adachimoe

[adachimoe]

ADACHI NUI

GO. ORDER IT. ADACHI NUI IS REAL.

[adachimoe]

I wanted to ask an Adachi superfan and understander this question, why does people call Adachi a mango? I've seen Japanese fan and Chinese fan call him that but why? Is it his head shape?

iirc the mango association started because of the golden anime where he bring mango to dojima in the hospital (ep 7)

i might have misremembered though

[adachimoe]

As Golden was a tv term, a remake being called revival uhh makes sense, as TV shows that come back after long periods of time are also called "x revival". For example, the new GTO is called GTO revival.

(let's be real here, rewind never fucking made sense as a fan guess for a title when the game never used VCRs or vhs tapes to begin with. It's like what someone who is 16 and never actually use a VCR player or CRT tv would assume as a remake title.)

The use of the phrase "The Golden" likely comes from Japanese Prime Time TV. Prime time is 7pm to 11pm, and within that 4 hour block, 7pm to 10pm specifically is Golden or Golden Time, and it's supposedly when the most people watch TV. (I imagine this statistic has changed since Persona 4 came out due to recordings and streaming and whatnot?)

Notably, this time period doesn't include late night (midnight) viewership.

[adachimoe]

holy shit. that teaser looked like "something we started slapping together last week".

[adachimoe]

Expanding on the part of this post near the end where it talks about the scene in Magatsu Inaba where everyone engages in verbal turn-based combat against Adachi and gets to say their piece.

To recap / reiterate, Amenosagiri tells us that the moment when humans show a desire for the truth, it causes the Shadows to go nutso on people, and the party identifies that's why Shadows attack people:

Adachi is the Investigation Team's collective Shadow, and their confrontation with him mirrors this idea. He gets a glowy purple aura, gets yellow eyes, his name changes to "Other Adachi" (in Japanese anyway; it doesn't change in English), then Yukiko/Yosuke/Naoto get to take turns dunking on him, and he goes nutso and attacks the group, finally initiating his boss fight.

I'd like to focus on who gets to talk here, and what they say.

Chie, Rise, and Kanji all say things to Adachi as well, but they say it to him before he gets the glowy aura and derpy eyes. Chie just does not understand this guy or why he became an officer, Rise thinks he's full of shit, and Kanji more-or-less tells him to "go disappear" after hearing that he wants everyone else to disappear.

I think it's appropriate and more meaningful that Yukiko, Yosuke, and Naoto get to tell off Adachi and trigger him going nutso and attacking the group. As arguably, they're the ones who have been most affected by his bullshit: Yukiko's family inn is where Mayumi disappeared from, Naoto is the private detective working on the case, and Yosuke has his crush on Saki. And not only the three of them getting to say this, but also what they get to say to Adachi reflects their own story arcs...

Yukiko's Shadow targets her inaction and the idea of "living without being alive" (I'm not gonna go into that here but I talked about it in regards to Adachi in the post this was reblogged from), and Yukiko throws that concept at Adachi. (Also, I would recommend reading this about the translation of what Yukiko says in Magatsu Inaba.)

Naoto and her Shadow talk about Naoto's own loneliness and being found a nuisance by adults.

And to Adachi, Naoto tells him that humans are not meant to be alone. Furthermore, despite like Adachi being the adult (one who called her a kid and assumed she ran off and threw a tantrum after being removed from the police investigation, even!), he is a total pain in the ass himself.

Lastly, Yosuke brings up Adachi being "favored by the world", or I guess another way to phrase this is "chosen one".

(Idk if this is obvious in English or not cause it seems to be worded a bit differently all 3 times it comes up, but Yosuke is echoing what Adachi says when they confront him on December 7th. Yosuke also asks about it after, so it appears to have been something on his mind.)

When you think back to Yosuke's confrontation with his Shadow, it targets him wanting to play hero. This is further compounded by the meta knowledge that Atlus picked Jiraiya as Yosuke's first Persona specifically because Jiraiya was a Robin Hood-esque / hero of the people figure who believed himself to be a chosen one.

(I'm going to be honest... I've never read Jiraiya Monogatari, but this is what Atlus said about why his Persona is Jiraiya, so even if it's completely wrong lol, it's still what they had in mind.)

So, Yosuke tells Adachi that he's no chosen one, he's just a criminal.

Up until now, we've mostly seen the Investigation Team confront their own Shadows. With Adachi, this scene is notably structured differently. The Investigation Team tell their Shadows "You're not me!", and this phrase acts as a kind of symbol for them wanting the truth. (If you notice, the very last phrase the Shadow says before the inevitable freak out is usually something that ends up being extremely wrong about that character, even if everything else it says is true. For example, Yosuke might have wanted to be a hero, but I think his Shadow saying that he was using Saki's death as an excuse -- like implying he didn't actually care about her -- doesn't seem accurate for what we learn about his character in the rest of the story and his social link. Or for Yukiko, her Shadow disses the inn before Yukiko tells it to fuck off, and we know that Yukiko really does care about the inn, she just doesn't want to feel like it's her only option.)

With Adachi, he has this whole segment beforehand where he yaps about a ton of shit and the pitfalls of society. But the Investigation Team doesn't buy into what he says. What causes him to freak out and attack them isn't being told "You're not me!", it's him being told some truths about himself. They have heard what he has to say, thought it was all stupid, and show their desire for the truth by instead telling him some truths about himself.

Everything that Yukiko, Naoto, and Yosuke tell him has to have some semblance of truth to it for Adachi to freak out after and attack them. (Or uh I think that's how this works?) And when you think about it... Yeah, he seems stuck and he isn't exactly doing much about it, he is throwing a tantrum, he is lonely and running from his humanity (omg he literally ran away from them in a hospital and into a TV), he is a dumb criminal. No objections here.

I don't think I've really talked much about my opinion on Persona 4's like... writing on some kind of meta level or as a critique...?, but I rather liked this scene. And whether it was intentional or not lol, I think Atlus executed the concept of "the killer is the Investigation Team's Shadow" pretty well. Depending on how you see the characters, there are definitely attributes of theirs you can assign to him as well. And narratively, it's also the last "man vs man" conflict in the story before it turns into "man vs god", while also being about Adachi against himself.

Anyway Adachi is really cringe.

A long and meandering post about Adachi and the Investigation Team

I have no idea what to title or describe this as. This is a long ass rambling 2.5k+ word post that consists of like 5 drafts I had sitting around that all felt somewhat related. It starts with the part where the Investigation Team tells Adachi to get over himself, then devolves into talking about Adachi punching himself in the face repeatedly (metaphorically), before ending by exploring the idea of Adachi as the Investigation Team's collective Shadow. it rly is tl;dr.

Adachi will remember that

At one point in Magatsu Inaba, the Investigation Team takes turns responding to Adachi in verbal turn-based combat. They all have varying responses and levels of understanding of him.

Chie doesn't understand why Adachi even became a cop, Rise thinks he's full of shit, Kanji tells him a 2008 version of "go kys" (tbf, he's never been eloquent with words), Yukiko tells Adachi that he sounds like a kid, Naoto calls him out for finding life annoying while being a damn annoyance, and Yosuke tells him he's just a criminal.

What Yukiko says to him in particular appears to sting Adachi, evident by how he "!" emotes in reaction to her. Or idk maybe he's secretly into getting bullied by women. I think Yukiko has Adachi's number here, and he knows that. After all, part of his schtick is that, "Oh, you stupid fuckin' kids, you don't know what I've been through or how I feel! Get off my dungeon lawn!!!" And yet, one of those stupid kids is able to tl;dr his life, and even says, "no u -- you're the stupid kid" back at him. He later even repeats what she said back at Sho during Ultimax.

What Yukiko says here, I think, stands out in particular not just because of Adachi's reaction but also because it resembles a sentiment found in other media: The contradiction of being alive while not "truly" being alive. This often goes like so: A character can be alive in that they are most certainly physically living and breathing, but they are largely closed off from the rest of the world and going through the motions. Thus they are said to not truly "be alive".

In the context of Persona 4, I believe Adachi fits in with this trope. As Yukiko has assessed, life sucks, but it's not like he's in any hurry to die. From what we see of Adachi in the plot, he's going through the motions. He wakes up, goes to his job, goes to Junes to bum free air conditioning, and sometimes gets dragged over to Dojima's house.

I don't think it's bad that people fall into these routines by default. Some find them comforting, some appreciate the simplicity, and some make up for the monotony of adult life with the more fascinating things they do outside of work.

But this doesn't feel like it applies to Adachi because he openly groans about his life and job. He seems to want to live and fit in with society, but he wants to do so with more than what he has right now, yet he also seems unwilling or unable to get what he wants. He also seems unwilling to put in the effort - he tells us he's lonely and wants a girlfriend, but when the old woman from his Social Link tries to hook him up with a girl, he finds it all annoying. He thinks of himself as an elite detective who is above Inaba, but he is regularly made out to be incompetent, sloppy, and careless.

It's like he's stuck but not doing anything to become unstuck. Following the tropes, Adachi would move from being a character who is "alive without really being alive" to "Truly Living" once he figures out how to get himself un-stuck. If he truly wants to be a hotshot detective in the big city with a smokin' hot wife, then something needs to change because he won't get those things as he is now.

But how does Adachi approach the subject of "change"? (Spoiler: Not well.)

Maybe the world really is just a shitshow?

Adachi being exposed as the murderer is a major turning point for the murder investigation. And after the Investigation Team chases him into the TV, one of the many things he talks about is "change", or rather a lack of change.

As far as Adachi is concerned, the world can't / won't / doesn't change. He criticizes the world and its inability to change, how society works, and how people will latch to whatever you tell them as the truth.

Some things he says might resonate with us, especially nowadays with the spread of social media and misinformation. However, despite these criticisms, it sounds like he still desires to be part of society. (Yes, I know, this sounds like that one "We should improve society somewhat" comic, but Adachi did not want to "improve society" lbr LOL.) He has been trying to blend in as a normal guy since April despite being a murderer. I think it's worth reiterating that his complaints about his life weren't anarchist but more like, "I don't have a cute girlfriend who cooks for me." Furthermore, he was trying to take advantage of misinformation to get away with murder by pinning it on Namatame.

Adachi doesn't like the current world and doesn't think it will change. Thus, he is forcing it to change in a completely catastrophic way. He really is throwing a tantrum: Like, what, you can't get away with murder? All right, throw the whole world away. With this approach, it is not Adachi who must change to fit in with the world, but rather the world that must change to fit Adachi.

Change isn't a good subject with him, which, honestly, is relatable. Change is easier said than done. Even within Persona 4 itself, after getting Magical TV Powers, an event that feasibly might add spice to one's life!!, the same old routine still runs Adachi's life. What has changed is that he's now waiting for Namatame to kill someone. Showing up looking for a dead body in the shopping district is simply a new part of his routine.

This topic of Adachi and change gets wrapped up after the fight against Amenosagiri. Adachi challenges the Investigation Team: >>>If<<< they think they have the power to change the future, then do it.

After entering the TV World, Amenosagiri responds to Adachi's wish and makes his wish come true as the dungeon deadline bad ending shows. That was Adachi's own so-called power to change the future. So what is the Investigation Team's?

Yosuke then replies that everyone has the power to change their future. As in, you don't need special powers from a gigantic disco eyeball inside of a TV to do that. In context, Yosuke is telling Adachi, "This is a 'you' problem," or "Skill issue." And tbh, I think Yosuke is more or less correct here.

In which we revisit the topic of "dumbass" and effort

In some ways, this topic might seem odd to approach. Everyone on the Investigation Team - besides Chie - seems to have a better life situation than Adachi had when he was their age. Are they punching down? Perhaps it feels like a hollow reflection of the collectivist culture that the solution to these antagonists who go "BUT SOCIETY IS WHAT IS WRONG" is always to beat them up and force them to conform--

…..but hold on. That line of thought would be giving in to what Adachi says before his boss battle. And, based on how he quits talking about how "waaah society is unfair" afterward, I find it difficult to think that is what he genuinely believes about his situation.

When I suggest that Yosuke is correct, I don't mean this in a "You aren't special, Adachi, everyone else's life sucks too, just deal with it" kind of way. What I have in mind is how the game seems to support that this is an Adachi problem, not an everyone else problem. Throughout Adachi's Social Link, his other interactions, and what Atlus has said as meta / Word of God answers, you get the idea that people were trying with Adachi, but he wasn't meeting them halfway.

For example:

This entire post is about the effort the MC puts in just to get called a dumbass (though I'd bet that the protag considers Adachi calling him a dumbass to be like a Badge of Honor). Even their gay ass Fever Time in P4D tells the story of Yu trying to reach out and Adachi going, "No!!!"

The old woman in his Social Link is trying to wingwoman for him and hook him up with women in Inaba, but Adachi seems unwilling. Instead, he tells Nanako and the protagonist that he's never getting married. Despite his loneliness, he justifies himself by saying, "Marriage is the graveyard of a man's life."

The Dojima family and Adachi interact briefly throughout the game, both in the story scenes and in his Social Link. As his letter at the end of the game shows, Adachi felt lukewarm about their interactions because he wasn't quite aware of what he had with them until he no longer has their company.

The way I see it, when Adachi rants about the world not changing, he is not actually bitching about the world. Rather, this feels more like a form of projection. He says the world doesn't change, but perhaps he is talking about himself and his own inability to change. Which would reframe it as more like… He knows he's the issue that holds himself back - his own worst enemy, perhaps - but he says the world is wrong to justify himself.

You learn a bit about Adachi through his Social Link. During rank 6, in dialogue that can tragically be missed, Adachi will admit that he is lonely, but he also thinks it's easier that way. And really, easier is just another way of saying "less effort".

On one hand, this might show Adachi's annoyance with other people. But at the same time, for him to call the protagonist a dumbass for investing so much in him and their relationship, for him to pass up the matchmaking from the older woman at Junes while complaining about being single....... I think the unspoken bit here is that Adachi does not think he is worth the time or effort to begin with. His lack of effort isn't just him being annoyed with people or not giving a shit about things, it's a lack of effort into himself. I'm no expert, but I think the majority of us would wager that this is depression.

As the game's timeline unfolds, we really only know Adachi as the pathetic, silly murder guy. Did he start distancing himself from people and quit caring about the effort he puts into himself because of the "oops, I murdered someone" part? Or was he like this even before then?

When he talks more about his past, he doesn't go into a great amount of detail. But, going with my gut here, I get the feeling that Adachi's obsession with Mayumi - something from before he became a murderer - suggests his distance from people is not a new thing for him.

Consider: Meeting people? Forming relationships? Possibly getting rejected? Having to make someone else happy? Wh-What if he has to ch-change something about himself? Like, even before we talk about romance, how the hell do you even make friends as an adult? (The answer is BL btw. Go find some girlies who ship the same pairing.) I think Adachi said fuck it to all that bullshit. It'd be easier - less effort - for him to just be alone and not have to change anything about himself.

But… What if the magical TV just tells you exactly who your soulmate is? Well, shit, that's easy. For the lonely guy who just got transferred to Inaba and generally keeps his distance from people, I imagine it would be quite convenient to just be told, "This is who your soulmate is; the person you're meant to be with".

And that wouldn't be the last time Adachi gets a freebie from the TV. It happens again in December, as Adachi finds an again "easy" solution that does not involve changing himself or doing something annoying that requires effort from him. Having been enabled by the magical TV, Adachi is something of a static character.

Adachi is the Investigation Team's Shadow

In the P4G Premium Fan/Fun/Fsomething book, Atlus defines the Shadow by the Jungian definition, then talks about how the Shadows in-game represent "alternate possibilities" for the characters. The specific example it gives is how Chie's Shadow holds a great deal of animosity towards Yukiko. The real Chie doesn't feel this way towards Yukiko; in fact, she treasures her. Thus, Chie's Shadow is an alternate possibility.

When you look at Chie and what she says about accepting her Shadow, her Shadow seems to be born from a real insecurity (her jealousy of Yukiko) and part of it really does resemble Chie. But part of her Shadow is also this… caricature-esque thing. Hence why Atlus calls it the "alternate possibility". In turn, Chie accepts that she is jealous of Yukiko, but she does not accept the Banana Hat Dominatrix trying to exert control over Yukiko. She even realizes that rather than Yukiko needing her, it was actually her who needed Yukiko.

(I refuse to carry on with this train of thought further than talking about Atlus's own example with Chie because it would inevitably mean having to talk about how Atlus sees Kanji and Naoto's issues/Shadows/dungeons, and I'd need like bottles of wine to get in the mood to even type a paragraph of that.)

During her P4G winter Social Link scene, where her Persona evolves, Chie brings up Adachi and how she could have become him. She continues that anyone could have turned out like him.

Indeed, Adachi very much feels like a, "this could happen to anyone" character. He is an everyday normal guy who accidentally gets involved in something beyond him: a Like a Dragon side story NPC stuck in a game about high schoolers and friendship. Based on how you see these characters, you can correlate many of their issues to Adachi's own issues.

Really, in some ways, he feels like he was written to be the sum of the Investigation Team's insecurities, all bundled into one guy. In the case of Chie in particular, just as she was jealous of Yukiko and other girls, Adachi is jealous of what others have (especially Namatame, it seems), and he reflects that aspect of Chie.

As Chie's Shadow twisted her jealousy of Yukiko into a desire to control Yukiko and showed an alternate possibility for who Chie could have become if she had let jealousy consume her, perhaps Adachi shows an alternate possibility for who all of them could become.

As Amenosagiri later reveals, the truth torments the Shadows. Your party identifies that is what causes the Shadows to attack people.

When we consider how the game has gone until now, then those moments where the Investigation Team told their Shadows, "You're not me!" must be the moment that Amenosagiri was describing. The members of the Investigation Team come face to face with a being who claims to be them and seems aware of the same issues that gnaw at them. But these beings pervert their issues issues in a direction that doesn't reflect who the Investigation Team really are. And so they challenge that this being is truly them. They, sigh, "reach out to the truth", and it causes their Shadows to go nutso and attack.

And, of course, these repeated scenes where they tell their Shadows all lead up to the last time we see this kind of sequence...

Just as the Investigation Team had to face themselves and pick apart the truths from the caricature, they, too, come to face Adachi and cut through the bullshit, deny his attempts to justify why it's okay for him to merge the TV World into reality and screw everyone over, and reject him just as they did their Shadows.

That said, though, if we are to compare him to their Shadows, then we must acknowledge that, much like how the Investigation Team's Shadows come from their own real insecurities, Adachi's frustrations with the Investigation Team and with the world at large must also come from something real.

On this screenshotted line in particular, he even uses the more masculine "ore" as his pronoun in Japanese. He usually uses the more boyish "boku", but he seems to swap to "ore" to indicate that he is speaking quite genuinely--or perhaps speaking from the heart.

While he is a whiny murderer throwing an apocalyptic tantrum, I'm sure there are circumstances that made him the person that he is as an adult. Tbh, I've already made a lot of posts talking about the factors that might have contributed to *why* he feels like this, so I won't drag this out further.

By Arena Ultimax, Adachi has come to accept the murder case as the inciting incident that causes him to change as he finds himself finally owning up to his actions from the previous year. He's no role model lol, but life now has more meaning to him than just something you go through every day. Perhaps it's at this moment that he can be said to have gone from merely being alive to living.

(Let's be real tho, jail gives you 3 non-cup noodle meals per day? Damn. It's like he's living his best life. Speaking of which, food feels like such a fitting metaphor for his emotional nourishment.)

In the aftermath of the dungeon and the almost-end-of-the-world, Adachi agreed to start playing by the rules, and became more of a dynamic character. At the beginning of Ultimax, Adachi's commitment to this gets questioned as Yu, Yosuke, and Chie find him allied with Sho (like 5 cutscenes after Yu is so confidant he's behaving himself too, tsk tsk). But Yu reaches the roof, hears Adachi's cringe ass dialogue (I'm pretty sure that Adachi would not have said half that shit if he had known Yu was standing around the corner), and reaffirms his belief that Adachi was genuine about his promise to play by the rules.

The Investigation Team are not on the best of terms with Adachi. Regardless, they went into his dungeon, called him out on his bullshit that had been mixed in with his own real shortcomings and insecurities, punched him, and as we can tell by Ultimax, came to accept him in their own ways as they did their individual Shadows. As Yu says, perhaps they have strangely enough decided to trust in Adachi.

[adachimoe]

exhaustion and enervation

p4 has status effects called exhaustion and enervation in english. these were localized from 衰弱 weakness (like weakening your bodily functions and vitals and whatnot) and 老化 aging in japanese.

while weakness to exhaustion is like yeah sure whatever?, aging to enervation is a bit off to me. like, as an english word, enervation is a synonym of weakness. (perhaps someone was trying to actually translate 衰弱/weakness as enervation, and 老化/aging as exhaustion and they got mixed around? i think i can see a connection between aging and getting exhausted...)

but even though they changed "aging" to "enervation", they didn't change any of the flavor for it? like one of the skills that causes enervation is called "old one". the accessories that prevent against enervation are also called "kid's hachimaki" (jp: young person's hachimaki / bandana) and "pitch pipes" (jp: young tuning pipes), with the youth imagery in both jp names cause the status is called aging. blah blah.

and if you've seen the anime... naoto's story is about wanting to trying to rush growing up / becoming an adult, and shadow naoto uses the galgalim eye skill which inflicts enervation. but of course, in the anime, it makes yu, yosuke, and teddie all elderly cause the status is called aging in japanese lol.

[adachimoe]

some more

protag-kun:

kakitsubata: kakitsubata is the jp name for japanese iris, which is said to have "blade leaves" cause of the shape of its green leaves.

gaia sword: you get this in mitsuo's dungeon by defeating the optional boss then interacting with a tile that says, "no response, it's just a tile". this is referencing how corpses have messages in dragon quest that say "no response, it's just a corpse". similarly, this sword is also a reference to dragon quest. it's called the "gaia sword", and it's named after the "sword of gaia" in jp dq3. (in english dq, it was localized as the "earthcleaver".)

bus stop sign: the protag's bus stop sign says "in front of high school", implying it's a bus stop sign for a bus that stops in front of (yasogami) high school.

oh, similarly -- shinji's bus stop sign in p3 says "in front of academy", for gekkokan academy.

yosuke:

if you give daidara an inaba trout, he gives you a weapon version of it that yosuke can use. the regular fish is written 稲羽 while the weapon is 稲葉. both of these are pronounced "inaba", but let you differentiate the dagger from the fish lol

reign skinner: this weapon is called "reinsukinaa" in japanese and the material you need to acquire to make it drops from a shadow that only spawns on a rainy day. i think "reinsukinaa" should be parsed as, "rein / suki / naa", meaning "(i) like the rain". yes, yosuke possibly has a little knife called the "Rain Enjoyer".

yukiko:

suzumushi: also a tale of genji chapter that is used as a score name in tosenkyo

feather boomerang: the description for this says "used by feather swan", but it's pink and matches with yukiko's pink feather asas outfit. feather swan is the name of the blue feather ranger, whom naoto gets an outfit of. this seems to be a developer mistake, not an english loc thing, as it says the wrong feather ranger in japanese too.

kanji:

kanji doesn't have many to note that strike me as something you maybe wouldn't find by googling in english. words like scutum, gorgon, aegis, phalanx, etc are all english friendly. (i think.)

factory sign: says "under construction, next 100m"

onigawara: refers to comically large tiles on top of houses that look like demons. they kind of remind me of like... the thwomp blocks in mario lol.

like with yosuke's trout, the guardian you get from daidara for kanji is also named slightly different in jp to differentiate it from the fish. the fish is "the river master", and the weapon is just "the master".

teddie:

ditto as with kanji tbh

strega claw: i assume this is supposed to be a reference to p3 since teddie also has the scene in september where he quotes takaya when the group is staying in port island.

seireiga: "seirei" means spirit, but i think it has another connotation here. the spirits its referring to can be like, the spirit inside of something living (you might be familiar with how "kami" is used?), or a spirit that has been freed from a physical body. this is fairly similar to the concept behind teddie's 2nd persona, kamui / kamuy, and him being a bear. kamuy is kind of like, the ainu way of saying spirit, god, a kind of divine being. they have a belief that bears are kamuy who have descended from the kamuy realm and walk amongst humans. then through a ritual called iyomante, they kill the bear, and free kamuy inside to return it to the kamuy's realm (kamuy moshir, teddie's 3rd persona). thus, it might count as the type of spirit that the word "seirei" refers to?

seireiga (part 2): right, so, independent of my yapping about kamuy, the weapon model itself also has four claws each with a different color, likely representing the 4 elemental spirits for fire/water/wind/earth.

left: naoto's rubber band gun, right: naoto's space opera gun

naoto:

nambu 2: a standard issue police revolver. does naoto's hat make her count as a uniformed police officer or what? lol. normally, plain clothes detectives can't legally carry guns, and uh naoto isn't even an officer. big thinking emoji

naoto has a few other real guns (peacemaker, raging bull, .44 anaconda, flintlock) too

rubber band gun: more specifically, this is called the "rubber band and disposable wooden chopsticks gun" in japanese, and if you look at the model, it sure is made out of disposable chopsticks.

algernon: based on the description, its named after the story "flowers for algernon" about a mouse and a man who undergo experimentation to become more intelligent, but it turns out to be temporary, and their intelligence fades. you get this weapon from the bonus boss in naoto's dungeon. and tbqh, i don't know why they would specifically name this weapon like this, for this character, in this dungeon, unless it's supposed to serve as some kind of warning about naoto's desire to undergo surgery. which, like, i think just reinforces my belief that the only way i could see naoto as canonically trans is if jkr wrote the game because lmao what.

special ray gun: called the "space opera ray gun" in japanese. "special" might be from someone misunderstanding what "supeope" (space opera) meant?

athena kiss r: athena kiss is one of aigis's weapons in p3.

origins & notes for the 2nd year gang's weapon names in p4

uhh there's probably a bunch i missed lol

protag-kun:

he has a lot of swords a western person has probably heard of it in other games (like the zweihander and bastard sword) and katanas (for example the "midare hamon" refers to the crazy wave pattern on the edge of the katana), but some of them are also specific

musashishinai: more-or-less same thing as the bamboo sword the protag has during the crossdressing contest

98 gunto: a sword used by the army

shichiseiken / seven star sword: said to be a sword with gold bits that form the big dipper, hence the "seven stars"

tajikarao sword: referring to ame no tajikarao. i think he's revered as like... a god of physical strength, as he's the one who pried open amaterasu's cave?

futsu no mitama: a sword said to be wielded by japan's first emperor, also used by takemikazuchi (kanji's 1st persona)

tsubaki otoshi: i believe this was considered a sign of bad luck...? refers to how a tsubaki / camellia flower falls to the ground as a whole flower, instead of petal by petal.

blade of totsuka: the sword that izanagi used to beat the crap out of his fire child (kagutsuchi) after kagutsuchi's flames burnt izanami to death during childbirth

yosuke:

a lot of his are named after japanese short swords: for example, a kozuka is a small sword attached to a bigger sword's sheath, kaiken (meaning "sword inside of your breast pocket") is a small sword one might carry inside of their breast pocket similar to carrying a pocket knife for self-defense, a santou or yamagatana is like a hatchet you'd carry around doing mountain and forestry work, etc

a lot of his also have ninja (or "this feels related to ninja stuff i guess") references: hattori, fuuma kotaro, basho (matsuo basho), flying kato (danzo kato), rappa, the various kunai, kashin koji (not a ninja but a "magician")

yashio'ori dagger: this one is a reference to yosuke's 2nd persona, susanoo. as the legend goes, susanoo defeated yamata no orochi by getting orochi drunk with some alcohol he brewed ahead of time. this alcohol is referred to as "yashioori (no) sake".

yashima: this is kind of an ancient-y term for the "eight islands" of japan. which islands count as the 8 seems to vary based on which myth you're reading lol. (in modern days, we'd only count it as 4...? i think)

ohorinomikoto: i think this was supposed to "hoori no mikoto". the weapon effect decreases how much fire damage you take. it's named and referencing hoori, who's dad thought his wife was not uwu pure when they fucked since she got pregnant with his child like Immediately, so he lit her maternity hut on fire. anyway, hoori and mom (konohanasakuya, yukiko's 1st persona) lived. they had null fire equipped i guess.

malakh: i assume this is supposed to be hebrew word for angel.

chie:

adios shoes and nice shoes: parodies of adidas and nike (adios is probably obvious, not sure if nice is too lol)

kehaya: named after taima no kehaya, a japanese figure who was known for his kicks

bishamonten and furinkazan: these are banners/slogans used by uesugi kenshin and takeda shingen. maybe chie is a sengoku gal.

she also has easily identifiable norse names (sleipnir, vidar, mjollnir)

moses sandals: in jp these are called the miracle of moses instead. i would believe that chie can part the sea by kicking it.

yukiko:

tesseb: this one is really funny imo lol... the japanese is 鉄扇 which would be pronounced "tessen" and means an iron fan. if you notice, on an english keyboard, "b" and "n" are right next to each other, so...

hanachirusato and yume no ukihashi: these are both chapters in the tale of genji, and they are also used as score names in the traditional fan throwing game, tosenkyo.

disco fan: the weapon model is a fluffy/feathery fan, and the jp name is "juli fan". those fluffy/feathery fans are nicknamed "juli fans" in jp because of the disco club "juliana's" in tokyo. i think disco fan is a great loc.

suzaku feather: despite its name in english, the japanese name is kujaku, referring to a peacock.

kachofugetsu: a japanese phrase/concept about nature. each character = "flowers, birds, wind, and moon".

yukiko has a variety of fans named after foreign words: courtesia, adoracion, secreto, pieta. i'm not 100% sure about this, but i have read that these were all names of japanese race horses who were active in ~2005-2006, so there is a possibility that whoever named her weapons was a race horse enjoyer? an uma musume player ahead of their time... sounds like a coincidence after poking around

[adachimoe]

origins & notes for the 2nd year gang's weapon names in p4

uhh there's probably a bunch i missed lol

protag-kun:

he has a lot of swords a western person has probably heard of it in other games (like the zweihander and bastard sword) and katanas (for example the "midare hamon" refers to the crazy wave pattern on the edge of the katana), but some of them are also specific

musashishinai: more-or-less same thing as the bamboo sword the protag has during the crossdressing contest

98 gunto: a sword used by the army

shichiseiken / seven star sword: said to be a sword with gold bits that form the big dipper, hence the "seven stars"

tajikarao sword: referring to ame no tajikarao. i think he's revered as like... a god of physical strength, as he's the one who pried open amaterasu's cave?

futsu no mitama: a sword said to be wielded by japan's first emperor, also used by takemikazuchi (kanji's 1st persona)

tsubaki otoshi: i believe this was considered a sign of bad luck...? refers to how a tsubaki / camellia flower falls to the ground as a whole flower, instead of petal by petal.

blade of totsuka: the sword that izanagi used to beat the crap out of his fire child (kagutsuchi) after kagutsuchi's flames burnt izanami to death during childbirth

yosuke:

a lot of his are named after japanese short swords: for example, a kozuka is a small sword attached to a bigger sword's sheath, kaiken (meaning "sword inside of your breast pocket") is a small sword one might carry inside of their breast pocket similar to carrying a pocket knife for self-defense, a santou or yamagatana is like a hatchet you'd carry around doing mountain and forestry work, etc

a lot of his also have ninja (or "this feels related to ninja stuff i guess") references: hattori, fuuma kotaro, basho (matsuo basho), flying kato (danzo kato), rappa, the various kunai, kashin koji (not a ninja but a "magician")

yashio'ori dagger: this one is a reference to yosuke's 2nd persona, susanoo. as the legend goes, susanoo defeated yamata no orochi by getting orochi drunk with some alcohol he brewed ahead of time. this alcohol is referred to as "yashioori (no) sake".

yashima: this is kind of an ancient-y term for the "eight islands" of japan. which islands count as the 8 seems to vary based on which myth you're reading lol. (in modern days, we'd only count it as 4...? i think)

ohorinomikoto: i think this was supposed to "hoori no mikoto". the weapon effect decreases how much fire damage you take. it's named and referencing hoori, who's dad thought his wife was not uwu pure when they fucked since she got pregnant with his child like Immediately, so he lit her maternity hut on fire. anyway, hoori and mom (konohanasakuya, yukiko's 1st persona) lived. they had null fire equipped i guess.

malakh: i assume this is supposed to be hebrew word for angel.

chie:

adios shoes and nice shoes: parodies of adidas and nike (adios is probably obvious, not sure if nice is too lol)

kehaya: named after taima no kehaya, a japanese figure who was known for his kicks

bishamonten and furinkazan: these are banners/slogans used by uesugi kenshin and takeda shingen. maybe chie is a sengoku gal.

she also has easily identifiable norse names (sleipnir, vidar, mjollnir)

moses sandals: in jp these are called the miracle of moses instead. i would believe that chie can part the sea by kicking it.

yukiko:

tesseb: this one is really funny imo lol... the japanese is 鉄扇 which would be pronounced "tessen" and means an iron fan. if you notice, on an english keyboard, "b" and "n" are right next to each other, so...

hanachirusato and yume no ukihashi: these are both chapters in the tale of genji, and they are also used as score names in the traditional fan throwing game, tosenkyo.

disco fan: the weapon model is a fluffy/feathery fan, and the jp name is "juli fan". those fluffy/feathery fans are nicknamed "juli fans" in jp because of the disco club "juliana's" in tokyo. i think disco fan is a great loc.

suzaku feather: despite its name in english, the japanese name is kujaku, referring to a peacock.

kachofugetsu: a japanese phrase/concept about nature. each character = "flowers, birds, wind, and moon".

yukiko has a variety of fans named after foreign words: courtesia, adoracion, secreto, pieta. i'm not 100% sure about this, but i have read that these were all names of japanese race horses who were active in ~2005-2006, so there is a possibility that whoever named her weapons was a race horse enjoyer? an uma musume player ahead of their time... sounds like a coincidence after poking around

[adachimoe]

there are 2 wolves inside of me. one is saying "p4 doesn't need to be remade, that's fucking stupid, where's persona 6?" and the other one is saying "i would pay $100 for dlc that lets me use adachi as a party member"

[adachimoe]

the fun world of japanese bonus items

part of my stupidity on the indie megaten wiki has been compiling all of the japanese store bonuses. in order to incentivize customers to order from a store, they will offer various small bonus things. many of these are art/asset re-use things, but some stores will commission new art to be made exclusively for their bonus item.

so if you've ever seen any of the stuff labeled exclusive art before...

soejima drew all of these for different japanese stores to use as art for their exclusive bonus things.

golden, arena, arena ultimax, dancing, etc all had these things too:

it doesn't apply just to the games either - you could get bonus items for buying the anime:

and stuff like that print of yu and adachi with valentines day chocolates was also a bonus for the publication of the arena ultimax manga:

(bonuses like those are also how you get manga volumes to sell after people read the individual chapters in manga magazines.)

after compiling all of this shit, i am mildly curious about the vast quantity and frequency of some of these items haha... the above screenshots aren't all of the bonus items from ps2 p4; an old jp wiki indicates there's a couple i couldn't find images of. but in general there are a ton that are made from re-using the existing assets. as a customer, i would wanna go for something that uses new art, right? i can see the appeal.

p4 / p4g / p4a / p4au had a ton of smaller and card-shaped items, like telephone cards (which you'd stick them in the payphone machine to use money), quo cards (kinda like a visa prepaid card), and tosho cards (which you could use at participating bookstores). but when you get into p4 dancing's items, you start to see the more "modern otaku" trends, with stuff like acrylic stands and microfiber towels.

additionally, soejima mentions in one of his interviews that the stores request the exclusively made art. so the ps2 p4 bonus items have a mix of characters, but then take a look at golden's exclusively made art for comparison:

hmm i think the stores learned that chie was a popular character in p4 lol.

based on the p3r store stuff, this is still a pretty common thing to do, but it seems that there's less / little original art made being made for it now.

i think the most unique item i've seen is a teacup for p3r with mitsuru's battle portrait and a SEES spoon:

[adachimoe]

to put it another way, im aroace but i used to identify as a lesbian, so the idea that some shadow gets to come out to the human world and like... Meets Women... and comes to the conclusion that "holy shit. tits are awesome." is like... hm yeah i'm not gonna argue.

i think what gets me about the """discourse""" about teddie's localization is that people seem to try and paint him as "uwu innocent bby bear"-ish, and while i do believe that 100% applies to say the first half of the game, i don't know if i would say that about the later half of the game... like, part of his personal pronoun usage progression is that he goes from using "babby pronoun" (his own name) to using "boku" (boyish male pronoun), showing he's somewhat growing up. he even learns the word "nanpa" (guys hitting on girls) and uses it in a dungeon chat w/chie.

[adachimoe]

i think what gets me about the """discourse""" about teddie's localization is that people seem to try and paint him as "uwu innocent bby bear"-ish, and while i do believe that 100% applies to say the first half of the game, i don't know if i would say that about the later half of the game... like, part of his personal pronoun usage progression is that he goes from using "babby pronoun" (his own name) to using "boku" (boyish male pronoun), showing he's somewhat growing up. he even learns the word "nanpa" (guys hitting on girls) and uses it in a dungeon chat w/chie.

[adachimoe]

Follow-up:

Here's an old 1UP interview with the localization project head, Yu Namba, and one of the editors, Nich Maragos, about the localization of P4, which was conducted by 1UP closer to the game's release date, after a demo in San Fran. In it, Namba says:

I'm happy with how Persona 4 turned out. There's always something I'll notice after a game I worked on is released, but given such a short timeframe, our localization team did a great job. If I were to tackle a project as big as this in the future, though, I'd definitely ask for more time than just six months.

So, per the localization head, they had 6 months. When combined with what he said in the Siliconera interview, I suppose he had an extra 1-2 month head start time for pre-production, then the actual English loc was 6 months? (Or he was just rounding down from 7-8 to 6, who knows.)

Which, again, is insane and a very short amount of time considering how big P4 is! But it's also not as *bleak* as "1-2 months", or whatever that internet rumor was.

This 1UP interview is fully preserved on Archive.org btw if you're interested in reading it. They talk about how they split up the work between the staff and also things they changed w/the character writing. For example, Kanji was going to drop F-bombs originally.

Edit: Wait, I'm a dumbass. P4 came out in English in December, not November. So this wasn't post-release, but closer *to* release.

The rumor that Persona 4 PS2's localization "had to be done in 2 months"

I'm not sure where this rumor comes from, but I have recently seen it on Twitter, Discords, etc, that the localization staff for the PS2 version of Persona 4 was only given 1-2 months to localize the entire game. I dunno where this comes from, but I do know of an old interview between multiple people who worked on the localization of Persona 4 PS2's version.

The very first question is them talking about how long it took to localize. Namba says he has been on the project for 8 months (due to him being the project lead and having to do pre-production), and Kuroki says he has been on the project for 7 months. (The text doesn't seem to clarify if they have been on *since* 7-8 months ago [which would mean they had less than 7-8mo to work on it because at some point you have to stop and print PS2 CDs], or if they mean "I spent 7-8 months total on this".) One of the editors says they have been on since June (the interview is from December), but doesn't say how long they worked on the game in total.

Of course, they don't exactly paint a very positive picture of their working conditions and talk about the insane amount of text there is. The article also notes that Persona 4 has nearly 1.5x the text of Persona 3, but Atlus had over 1 year to localize Persona 3, so you know Persona 4 was not favorable for the staff. And no one gives a concrete number on how long it took either. But still, not sure about where the 2 months thing came from. Maybe there was a staff member who only worked on the project for 2 months, rather than the whole project taking 2 months?

[adachimoe]

clothes easter eggs 2 (naoto and kanji's ski gear)

riiight, persona 4 dancing had everyone's ski gear.

naoto's hat says "soia/soid? & kyu". dunno what that is. when i google, i get a brand that makes ladies outerwear called soia&kyo, and it was founded in 2004, so it's possible it was referenced for naoto's gear during golden's development. it appears to be a luxury american brand. was it popular in japan at the time? is naoto just importing luxury womens ski gear when her friends want to go skiing? on the other hand, the logo doesn't seem to resemble the brand's actual logo. idklol. i can't think of any associations between sukunahikona or yamatotakeru and "soia kyu" either?

and then there's kanji's sweater. it appears to say:

beelzebub tempo 2 6910 may 12, 1534

i know who beelzebub is, but im not sure why he would be associated with kanji? dunno about the tempo 2 either.

i recognize the bottom, may 12th, as being oda nobunaga's birth date on the tenmon calendar. (on the julian calendar, his birthday would be june 23rd.) and nobunaga is kanji's 2nd persona -- rokuten maoh is a title that he was called by.

...OH. oh my fucking god. i just realized what 6910 is: "ro" (6) "ku" (9) "ten" (10) L M A O

oh, and in the animated cutscene, you can make out the text on chie's jacket a bit better: "three comma-shaped figures in a circle", which is a description of what a "tomoe" shape is.

[adachimoe]

clothes easter eggs

chie's scooter helmet says "29", referencing her love of meat lol. meat = 肉 = pronounced "niku". and 29, if you pronounce each number separately, is "ni" and "ku".

naoto's hat says "kyu" but... uh honestly idk wtf this would be in reference to her or sukunahikona? like kyu(u) could be 9, but the wheel of fortune's arcana number is 10, aaaaand im too dumb to think about what else this could be.

the swirly on the back of chie's jacket is also called a "tomoe".

the protagonist has a "4" on his jacket since he's the protag of p4.

speaking of which, while the others have their birthdays (6-22 = june 22nd, yosuke's birthday) as their scooter license plates, the protagonist has 7-10, or july 10th, which is p4's japanese ps2 release date. i guess that's more or less his birthday. very cool of dojima to have a scooter w/his nephew's birthday on it ready to go.

rise's ski jacket says "lovers 06", which is her arcana and number.

yosuke's jacket says "since 1839 giraiya setsuwa".

there's 2 old versions of jiraiya:

1806. jiraiya monogatari. a multi volume novel.

1839. jiraiya goketsu monogatari. a picture book.

the "1839" refers to when the picture book started being serialized, and "giraiya" = jiraiya, then "setsuwa" is another way of reading 説話 (monogatari).

kanji's sweater isn't really clear. it seems to say "6910"? nothing comes to mind.

the back of chie's winter jacket says "shizu ya shizu", which is the first line of a song/dance performed by lady shizuka. afaik, she has no relation to chie's personas, though she was a shirabyoshi dancer, and shirabyoshis would dress like men and hold swords, so perhaps that has something to do with it.

edit: i made a followup with kanji and naoto's ski gear here after i remembered they had these outfits in higher resolution in p4 dancing

[adachimoe]

haaa okay i was very bad about typing things up from atlus net

back here, i brought up why konohana sakuya was chosen as yukiko's first persona:

personas were selected from japanese myth and culture, based on each character's story. for example, yukiko's is konohana sakuya, who falls in love with a prince.

i completely glazed over how this section also talks about yosuke and chie

jiraiya was chosen as yosuke's first persona because jiraiya is a hero of the people who thinks he's a "chosen one" (jiraiya is kind of a "chivalrous thief" / robin hood-like figure)

tomoe was chosen as chie's first persona because tomoe has this established image of a woman who fights like a man and wants to protect others

ive been trying to write up an extension to that post about adachi being the investigation team's shadow, and i felt like going into this bit about their intentions with yosuke was kiiinda important as it relates to what he says when he rejects adachi when adachi is yellow eyes'ing out (and how adachi thinks he's a "chosen one" and yosuke is the one who gets to go "no u")

[adachimoe]

yukiko's gag glasses scene

oop i missed this from atlus net.

during development, hashino got feedback from staff that yukiko hardly had any presence, or like she was being overshadowed by the other characters. so hashino added in the gag glasses scene, and by doing so, his thought was that... even tho yukiko already has this like pre-existing characterization / lore / worldbuilding behind her, if you add on to that by making even just one really memorable scene, then from then on, how she should react to other scenes will just naturally come to mind.

...aaaaand i hate complimenting him but uhh oh wow yeah actually hes totally right lol. you rly can start to imagine, "oh well yukiko would react like this" after you see this scene.