On the evening of the 29th (the third consecutive day of rain), the weather forecast notes heavy fog is about to set in. We could go into the TV world just to make sure no one else has stumbled in, but whatever, the one person we know is fine so who cares. Dojima offers to go on a family outing for the upcoming holiday, and Nanako of course wants to go to Junes. I check the Midnight Channel, but no one appears. Would I have seen Yukiko get gruesomely murdered if I hadn’t rescued her?

There’s a meanwhile scene showing a vague silhouette moving around in the foggy shopping district. And… that’s it.

The next morning, Yukiko’s back at school. She thanks me for saving her and says her mom’s managing the inn again.

YUKIKO: The maids are being really supportive, and I think things are going even smoother than before. I wonder if I was trying too hard… I may have been too caught up in the idea that I had to do everything myself.

This doesn’t track. Her Shadow didn’t say she was overwhelmed by the sudden onslaught of responsibility, she said she always hated the inn and didn’t want to work for it at all. And that is consistent with how she behaved prior to getting TV-napped.

New teacher today.

Welp, I see he’s more than made up for his lack of weird costuming with his creepy personality. How is this man allowed on school grounds?

MR. YAMADA: Oops! I mean, all of you are cute! No, really! Er, please, don’t tell your parents that I said that, will ya? I don’t wanna get in trouble.

I didn’t think that could escalate, but it did. Impressive. Once he’s done hitting on students, he teaches us that Mars has the deepest valley in the solar system. I’m not sure how we could know that for certain when we barely know anything about the surface of Venus?

After school the team meets up to ask Yukiko what happened… again. Why does no one believe the poor girl? She does actually have new information, though: The doorbell rang at the entrance and someone called for her before she blacked out.

YOSUKE: What kind of killer would ring the doorbell?

…Anyone? It’s an obvious lure or distraction tactic.

Once again, Yosuke insists the police will be useless. Yukiko volunteers to join the team, leveling up the team link to rank 2. Chie points out they have no leads, and Yukiko suggests they try to predict who the next victim will be.

YUKIKO: If we had an idea of who might be targeted next, wouldn’t we have an advantage over the killer?

Not… really? This is someone who’s working via supernatural means. We have no idea how they’re kidnapping people, and given Teddie can both spawn and despawn TVs, it’s possible they could remove the evidence if they have a similar power. (Notably, Yukiko doesn’t remember being near a TV before she got thrown in, so the killer must have either spawned one or taken her to a different location.) Moreover, trying to pre-empt the killer could tip them off and cause them to get more aggressive, which would be really bad when we barely know what we’re working with. I don’t normally say this, but I think the smartest move right now is actually to be reactive: Wait until the next victim gets TV-napped and see if they have any more information.

Instead Yosuke speculates on what the victims could have in common. I cannot say that they all appeared on TV, only that they’re all female. (This leads to all the characters, including the girls, referring to the victims as “females” I can only assume because the writers are all men.)

CHIE: Now that’s unforgivable! The culprit’s gotta be some kinda pervert…

Normally I’d think that a bit of a leap, but we have definitely encountered an awful lot of perverts in this town. However, Yosuke also notes that the last two victims both had a connection to the first one, in which case their gender may well be irrelevant. Yosuke also points out that they have the advantage of being able to see the victim before they’re kidnapped on the Midnight Channel.

YOSUKE: Kinda like a random note.

I don’t think you know what a ransom note is.

Do they actually know for certain they always appear before being kidnapped? Saki seemed to disappear around the same time as her first Midnight Channel appearance. Yukiko proves they can appear beforehand, but that doesn’t mean they always do. Moreover, given they thwarted the killer’s last attempt, he might do things differently this time.

Then we have a comic relief scene of the boys asking for “a bite” of the girls’ noodle bowls but they eat the whole thing because it’s so good. I have a choice to be polite and say I’ll just take a bite, but my ravenous hunger overtakes me so it doesn’t matter. Chie successfully guilts Yosuke into buying the girls steak as repayment. What is with these kids? They’re noodle cups. Just buy new ones for a buck if you want them so badly.

YUKIKO: Well… as long as it isn’t too fatty.

I see her eating disorder remains unaddressed.

So Yosuke buys everyone food at the Junes food court once again. It would be funny if the reason he’s always eating there is because he’s banned from all the local stores out of solidarity.

They speculate more about the culprit. Yosuke points out the obvious suspect, the politician’s wife, but Chie mentions what the police said earlier, that she has an alibi. Yosuke moves on to the culprit’s motivation for killing Saki. This time I can get a choice: “It was a coincidence,” “It was to shut her up,” or “They knew each other.” I’d say the second is the only plausible option, though I’d like to say we really don’t know enough to speculate. Yukiko says that since the killer used supernatural means, it’s unlikely he left evidence a high schooler would catch, which I find weak reasoning. It’s entirely possible for her to have caught a glance of the killer or noticed something odd about the body.

Adachi wanders over and Chie jumps on the chance to interview him. He confirms that the police also think the killer was trying to cover something up by killing Saki, because “there might’ve been something at the scene only she would have understood.” I think that’s an unnecessary assumption — she doesn’t need to have actually known something if the killer just thought she knew something and figured better safe than sorry. He believes this points to the killer knowing Saki personally, which seems like even more of a leap but given that it’s being brought up I suppose it must be true.

CHIE: You were right, Yosuke. The police are totally useless…

What? No, he managed to come to the same conclusions as us despite having much less information, and even gave us an additional theory. If you would just share information he might be more helpful.

Then we head straight to the TV world. Yukiko is amazed that Teddie wasn’t a dream/psychotic break of hers. Teddie immediately hits on her. Why. He gives Yukiko a pair of glasses and Chie finally grills him on where they come from.

TEDDIE: I’ve lived here for a long time. So I came up with some ways to be comfortable here.

Yukiko asks what I was about to ask: Why doesn’t he wear glasses, then?

TEDDIE: Listen to this! My eyes themselves are lenses!

…Huh. He then brags about being “dextrous” by flexing his hands… which are visibly mittens with no distinct fingers. Yosuke punches him and he drops another pair of glasses, but he says these ones he screwed up on. Yukiko immediately tries them on.

Yukiko loves them, but Teddie says they don’t have the right lenses and so can’t be used. Apparently he made it in his spare time, because he’s bored when we leave him alone. I thought you’ve lived alone your whole life, Teddie? I wonder, if he’s part of the TV world, could he also be psychoreactive and becoming more friendly and needy because our humanity is rubbing off on him?

We go home without exploring any TV world locations. Dojima says he might be able to get some days off for the holiday, but Nanako says his vacations always end up getting cancelled. Why? What else is going on in this town? NPCs won’t stop talking about how there’s never been a murder in this town for as long as anyone can remember.

The next morning, Chie calls and says they should go into the TV world to give Yukiko some training. She’s actually higher level than me, but all the more reason to catch everyone else up.

NPCs in the shopping district are talking about Tanaka’s Wonderful Commodities, so I guess I’ll keep an eye out for that. I’m actually pretty strapped for cash, so we’ll see if I can afford his stuff. We also get a surprise portraited NPC:

Okay, so we’ve confirmed there is another school. Does everyone there have weird eyes, or is this the same guy who was hitting on Yukiko? He’s out of uniform, so I can’t tell. He rants about a delinquent biker gang that goes on thrill rides in the night, so I guess I’ll be meeting them soon.

And oh hey, this is the secretary dude! I can’t grill him about the murder, unfortunately, but I guess he’ll remain relevant.

Inside the TV world, Teddie says he detects a new shadow in Yukiko’s castle. He speculates it’s because repeatedly traveling in and out is making the world “unstable”, and claims it’s unrelated to the murder case (how would he know) but he wants us to kill it anyway because he doesn’t like it. If our travels are damaging the integrity of his home, why isn’t he more concerned about that? He also gives me the gag glasses as a cosmetic outfit I can equip.

I can revisit the fake shopping district in the TV world. Inside Konishi Liquors is a weapon for Yosuke. Not entirely sure why that would be there, but okay. Midway through Yukiko’s castle I hear the Reaper’s chains rustling, but don’t see it. One of the treasure chests make Teddie freak out and he warns me not to open it, so I’m guessing the Reaper’s tied to chests now. At the top floor, the optional boss is… a bigger version of a regular enemy. Wow, don’t get too creative now. It opens with Red Wall, so I assume it’s weak to fire… only to discover it actually drains fire when the buff wears off. Was it trying to trick me? It uses physical attacks exclusively, so debuffing its accuracy is very effective… but if it does hit it can kill characters from full health with Kill Rush. It also has Rampage, which is just a full party wipe at this stage. (The wiki tells me it actually has a special from of Rampage that’s way stronger than normal, which, why.)

I proceed to spend an hour doing the battle over and over again because it keeps killing John with Kill Rush or Rampage. Why do jRPG devs love making battles come down to random chance so much? I manage to survive by fusing my Slime with Resist Physical onto a Jack Frost, wherupon I discover it’s secretly weak against ice despite not having an official weak point (and according to the wiki, it also has a secret physical resistance, which explains why my physical attacks were only chipping at it). I really hate it when the SMT devs do this. I get it if they don’t want to trivialize the fight with 1-Mores, but why couldn’t they just make a separate “weak” notification for “doesn’t get knocked down but still takes more damage”? This whole enemy feels like it’s just designed to frustrate and waste the player’s time.

During the fight, Chie and Yukiko suddenly do a combo attack, “Twin Dragons”, after an All-Out Attack. It’s… pretty unimpressive, honestly, only dealing a little more damage than a regular attack. Does that trigger randomly?

The next day it’s raining.

YUKIKO: Every time it rained while I was “over there”, you must have been…

Nope, we slept like angels. Everyone just wouldn’t stop talking about how it was totally fine to leave you there another day! I appreciate that we finally have someone who’s capable of talking in euphemisms when we’re in public, though.

In class, the teacher tells us to study for midterms. I should probably do that since my knowledge still hasn’t leveled up.

MR. MOROOKA: If you do well, who knows? You may become a more popular cretin! And you know, popularity leads to intimacy!

Given his opening spiel was about how he had to stop us from breeding like rabbits, this reads as if he’s saying he’ll look the other way if you’re smart. Only nerds are allowed to breed.

I’m given the option to study with one of my party members, which is new. I choose Chie since I just leveled up with her, and as I suspected I get social points with her in addition to knowledge.

At home, the news reports a robbery (with an earth mover), so Dojima is busy. He also has to fill in for someone who got sick, so he can’t get time off for the family outing. Nanako is very upset.

I now have enough courage to enter the shrine at night, but there’s nothing there. Odd.

The next morning, Chie comes over to invite me to an outing with Yukiko. I can invite Nanako too and god, yes, I will throw this poor child any bone. We end up going to Junes, which is just what she wanted! Nanako mentions their planned trip with boxed lunches, which leads to Chie getting insecure about her cooking skills and demanding a cook-off.

YOSUKE: I never said I cooked. But I have this weird feeling… like I’d win anyway…

Why is he such a dick? Even Yukiko laughs and says yeah, Chie can’t cook. I remind you that this is after they learned her deepest fear was that she wasn’t feminine enough, so this actually feels a lot nastier than just gentle ribbing.

Nanako kills the mood by revealing her mom died in an accident. Well, I guess that resolves that question. Nanako insists it’s okay because “Even if I don’t have a mom, I have Dad with me,” which is just a lie. This is sad.

CHIE: We’ll play with you anytime you want, Nanako-chan!

Except when we have to go into the TV. See, this is why bringing her along to the escapades would work so much better!

Everyone volunteers to do something nice for Nanako except me. Instead, she asks if I want anything, which I guess counts as enough of a bond for me to get her social link. She’s Justice, like Ken. Huh, so are Justice kids gonna be thing in this series?

I head to the shrine in the evening and this time I do meet someone: a “Lady in White” who asks to eat my fish. She gives me a gemstone in exchange.

The next morning, Yosuke asks to hang out. We head to Junes with Nanako and the sports boys in tow. Kou calls Nanako cute, which embarrasses her, so Daisuke says she isn’t cute, which annoys her.

On the 5th John decides to just wander around instead of going on any dates. Dang it, John, I need to level up my social links! At the shrine, we meet a fox… with a portrait!

Will animal friend be next party member??? He gives me a prayer tag from a kid who wishes his grandpa’s legs will get better. Speak of the devil, because an old man immediately shows up. He says he maintains the shrine, but he can’t keep doing it if his legs don’t get better. His grandson has the same name as the one on the tag, but John refuses to make any assumptions about it being the same person. The old man notices a leaf stuck to the back of the prayer tag, and reveals it’s a super-rare leaf used as an ache remedy. He sticks it on his leg and immediately gets better, then gives an offering to the shrine as thanks. The fox shows up again and seems pleased with this outcome. I get the fox’s social link: the Hermit.

The fox reveals it has a whole bunch more magic leaves, and John wonders if they might be helpful to have during dungeon crawling. John wonders if the fox can hear his thoughts instead of physically vocalizing this, but apparently it can, because the narration says it will offer healing services for a price from now on.

This somehow takes up the whole day because John is a lazybones. Dojima actually comes home in the evening, and Nanako gets super excited when she sees he’s bought something from Junes, her real dad. He gives her a T-shirt with a cartoon character and me a… swimsuit? Odd, but okay. I guess I’ll be going swimming at some point?

The next morning Yosuke chats with me on the way to school.

YOSUKE: After hanging out with Nanako-chan… I feel even stronger that we have to solve this case.

What? Why? She has nothing to do with it. Do you just want her to be impressed with you?

YOSUKE: You know, Chie and Yukiko seem different lately… They’re a lot closer.

Oh, so perhaps their gay pining has progressed after all.

After school, the investigation team loudly discusses their investigations in the middle of class once again.

YOSUKE: I listened in on the housewives gossiping at Junes, but it doesn’t seem like anything happened.

Maybe that’s because they’re all gossiping about you and the crazy TV-touching powers you demonstrated in front of the entire store.

The discussion shifts to midterms. Apparently Yukiko is a genius, so Yosuke (really obviously genuinely) asks her for private lessons, which she smacks him for. Ha ha, female on male violence is so funny! (Also, oh, now she can tell when guys are hitting on her?)

YUKIKO: I thought it might have been an off-color joke. Our inn has had some strange visitors lately…

Probably people who followed that creep reporter’s solicitations to hit on her.

I finally have a chance to go on a proper date with Yosuke, so time to cash in those social link points. He takes me to a non-Junes food stall, so apparently he isn’t banned there. Some gossip queens pass by while gossiping about how Junes is running the local stores out of business.

YOSUKE: Sorry about that. You know me, I’m infamous around here.

Why is everyone taking it out on him, exactly? It seems like a real dick move when he doesn’t have any say in what the store does. Be mad at his dad, sure, but why is everyone acting like this kid is responsible for everything? Yosuke goes on to point this out.

YOSUKE: I don’t think there’s anyone in Inaba who doesn’t know me, at school or around town… Not that I mind, but… It sucks that I always gotta mind my manners.

That’s a… weird way of phrasing it. Sounds less like everyone hates him and more like he has to be a good rep for the company.

I level up to rank 2, which teaches him Trafuri. I doubt I’ll use it because it costs a crapton of MP.

The next day there’s a class with the literature teacher. He asks how Soseki Natsume translated “I love you” into Japanese; fortunately, this one is so well-known even I know it. I have to wonder how true it is, though? Because as an autistic person, having to intuit whether something as broad as “The moon is beautiful, isn’t it?” means someone loves me or not sounds like Hell.

In the afternoon, Yosuke finally buys Chie a replacement copy of the DVD he broke. Also, there’s a thunderstorm.

YOSUKE: Huh? What are you, scared of a little lightning?
CHIE: Quiet, you! I’d be a goner if even one of those things hit me!

This feels odd given that Yosuke’s Persona is weak to lightning, but Chie’s isn’t. Yosuke keeps mocking her because he’s a dick.

CHIE: You jerk! You don’t even care how I feel!

By all appearances, yes.

A lightning strike causes a town-wide blackout, so Yosuke has to go in to deal with the perishable goods at Junes. For some reason he’s bummed at the prospect of more work despite wanting to save up for a motorcycle. Chie is really spooked, and inexplicably Yukiko decides now is the best time to spook her more with a ghost story.

CHIE: Hold it right there! What are you talking about!?
YUKIKO: Huh? It’s a ghost story. I thought you liked them.
CHIE: Yeah, but why tell it now!?

This is interesting in regards to their Shadows’ claims they have trouble seeing the other as a real person. Chie is the strong one and Yukiko is the weak one; Yukiko doesn’t understand how to adjust when the roles are flipped. Does Yukiko think that Chie can’t really be scared, because to her, Chie always seems fearless?

I get the choice to pile onto the dickery or comfort Chie. I pick the latter because I’m not a dick and get social points for it.

YOSUKE: *sigh* Why don’t you just have him escort you back home, Chie?
CHIE: A-Are you making fun of me?
YOSUKE: Well, yeah. With how freaked out you are, can you blame me?

So wow, he’s just openly admitting to being awful for the sake of it. The power comes back on, and Chie and Yukiko immediately bail on the sociopath.

MALE STUDENT: …Oh yeah! I heard if you do well on the exams, Queen Tut will give you a reward. With that goal in mind… It’s time to give it my all!

I guess Morooka was right about these kids being baboons. Or did Sofue spread this rumor herself? We’ve seen a lot of creepiness from the teachers, too.

On Sunday Chie asks to hang out. A grasshopper lands on her back and she freaks out. So I guess we’re doing the thing where the tough girl is secretly actually a pathetic girly girl, because God forbid characters have multiple traits. She says that unlike her, Yukiko’s fine with bugs. I can tell her I find her insectophobia “cute”, “hilarious”, or “very feminine”. Sigh. I pick the latter because it’s obviously what she wants to hear, and sure enough that gets me social points. Siiiighhh.

Oh, I get a rank up. I thought Sunday hangouts couldn’t do that. Well, that’s a relief.

Back at home, Nanako is feeling awkward because it’s Mother’s Day and she has no one to give a present. How useless is this small town? Surely people should know about the situation here and, y’know, do at least the bare minimum to help out with the single dad taking care of this sad, sad child? I can say she can still give them to her mom (…so are we visiting the cemetery?), her dad, or me. Frankly I think I’m being a better parent than Dojima (not that it’s a high bar), so I demand she give the origami flowers to me. I don’t seem to actually get any, though, so my plans to use them as bribes for my social links are scuppered.

Then midterms happen. Unlike in P3, not all of them are pure repeats of the class questions, so you do have to have actually paid attention in class. They’re still trivial, though.

After exams, we eavesdrop on some gossip queens (so I guess we’re the only ones capable of eavesdropping) and learn a TV station’s doing a report on the local biker gang. Apparently a first-year at the school is in the gang. Yukiko is immediately enamored with the sexy bad boy she’s only just heard of. Darn it, Yukiko, appreciate Chie more.

I polish balls with the boys since they’re ready to level up. Kou reveals he has lots of admirers, but hates that they call him “Kou-chan”, and says that his name is “crappy”. I tried looking up the meaning on the internet, but it’s a Japanese name so of course there are a million variations depending on what kanji is used. Looking it up on the wiki, it’s specifically written using the kanji that means “health”. What about that’s crappy? His current admirer is offering him sweets, and he asks me if I want some. Yes!!! Give me all the candy!

Dojima is home this evening. He tells me Adachi spends a lot of time at Junes. Oh, isn’t that interesting. My first instinct is that he can’t be the culprit because he helped us with the investigation… but come to think of it, wouldn’t it be the perfect strategy to feed us false information? And isn’t it interesting that he’s constantly “slipping up” and telling us details about the investigation… I suppose he can’t actually be entering the TV, though, since Teddie would notice — unless, as I’ve been speculating, Teddie is in league with the culprit.

…And oh, I can actually talk to Dojima for once! Social link time? He’s an awkward conversationalist and struggles for a topic, eventually asking about my friends. He notes I’ve made a lot of them, but isn’t happy about it.

DOJIMA: I’m not saying who you can and can’t hang out with, but… You know what I’m talking about, right?

There’s an option to tell him to say it outright, but I don’t have enough courage for it. Boo. Instead I just say no, which annoys him because he thinks I’m playing dumb.

DOJIMA: For some reason, wherever there’s an incident, there you are… I wish I didn’t have to consider this, but… the killing began around the time you came to town.

That’s absurd. Not only do we have no connection to the first victim, we were at school when the body was discovered. How exactly does he think we killed someone and tied their body up in such a particular way on the night of our arrival, when he was keeping the closest watch on us? Even if he thinks we’re only an accomplice, that’s still absurd, because again, when would we have any time to help out when we had just arrived in town?

It seems Dojima is genuinely worried about you.

That’s certainly one way of putting it.

I do in fact get a social link. His Arcana is the Hierophant.

I finally decide to try out the day care job, where I meet a new character:

My gossipy coworker informs me she’s the boy’s stepmother, and he always acts distant and reserved around her. I guess she’ll be a social link at some point.

The plot resumes after this, so I’ll cut today’s post here.