I was going to reblog the post with all of the headcannons I have for P3-P5, but I realize now how fucking *many* there are, so they each get their own asks. Starting with P3:

Minako plays piano, and in turn Minato plays violin.

Minato has autism.

Koromaru is a secret alarm clock, and if anyone in the dorm has yet to wake up by the time nearly everyone else is up he has permission to go into their rooms and jump on them.

Yukari reads and writes fanfiction.

The entire school knows Aigis is probably a robot, but anyone who questions it is shushed by Mitsuru.

Akihiko probably sells protein powder like drugs lets be honest.

Fuuka hacks into the schools database regularly just for fun and Minako once told her to change the nurses name to "Mr.Egg" and then never tell anyone. No ones noticed to this day.

Aigis is warm like a human, she was designed to be like that :)

Ryoji is a tumblr sexyman. I will not be elaborating further.

I have this concept that Wildcards can talk to their personas, even in the real world, but no one else really can. Other personas and persona users use vibes to communicate.

Orpheus is patient and kind of quiet, Orpheus is a chatterbox compared to Izanagi, and Arsene is a strong believer in "be gay do crime". Hes also a suspect in arson. They're all probably Theater kids but different flavors of theater kid.

The more Aigis becomes human, the less she can understand Koromaru verbally. She still gets the vibes and stuff, she just has to take a guess at what he means.

I want to see Tanaka get punched by Yukari

Minako is a blackmail master. Shes got dirt on every confidant she has and is ready to use it at a moments notice.

Theodore loves kids.

On the contrary, Elizabeth loves teenagers. She thinks theyre strange. She wants to study them like bugs.

Theo might have some issues and permanent scaring after getting pushed around so much by his siblings.

Thanatos gets bullied by the other personas in the compendium and you will not tell me otherwise. But like, its lighthearted bullying. The only one actually bullying him would probably be Orpheus, but he gets that right after getting torn apart by him once lol.

Mitsuru needs to try dino nuggets.

Shinji needs to make dino nuggets.

Minato's favorite food is chocolate. He will fight you over it too.

The only straight members of the dorm are Koromaru (dog) and Junpei.

Okay this list is getting kind of long so I leave you with a question: Could Nyx Avatar possibly be negotiated with? Like, hes a shadow and all that and I think Joker would be insane enough to try.

MAN THANKS FOR SHARING THIS IS A LOT BUT I LOVE ALL OF THEMM!

They are so cute, I will react to my favorites but I'm gonna say they are truly wholesome and I love how most of them focus mostly on them kids being kids, Its just something I love a lot since especially the p3 cast, doesn't get to be kids and have fun :')

Fist I want to have a concert with Minako and Minato playing respectively violin and piano (and Minato having autism so true so true)

YUKARI READING FANFICTION PLEASE QBWGWH I WHEEZED. Mitsuru being overprotective its adorable, maybe she doesn't want Aigis to feel self concious about it and Aigis being warm and hugable

Pls do elaborate on Ryoji being a Tumblr sexyman (but yeah it's true)

MINAKO BLACKMAILING AND THEODORE BEING A MALEWIFE AND LOVING KIDS AWWW mayhap he babysit the Justine and Caroline (but also I can see he might not enjoy being pushed around his siblings too)

And Elizabeth wanting to study teenagers so true

ALSO CAN I SAY I DO LOVE THE HC THAT WILDCARDS CAN TALK TO THEIR PERSONA I THINK ABOUT THAT ALL THE TIMES, Imagine them just resting after a long day fighting shadow and venting to them, because in the end who can understand you more then your literal soul

(I do love how you gave them personas a Lil personalities as well, with Thanatos being bullied by Orpheus lol)

Mitsuru and Shinjiro DESERVE CHICKEN NUGGETS PLEASE HAVEN'T THEY BEEN TROUGH ENOUGH

P3 Cast is a fruit basket and they are so fruity that the only straight member is a dog (and Junpei)

ALSO I WOULD LOVE TO EXPAND on that question but for personal reason I had to take a Long break from p3 and I haven't reached Nyx part at all, but when I do I would really love to analize it and respond (though, I don't mind spoilers at all since I got spoiled like 90% of the big stuff in p3)

goodnight sweet prince

Headlinin’: 11/27/17

We’re having a huge sale today, so please go check that out! Seriously guys, this is the biggest one we’ve ever done. Go get it! :D Alrighty, on to this week’s main story...

MUCH ADO ABOUT DOGEN

I’d like to talk about balls. No, not the sports ones. The kind that are metaphorical, the kind that you have when you stand up for what’s right in the face of intense opposition. I mean, think about it: there’s stuff that takes courage, and there’s stuff that takes balls. Asking someone out to prom? Courage. Telling a Firefly fan to let it go, since Fox canceled their show fifteen years ago? That’s courage with a little bit of balls. Standing up to the bully ten times your size? That’s balls. 

Bringing your baby to work with you when you’re a politician in one of the most male-dominated societies in the world? That’s more balls than you’ll find at a basketball tournament. [Washington Post]

Image courtesy Asahi Shimbun/Getty Images

Just look at this picture. Words fail me. Here, check out the video:

This is Kumamoto City Representative and certified bad ass mama Ogata Yuka and her son Dogen, who has a very nice hairstyle going for someone who’s only seven months old. She made the “mistake” of bringing her son to work with her, which resulted in many male members of the chamber crowding around her and demanding she leave - with some of them even demanding she apologize for doing so (even though Dogen was being a good boy and not making any noise).

According to her official bio, Ogata is a graduate of the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and holds a graduate degree from George Mason University in Virginia. She’s also worked as a program officer with the UN’s Development Program in Yemen, which I imagine is not the UN’s easiest mission. After moving back to her hometown, Ogata became interested in local politics and ran on a campaign emphasizing support for working mothers, traffic/pedestrian safety, public health and welfare, and promoting tourism to Kumamoto. [Editor’s note: we’re working on a tour pitch or two, Ogata-shigi!- Team PacSet]

Fun fact: Ogata was elected when her first child was just 1 year old, and the day she brought Dogen to work was her first day back from maternity leave. Now personally, I would have appreciated a “Welcome Back” cake, a balloon bouquet... maybe some of Kumamoto’s famous Ikinari Dango* with a nice message written on it? Like this?

But hey, I guess a bunch of old dudes being rude is kind of like a welcome. I mean, isn’t that how the bullies welcome the nerds back to class in all of those teen movies? Sorry, I digress.

Although child care is provided in municipal assemblies in Kyoto and Akita (as the WaPo points out), Kumamoto’s model male citizens decided to get their pantsu in a bunch over this, eventually forcing Ogata to leave Dogen in the care of a friend before returning to the chamber. 

In a statement, Ogata said that she wanted to bring attention to the tough conditions facing working women in Japan. She’s not wrong; numerous  [Bloomberg/Benchmark] articles [Japan Times] have been written about Japan’s shortage in adequate day care facilities and how hard it is for women in the workforce. In fact, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has cited making the working world more friendly to women a priority, since Japan’s birthrate is declining and the benefits of being a mother are not all that attractive if you want to have a career/support a family in Japan. However, apparently Abe forgot to mention this to fellow LDP member and “guy at the pachinko parlor” Haraguchi Ryoji, who said that Ogata could be “subject to punishment for disturbing the chamber over a personal reason.” [Mainichi Shimbun] Which I guess I understand... I mean, I bet no one in the LDP has ever been in a scandal for personal reasons, right? (Fun game: Google “LDP Scandals” and see how many you can find in 10 minutes!)

The truth is that there is still a cultural stigma against working mothers in many social circles in Japan. Not too long ago, having a baby meant a women would leave work altogether and focus their entire lives on child rearing. Even today, mothers that go against the grain are often harassed by other mothers and people who aren’t parents at all but have so many opinions. Which is probably one of the reasons why Japan’s fleet of online trolls have since invaded Ogata’s Facebook page and are tweeting nasty replies to English language stories about her. Nice of them, isn’t it? 

Regardless, we hope that Ogata-shigi keeps fighting for working women, that we are able to create the best Kumamoto tour EVER, and that Dogen can keep that clean, awesome looking hair forever. <3 Speaking of clean...

I’LL HAVE A WASH AND DRY WITH THAT YAKITORI

If you have traveled with us, you know how tough it can be to find coin laundromats in Japan sometimes. Fortunately, the effort to make them more common just got a massive (and I mean massive) push from a somewhat surprising source: convenience store (conbini) chain Family Mart. (LINE NEWS)

That’s right - one of Japan’s biggest conbini chains, the place where you get a meat bun when you’re hungry, a manga volume when you’re bored, and a Pocari Sweat when you’re drunk, is installing coin laundry! According to an official statement, the company is planning on rolling out the service quickly, with laundry popping up in at least 500 locations by the end of 2019. [Family Mart]

I’ll level with you guys: I’m trying to think of a negative angle to this story, and you know... there just isn’t one. The thought of being able to wash my clothes during FanFest while eating a lemon ice, buying breakfast onigiri for the next morning, and browsing the latest Shonen Sunday? What did I do to deserve this kind of joy?!?!?!?!

The best part? Because the competition between conbini chains in Japan is such a bloodbath, it probably won’t be too long before Lawson or Seven Eleven decides to try out Coin Laundry as well. Japan in the summer is all kinds of humid - keeping it clean is a concept I can definitely get behind.

TAKA IS NOT [ONE] OK [ROCK] WITH SMAP... KINDA

One guy isn’t keeping it clean this week in the world of gossip; ONE OK ROCK front man Taka sent shockwaves across the Japanese interwebs this weekend when he dissed recently disbanded J-Pop royalty SMAP during an appearance on Super Beaver singer Shibuya Ryuuta’s radio show late Thursday night. Although both of their bands specialize in rock and not the kind of J-Pop sound SMAP embodies, the two were discussing which song from the band they like most. Taka’s selection? SMAP’s 1993 single “Ten Dollars”:

This is a somewhat deep cut from the SMAP catalogue; it’s from when the group still had six members, and it wasn’t nearly as popular as SMAP’s turn-of-the-millenia hits Lionheart and Sekai ni Hitotsu Dake no Everyone in Japan has heard this song twenty million times oh god please make it stop**. 

After the song played, Taka voiced a sentiment that many indie rockers, rappers, and artists in Japan have long thought but always been scared to say. SMAP is... eh. From the man’s own mouth: [Model Press]

“Actually, I hate them, really. I hate SMAP. They’re like Japan’s national group,” said Taka. He’s not exactly wrong; SMAP’s TV show was one of the view where western stars appeared regularly, and even Eric Clapton wrote a song for them. Yes, ERIC CLAPTON. Taka, probably realizing that the internet could twist such a comment out of control quickly, added: “No matter which group you’re in, whether you’re an idol, a superstar... we’re all just human... Being in a group like that shouldn’t be your WHOLE life - that’s tiring. So when I heard SMAP was disbanding, I was thinking, ‘Wow, they really worked hard to come this far...’” I can’t help but agree with Taka myself; to have a group be your entire life until you’re alone again - that’s truly a Mighty Long Fall.

Taka’s comments were also a reflection of the public’s sadness when SMAP disbanded - so much so that many thought the group should keep going. Indeed, artists in Japan that are popular are expected to devote their lives to their work to a degree that many in the west would consider horrifying (just ask any former idol star... ugh). For what it’s worth, many on Twitter and message boards in Japan agreed with Taka on this point. 

Now if some of those nice, sympathetic folks would go help support Ogata Yuka... that would be awesome. 

NOTE: I’m off on Japan Holiday next week, so this column will be on hiatus. We’ll be back in a few weeks with more goodies. Until then, be lovely to each other!

*About the Dango: The popular YouTube series Cooking With Dog (RIP, Francis ;_;) actually did a segment on how to make Ikinari Dango; check it out! We miss you, Francis the Dog... <3

**title edited for accuracy

Oh! I wanna hear your hyper critical opinions towards p3 (and p4 if youre up to it). I am genuinely curious as to what it is!

pDSOAPFADFJIOA;FJIA;JF;DA Ahhhhhhh if only I wrote down everything I said (I did this over a year ago). under the cut cause long:

It was easier cause I was ripping it as we played and I had some nitpicks in the dialogue (more so with like “WAIT THAT MAKES NO SENSE!” or “WHY ARE YOU JUMPING TO THAT CONCLUSION?!” kinda thing rather than a translation error). But I can’t really specify what it was cause it was so long ago. The only one that comes to mind is when they’re jerks to Naoto, it must be how she’s talking in Japan cause like.......they’re really, REALLY rude to her. Like, they do realize she has a right to be suspicious of them right? Like, don’t get me wrong, I loooooooove the animosity in some way (great foe-yay/rival shipping yay fodder for me to ship her with the MC ahuhuhu 8U) but dang I wish they made more tension (and made it even). That’s actually the one thing I thought the P4 anime did right (and trust me I don’t think that anime did a lot of things right, esp concerning Naoto...ironically XD), they really built the tension between her and the group very well. Anyway I want to go into more detail some other time, maybe when I replay the two games, but for now I’ll give you a general overview). 

Ok so all and all I think P3 and P4 are fine the way they are. They did a good job with them. P3 for being Hashino’s first hoorah into the series (also didn’t have enough time or money to include everything and had to cut stuff, LIKE THE FEMC! ;W;), and P4 for.....having such....a small.....budget....and....not a lot of time....and.....the company was struggling.....Like dang man I’m surprised we got P4. So like, compared to P5, I’m a lot easier on these two cause in one case Hashino was trying to find his style, and the other he was struggling with working with almost nothing (P5, however, didn’t have any of these issues).

Ok so like.....My biggest issue with P3 is mostly it’s characters and character relationships. P4.....I wish we could’ve hung out with Naoto earlier (even before she joined the team, that would’ve been interesting if the MC and her met up and attempted to draw more info out of each other about the case), and I wouldn’t have minded if they added more to the murder plot. 

P3....ngl the first act until Aigis show’s up is.....so....slow.....and boring....and no one is really likeable imo. I hated Yukari, I hated Junpei. Mitsuru seemed interesting but she wouldn’t hang out. Akihiko....didn’t really care for him, but I couldn’t  hang out with him. I couldn’t hang out with Yukari or Junpei if I wanted to (Yukari won’t hang out till around Aigis joins anyway, I remember from my last playthrough we tried, it was an NG+ and she snubbed us). Kenji is a moron (don’t hate him, feel bad for him, but god so boring), Kaz is a moron, didn’t do Yuko the first time (should’ve I did like her, hate I only got the first rank the first time I ever played through P3), I didn’t like Chihiro (she started off fine but was kinda creepy later on), can’t hang with Fuuka unless you have maxed courage cause eff me (not like I can ever remember her gd link anyways that’s how forgettable it is, I don’t even like Yukari but at least I remember her’s). Basically......the SL sucked balls. Major balls (I liked Maiko, the Star dude, the old couple, the Hermit, and the Devil......I guess the Tower too he was ok, and....that’s it....for outside teammate links aka Aigis and Mitsuru). Silly was not a happy camper when she popped P3 in after having fun with P4 (and esp after being told P3 was a GAZZILLION TIMES BETTER!!!!1!), tbh I took like a 4 month break from P3 and replayed P4 before I picked P3 back up (after Aigis showed up I def enjoyed it a heck of a lot more after that). Now, P3′s plot is really good and very solid, it’s P3′s strong point. My issue is that.....everything P3 does is for the sake of the plot. It does it well, don’t get me wrong, but everything about the characters is only happening cause “plot demands it.” They never felt super fleshed out, and it’s probably why they feel a little odd (maybe even flat-ish) in the spinoff games (even more so than the P4 team), cause the spinoff games aren’t relying on their (P3′s) plot. I also don’t buy a lot of their friendships (esp the males teammates with the Male MC), Yukari and Mitsuru’s is....ok (I don’t like how the game makes it feel like “oh you have a dead dad? me too! let’s be friends” as a thing, I know she’s just trying to relate and sympathize but.....I’ve seen that as a complaint come up by a lot of people, for someone so popular Yukari isn’t much of a people person in this regard, from how the game frames it that is). Also the fact you can’t friend girls. There’s not a lot of bonding moments in the game, there’s more than P5, but I still don’t feel as close to the team as I should even by the end. And gawd, Ryoji? Wut I’m friends with him now? How? When? I like the guy but I don’t think he likes me. You’d think he’d want to hang out with me cause.....PHAROS! ;W;

There’s more but I don’t want to leave you hanging, but anyway it’s just....I have a lot of issues with how the characters are handled. They’re good characters, I wish there just....more to them. But the thing is.....THIS IS AN EASY FIX! You’ve probably heard me say about the P5 manga/anime “a change in medium can do wonders” or something like that. That’s cause I have P3 to look at. The manga and movies do wonders for P3 my problems with P3. There’s more bonding, character relationships are improved yadda yadda. Yes there are issues within the manga and movies themselves...... but they do a lot of good things too. One of the things the movies did was actually......influenced by it’s P3P remake (aka establish a relationship with Ryoji, yay!). Oh man, P3P/the FeMC fixed sooooooooooooo many problems (it also added some even more awesome duality to a game that already had a lot of duality going on with it), I can talk to Yukari and Junpei from the get go (and they treat me different, and more pleasantly than when I played as the dude), I can actually hang out with the guys (and I DON’T automatically have to date them, in fact I have to work to date them, every single one), the stats for character requirements are laid out more fairly like in P4 so by the time someone is available I can probably talk to them (without having to kill myself trying to manage my social stats).But man, the first act just flows so much better when you’re able to bond with your teammates (also Rio and Saori are great SLs!). Even tho they don’t change the female SLs pretty much at all (making it veeeery gay XD), it does feel like it is at least a friendship by the end (even tho I’m literally dating everyone and you can’t tell me otherwise! 8U). I also love her personality comes across more clearing (and varied) than the males, there’s a more clear progression of her psyche than her male counterpart (it’s still there, just not as obvious, and I love how they’re inverted to each other~! :D). It’s just, with P3, the really minor changes go a LOOOOOOOOOOONG way. The only thing I would change with P3 is the minor stuff. Just add more scenes (that don’t take up time) to the game, on both sides. Gameplay wise add more SLs, alternative SLs even. Heck, if they remade the game, I think being able to go to new places would be cool (and it’d be where you’d meet your new SLs) cause man you’re in a city, you deserve to do more stuff! It’s just the little things man, the little things can make a big impact! It says something that probably my fav Persona fanfic and fav Strain42 Persona parody comicis the P3(P) ones, even tho P4 is my fav game. You change a few things around, even the medium, and it makes a difference. 

Ok onto P4. Now P4 is the opposite of P3, with P4 it’s strong point is it’s characters. The characters drive P4. P4 is character based, P3 is plot based. P4 the plot takes a back seat. This is fine, it works in P4′s favor, like how the plot worked in P3′s favor. P4′s plot is ok, it does a great job with supporting the characters. Sadly I understand if you wanted more murder mystery (or just mystery) in a murder mystery game. And in P4′s defense, again, it had a barebones budget and not a lot of time and the company was doing pretty bad and P4 still came out pretty great (was the most popular before P5 came out, lord knows if it may even come out on top again if it gets an updated graphics/gameplay remake). And it’s also really hard to keep a murder mystery going for about 70-100ish hours (and only finally solving it in the last 1/5 of the game). Also P4, like P3 (forgot to mention that above), sticks to it’s theme really well. Even making it solving it/obtaining the good ending routes semi-difficult. Sure you can deduce Adachi, but tbh it’s also difficult. They do a pretty decent job building the guy up as a friend (even more so in P4G due to the SL). Izanami is also well hidden. The game makes you work and it rewards you.

Now if I were to change stuff.....it’d range from minor to major depending on what we’re talking about. Minor would be adding more scenes of Naoto bonding (she needs it cause the late game doesn’t do her justice), and like I mentioned above, I think have a deduction off would be interesting (Naoto’s SL was one of my favs cause of how we solved a gd mystery, god I’m so mad that never made it into the anime, even as an ova, it could’ve been a great team-building filler one too). Another thing I’d add would maybe be.....something similar to quests, but instead you have to solve a mystery (which means talking to people, and investigating areas), it can range from finding a cat in a tree or finding a bully or whatever. Just something minor that can give the mystery lovers something fun to do. I’d also have Izanami/gas station attendant be an SL (she originally was the Empress before giving that to Margret). Oh I’d also like to take Margret out on “dates” (c’mon gimme dem fun shenanigans).  And.....now this can be minor or major (depending on what they do, but it’s probably more major), add another red herring. I don’t care how.....but....it would help draw attention away from Adachi. Maybe they’re added from some of the mini mysteries you solved, maybe they squeeze an extra dungeon into the game some how-some way (doubt it for the later, that’d be a major change), but another red herring would be good. 

For a Major change it’d be restructuring the plot a looooooot, adding more dungeons for more red herrings. I would actually make Dojima a red herring. He originally was suppose to be the killer (but they thought that was too dark, understandable), with Adachi as the red herring instead. Other than that I’m not exactly sure how they’d overhaul that. I mean, if they made a P4 game based off of P3P’s route (aka different route/game, different killer), I’d like to see their prototype stuff play out. Short-haired ice queen Yukiko, delinquent/bully Rise, Pretty boy Naoto (actual boy this time, also make him dateable.....what? I like Naoto 8U), 1st year MC, Female Teddie, Adult(?) Kanji, Dojima as the killer, Adachi as the red herring (Chie and Yosuke are actually pretty much the same). I’d really like to see that. 

But tbh, I don’t really know where to start in giving P4 a major overhaul (except to go with the prototype set up), possibly cause it’d mean introducing/creating new characters. But P5? I do, oh man I know where I would start (P5 is where I’d make my major changes left and right, no minor changes here...except maybe dungeon 1), I’d make soooooo many changes to P5. But that’s for another time (not now, it’d take too long). 8U