Persona 4 – 24

“Yu, we need to find the culprit!” “Oh yeah? HOW ABOUT MY FIST FINDS YOUR FACE?!”

I may have pimped out both of my computers and my phone with Persona backgrounds and themes. Well, okay, I DID. Persona is just SO GOOD right now, it’s hard to not geek out over it; especially for the culprit-revealing episode!
LMAO what a title for this week’s episode. (It’s seriously titled “The World is Full of Shit” ヽ(´ー`)ノ) However, I’m writing this after I’ve watched it and this is officially the best episode of Persona yet. (In my very biased opinion.)

VR… Only Kuma’s in there alone and with no time wasted, he admits that he realised that he was actually a Shadow with human feelings who wanted to forget what he was. Kuma is still upset over Nanako, but Yu tells Kuma that she’s still alive. Back to where the last episode left off, Yu decides to go back to the hospital, but him and Yosuke go off to talk. Yosuke admits that he didn’t trust Yu completely and a bunch of other stuff, so he wants Yu to punch him to make them equals. …However, Yu punches him and Yosuke doesn’t feel any better, so the two have a bromance fist fight to solve their differences and in the end, Yosuke feels a lot better.

The drama isn’t over yet though! The team minus Yu and Yosuke all realise that a certain someone has been around for all of the incidents. In the hosptal, Yu and Yosuke run into Adachi and that’s where it all goes down. Dojima appears and gets angry for Adachi turning Namatame in before he was authorized to and apparently Adachi lost the threat letter that Yu got. That’s not all though since Naoto shows up and says that there was something off about Adachi’s reaction to when they read Namatame’s notebook out loud. The police hadn’t connected the kidnappings with the murders yet, but Adachi didn’t question why the names were together and even said that it proved that Namatame was the culprit. …Under the pressure, Adachi says that Namatame pushed them in for sure, meaning that he knows about the TV world. With that, he runs off and disappears into the TV himself.

Oh no, they finally figured out how badass and perfect I am!

Kuma visits Nanako and in an oddly serious moment, he says that he’s done with running away. The team finds him in the TV later, as they struggle to find Adachi on their own. Kuma finally tells them that he’s a Shadow, but everyone is cool with it, so Kuma’s fears were for nothing. However, the touching moment is very brief as Kuma then reverts back to his normal, slightly annoying, comic relief self and they can suddenly find Adachi. He’s located in a messed up Shadow world of Inaba and he says that his goal is to merge the two worlds together.

Adachi’s sudden awesomeness continues as he explains (and the team witnesses) that he found his powers by accident after getting angry at Mayumi for being more boring than he thought she would be, slamming her against the TV and accidentally shoving her in there. He threw Saki in there on purpose since he thought that she was having a fling with Namatame and afterwards, Adachi was the one Namatame called for help and he convinced Namatame that nobody would believe him and that if he wanted to save them, he should hide them in a safe place himself. As for Mitsuo, he threw him in the TV himself since it would interfere with his fun. The whole thing was a game for him. He planned the whole thing. The team even unknowingly played along with it too since them saving people further convinced Namatame that he was the one saving people, so he would keep throwing them in.

Adachi’s face is the highest form of art known to man

The team separates to fight the Shadows under Adachi’s control (he has complete control over his area, unlike the people in the TV before him) and in the end, it’s just Yu and him. Adachi explains that he has no real motive, other than to amuse himself and create a new world with Shadows. Adachi summons his Persona, Magatsu Izanagi and him and Yu start their final battle.

Bonus Adachy Baby!:

Would you like some tea? I’m all out of milk, so I hope you don’t mind LIQUIFIED HUMAN MISERY AND SUFFERING.

…I think I saw this in a doujin once. It ended a lot differently.

“Yosukkeeeee. I know you’re just jealous that I’m Spider Man, don’t take things so personally.”

And thus began a beautiful, abusive relationship.

I’ve been waiting a long time for Adachi to finally reveal his inner nature. I ignored him for the most part in the game, since he seemed just like an unassuming klutz. I’m sure he purposely acts that way to throw people off of his trail, but of course you don’t know that until after the fact. I was complaining to Kara about Adachi’s voice, and fretting over whether the Japanese version could live up to Johnny Yong Bosch’s near-perfect performance of Adachi in both derp mode and DEADLY mode. Luckily…he was awesome. I love my serial killer characters, what can I say! Their malicious intent needs to be portrayed adequately, or else they’re not nearly intimidating enough. Nothing is worse than an unconvincing villain, and I would have flayed the director and seiyuu alive if they didn’t do Adachi any justice. Thankfully, anime Adachi is just as twisted as I remember him. His monologue seems a bit shortened, but all of the key points are covered.

Rewinding a bit, the lead-up to hunting down Adachi was well done as well. They didn’t reveal his name in the first few minutes, leaving those not in the know to wriggle in their chairs anxiously. Now was probably the best time to finish off Yosuke’s social link considering how close they were in the last episode. It keeps you guessing who the killer is, it maintains the same tone, it doesn’t feel rushed or random, and it gives the team that extra closeness before they head into the final arena. Better to save Yu’s partner for last, because he’s certainly not going for anything more than friends with the lovely ladies in the show at this point. Maybe I’m biased because I ship those two so hard I could quit school and become a captain…But hey, I liked it! The two of them bonded and then went to face off against Adachi together as if they were the only characters in the show. I forgot about the rest of the team until they arrived lol. OOPSIES ヘ(°¬°)ノ

I wish I could erase the knowledge that Adachi was the culprit so I could feel some shock while watching this episode. D: The anime did a lot less hand-holding and explaining when trying to decide who the killer was and when interrogating Adachi. You’d have to really think about it to guess Adachi on your own from just the anime, whereas it’s a little more clear in the game. I prefer the concise dialogue though, because I really don’t need to take 50 screenshots of heads with their lips moving. Better to keep things moving! Get into battles and showdowns! It was pretty cliche to have all the side characters break off and fight the lesser bosses, but at least they won’t get in the way of the one on one Adachi vs Yu fight. They might join in later for a dramatic finish, but I like seeing things kept between the two Izanagi users. Next week’s battle miiiiight be kind of awesome. Heh.

This episode. So much win. OC and I were worried about these scenes since Adachi has been nothing but animated derp all season, but our fears were for nothing!!! Oh how well Adachi’s seiyuu went from being a joke to a sadistic and psychopathic bastard! I think I love Madono Mitsuaki’s evil Adachi more than Bosch’s. …Though after some brief research, apparently Madono is known for voicing joke characters who turn out to be way more than that, so he’s probably used to going from one extreme to the other by now. Back on topic, yeah. More win was that fistfight with Yosuke. I don’t think they explained Yosuke’s insecurities as well as they did in the game, but what’s important is the fact that you could feel the emotion from the characters. That end scene with the both of them lying in the snow, beat up and smiling read really well in my opinion. True bromance, right there.

Kuma almost had great character development here but then he kind of… lost it. I loved his part at the beginning of the episode, I loved him having a serious talk with Nanako and then I loved that scene with the team comforting him. After that though all of my respect for him just kind of …dropped again. He went straight from being the lonely shota back to the bear puns. It was waaaay too abrupt. You don’t do that. All of that awesome backstory about him being a Shadow did seem out of the blue, but having him get over it within 5 seconds of the team going “don’t leave” just makes it seem even more shortened. Hell, it even makes it seem unimportant. …Which is kind of true I guess story-wise, but you’d think that a character reveal like that would merit more than 5 seconds of seriousness (stuff that happened before aside).

So what do you guys think of the culprit being Adachi? He kind of came out of nowhere, yet he’s been in the anime enough that he was a possibility. I don’t even care about all of the stuff that they’ve skipped over to get to this part anymore, this is where it all goes down. …Or at least where most of it goes down, but that’s if they go the true ending or not. But yeah, they did an awesome job at making Adachi look completely psychopathic this episode. I am impressed.

…On a completely different note, Adachi got really close to Yu this episode. To borrow from anaaga,

Only joking…. kind of.

Preview: Will Kuma ever gain any lasting character development? Will Adachi’s awesomeness be stopped? …Should it even be allowed to stop?! UNTIL NEXT EPISODE.

A gun to the head instead of using a Persona? I think this could be Adachi’s theme song.

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We live, laugh, enjoy and strictly believe on "more the merrier". When together, we usually come up with very chatty, conversation-based episodics and interesting posts.
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28 Responses to “Persona 4 – 24”

  1. Kyokai says:

    …I think I saw this in a doujin once. It ended a lot differently.

    Oh man, I think I’ve seen this one on tumblr… >.>

    This episode was all dialogue and gesturing but still pretty perfect. The big reveal was handled well and being a non-player of game, I was pretty impressed with the findings.

    Also, stop hatin’ on Kuma, he’s pretty adorable and even being useless provides those comic moments. Of course, Yu grew on me to make some good quips but damn, I never get tired of the kuma-dialogues.

    • Overcooled says:

      So many P4 doujins, so little time!

      Yeah, there was a lot of explaining, even with lines being cut out. Still good though! Glad you liked the big reveal.

      lol, I think we’re taking turns hating on Kuma. TAG TEAM KUMA BASHING.

      • Karakuri says:

        Lololol I’m not so much Kuma bashing as I’m stating that they made me regain respect or him…. but then they made me lose it again xDDD.

  2. Metalsnakezero says:

    Its impressive at how the anime was able to handle this part of the game and still make it work at the pace it is going. Now the question is will the last episode have the true ending or simple one? I wouldn’t mind a Yu just talking to the “person” behind it all to state their reason for doing all of this.

    • Overcooled says:

      I’m still unsure if they can squeeze the true ending into one episode AND wrap up everything with Adachi. They really set up Adachi to be the final battle. I wouldn’t mind if they just summarized the final part quickly since it still felt like something “extra” in the game. It wasn’t all too mind-blowing.

      • Karakuri says:

        I think they will add in the final part since they’ve put effort into keeping that ‘extra’ character around

  3. Rakuen says:

    Adaichi as the culprit wasn’t too much of a surprise to me, to be honest. The show more or less wrote itself into a point where it could be one of three things:

    1) Split personality disorder (Narukami).
    2) Someone we “least suspect” (Adaichi).
    3) Someone completely out of the blue (???).

    Seeing as 3 is completely unacceptable at this point and 1 didn’t happen (it’d have been cool though!), all we’re left with is 2. It’s a little too predictable, but maybe I’m just in-tune to the mystery genre tropes.

    That said, what did surprise me is the depth of his moral decay. It makes me wonder why he would become an officer of the law at all. I mean, it’s a great cover, but if you want to watch the world burn, it’s also counter-productive.

    I’m looking forward to the conclusion, but I’m also going to miss this show so much. I’m starting to want to play the game, massive time investment that it is.

    • Yippy says:

      “Seeing as 3 is completely unacceptable at this point…”

      I wouldn’t count my chicks before they hatch if I were you… 😉

      As for Adachi being a cop:

      “Adachi also claims that he originally became a police officer just so he could carry a gun.~SMT Wiki (SPOLIERS AHOY!!!) “

      He did say that in the game, so it might’ve been that. Or it could be that he got disillusioned after being sent out to Inaba. It’s vague and not conclusive, but I’m putting my money on the latter theory.

      I definitely recommend you try it out, there’s only so much that the anime can cover. Not to mention that you can actually get the girl(s) unlike bachelor Yuu here. XD

      • FirstImpulse says:

        Oh yeah, in Japan handguns of all types are illegal to everyone except military and law enforcement.

        It’s why all gun-based animes are so unrealistic, cuz no one’s ever actually fired one before. XD

        • Yippy says:

          Probably, I haven’t watched any anime with a lot of gun-wielding characters before so I can’t say much. Though, we are talking about anime here…

      • Rakuen says:

        There had better not be a giant space flea from nowhere involved, or I’mma have to get out the bug spray.

        Also, needing a gun does make way more sense as a motivation.

        • Yippy says:

          Space flea? Where’d that come from?

          Anyway, it’s close…but not close enough. XD We’ll just have to see how they handle the next episode. If they leave out/botch that part, I’ll tell you all about it.

          • Rakuen says:

            A giant space flea from nowhere is a boss who completely blindsides the plot. Rather than having a rational explanation, it’s more like it was just thrown in as a challenge for the player. One of the most prolific examples is Necron from Final Fantasy 9, who is the final boss, has literally no reason to exist, and isn’t mentioned before or even after killing it.

            • Overcooled says:

              Huh, never heard of the giant space flea tv trope…Cool!

              The game….sort of….has a space flea thing. It’s only a bit more out of left field than Namatame was though. Things are more clear in the game since you get to talk to them, and it’s a bit suspicious that they have their own sprites when most normal NPCs just display a box of text with no picture to accompany it. :B We’ll see what they reveal in the next episode for now, otherwise I’m just going to keep saying vague, cryptic things to avoid spoiling it.

            • Yippy says:

              I disagree, the true final boss does throw you a surprise, but I think it’s a rational surprise (as far as logic in fiction is concerned). Blindsiding? Definitely, but it does have logic and proof behind it.

              Argh, the spoiler-free mode I’m writing in is killing me! Episode 25, hurry up!

        • ofislacker says:

          I think it’s more of a Chekhov’s Gunman than a giant flea, as Adachi meets all the criteria of being the culprit if you really think about it while ignoring the stupid actions he made.

          • Rakuen says:

            Yeah, Adachi was definitely a gunman, and a pretty well played one at that, if a bit predictable. I was referring anyone coming after him, because I have absolutely no idea where he/she/it would come from given the series thus far. ^_^;

            • Overcooled says:

              So many new tropes…Yes, Adachi fits that one more. If you want to know which of the two the true ending’s boss is, Show ▼

  4. BlackBriar says:

    Good post, KaraCool. LOL. What was Teddie doing in the Velvet Room and where are the two usual occupants? I laughed at the title of the episode: “The World is Full of Shit”.

    The punch out between Yu and Yosuke. Nothing says acknowledgement better than a few punches to the face. But Yu is still king referencing Mr. T’s “I pity the fool” to Adachi.

    Naoto in detective mode is one of the best parts of this anime. That and when Kanji showed up to the Adachi confrontation with four ladies. This anime has given rise to another playboy.

    The trolling ends here. We finally know who the culprit is and I can’t believe he was such a underhanded, sneaky, little bastard. OC, start your diagnosis on this freak and I’ll get the straight jacket.

    • Karakuri says:

      -to OC- we really need a new name.

      Anyways, yeah I lol’d at the title too. =w= Pfft you haven’t seen anything yet.

      • Overcooled says:

        I like how me diagnosing people is now a thing. Crazy character? SEND THEM TO OVERCOOLED. YES, GOOD, I LOVE THE MENTALLY DISTURBED ONES! 8D

        *to Kara* We do. The Bloodlust Sisters? Massacre Twins? OVERCURRY?!?! I think I’m bad at this…I give up.

        • Karakuri says:

          -to OC- ….we only share one letter so we have the options of Karakurcooled or Overi LOLOLOL

          • BlackBriar says:

            LOL. I see this is pulling you both by the hair.

            @OC: “The Bloodlust Sisters?” Given your and Karakuri’s love for bloody things, I’m not surprised you came up with that. That has both of you written all over it.

            • Karakuri says:

              Lol we could be the Minagoroshi Kyoudai (massacre siblings) if we wanted to Japanese our name.

            • Overcooled says:

              THIS IS SO HARD! SO VERY HARD! The question is…how weeaboo do we want to be? LOL.

  5. Yippy says:

    That was an amazing episode (and review)! Nice final pic too, that really made me laugh. XD Did anaaga make it?

    Anyway, I agree with you, Karakuri, Kuma’s Shadow reveal didn’t have any major impact at all. Relatively speaking though, Adachi-baby was the more important plot point that needed to be covered

    Btw, didn’t anybody notice that Yuu and Yosuke’s faces looked picture perfect right after they punched each other silly on the face. Weird…perhaps bromance activates Diarahan (healing spell in game)?

    Evidence!

    • Karakuri says:

      I stole it off her tumblr, so I have no idea xD

      Hell yes! Adachi finally has his time to shine! This really was an amazing episode and I loved everything they did minus that one part with Kuma.

      Lololol injury continuity? What’s that? xD I guess you can’t interrogate people and look beat up at the same time. Doesn’t Yosuke learn that ability too? Maybe he did it.

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