persona…

im stubborn and i like talking here's the reasons i put every character i did in side a into the tourney. I'll do side b later cause i gotta go to bed soon

important first note, quite a few of my decisions were because i was trying to get women in here and it was getting desperate because i had to cut out a lot of women for only being "just some guy" because they were written by a misogynist that made her sit on the sidelines and cheer for the male leads. The Woman Situation Is Always So Fucking Dire.

anyways on to the actual contestants im gonna start with the characters that have been causing the most people to start up shit about them not being just some guy

barry bluejeans (taz balance): 2 submissions, personal bias. i think a lot of people are misunderstanding what this tournament is tbh. this isnt about the "normal" characters, tho normalcy does play a factor in it. this is about dudes who are just some guy. there is a difference. barry is a dnd npc who wears blue jeans in a fantasy world and he loves his wife. yes he is a lich. yes he is involved in the main plot. he's also just chillin. like if the plot didn't happen the way it did barry would be playing sudoku or crosswords. he'd be an average man in a very fantasy world. he is so average and human its funny. he is just some guy

tommy (hlvrai): 1 submission, personal bias. his just some guy energy is so there. he gets a propeller hat that does nothing when all of his crew is getting cool guns and upgrades. his life goal is to go home and take his dog for a walk. he gets a chuck e cheese birthday party. he sounds like he's going to burst into tears at any moment. compared to the rest of the crew, tommy is comedically just some guy

ulala (persona 2): 1 submission, description swayed me. it described the list of characters in persona 2 and ulala was just "your roommate that wanted to go to a party". that's hilarious. also i was getting fucking desperate for women that didn't suck ass as i stated above

apollo (ace attorney): 2 submissions, personal bias, descriptions swayed me. yall the submissions for him were so fucking funny. he's just a lawyer. he just wants to do his job but he lives in the ace attorney universe so everything is fucked all the time. he would've been a normal lawyer if he hadn't met phoenix wright. he's just chillin.

ok now here's every other character

sasha james (tma): 1 submission, friend bias, good description. i asked r if i should put her in because they know tma and they said yes. submission described her as loving to organize and avoided many monsters by being just some guy.

reigen arataka (mp100): 2 submissions. i thought it'd be funny and i was right. he is also just a normal man pretending he's not and he refuses to give up the bit he 100% deserves to be here

joy (underworld office): 1 submission, friend bias. the mc is going through wild ghost related problems and she's just going . hey man. you good??? r's sister submitted her and im not letting her down dude she's awesome

junpei (zero escape): 3 submissions, personal bias. he is literally the only character who has no connection to the larger mystery he's just there because he loves 1 girl. he's PAINFULLY and VITALLY just a dude. i need him

horse (centaurworld): 1 submission. i thought it'd be really funny to include just a horse. her name is horse. thats fucking awesome dude

phone guy (fnaf): 2 submissions. he was the only character from fnaf that got more than 1 submission and there were like 9 fnaf submissions i kinda felt bad tbh. he was also the best example of just some guy out of all the fnaf submissions

gordon freeman (hlvrai): 1 submission. he is a guy playing a video game. he is the straight man to the rest of the crews antics and by god he plays his role well

joshua gillespie (tma): 4 submissions, friend bias, hilarious descriptions. he avoids getting killed because he's so good at following instructions despite him clearly supposed to be dying here. they said don't open the coffin so he didn't. simply don't tuesday

namari (dungeon meshi): 1 submission, personal bias. i like her c: she's pretty level headed compared to like. everyone else in laios's crew. she seems like somebody i could just be friends with and hang out with

shez (fire emblem): 3 submissions, hilarious descriptions. i might try getting into fire emblem because of this. ok so they got murdered in a previous game off screen and now they're the playable character of a new game in a new timeline and they're fucking everything up because they're just supposed to be some guy? thats so fucking funny holy shit i want to know more

henry stickmin (henry stickmin): 1 submission. henry stickmin. like idk i dont feel like i gotta explain this one he's a stickman

stanley (tsp): guaranteed entry

whole (chonny jash): 1 submission, friend bias. tbh i saw him and went oh fuck yeah thats the thing my friends like and then i put him in there. i dont actually know enough about chonny jash to say anything on this but i fully trust the submitter knew what they were doing

larry (pokemon): guaranteed entry

luke carder (inscryption): 1 submission, friend bias, good description. he is just a normal youtuber in the lore of the game. he fucking love card game. good for him man good for him

leorio (hxh): 3 submissions, friend bias, good descriptions. idk a lot about hxh but the descriptions of him compared to the other main characters was pretty convincing

barry the quokka (sonic): guaranteed entry

april o'neil (tmnt): 1 submission, friend bias. absolutely normal girl that just happens to be the one that found the turtles and become their friend

tsuzuru (a3!): 3 submissions, friend bias. descriptions definitely made him feel like a good fit. he's so good at being just some guy i actually thought he was a different character and was shocked when i went to grab images for the tourney and he wasnt the guy i thought he was. which is really funny. like who the fuck is he then. this didn't change my opinion or anything it was just so good

matt (woe.begone): 1 submission. woe.begone fans have ALWAYS been kind to me so they got some mod bias sprinkled in. i dont know what this guys deal is but in the dbtn tourney the guy who got in there had a giant fucking list of things that are happening to him all the time and apparently thats just what woe.begone is like so i believe it when told matt is normal in comparison. everything else is so batshit wild I Just Believe You

gilear (fantasy high): 2 submissions. he seems to be just a dad. wasn't going to get in at first tbh just for personal reasons but i was running out of characters that i felt actually fit the tournament well so ultimately he got in

emmet (lego movie): 4 submissions. honestly with the number of submissions we got, 4 submissions was basically a guaranteed entry. and emmet's whole story is about being just some guy

stahl (fire emblem): 1 submission, hilarious description. fire emblem fans are so funny. what do you mean he can only be perfectly average because everyone else improves/gets worse with him to keep him perfectly average. what the fuck. thats so good

doug (wolf359): 2 entries. i dont know jack shit about wolf359 and honestly the submissions didn't tell me a lot but it was enough to figure he qualifies and i was running out of characters that felt good for the tourney. i trust you wolf359 fans

jack townsend (tales from the gas station): 1 submission, good description. he works at an evil gas station and the description gave me no follow up on what an evil gas station is which is awesome. apparently the horrors are constantly happening and he's just kinda staring at them. he's not paid enough for this

frisk (undertale): guaranteed entry

brian pasternack (yuppie psycho): 1 submission. im gonna be super honest with you here. i dont remember. i know he qualifies but i have 0 thoughts about him. maybe thats a good thing in this tourney. he's an average office worker who has now been tasked with killing The Witch.

trevor (american arcadia): 4 submissions, personal bias, good descriptions. dude i fucking love american arcadia it's so fucking good what a nightmare. he's so normal they were going to kill him for not being entertaining enough

Digimon Top Tamer Tournament- Anime Bracket

The spirit of pointless March Madness-inspired brackets brings a pair of tournaments to determine the top tamer in Digimon! Spanning the length of the franchise from Adventure to Ghost Game, 132 characters have entered either the anime side or the video game/manga side. Following the poll earlier this week, first round matchups are primarily within each series, with Adventure getting isolated pods to winnow itself down a bit before being unleashed upon the rest of the world. Also when we say Adventure, both the original and reboot are included… with different round one matchups! Let’s get into it:

Courage Field is one of the 75% Adventure regions, which means a possible third-round match between original and reboot Taichi. But first one may have to fight his sister in round two while the other finally gets the scrap with Yamato we all sorely missed in 2020. In the movies pod, Wallace gets to meet Menoa Bellucci and Meiko awaits the winner of one of our four play-in games. These will open up today and will narrow the field down to 64 before the tournament begins next week. It’s a thing the actual March Madness does because money. Here it’s a way to make sure everything works.

The top of Miracle Space is Zero Two’s domain, and no doubt the Sweet Sixteen poll between its winner and the other half of Adventure will be hotly contested. But first note the two matches between future spouses. Since we haven’t seen the reboot kids as adults, feel free to headcanon a third or even a fourth in the 2020 matches with Takeru vs. Hikari and Mimi vs. Joe. Outside Adventure, the Lee family squares off in one of three sibling matches and Tagiru will see either friend or foe depending on the outcome of the second play-in game.

Because it’s the closest thing Takato has to a crest or spirit. Here we’ll see DATS operators Miki and Megumi battle in a play-in for the right to meet work husband Tohma. On a related note, Frontier’s Junpei is already slotted in against Izumi and Haru will see his best friend Yuujin. In Xros Wars land, the loose team of Ryouma and Airu face off while Zenjirou finally gets his rematch against Taiki. There are only two crossover matches in the first round, and this one between computer whizzes Rei (from Appmon) and Kiyoshiro (from Ghost Game) promises to be a treat.

Fire District goes straight to the gut as Frontier gives us one match between actual brothers and one between surrogate brothers. Another sibling fight awaits the Amanos Nene and Yuu. Speaking of siblings, two precocious little ones will meet in the other crossover match: Chika from Savers against Hajime from Appmon. Another Savers-Appmon battle will happen in round two and it will be a punch-fest if Masaru and Eri survive their first round opponents.

The First Four matches are now open and will run for a week! Once that wraps up, the Courage Field and Fire District brackets begin play on Monday with Miracle Space and Hazard Zone starting Tuesday. Polls will run for a week on both Tumblr and Twitter, with votes combined. The next round starts a day later. Also make sure to check the Video Game/Manga tournament running concurrently!

Credit to good_aigussy on Twitter (persona brainrot time) (i only have like 3 non-bot followers in here so crediting is lowkey useless but I gotta stick to my principle)

I don’t want to spam the tag LMAO

I haven’t touched P1. P2 only a little but the casts are AMAZING, Eikichi stole my heart the most. Shinjiro.. no introduction. Kanji is both funny and had the best SL (tho I don’t want any repeats so fav social link here is Naoki). Yusuke had 1 single brain cell hence why I loved him (Ryuji is a very close contest tho...). P4G ended up being my least favorite sadly because even outside of the homophobia I just don’t feel anything about the ending?? Not to mention that the absolute true ending is literally only unlocked if you are curious to go to Junes after talking to every single social link.... it’s just Weird. The whole “searching for truth” theme from Izanami just doesn’t hit hard either. P5S is my fav spinoff because it developed P5 casts, they felt more like friends than acquintances that do recaps every single time they met, and Sophie/Zenkichi are just top tier Persona characters tbh. Aigis’ social link made me cry, I wish Naoki was on the team, and Akechi’s is really fun (I love Darkechi in general lol). Ryuji’s screaming is fucking amazing to this day, and Caesar is just sad :( Comatose or death it still hits hard (tho death hits harder since Akihiko’s crying on Shinji’s coffin is heartbreaking). Such an absolute shame that on the spinoffs his character is reduced to want more power which is the ABSOLUTE OPPOSITE of his 2nd awakening :/ Ann’s design reveals so much about her character and it’s just so fun. Lucia might not be in everyone’s mind when thinking about the best Persona design but idk I just vibe with her! I also would put Himiko in here. Maybe I just like navigator?? Tho I’m sorry but Futaba’s is kinda mid. P4A is so funny and actually expanded a lot of the characters (Rise and the Temperance arcana particularly), just avoid Kanji’s dungeon episode. Burn My Bread is a classic, P3 ending is iconic. FEMC my beloved, I know Ken’s social link is TERRIBLE but she fixed everything else!! Akihiko/Junpei/Shinjiro/Saori are among the best social links in P3, replacing the meh ones in the male MC version (looking at you Nozomi.......), her dialogue is fun and her cheerfulness really is a nice contrast for this depressing game. FEMC sweeps. Nyx was built up perfectly, her boss is so amazing and worth the wait, gahhhhh Nyx is just the best!! Can’t chose 1 fav character sadly but yeah you already know how garbage I am.. Shinjiro my babe my beloved my meow meow. Aigis and Yusuke is cute too. Muah muah

🎥💎💕 for both? :o

took a while because both me and moon wanted to answer for our respective fixations - demifiend

persona 3:

scenes- how you get everyone together and go to the park, how fuuka gets trapped in the apparatus. how you know its all going to end soon and it feels painfully melancholic but happy. you get to have everyone together for once. it means a lot to me and makes me cry every time i get to it; its so final but so loving

how he specifically asks to go with everyone too. and how not all players will even see it, i hope everyone does though because its magical

trivia/etc- obvious things like how you can revive shinjiro/chidori. even though chidoris is pretty damn hidden and not even we knew about it until the 3rd or something play-through

{you have to talk to junpei every day after chidoris death and she revives but with no memories. theres debates on it in the fandom but i like that junpei gets something nice; he deserves it}

something thats not really a fact but been thinking about it is the limited merch they released for the movies. the aigis headphones for winter of rebirth were really fucking good specifically and us and our friend actually found them in almost mint condition in a mandarake and managed to buy them just a week ago

character- akihiko sanada is the most amazing fucking character and people need to love him more

hes so autistic, loves fighting and fitness so much its his special interest and he uses it to navigate how he sees everything. caring, one track minded but in the best way

intelligent in his own way, as much as arena wants to deny it. he was the one to figure out the full moon link and everything; he’s consistently known for good marks in school even if its with mitsurus help. hes *smart* really damn smart

also his drive to protect everyone and keep honouring miki and shinjiro after their deaths is fucking beautiful; dont care what anyone says the scream at shinjis picture was heartbreaking and i hope they manage to capture it in reload. god i love akihiko

im not biased dont look at me /lh {it said to do one otherwise id do one for aigis and ryoji too. could do all of sees and bebe and akinari and the old couple and everyone, i love them all}

smt nocturne:

scenes- thats a hard one… hell biker/mara summoning is really funny but the conception/raidou joining your party/manikin slaughter make me emotional still

raidou joining just because im really gay and it was kind of sweet. the other two because they’re sad. especially the manikins, they all deserved so much better

trivia- basic things that i like: smtv being a sequel to nocturne is really cool especially with how the nahobino plot plays out but i wish the story of smtv was… better in canon/took longer than 3 days

also the demifiends english va was the director for the english dub which is interesting

character- does raidou count? im making raidou count

but if not, futomimi easily no contest hands down. i love him, i love the manikins, they had the best reason, fuck you chiaki

also i don’t know if its me being biased or what the game does but assuming its the second i like how the game makes you feel kinship with them for being not able to make a real reason. and i like how they tried anyway

@provider-of-guardians @rational-mastermind do y'all mind if I steal dis

Rules: Name 10 favorite characters from 10 different pieces of media, then tag 10 people. 

1. Usagi Tsukino/Sailor Moon from SM, duh;

2. Tikal the Echidna (Sonic the Hedgehog, and also I love all Sonic characters except The Deadly Six, and also throwing NiGHTS in here because she might as well be a Sonic character at this point, lol);

3. Akane Kurashiki - also tied with Luna and Diana - from Zero Escape because she will save us all (actually I love all the characters, but, well... you know... GO PLAY ZERO ESCAPE IT'S FUCKING RELEVANT AS ALL HELL RIGHT NOW THIS IS A PSA);

4. All iterations of Princess Zelda (except maybe for BoTW because for some reason it rubs me the wrong way, but maybe it'll grow on me if I ACTUALLY manage to finish the goddamn game BUT I actually LOVE her short-haired design);

5. Aerith Gainsborough from FFVII because she's the best thing about that game, no contest;

6. Horo the Wise Wolf from Spice and Wolf;

7. Sakura Kinomoto from Cardcaptor Sakura (also gonna throw Chi from Chobits here because also CLAMP and I love CLAMP);

8. Chiaki Nanami from Danganronpa;

9. Gwendolyn from Odin Sphere (actually I love the entire game, so I can't really divide it up into characters)

10. Kiki from Kiki's Delivery Service (did you know there are SIX BOOKS about her and the movie is only based on the first? Like go and read them, they are great).

...you know what, there are only girls on here and it's not fair at all, so here's my Top 10 male characters (aka some of my imaginary crushes I used to have - but I didn't tell you that, you didn't hear anything) as well because I want to! FUCK THE POLICE:

1. Phoenix Wright from Ace Attorney (*starts screaming*);

2. Professor Hershel Layton from PL (*keeps screaming*)

3. Junpei Tenmyouji - tied with Sigma Klim - from ZE (*screaming gets louder, one can decipher a faint 'PLAY ZERO ESCAPE' chant somewhere in there*)

4. Kaiji Itoh from Gambling Apocalypse: Kaiji (this is like the most intense portrayal of pretty mundane stuff, and I suggest you all watch that and you WON'T BE DISAPPOINTED);

5. Adol Christin from Ys - the destroyer of boats and women's hearts (please appreciate Falcom games, they are the best);

6. Shigeo 'Mob' Kageyama from Mob Psycho 100 (it's such an amalgamation of crazy, mundane, funny and feels and one of the best anime ever made);

7. Light Yagami from Death Note (because my boy deserved better, screw L);

8. Rei Kiriyama from March Comes in Like A Lion (I'm also throwing Kawamoto family in here as well, you can't separate them and also intense portrayal of mundane things, also THE FEELS);

9. Mamoru Chiba/Tuxedo Mask from Sailor Moon (he was my first crush and he's actually the best character after Usagi herself, he's much better than Seiya and doesn't deserve all the hate he gets, I love him);

10. I'm gonna cheat here: Sonic the Hedgehog, Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot and Rayman because they're all my bros since the early childhood and that'll never change.

BONUS:

Top 10 OTPs:

1. UsaMamo (Usagi/Mamoru);

2. Akane/Junpei (JunePei) and Sigma/Diana (SigDi? I have no idea);

3. ZELINK ZELINK FOR ALL THE GAMES;

4. LayClaire (Layton/Claire Foley) (*gross sobbing*);

5. NaruMayo (Phoenix/Maya Fey) (FIGHT ME)

6. SyaoSaku (Sakura/Syaoran Li);

7. Clerith (Cloud/Aerith), Squinoa (Squall/Rinoa), ZiDagger (Zidane/Dagger), TiYuna (Tidus/Yuna) (all from FF);

8. Sonamy, Shadouge, Silvaze, Knuxikal, Taiream and maybe Jetave (all from Sonic);

9. Lawrence and Horo (Spice and Wolf);

10. KanNao - Kanji Tatsumi and Naoto Shirogane from Persona 4 (also Ren Amamiya (Akira Kurusu) and Makoto Nijima from Persona 5).

Soooo... Here you go. I dunno if anyone will care, but it was fun to do~ Actually, I can go on and on and on because I'm old multifandom trash, but here's a very condensed version of it. Would you want me to make AN EVEN BIGGER LIST? Anyway, I hope you didn't get tired of my ramblings and I tag everyone who sees these lists to make them as well (M/F/OTP)! Have fun while staying inside and take care!💖

Hey PQ was pretty good!

so I’m having trouble getting into PQ2 because of several factors, so I thought I’d write a half-think piece, half-essay on why I think the first PQ gets more flak than it deserves. So here’s that.

------

I genuinely don't understand why, when talking about Persona Q, people are always saying things along the lines of, "The gameplay was good, but the characters were trite and the story wasn't that great." Like, as a fan of the Persona series, I genuinely don't understand that assessment.

Not saying PQ is flawless, oh no. There are PLENTY of things in PQ that I have an axe to grind with (the small door scene with the P4 gang, for one), but the overall story? The characters? They're both fine. Good, even, dare I say. And here's my argument as to why:

The returning Persona series characters (from 3 and 4) in PQ do a good job of representing their games and their own personalities, even if a little more light-hearted than their source material,

AND

The story is genuinely in-line with the rest of the Persona/SMT series, even if it ultimately doesn't matter due to time shenanigans (and I'm okay with that).

These are my two points. Just those two. Because these are the two most contested parts of PQ, as far as I can hear, since we all agree that the gameplay is the real breadwinner here hahaha

Anyway.

First, let's talk about the returning characters, since they seem to be the ones who matter most. The P4 cast are generally less griped about (save Chie and Teddie) and I believe this is largely due to the brighter, more hopeful tone of P4 as a whole. (Aaand, in my opinion, they're done a MUCH BIGGER disservice in the Arena games, but no one ever talks about that so let's not bother with those right now.)

P4 was a game about making friends, the hijinx that come from that, and finding the truth about a string of murders and confronting the worst parts of yourself in a harsher world in the process! And it executes this with the appropriate amount of balance between serious moments and comedic relief. The theme colour for the whole game is bright yellow/gold, a happier and more friendly colour which helps remind you that this game is all in good fun.

(Side note here: I honestly think that P5 really failed in this respect, despite my liking its tone slightly more. I just personally like darker-themed games, but P5 was a little too dark and oppressive right out the gate, with hardly a friendly face, which helps make your gradually growing group of friends much more appreciated but also a harder atmosphere for jokes to really land well. Most of the 'funny' sequences felt very undeserved and really dragged because uh guys we literally just fought a rapist, an abusive father figure, and some other fucked-up shit. Can we please acknowledge that a bit more instead of pretending it never happened by laughing at the expense of Ann's autonomy of her body? Especially when she was a target of said rapist??) But that's its own discussion for later.

Really, the fact that most of the P4 gang get out of this with little criticism shows how accepted their caricatures have become. I guess? At least, except for Teddie and Chie.

Teddie being a wannabe Casanova must've been a huge hit with the Japanese audience, because it's just the hill he's going to die on for the writers. There was more to Teddie than his hitting on the girls in P4, believe it or not! (And there's a whole thing about it being brought on by him mimicking the type of behaviour he saw Yukiko's shadow exhibiting, which has a lot of really interesting undertones, but it makes him more swappable with Junpei, so whatever, I guess.) Meanwhile, Chie's not as meat-crazy, either, but I guess it's a better trait for them to roll with than her (cut in the translation) glossed-over sexism.

Both work fine, however, and aren't really too annoying enough to be that egregious. (Though they both go right up to the line sometimes. Teddie more so, but none of the girls playing along really helps show how gross his actions are. Most of the time.)

No, the real complaints I see directed at the characters being 'too cartoonish' are usually reserved for the P3 gang.

P3 is, really, such a bizarre game to go back to now when compared to its two successors. It's dark and hopeless, like P5, but formulaic and mystery, like P4. It's actually a natural progression when looking at its two/three older siblings (both P2s are bleak. As. Hell!), but, at least to me, it's the odd duck of the bunch, being the first to implement this winning formula of being caught in a time limit of a school year and managing spending time exploring this other world. It adds Social Links and social stats with this new time limit and this idea that the Persona and Shadows you fight don't just happen out on the streets in 'normal' circumstances for everyone to see. It pretty much went from an RPG to a management game with RPG elements.

And its emotional, impactful story, like P5, had a lot of tonal whiplash due to the attempts at comedy!

I feel like a lot of people forget this about P3 (and maybe I think more about it because I haven't actually beaten the whole game yet myself), but the story is actually a goddamn mess of tonal confusion. You got kids shooting themselves in the heads and a Social Link dealing with a classmate's crush on his teacher. You got wacky foreign exchange student and kids taking experimental drugs to suppress their Persona and slowly poisoning themselves to death as a side effect. The protagonist is an orphan who lost his parents in a huge, plot-relevant accident... But he's able to date every single girl at the same time and be the most wish fulfillment charming guy if the player so desires.

P3 being messy isn't a bad thing. P4, P5, and even P2 and PQ are all a little messy in their own rights, too. But because P3 was a lot of fans' first in the series, and PQ is just a spin-off, it gets way more flak for this than I feel it deserves.

(I mean, hey. Both P3 and P4 have those classic anime scenes of the boys walking in on the girls while at a hot springs. All PQ's got is an awkward group date scene and the implication that Yosuke and Kanji kissed each other while getting knocked out.) (They all. Have. Problems.)

And I know a lot of this comes down to personal preference. I'm not saying you're wrong for liking P3 or P4 more than PQ. I'm just saying I feel like PQ is often wrongly accused of being worse and less well-written when, really, they're all pretty much on par with each other. (And someone on the team really doesn't understand how to handle large casts of characters sharing the same space...)

But, personally, from everything I've seen from P3, I don't like the way most of the characters get presented to me in the source material. Junpei is way more insufferable in P3 than in PQ and Yukari is way more uninteresting in P3 than in PQ. Really, PQ helped me appreciate these characters more than P3 itself did. And, yes, they're more funny when they're trying to be, too. Because PQ is set up better for comedy than the 'remember you are mortal' tone of P3.

(Which makes dramatic moments hit all the harder when they happen) HEY check that segue! It's time to talk about the story and the two original characters of the game!

So, second point: people say the story isn't very good. To which I wanna ask... "Did you stop playing before defeating the fourth Boss?" Because it really sounds like, to me, everyone who says that didn't actually finish the game and reach all that juicy character development that happens for both sides around the fourth dungeon, where all the issues they've been building up (like Yukari's issue with Mitsuru for the P3 side and Kanji and Ken's awkwardness in the P4 side) start getting resolved in a satisfying way. And it comes with a reveal for the two characters we've been getting to know, Zen and Rei, as well.

(And, from here on in, there be spoilers. You've been warned.)

The two new characters to this game are Zen and Rei, who were in this place before the P3 or P4 gangs were called to the scene. Zen is quiet and a bit unsettlingly dense, but devoted to Rei, who is bubbly and full of life, but terrified of the dungeons you have to traverse. The two have been in this place for (what's implied to be) a very long time and enlist the help of the P3 and P4 teams in order to find a way out through defeating the bosses of each Labyrinth/dungeon. Simple enough, as it also helps the P3 and P4 team's goal of getting out. With each new dungeon, it feels more and more like something about Zen and Rei aren't quite right, but the length of the dungeon and all the team chats help you put it out of your mind each time. Rei can even get kinda annoying with her loudness and big appetite if you don't find her cute (which: how dare you. But yeah, I get it).

And then, at the end of a fiery festival fourth dungeon, you find yourself in a dark tomb at the bottom level. The boss awaiting you is Rei's shadow (a nice callback to the way P4 works) whom she still doesn't accept after you defeat it.

All the locks are gone and the P3 and P4 teams can return to their worlds if they wanted. Except Rei gets kidnapped after Zen reveals that Rei has been dead all along and it was him who trapped them here. It was he who created this place and even he who called both teams here.

And this was a plot twist that I friggin' loved.

It definitely had more impact on me because Zen and Rei easily became my favourites out of the whole cast, to the point of having them on my team for the whole game, but to find out such a fucked up twist is wild! (Seriously! Go watch the cutscene and tell me it isn't super fucked up!) You can say the P3 and P4 twists were shocking (or P5s I guess), but for my money, this is the best reversal of expectations I'd ever seen in a Persona game. In any game, really!

Zen was, in effect, the villain the whole time. His true identity as Chronos, God of time, makes sense with displacing the teams from their own times and the time here being erased once you reach the end. His own power that he sealed away growing impatient and taking matters into its own hands by drawing the teams to this haven displaced from time also makes perfect sense! And the entire climb through the last dungeon is his redemption arc and it makes for a super emotionally investing final dungeon all the way. (Which is great, because I hate every single one of the enemies that appear in this god-forsaken place.) (Even P4 and P5 can't really boast that, I felt very little investment through Izanami's dungeon and Baldabaoth's distortion.)

Of course, if you found Zen and Rei to be annoying and pointless, I can see how this would fall flat for you. The fact that they hinged such an emotional climax on these new characters, characters that don't even matter outside of this game!, was such a risky move. Especially when you consider this is just a fanservice game made basically under the promise of seeing the P3 team interact with the P4 team. But, for me, it really paid off.

And whatever complaints you had with the P3 or P4 characters, I feel like the resolutions to those character moments I mentioned earlier get explored even further during the climb through the final dungeon. From the P3 gang coming together to finally communicate with one another to the P4 gang reconfirming their bonds with one another, it's a really investing and emotional journey. I do wish the writing had been this tight and impactful through more of the game, but I believe it's worth it in the end.

Perhaps this moment comes too late in the game, though. I can definitely see others giving up before reaching this point due to the repetitive nature of the dungeons and the tidbits of character development that are meant to build up to this moment that can be too sparsely placed. (But, really, it's the same from P3 to P5, Social Links don't really add much variety when they can be just as repetitive and boring, just saying. Especially when you get caught in waiting to rank up hell, ugh.) For me, however, this really sealed the deal on this game being an incredible experience that I adored from start to finish. 7/10. Final score.

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(7 outta 10?? Not perfect??) Well, it's not perfect. Japan's blatant homophobia and sexism really ruins a lot of scenes for me. I'm super salty especially about how the fake marriage scenes are handled so differently from the girl choices to the boy choices. (But you just argued in its favour for 2000 words!) Listen. ALL the Persona games wouldn't receive perfect scores for me for this aspect alone. There are a lot of other factors as well, but they vary from title to title and PQ in particular is guilty of spending too much time focusing on Teddie and Junpei being girl-crazy. And Marie is in this game more than she really should be. UGH.

But I digress.

In conclusion, this game's story and characters are better than most give it credit for. Hopefully, my argument helped you see why I believe this and why I think claiming that both aspects are just 'bad' is lazy.