#shinya going all bully like was chef's kiss!

[casualotptrash]

Fixes to the Persona Series- Social Links

This was originally going to be the whole point 6 in my Fixes to the Persona Series post, but it was basically the same length as points 1-5 combined so I didn’t want to make the post mega-huge.

Link to the whole post about this topic.

(Spoilers for a lot of P3 things, including the plot and second awakenings) 

I’ll start off with this point, something that needs to be fixed for all of the games is that you shouldn’t only get social link points for saying what the person wants to hear. I get the train of thought that if you say what they want to hear they will like you more, but that’s not how real friendships work? Obviously you shouldn’t be saying something that offends them and think it will raise your points, but sometimes people just need to hear things?

I can think of three standout examples: Nozomi in P3 (Gourmet King), Mishima in P5, and Shinya in P5. Nozomi’s link is a hot mess in of itself, but it was very frustrating to at one point just be like “Hey can you chill?” when he’s trying to induct you into a scam/cult or whatever, and it reverses the social link. Like ok buddy fuck you too, I was just trying to say no and that you need to stop scamming people?? For Mishima in P5 (I’ll go more in depth on him in a later post), it’s just kind of strange that you can clearly see him starting to obsess about the PT’s but you can’t really tell him he needs to stop until the social link demands it. Even then, the only way to get points is pretty much to go “Wow Mishima, you’re the best! You’re the reason we exist! We love you!!!” and it just feels kind of wrong. Shinya’s is very much along the same line as that, except you basically have to do something even worse and encourage him to keep being a bully? Thankfully P5 doesn’t reverse confidants, but I probably would have done so with Shinya because I kept telling him he shouldn’t bully others until I realized how to get points with him. It just feels wrong to encourage such behavior until the character suddenly realizes they’ve been acting wrong. No shit, I’ve been trying to say that.

I think social links need quite the fix to them, but this is definitely one of them. Strong, real relationships are not just built upon telling the other person what they want to hear. 

Now I’m going to go into the structure of how social links are made and how they affect the characters. I have so much to say about this it’s not even funny. There are two major parts to this, but the second heavily ties into the first, so I’ll just go through them one at a time while trying to make sense.

The first part is that, simply put, integral character growth should not be tied to social links. The completion/tipping point of a character’s growth seems to be signified by their second awakening taking place. For example, in P3, all of the cast members awaken after a big event happens in game which causes them to grow. Most of this is them learning how to move on past the deaths of their loved ones, but still the idea remains the same. The game still has some pretty significant social links with party members too, so it’s not like the social links really suffered from this. In fact, I would say it made the social links even better, and it did this by fleshing out the characters further.

For this example, I’m going to use Akihiko’s growth from the story and social link in P3P because I feel like I know it quite well and it’s one of the best examples of this.

In the main story, it’s clear that Akihiko has a couple of problems. He’s quick to fight, reckless with his own health, and cant let go of the past. Along with these traits, he also cares very much about his friends. He considers Tartarus to be a training ground, is actually injured for the first few months of the game, scolds the MC, Junpei, and Yukari a bit for going out to the alleyway (where Shinji saved them) because it was dangerous, and desparately wants Shinji to rejoin SEES. Him and Shinji, on multiple occasions, talk about the incident where Shinji killed Ken’s mother. Akihiko says that Shinji needs to let go of the past, and Shinji echoes the same sentiment back at him.

What all of these problems step from is the death of his sister, Miki. They were both young and orphans, along with Shinji, and one day during a fire Shinji held Akihiko back from running back into the burning building. Inside the burning building was Miki, who Akihiko was trying to get to, and sadly she died in the fire (I’m pretty sure all of this isn’t revealed until P3P with his social link, but in any version of the game we find out that Miki is dead). Because of this, he felt powerless and from then on strived to be powerful enough to save those around him, which is why he’s obsessed with training to such a degree that he doesn’t care about personal harm to himself.

All of this eventually comes to a head when Shinji dies in the story, and Akihiko isn’t able to save him. At a memorial for his death, Akihiko says this:

“I was too obsessed with power. Ever since I lost Miki, that's all I've cared about. I thought that if I was strong enough, I could protect anyone. But I was wrong... And now You're gone too... I'm such an idiot. In battle, there's always a chance of dying... I knew that! But I was so focused on fighting that I didn't notice anything else! It didn't matter how tough I was! Look what happened!”

He cries for his friend, and then is reminded that this is not what Shinji would want. He would want him to keep living his life, and finally let go of the ghosts of his past. So, this is what he does. At that point, his character growth basically reaches its climax and he awakens to Caesar. This all happens in the main story of the game.

Now, how did they decide to do his social link in P3P? Personally, I think it was genius. Due to all of that growth being integral to the main story, they could not just take it out and shove it into a social link. They had to find another thing to make the social link about, and instead of making it about something pointless they connect it to the main growth in the game. (Note, this social link is only available in the FeMC route)

In general, what his social link is about mirrors his growth in the main story a lot. In the beginning, he treats the MC with an overwhelming sense of care, almost to a condescending degree. You’re always going out to eat, him saying how much you need to eat to grow strong, and jogging/running with him. Taking out the more romantic parts of the social link (although they are *chefs kiss*), eventually it progresses to the point where he asks you if you can stop being the field leader of SEES. Of course, he immediately takes this back and laments that you couldn’t just do that. You have the option to question if he thinks you arent good enough for the job, and he quickly says that the MC is capable, and he didn’t mean to imply that you werent, but he doesn’t want you to be in danger. The social link is frozen after this, as Akihiko doesn’t know how to balance his overwhelming worry and concern about the MC being hurt.  

After Shinji’s death, the social link continues and he reveals the event of Miki’s death. At one point even says he feels like he doesn’t deserve to live because she died. It’s a very sad event, but because of his resolution from the main story with Shinji’s death he is able to open up to the MC. In the end, he comes to the conclusion that he’ll never get over the anger and sadness he feels for his sister’s death, and he accepts that she is dead, but he feels guilty because he wanted to ask you to bear this burden with him. He also starts to wonder what his feelings toward the MC mean, because he is very conflicted, and admits he might be seeing Miki in you (hence the overwhelming protecting nature he has for you in the link, and slightly condescending big-brother tendencies).

In his rank 9, he admits that he was tired of losing what was important to him. He thought that it would be better not to let things get too important, rather than risk losing them. He realizes this is wrong, and says he now knows he needs to work to protect everything precious from him. If the romance route was taken then he sees you as a precious loved one, while if the romance route is not taken he likens you to the status of Miki, aka a precious sister to him.

As you can see from the synopsis, a lot of what was in the social link is directly tied into his main growth in the story, however it is also not integral to his main growth. It stems off of it, not the other way around. Whoever made the extra social links in P3P did an amazing job at doing this exact thing, perhaps because they couldn’t change the growth in the main story. Either way, it’s a perfect example of how social links should be done.

If you’re interested in watching the growth from the social link directly, here is the link: Akihiko social link rank 1-10

You might be thinking, how is this issue really that big of a problem? Akihiko was a great character before his P3P social link, so if the growth is there either way (in story or social link) then it should be fine. My answer to this is in short, as the series progressed from P3 this problem got worse to the point where it negatively impacts the characters. The reason this got worse and impacts the characters so much, especially with the ones from P5, is because of the nature of how social links are set up. Obviously, social links are optional. They have to be, because not everyone is going to finish all of them in one run. This presents the unique issue of needing to make social links meaningful, but also not necessary. I would think anyone who reads that sentence would immediately understand how those two things do not mix well, especially when almost all of the important character growth is pushed into the social link. I’ll be using the social links (party members specifically) in P5 as my example to illustrate this because they’re the best for this.

At the very best, party member confidants in P5 feel like they contribute a good bit of character development alongside the story (on the surface). At the very worst, confidants in P5 feel like they actively contradict the story. Ann is probably the best example of this, but it happens to the rest of the main cast too, to varying degrees. I’m not as familiar with Ann’s confidant as Akihiko’s, but I’m going to try and do my best.

Essentially, Ann’s confidant is about finding her passion, becoming a stronger person, and overcoming her guilt. Outside of the occasional discussions about Shiho, how strong she is, and Ann discussing how she needs to become strong for her, one of the main things you do in the confidant is help Ann use various methods to be a better model (because she comes to the conclusion that she wants to be serious about modeling, her hobby, since Shiho is trying so hard to get back to her normal life). I have played Persona 5 vanilla twice, and Royal twice, and every time I have completed Ann’s confidant. That being said, it’s kind of sad that I could do it four times and barely remember the “becoming a stronger person” and “overcoming her guilt” part of it (outside of Ann saying Shiho is strong, and Ann asking us to insult her to make her stronger). She does have a very good conclusion with Shiho, and it’s is really sweet to see them hug on the roof and everything, but other than that the main outcome of the confidant is that Ann is going to really try for her modeling career and needs to change her habits because of this. Some of those habits she changes is by eating less junk food, exercising, etc.

Here’s where the issue comes in. You go through this whole confidant and have Ann come to that conclusion, and then throughout multiple scenes (and the rest of the story) Ann adheres to none of it. It’s the most whiplash I’ve ever experienced when one day Ann says she’s going to cut the sweets, and then the next something happens in game and she’s just chowing down on all of the food. To be clear, I do not care if Ann is eating a lot of a little in the grand scheme of things. Like I said, this is just an example that illustrates the total tonal dissonance present from the social link to the main story.

The whole reason this occurs is because, like I said earlier, the confidant has to be meaningful but not necessary to the plot. This is a major problem when pretty much the whole reason for her character growth, the plot with Shiho, is in the confidant. No matter if you do the confidant or not, in the story the characters will always act as if the confidant plot has not happened at all...because they physically cannot write it into the main story as it is optional. The reason this worked with Akihiko was because he had his main growth outside of the social link, and the social link tied into his growth, and the reason this doesn’t work for the P5 cast is because their growth is set up in the opposite way. Instead of tying their main growth in the story to the confidant, the story acts as a stepping stone for their main growth in story of the confidant.

I predict some people might read what I just said and counter with the point “You cant just expect their whole personalities to change,” and they would be right, if that was what I was explaining. It’s not. Obviously base personality traits are always going to be present, but the reason for having character growth is for the characters to grow. Futaba can always be more shy and timid around others, but if you go through her whole confidant where she learns to be more independent and then later on have her go somewhere and completely shut down? That is not growth. Her change can manifest in her being shy about going somewhere new, but adapting to it a lot quicker than she did before the confidant was completed. But, like I said, because of how the confidants are set up this is just not possible.

It took this long to get here, but we finally arrive at how the second point ties in. The second point is that, because of this issue with tying in integral growth with the social link, the characters end up being very one-note in the story (if you take out the inclusion of the social link). In my opinion, P3 doesn’t really suffer from this (although there still are bland characters in that game. Sometimes the writing is just not that exciting. Sorry Fuuka, you’re better in the spinoffs), P4 suffers from it a little (Teddie talking about girls 90% of the time, Yukiko laughing at everything, Meat Chie, etc.), and P5 has the most rampant cases of this.

This doesn’t mean that the characters are not well written, it just means that the game is going to be way more enjoyable if you are able to max everyone’s social link in comparison to only maxing a few. Putting aside the gameplay benefits, I usually love my NG+ runs more than my first run because it allows me to see all of the characters so much more.

I know that all of the characters could be shoved into stereotypical boxes if we had to, but we basically don’t need to for P5. If you do not do any confidants with party members in P5, tell me how many times Ryuji shows his remorseful and caring side for the trouble he has caused the track team in the main story. Oh wait, you can’t! He’s pushed around as the proverbial butt-monkey for almost the entire game, and at least Junpei and Yosuke got some deeper interaction with the story when they were in this role. If you only experience Ryuji from the main plot, you’d probably want to throttle him with how many times he ogles at Ann, argues with Morgana, tries to pick up girls, and shouts about being a Phantom Thief and wanting fame.

I will admit, they do have some deep moments here and there, when the main story calls for it, but other than that (again, without doing the social link) the PT’s kind of have as much characterization as a piece of cardboard. This is a big problem, especially when the cast is full of great characters! I played P5 4 times, and it still isn’t my favorite cast. There are some really good characters in there, but they just could not compare to the P3 cast for me (even though P3 was filled with a lot of highs and a lot of lows). Yukari was kind of a bitch and I didn’t like her for a long time, but at least I felt something! Poor Haru is just shoved off into a corner and characterized as the “team mom but would kill you, sad her father died, also has a crush on you” for the whole game unless you do her confidant.

Jury is still out on the P4 cast, because I see a little bit of what P3 had going on and what P5 does in them. Every time Yosuke is talking about something serious or profound I get really excited, only for it to be followed up with some dumb (usually homophobic) joke. I like the extra interactions the P4 cast has in comparison to P5, but even in those situations it feels like each member is kind of cast into their stereotypical role (Teddie want pussy, Yukiko laugh, Chie meat, etc.). I imagine once I do finish P4G and get to do my NG+ I will like the cast a lot more, but only because I will be able to do all of their social links.

Despite all of this, whether a character from the game has great growth or not, you can always count on Atlus to flanderize each character into their one “defining” (aka memed) trait to hell and back in any spinoff.

Sorry, don’t mind me crying in the corner with how Akihiko was massacred from a deep character into a protein junkie.

[sannoh-rengokai]

THE WORST REALLY WAS THAT GOOD HUH?

Oh my god, I loved it! I was really worried I wasn’t going to be that into it with the new characters (and I wasn’t for some of them lol) and I didn’t want my boy Todoroki to be sidelined in favor of them but I think it ended up okay. 

Things I liked:

Murayama has the best character arc in the entire High&Low series. Going from a kid who only knew how to fight for himself to going through that crisis after he lost to Cobra then slowly learning to how to become a real leader and then finally knowing when to set it aside and move on and - and - anD I’M JUST SO PROUD OF MY BOY MURAYAMA YOSHIKI 😭 ❤️ He did so good and I love him ❤️ and Furuya and Seki too, of course. I’m so glad they got their bikes! 

Finally, we got to see more of Todoroki, Shibaman and Tsuji, I’ve been waiting years for this! I was a bit annoyed they didn’t make Todoroki the leader but it makes sense with his personality and they didn’t make Shibaman and Tsuji abandon him for Fujio so all is well. Also, Shibaman and Tsuji fighting Jinkawa together *chefs kiss* (I... really like Ryu and Takahide lol)

Murayama/Todoroki rematch! Such a fun and brutal fight. The original fight from season 2 fueled me for so long I’m so sad they’ll probably never fight together again :(

I LOVE EVERY HOUSEN MEMBER. I need a separate movie just for them. I’m so glad they weren’t just bad guys. Sachio is really.... cute? And sweet? Same with Sawamura. They all seem to be really good friends and on the same page, it’s a nice contrast from the gangs of Oya High fighting for power. (also lol @ them name dropping Housen in DTC)

Am... am I the only one shipping Todoroki and Odajima? Because 👀 

Nakabayashi being the next leader of the part-time students? I always prefer seeing existing characters stepping up and getting some screen time than new characters popping up and taking the spotlight.

The other fulltime students are fine, I have nothing to say about them. I like them, they’re good. Nakagoshi looks like he belongs in NCT U during the 7th Sense era lol.

AND MURAYAMA ALWAYS MAKING SURE THE FULLTIME STUDENTS ARE OKAY I LOVE HIM SO MUCH  ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

OH! OH! OH! The ending shot of all the Oya kids at the shrine ❤️ I really am excited to see where this storyline goes. They’re all so cute.

Things I didn’t like:

I really tried hard to care about Fujio’s childhood friends but I just couldn’t. They’re boring and we already seen this storyline with Noboru way back in season one! Shinya and Masaya get a free pass because they bullied Murayama and that was hilarious lol but the rest I’m not here for. Fujio’s friends are like when you’re trying to fit your oc into canon lmao

As much as I like the Fujio/Tsukasa partnership - or what it could be - Fujio does not give a shit about Tsukasa, change my mind. Tsukasa pined over Fujio for months and awaited his return and Fujio has not given Tsukasa one single thought. Sure, they tell us they’re partners but they haven’t shown us anything really. They’ve had one fight and like one conversation on their own. Where is the meat? WHAT IS THEIR RELATIONSHIP? We really know nothing about their friendship.

Let Arata keep the money, wtf Fujio??? His mother is dying!!!! Sure it’s “dirty” money but it’s literally going to medical bills and not dumb frivolous stuff. The message in this series is already so muddled up with the ‘they’re fighting for nothing, fighting is bad - but here’s another cool fight scene’ stuff so like......... just let him keep the money lol

I think I don’t particularly enjoy Fujio’s writing lol something isn’t quite right for me 🤷‍♀️ 

I think that’s it? Did you guys like it as much as I did? Who are your favorite new characters?? Favorite returning characters? Tell me all your thoughts!