surgeworks

11 - August 2 | Table of Contents | 13 - September 2
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Alternate Title: With Friends Like These...

A lot happened in August.

It’s still technically the tail end of August, actually, it’s the evening of 8/30, and we’re due for Tartarus.

We talk to Fuuka, get our Dark Hour cut-in, and get situated. First, let’s take a look at the Personas of our two latest party members, Koromaru and Ken Amada.

Koromaru’s Persona is Cerberus, the three-headed hound that guards the entrance to the depths of the realm of the dead in Greek Myth.

DEATH IS INEVITABLE: 28

It’s got fire, darkness-based instant kills, and a speed buff. And little pitchforks for paws, oh my god. Unlike the rest of our team’s Personas, this one doesn’t resist anything at all—it straight-out nulls both fire and darkness! Amazing! But, it’s weak to light. To elaborate, having a weakness to an instant-kill element is bad news. I’m pretty sure it doubles the odds of those skills killing you—first-tiers that are 25% chance go up to 50% chance, and second-tiers that are 50% chance go up to 100% chance. So yeah, keep him out of the way of those. What’s worse is that it’s luck-based, not speed-based, so Koromaru’s already very high agility won’t help him duck those Hama spells.

Now, Ken’s Persona. I said last time that Ken mentioning he knows why he has this power would become a bit uncomfortable, right? His Persona happens to be Nemesis, the Greek goddess of justice, and moreover, the goddess of revenge. She’s notable as being, along with Nyx (the primordial titan of night), one of the few entities in Greek myth that not even Zeus dared piss off. Doesn’t null light, its only resistance, but does half chances of getting killed by it. Also weak to darkness, which as already explained is bad. Middling stats, and has Hama, Cruel Attack (50% damage bonus on downed enemies), Zionga, and Diarama—Ken’s the second of the dedicated healers in this game.

We’re not gonna use him, unless we have to. Why? Not because of any hate on his character, I assure you, but because his Persona is virtually useless in the face of the ones we already have. There will be a section on him at the end of this spork, along with those of others, detailing why.

We take three requests from Theo, dealing with the fifth old document and two enemy drops, and are on our merry way. The block we unlocked with Chariot and Justice’s defeat isn’t a new one, but the second half of Yabbashah.

We get found by the reaper on the first new floor we enter. Christ. And then we die on the next floor.

Our first miniboss is on the 98^th floor, it’s three Magical Maguses. They have the capacity to utterly ruin us, especially with Akihiko weak to their Bufu spells, but thanks to some good luck with Tentarafoo, they go down easy, granting us two sapphires and an SP recovery item. The second miniboss on floor 110 is Natural Dancer, which Fuuka informs us is the Lovers Arcana,

Arcana Believe It: 23

and it opens with a goddamn Magarudyne on top of Sexy Dance (multi-charm). Not cool. We pretty much cheat our way through by having Aigis use up our Magic Mirrors while we tear away chunks of its health. It was not fun, but we get two diamonds, two team heal items, a Soma and a stat boost card for the trouble. Aigis levels up at gets Rakukaja, Fatal End, and Tarukaja.

Mitsuru levels up and gains Tentarafoo, introducing a ten-level skill gap, urgh. Akihiko levels up and gains Sukunda, rounding out his debuffs. Yukari levels up, gaining Garula and Me Patra, and Junpei levels up, gaining Agilao and Counter. Fuuka also levels up, gaining Healing Wave—we get a small amount of health back when we move up a floor. This is Aigis' first battle, and she informs us that she has a unique ability: "Orgia Mode". When entering this mode, she attacks on her own, and gets a great offense boost, but it can't be canceled or controlled until she overheats, whereupon she spends two or three turns cooling down. So...yeah, useless. I'd rather her just attack at her normal pace than become defunct for three turns. We find someone on floor 95, and return them, as well as someone on floor 101.

We turn in our Knight’s Reins to Theo for some weaponry, turn in our Tiara’s Hairs for two SP recovery items, and get the fifth old document on floor 114 and return it to Theodore, receiving 120,000 yen for it.

We fuse Thoth, who has Megido, a skill we'll be wanting. While fusing, we also spot Surt (the ultimate Magician Persona we gained from Junpei's Social Link), though we can't fuse him yet, but he's at an astoundingly low level requirement of just 52. We also fuse Succubus, who covers her own weakness with Null Light and has Agidyne and Mudoon, Rangda, which is a very important Persona we'll be wanting for fusion (it has two weaknesses, no way are we keeping her), and Cu Chulainn, who nets us Power Charge and Vile Assault.

After swapping them out for Personas we need for Social Links, we leave.

8/31. Before we can enjoy anything, there is a cutscene of TPI station. Junpei is smiling as he strolls up and remarks that they’ve met again! Emotionless Gothic Lolita shortly remarks that it’s just because he keeps coming back, but he’s undeterred, and introduces himself by name, and asks hers. She ignores him, and he glumly accepts this response and says he’s used to it. Before that can be the end of this conversation, Junpei notices something wrong with her hand—it’s bleeding. From the wrist.

DEATH IS INEVITABLE: 29

Is that what I think it is, Atlus?

Emotionless Gothic Lolita rebuffs him and irritatedly asks why he doesn’t mind his own business once in a while, which he deflects before searching for a hanky. He insists she give him her hand so he can tie it over the ‘wound’. She can’t understand why he’s in such a panic, and he asks if she’s crazy and says anyone would freak out over this. One of two things is happening (no 3D models, so I can’t see), and it’s either EGL with half her hand missing and failing to have the proper reaction, or EGL with a tiny bleeding cut and Junpei having a massive overreaction. He says she needs a doctor and offers to get her to one. She’s put off, and calls him weird. She does, however, give her own name, as if to change the subject: Chidori. She’s almost done with her picture, by the way, and she says that she doubts he’ll understand it, but he knows where to find her if he wants to see it when she’s done. End scene.

That…wasn’t even a lukewarm conversation. It was more like tepid.

Up next, we take Ken to the movies. Kid’s a little nervous as he asks if we have anything to do—it’s the last day of summer vacation for him. Superhero and monster movies is the last theme of the summer. He’s excited, though he pretends not to be, so as not to appear childish. When we come out of it, he’s bubbly and completely fails to convince. We spend our evening with Koromaru.

We take his walk and end up at the shrine, only for him to growl at something again. We hear voices, and it turns out to be some dumbass man trying to convince his girlfriend to go into the ‘haunted’ shrine at night. It’s locked, so he just suggests breaking down the damn door. Dude, this is public property. Kids literally play here everyday, you’ll get arrested. Koromaru is off, barking and running for the voices. The man is alarmed, and wonders where the pound is to kill off stray dogs. Dude.

We catch up, and chew him out for trespassing and attempted breaking and entering. We threaten to call the cops, and the man’s girlfriend rightfully urges him to just leave.

Koromaru is understandably upset, but we calm him down. RANK UP!

9/1. The full moon is in five days, and school starts again, featuring a funky new beat called Sun.

A few kids on the way to school remark that they really don’t want to be here today and are still tired, and that maybe they should come down with Apathy Syndrome so they don’t have to come.

I know what that was, Atlus, and what you were trying to do. That’s flimsy and pathetic.

Mr. Takenozuka asks what it’s called when electrical resistance is zero, and it’s ‘superconductivity’. He informs us he tried to feature this science fact in a pick-up line, which actually resulted in a yes and them dating—but he lost interest in her not long after.

Before we do anything else, we go to Officer Kurosawa after school to sell things and get the rewards for finding the missing people, including a skill card and twenty pieces of malachite. Then, we go spend time with Saori.

We’re informed by her that the library committee wants to put together a school newsletter, full of standard school newsletter things. We suggest making it fun to read, and she agrees, saying Ms. Ounishi did too, and was trying to look into things students would be interested in. Before Saori can finish remarking that it’ll probably be us doing the writing, a very angry and rude girl walks in, threatening to kick Saori’s ass. As she stands there frozen, the girl demands she keep her hands off her boyfriend, which causes some confusion. Turns out this boyfriend is the guy who dragged her to a karaoke date with him. The dude, Takaoka, apparently told her all about it, which makes me wonder why she’s angry at her and not him, but the girl calls her a skank and says Saori’s the one who asked him out. Still though...he went.

Saori apparently ‘seduced’ him, and gets bitchslapped. With that, the girl threatens to do worse if Saori ever goes near her man again.

> “It’s a misunderstanding!” (We should probably make some attempt to communicate this.)
> “How dare you hit her!” (I mean, her dickhead boyfriend is the one she should’ve smacked.)
> “You’re going down right now!” (….Why not? Let’s be a bad girl for once.)

But Saori holds us back, and the girl stalks off. The library is left a little shellshocked and no one that’s still here wants to look our way. She apologizes for us having to see that, but we shrug it off and she smiles. Saori admits that she did have an ulterior motive...of having friends her own age? I don’t think that qualifies. We ask her if she liked Takaoka, and she says no, thankfully. She does admit to having someone she likes, but that it can’t work out, so we ask why not. There’s a weak smile on her face, but she doesn’t tell. We rank up.

At the dorm, we run into Junpei. Yukari and Ken are sitting in the lounge and look a tad uncomfortable. Yukari says we’re home at the perfect time, and asks Fuuka if Aigis is ‘ready’. Fuuka walks out, Aigis in tow, who is decked out in a Gekkoukan student uniform.

I………..god fucking damn it.

You don’t need to do this. Aigis is a machine. Leave it at the damn dorm.

Apparently Aigis asked to go to school, and Yukari suggested it as a joke to Mitsuru, but Ikutsuki overheard and thought it was a good idea, so naturally, she’s going.

Ill Logic: 36

Ten points, because I am that irritated with this. It makes no sense! Wasn’t Aigis supposed to be confined to a lab on Yakushima until just a month or two ago? Isn’t there going to be a panic if someone gets too close a look at Aigis and finds out she’s made of metal and has guns for fingers?! Isn’t SEES supposed to be a secret?!? God, it’s like he wants the whole project to collapse!

This serves zero purpose, by the way. This moron just wants a robot in school with us to ‘study her behavior in a social environment’, which is sort of what the fucking dorm building is. It doesn’t even have any sort of gameplay feature necessitating this story move. I guess Atlas thought Koromaru and Ken were taking up too much attention lately.

Junpei is taken with Aigis in her school uniform, complete with blush and floating heart. When Aigis attempts to justify her going to school, Yukari points out that going to school will create more problems than it solves. Koromaru apparently wants to go to school too, but he can’t. After the scene ends, Junpei uncomfortably implies that a ton of guys will get crushes on her, because walking and talking mechanically with no personality at all is sexy. I’m not gonna give that a point, but I want to.

At any rate, it’s time for Ken Amada’s social link to begin. He’s off to the side of the room, all socially inept, and we decide to try being friendlier with him. Wanna get a bite to eat, kid?

Right out the damn door, Tender Feeling is playing. When we get to the restaurant, Ken starts wolfing down his food, and either hadn’t noticed how hungry he was, or didn’t want to ask anyone for help. Ken points out that his mom never took them out to eat much when she was alive, but was really good at cooking. As he thinks, he laments that he never told her that. He does say the food is good, though, and hesitantly implies he wouldn’t mind eating here again. We tell him kids shouldn’t be so modest, and he sulks over being called one. Dude, you’re ten, drop that. With that, our Social Link begins. This one is the Justice Link. He then orders a large milk.

9/2. Aigis remarks on Gekkoukan being Tartarus in the daytime. Ms. Toriumi introduces her to the class as a transfer student, complete with a voice-over (did we even get a voice-over when we transferred in?) Ms. Toriumi remarks on her strange name, doesn’t find a last name, and finds “humanoid tactical weapon” in her files.

I was right. Ikutsuki is literally trying to get Aigis discovered and blow SEES’ entire shit up. She brushes it off as a clear mistake, and Junpei and Yukari breathe again. Naturally, the only open seat is next to us. She literally doesn’t care that the spot is already assigned to an absent student, but oh well.

Naturally. She wouldn’t sit anywhere else, right? I wasn’t going to give it a point, but then Aigis restated her ‘highest priority’ bullshit.

Aigis I’m Stuck With You: 12

At lunch, we get a text from Akihiko. Something important after school that needs taking care of, so he wants us present. We’re to meet him at the gate. When we get there, he’s visibly annoyed. He wants us to accompany him to get someone, an old member (!). He’s carrying a suitcase.

YES, IT’S THAT TIME.

We head over to Hagakure Ramen, where Shinjiro is waiting, also annoyed. Akihiko straight-up tells him he’s not asking this time, and that the ‘situation has changed’ this time, referring to Strega. When this doesn’t get Shinjiro’s attention (fairly so, it’s nine vs three right now), he says that Ken Amada has joined the team. Shinjiro gets an expression on his face that looks like someone just smacked him. When Akihiko explains, he asks only one question: if it was his decision. I think that’s a dumb question, but Akihiko answers that yes he did, he volunteered. Shinjiro decides he’s placated and commits to rejoining. I’m too excited about it to complain about a seeming violation of logic here. Shinjiro turns to us, the leader, and asks what we’re fighting for.

> “To protect someone.” (Humanity? That doesn’t seem it, but it’s technically what we’re doing.)
> “For my own sake.” (Uh….I guess.)
> “I don’t know.” (Hmm.)

This answer slides right off him, and he turns back to Akihiko to ask if his room’s still vacant. When told it is, he sighs about another girl (us) after Mitsuru being on the team. Akihiko tries to be a feminist, but that’s not what Shinjiro’s saying. Or at least that’s what Shinjiro tells us; he said that someone needs to ‘keep an eye on her’, and I’m not really sure how to take that. Is he saying we need extra protection? Or a careful eye on one of them wimmens? I can’t see it being the latter. Maybe it’s that he wants someone to reign in Mitsuru, a futile concept.

SHINJI IS HERE.

At the dorm, Junpei is rightfully excited and calls us unbeatable with him on our team. Mitsuru wonders what affected him to make him come back, but says she won’t ask him, which he appreciates. We spend some time with Koromaru tonight, for a holdover meeting.

9/3. Theodore calls to let us know a human’s wandering around Tartarus. Nice, we get to test out Shinji! At the school gates, Mitsuru is disturbed to find that yet again, the Apathy Syndrome slope has accelerated. We spend time with Fuuka in cooking club after school.

Fuuka’s a tad nervous today, and asks if we could cook something different than her. So, we make some sugar cookies. When we’re done, we take a look over at her station, and she presents us with a flavored rice ball. We take a bite, and shock of shocks, it’s delicious. We congratulate her on doing her best and seeing good results, and she mentions that she did a lot of research. She got something good after finally giving the food the proper attention, and she’s very happy about it. RANK UP!

When we get to the dorm, Shinjiro formally introduces himself, and says he’s got our back.

At the dorm, we spend time with Ken.

We rush into the ramen shop just before closing again, and he chows down on sweet and sour pork, being a picky eater as kids will be. We tell him he should eat his bell peppers, which reminds him of his mom, at which he laughs feebly. After an awkward silence, we ask him how he's liking the dorm, but that doesn't go very far. We ask him if he watches TV, and he watches the news, but he says everything else is boring, though the kids at school seem to like "Featherman R". He describes the latest episode in clear detail, and immediately tries to pass it off as him just having heard. He likes action shows and movies, he says, and asks if we watch any TV. We agree that action is great, which surprises him as we're not only all grown-up, but a girl. RANK UP! He still isn't into the bell peppers, though.

9/4. Junpei meets us at the gates to worry about the full moon tomorrow. At lunch, Akihiko seems a little off as he asks us for some time after school, so we spend it with him. Or, we will after another TPI Junpei scene.

Junpei walks up to Chidori, and asks how her hand is. He's surprised to find that there's no cut there, not even a scar (I think he means scab, but whatever), and asks if it healed that quickly. She doesn't answer. All of a sudden, she asks what he does to make himself feel alive.

…I'm not liking the tone of this.

Junpei's confused, answering "breathing, I guess", and that he's never really thought of it before. He asks if that's why she draws. Maybe, she says, but most of her drawings are 'just scribbles'. She admits to not understanding herself very well. Junpei's silent for a moment, before remarking that there's one thing that makes him feel alive, and that's when he 'plays hero'.

"In the darkest hour, unknown to all but a few, the chosen ones stand against the forces of evil! Our hero, Junpei, fights to protect the world from these terrifying monsters!"

—Said in a comedic tone to disguise that he literally just gave up SEES' secret. Wait for it.

She doesn't say anything, and when he sweats and says she's supposed to laugh, she just asks if he fights all alone. He backpedals, reminding her that he was just kidding around, but she continues—he fights during a time no one knows about, right? So then, no one would know what he's been doing, either. So, he's doing it without any reward of recognition. This actually impresses Chidori. It shouldn't, because a lack of attention is presumably what drove him to tell her about it just now. Junpei blushes and stammers, and Chidori wants to hear more. Asking her to keep it a secret, to which she gives an unconvincing 'mmhmm', he then spills the exact details of what a Persona and shadows are and what SEES does.

Wait for it.

Chidori is clearly not about to tell him to stop. She turns on the flattery, asking if he's the leader, because oh, he just seems so strong. Of course, Junpei says yes, complete with a spiel about how important he is and how tough it is being a leader. Chidori thanks him, and says she had fun today. Junpei blushes again, and she says she's gotta leave. But she'll see him again tomorrow, right? After she leaves, Junpei's all hype about their next meeting, completely failing to catch the implications of the date.

Actually, maybe we shouldn't wait for it. You can all tell what's going on here, right? I mean, Persona 3 isn't exactly the realm of deep storytelling. The question is whether to deliver the points now, or when the game fulfills on this little fail of a subplot here. I think we'll wait until then to start the new count, and go into why not only the characterization is poor, but the subplot itself makes no sense. But for now, let's hand out the ones for what just happened.

WISTLH: 49

Ten points. We've known Junpei Iori for five months and he's been a part of SEES for four, in which he's been perfectly happy to keep the secret, only to give a strange girl, who he's met only four times for minutes at a time each, the exact details of the entire top-secret organization's activities because she's pretty and she gave him the tiniest bit of attention. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Ill Logic: 46

Ten points, because there is just no way to make sense of him doing that. He would have to be brain-dead even for a teenaged hormone-addled boy to so quickly sell out his team like this for tits. Trust me, dozens more of these points are on the way.

Where were we? Right, spending time with Akihiko. Sure enough, Tender Feeling is working my heart strings when we get to the ramen shop.

He seems quiet today. He eventually pipes up and asks us how we are, physically to be specific. We tell him we're alright. Akihiko seems to be having trouble putting his thoughts into words, and says that he feels 'angry' when we fight, so we ask him what we should do. He says he didn't mean it that way, and tries saying he feels irritated, not angry, but that's not it either. Nervous is the one. We ask him if we seem unreliable, and he says no, we're doing a great job. After some silence, he asks us if there's any way we can avoid fighting, which sounds odd coming from him, the punch-happy competitor, but he backpedals and tells us to forget he said that. Being led in circles, we ask him what's the matter, hoping he'll spit it out. It takes him a minute to figure out, but eventually it comes forth: he's worried about us, deep down, and says so with a visible blush before looking away. After that confusing, but eventually touching exchange, we RANK UP.

Tonight's the night! The night before the full moon, and we're going to Tartarus! Shinjiro, who seems to be hanging around with Koromaru, advises us on his accommodating fighting style: stay out of his way. He's not very fast, but he'll wreck whatever he lands a hit on. Junpei is excited for tomorrow, though obviously not for the right reasons.

We talk to Fuuka, get our Dark Hour cut-in, and are on our way.

So, Shinjiro Aragaki.

Starts at level 37, and his Persona is Castor. Castor, notably, looks almost identical to Akihiko's Polydeucus, except wearing black instead of white. And with a huge blade through its chest. And riding a skeletal horse. Okay, it looks a dozen times cooler than Akihiko's. Has Regenerate 1, Fatal End, and Counter. Arcana is Heirophant, curiously. Fantastic strength and endurance, rather lower magic and agility. Also notably, he has no resistances or weaknesses, which takes a bunch of pressure off of us to keep him guarded. He's got plenty of skills in line and you probably won't level them all, to say the least, but he's a good, reliable party member. And he's carrying a goddamn axe.

There is nothing not to love about Shinji. Even the way he points a gun at his own head like he gives no fucks looks cool.

We experienced a glitch while going up Tartarus from the bottom to get him some EXP—when we got to Arqa, the 17th floor was still labeled Thebel. Aside from that, we also get to see how Divine Grace is. It’s damn good is what it is—healing Shinjiro with just Dia from near dead would take about seven or eight uses, now it just takes two. He finally levels up on floor 83. He’s got Evil Smile by the time we leave, which will be helpful in gaining critical hits with his one (1) move.

We find the missing person on floor 108 and return them.

After that, well, no real sense in staying. I don’t feel like dicking around for another hour or four while my team levels up inch by inch, so, let’s go.

9/5, full moon. No school stuff today. Have a scene!

Junpei is outside the dorm, bummed that Chidori wasn’t at the station today. He wonders if he should check again, but thinks better of it since the full moon operation is tonight. He thinks aloud that they’re fighting to protect her too, which makes him excited. Junpei, you idiot…

Before he can get too thrilled about being a hero, her voice rings out from the darkness, telling him not to move. A series of violent sounds occur, and we cut to black, and are given our Dark Hour cut-in.

The dorm room is full minus Junpei, and Ken, who’s been sent to look for Junpei. Lucia’s out and sensing around for the Shadow. She seems to have located one near Paulownia Mall, but the exact location is fuzzy for some reason. Ken walks home, saying he can’t find Junpei anywhere and doesn’t think he’s home yet. Fuuka tries sensing him too, and he’s not anywhere nearby. Everybody huffs, but there’s nothing to be done about it—the Shadow needs destroying now, and if he’s not here, he’s not here.

Everyone files out, but Shinjiro stops after the room is empty save for us two, and asks if Junpei said anything earlier. We ask if he’s worried, getting a ‘whatever’ in response. We cut to Paulownia Mall.

I never did mention that, did I? Water doesn’t turn to blood, but it does supposedly turn red during the dark hour, like all the light turning green. All those ridiculous amounts of blood throughout Tartarus, especially Thebel? Just water. A lot of water. Waterfalls of water. But because the intended effect is the same?

Calm Down There, Edgelord: 22

Probably should’ve mentioned that sooner, but this seemed like the most appropriate time.

Fuuka remarks that the presence she senses is very faint, yet still definitely closeby. Mitsuru opts for us to split up and search for it, but Fuuka asks for a moment more to trace it. She starts chanting what sounds like an incantation to Lucia, which is weird. What she gets out of it is that there’s “webbing” “beneath our feet”. Aigis pipes up, mentioning power cables underground.

Fuuka figures out that the power cables aren’t interfering with her radar, but have themselves been possessed by the Shadow, so it’s essentially underneath the entire mall plaza, putting us at a great conundrum of how to beat it.

We cut to the dormitory rooftop. Junpei makes a unique portrait face as he’s dumped on the ground.

Chidori marvels at how easy it was to sneak up on him and take him down, wondering if the rest of SEES is so unaware. Junpei wants to summon his Persona, but has been robbed of his Evoker. Chidori has a task for Junpei, you see—he’s supposed to give some orders to the rest of us, and she reasons that surely he has some method of communicating with us.

Ill Logic: 47

And what if that method were his Persona? Do you mind, Chidori?

Junpei’s still stuck on ‘give orders’. Chidori tells him that he won’t be harmed, so long as he does what she says, and tells his friends to call off the operation—not just tonight’s, but all of them. Junpei finally catches up with the rest of us and figures out that Chidori might be one of Strega. When asked, she just tells him to quit wasting time. Cut back to Paulownia Mall.

Fuuka reminds everybody of what we already know: these things have possessed complex objects before, like a monorail, and we weren’t stopped from beating them then. This Shadow has to have its own body. While Fuuka tries to find it, Akihiko says we might not be able to get to it. After a minute, she tracks it down: it’s very closeby, in a small underground chamber. Shinjiro offers his input this time, mentioning what he’s overheard around Club Escapade: apparently the power there has been acting up recently, and an outage forced them to cancel some big event. The control panel should be located beneath the club. I’m going to assume Shinji heard that last bit working part-time, because that’s kind of conveniently specific.

Fuuka confirms, and we’re handed control to pick our party. Obviously, Shinjiro’s coming, as is Akihiko since he resists electricity. For our last party member, we’ll take Koromaru. Once we’re down there, the Shadow is revealed to be the Hermit, and it looks wild.

In sharp contrast to the string of bosses so far, this one actually puts up a decent fight. Of note is when it charges, during which it does nothing for two turns before unleashing a very nasty attack called Giga Spark. Koromaru gets a critical hit in, leading to a devastating All-Out Attack. Good boy! And then another one! We almost kill it, but get a chunk bitten out of us by that Giga Spark before we can. Akihiko and I are fine, but Shinji and Koro are a little worse for wear. Shinji is the one to strike it dead.

Our party levels up, Akihiko gaining Elec Boost. Fuuka rings in to congratulate us, and to mention that she’s found Junpei. He’s back at the dorm, but something’s off. They opt to hurry back, and we cut there to beat them to it.

Chidori softly remarks that the mission has been completed, and Junpei is alarmed to find that she can tell. Chidori confirms that she has navigational powers, and sees “through Medea’s eyes”, those of her “friend”. She cuts him off when he next tries to speak, asking why he didn’t call off the mission, asking if it was worth his life. Junpei is forced to come clean about how he doesn’t actually give the orders, and that he lied about being in charge, and that they probably wouldn’t listen to him anyway. Right he is!

She’s none too pleased to find out he was lying. With that, Junpei asks if it was ‘all just an act’. The meeting, the wound, the picture, he says? And yet I still wonder which parts he’s talking about. Could he have also been referring to those times where she rebuffed him, gave him the cold shoulder, expressed irritation with him, and just straight-up ignored him? ‘Cuz those weren’t acts.

Here come the promised counts. You’d have to be blind here to not see what’s going on—Atlus is building a romance. Not just any romance—a 2006-era straight, bland, zero-effort romance with all the drama of the real thing and all the thought put into it of cheese on crackers. Let’s start by pointing out the first obvious problem: Junpei is giving the whole ‘was it all just an act’ spiel that’s so common it had become a cliché long before this re-release and well on its way when it was just vanilla P3.

You can’t pull that here. That cliché’d trope is in reserve for characters who have actually spent time with one another and who, hopefully, the audience isn’t already aware are enemies. Junpei has met with Chidori four times, spending at most a few minutes with her each time, and these four times have all been over the course of a little more than a week. Junpei doesn’t even know Chidori.

He isn’t her lover, much less her friend, not even an acquaintance! These two don’t know each other! It’s not even like they hit it off! Chidori has been very cold to him since he first laid eyes on her, and only blossomed into tepid conversation with him when it turned out he was all too willing to spill literally every bean at the slightest bit of attention. Junpei has been brushed off by her, then used by her.

With that, we introduce our final count: Romantic Plot Cancer. This whole subplot is going to continue being a pain in my ass for almost the entire rest of the game. And it’s going to get a point whenever it’s unconvincing or shoots itself in the foot, or the characters or writing involved in it are dragged down to prop it up, which will be often. You’ll see this count, as you already have, going up in conjunction with WISTLH and Ill Logic.

So! A point for Junpei spilling about SEES to Chidori in exchange for mild attention, a point for Chidori having no interest in Junpei at all except for being able to use him, and a point for Junpei ‘kicked puppy’ Iori asking if it ‘was all an act’.

Romantic Plot Cancer: 03

Ah, but we’re not done, unfortunately. I mentioned Ill Logic points, and I have them. Guess what? This entire subplot is stupid and meaningless and contradictory.

Medea, Chidori’s Persona, shames Mitsuru’s and Fuuka’s by being both an excellent psychic/navigator type and a powerful combat type in one go, and has regenerative powers on top of those. We have just been exposed to the fact of her navigator powers, and we can tell that 1) she can sense the gist, if not the details, of what is happening, and 2) she can hide things from Fuuka’s sensory powers—not only did she hide Junpei tonight, but she undoubtedly was hiding Takaya and Jin until the moment they showed up before Chariot and Justice. Going on that, it’s almost guaranteed that the surveillance on us they’re so fond of mentioning was done via Medea.

So...this whole subplot about Junpei spilling the beans, and this leading Chidori to kidnap him and threaten him to call off the mission? It treats information she should already have, such as who the leader is, as new to her and necessary for her to carry it out. She should’ve already known who Junpei was from the moment they first met! She’s kept watch on SEES, and would’ve been able to recognize him. They can tell that Shinjiro was friends with us, and they could’ve only figured that out if they knew individual members by face or at least 'signature', like Akihiko who was visiting him, so no matter which way you dice it, it doesn’t make sense. She could’ve kidnapped him from day one without waiting for him to feed her info. In fact, it’s likely the interference on Fuuka’s perception abilities didn’t come from the Hermit merging with power cables, but from Chidori attempting to hide it.

So, for the game forgetting this little bit of information to make its tense scenes work?

Romantic Plot Cancer: 04

And for Chidori somehow managing to do the same?

Ill Logic: 51

Before Chidori can make good on her threats to kill Junpei, SEES arrives! Chidori isn't ready to go down, and points an Evoker at herself, calling for Medea. Junpei does the first sensible thing he's done in weeks and tackles her, preventing her from calling that monstrosity. Akihiko promptly takes it away from her. And who should show up but Ikutsuki?

Yeah, he's not been aware of any of this happening. Aigis is ordered to restrain Chidori, who's getting very distressed and calling out for Medea. Fuuka is also distressed, since Chidori has taken her by surprise. That makes me wonder why she sensed Junpei and not her, if she couldn't sense Junpei before. One redhead dressed in white to another, Mitsuru interrogates her, asking if she's part of Strega. Chidori doesn't respond, instead mumbling about not being afraid of dying and sounding like she might be about to break down, and Mitsuru accurately guesses that she's emotionally unstable. Throughout all of this, Junpei does nothing but say her name in the various tones of a sad, betrayed man. For some reason, they opt to take her to a hospital, despite Chidori not being injured in the slightest and her actions not really warranting a comforting hospital bed.

(Oh and hey, that will become enraging too, in October!)

The next day, that's where we are, at TPI Hospital in Chidori's room. Mitsuru is again interrogating, but Chidori is simply refusing to answer, stable but defiant. Outside in the hall, Yukari is yelling at Junpei to wait, reminding him that he's not supposed to be here. Junpei rushes in anyway, frantic to see if she's okay and asking her how she feels once he's noticed she's calmed down. She doesn't answer him either.

Romantic Plot Cancer: 05

Junpei is expressing way too much attachment to a chick that's shown him no affection at all, who he barely knows, and who held him hostage and was about to kill him last night.

Mitsuru confirms that not only has she calmed down, but she refuses to say anything, and wonders about confiscating her sketchbook. I agree, maybe letting her sit there bored out of her mind might do her good. Junpei disagrees, saying it won't do any good and won't make her talk, in a way that makes it very clear that what he's really trying to prevent is her being made unhappy. Mitsuru argues her point, saying Chidori was very upset when her Evoker was taken from her, and a light bulb pops over her head and she asks where Chidori actually got that. This only causes her to get agitated again and demand Medea back. She becomes despondent again and Mitsuru and Akihiko get exasperated, letting Yukari know to call a nurse as they're done for today. Yukari says to Junpei that they need to go, and he only closes his eyes and asks Chidori what happened to her.

Romantic Plot Cancer: 06

Stop that. Nothing happened to her. This girl is the same girl she's always been, you have no right asking her what's changed! You. Don't. Know. Her. You're not close to her, stop acting like you are!

We are finally handed control. You’ll have to see what we do with it when the next post rolls around.

Counts: