camping trip, but that seems too small for their reaction.
      • I believe it refers exactly to the camping trip, where Hanako refused to share food with them, and particularly annoyed Chie and Yukiko by not letting them sleep at night due to her snoring.
    • Adachi and I think Naoto refer to how the victims were kidnapped, then murdered...but as far as the police should know, weren't Yamano, Saki, and Morooka (though I don't think he counts for my question), up and murdered? Yukiko, Kanji, and Rise were just reported as having gone missing, anyway, weren't they? So where'd they get the kidnap and murder connection?
      • If you mean how Naoto guessed about the murders, she mentions that she noticed that several people disappeared for a certain period of time after they appeared on television just like Yamano and Saki. As for Adachi that's one of the hints that he knows what's really going on.
    • While the obviously couldn't or else the game wouldn't work, Yosuke's line that they can't rely on the police is really irritating. There is nothing stopping them from going up to Dojima, telling him what's going on and dragging him into a TV with them to prove it. Hell, they would have had their knowledge plus the resources of the police and a good part of the story could have been proving to the police that the team's help was needed. Instead we get multiple failed logic tests.
      • Consider the effect of Midnight Channel, drag innocent people into TV isn't something nice person will ever think. Remember how each person you rescued must stay in hospital for days? Also keep in mind that, although they can deal with them so far, shadows are something dangerous and I doubt any of the investigate team enjoy fighting one. Dragging Ryotaro inside TV mean they are going to fight another powerful shadow and that might not worth it.
        • Not necessarily. On their first visit they were perfectly fine after a night's rest (after running around in blinding fog for a while) and didn't encounter any shadows except for Teddie in the area they met Teddie. Also it would have been cool to see Dojima's Persona.
    • When you're fighting Kuni-no-Sagiri, and if he uses Control on Naoto, there's a chance she'll use her regular attack. And shoot you. TV makes you bulletproof or something?
      • Considering that you get stabbed, shocked, burned, frozen and generally pummeled with attacks that should kill you it's not so surprising that you could survive getting shot. Maybe it's really Fridge Brilliance and you're being affected by how people think guns should work on TV.
      • Persona's make you bulletproof, among other things. That's also why your character's stats/weaknesses/etc are their persona's. Check out Persona Trinity Soul for an idea of how it would look if not for graphical limitations.
    • Naoto is fairly obviously upset with being a woman, and at the beginning of the story is pretty much trans. You "fix" her and one of your options for the Christmas date is a schoolgirl uniform. Dear god, let's hope the anime handles that better.
      • Oooooooooooooooooooooor she's desperately hiding her gender because she doesn't fit in with what girls are supposed to be like in Japanese society, and she's going into a heavily male-dominated field, so she convinced herself she had to hide her true gender. Then Protagonist comes in and helps her deal with how she can pursue her dreams and still be a woman. Which is probably what the developers were going for in the first place. All the trans stuff is fans projecting like you would not believe.
        • Right, and we'd just have to forget her uncomfortability in being seen as a woman, passing as a man for months and continuing to do so off and on even after the reveal, her male Persona (only person in the series with that), being more comfortable speaking in a lower pitch/using male pronouns, and apparently in the backstory being much more comfortable with stereotypically male activities as opposed to female. She's assuredly trans or genderqueer to some extent, but probably not someone who would transition.
          • She's uncomfortable being seen as a woman because she has spent so much energy trying not to be seen that way (due to her work) that she doesn't know how to be one. Her Persona is male? Since when? It looks exactly like her but in baggy clothes, emphasizing that she is (or feels) treated as a child more than anything. As for "stereotypically male" activities, Chie has her beat at those, and no one questions her sexuality.
            • Both of Naoto's Personae are based on male legendary figures. Sukuna-Hikona is a tiny medicine kami (deity), and Yamato-Takeru is a prince who was said to have become a white bird after his death.
            • And over half of Protagonist's Personas, as well as Kuni-no-Sagiri, are female. It doesn't mean that Protagonist thinks of himself as female whenever he wants to get the most out of his afterschool chats with Yukiko.
            • Protagonist is different, and his "default" persona is Izanagi anyways; besides there are some parts of the game where he can come across as Ambiguously Gay or genderqueer (Yosuke, the dating cafe, etc). The fact remains that Naoto is the sole member of any team in Persona 3 or 4 (2 and 1 are arguably a different continuity) that has a Persona of a different gender. She's similar to Kanji in that she can be read either way and the game is ambiguous as to which is the "correct" interpretation. Incidentally people do question Chie's sexuality as well, she comes off slightly as a Butch Lesbian and Chie/Yukiko is a pretty popular ship with a fair amount of evidence in the game. And "She's uncomfortable being seen as a woman because she has spent so much energy trying not to be seen that way" is a pretty clear definition of a Transsexual. Whether or not she is Transsexual is impossible to say; regardless she still touches on a lot of the issues of Transsexuals much like Kanji does with gay men.
              • She's uncomfortable being seen as a woman because she has spent so much energy trying not to be seen that way because of her male-dominated work-environment. It has nothing to do with her gender identity.
              • Also: 'The only one with an opposite gender Persona?' Both of Ken Amada's Personas are female: Nemesis is the goddess of revenge, and Kala-Nemi is based on a Hindu (female) figure, even if their appearances aren't exactly slender and girly in the game.
        • Uncomfortability being seen as a woman is par of her gender identity, regardless of the reason. It also doesn't explain why she dresses up just to go around town or continues to at school after her cover is completely blown. She's certainly more comfortable being seen as a man, and regardless of the reasoning that's pretty clearly transsexual or genderqueer to some extent.
        • The transsexual interpretation still comes off as projecting after these quotes:

    Yukiko: You must know already that what you yearn for isn't to become an adult or to become a boy...
    Naoto: You're absolutely right.

    Naoto: I have to be an adult...I have to be a man...with that way of thinking, I was running away from myself. I finally think I can accept myself. I am a woman. And a detective.

      • I feel like it's mostly Values Dissonance at play here. Japan--as the game demonstrates--doesn't really think of gender and sex as different entities, and sex segregation is much more prevalent in Japanese society, so that's what Japanese players are relating to and getting out of it. It's not the same in the West; the sexes here are not exactly equal but it's nowhere near Japan's level, so it's no wonder people over here are deriving a different gender issue from Naoto's character arc. It is more socially relevant than the original meaning! Lines like "though I will one day change from a child to an adult, I will never change from a woman to a man" make it clear that she believes that you can't be truly male if you don't have a biologically male body; she continues to dress like a boy, bind her chest and talk in a low tone even after her reveal, and she insists no one treat her differently (i.e. as a girl) and reacts badly to other people seeing her body as feminine. All the way up to the end of her social link and beyond. To me this really, really, really doesn't fit the profile of someone who identifies as a woman and is just faking the whole guy thing to get her peers to accept her. She legitimately likes being seen as male in daily life. People who strongly identify as women... don't. But then, why does she try to accept herself as a woman and allow female pronouns to be used? Because she is living in a small backwater village where people carry strong traditional ideas about gender roles and have no concept at all of a gender/sex schism or nonbinary gender. If she's physically female, she is a girl and can't be anything but a girl, because it doesn't make sense otherwise. The creators probably also think the same way, so to them, the general population of Japan, the characters in the story, and Naoto herself, she is absolutely female--there is simply no other option. But to people who know about the concept (predominantly a Western idea), have met people who are transgender or are transgender themselves probably can't see her as anything but that. Their interpretations aren't really incorrect, they are just thinking outside of the given cultural context. You can argue about how much a foreign concept of identity can apply to a person who has never heard of it, but yeah.
        • I agree. This is how I thought of it in the first place. It also makes sense regarding Kanji's ambiguous sexuality, and his crush. He did indeed fall in love with a male. They just were biologically female.
        • You are forcing ideas, which are pretty much specific to Western culture, onto an Eastern game. That is projecting. And after you defeat her Shadow, Naoto does agree that she never wanted to become a man, simply to not be seen as a child/weak/underestimated if she did show any feminine traits.
          • Read the paragraph again please, I was basically agreeing it was "projecting" in a less aggressive and angry tone. That doesn't stop Western audiences from feeling extremely uncomfortable anyway when Naoto is pretty much forced by her friends into a bikini fashion show she is obviously uncomfortable with, or that to get on the romance path with her you have to tell her you're not okay with who she is and that she should dress, act and sound more feminine, or that a lot of things said to her--including the Yukiko quote up there telling Naoto she doesn't actually want to "become a man"--are really hurtful and demeaning things transgender people hear all the time in real life from ignorant people who can't wrap their heads around why a "girl" wants to be recognized as a boy. And honestly, it's not really up for debate that Naoto feels more comfortable and at home when she is being seen and treated as male, because that's extremely obvious, no matter what interpretation you are using. If she falls in love with you, she agrees to be feminine for your eyes only when you are alone together, but otherwise wants to keep binding, wearing men's clothes and speaking in a low voice in public.
    • Why has no one brought this up? Unless you rescue them on the first day available, you could leave people in the Midnight Channel for up to weeks at a time. Shouldn't they starve or dehydrate? Time also flows normally in the Midnight Channel, as demonstrated by the first few times you go in. Yosuke mentions how late it is the first time, and Chie wouldn't be so upset if we came back within a few minutes.
      • Considering that you can get stabbed, shot, electrocuted, fried, blown up, poisoned, frozen and hurt in a variety of ways without dying we can attribute this to two different things. The first is that the TV world operates on very different laws than Earth does. The second is that they needed it that way to make the plot work.
        • There is also the fact we do find food in the TV world. Odd morsels and whatnot. Sure, they are mostly carried by shadows, but the shadows must acquire them somewhere. Then we have Shadow what's-her-name first dungeon, where you can get and bring to the real world actual Sake. The TV world has food and beverages, it just never a plot point.
          • There's a stock of groceries in Shadow Yosuke's "dungeon," modeled after Saki's family store, but that's it. No other dungeons are modeled after locations that could have food in them. And considering that people need glasses to see through the fog and not feel ill from its effects, the chances of a victim randomly stumbling into treasure chests with "food"-like items are very, very low. And speaking of that last point, the trio was starting to feel the effects of the fog just from wandering around in that first area they encountered (Magatsu Inaba.) The same thing would happen to ordinary victims, so the easiest explanation is that time DOES flow differently in the Midnight Channel... not in a Year Inside, Hour Outside kind of way, but probably the reverse, where a victim can spend up to two real-time weeks in their dungeon without collapsing from exhaustion because it's been only a few hours for them (or, at least, an indeterminate but not equal amount of time.) Or would Namatame really spend two weeks alone with Nanako, keeping her hostage without eating or sleeping himself and without realizing the truth of the Midnight Channel?
            Though, come to think of it, if the Midnight Channel is a pathway into humanity's collective subconscious, it's far more likely that --dungeons being created by the victim's repressed thoughts and feelings-- these locations are much closer to a metaphysical Journey to the Center of the Mind than a place where rules of physics and biology still apply 100%.
      • The dungeons are created in response to that specific person's subconscious mind: Your Mind Makes It Real writ large. It might respond to a hunger impulse in the creator's mind by providing food and water. This would even explain why the Shadows carry small food items from time to time: either the creator didn't find those particular items or they were discarded.
    • We're supposed to assume everyone's speaking Japanese, right? Then...Teddie's bear puns really don't make much sense.
      • It's my understanding that Teddie makes similar bear puns in the Japanese version: frex, "Bear-sona" is in place of "Peru-kuma." (Unfortunately, that's the only example I know, so it's possible that that's an isolated example.)
      • In the Japanese version, Teddie tacks "-kuma" on to the end of every sentence. (A bit like Naruto and his "dattebayo.") Since something like this doesn't translate well to English (Just look at what happened with Naruto) they had Teddie constantly speak with unbearable puns.
    • What is it with the need to put up with the behavior of the girls in this game. If you compliment Chie and Yukiko on how they look in swimsuits they blush. After Yosuke does they same decide to push all of the guys into the water (which Morooaka throws up in). When Yosuke signs the girls up for a beauty contest[1] they then force Yosuke and all the other guys to enter a cross dressing pageant, even though only Yosuke was responsible. When you spend a night at the Amagi inn not only do the girls take up your time in the hot spring but Yukiko also puts you in the same room Yamano died in. Then there's the times you have to eat their cooking, which you can't get out of. But the worst of all is that you can't skip through any of this and they never apologize for anything. Is this supposed to be funny?
      • Don't forget Chie kicking Yosuke in the nuts after he apologizes for cracking her CD. He did apologize and promise to replace it, but she seems to have no remorse over what she did. Although I should point out that Kashiwagi made so that anyone who entered couldn't back out. Some of the other points are valid however. The girls tend to get away with alot, which is a bit annoying.
        • Yukiko also slaps Yosuke when he considers asking her for "private lessons", which he (for once) meant innocently. While his tone was a bit suggestive is battery a justified response? Also it seems a bit odd that the girls can't simply demand that they be permitted to withdraw from the contest. Even in a small town that might emphasize community they give up easily.
        • Yosuke examples aside, if the Hot Springs Episode is any indication, I wonder if the girls sometimes realize they are at least somewhat in the wrong, but just keep their mouths shut and hope it never gets brought up again out of embarrasement. Or in the case of Chie, it may be Pride. She may simply be too stubborn to apologize especially if you know who is the recipient.
        • Both this scene and the Hot Spring Execution scene from Persona 3 run on Abuse Is Okay When It Is Female On Male. It's a basic "Harem Anime" trope to have slighted girls (even girls who only think they're being slighted, even when they're actually wrong) to punish any males in the vicinity with physical violence and total impunity. And for some reason, said males just take it and never call them out on it. Persona 4's instance is just one of the most blatant, facepalm-deserving examples of the trope.
          Of course, this is the same sequence where where the guys try to sneak into the girls' room and into their beds, going as far as asking them to "be gentle" and "make [them] a man." So really, both sides were being extraordinarily stupid and sexist and not funny at all.
    • Shouldn't Yukiko know the bath times of her family's own inn?
      • It may have been for the sake of the joke, or more likely Rule of Funny induced forgetfulness.
    • Why did Adachi send the warning letter to the main character's house? It's not clearly explained even in the flashback scenes before Magatsu Inaba/Mandala.
      • Adachi wanted to keep the team from saving any more people and stopping the fun, and hoped that by scaring Protagonist the team would stop. Of course why the risk was taken when it could easily be found by someone else (like it was) is a good question.
        • While Adachi isn't stupid, he's not perfect. Remember how they figured him out in the first place. He probably just didn't think it through.
      • Adachi probably began to realize how close the scoobies really were to figuring him out, and sent the letter as a truly last-ditch effort to dissuade Protagonist from finding out the truth. Of course it just made it easier to finger him out, but it isn't too much of a stretch to believe he'd take the risk, given how the whole thing was made up as he went along, with very little regards to the consequences.
    • Okay, so Chie's Shadow appeared at Yukiko's Castle, so she didn't get a dungeon. But what about Saki? Apparently time isn't a factor in the creation of a dungeon, seeing that all the others who are throw in there receive their dungeon in the same day, and she did appeared on the Midnight Channel. But while all the others programs had the Shadows appearing, Saki's was her death. Also aplies to that first lady. Her's is just a room. And on top of it all, Adachi somehow manages to create his own dungeon and make it only accessable through there. So what, Adachi was so goddamn powerfull he could bend the TV World to his will? You were there for a whole year and it never appeared to make things easier when you wanted. In fact, it always made things worst. I can understand why their Shadows are gone after you defeat them, and I can understand why people who face their Shadows in other people's dungeons don't get any, but this is bugging me.
      • Entirely fanwanked response: They had dungeons, but after the subject of those dungeons died (before the protagonists ever got into the TV World, mind), the mazes disappeared back into nothingness with no one to maintain them, leaving only the shell of the "boss room". Effectively, the dungeons themselves were actively maintained by the Shadows (or Egos) to keep people out, and once they're no longer there, poof, no more randomly generated hallways. Something actively creating the dungeons would also explain why the layout changes every time someone goes in there.
        • It's also more likely that we just don't really see much of those dungeons, or don't realize we do. With the case of Saki, we do see that the entire shopping district of Inaba was created, though we only get to move around inside the store. It's entirely possible there was more to Yamano's world too that we didn't see. And speaking of fanwanked theories, here's one that just popped into my head. If the "true" form of the other world is the rolling hills, mountains, etc. we see at the end.... why is the hub where we first come in a TV Studio? Maybe the entrance in and of itself is part of Yamano's dungeon.
    • Why do the English localizations for Persona 3 and Persona 4 refer to "Personas" in menus and such when we've got the perfectly good plural "Personae?" Makes this troper cringe every time.
      • I think it's more for pronounce issues, and the word is quite uncommon. Saying "Personae" sounds a bit unnatural. Saying "Personas" is easier. And it's not like the protagonists know a lot about Personae anyway. The Scooby Inaba Gang hadn't even made the connection between "Persona" and "Personality" until Naoto explained. Perharps it's supposed to reflect the characthers?
      • I read somewhere (maybe Wikipedia?) that it was because of aesthetic reasons.
    • Minor nitpick: Why do we not learn anything about Chie's parents? We get to learn that Yosuke's father is the manager of Junes, Yukiko's family runs the Amagi Inn, Kanji's mother runs the Textile shop, Rise's grandmother runs the Tofu shop (which also makes me wonder, where are her parents?), Naoto's parents are dead and her grandfather is a private detective, and obviously Teddie has no parents. Which leaves Chie as the odd one out. "Well excuse me for not fitting in!", indeed.
    • Same troper as before. How does the fox survive in the TV world? I can understand why it doesn't have a Shadow, since being a wild animal it has no need to hide the truth from anyone. Yet it doesn't need to wear glasses and it never gets sick.
      • Well it does have all those healing leaves, one can assume if it gets sick it just eats one. And as for the glasses issue aside from occasionally chilling in a room in the dungeon he stays outside with the group, not like he needs to see very far when he can follow everyone else.
        • It's a fox that understands human speech, is capable of reasoning (at least as far as "humans write wishes on ema -> wishes get granted -> huamns donate more money to shrine -> more donations equals upkeep for shrine"), has an unlimited supply of magical healing leaves, and is actively working to maintain the shrine. That's definitely not a normal wild animal, and is probably some kind of low-level supernatural being that's fully capable of taking care of itself.
    • Why did it take the police so long to find out Mitsuo's fingerprints were on Mayumi and Saki's clothes?
      • Because his fingerprints were never on the clothes to begin with. It turns out that Adachi was responsible for that, which makes it even stranger that you can never bring that up in the game. At the least it should be obvious that the police were tampering with evidence but even genius detective Naoto doesn't notice.
      • The developers probably thought there was already enough evidence that Mitsuo didn't kill them, ie as you go through Void Quest you see his ramblings, and he "defeated" Mayumi and Saki but "killed" Morooka. And the fact that King Moron's cause of death was identifiable would have made it clear. It would have been better if you brought it up as you choose who you think was the suspect though, but it didn't happen earlier because we weren't supposed to suspect Adachi yet.
      • I'm already aware of the above points, but why didn't they check sooner than that? And if they did, it isn't suspicious that the fingerprints just suddenly appeared there?
        • That's the point.
        • What's the point? That the police are completely inept?
        • Frankly the majority of the police do seem to be fairly useless, ignoring a strange run of disappearances and occasionally suspecting people (like Yukiko) who obviously lack the physical strength to murder someone. Also it's very strange that you can never point out how odd the fingerprints are in-game. From a Doylist perspective this Troper suspects that the writers simply never realized this or they would have made it something you can point out when you're discussing suspects.
      • Someone please educate me on forensics but do the police even have Mitsuo's prints on file?
        • They probably didn't have his prints until after he was arrested, and it was only after his arrest that the 'prints' were found on the victims' clothes, which means that Adachi either planted them on the clothes or he just faked a test.
        • I thought they only found Kubo's prints on Morooka's body. Doesn't Adachi say at one point that they had no proof Kubo killed Saki or Mayumi aside from his confession? He'd have no reason to lie to the Protagonist about that, since he only needs Namatame to be convinced that the killer is still at large, not anyone else.
        • In responce to suspecting Yukiko. They died by "unknown cause" they suspect poisoning. And what's this about Mitsuo's fingerprints were on Mayumi and Saki's clothes? I have not heard of any lines in the game indicating this.
    • Chie and Yukiko's friendship seems horribly one sided going by their respective social links and the random conversations in the dungeons. Chie's social link features Yukiko, her friendship with her and her want to protect her. In one rank up, you even get more points for saying that you would 'protect Yukiko' than you would if you picked to 'protect Chie'. But Yukiko hardly mentions Chie at all in her social link, even during parts where it would make sense to. Chie also compliments Yukiko a lot, or comments that people/her dog like Yukiko over her, and not once does Yukiko say something nice back, or say that plenty of people like Chie. The only compliments I seem to remember are about Chie getting along with guys, and that Chie gets 'above average' grades in the subjects she doesn't fail. No bashing of Yukiko here, the friendship just seems very one sided at times.
      • Chie could have a higher Expression stat than Yukiko, or it could even be that Chie does truly care more about Yukiko than Yukiko would for Chie. A long enough common history doesn't automatically mean they have-- or even should have-- equal emotional investment, or identical personalities.
        • Chie says whatever she's thinking, something she herself acknowledges at one point in the game. Yukiko, meanwhile, is more reserved and doesn't necessarily talk as much about everything she feels, and when she does discuss her feelings with the protagonist during her S.Link it's very focused on the context of her feelings about either the inn or the protagonist himself. I don't know if that's quite the same thing as Chie having higher Expression (since that seems to be about one's ability to make oneself understood), but in any case it's an explanation for why Chie talks so much more about Yukiko than Yukiko talks about Chie.
    • What do normal people do with Goho-M when they buy it? Does it make you warp out of your workplace or something...?
      • Of course. Just like normal people become invisible with Vanish Balls and revive the dead using Revival Beads and Balms of Life.
      • If I recall correctly, the Shiroku Store lady asks you to "buy lots of snacks" on rainy days, the protagonists explicitly go there for snacks before staking out the tofu shop, and Adachi asks if you're stocking up on snacks when he meets you there. So the items she sells (and that are found in the dungeons) are probably snacks/novelty mystical beads, crystals, balms etc. that have magical effects inside the TV World. (i.e. "Hey Yosuke, doesn't Goho-M sound like go h -" *crunch* *teleport*)
      • That actually makes a lot of sense when you consider the properties of the TV World: It's formed by human thoughts. Let's say that there are these items (beads, balms, crystals, and whatnot) that are attached to people's beliefs in magic. In The TV World, the collective power of people's minds can make things real, so if people believe that these beads can bring back the dead, then in the TV world they really can. As you noted, people would mentally connect "Goho-M" with the English phrase "Go home", giving the item that power inside the TV world. Even the idea that snacks heal you makes a lot of sense too, as snack foods are typically associated with recovery. (Comfort food, for example.)
    • Anyone else wonder why the corpses from the TV world always end up on the telephone poles and lines? Besides, I guess, massive chill factor? As far as I know, no one ever explains this.
      • It's never explained, but it makes some sense: an antenna is where things that go into the TV enter, while the screen is where they exit. When something goes backwards, through the screen and into the TV (and doesn't come back out the same way) it gets expelled out the opposite "end". And just like entering a random TV would make the protagonists appear in a different place of the TV World, getting thrown out of the TV World results in coming out of a random antenna.
    • All you need for your party members to take a mortal blow for you is a bare minimum social link level. Since when does being barely acquainted with someone result in them gaining the will to sacrifice their lives for yours?
      • It was probably intended to encourage you to develop your Social Links and to make the game slightly easier compared to Persona 3.
    • Why was Protagonist arrested along with Yosuke during the whole swords-at-the-food-court incident? Yosuke was the one waving around sharp objects in a public place, Protagonist was just sitting in at a table in front of him. By that logic, they should have arrested half the food court as well. And then Doujima has the nerve to blame you for it! I knew the Inaba Police Department was massively inept, but sheesh...
      • Considering that the two of you were together for this and the police officer first there panicked they do have some reason to take Protagonist too[2]. Of course Dojima does seem to be pretty harsh on you.
        • Truth in Television; if you're hanging around someone when they're committing a crime, you'll get arrested with them, regardless of whether you were guilty or not. And Dojima being mad is pretty justified. You're in the city less than a week and you're already associating yourself with a nut waving his swords in a public place.
        • The fact that two murders had recently taken place probably didn't help either
    • Okay, so it was established early in the game that the party needs Teddie in order to get out of the Midnight Channel. So when Teddie goes missing and the party is looking for Adachi in the Midnight Channel How does the party get out of the Midnight Channel?
      • I'm guessing Rise has the same power to create exits. Considering that her Persona does the same thing as Teddie's senses, but on a much higher level, she can probably do the same. Not that we get to see it, but perhaps during these scenes it would be too jarring to say "btw Rise can do the exit thing as well".
      • My theory is that Teddie created a permanent point from Junes to the TV world so they can go in and out at any time. This would explain why they couldn't go after Adachi through the hospital TV because an exit point hasn't been established by Teddie there.
    • A minor example, from the anime. In the Camping Trip episode, after Chie and Yukiko nearly poison Yu and Yosuke, they simply order some ramen. Aika, sure enough, comes to deliver it. This raises a major question, though. Considering she's on the same trip as they are, exactly how was she able to make said delivery?
      • As noted by Narukami to Nanako, she's just that good at her job.
    • Sort of a meta-Headscratcher, but why is there such a controversy over some people seeing Naoto as being trans or some variety of genderqueer? We've had dozens of little Edit War s over it and tons of other spats. Surely people can see that just like Kanji is a mature, ambiguous take on the issue of homosexuality, that Naoto also can be a mature, if less detailed take, on transexuality. Even if you don't agree with that interpretation it's still valid.
      • There's a fine difference between "the people who made the game have said it's this" and "well, I think it's this so it MUST be the case!" The former is the Kanji case while the latter is Naoto's. The creators of the game have never said that Naoto is a discussion on being trans or genderqueer, so for people to bandy the terms around when Word of God hasn't said that is taking it a bit too far. That may be your interpretation, but there's nothing saying that it is correct. Going off pure canon, Naoto is concerned that being a woman leads her to being seen as weak in her chosen, male-dominated profession, and until Atlus says otherwise there's no reason to claim definitively that it's anything else.
        • Death of the Author certainly is a thing that exists though. Likewise, even analyzing Naoto's feelings needs to draw in Japanese cultural stereotypes and acceptance of transsexuals, as mentioned above. It's not that Naoto said that, it's why she said it.
        • So... your point? What I'm reading here is that people who think Naoto is trans don't care about canon or the intent of the creators, and are trying to force it onto other people to make them see it that way too. Or at least that's the way this complaint is coming off. Maybe it's possible to have a character whose sexuality is ambiguous while not having a character whose gender identity is ambiguous. You don't necessarily have to have both, but the "Naoto-is-trans" crowd is ignoring that and gets all pissy whenever people suggest that, you know, maybe she isn't and they're just trying to force the idea where it wasn't intended? The fact that people insist it's indisputable canon when it's not is the reason people get annoyed. Stop insisting that it's the only interpretation and that canon is wrong, and maybe then we'll take you a little more seriously.
        • If you would read the Headscratcher and not resort to personal attacks, you would see I didn't say that was the sole interpretation! I'm just annoyed that people cannot accept the validity of the idea to some people, including yourself apparently and this very wiki, given the constant removal of the interpretation. Of course the idea that she's not trans is valid too; you don't have to agree with me but you don't have to delete my ideas because you disagree! There's a lot of ambiguity about it, but neither side is completely wrong or completely correct. Also given the language used by Naoto, if she wasn't intended to be at least seen as trans, then Atlus did a very good job of writing it accidentally, which is what was mentioned by Death of the Author; their intent is not important at all when judging the content of the game by its own merits. Moreover, canonically, Naoto still has a lot in common with transpeople, the evidence of which has been discussed time and again here; but the counterevidence seems to solely boil down to "She said she wasn't" when part of the game too is about people not being sure about their feelings and emotions, meaning to me at least there's a slight cognitive disconnect to take Naoto's words at face value.
        • Having played the game just recently, this troper finds this discussion rather silly. The game outright states that she is just annoyed that the police departament treats women down. So she wanted to look like a boy to get respect. In fact, neither her Social Link or any dialogue in the game gives off any chance for a trans-interpretation of her character. It isn't a case of "I am a boy in the inside", but of "Will they accept me as a boy?". With Kanji, there is no solid proof in any dialogue in the game or his SL that he is either hetersexual or homosexual; there is evidence of both (even of bisexuality). At least that is how this troper sees it.
    • In the anime, what was the attack that Leanan Sídhe used on Shadow Mitsuo? It looked sort of like Foolish Whisper, but for one, Leanan Sídhe doesn't actually have that skill in the game, and for two, that attack causes Silence, and the attack that was used in the episode pretty obviously caused Fear. So what did she do exactly?
      • The only status-changing attack she learns through leveling up in the game is Tentarafoo, which confuses targets. Shadow Mitsuo does look pretty panicked after that, so this may be The Animation's way of interpreting that attack as well as Confusion status.
      • I thought she just casted a Bufu or something inside its head. Ice crystals forming in your skull cavity can't feel very pleasant.
    • When Adachi is cornered by the investigation team, Naoto tells him that she intially suspected him because he didn't react with any surprise to finding the names of other victims in Namatame's diary, even though they had only been classified by the police as disappearances and not murders. But in the scene where they realize that Namatame has been behind the kidnappings, Naoto mentions that they were all intended victims right in front of him. Why is it suspicious that he knew there were other victims when she told him that herself? Isn't that flawed logic?
    • Why does Kunino-Sagiri know Kohryu's name?
      • Maybe Namatame just knows his mythology?
    • Why doesn’t the anime cover the True Ending? The very last scene hints at it but the show is over. Is there gonna be a movie or OVA or something? Why didn’t they cover it in the main series when a standard anime length is 26 episode and this was one was only 25? They could have done it in one episode.
    • How come the fact that people are watching the midnight channel other then the persona users not making a bigger spotlight in the plot? I mean come on, it would definantly explain some of the more questionable moments of weirdness censor like the weapons and armor. But the only hints we get is cut scene crowd noise and the occasional npc gossip, you'd think they'd all be approached by reporters from the local town or whatever about the mysterious new t.v. series they supposedly star in but it never happens.
      • The Midnight Channel doesn't show the truth of what's going on, it shows what people want to see. Izanami said it herself, and Namatame appeared on the Midnight Channel when the IT wanted a reason to kill him. The "People see what's inside the TV!" stuff is almost purely gossip and those people probably only saw those "first episodes" the Shadows broadcast when their counterparts got kidnapped, and a few glimpses of violence. Remember how distorted Saki's image was when Seta first saw it? He didn't knew her well enough to actually recognize anything, while all the other programs were clear when he saw it. The same principle applies here.
    • Speaking of the above headscratcher, why are the IT members so concerned about what the Shadows are doing while they're inside it? No one would be able to watch the Midnight Channel then, it's not raining and it's not midnight.
    • How is it Nanako could make a full recovery after being dead for almost a full day? Brain damage should have set in by then.
      • The Power of Love. But really, why are you questioning the logic when she came back to life to begin with?
    • I have a problem with the continuity of how many times the murders incident happens in Inaba history. I'm playing it (again), and twice is it stated that this has never happened before (Teddie: I've lived here a long time and nothing like this has ever happened before)(Old man: I've lived here for 80 years and something this horrible has never happened before). And yet, later on, someone comments on how they remember this happening sometime ago. So, did time make them remember about past murders? The gym teacher states in-game that fog comes around ever 50 years, but I bring my point back to my old man example: 80 years and no incidents.
      • One thing I remember is, on the last day of the game when visiting the Shrine an old man mentions a 'Midnight Radio' when he was young. This probably indicates that Teddie didn't exist then, or the old man besides the Shrine simply forgot about fog 50 years ago. Presumably the Midnight Radio incident, if it did occur (perhaps 50 years ago, too...) as well as previous fog incidents, just weren't significant enough. The old man probably refers to the two murders.
    • Weird question, but, why is the Adachi/Nanako couple so popular? I haven't played the game but I am aware of the plot, but I'm still confused at the amount of fanart this pairing gets. Do they share a weird special relationship in the game or something?
    • When Adachi sends the letter that says, "someone close will be put in and killed", did he actually mean for Nanako specifically to be thrown into the TV, or someone like Yosuke or Chie or some other Social Link? Because I don't think it was ever mentioned that he was the one to get Nanako kind of mentioned in the news, and in general it kind of felt like an empty threat.
      • It was an empty threat. Adachi has no control over the Midnight Channel so the most possible was to threaten the main characters. Of course Adachi could always just attack them.
    1. ↑ which they don't simply refuse to enter
    2. ↑ in what is another case of you getting blamed for Yosuke's stupidity
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