(The following is based on a save file of 3 hours, 26 minutes up to April, 18^th, 2011, in game date. Just the first week if you may. Playing on Easy.)

False starts

I always had false starts with any Atlus RPG I saw through. Tokyo Mirage Session on Wii U took me about 5 hours before I beat its Switch port. Persona 5 gave me two false starts, vanilla and Royal on PS4. Royal on Switch was almost a false start until I went back after a 13 months long hiatus. Persona 3 Portable gave me an appetizer before my almost 3 weeks long deep dive into Reload happened.

More than 70 hours spent on Persona 3 Reload gave me hell of a hangover. So much so that it would bleed into what I played play next. I went back to Disco Elysium, but that backfired. By the end of the Persona 3 main plot, people wished for a big red rest button for their sorry lot in life. The poor sods in Disco Elysium are pretty much in the same place and that made me unable to further the murder investigation there. So, what to do but dust off the Vita I bought a full decade ago and reopen the cold cases in Persona 4 Golden. After all, I want this year to be when I see the majority of Second Persona Trilogy through.

While I bought Persona 4 Golden on Switch again at the tail end of last year, I have good reasons to play it on Vita. I am going to take my time with this one, so it’s bound to get warm before I’m done. I need something that I can pocket with my spring jacket or pants. Something like Vita. But the save file on Normal had been abandoned for 8 years so I don’t remember much (Like the impulse to kill Teddy with fire, but not sure why.). Restart on Easy I did.

Polar Opposites

The leap from “PS5’s very own” Persona 3 Reload to Persona 4 Golden can be jarring. Considered by many as the best video game on Vita, Golden certainly feels “of its time” in 2024. Auto advance during the visual novel style cut scenes can only be turned on in configuration menu. Save can only be done at hubs’ save points instead of system menu. Welcome to a PS2 game came out in 2008, as the game said to me.

The shorter the gap between series installments is, the more different some aspects would be. Take homeroom teacher for example, Persona 3 and Persona 5 both drew theirs as anime babes while Persona 4’s Mr. Moroka is an ugly ass man. This foul-mouthed (Addressing your student as “ki-sama” is not okay, sir! Not since you lot lost that War.) SOB’s design is so hard to look at that if you put him and an unmasked Predator side by side, I would still point at the human and say “That’s one ugly motherfucker!”

The other one would be the animal companion. While Persona 3’s Koromaru and Persona 5’s Morgana both fall into the domestic pet territory, Teddy the bear (I guess they kind of made a mess here with Persona 3 Portable’s male Velvet Room attendant named Theodore after this localization decision.) is closer to a wild animal. This little shit has the balls to accuse player character of murder during at the first time they met. Now I remember why I wanted to kill it with fire.

Master of one universe

Comparatively, “sen-sei” is much easier to translate than that “sei-pai” word used among seemingly peers. Criterion Collection nailed it a long time ago when it was translated into “master” in Yojimbo. The context is as followed: Sanjuro played Toshiro Mifune is a samurai, social better than the thugs who want to hire him. As due respect, the potential employers call him “sen-sei” or “master”.

Nowadays, samurai is no longer a class in Japan, but “sen-sei” is used to call people of certain occupations. Firs there are senators, those who played Persona 5 in Japanese would hear Shishido being called “sen-sei”. Then there are Attorneys of law who work at the pirate sector are called that. No one calls the elder Niishima a public persecutor “sen-sei” in Persona 5. After that, people qualified to educate, including martial arts instructors are called “sen-sei”, which is basically the widest use of the word. Medical doctors are maybe the second widest with published author at the third. Though “published authors” would include “mangaka”, cartoonists or graphic novelists if you can go that far, game developers are not included. Dr. Austin Walker’s “Kojima sensei” is nothing more than a joke made by people who don’t speak Japanese. Get in the line behind film directors, who do not get the same respect either.

Back to Persona 4, after the player character summoned his Persona for the first time, Teddy called “sensei” in katakana. “Master” would be a very fitting translation here. Not only is the player character the first one to summon a Persona, he also beat others’ Shadow into their Personas. Oh, how this one is more of the “Big Dick Nick” savior stereotype that Abnormal Mapping’s Jackson Talyor would pull their hair out over than the other 2 in this trilogy. Persona 3’s he-who-got-Death-within only saw his own Persona for the first time on screen while all other combatants get their Personas without him there. Persona 5’s Codename Joker would take his friends to Palaces’ master but said friends all have to pull the sticks up their asses out on their own. Persona 4’s Master has to take his friends to the doors, open said doors for them then drag them in screaming and kicking. You got to love the late aughts for the power fantasy of bundles.

Ouroboros

Persona 4’s rural setting and murder mystery is an obviously homage to JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 4 Diamond is unbreakable. Back in 2008 when the game first came out on PS2, the “Araki on his bullshit the most” chapter of the beloved comics had not been adapted into an animated series. It would not be adapted into an animated series until 2016 when Persona 5’s release was near. Atlus behind Persona and David Production behind the current JoJo series are both notoriously focusing on anime usual suspects when it comes to voice cast, so it’s only fair that Persona 4 and JoJo Part 4 share the following 4 cast members, in the order of their appearances in Persona 4.

Unsho Ishizuka voiced Ryutaro Dojima in Persona 4. Mr. Ishizuka voiced the “still got it” old Joseph Joestar in Stardust Crusaders and would return in Part 4 as the “too old for this shit” Joe in parts not yet covered by this site’s watch along podcasts as the time of writing. RIP to Mr. Ishizuka for he past in 2018, left big shoes to fill as the trying his best cop dad whenever Atlus decides to remake Persona 4.

Showtario Morikubo voiced the first party member Yosuke Hanamura in Persona 4, whose name now sounds suspiciously like an homage to Josuke Higashigata of JoJo Part 4. They brought back player character’s voice of Persona 3 on PS2 Yuri Lowenthal for this one and it does make sense with his short swords plus ear-phone. Mr. Morikubo appeared in JoJo Part 4 as a guitar playing enemy Stand user who named his Stand Red Hot Chilly Pepper.

Then there are Kappei Yamaguchi as Teddy and Sayaka Ohara as Velvet Room’s Margert, 2 seemingly immortal helpers to the player character. Mr. Yamaguchi and Ms. Ohara appeared in JoJo Part 4 with the same archetype, short dude and tall pretty lady respectively. But their JoJo characters both fell victim for simply knowing too much.

Foggy days to come

This piece is as much as an outgoing impression as it is an internal refresher. It’s also a way making me to see the game through. Below the save file this is based on, another one says “4 hours 12 minutes, April, 18^th. Normal”. This was abandoned by yours truly sometime back in March, 2016. It was a very different time since I got no idea how an Atlus RPG work back then. Now I had seen credits roll in 3 of those, I felt at home here at after-school time in the classroom on April, the eighteenth. Hopefully I can get through this time, no matter the time it takes.

(To be continued)