Persona 4 – 11

It’s raining, it’s pouring, King Moron is snoring. He went to bed, I smashed in his head, and he couldn’t get up in the morning~

It feels good to be on a break. I can do fun things, like play Devil Survivor Overclocked. It takes place in the same universe as the Persona games, but it’s a bit different. The combat system is similar, but there’s not really a dating aspect. It’s more like a TWEWY, walk around and hear people talk sort of thing. The game came out a few months ago, so I’m not planning on a review but know this – it’s awesome. And if you haven’t even played Persona yet…YOU SHOULD REALLY GET ON THAT.

Yaaay sleep deprivation! To tell you the truth, I have absolutely nothing interesting to say this week. As for Persona, it’s just your basic slice of life episode… complete with naked bishies and creepy stalkers.

Velvet room stuff happens. Moving on, a youth is seen sitting in his room playing an extremely outdated looking video game with pictures of Rise and Yukiko hanging creepily on his wall. …And then he starts laughing maniacally. The scene then flips to the corpse from last episode. If you couldn’t tell from the familiar looking ugly suit or terrible haircut, it’s King Moron. The investigation team gets frustrated since the victim never appeared on TV OR the Midnight Channel. To cheer them up, Aiya gives the team the gigantic ramen bowl they normally only serve on rainy days. After they fail to eat it all, the team goes to Junes, where the workers tell Yosuke that a person named Kumada came by. …It’s Kuma.

Apparently he got bored in the TV, so he finally realized that he could go to the outside world. The team asks him if anyone was inside the TV, but find out that nobody else came. Just as the team contemplates if the murderer gave up on using the TV method since they’ve been saving people, Kuma takes off his head and HOLY BISHIE, there’s actually a blonde, naked guy inside. Unfortunately, his voice stays the same. Everyone is surprised that Kuma somehow grew himself a body and the girls rush off to buy him some clothing. Meanwhile, at the police station, Dojima is doing some work. (And by work, I mean staring at pictures of the people who were kidnapped and assuming that they’re part of the murder mystery going on.) Adachi mentions a prodigy detective kid that will be working with them.

So once Kuma has clothing, the girls confirm that the bishounen really is the Kuma they know. Also, Nanako runs into Yukiko’s stalker from episode 2. However, he fails to see her adorableness and then proceeds to threaten her, saying that he’ll show her what happens to people who cross him. Luckily Yu, the reliable Onii-chan, shows up to thwart his child grabbing attempts. Yu’s swag is too much for the stalker, so he quickly flees.

I WILL go Ben-to on your ass if you don’t back off from the sales!

After Yu retrieves Kuma’s head, Chie informs Yosuke that they charged the money for Kuma’s clothing to his account. Also, Kuma gives Yu glasses to give to Rise. In front of Rise’s place, Yu and Yukiko run into the blue haired boy from Kanji’s arc. He finally introduces himself as Shiragane Naoto and explains that he’s a detective/helping the police out with the case. After that, he goes right ahead and says that something is off about the latest death because the victim never appeared on TV. Teenagers win over the police once again. After Naoto leaves, the team talks to Rise and confirms that she never saw her kidnapper’s face either.

The next school day, Yu’s class gets a new homeroom teacher. Her name is Kashiwagi Noriko and she desperately needs to button up her shirt. After school, Yukiko’s stalker shows up at the school gates again saying that he wants to show her his world. However, before the episode allows for any further Disney references, Yukiko says that she doesn’t even remember the guy. Later, it turns out that the stalker was the one shown in the beginning and he’s bragging about murdering everyone online. Of course, it’s the internet, so nobody believes him. Mitsuo (the stalker kid) is later seen standing in front of the police station in the rain.

Some kidnappers wait until the time is right. Others like meeting their friends first.

After finals are over for the team, they decide for about the 20th time to catch the murderer. However, Naoto shows up then and says that the murderer has already been caught. The group is at a loss after that, but Yu suggests that they still check out the Midnight Channel. It’s a good thing they do, because Mitsuo appears on it saying to catch him if they can.

Stop complaining, Naoto, you don’t even have exams!

Rainy Day Special:

The rainy day “can you eat this pile of meat that’s bigger than your head?” special

Clean-up in aisle 5…clean up in aisle 5…

HNNNGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

 Here you go, babe, this is for last night. Buy yourself something nice, alright?

End Thoughts:

This was a much better episode than the last one. A lot of things happen in this episode, but every event flows seamlessly into the next. A huge amount of time went by too! They’re in their summer clothes now! The serial killings still don’t feel very serious due to the comedic nature of the show, but this episode is probably the bleakest one so far in comparison to the others. I’m still a fan of the mix of serious attempts to solve a grisly mystery complemented by all of the jokes and references to the game. The rainy day special beef bowl may just be one of those stat-boosting activities Yu can do, much like folding cranes, but it always makes me smile to see them put these details in the anime. Gamers, have any of you beaten the rainy day challenge?

Mitsuo is an…interesting addition to the Persona cast. There’s a lot more detail being paid to him in the anime, which is nice. I always love looking into the minds of psychos and seeing their motives, and odd behaviours. I really like how he attacked the garbage bag and even tried to go off on Nanako, because…well…people with antisocial personality do that. They see any interaction they have in the world as being intentionally violent and directed against them, which is why they feel the need to react with violence to even the slightest things. To him, that garbage bag was trying to trip him and Nanako was trying to ruin his day by stealing his precious groceries. I’m not sure if it was intentional, but it matches up with how a real psychopath would behave. At least, based on what I’ve been learning in lectures. But what I really like about Mitsuo’s character is that although he shows all the telltale signs of a killer – no empathy, violent reactions, and the cunning to deceive people around him – he’s not a cool, collected killer. If you expected a smirking villain who shrugs off every insult like one would a small fly, you’ll have to go elsewhere. Mitsuo is a pathetic little thing hellbent on getting attention for his efforts. When things don’t go his way, he panics. I love villains with a bit of a pathetic streak, because it makes them more believable and you almost start to feel sorry for them…until you remember that they strung up a teacher from the roof like Christmas lights. Festive, yes, but not appreciated.

That’s enough about Mitsuo, I don’t even like him very much…I just like his characterization XD I mean, come on, the dude’s a creep. Naoto on the other hand, he’s an interesting one. He suddenly approaches Yu and his friends and starts spilling the beans about a lot of things he probably shouldn’t be telling them about. If anything, it seems like he’s giving them a hint to something he already knows, just to test how smart they. Of course, then Rise spoke up and really got him flustered (or as flustered as this kid gets). Even in the game, it surprised me that he lost his cool and started telling them about his crappy life and crappy job. Dojima was complaining about him earlier too, so you know he’s not just making it up. It’s funny how kids are looked down upon so much, when they’re the only ones keeping Inaba safe from the majority of the murders. Adults never learn~ (crap, I’m technically an adult now, aren’t I?)

You know what I noticed this episode? Yu pops his collar up. LIKE A BOSS. Anyways, I thought this episode would focus more on Mitsuo’s TV world since last episode was rushed, but they didn’t. That felt weird. But it somehow worked.  I guess it was an in-between-action type episode where the characters recovered from last episode’s trauma since major stuff is guaranteed to happen next episode.  That Mitsuo is even creepier than he was in the game. Though it made me incredibly happy to see Yu defend Nanako from Mitsuo like that, since Nanako is pretty much neglected by Dojima. Yu makes such a good Onii-chan~. I can’t wait until this covers her social link.

So yeah, Kuma is a bishie. WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED. …Well, I knew because of the game, but wow. He looks even better animated. I’m still upset that he still has his annoyingly high-pitched voice going on, but at least this kind of makes my occasional shipping of Kuma and Yu less weird. That aside, I still stand by my previous statements that Kuma annoys the crap out of me, but he seems much less annoying in the anime for some reason. Maybe because I pick up less on the bear puns due to a language gap? I don’t know.

Naoto was finally formally introduced as well. Though I have to say that he’s pretty trusting to tell a bunch of random teenagers in the food court all about his observations about a murder. I mean, Naoto doesn’t even know them that well. Why is he telling them somewhat confidential police information (even if the police don’t believe his theory)? I guess Adachi does that too, but Adachi is pretty unprofessional. This is just one of those things that make sense in the game, but not anywhere else (since NPCs in games feel the need to tell you their life’s story all the time). That being said, it appears that Naoto is no longer needed, so I won’t go any further into that for risk of spoilers.

Preview: Next episode involves catching Mitsuo.

About Tag Team

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.