During Which Months Did Persona 1 And 2 Duology Take Place?
It’s well known among fans of the series that the later entries take place during an entire school year, however the same can’t be said about the earlier games. The only confirmed information about the time frame that P1 and P2 occur is the year, but dialogue present in these entries and the characters’ birthdays allow us to stipulate a more precise date of when they took place.
Before starting, it’s important to be aware of how the school year in Japan is divided (I’m not Japanese and all the information I got is from the internet. So if you are more familiar with the system, feel free to correct me or to just talk more about it): The academic year in Japan starts from April and ends in March, having summer vacation in August (normally going from July 20 to August 31) and winter vacation in the end of December to the beginning of January (normally going from December 26 to around January 6).
-Obs: All of the dates that I have just mentioned are related to 2023/2024. I wasn’t able to find anything about it in 1996 or 1999. So take them with a grain of salt.
Persona 1:
List of the main cast birthdays + their ages:
April 09, 1979 - Yukino - 17
June 04, 1979 - Maki - 17
July 11, 1979 - Mark - 17
August 18, 1979 - Reiji - 17
September 21, 1979 - Eriko - 17
October 02, 1979 - Nanjo - 17
December 24, 1979 (it's a complete nonsense) - Protagonist IN THE MANGA - 17
January 01, 1980 - Brown - 16
March 03, 1980 - Ayase - 16
Analyzing the age of the characters, it can be assumed that the game takes place at the end of 1996 since Nanjo is already 17 when it occurs. However, the birthday date of the protagonist in manga, generates some inconsistencies: if taking this date into consideration, the game would take place between December 24, 1996 and December 26, 1996 - since, after that, the winter vacation starts. It could be hypothetically possible for the game to only last two days, however, considering that there are two routes and that most people believe that P1 happened during a whole week, I’m ignoring this date. With this, we can conclude that:
Persona 1 Probable Time Period: Between October 02, 1996 and December 26, 1996
Persona 2 Duology:
List of the main cast birthdays + their ages:
April 09, 1979 - Yukino - 20
February 14, 1982 - Jun - 17
May 04, 1982 - Lisa - 17
June 13, 1967 - Baofu - 32
July 04, 1976 - Maya - 23
July 27, 1981 - Tatsuya - 18
September 21, 1979 - Eriko (P2:EP) - 20
October 02, 1979 - Nanjo (P2:EP) - 20
November 15, 1982 - Eikichi - 16
November 30, 1974 - Ulala - 24
December 30, 1973 - Katsuya - 25
-Obs: If you want to know why I only used July 27, 1981 as Tatsuya’s birthday while ignoring August 21, 1981 (present in the SMT Wiki) as a possible date, there’s this post explaining it.
Let’s begin with Innocent Sin. Besides the age of cast, there’s another variable that needs to be taken into account: when the Grand Cross happened. In real life, this event occurred on August 18 1999 and, while, in Eternal Punishment, many NPCs mentioned that the Grand Cross had passed during the summer, we can’t be sure if it happened during this specific date due to one small thing: rumors becoming true. It could be very plausible that the Grand Cross in IS took place in a different time because it was influenced by rumors, while, in EP, the actual Grand Cross occurred as normal. That being said, I’m using August 18 1999 as the day that this event happened (only because I can’t even think of another date) since I don’t believe that the creators would change it.
Well, we found out the period of when the game ended so finding when it began should not be that difficult, right?... Oh, is August 18 during the summer vacation in Japan? And are there characters attending class both during the beginning as well the end of the game? Well… things just got a little bit more complicated.
In front of this adversity, I have two prepositions. The first one depends on the assumption that the summer vacation in Japan used to happen during a different time frame in 1999 than the one we have now. With that, we can guess that the game starts around July 27, 1981 since Tatsuya would already be 18. On the other hand, the second one regards the vacation period of 1999 as the same one as the one of now. In this hypothesis, we can guess that the game began some time before July 20 as well that the Kasugayama School Festival happened on the last day of class. Personally, I’m putting the latter just because the former’s time frame is also included in it. With this, we can conclude that:
P2:IS Probable Time Period: Between July 12, 1999 and August 18, 1999
Finally, we can get into Eternal Punishment! After the many contradictions present in Innocent Sin’s time frame (Nyarly would be proud), discovering when EP takes place is going to be way easier and this is only possible due to the main cast’s birthdays along with their dialogue.
First of all, it’s been confirmed by the creator that EP occurred some months after the Grand Cross, more specifically, during the autumn 1999. With that, we can take a closer look into one dialogue said by Nanjo in Parabellum a bit before going into Mt. Iwato: “Ms. Amamo, he is still a minor. I do not feel it wise to bring him to this kind of establishment… NO, I’m not being tense!”. For those unaware, the drinking age in Japan is 20 years old. Based on that, Nanjo becoming tense could be interpreted as him being nervous since he’s just recently turned 20. With that, it’s possible to presume that the game takes place after Nanjo’s birthday.
Another series of dialogue to take into consideration are of Ulala’s. During the entirety of the game, she is always stressing out that she’s turning 25 soon which indicates that her birthday has still not passed. With this, we can conclude that:
P2:EP Probable Time Period: Between October 02, 1999 and November 30, 1999
And now, we can say that this analysis is finished! Remember that this is only a personal theory of mine, done only because I couldn’t find any posts exploring the subject. Feel free to discuss your own opinions on the matter and to correct any errors I’ve made.
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