Last time, we had our obligatory beach episode that still managed to be less bad than the campout, and Nanako desperately needs a restraining order against Teddie.
Anyway, the case is closed so I’m sure the next term will be completely uneventful!
When we arrive at school on the 1st, Naoto reveals he’s now attending Yasogami High… as a first-year, so wow, he’s even more of a baby than I thought. Apparently he has some “family-related issues” and thinks some details of the case still don’t add up, so he’s staying here a while longer.
The PE teacher asks us the meaning of “venison”. I say deer meat, but he says WELL ACKSHULLY it originally meant any game animal even though it now means deer meat specifically. Okay, but you didn’t ask for the etymology, you just asked what it meant generally.
After school, sociopath boy complains life’s become boring now that they’re no longer in a life-or-death struggle. Chie insists he’s being weird. Yukiko suggests they invite Naoto to hang out with them because he clearly needs friends, only to discover some other girls are already trying to pounce on him. He blows them off, and the team takes that as an invitation to immediately try the same thing. Naoto actually responds to this much more warmly, but says he promised his grandpa he’d stay home this evening, though he agrees he’d like to hang out in the future.
The team meets up after school to discuss the upcoming class trip. It’s to Tatsumi Port Island, the setting of Persona 3! Wonder what we’ll find there. The trip will apparently be centered around the local private school. HMM. P3 cameos ahoy?
Adachi is available in the evening. I invite him over for supper, as we discussed. Nanako helps cook, and Adachi tries to be nice:
ADACHI: I bet Dojima-san tells you all the time what a great help you are!
Sorry, nope. That would require him to be here.
ADACHI: I knew it. He’s probably just embarrassed.
Nice save. He then kills the mood further by reminding Nanako that her big bro is going to leave her next year.
ADACHI: I bet Dojima-san is going to cry!
Yeah, sure, he’s the one who’s going to cry. Adachi cheers Nanako up by doing magic tricks.
“You like magic tricks?”
ADACHI: Not particularly. I’m just good with my hands. Stuff like this comes easy to me.
Hm. He ponders whether he should have been a magician instead of a police officer, because “Then I wouldn’t be in such a–“ but cuts himself off before he says what. Then he backpedals to insist that he couldn’t possibly have made a living that way. Hmmm.
The next morning students are gossiping about being sick of all the news about the murder case resolution. Why haven’t we been watching that? I finally have access to the school again, so I can cash in all my quests and listen to the new NPC dialogue. The students still believe the Midnight Channel shows your soulmate, even though they all notice that it showed Mitsuo.
I hang out with the sports boys, since it’s been a while. Kou is in a funk and I update Daisuke on his situation. Daisuke decides that if they play a “real game” Kou will regain his love for basketball, and reveals he has blackmail on all the sports players he can use to make them cooperate. Okay.
On Sunday Yukiko calls me to have a date. The inn is hosting a TV show, but it turns out to be the tabloid reporters from before.
SHADY REPORTER: I want you to be the star. When we introduce the hot springs, let us film a little bathing scene, eh?
So when NPCs do it we can acknowledge it’s “shady”, but when Teddie does it it’s just wacky hijinks. The reporter starts insulting the inn and Yukiko flips her lid at him, causing him to storm off in a huff.
YUKIKO: There was a time not long ago when I thought, “It’d be better off if it closed,” but it’s like my home… It’s where everyone in my world is… I can’t let it close…
Please don’t let this end with her deciding to stay after all. Her rank 8 skill is Mudoon, which is significantly better than the other rank 8 skills we’ve seen.
The next day, I’m finally able to return the handkerchief Saki’s brother gave me. This finally gets me his name (Naoki) and his social link (Hanged Man). I hope I haven’t screwed myself out of maxing this one by getting it so late.
In the evening I can hang out with Dojima again. Nanako interrupts to remind him he promised to read her a book before bed. He agrees, but gets a phone call and says he has to leave. This time I’m on the ball enough to guilt him about it, and he actually stays for once! After Nanako’s put to bed, he tells me the phone call was about a test on the hit-and-run, so yeah, that absolutely could have waited, you are a terrible father.
On the morning of the 7th, Kanji and Yosuke come by to talk to me about the upcoming trip. Kanji has prepared and packed in advance and Yosuke mocks him for it, even though last time the lack of preparations or food supplies was a big deal, because Yosuke just hates Kanji. Kanji wonders if the island’s talking about the murders too, because the news here has been talking about Mitsuo constantly. When? Why is this the first I’m hearing of this? The game keeps acting like TV is an important motif, but we never actually watch anything except the shopping channel.
Kanji is uncomfortable with how the news is wallowing in Mitsuo’s case and dredging up everything they can find from his personal life. For some reason, no one brings up that this is exactly what Mitsuo wanted. Unfortunately, Naoto shows up and scares Kanji off before anything more can be said. I thought the entire reason Kanji was dating boys was because he’s less intimidated by them?
I can hang out with Naoki today. He says that the media and neighbors have constantly been coming by to ask about the murder and express their condolences, the hypocrisy of which disgusts him since they never cared about Saki before she died.
Then it’s time for the school trip. Please let us see at least one of the SEES members, I’ll even take Junpei. …Instead we get Chihiro. Okay. She’s now Student Council president, so this must be a year after the events of Persona 3. We won’t be seeing Mitsuro or Akihiko then, that’s a shame. Yosuke does not care about any of this and just starts slobbering over Chihiro.
And we get confirmation Kanji is attracted to girls.
Chihiro politely ignores the creeps saying this three feet away from her and continues her introductory speech.
CHIHIRO: This is the first time our school has invited another student body for a true cultural exchange.
“They were all like ‘Oh my god, wasn’t a student murdered last year?’ but then we found out, hey, your school had two murders, you can’t say no to us!” Afterwards she reveals that Mitsuru wrote the speech for her, so Mitsuru is continuing to micromanage the school through a figurehead in addition to everything else she’s doing. She must be a very busy woman.
We get a lecture from Mr. Edogawa about the myth of Izanami. Probably redundant for Japanese players, but very useful to me. In the evening, we discover Ms. Cougar has decided the kids will be staying at a love hotel. Why. Also, Teddie has followed the team here. I am dreading this.
RISE: Grrr… If only I could detect people in the real world…
Wait, do Personas not work outside the TV world? Was this mentioned earlier?
The next day, we skip straight to evening, where the kids decide to go to Club Escapade. Naoto reveals he’s also here and Yukiko invites him to hang out with them. Naoto agrees but gets a little embarrassed, which Yosuke draws attention to because he’s a dick. Kanji continues to hide his face and act awkward, and the rest of the team continues to ignore this.
He’s facing Naoto normally in the next scene though?
Rise accidentally ordered alcoholic drinks, so Teddie and the girls are super drunk. Rise insists they play the King’s Game to prove she’s an adult. Teddie draws the king stick. Oh no. He demands he gets a kiss. Oh no. He draws Kanji instead of any of the girls. Well, at least Kanji’s into him?
KANJI: Aaaagh! No! Heeeelp!
Nope, they had to make it hilarious sexual assault. Well, Teddie at least removes himself from the game by doing this. I draw the king stick next time. Unfortunately I can’t demand someone draft me a restraining order against Rise and instead the girls crowdsource my options. I choose piggyback ride because it seems the least sexual, and end up picking Yosuke, netting me some social link points. Next, Yukiko just declares herself queen and requests Naoto talk about something embarrassing. Yosuke points out she’s breaking the rules, but Naoto agrees on the condition that everyone else has to do the same, so it’s infodump time. Naoto claims he has no embarrassing secrets to tell, so instead reveals he comes from a long line of detectives.
NAOTO: We lend our powers to the police from time to time.
This makes it sound like detectiving is a supernatural ability. Why this phrasing? A translation goof?
NAOTO: But investigators nowadays are well versed in science and medicine, so I must further my studies.
Unlike the good old days, when you could just shout “She’s a witch!”
Naoto then asks us for our own secret: Our involvement in the murder case. Yosuke tries to disengage, but drunk Yukiko immediately blurts everything out, including the supernatural wackiness. Despite Yosuke immediately shouting, “Y-You idiot!” Naoto just assumes she’s pulling his leg. Ace detective, huh? Naoto then insists that no alcohol has been served in this club since a rash of drunk driving last year. (…When was Nanako’s mother killed?) Instead of everyone immediately saying oh crap someone poisoned us, they just let Yukiko and Rise pass out.
NAOTO: Are you a pack of imbeciles!?
Yes, obviously.
And… we just move on to the next day. No explanation for how the girls obviously got poisoned/roofied. …And now that I say that, it sure is suspicious that Rise in particular had the worst reaction, as if someone was targeting her.
…How is Teddie eating through his suit? After some banter, he suddenly stops moving. Oh, no, is he dead? What a tragedy that would be. …No, he just overate. Well, that was a pointless fakeout. We head back and… that’s it? That was the entire trip? Nothing happened! We only got two P3 cameos, and neither of them were SEES members. What was the point of this? Well, I did get Nanako a souvenir at at least. (…She didn’t like the T-shirt, so I reloaded and got her a mochi.)
On the 12th I go on a date with Naoki. We have a nice time, but some passing gossipers complain that he should be sadder since his sister died. He confesses he hasn’t been able to relax since the murder since he hasn’t been sure how to act. Poor kid.
That night…
Oh no, Naoto’s about to become the next victim. And apparently this town’s pedophilia is equal-opportunity. I was going to say it’s stupid of him to do this when he knows about the TV connection, but then he also thinks the real killer is still out there, so he’s probably using himself as bait. If so, that’s clever of him. He tells the reporter that while he believes Mitsuo did kill Morooka, he thinks there are still unresolved questions about the case as a whole, but refuses to divulge further details. The news then starts a mini-biopic on him, claiming that he’s solved an unbelievable 24 cases in his life so far, but Nanako interrupts before the TV can go into more details and John apparently finds her chatter so enthralling he just ignores the TV for the rest of the night.
The next morning the team ambushes me to gossip about the report I didn’t watch.
YOSUKE: C’mon, we’re the ones who actually caught the killer.
You could have come forward about it any time, Hero Complex.
CHIE: I’m kinda surprised, though. I didn’t think [Naoto] was the type to go after the spotlight like that.
Yosuke, please redeem yourself and make the connection. Instead, Naoto himself shows up to interrogate us. He confirms that he knows the pattern among the victims (but does not mention that Morooka breaks it), and that Yukiko, Kanji, and Rise also fit it.
NAOTO: Either you escaped death somehow, or you faked your own disappearances in order to divert attention from yourselves…
That last theory seems like quite a leap. Why would making themselves into a local news story make them less conspicuous? Maybe he’s theorizing that if they are the culprits they would have to pretend to be victims after appearing on TV, but surely it would have been easier to just avoid cameras? Naoto outright confirms he thought one of them was the culprit, but says he now thinks we’re trying to stop the culprit. Then, finally, Naoto discusses how Morooka breaks the pattern.
NAOTO: The first two victims are still listed with an unknown cause of death… But Mr. Morooka died of an easily identifiable blunt force trauma to the occipital cranium.
Why is this the first we’re hearing about this? This is a bad mystery story.
Instead of outright telling us “I’m using myself as bait, please rescue me when I get caught,” he just mumbles some vague stuff about finding the truth and walks off. He doesn’t show up at school, but John is totally unconcerned about this.
I go on another date with Naoki, but he gets heckled by a passing housewife. I tell her off, which he appreciates, since as a local business he can’t antagonize the neighbors by telling them off himself.
On the 14th we finally have another rainy night, so we check the Midnight Channel and sure enough it’s Naoto. Just the silhouette, though, so he hasn’t been abducted yet. Yosuke calls to be a doofus and I tell him it’s obviously Naoto.
YOSUKE: Naoto? Why would he show up on TV?
I see Yosuke’s brain has taken a leave of absence. The next day the whole team chats about it, and all prove just as stupid as Yosuke (though Yosuke did at least confirm with Teddie that the TV world has had no new arrivals). Since they theorized the silhouette was just the killer’s intent, it would be reasonable to argue that just because someone’s showing up doesn’t mean the killer can act on it, but they just jump immediately to deciding there’s no way it could mean anything despite Naoto reminding them there are still loose ends. Yosuke teases Kanji about his crush on Naoto because he’s a dick and Chie finally admonishes him for his unrelenting dickery toward Kanji.
YUKIKO: Is it just me, or does this town seem kind of strange lately? Everyone is in high spirits, for some reason… And they all talk about other people, but never themselves.
Huh. So is the town itself being corrupted somehow?
It’s raining the next night too, and this time Naoto’s Shadow appears.
NAOTO: Welcome to “Experiment of the Century: The Genome Project.” I will be experimentor and experimentee both, in a forbidden yet wonderful bodily alteration process!
…Huh. Okay, so I’ve seen spoilers that there’s apparently some debate over whether Naoto is transgender. Is this going to get into that, then? Though given their track record on homosexuality, I’m dreading what their hot take on gender identity is going to look like.
This time, Kanji’s the one who calls us. He acts upset, but agrees further action can definitely wait until tomorrow afternoon. You know what would have worked so much better? If everyone was working the night shift at Junes. The Midnight Channel works on every TV, so the whole team could watch it at once on the Junes TVs, and they could jump into the TV world immediately following any activity. It would be easy for Yosuke to get them jobs there, even. But no, we had to do it this way, because this was such better storytelling?
The next day at the meetup Yukiko surprises me by being the first to put together that Naoto intentionally used himself as bait. We’re also finally given the chance to propose that Mitsuo is a copycat and not the main culprit, y’know, like Naoto already told us.
CHIE: Didn’t Mitsuo say he was the one behind it all? Why would he take the blame for someone else’s crime?
HE TOLD YOU EXACTLY WHY. WHY ARE YOU ALL SUCH IDIOTS.
KANJI: If we don’t get off our asses, that stupid Naoto’s gonna die in there! We gotta go find him!
…After a week of gathering hints and catching up on club activities, of course.
After talking to all the NPCs I learn I need to wait a day to talk to the next NPC in the chain, so I hang out with Naoki to pass the time. He feels obligated to take over the liquor store after his father now that Saki is dead, even though he has no interest in it. I try telling him he doesn’t have to, but he doesn’t listen.
NAOKI: Why did Sis die? Er… I don’t mean how she died… I don’t want to know what killed her.
That’s an odd thing to say. He said before that he didn’t hate the killer, so did he actually hate Saki and so doesn’t care about getting closure? If nothing else, he should be mad at the killer for putting his family in this situation, yet he’s only blaming Saki.
The next day I’m able to extract the relevant information from some police officers: Naoto has an obsession with the case, and the police treat him like a child. Didn’t we already know this? Regardless, this finally unlocks his dungeon:
At least it’s not sex-themed? Hopefully?
This dungeon’s gimmick is that while it has fewer floors in total, I have to backtrack several floors after obtaining a key item from a dead end, then backtrack again after getting another key item. Well, at least redoing this dungeon for the optional boss will be quick.
Oh hey, benched characters can make a bonus attack after knockdowns now that they have bikes, that’s cool. Teddie wheels in on roller skates, which is pretty funny.
The mid-dungeon updates don’t give us anything interesting this time, it’s just the lab blaring intruder alerts. Rise worries this means Naoto doesn’t want us to save him, but…
He’s actually taking this remarkably well. His Shadow is an immature clingy crybaby… but if that’s his true self, does that mean he wants to be treated like a child? It proceeds to make what might be our most incoherent Shadow argument yet:
SHADOW NAOTO: These childish gestures are no mere affectation… They’re the truth. The fools all say it, don’t they…? “You’re only a child,” “Keep out of our business, kid,” and so forth. No matter how many cases you spend hours cogitating over, no matter how many crimes you solve, you’re a child in their eyes.
“Your true self is how others perceive you”? Really? Are you Stanislavskian or Jungian, game? Pick one.
SHADOW NAOTO: It’s your brain they’re interested in. […] As long as they need it, you’re an ace detective! But once you’re done, it’s back to the playpen with you.
Okay, so the adults don’t take him seriously, but also they do respect his work because he really is a good detective? What? Farla generously speculates this could be a translation error, and it’s supposed to be more along the lines of “The adults will work with you, but they won’t ever be friends with you.” That would at least fit with the Shadow’s clinginess just before this.
SHADOW NAOTO: I wanna be a grown-up… I wanna be a big boy right now… Then they’ll see who I am…
NAOTO: That’s enough. I can find my own reason for living…
SHADOW NAOTO: Hah… I’m telling you that’s impossible. You are but a child. How can you change that essential truth?
By… waiting for time to pass? This is so nonsensical. Your age is the exact opposite of an immutable fact, it’s changing all the time. It’s true that there are kids who do have this kind of complex and want to rush into adulthood, but this is the weirdest possible way of saying that. And it’s doubly weird for a teenager to be saying this; Naoto’s 15, he can’t wait a measly 3 years?
Then, finally, we get into gender stuff.
SHADOW NAOTO: At your core, you admire the sort of “strong” and “cool” men who populate detective fiction. […] “Naoto”… Such a cool, manly name! But a name doesn’t change the truth. It doesn’t let you cross the barrier between the sexes. How could you become an ideal man when you were never male to begin with…?
This finally gets under Naoto’s skin enough for him/her to deny the Shadow. Chie gives out a warning way too late. You know, maybe it would have been more helpful to say that at the start when Naoto was still calm and trying to talk to you, you idiots?
Imagery is once again subtle as a sledgehammer, but works well enough. The battle goes fairly quick since I now have Power Charge and Matarukaja. Shadow Naoto mostly uses status ailments in the first half, then switches to nullifying everyone’s resistances followed by Mabufudyne spam. The first phase was honestly tougher since I’m not set up to deal with ailments well, but the second phase was easily cheesed with a few Magic Mirrors on Yukiko.
CHIE: So… Naoto-kun was a girl.
That’s your biggest takeaway from this? Really? Naoto wakes up and gives us more exposition: their parents died in an accident when they were young, so they were raised by their grandfather and spent all their time reading detective novels.
NAOTO: My parents were proud of their job.
Parents plural, so their mom was also a detective. So Naoto definitely doesn’t have to pretend to be a man to be a detective. Naoto goes onto say their grandfather was very supportive, so he wasn’t filling Naoto with internalized misogyny either.
NAOTO: My status as a “child” was sufficient to offend many of those whom I worked with. Were that the only issue, then it would have resolved itself with time…
Better to acknowledge this obvious fact late than never, but why didn’t you say this when your Shadow brought it up?
NAOTO: But though I will one day change from a child to an adult, I will never change from a woman to a man…
That’s a non-sequitor. Are they also being dicks to Naoto because they’re a girl, or not?
YUKIKO: Do you not like being a girl…?
Naoto nods, which seems pretty definitive, but then says, “My sex doesn’t fit my ideal image of a detective…” which isn’t what she asked.
NAOTO: Besides, the police department is a male-oriented society. If they had the slightest “concrete” reason to look down on me, no one would need me anymore…
This is really incoherent. Being a child is already a concrete reason to look down on them. Their Shadow didn’t say their relationship with the police was fragile; if anything, the fact the police are still willing to employ Naoto despite hating that they’re a child implies the exact opposite, that Naoto is such a good detective that trumps everything else. I’m not clear why they’d be willing to work with a teenager but working with a girl teenager would be a bridge too far? Is this some sort of cultural disjoint that makes more sense in Japan? I don’t even.
Then Yukiko suddenly declares that Naoto obviously doesn’t want to be a boy, they just want to be accepted, and… Naoto agrees with this?
Naoto has faced her other self… She has obtained the facade used to overcome life’s hardships, the Persona Sakuna-Hikona!
Except she was already using a facade, and we just convinced her to drop the facade. Do you not know what “facade” means, writers? Did the Japanese use a different word they translated wrong?
NAOTO: But it’s apparent now… This case is far from over.
YOSUKE: That’s right… And you proved it, Naoto.
Why is Yosuke being nice? What is he planning?
…So okay, I guess my answer to the “Is Naoto trans?” debate is, “Hell if I know.” Naoto doesn’t even seem to know. My best read at this point is that her gender isn’t male or female, but “detective”, and sees being male as a necessary prerequisite for that… but that doesn’t really make sense, because unless she was raised by a gay couple, she just said her mom was also a detective. This could have been a really interesting discussion on the blurriness of “Am I crossdressing because of misogyny or because I intrinsically want to be a man?” because it does genuinely seem to me that Naoto isn’t cleanly on either side of that divide — she says yes to “Do you not like being a girl?” but also to “I’m doing it for extrinsic reasons XYZ.” It’s also possible that she’s an unreliable narrator and is masking her perceived irrational desire to be a man with “I’m definitely only crossdressing for completely logical reasons and nothing else,” but then we’re getting into really speculative territory. Of course, Kanji shows these writers have only the most superficial understanding of queer issues, so for all I know they intended to write a trans man and just have incredibly awful ideas of what that looks like. It’s already deeply uncomfortable how the scary operating table appears to be pathologizing transition — are these writers Rowling-brand TERFs who think the evil transgenders are confusing their precious girls into thinking they’re men? Ugh, I don’t even know. To minimize confusion I’ll align my commentary with the narration and continue using female pronouns for Naoto, but I’m dreading what her social link will look like.