I forgot to mention in the video, but if you want to see how Madarame in particular really shows what filial piety looks like when taken to the extreme, I recommend checking out my Yusuke video th-cam.com/video/07a4dFcTJWA/w-d-xo.html Also just want to make a comment on the Shido section, it was so easy to start rabbit-holing for me here lol. I feel like unlike most of the other topics I've covered in the past, even extensive ones like Akechi, there's just an ever-increasing amount of related things I felt I could comment on when it comes to what Shido represents. Given how extensive Abe's PM-ship has been, there's just so much... At one point his section was already ~4x longer than the rest, so I had to cut it down to only the most relevant stuff. Also thought it was worth addressing the elephant in the room: to everyone who has seen parallels to Trump and other alt-right figures/movements that have cropped up all over the world in the later 2010s, the big thing that separates Abe from them is that, he wasn't some outsider or populist and/or fringe candidate. He and his party were legitimately the establishment in Japan's government for decades. The entire Diet has *always* contained a significant amount of members who were ultra-nationalist revisionists. finally I rarely mention this, but my first couple years of college I was double-majoring in international affairs and social work-- it was only until after I came down with transverse myelitis that I gave up one since it was too much with my health issues. I went social work since it encompasses pretty much all the broad topics and issues that are of interest to me,, and I'm happy I was still able to finish with concentrations in international work (and geriatric population but that's neither here nor there lol). All of this to say, these topics are of much importance to me, so I'm so glad to finally talk about all the Palace rulers, but *especially* the inspiration for Shido! __________________________________________________ ~NON-PERSONA MUSIC I USED by part and in chronological order~ Against All Odds (Inazuma Vers.)- Genshin Impact, Past Light (Calm vers.)- Fire Emblem Fates Kamoshida: Demon's Yell- Trails to Azure Madarame: Schwarz Auction- Trails from Zero Kaneshiro: Killing Bear- " " Okumura: Confronting Reality- " "; Anti-Hero (both vers.)- P5 Strikers Shido: Beyond the Paradise of Lies- Trails to Azure ____________________________________________________ 🎮TWITCH: www.twitch.tv/ladyvirgilia 🐤TWITTER: @VirgiliaLady twitter.com/VirgiliaLady 🌟PATREON: www.patreon.com/LadyVirgilia
I'll be waiting for the Rise video. Not only because she best girl, but I follow an industry close to her. Talking ofc about vtubers, Hololive in particular.
A friend of mine pointed out the reason Americans and Japanese like to idolize each other's cultures is because of our similarities and differences. We're just similar enough, even in the bad ways, to find familiarity, but just different enough to intrigue each other, thus enticing people to visit.
Propaganda is an export. It’s easy for idiots in America to gulp down nationalist propaganda that makes Japan look like a paradise where all their politics magically worked.
Your friend isn't wrong. My initial interest came from how so many things I enjoy and took comfort in as a child came from Japan, particularly a lot of the social issues some of them brought up. Then as I learned more the differences and similarities both intrigued me, but also the contrast of how the US takes the individuality mantra to the detriment of the whole while Japan takes collectivism to the detriment of the individual and there's a part of me that wonders if something better can be found by looking at both. It's a big part of why I wanted to go to Japan for a year or two for study abroad, specifically somewhere outside of Tokyo, to get a greater understanding of the culture more directly, but well.. unfortunately the year I was going to go was when covid hit.
That was actually an early problem with anime and manga in the US. It was similar enough to cartoons and comics many things were overlooked or even unnoticed that would have been very wrong for American audiences. For instance in the fan service and adult themes were pretty common to hear when I was a young kid and desensitized me to them later, but I know if my mom or grandparents actually bothered to watch some they for I'd me from watching cartoon network again lol, however they were different and inappropriate enough most knew not to reenact them like flipping a girl's skirt because it would be funny to see her embarrassed. However it was also because of the more grown up nature of some shows that they were utterly captivating with a different sense of appropriate humor and level of violence
you can compare the two countries to a pair of coinflips in a sense. there's so much to where it's like flipping the same side twice in a row, or flipping opposite sides in the same 2 flips
“Hahaha Persona 5 fans cringe and keep shoving Persona 5 references into real life when the game said that it’s just a work of fiction haha go play an actual SMT game”
@@quazar3640've literally never understood this point of view. You can enjoy things as an individual too. I love Undertale and Deltarune to death for example even if those fanbases are quite annoying. I love Jojo even though it has the same issue. It's not like you have to interract with the fandom to enjoy stuff. This of course applies to Persona as well, one of my favorite game series ever even if the fandom can be incredibly cringe. I just don't give a shit and enjoy the games by myself and my friends who also love it.
Kamoshida was always the scariest villain for me. I've never encountered a mob boss or a plagiarizing artist in the real world, but more than half of my high school teachers had at least one of Kamoshida's vices, whether it's sexually assaulting the girls, physically beating the guys, or just detaining/suspending/expelling students because they don't like them. The only way to deal with those teachers was the Gray Rock Method.
Sorry, I was about to joke about "Gray Rock Method" reminding me of RTGame's "brick 'em" solution to any problem, but then I actually read that it is a genuine psychological response. I apologize for my first reaction being making fun of the situation
In a part of this video, they said that Japanese teachers sometimes waterboard kids as punishment? Like what??? That’s a war crime, and somehow acceptable in schools? God, I’m feeling really bad for any kids in japan who go through teachers like this
@@georgemeyers7172 It's when you deliberately make yourself as boring to the narcissist as a gray rock, so that the narcissist/psychopath hopefully loses interest in you and leaves you alone.
Lived in Japan for 3 years doing English teaching. I caught some students cheating on a test and passed that information on to my superior and she asked me "why did YOU let them cheat?" Like it was my fault that I didn't stop it from happening in the first place. From then on out I just didn't want to report any cheating and just turned a blind eye to it because I knew I'd only risk getting reprimanded for it. I had first hand experience on how the system can force you to just say, "shouganai" I also heard 2nd hand stories of people trying to report sexual abuse to children in elementary schools / daycares and being met with fierce resistance. It's a very sad situation.
@@Andyatl2002 the desire to cheat comes from an educational system that values scores more than actual learning. If it weren't the case, there would be no incentive to do it. The response that op got was likely a product of the absolutism with which hierarchies are seen over there. They were the authority figure in that class and thus everything that happens is either his fault or his accomplishment.
While I was replaying P5R on PC, I had noticed how often Madarame used the excuse of Yusuke "owing his life" to him. So I think with Madarame that whole point against filial piety is especially emphasized, as in, "just because a person raised you doesn't give them the right to abuse you"
It's a very common thing in asian culture. The concept of inherent or internal debt. In tagalog we call it "Utang na loob" and it is a card that parents play against their children.
Shido is the most real villain here, we have tons of Shido in Latin America. so people that call him a "Cartoon villain" Are either dumb or are just thinking about his Shadow which is indeed a more exaggerated ver of the real Shido but that's how he sees himself.
I think that even without the Japanese societal context that the themes resonate with so many people the world over just illustrates that feelings of helplessness and frustration with existing power structures is a global phenomenon.
@Caleb OKAY that’s an absurd oversimplification though. Lower-middle class, upper-middle class, and the ruling class also exist more prominently in some cultures. Also, in universe within 1984, that could easily just be INGSOC propaganda, so probably best to take it with a grain of salt from the meta & in-universe perspective
Honestly, people saying "Persona 5 villains are too cartoonishly evil" makes me think they're living in the So Happy World, because holy shit are they so wrong
“Cartoonishly evil” villains are exaggerated, but exaggeration is the whole point of satire. And I’d say Persona 5 is nothing if not satirical, in the best sense of the word.
@@paulchapman8023 Cartoonishly evil, as used by people critiquing Persona 5, meaning 'These villains are SOOO overly evil that they'd never _actually_ exist in the real world.' In some regards, as to how their mannerisms are, particularly in their palaces, I can agree with that. But when it comes to their crimes, often the point of critique, they are bang on, if not Evil ENOUGH. People complaining about how unrealistic the villains are, aren't complaining that the satire of it is too exaggerative, they're claiming they can't believe these people exist in the real world, because as far as they see, people like these don't exist. That's the problem: they do, people just don't know about them. THATS my problem. (With the exception of Igor, Maruki, and kinda Shido) Also, Satire need not exaggerate, Exaggeration is but one tool of satire to reflect onto its audience what it is trying to say. Simplifying portraying reality from another perspective, as P5 does, is another way.
To me it's not cartoonist, but metaphorical. In the Metaverse, humanity's cognition's are given stylized form as spirits and minor deities, thus are peoples' thoughts also given stylized form.
Those who have never seen any hardship and/or have never had their livelihoods threatened will likely never find realise the truth. Birds of paradise I call them... Akin to brave new world
I did hear that the inspiration for Shido is why P5 has 20xx as the year, instead of the more realistic 2009-2010 for Persona 3, 2011-2012 for Persona 4.
When people call persona 5 villlians cartoonishly evil, I can only think of the fact cartoonishly evil people do in fact exist. When I look at the villains I definitely did think they were generalized generic problems. However now that I know that there are real life cases these are based off of, I can't help but gain appreciation for the game
I do think the other villains after Kamoshida could have done more with having the direct effects of their crimes be shown like Madarame’s plagiarism which could have been realised more by showing a former student of his’ living in destitute similar to how certain figures in the comic industry like the creators of Superman were effectively penniless in their 60’s until the late 1970’s with the leadup of Superman The Movie where the public became aware of their situation thanks to Dennis O’Neil and Neal Adams bringing light to the still prevalent problem creators’ lack of ownership of their own creations under the legal ownership of the comic publishers.
in Australia, a guy began burning down the warehouses of his competition to put them out of business, what type of business was it? Bouncy castle rentals, he did it so he would be the BEST bouncy castle company in all of Australia because all the other ones lost all of their inventory from fire
@@rayvenkman2087 The fact that the effect of their crime are incidious and hidden from the general public is kind of the point tho. Japanese society cares a lot about visible curruption and criminality but tend to turn a blind eye on the hidden one because it doesn't "distrupt order"
I’ve never understood the claim some people make that Persona 5’s villains were overly evil to a cartoonish degree when the only unrealistic part, in my opinion, is simply that Shido was somehow connected to EVERYTHING. Sexual predator teachers are real problems and plenty of real stories show that staff will turn a blind eye if they get results. Madarame’s specific acts of plagiarism might not be prevalent but abusive parents who take advantage of their children for personal gain is all too common. Kaneshiro’s blackmail scheme is an actual racket done in Japan. Okumura is literally just a CEO, they all think like him. Sae’s fabrication of evidence to get convictions might be a massive problem in Japan but int happens plenty all over the world. Shido, minus how he randomly had connections to a specific high school for no real reason, is just a story of how almost every fascist dictator came to power. They’re all very real threats to society
It also doesn´t help that people seem to forget that we mostly interact with their shadows, which by their very nature come across as "cartoony" due to being just very specific aspect of the person.
Shido probably had connections to every high school in Japan, or at least as many as he could connect to. Any aspiring dictator knows that the most effective way to get and keep power is to influence the youth.
While I agree with most of what you’re saying here, I would like to point out that Shido actually _didn’t_ have connections to Shujin. Kamoshida was the only Palace Ruler who had no connection to the conspiracy
You do get a lot more out of it with Japanese context, but I think the messages of the game can be applied to many other cultures which is why Persona 5 is so popular overseas. Everyone has dealt with abusive authority figures in their life, and many people don't stand up to it. The theme of rebelling against abuse and corruption is something that can resonate with anyone who wants the world to be better. It was very interesting seeing all the possible direct inspirations behind the palace rulers tho.
There's a tendency to assume that society in other countries is just different, when we're all just humans doing human things. People get pressured by authorities to not say anything in any country, either out of fear of retaliation, or fear that nobody will stand up for them. People see the defined concept of filial piety and assume it's only a thing in the East, when you probably know plenty of people with abusive family members who make excuses for it, or put up with it... it's the same thing, but we just don't tend to have a name for it. As much as Persona 5 is "Very Japanese", all their experiences are universal. I have a lot of LGBT friends in various countries, and Japan seems the same as any. Not great, and pretty much the same level of uniformly bad that we're all used to.
Some people say that Australia is an equal or even classless country due to misconceptions about our generally easygoing or brash attitudes, (plus clips online of us directly swearing at or being generally nonchalant about the literal Prime Minister), but I live here and there's still power and abuse of power here too. It really is a worldwide thing no matter the culture, sadly. Hell, I literally had a creep teacher of mine get chased down by the cops for possession of kid pics.
@@conspiracypanda1200 I live in the U.S. and I know a teacher that molested a student. The thing that makes Persona 5 so good is that we all vibe with autonomy and hate the unfortunate realism of villains like Kamoshida who abuse their power. I wish it wasn't true but a lot of these problems are worldwide. And I'm sure everyone knows corrupt politicians in their country who lie through the skin of their teeth like Shido does. Persona 5 will hit home for anyone who hates corruption and distortions regardless of their nationality.
Both things are true at once? Like. It hit hard Eben with out the context. And I had expected some of it to be fiction based on real stories. But the added context does clarify a lot. 🤔
Something I like about the way P5 is structured is that each subsequent case pulls the curtain back further, showing how entrenched the problems the youth face are. From their school life, to the art world, to the criminal underworld, the corporate ladder, the legal system, and finally to the political institution of the country itself. That’s also why the final act is so important to the story, since it drives the point home that the phantom thieves spent the whole game cutting the heads off a hydra-Sure, it’s great that Kamoshida is gone and the abuse at this one school has stopped, but how many more kamoshidas are out there? And given enough time, another will eventually come to replace him, because it’s not the moral failings of any individual scumbag causing society’s problems; it’s the flaws of society itself.
Yeah that's why I dislike with a passion "reviews" that dismiss the last part of the game as "Ok so you fight a god cuz jrpg lol, there's nothing to it it's just jrpg stuff" like...for starter just because many jrpg do it doesn't mean it means nothing to the country one should ask himself WHY jrpg are so obessed with evil gods, what it represents for them ? And ehre it's a pretty clear case of the god perfectly representing the true ennemy of the game which are the ideological flaws of society itself. Because that's what false god are at the end of the day, the incarnation of a belief system shared by a lot of individuals.
@@naproupialso yaldabaoth is just like the palace rulers in that it is just another person (or in this case god) trying to force their will, beliefs and desires unto others
The final act also made me realize that the actions of the Phantom Thieves were also evil. Sure, changing hearts was seen as a good thing but the deeper meaning was that the Phantom Thieves had to resort to forceful manipulation to stop evil and ignorantly sent palace rulers back to the Prison of Regression. The world relied on a god to choose their fate and relied on the Phantom Thieves to solve their problems. Both sides are keeping the Prison of Regression in check.
Great video, but you forgot Sae Nijima 's palace which was a pretty spot on indictment of Japan's criminal justice system. Persona 5 resonates worldwide so I had no idea it had specific cases in mind.
@@aaroncallahan119 Sae was essentially on the verge of becoming a villain, the palace version of her was already willing to cheat to win regardless of guilt.
@@fictionjunkie That's unfortunately part of the issue with the justice system over there. While the philosophy is supposed to be innocent till proven guilty, unfortunately the common mind set is if the police arrested you they must of had a proper reason so prosecutors will do whatever they can which is why there's a 99% conviction rate. Add on the fact she is a woman in a male dominated work force and the sole source of income for her family, she is doing whatever she can to succeed.
The fact that Shido was not-so-subtly (at least to the Japanese) based on the ultra nationalist prime minister Shinzo Abe is wild. Especially with Abe having been assassinated just this year by a former military serviceman and ex member of the Unification Church (which many people consider a cult). Sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction.
This is why I hate when people talk about "unrealistic/cartoony villains." Captain planet villains are more real than we like to think and the same is true about P5.
Exactly. You see people like this on the news almost every day and for some reason people don't pick up on it. With all these modern and historical dictators and populists, how can one actually claim that Shido is unrealistic? The only difference between the P5 villains and our irl ones, is that the real criminals smile at the camera and have monologues about their fucked-up worldview behind closed doors.
@@kap1618 I mean , it cut out making the bad guys into negligent regular people, instead framing as the sort who just desire to pollute, rather than have it be a biproduct of greed and laziness, due to not wanting to make kids question their parents
The thing is... the problem with "cartoony" villains isn't that they're unrealistic, but that it's difficult to understand their perspective, so you don't see how you could end up like them. And by that test, all of P5's villains are cartoony. Verisimilitude is a concept that people really need for basic media literacy.
I dissagre the persona 5 villans are cartoonist since many iconic villans don't have us follow they percept and the fact they are the result of bad of bad stuff so they don't need have profound mean
As an American, this is a bit weird to look at. Societal pressures are nothing new, and I knew that they were on steroids in most Asian cultures, but as someone who's grown up with individualism thrown in my face most of my life, this is crazy. It's even more insane to think that people like this can do what they do on a regular basis and get away with it. We all like to think of Kamoshida, Madarame, Shido, Kaneshiro, and Okumura as cartoonishly evil, and to an extent, they are. But the fact that they've been inspired by real life individuals who might have gotten away with their schtick their entire lives makes for an absolute horror show. It's a lot easier to digest this stuff when it's just me using a magic ghost to punch society's problems away, I guess. Learn something new every day.
Nobody really realizes how insidious people can be. We can all call them cartoonish yet there are a couple Adachis and Nijima's in every state department. And predators in droves that can be found in all sorts of positions.
From the first time seeing P5 the story always felt the most possible, in a sense that the characters felt like they could exist, and that the way people acted towards what happened didn't feel contrived to an extreme degree, so its interesting to learn that alot of it was based on real events not just an extreme of them. I'v got no meme to end this with so Happy holidays and well wish's and all that
OMG ARE YOU FOR REALLLLL...???! 😭 dudeeee seriously this is an insane amount of money and I'm SO incredibly grateful for your generosity 🙏 Really glad you enjoyed this video so much and wishing you a happy holidays and new year as well! ❄️
I'd love to see a video on the mementos targets who were almost bad enough to have palaces, like the host club guy who tricks girls into sex works, the parents blackmailing Kawakami or even the Parent's of Futaba's friend who force her to be a grauvere idol
I mean this is an anime world with people having Persona powers. We have in our world no known people who can call on the power of persona and Carl Jung isn't as spot on about psychology as we think he is. It is not really a realistic story, in fact the only way for it to be realistic if all the palace things and Phantom Thievery were children's games.
@@basilofgoodwishes4138 You're kind of completely missing the point. Having fantasy elements does not negate all elements of realism. Usually a good fantasy setting and story uses its fantasy to heighten the scenario, while extrapolating on how that would affect the characters and world in a believable way. And/or use its fiction to comment on real issues. (Almost all the best fiction has some form of social commentary.) Lots of superhero fiction does this kind of thing all the time. They present the real world as a setting and then ask the question "What would a normal human do if they suddenly got superpowers?" Obviously superpowers are fiction, but at the core of most of those stories is something believable and relateable to a real person. I don't think P5 always succeeds at that, some of its villains are unbelievaby cartoony (Shido), at least in execution, but a lot of the game and its commentary is based on real issues, and the fantasy parts don't change that.
@@Zeik56 No I get it. Fantasy can use realism, but that does not mean the story is realistic and as such does not have to limit itself to it for the sake of it. Too many writers want to be realistic and that ends up sucking the life out of their stories. Shido is also a bad example for cartoonish evil, because people like him exists. See that is the problem with realism within fiction, it isn't really needed that much and when people speak of realistic, they always want just some gritty stuff that isn't worth entertaining, like how endless war is good for humanity.
@@basilofgoodwishes4138 I have no idea where this argument is coming from, as nobody is claiming that Persona is, or should be, gritty realism. The disussion was about the realisitic elements behind the fantasy. That being said, Shido may be based on real people who did real bad things, but he's not realistic as a character. Real evil people don't spend 10 minutes monaloging an exposition dump of all the evil they've done and plan to do in the most hamfisted way possible. Shido could have been a good villain, because there are plenty of corrupt politicians out there to base him on, but they failed to give him any nuance or subtlety to write a believably evil character, so he just ended up being a caricature of one. And a character like that needs to be reasonably realistic and believable, because he's not some abstract god, he's a human politician in the real world. Every other villain at least has some nuance to them, even if they are exaggerated anime depictions. But by far the best antagonist of the game (and arguably the best in the series) was Royal's final antagonist, precisely because he felt like a real person who ended up going down the path he did for believable reasons. His circumstances were very fantastical, but it was the elements of realism that made him an effective and nuanced character. Pure over the top fantasy can work, but it's so much harder to pull off well, especially if so much of your setting and premise is ostensibly based in reality and wants to tackle real subjects.
@@Zeik56 Gritty and realism is interexchangable for many people. When people speak of realism they mean this and not often what humans can realistically do, because Shido does thing that a lot of politicians do irl, like calling for assassination and sentencing people for invented crimes to be thrown into the trash of society, left to rot. All they want is just a story that has him lice in a grim world where he is forced to be this way and maybe, he has a point, like many villains in the fallout franchise, where live is grim and the fascists have a point and aren't cartoonish. Kamoshida is only called the most realistic, because he is not involved in the supernatural conspiracy, even though he kinda is via the metaverse. Also he monolouges just like Shido about his goals like a true villain. On top of all of this, evil monolouges are good and necessary to get their mindset and Shido does not present himself as villain, he makes himself look like a hero, when he isn't. That is not bad writing, maybe evil, but not bad writing. The problem is also not Shido, it's the story being incapable of criticizing the PT so everyone has to be made a douchebag to justify brainwashing, hence all villains are irredeemable and can only change through Persona powers.
50:40 In Spain we have an old saying, "Ajo y agua" (garlick and water), which in turn is actually the polite, short version of the actual one, "A joderse y aguantarse" (get fucked and put up with it). It´s basically our version of all those phrases, except with our own rude yet witty take that characterizes us.
In English, we also have "que sera, sera", which (despite its appearance) is an entirely English creation meant to look Spanish/Italian/French (depending on time period/spelling). It's meant to mean "what will be, will be", and often has a similar fatalistic intent as the other expressions (you can't control it, so put up with it).
I'm more surprised with how people can't relate P5's villains to real life figures. I mean, Shido is a walking caricature of nearly every politician out there. Even Sae is the definition of the Glass Ceiling phenomenon gone rogue. Though it's interesting to see it from a Japanese perspective. Just goes to show that Japan has its own bundle of problems that really aren't brought to light when discussing about their culture. Racism, sexism, and xenophobia being prominent issues.
I remember lots of folks making Trump jokes regarding Shido, so it seems like people picked up on THAT, at least. (The Shinzo Abe connection I DIDN'T initially catch, but it's VERY obvious in hindsight. I better go put on my clown shoes... @_@)
Even for me, an Indonesian, these villains are very relatable to our day-to-day lives. Abuse of Filial Piety background, the religion/political fanaticism, Greedy Capitalist, misogynism, sexual and physical abuse are rampant problems that you can also find here, in a somewhat similar sense/dimension with P5's. Regarding "Shikata ga nai" mentality, the current older generations here tend to lean towards "You must be grateful" whenever people are complaining about injustice in their life. In spirit it is the same but with Islamic PoV than Confucianism. Because we're meant to be thankful for everything that happens even the negative ones are served as reminder, which is true but back to your last point, some bad things in life need to be addressed, demanded solution and solved instead of being sweep under the rug with the pretense of being Ungrateful.
The term that I'm seeing most frequently these days that could be compared to Gaman is "Cope". There's a growing sense among the youth that the world is screwed and there's nothing we can do about it. I think a game like Persona 5 really struck a chord in that sense, which helps explain its global popularity. Anyway, sorry to hear about your illness, I wish you the best of luck. And remember, it's okay to be upset about circumstances that are unfair, even if you can't do much about it.
Huh. I've actually seen "Cope" used in both ways, but it always has an agression to it. As in, someone might say "X thing is unfair and cruel and we need to change it because we shouldn't behave in this way" and the response is "Cope" as in "Too bad, crybaby! We're not changing anything, so toughen up!"; but also if someone says "I can't stand that things are changing because I don't like certain ideas or beliefs and I want everyone to conform again" the response becomes "Cope" in the context of "Well, _we_ all want change, so too bad! If you keep whining you'll be left behind and we won't care".
My take on “cope” and “it is what it is” is kinda mixed. On one hand, of course life isn’t easy, society can’t be managed in a way that favours every single individual so that their life will be a walk in the park. Persona 5 Royal’s ending even highlights the fact that a fulfilling life requires you to overcome challenges. But I think everyone can agree that when society reaches to the point where it gives unjust treatment to higher and lower socioeconomic groups it’s just messed up. However alot of people think a world like this should just be accepted because “it is what it is” and because we simply cannot change something as big as the collective society, but that’s really the mindset that prevents us from doing so. Some people have just accepted this way of life and but it doesn’t have to be that way.
As someone who did suffer under an abusive teacher in my freshman year of high school, though thankfully he was only psychologically abusive instead of physically or even sexually, seeing Joker, Ryuji and Ann gain their Personas from standing up to Kamoshida felt so empowering to me and basically told me how much I would relate to all the Thieves.
Worked in factories my entire adult life where the majority of my coworkers were East Asian immigrants. They definitely had the overtime mindset and I got sucked into it, was used to an easy 80-100hr week. They were so afraid of being viewed as worthless to our supervisors if they didn’t do this, at least it wasn’t mandatory and we got paid 1.5-2x for that overtime.
That's also a huge reason many of these types of immigrants can get ahead later on in America they literally outwork the Americans, that much overtime can easily be over 1k a week more money
It's always interesting to me how games connect to the real world in ways we never thought. Especially Japanese games. Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire allude to the land reclamation battles that were happening at the time in the region of Japan Hoenn is based on. The entire Phoenix Wright series is commentary on how ridiculous the Japanese justice system actually is and how much it relies on guilty verdicts. And now the connections in Persona 5 with real issues that were happening in the country at the time are being made known thanks to you. Thank you for examining these kind of themes in Persona 5 and giving more context to those of us who were missing it. When I get around to playing Royal, keeping all this stuff in mind will give me that much of a greater grasp on what the game is really trying to say.
It’s helpful to note that the Liberal Democratic Party has always been a bad translation. It’s not Liberal, it’s Libertarian. The party’s name is 自由民主党 or literally “Freedom Democratic Party” Whoever translated it mixed up liberal, which means doing things (such as making changes) without restraint, with libertarian, which means the government not getting in the way of the people and allowing them to live freely. Both of them have the “without restraint” or “free” idea, but they’re used in different ways.
No, it's an issue with Americans. Liberal does mean freedom and people's rights. But in America you have Liberal in the sense of Social Liberalism, which is pro-welfare state and government interventionism, and typically very progressive, in the sense that it adopts new ideas and legal and policy changes very quickly, aka "the left". And "Classic" Liberalism, which is what Liberalism is in Europe, and is more conservative, aka "the right". Not that this is a perfect definition, as parties and politicians and policies all vary a lot, and names don't always mean what you expect. But in most Democracies, classical Liberal is the conservative position, because Democracies are founded on Liberal values. In Japan, the Liberal Democratic Party is Classic Liberal (but also somewhat Nationalistic). The Constitutional Democratic Party is Social Liberal.
@@AusSP I’ve only ever seen liberal in a standard sense be used as an opposite to conservative. Do you apply peanut butter to the bread liberally, a lot, or conservatively, not much? By that definition, it makes sense to apply the liberal definition to those who want to make changes liberally, vs those who want to conserve the old ways, and be very conservative with changes they do make. I know there are many political definitions, but I try to keep mine to the base root words. Shit like “classic liberalism” actually being conservative and stuff like that just complicates the words when you want to apply the basic definitions in ways that make sense.
Whereas Libertarian specifically emphasizes freedom and liberty of the people. Which is what the Jiyuu Minshu party stands for. It’s a classic centrist/conservative leaning party, but its name does show the face it shows to the people: we won’t get in your way, not if we don’t need to anyway.
@@HyperLuigi37 Liberal also means "not strict", or "generous", or the liberal arts. You can't pick one definition out of a list of several and say that all uses of the word must abide by one definition. It is confusing, certainly, but we're well past the point where the English Language can survive restricting definitions of words. Anyway, Liberal doesn't mean conservative or progressive. Conservative and progressive are comparative terms, and have nothing to do with Liberalism at all. Progressive means you want to change stuff, conservative means you want to do or change as little as necessary. Back when Europe was made of monarchies, Liberalism was hyper-progressive. Now, it's not, because most western nations are Liberal, and you can't be progressive if everyone's doing it. More than that, Liberalism isn't just a word, but a philosophy, with centuries of writings that all collectively add up to explain and justify the beliefs of these political parties. "People have a right to Life, Liberty, and Property" is an idea that's hundreds of years old. The reason why Social Liberals have a different name is because they believe a different, newer philosophy. Classic Liberalism is conservative because it believes the *old* tried-and-tested philosophy. Libertarian, in America, is a synonym for Classic Liberal, thanks to the American Democrats adopting Liberal instead of Social Liberal. Because of that, Liberal is the term used by everyone except the Americans. You can be as American as you want, but the Jiyuu Minshuu party isn't going to change it's translation after nearly 60 years just because an American says so.
I think videos like this show how both American and Japanese are both similar and different in a way. While there times where American fans can related to dealing the abuses of villians and understand stuff like kamoshida(especially since me too start to happen around persona 5 western's release), Okumura, and even Kaneshiro(if you live in a bad neighborhood) and shido. However the way is present can be lost to some. It didn’t help that were a fuss about the “freaks” joke and unfortunate implication(I.e making of lgbtq+ in a bad way). It interesting to see as a American, that most Asia societies have a too collectivist problem, while the USA it the opposite with hype individualism. In fact we call it this hype individualist problem as “F”ck you, got mine”
Great points! I've always like to think that *outcomes* across the world are quite similar, hence the universality of so many societal ills (for example, exploitation of workers for own gain)... but the *reasons/mentality* behind why these things happen vary from culture to culture. And I'd have to agree. That's why I hope we're all able to find a healthy balance between these two extremes some day!
@Caleb OKAY oh god people not understanding naoto and kanji arc is a pain. With persona 4 golden being released to the switch and other console, it going to be re-ignited
You may want to check out an Anime called psycho pass. It is a dystopian science fiction anime about about a world were brain scans of your emotional stress "cloudiness" dictates your life and even if you are allowed to be in that society at at. I bring this up as it wares a lot of its western inspirations on its sleeve, and there are parts, especially the ending, that you can clearly see the difference between western ideals and eastern (Japanese) ones.
Both individualism and collectivism in the us or japan are similarly hypocritical. Namely, both are "value" sold by the power structure to the population, value they never live up to. The values are different due to different cultural historical context. "Collectivism" in Japan manifest in these act of power abuse for personal gains, across any era in their history. It's just the question of whether they could get away when shit hit the fan. "Individualism" in America will gladly discard individuals who stand against injustice to perpetrate an inherently unfair system. The name of national securities have been invoked various time for psychopathic goals.
Wow, I always said that pesona 5's only bad mark was that the villains were so overly evil it takes away all of the moral issues the PT might face. They lightly touch on it the day before Shiho attempts suicide but otherwise they're up against people who can only be dealt with by changes of heart. I had no idea that this was legitimately what happens in Japan. Damn, I always told people that I wanted to move to Japan since they would be more cultured and accepting. As a tattooed (with fucking flowers too God I'm stupid!) Gay man, I'd probably be absolutely hated in Japan. Oh well, there's great Japanese food and culture here in the states.
Yeah for better or worse, conformity is everything in Japan. If you're not willing to act and think exactly like the status quo, you're gonna have a rough time... It's slowly getting better and better with the younger generation(s), but there's still a ton of xenophobia towards foreigners still (even if it's not blatant, or even intentional) :/ I think it's an excellent place to visit as a tourist! But very hard to settle down in for those not born and raised there.
@@LadyVirgilia Well I at least know how to use chopsticks, slurp my ramen, and dip the sushi fish side down... I'd love to visit a gay bar in Shinjuku like crossroads (I'm assuming that's it's a gay bar??). I would at least assume in that neighborhood I'd be more accepted.
It's not like that kind of people only exist in Japan. Sure the specifics will be different, but adults who abuse their position of power or "geniuses" to abuse young people exist in the states Same for scammer artists who abuse their notoriety to exploit their students Same for shady organisation that make young people sell drugs Very very same for awful CEOs who treat their employes like tools (might be worse in the states for that one) ANd of course I don't need to explain the shady cops and polician do I ? We shouldn't idolize Japan but we shouldn't use it as a scapegoat to pretend our country is perfectly fine either.
Well even in this game the only two openly gay men where portrayed as pedofiles and rapists so yeah. But hey at least you got Lala-chan 1/3 is decent right.
Major Disservice not including Futaba Palace. Futaba castle was all about the ever growing depression in Japanese Youth. Hikikomori is a ever growing issue in Japan.
As the title says... "villains". Sae's absence from the video is rather questionable(even if the main topic of her arc was covered in part in the Akechi video), But neither Futaba nor Shadow Futaba are outright "evil" in any sense of the word, and the only actual abusers involved her arc are nameless goons of Shido.
As an American who spent several years living in Japan, the game hit the cultural psyche elements dead on. It's one of the reasons I enjoyed P5 so much. It was a great reminder of my time there.
I noticed Shido's campaign posters right away. They do the exact same thing here in montreal, though with a lot more parties than just a few. The visual pollution has gotten so bad now that when election season is over, they are obligated to remove the posters within a few days, or else they will get fined.
Great video. I, actually, was surprised ,when heard that people think P5 villains are "too evil". Because for my whole life (21 years) I've met and know at least 2 "Komoshida's", who enjoyed to abuse their students, 1 Okumura -like and 1 Shido-like. Shido-like especially pretty realistic, because he rules my country for over 28 years. After collapse of ussr in 1994 were elections and he also said a lot of sweet things, especially to old folks, who missed that garbage - ussr. So majority elected him and almost immediately started to make his regime more powerfull by creating his "gestapo" and "silencing" everyone, who could oppose him. Under him economic became garbage, corruption raised and other typical dictatorship things. And still he does truly belives that what he did was right. There was a lot of protests, involved hundred of thousands people, who opposed him. In result, people who was involved got captured were beaten daily, raped and some even killed in literal concentration camp. Who didn't fled the country got imprisoned for decades. And now I live in another country and can't go back to my home and parents. Well, I think that people, who really think, that such villains are unrealistic - pretty lucky
Great Video!! I recently finished P5 Royal for the first time, so it was really cool hearing about all the real world inspiration for these characters!
While I do get the dislike of the sentence "rotten adults", I feel that people tend to get an unnecessarily surface level reaction to it at times. Ie, it's only taken at face value and makes you think "these kids think all adults are rotten", when in practice, it's more that the PTs hate "adults who are rotten" - that's a very important distinction imo. ^When it comes to adults who aren't rotten, like Sojiro, Kawakami, Sae, Maruki, and the like, the PTs were generally fine with them despite all they've been through - heck, when Sojiro was under suspicion of abuse regarding Futaba, the PTs (not just Joker, mind) were reluctant to believe he was capable of that, and carefully looked into the matter before they jumped to any conclusions/accusations. And it's not just the major NPCs; people like the art founder in Yusuke's Confidant, the Okumura employee who listens to Haru's feedback and calls off her arranged marriage when he finds out the truth, the ever-liked Lala (:P), those reasonable detectives after Futaba's uncle called "assault", and so on... even in a story against corrupt individuals, and all that entails, there's plenty of reasonable people that makes it difficult to say they're merely the exception to the rule. As an adult myself, I saw that thread very early on in my first playthrough of Vanilla P5, and mused how that - like many people tend to do IRL - the "rotten adults" thing was simply a generalization (and not an entirely unfounded one in-universe, all things considered). Plus, our heroes are teens who are still learning much about the world, and themselves; it takes time to develop the more mature views of the world and people at large, which we take for granted when looking at their words from the outside. As such, I believe taking it at face value in the above manner is a disservice to the story, and to the characters
"rotten adults" makes me think of Kids Next Door.....😆😆😆 But Persona 5 wins over the fact that the youngsters don't forget their adventures....even in the alternate reality created by that teacher.... ..while KND falls flat for me because if most of its members lose their memories of their adventures, how are they going to become better people than their parents and usher in reforms that protect future generations of children???
@@Jdudec367 True, one such example was Numbuh 1's own dad, a legend in his own right. But he chose to wipe his mind after one last mission because he knows what he is now and knows what his most important mission is: being a father.
To be fair KD uis whimsical and from unreliable narrator stories and big imagination. Like takes on what kids might imagine , happening in the story while shoing h wonders of it, but not uncritical. I think knd for what it covers, relies too on the unreliable narrator if you arent a kid anymore and like the critical stuff knd does show, the critical , yeah all that can be good but also make you wrong, i think it does show too. hil being whimsical. So i think its very difrent stories for very different reasons. like i think knd really wants to be good family media with added comentary, and persona is commentary made to media. .
I feel Madarame also reminds me of Mamoru Samurahochi, especially since he portrayed himself as a musician who was deaf when he was neither deaf nor even a musician, or at least a good one. He was outed by a ghostwriter (I guess that’s what he basically was). So with Madarame not only not being an artist and claiming other’s work as his own, but also being a “humble man” who isn’t humble at all, I feel he’s similar to Mamrou. And the latter “worked” on the dual shock director’s cut of the original Resident Evil, which has some godawful remake of the soundtrack.
It’s most likely Madame is more based on him than the former because of the ghostwriting, playing a false public facade and that tearful apology conference.
I think the closest phrase to 'shoganai' in black american culture would be "It is what it is". But for us, our history has been to maintain a culture of protest and vigilance when it comes to injustice in order to avoid ever going back to the atrocities of our past. We have a very real fear that if we dont maintain momentum, all that we've worked for can slip away. Current incidents and uncovered stories tend prove it. But unfortanately we also have to accept the way people are, what things happen to us and how the world works.
@@silverhawkscape2677 Are you black? Im asking because I wouldnt mind hearing a different black perspective on this. Otherwise, your theory is duly noted
@@ebmage8793 I can't write too much cause I'm traveling. I can say that many of the topics in PS5 definitely resonated within the African American and Black Diaspora. Corrupt Criminal justice system (Central Park 5 case as well as many other cases where people were put in prison and were not guilty ). Gang affiliations due to reganomics and the cia infiltration of crack to the inner-city (read the book Dark Alliance). Which broke down family homes. Corruption with teachers and schools black children are more prone to having violent tactics used on them more than any other children of racial background. Within West Indian culture your name is everything you have and the idea of always respecting your elders. The phrase "it is what it is" definitely coincides with endure but more specifically enduring systemic racism within a country specifically built on white nationalism. The ideology of Manifest Destiny, now Trump's America First, and coming up the rank DeSantis who is much worse than trump because he is a career politician. As well as many corrupt politicians who do not care for their citizens specifically in people of color ans black communities (ie: Flynt- environmental racism and many messed up tactics to bring "America" back to "normal"). And as the author talked about enduring her medical condition (which I hope she is ok). That was that kind of mentality of many black Americans deal with of enduring the impossible due to the generational trauma of slavery. Trauma doesn't go away it sits there till you confront it. The connection of overworked employees in low paying jobs usually resonated with many Black Americans. However due to the shift in population and the growing numbers in the Latino and or Latin X Diaspora. They're shifting slave labor / low wages onto them which is disgusting. In connection to the Nissei and WW 2 that is somwwhat similar to many Black American soldiers who were questioned as to why they would fight for the country that enslaved them. I think that's why Persona 5 really really really hit home with me. It was like seeing a mirror and although some things were different there were so many similarities it was shocking. Sorry for typos and grammatical errors. If you would like to discuss more happy to chat more about this. Also I'm not doing suppression Olympics I am just showcasing how many topics in P5 reflected what many Black Americans see. At least what I saw.
Despite Persona 5 being my first persona game, I always like the villains and disagree with the common criticism where people say that they are “cartoonish.” I feel some people did not properly analyzes the villains very well.
The shikataganai and gaman really hits home, I am from a certain south east asian country that study abroad for 4 years in america. I came home and found myself frustrated with certain situation that I cannot solve by myself, all the people that I ask for help always just says endure it and be patient and things will get better, while I keep thinking most of the time situations will not get better unless someone start do something about it. Life problems is not like a storm that will calm down eventually by itself. Anyway just saying my piece, thanks so much for your amazing video, your channel deserves way more viewers and subcribers. Keep up the amazing work!
I find it really interesting that "Hangure" sounds very similar to the English word "hungry", and that Kaneshiro is associated with gluttony. I don't know if that was on purpose, but it's pretty clever either way.
I still think Kaneshiro should've been Greed and Okumura should've been Gluttony. One runs a bank and the other runs a fast food place for Pete's sake.
@@DementedDuskull I totally see where you're coming from. At the same time, maybe they thought it'd be too predictable, and I think that makes it more exciting.
I think Kameshiro is a very interesting villian who is marred by the fact that, as a coward who uses proxy, you dont see much of him in his arc (Which Ryuji even notes) but the idea of litterally using money as a weapon is pretty evocative.
Kamoshida also serves as a reference to Ginji Sazaki from Persona 2 similarly to how Ann borrows elements from Lisa Silverman from the same game. Sazaki was based off music producer Tetsuya Komuro who at the time had a rather colorful reputation and was the manager of the singer HITOMI who was the main vocalist for P2.
Ginji is Kamoshida with Persona powers, which is scary. Joker recruited the strangest people into his own masked circle. And no, I am talking about the original Joker, a cooler character imo.
I am surprised you didn't go into Sae and the game's references to the Japanese Justice system. It echoes Naoto's Social link in P4 a bit but does discuss some issues in Japanese criminal justice, it's a little distorted thanks to the casino vibe but the idea was that the Japanese courts will do anything for their guilty verdicts, even if it meant using dubious means.
Actually, isn't that also a theme in Phoenix Wright? I believe a lot of the prosecutors in that game have a lot of problems with corruption, especially early Edgeworth and the von Karmas'.
@@TheXVodkaXFairy Definitely, I would argue that the AA games are the main reason people who live outside Japan are even informed about the Japanese justice system, those and maybe Judgment (from the creators of the Yakuza games) because the story elements of those games come straight from reality and history.
It turns out that because LadyVirgilia did individual videos for each P5 confidant character, there were 3 Palace Rulers that all got their issues talked about in their Confidant video instead. (Futaba's video being more about the societal circumstances that *led* to her situation, rather than her *causing* any of course)
As someone born in Korea and now living in Canada, I could not help but notice the similarities between Korea and Japan - specifically the issues that are plaguing the young people. I too was accustomed to the expected obedience to one's elders (even the nasty and uneducated ones), and corrupt politicians in bed with corporations "too big to fail". On a more personal level, my wife has been struggling with her parents for much of her life. While it is still a work-in-progress, she has been attending counselling with a social worker for a few months now, and it has been helping. I am sure you will also help many people who are in need of your expertise. Congratulations on finishing one your studies!
NO WAYY...?!! Thank you so much! I'm so grateful for your generosity! 🙏 My cousin is half-Korean, and she often recommends me these movies and kdramas that focus on the sociocultural issues going on in Korea. I definitely can't help but notice the similarities as well. I really hope this social worker is a good fit for your wife and that she's able to get the support she needs from such services. Hoping the relationship she has with her parents can be on the mend/turn a page for the better someday. Sorry to hear she's had a rough time with it for so long. Wishing you and your family well! Thank you for sharing some of your story~
I wish you would have brought up Mamomoru's most infamous scandal, the resident evil basement theme. Capcom when they were planning the directors cut found out about the ghost writers, and forced Mamomoru to REDO the entire sound track, and it was horrendous. Luckily for anyone wanting to play re classic the ps classic uses a EU copy which was untouched by the scandal
I know it's cliche, but to quote Akihiko, "I've been waiting for this." Ever since I first discovered you videos. People are hung up on "death of the author" now but I still think authorial intent is always important to consider. YOU might interpret something differently, but that doesn't change what the story was designed to do. 2:22 I wish the localization subbed these news headlines, because they're actually illustrating the theme. Tldr: "Everything In Japan Sucks Right Now". Thanks for touching on Kamoshida's often-overlooked physical abuse. I feel like corporal punishment in general lacks the taboo it does in the west. In my Japanese translation class, which had a mix of native and non-native speakers, one of my Japanese classmates casually smacked me when I got a question wrong. I still think Madarame is an underrated villain. Coming after Kamoshida really hurts him, but I find Madarame a scarily realistic depiction of an abuser, Unlike Kamoshida who acts audaciously because no-one will touch him due to his authority, Madarame gaslights the public and his students into believing he's a nice guy, and makes them doubt themselves every time they think about speaking out. Yusuke is implied to have had stockholm syndrome for years and only snaps out of it when he sees Madarame's Shadow acting openly evil in the Metaverse, which is a luxury real-life victims don't have. The thought of being abused and not realizing it because you've been gaslit so well is... terrifying. ...I caught that Killing Bear theme in the Kaneshiro section. Nice. Never knew about Hangure before. That's why I love these videos, as a "baka gaijin" it's easy to fall into the trap of judging all Japan by the most common tropes in their media, in this case assuming all organized crime there is Yakuza, which is obviously untrue. I knew about the Watami suicide but I didn't know it was only two months after she started working at the company. I... actually feel sick. This really is just a real-life Okumura. Also, "when karoshi is most likely to occur." IF YOU KNOW THAT, WHY DON'T YOU DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT?! I'd heard of the Abe/Shido comparisons, but was planning to lay off them in my videos due to the assassination this year, which I agree was shocking regardless of your views on him. One thing I'll add is that Shido's battle form's outfit draws heavily from Char in Mobile Suit Gundam, and he shares a voice actor with a variant of Char in both Japanese and English. The Principality of Zeon in Gundam is allegedly based on WWII-era Japan, so that adds more to the ultra-nationalist angle. Even disregarding Abe, much of Japan's political elite are openly nostalgic of its WWII administration. You know, back when they were literally fascists. There's this group called the "Nippon Kaigi", which most of Abe's cabinet were members of, who deny Japan's war crimes and support textbook revisions. The infamous composer of Dragon Quest held similar views. I actually think the Yakuza miniboss is due to 24:25 though. From what I've read, it's common for Yakuza to join far-right ultra-nationalist political groups to loophole some of their actions under free speech for political opinions. I highly recommend checking out Ace Attorney if you're interested in the social criticism of Sae's arc, it's rooted in the same Japanese issues. And finally, the last Palace is entirely shou ga nai, especially the last part. Tokyo covered in bones, raining blood, and people disintegrating in public? Let's just go about our business, nothing we can do about it.
Glad I'm finally getting to it to round out the P5 series after having floated it for nearly 2 years lol! My Japanese cousins were okay with "playful swatting," as well as a number of the Asian friends (from other cultures) I grew up with. I really think it's just normalized in these communities. I'm glad the Kaneshiro and Okumura drive home now. This game is one of the most precise/detailed I've ever seen when it comes to addressing pop culture and societal issues geared towards a specific group of people. Karoshi stuff is the same way I feel about U.S. and the declining power of unions over the decades vs the big corporate spending/lobbying since repeal of Glass Steagall in the 90s and Citizen's United decision in early 2010s. Very sad state of affairs where little to nothing is being done... Yeah Shido's section can easily become a rabbit hole since there's honestly just so much to say. At one point his section in the video was ~4x longer than any of the other Palace Rulers, so I had to cut it down a ton lol. Since Char is from anime, I decided to just keep it solely to irl stories/articles, but yeah for sure! The symbolism of his uniform runs deep with Imperial Japan nationalism. I remember seeing a lot of people comparing Abe to all these other alt-right figures that've been cropping up especially in the late 2010s, but Abe and the LDP (and as you say, the lobbying Nippon Kaigi group) are so different from other developed nation's situations. He and his supporters were not outsiders/a populist movement... they've legit been THE ruling party for over half a century... crazy how much of the Diet is made up of these nationalists. Not all of them are necessarily revisionist but... ya know... Japanese populace though, a great number of people absolutely disagree with this. And yes it's true that many Yakuza clans have been tied to alt-right and nationalists groups throughout history. I just think it's particularly fitting that some Japanese early on in Abe's PM-ship speculated he may still have Yakuza ties from his maternal grandfather's side, since Nobusuke as a PM was *very* close to the Yakuza, hang out with them all the time, and made no real effort to hide it either. I have more Ace Attorney games on the backlog! I bought the original trilogy earlier this year during the summer steam sale ^^ Thanks always for the thorough and insightful comment Klingy!
I grew up in a VERY "no hitting" family so I'd been on the opposite end of that mentality. I think Kaneshiro gets overlooked a lot too. I wouldn't say he's "underrated", but I think his ARC is better than people say, and he doesn't need to be a fleshed-out character for it to work (one of my video titles during his Palace was "Kaneshiro Isn't Deep, And That's Okay"), since the arc is less about him and more about the public starting to trust the PTs (by going up against an obvious criminal the police have had trouble with, the public sees them as "on the side of justice"). I remember back in 2005 Australia's conservative government introduced a controversial "WorkChoices" bill that, although it's complicated, would've greatly reduced union power and made smaller companies exempt from unfair dismissal laws, which caused so much backlash it's part of why they lost the next election by a landslide. And in addition to Char, Shido's later phases look far to similar to Senator Armstrong from Metal Gear to be a coincidence. Another note about the Abe thing: SMT4 Apocalypse named the leader of the Ashura-kai (a sorta-Yakuza group that literally harvest people's brains to feed to Demons) Abe, so... they've been even less subtle. It also has a subplot involving an ultranationalist politician trying to revive Izanami to cleanse Japan of foreigners. Correct me if I'm wrong but it feels like a lot of the Yakuza see themselves as upholding "old Samurai values". Enjoy the original AA trilogy! They're still really good to this day. (Though you might get some whiplash going into the first game's first case, which is by far the shortest and simplest in the series)
@@BigKlingy Joker: Why won’t you DIE?! Shido: Cognitions, son. They respond to the people’s collective cognition. You can’t hurt me, Ren. Sorry, you mentioned Armstrong and I HAD to say this.
@@BigKlingy I view the Authorial intent as a rather weak defense. For one, the story has to tell you it's message, not the writer, and if the writer failed to communicate a point correctly, then this is their failure to write a story that communicates clearly and honest with their viewers. Unless you work hard to make sure no one gets the wrong message, you endorse every single bad take if you aren't careful. That is why you get people claiming that Thanos was right in infinity wars, because no one points the problems out with his ideas or why we have no one really agreeing with anything in the Fódlan Saga, because the writers are bad at communication, look at the discourse regarding Rhea and Edelgard no less. The same is true with how Dune is a subversion of the white savior narrative, when it isn't. Also, I find it unfair to the readers to understand the story by looking up interviews, because the story should have told it. Interviews are important to get more out of the world, but if you are in need of an interview to explain something, you have consumed a bad story.
@@basilofgoodwishes4138 Not sure if I agree with that mindset. People by nature are different depending on the circumstances,their viewpoint on the world and people around them and as they grow these viewpoints also grow and change with them. I say this because these different viewpoints we have,play a part on what message we get out of the story we're consuming,whether it's the good message or the bad one. You can be the greatest writer,create the most cohesive story with the most"in your face"message about it and you're still gonna have a minority of groups that got a different message out of it. So when a lot of viewers or readers get the wrong message out of story,that doesn't mean that it's the writer's fault every time that happens. A consumer's interpretation of the story isn't always gonna be the same as the one the author intended to tell them because the author and all of us consumers are different and because we are different we're always bound to end getting either the good or the bad message out of a story. Heck in the case of persona 5,the game explains you quite well why yaldabaoth's view on humanity is flawed and you still have people that agree with him. So I don't see how it's the writer's fault when he already explained in P5's story why yaldabaoth's view is incorrect and yet some consumers still misinterpret it because the message offered isn't something that their viewpoint on the world agrees with.
I had always written Kaneshiro off as "some cliche yakuza guy", but yeah looking back on it he doesn't have any ties to the yakuza and never claims to. I'd never heard about the rise of hangure and this video gave me a new appreciation for what he's meant to represent
Thank you for the real world parallel. It's interesting how much difference we have between cultures, but when have people with the same villainous aspirations.
Great job, Lady. I was gonna just watch a little bit of this while I was eating, before getting back to the game itself, but I ended up just watching through until the ending section. Pretty interesting to learn this stuff, and thanks for putting in all the effort!
Eastern games, or media, have always experienced a degree of values dissonance in the western culture due to their difference in society and culture. Maybe because I am in more contact with japanese media, like anime, manga or literature I can see some of those critics. While many aspects of the game's story still resonate with Western audiences due to its fairly universal themes of rebellion against corrupt authority, many of the finer details are lost in translation due to cultural differences, so I wasn't surprised when some of those critiques went over some people's head. But I was surprised that even I didn't knew about some of their critiques or their deepth. Your videos shows how Persona 5 gets this dissonance especially hard due to its very intense and deliberate focus on examining and criticizing fundamental aspects of Japanese society and Japan's culture. Or at least shows deeper meanings and the reasons of the why. As an example, I knew that bastardy is seen horrible in eastern society, but not at what degree or why. Good video analysis, Lady Virgillia. :D A must watch for those who want to enjoy better their Persona 5 experience.
This is an amazing analysis video and does a great job highlighting the cultural significance that Hashino intended!! With regards to gaman and shikata ga nai, the first things that came to mind were "lakas ng loob" and "bahala na" in Filipino psychology respectively, though bahala na can also take on a more confrontational meaning (but it usually does have a fatalist connotation depending on the context)
Another amazing video with great insights into Japanese culture, Persona 5's storytelling, and why certain elements resonated or didn't resonate with Western audiences. Your work always makes me appreciate the Persona series more
I just found this, but I really want to say it: Thank you. I always love to learn new things about the culture of other places and all of this really stick out to me. Thank you, and have a nice day!
Damn this video is some hot sauce on a perfect plate of chicken and fried rice. This is some informational goodness. Thank you so much, you made a fan of me.
Excellent video! I always kinda figured Shido had roots with Shinzo Abe, but never understood the full context. I remember Shin Megami Tensei IV also had a Shinzo Abe expy that wasn’t… flattering either. I remember the American Atlus office did a livestream of the English version of vanilla P5 right before release and the hosts repeatedly said that several moments in the game would resonate with Americans. In all honesty, I wondered if Shido’s translated campaign message was meant to be evocative of Trump’s 2016 message. That clearly wasn’t the case.
yeah, that sounds more like those Atlus USA people decided to display their political illiteracy considering Atlus USA's track records; that's par for the course~
The most powerful scene for themes in my opinion was the final dungeon. Having people turning a blind eye not wanting to think for themselves be basically palace rulers was genius and pointed out the big issue in every society. As long as people turn a blind eye and don't want to be inconvenienced, nothing can change. I am assuming this hits even harder in Japan, but even in western countries this feeling of powerlessness was conveyed perfectly. Humanity's ignorance would have been humanity's doom, were it not for the new generation taking charge and actively changing society (even when it's one small step at a time instead of killing a god)
17:47 Samuragochi gained some notoriety in the video game world for being the lead composer for the Director’s Cut rerelease of Resident Evil 1. Yes, this is the “Clowns Farting” guy
He’s not in the Yakuza!?!!!? Learned something new today. Well, lots of new things but that one caught me off guard. I can’t tell if it’s fascinating or sad that there are such clear parallels for each of the palace rulers. A little of both I guess. Hate to see it happen to real people, but good to have the public be made aware. After working until midnight because of end of the year submissions at work, the Okumura section hurt my soul so much. (Luckily I have a manager who is adamant about everyone getting paid their dues. I know that’s not always the situation. She’s the best). Great video as always. Hope you have a nice day!
I think kamoshida hit us weston people so hard was down to Larry nassar (especially if like me you played this after that story broke) even with out the Japanese specific context we all relate to every emotional beat of that ark in a very similar way to the intended audience I recon. The helplessness felt exists across all cultures and is far to real for us all.
Nah, it's not because of that. It's because while all the other villains are plausibly realistic, odds are we won't meet them. Kamoshida on the other hand... we all have encountered a Kamoshida at one point in our lives.
@@F1areon woosh. Big woosh. MASSIVE WOOSH. My comment wasn't about the fact that the palace owners weren't abusive, they are, but on the kind of abuse they predominantly partake in. That's exactly why I said Kamoshida is the most common type you will see. He's the everyday abuser who will force his way onto others for self gratification and small amounts of power.
Yeah, but what *I* was saying that abusers in the vein of Madarame and Okumura are ALSO pretty common, possibly to the same degree as Kamoshida. @@tcrpgfan
Thanks for the video and still willing to talk about it even as the game had passed beyond their 5th anniversary mark. I think the longer we've been with the game, the more we need this kind of indepth video to see it with authorial intent as fanon and fan theories can only get wilder overtime as the main canon story has "ended" long ago. These video series you've done had always been a reminder of what the game and our world once was, back when it was created as a reflection of life in Japan in mid 2010s. Videos like this makes me wonder how a persona game would even looked like in current, post-covid, post-truth world if Hashino keep the ball on making another coming of age story set in contemporary setting. I think theres alot of beauty waiting in it. Thanks for your work with these video, again!
Each one of the 7 main Palace Rulers are also titled by the 7 princes of Hell as well With Kamoshida's being ............. Asmodeus the Prince of LUST (Also, his Arc on it's own made me want to kick the guy's teeth in) Madarame takes on the title of the Prince of Envy/Vanity Kaneshiro was the Lord of the Flies (Hate his dungeon) And so on
I am only a recent subscriber to the channel but I have to say, this was really interesting! Discussing the implications behind these characters and how they relate to real-life was a brilliant idea. Thank you for all the effort you've put into them so far! It sounds like you had a lot of fun making it which is really great too! I shall definitely be coming back for more :)
Brilliant video, Persona 5 has really captured some very important aspects of Japanese societal issues and the way you touch on all of these issues is very respectful and helpful. Thank you! I feel especially bad for the youths, life is damn hard for young people. Sadly, there is a lot of Kamoshida like people in UK news too lately in sports and schools, e.g. British Gymnastics has many abusive coaches like him and people suffered in silence for decades and were very scared to speak out (until only very recently).
I think Shido was supposed to be Lex Luthor too since him becoming president is a common occurrence in DC works. It works perfectly since his enemy is a mild mannered man in glasses just like Superman.
When you compare both characters to their DC counterparts, they really do have plenty in common. Akira/Ren/Joker: Country boy going to the big city to live there, has an adopted parent, no one takes notice of him and he rose up to injustice because he believes it’s the right thing to do. Shido: A man who has the connections to do as he pleases, ruthless beyond compare, sees others as tools, ignores the wrong person that turns out to be his nemesis and make use of something only he has the resources for. You could argue Joker is a modern day take on Golden Age Superman, specifically the early iteration in being a vigilante who sends the fear of god into the hearts of criminals wronging the innocents and will break the law to dish out his own brand of justice against the crowd the law would be blind to or leave well enough alone.
This was very good to watch! You can feel all of this in the game and other medias from Japan, but with the context and parallels you brought, it made so much more sense! Subscribed ❤
Reminds me of the saying "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps" A extremely misused statement 😅 As it was originally meant as attempting to do something physically impossible now just means you're not trying hard enough
There’s a reason why they got the voice of Char to be Shido A lot of UC Gundam especially Zeta and ZZ deal with similar thoughts about youth and adults who’ve left a broke world for the next generation
Honestly I never really bought criticisms like that... you just gotta do some digging and I GUARANTEE you'll find stories of someone all but acting like a cartoon supervillain :S
@@F1areon I never bought that criticism either because exaggeration in itself isn't a narrative fault. Regardless, the point is that it's terrifying how evil real people can get.
@@Drakenwild Yup!! :S It mostly just bugs me how much some people tend to plain dismiss things altogether bc they look at it and go "oh but that's unrealistic and cartoony; People Don't Act Like That!!!" ...when for all they know it could turn out to be based on IRL events, in which case yes there's a person out there who DID Act Like That (tm).
@@F1areon there is plenty of popular criticisms aimed at stories and games which don't hold any water, yeah. One of my favourites is how game journalists have turned the word "linear" into a criticism rather than a descriptor.
And would be cool, if P6 main color was green and touched in the relationship of old vs new, Nature vs Technology (both use green as a reference) and Japan has a nice contrast of old and new, Nature vs tech, old vs new mindset, since this is one of biggest issues in Japan. And the "all Inaba vs Junes" thing, isn't expand as much and would be a nice excuse to return to a more rural town setting, instead of P5 Tokyo.
maybe the theme could be change and transition with the inevitable deity you fight being the god of stagnation born from humanity’s desire for things to stay the same. and the social links could focus on the characters accepting change (like divorce/remarriage of their parents, moving somewhere unfamiliar, a small family business getting bought by a major company) because change is a fact of life and not a distinctly bad one either its inevitable event and stagnation would never allow things to get worse but things also wouldn’t get better
@@larsthememelord3383 Yep. This fit with Japan biggest issues, unwillingless to accept change and like Portugal, they have an overabundance of old people and not enough young people and the old ones are deeply stuck in the past.
@@larsthememelord3383 She can inspired from Stagnate from The Faraway Paladin or Nurgle, The Fly Lord- Many gods claim the epithet of 'Lord of Decay' but that title in truth belongs to Nurgle, the father of plagues and pestilence. He is also the embodiment of despair and stagnation, or mortal hardiness against adverse situations, such as the myriad diseases and poxes he visits upon the world.
Another thing to take into consideration when wondering why people don't speak out publicly against people who do this sort of crap is the legal definition of defamation in Japans legal system. The sad truth is that there is no point in speaking up when not only will it not change anything but also the person you're speaking out against can sue and penalize you for doing so regardless of whether or not what you are saying is true. As for why they don't defend themselves....self defense is also illegal in Japan. There are countless cases where people have been arrested for "dueling" for no other reason then them trying to protect themselves....
also... I'm not going to begin trying to spell or even understand what that politicians name was but damn.... OUR politicians and social elites do a better job feigning remorse. Which actually brings up a good question... Why can't Hollywood actors and politicians fake remorse and compassion very well? Isn't that a prerequisite for acting out a part or just generally blowing smoke up everyones ass for a living?
Kamoshida: how teachers and education system can impose corporal punishment and student not having a said Madarame: a twisted form of “Confucianist values” Kaneshiro: gang violence and how it affects communities Okumaru: CEOs abusing there worker force and be vert selfish about it(something that Americans CAN’T RELATE TOO! NO SIR THEY CAN’T) Sae: Justice system just wanting to get high and successful results of dealing with rotten criminals. Shido: populism and nationalism( Again something that Americans and other CANT RELATED TO)
Nationalism isn't wrong nothing is wrong with liking and wanting to improve the country you live in People confuse nationalism and a hatred of other countries loving your home country isn't wrong and that is all the idea of nationalism is wanting to put your country fist in politics and then dealing with the rest of the world after that
This was super informative! I do think Persona 5 can easily be seen from a perspective outside of Japan, it really does add a lot to understand the Japanese perspective, at least a little bitm
This is an incredible video!! I recently replayed P5R and read into Okumura as a mix of Amazon’s cruelty towards workers and Elon Musk’s ridiculous spacecapades…but this really is very enlightening about the creator’s intentions. I also hugely appreciated the commentary about Shido / Shinzo Abe, as when I went through the last play through I spent half the game going “what even are Shido’s politics??? does he have any???” haha
Great video. Stumbled upon this one while browsing Persona related content. Always questioned our society and its history and how it operates with all the questionable stuff you can find everywhere. Several forms of media have covered these issues and Persona 5 did it pretty well. People often dismiss these things but it goes to show that even a video game can convey a message. Still can't forget how the game tells you that its content having any similarity to IRL stuff is purely coincidental. I always find those disclaimers kinda funny
I wonder if Nijisanji ceo fits here, he will have a yacht instead of Shido's ship Even after Shido got exposed, his men does their best to cover the issue to save their jobs and avoid sinking the ship. Similarly, the top livers in Nijisanji kept on defending their company even on the expense of their own channels since they know they'll lose the comfortable life they have with the company if it sinks, even if they already got exposed.
![ถามตรงๆ กับ อาจตุพร ทำไม ประเทศไทย ใครเป็นนายก ก็โดนด่า พอออกเเล้วคนคิดถึง!!?? l [Nickynachat]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3YFLMXxBGAs/mqdefault.jpg)
I forgot to mention in the video, but if you want to see how Madarame in particular really shows what filial piety looks like when taken to the extreme, I recommend checking out my Yusuke video th-cam.com/video/07a4dFcTJWA/w-d-xo.html
Also just want to make a comment on the Shido section, it was so easy to start rabbit-holing for me here lol. I feel like unlike most of the other topics I've covered in the past, even extensive ones like Akechi, there's just an ever-increasing amount of related things I felt I could comment on when it comes to what Shido represents. Given how extensive Abe's PM-ship has been, there's just so much... At one point his section was already ~4x longer than the rest, so I had to cut it down to only the most relevant stuff.
Also thought it was worth addressing the elephant in the room: to everyone who has seen parallels to Trump and other alt-right figures/movements that have cropped up all over the world in the later 2010s, the big thing that separates Abe from them is that, he wasn't some outsider or populist and/or fringe candidate. He and his party were legitimately the establishment in Japan's government for decades. The entire Diet has *always* contained a significant amount of members who were ultra-nationalist revisionists.
finally I rarely mention this, but my first couple years of college I was double-majoring in international affairs and social work-- it was only until after I came down with transverse myelitis that I gave up one since it was too much with my health issues. I went social work since it encompasses pretty much all the broad topics and issues that are of interest to me,, and I'm happy I was still able to finish with concentrations in international work (and geriatric population but that's neither here nor there lol). All of this to say, these topics are of much importance to me, so I'm so glad to finally talk about all the Palace rulers, but *especially* the inspiration for Shido!
__________________________________________________
~NON-PERSONA MUSIC I USED by part and in chronological order~
Against All Odds (Inazuma Vers.)- Genshin Impact, Past Light (Calm vers.)- Fire Emblem Fates
Kamoshida: Demon's Yell- Trails to Azure
Madarame: Schwarz Auction- Trails from Zero
Kaneshiro: Killing Bear- " "
Okumura: Confronting Reality- " "; Anti-Hero (both vers.)- P5 Strikers
Shido: Beyond the Paradise of Lies- Trails to Azure
____________________________________________________
🎮TWITCH: www.twitch.tv/ladyvirgilia
🐤TWITTER: @VirgiliaLady twitter.com/VirgiliaLady
🌟PATREON: www.patreon.com/LadyVirgilia
I'll be waiting for the Rise video. Not only because she best girl, but I follow an industry close to her. Talking ofc about vtubers, Hololive in particular.
Where can we find anything about Sae and Wakaba? Are they on the Makoto and Futaba videos?
This game is just a big "FNAF will become real in 5 seconds, RUN" type scenaio.
Can we get much higher~
so high~
you talk slow, i set the playback speed 1.25 to make you sound normal
A friend of mine pointed out the reason Americans and Japanese like to idolize each other's cultures is because of our similarities and differences. We're just similar enough, even in the bad ways, to find familiarity, but just different enough to intrigue each other, thus enticing people to visit.
Propaganda is an export. It’s easy for idiots in America to gulp down nationalist propaganda that makes Japan look like a paradise where all their politics magically worked.
Your friend isn't wrong. My initial interest came from how so many things I enjoy and took comfort in as a child came from Japan, particularly a lot of the social issues some of them brought up. Then as I learned more the differences and similarities both intrigued me, but also the contrast of how the US takes the individuality mantra to the detriment of the whole while Japan takes collectivism to the detriment of the individual and there's a part of me that wonders if something better can be found by looking at both. It's a big part of why I wanted to go to Japan for a year or two for study abroad, specifically somewhere outside of Tokyo, to get a greater understanding of the culture more directly, but well.. unfortunately the year I was going to go was when covid hit.
That was actually an early problem with anime and manga in the US. It was similar enough to cartoons and comics many things were overlooked or even unnoticed that would have been very wrong for American audiences. For instance in the fan service and adult themes were pretty common to hear when I was a young kid and desensitized me to them later, but I know if my mom or grandparents actually bothered to watch some they for I'd me from watching cartoon network again lol, however they were different and inappropriate enough most knew not to reenact them like flipping a girl's skirt because it would be funny to see her embarrassed. However it was also because of the more grown up nature of some shows that they were utterly captivating with a different sense of appropriate humor and level of violence
you can compare the two countries to a pair of coinflips in a sense.
there's so much to where it's like flipping the same side twice in a row, or flipping opposite sides in the same 2 flips
Just golly
Your whole video series really makes Igor's disclaimer at the start of Persona 5 much, much funnier.
Except the “fiction” disclaimer played a part in the how the PTs “lost” the game to that Fake Igor.
“Hahaha Persona 5 fans cringe and keep shoving Persona 5 references into real life when the game said that it’s just a work of fiction haha go play an actual SMT game”
@@jomaq9233 Tbf, Persona fans inserting persona references into actual issues is fucking cringe.
@@jomaq9233 sure is annoying when i want to enjoy a game but can't because the fanbase is so annoying. Worse than the Jojo guys used to be I swear
@@quazar3640've literally never understood this point of view. You can enjoy things as an individual too. I love Undertale and Deltarune to death for example even if those fanbases are quite annoying. I love Jojo even though it has the same issue. It's not like you have to interract with the fandom to enjoy stuff.
This of course applies to Persona as well, one of my favorite game series ever even if the fandom can be incredibly cringe. I just don't give a shit and enjoy the games by myself and my friends who also love it.
Kamoshida was always the scariest villain for me. I've never encountered a mob boss or a plagiarizing artist in the real world, but more than half of my high school teachers had at least one of Kamoshida's vices, whether it's sexually assaulting the girls, physically beating the guys, or just detaining/suspending/expelling students because they don't like them. The only way to deal with those teachers was the Gray Rock Method.
Sorry, I was about to joke about "Gray Rock Method" reminding me of RTGame's "brick 'em" solution to any problem, but then I actually read that it is a genuine psychological response. I apologize for my first reaction being making fun of the situation
In a part of this video, they said that Japanese teachers sometimes waterboard kids as punishment? Like what??? That’s a war crime, and somehow acceptable in schools? God, I’m feeling really bad for any kids in japan who go through teachers like this
@@silversonome5360 I mean... the VICTIMS in that situation probably almost certainly would brick their perpetrators if they could, tbh :V
The Gray Rock Method? What's that?
@@georgemeyers7172 It's when you deliberately make yourself as boring to the narcissist as a gray rock, so that the narcissist/psychopath hopefully loses interest in you and leaves you alone.
Lived in Japan for 3 years doing English teaching.
I caught some students cheating on a test and passed that information on to my superior and she asked me "why did YOU let them cheat?" Like it was my fault that I didn't stop it from happening in the first place.
From then on out I just didn't want to report any cheating and just turned a blind eye to it because I knew I'd only risk getting reprimanded for it.
I had first hand experience on how the system can force you to just say, "shouganai"
I also heard 2nd hand stories of people trying to report sexual abuse to children in elementary schools / daycares and being met with fierce resistance.
It's a very sad situation.
I mean, it's not that hard to just not be a narc.
@@MxPokirby, dude what will make them stop cheating when they grow will they steal someone’s work then because that’s what they will be used to doing
@@Andyatl2002 the desire to cheat comes from an educational system that values scores more than actual learning. If it weren't the case, there would be no incentive to do it.
The response that op got was likely a product of the absolutism with which hierarchies are seen over there. They were the authority figure in that class and thus everything that happens is either his fault or his accomplishment.
Sexual abuse = Abuse = rape, sexual assault, molestation
i mean, why tattle on them? Just reprimand them instead, this isn't a cultural difference, you're just a narc.
While I was replaying P5R on PC, I had noticed how often Madarame used the excuse of Yusuke "owing his life" to him. So I think with Madarame that whole point against filial piety is especially emphasized, as in, "just because a person raised you doesn't give them the right to abuse you"
It's a very common thing in asian culture. The concept of inherent or internal debt. In tagalog we call it "Utang na loob" and it is a card that parents play against their children.
Based
This mentality is also abused more if it can be tied to religion.
Respect your elders and your parents above everything even you
Shido is the most real villain here, we have tons of Shido in Latin America. so people that call him a "Cartoon villain" Are either dumb or are just thinking about his Shadow which is indeed a more exaggerated ver of the real Shido but that's how he sees himself.
chavez lmao
I think that even without the Japanese societal context that the themes resonate with so many people the world over just illustrates that feelings of helplessness and frustration with existing power structures is a global phenomenon.
@Caleb OKAY it's mainly because here in the west we have liberalism which is anti Catholic in nature
Most of the systems causing the problems in Japan are global developments and most of the rest have issues close enough
Truth
@Caleb OKAY that’s an absurd oversimplification though. Lower-middle class, upper-middle class, and the ruling class also exist more prominently in some cultures. Also, in universe within 1984, that could easily just be INGSOC propaganda, so probably best to take it with a grain of salt from the meta & in-universe perspective
Universal Theme trump Representation.
Honestly, people saying "Persona 5 villains are too cartoonishly evil" makes me think they're living in the So Happy World, because holy shit are they so wrong
“Cartoonishly evil” villains are exaggerated, but exaggeration is the whole point of satire. And I’d say Persona 5 is nothing if not satirical, in the best sense of the word.
@@paulchapman8023 Cartoonishly evil, as used by people critiquing Persona 5, meaning 'These villains are SOOO overly evil that they'd never _actually_ exist in the real world.'
In some regards, as to how their mannerisms are, particularly in their palaces, I can agree with that. But when it comes to their crimes, often the point of critique, they are bang on, if not Evil ENOUGH. People complaining about how unrealistic the villains are, aren't complaining that the satire of it is too exaggerative, they're claiming they can't believe these people exist in the real world, because as far as they see, people like these don't exist. That's the problem: they do, people just don't know about them. THATS my problem. (With the exception of Igor, Maruki, and kinda Shido)
Also, Satire need not exaggerate, Exaggeration is but one tool of satire to reflect onto its audience what it is trying to say. Simplifying portraying reality from another perspective, as P5 does, is another way.
To me it's not cartoonist, but metaphorical. In the Metaverse, humanity's cognition's are given stylized form as spirits and minor deities, thus are peoples' thoughts also given stylized form.
it feels like I met some of these villians irl. Or. At least heard of/ met they're white/ English speaking doppelgangers
Those who have never seen any hardship and/or have never had their livelihoods threatened will likely never find realise the truth. Birds of paradise I call them... Akin to brave new world
I did hear that the inspiration for Shido is why P5 has 20xx as the year, instead of the more realistic 2009-2010 for Persona 3, 2011-2012 for Persona 4.
It's 2015-2016 as for the canon date
@@jamilgonzaga7081 I thought I’d heard that the calendar dates imply the game to be set in 2016-2017?
@@NN010 oh right, I totally forgot, that's my bad
@@jamilgonzaga7081 Its 2016-17. And 17 for P5S
Is it not because they play final destination fox only?
When people call persona 5 villlians cartoonishly evil, I can only think of the fact cartoonishly evil people do in fact exist. When I look at the villains I definitely did think they were generalized generic problems. However now that I know that there are real life cases these are based off of, I can't help but gain appreciation for the game
I do think the other villains after Kamoshida could have done more with having the direct effects of their crimes be shown like Madarame’s plagiarism which could have been realised more by showing a former student of his’ living in destitute similar to how certain figures in the comic industry like the creators of Superman were effectively penniless in their 60’s until the late 1970’s with the leadup of Superman The Movie where the public became aware of their situation thanks to Dennis O’Neil and Neal Adams bringing light to the still prevalent problem creators’ lack of ownership of their own creations under the legal ownership of the comic publishers.
@@rayvenkman2087 one of the hobos in shibuya was Madarame's pupil.
in Australia, a guy began burning down the warehouses of his competition to put them out of business, what type of business was it? Bouncy castle rentals, he did it so he would be the BEST bouncy castle company in all of Australia because all the other ones lost all of their inventory from fire
@@rayvenkman2087 The fact that the effect of their crime are incidious and hidden from the general public is kind of the point tho.
Japanese society cares a lot about visible curruption and criminality but tend to turn a blind eye on the hidden one because it doesn't "distrupt order"
@naproupi Still. Wouldn’t hurt for the writers to show more of the effect on the people around them even if it's not much.
I’ve never understood the claim some people make that Persona 5’s villains were overly evil to a cartoonish degree when the only unrealistic part, in my opinion, is simply that Shido was somehow connected to EVERYTHING. Sexual predator teachers are real problems and plenty of real stories show that staff will turn a blind eye if they get results. Madarame’s specific acts of plagiarism might not be prevalent but abusive parents who take advantage of their children for personal gain is all too common. Kaneshiro’s blackmail scheme is an actual racket done in Japan. Okumura is literally just a CEO, they all think like him. Sae’s fabrication of evidence to get convictions might be a massive problem in Japan but int happens plenty all over the world. Shido, minus how he randomly had connections to a specific high school for no real reason, is just a story of how almost every fascist dictator came to power. They’re all very real threats to society
It also doesn´t help that people seem to forget that we mostly interact with their shadows, which by their very nature come across as "cartoony" due to being just very specific aspect of the person.
Because unlike Kamoshida, we don’t get to realise the full extent of their crimes in the real world and how they actually affect others?
Shido probably had connections to every high school in Japan, or at least as many as he could connect to. Any aspiring dictator knows that the most effective way to get and keep power is to influence the youth.
While I agree with most of what you’re saying here, I would like to point out that Shido actually _didn’t_ have connections to Shujin. Kamoshida was the only Palace Ruler who had no connection to the conspiracy
@@niftyskyblue he was connected to the principal
You do get a lot more out of it with Japanese context, but I think the messages of the game can be applied to many other cultures which is why Persona 5 is so popular overseas. Everyone has dealt with abusive authority figures in their life, and many people don't stand up to it. The theme of rebelling against abuse and corruption is something that can resonate with anyone who wants the world to be better.
It was very interesting seeing all the possible direct inspirations behind the palace rulers tho.
There's a tendency to assume that society in other countries is just different, when we're all just humans doing human things. People get pressured by authorities to not say anything in any country, either out of fear of retaliation, or fear that nobody will stand up for them. People see the defined concept of filial piety and assume it's only a thing in the East, when you probably know plenty of people with abusive family members who make excuses for it, or put up with it... it's the same thing, but we just don't tend to have a name for it. As much as Persona 5 is "Very Japanese", all their experiences are universal.
I have a lot of LGBT friends in various countries, and Japan seems the same as any. Not great, and pretty much the same level of uniformly bad that we're all used to.
Some people say that Australia is an equal or even classless country due to misconceptions about our generally easygoing or brash attitudes, (plus clips online of us directly swearing at or being generally nonchalant about the literal Prime Minister), but I live here and there's still power and abuse of power here too. It really is a worldwide thing no matter the culture, sadly.
Hell, I literally had a creep teacher of mine get chased down by the cops for possession of kid pics.
@@conspiracypanda1200 I live in the U.S. and I know a teacher that molested a student. The thing that makes Persona 5 so good is that we all vibe with autonomy and hate the unfortunate realism of villains like Kamoshida who abuse their power. I wish it wasn't true but a lot of these problems are worldwide. And I'm sure everyone knows corrupt politicians in their country who lie through the skin of their teeth like Shido does. Persona 5 will hit home for anyone who hates corruption and distortions regardless of their nationality.
Both things are true at once?
Like. It hit hard Eben with out the context.
And I had expected some of it to be fiction based on real stories.
But the added context does clarify a lot. 🤔
Something I like about the way P5 is structured is that each subsequent case pulls the curtain back further, showing how entrenched the problems the youth face are.
From their school life, to the art world, to the criminal underworld, the corporate ladder, the legal system, and finally to the political institution of the country itself.
That’s also why the final act is so important to the story, since it drives the point home that the phantom thieves spent the whole game cutting the heads off a hydra-Sure, it’s great that Kamoshida is gone and the abuse at this one school has stopped, but how many more kamoshidas are out there? And given enough time, another will eventually come to replace him, because it’s not the moral failings of any individual scumbag causing society’s problems; it’s the flaws of society itself.
Yeah that's why I dislike with a passion "reviews" that dismiss the last part of the game as "Ok so you fight a god cuz jrpg lol, there's nothing to it it's just jrpg stuff" like...for starter just because many jrpg do it doesn't mean it means nothing to the country one should ask himself WHY jrpg are so obessed with evil gods, what it represents for them ?
And ehre it's a pretty clear case of the god perfectly representing the true ennemy of the game which are the ideological flaws of society itself. Because that's what false god are at the end of the day, the incarnation of a belief system shared by a lot of individuals.
@@naproupialso yaldabaoth is just like the palace rulers in that it is just another person (or in this case god) trying to force their will, beliefs and desires unto others
The final act also made me realize that the actions of the Phantom Thieves were also evil. Sure, changing hearts was seen as a good thing but the deeper meaning was that the Phantom Thieves had to resort to forceful manipulation to stop evil and ignorantly sent palace rulers back to the Prison of Regression. The world relied on a god to choose their fate and relied on the Phantom Thieves to solve their problems. Both sides are keeping the Prison of Regression in check.
Great video, but you forgot Sae Nijima 's palace which was a pretty spot on indictment of Japan's criminal justice system. Persona 5 resonates worldwide so I had no idea it had specific cases in mind.
She didn't forget it, she already discussed the subject in a video entirely about Sae which she mentioned at some point during this video.
Also Sae wasnt a criminal. Neither was Futaba. Or I guess "villain".
@@aaroncallahan119 Sae was essentially on the verge of becoming a villain, the palace version of her was already willing to cheat to win regardless of guilt.
@@fictionjunkie That's unfortunately part of the issue with the justice system over there. While the philosophy is supposed to be innocent till proven guilty, unfortunately the common mind set is if the police arrested you they must of had a proper reason so prosecutors will do whatever they can which is why there's a 99% conviction rate. Add on the fact she is a woman in a male dominated work force and the sole source of income for her family, she is doing whatever she can to succeed.
@@fictionjunkie That means she was already a villain. I didn't like how she got away with that.
The fact that Shido was not-so-subtly (at least to the Japanese) based on the ultra nationalist prime minister Shinzo Abe is wild. Especially with Abe having been assassinated just this year by a former military serviceman and ex member of the Unification Church (which many people consider a cult).
Sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction.
You should check out his grandfather. Yikes!
His grandfather was infinitely worse-the guy was the “Economic Minister” of Manchuria during the IJA’s reign.
IIRC a lot of the stuff in Maruki's Palace (plus his Metaverse outfit) takes cues from Happy Science, which is ALSO a cult primarily based in Japan.
Which is kind of crazy when you consider that Shinzo Abe was no where near the monster that Shido was.
He looked more like Hideki Tojo to me. The most Slappable of Japs. Naturally, Morgana should play his bald head like Bongos.
This is why I hate when people talk about "unrealistic/cartoony villains." Captain planet villains are more real than we like to think and the same is true about P5.
Not to say captain planet didn't get some things wrong but the show is way more potent in hindsight.
Exactly. You see people like this on the news almost every day and for some reason people don't pick up on it. With all these modern and historical dictators and populists, how can one actually claim that Shido is unrealistic? The only difference between the P5 villains and our irl ones, is that the real criminals smile at the camera and have monologues about their fucked-up worldview behind closed doors.
@@kap1618 I mean , it cut out making the bad guys into negligent regular people, instead framing as the sort who just desire to pollute, rather than have it be a biproduct of greed and laziness, due to not wanting to make kids question their parents
The thing is... the problem with "cartoony" villains isn't that they're unrealistic, but that it's difficult to understand their perspective, so you don't see how you could end up like them. And by that test, all of P5's villains are cartoony. Verisimilitude is a concept that people really need for basic media literacy.
I dissagre the persona 5 villans are cartoonist since many iconic villans don't have us follow they percept and the fact they are the result of bad of bad stuff so they don't need have profound mean
As an American, this is a bit weird to look at. Societal pressures are nothing new, and I knew that they were on steroids in most Asian cultures, but as someone who's grown up with individualism thrown in my face most of my life, this is crazy.
It's even more insane to think that people like this can do what they do on a regular basis and get away with it. We all like to think of Kamoshida, Madarame, Shido, Kaneshiro, and Okumura as cartoonishly evil, and to an extent, they are. But the fact that they've been inspired by real life individuals who might have gotten away with their schtick their entire lives makes for an absolute horror show.
It's a lot easier to digest this stuff when it's just me using a magic ghost to punch society's problems away, I guess. Learn something new every day.
Nobody really realizes how insidious people can be. We can all call them cartoonish yet there are a couple Adachis and Nijima's in every state department. And predators in droves that can be found in all sorts of positions.
From the first time seeing P5 the story always felt the most possible, in a sense that the characters felt like they could exist, and that the way people acted towards what happened didn't feel contrived to an extreme degree, so its interesting to learn that alot of it was based on real events not just an extreme of them. I'v got no meme to end this with so Happy holidays and well wish's and all that
OMG ARE YOU FOR REALLLLL...???! 😭 dudeeee seriously this is an insane amount of money and I'm SO incredibly grateful for your generosity 🙏
Really glad you enjoyed this video so much and wishing you a happy holidays and new year as well! ❄️
$500!? You really are a cooler guy!
What a generous offer
What a waste.
$500? I can’t do that on mobile. Is it only doable in PC?
Politician Nonomura’s apology video had in tears laughing! Omfg that made my day! Thank you Lady!
It became a pretty big internet meme in Japan.
Gintama’s welcome back for a new season after a long period of waiting that satirized that apology was legendary.
@@TheDeathOmen I knew that seemed familiar to me lmao
I kind of felt sorry for him, actually...
@@Billpro25 The guy was a pathetic fraud, don't.
I'd love to see a video on the mementos targets who were almost bad enough to have palaces, like the host club guy who tricks girls into sex works, the parents blackmailing Kawakami or even the Parent's of Futaba's friend who force her to be a grauvere idol
And people were trying to downgrade the villains of P5 as 'cartoony', turns out the social commentary is as deep as MHA.
I mean this is an anime world with people having Persona powers. We have in our world no known people who can call on the power of persona and Carl Jung isn't as spot on about psychology as we think he is.
It is not really a realistic story, in fact the only way for it to be realistic if all the palace things and Phantom Thievery were children's games.
@@basilofgoodwishes4138 You're kind of completely missing the point. Having fantasy elements does not negate all elements of realism. Usually a good fantasy setting and story uses its fantasy to heighten the scenario, while extrapolating on how that would affect the characters and world in a believable way. And/or use its fiction to comment on real issues. (Almost all the best fiction has some form of social commentary.)
Lots of superhero fiction does this kind of thing all the time. They present the real world as a setting and then ask the question "What would a normal human do if they suddenly got superpowers?" Obviously superpowers are fiction, but at the core of most of those stories is something believable and relateable to a real person.
I don't think P5 always succeeds at that, some of its villains are unbelievaby cartoony (Shido), at least in execution, but a lot of the game and its commentary is based on real issues, and the fantasy parts don't change that.
@@Zeik56 No I get it. Fantasy can use realism, but that does not mean the story is realistic and as such does not have to limit itself to it for the sake of it. Too many writers want to be realistic and that ends up sucking the life out of their stories.
Shido is also a bad example for cartoonish evil, because people like him exists. See that is the problem with realism within fiction, it isn't really needed that much and when people speak of realistic, they always want just some gritty stuff that isn't worth entertaining, like how endless war is good for humanity.
@@basilofgoodwishes4138 I have no idea where this argument is coming from, as nobody is claiming that Persona is, or should be, gritty realism. The disussion was about the realisitic elements behind the fantasy.
That being said, Shido may be based on real people who did real bad things, but he's not realistic as a character. Real evil people don't spend 10 minutes monaloging an exposition dump of all the evil they've done and plan to do in the most hamfisted way possible. Shido could have been a good villain, because there are plenty of corrupt politicians out there to base him on, but they failed to give him any nuance or subtlety to write a believably evil character, so he just ended up being a caricature of one. And a character like that needs to be reasonably realistic and believable, because he's not some abstract god, he's a human politician in the real world.
Every other villain at least has some nuance to them, even if they are exaggerated anime depictions. But by far the best antagonist of the game (and arguably the best in the series) was Royal's final antagonist, precisely because he felt like a real person who ended up going down the path he did for believable reasons. His circumstances were very fantastical, but it was the elements of realism that made him an effective and nuanced character.
Pure over the top fantasy can work, but it's so much harder to pull off well, especially if so much of your setting and premise is ostensibly based in reality and wants to tackle real subjects.
@@Zeik56 Gritty and realism is interexchangable for many people. When people speak of realism they mean this and not often what humans can realistically do, because Shido does thing that a lot of politicians do irl, like calling for assassination and sentencing people for invented crimes to be thrown into the trash of society, left to rot. All they want is just a story that has him lice in a grim world where he is forced to be this way and maybe, he has a point, like many villains in the fallout franchise, where live is grim and the fascists have a point and aren't cartoonish.
Kamoshida is only called the most realistic, because he is not involved in the supernatural conspiracy, even though he kinda is via the metaverse. Also he monolouges just like Shido about his goals like a true villain. On top of all of this, evil monolouges are good and necessary to get their mindset and Shido does not present himself as villain, he makes himself look like a hero, when he isn't. That is not bad writing, maybe evil, but not bad writing. The problem is also not Shido, it's the story being incapable of criticizing the PT so everyone has to be made a douchebag to justify brainwashing, hence all villains are irredeemable and can only change through Persona powers.
50:40 In Spain we have an old saying, "Ajo y agua" (garlick and water), which in turn is actually the polite, short version of the actual one, "A joderse y aguantarse" (get fucked and put up with it).
It´s basically our version of all those phrases, except with our own rude yet witty take that characterizes us.
I would personally argue the part of us beign witty about that one, but the rest is on point.
In English, we also have "que sera, sera", which (despite its appearance) is an entirely English creation meant to look Spanish/Italian/French (depending on time period/spelling). It's meant to mean "what will be, will be", and often has a similar fatalistic intent as the other expressions (you can't control it, so put up with it).
@@SvafaBlackhand wrong its translated as "what happens, happens"
Abe getting assasinated hits different after realising Shido was made so heavily in his image.
Shinzo Abe was actually based while Shido is comically evil.
I'm more surprised with how people can't relate P5's villains to real life figures. I mean, Shido is a walking caricature of nearly every politician out there. Even Sae is the definition of the Glass Ceiling phenomenon gone rogue.
Though it's interesting to see it from a Japanese perspective. Just goes to show that Japan has its own bundle of problems that really aren't brought to light when discussing about their culture. Racism, sexism, and xenophobia being prominent issues.
I guess they took to heart the “This game is a work of fiction…” disclaimer at the beginning of the game.
I remember lots of folks making Trump jokes regarding Shido, so it seems like people picked up on THAT, at least. (The Shinzo Abe connection I DIDN'T initially catch, but it's VERY obvious in hindsight. I better go put on my clown shoes... @_@)
Even for me, an Indonesian, these villains are very relatable to our day-to-day lives. Abuse of Filial Piety background, the religion/political fanaticism, Greedy Capitalist, misogynism, sexual and physical abuse are rampant problems that you can also find here, in a somewhat similar sense/dimension with P5's.
Regarding "Shikata ga nai" mentality, the current older generations here tend to lean towards "You must be grateful" whenever people are complaining about injustice in their life. In spirit it is the same but with Islamic PoV than Confucianism. Because we're meant to be thankful for everything that happens even the negative ones are served as reminder, which is true but back to your last point, some bad things in life need to be addressed, demanded solution and solved instead of being sweep under the rug with the pretense of being Ungrateful.
You really have the best p5 videos of all. People need to watch this.
Thank you! 😭🙏
“ZA WARUDO” needs to see this.
Sorry for the obligatory JoJo pronounciation.
@Mystery ? It's fine. That pronunciation _echos_ through our heads every time we hear someone say that.
If anyone thought these situations weren’t/aren’t actually a thing, they really need to get a reality check.
Beginning of each Persona game: "coincidence"
Me: "Don't believe in coincidences"
*Presses start*
The term that I'm seeing most frequently these days that could be compared to Gaman is "Cope". There's a growing sense among the youth that the world is screwed and there's nothing we can do about it. I think a game like Persona 5 really struck a chord in that sense, which helps explain its global popularity.
Anyway, sorry to hear about your illness, I wish you the best of luck. And remember, it's okay to be upset about circumstances that are unfair, even if you can't do much about it.
Huh. I've actually seen "Cope" used in both ways, but it always has an agression to it. As in, someone might say "X thing is unfair and cruel and we need to change it because we shouldn't behave in this way" and the response is "Cope" as in "Too bad, crybaby! We're not changing anything, so toughen up!"; but also if someone says "I can't stand that things are changing because I don't like certain ideas or beliefs and I want everyone to conform again" the response becomes "Cope" in the context of "Well, _we_ all want change, so too bad! If you keep whining you'll be left behind and we won't care".
My take on “cope” and “it is what it is” is kinda mixed. On one hand, of course life isn’t easy, society can’t be managed in a way that favours every single individual so that their life will be a walk in the park. Persona 5 Royal’s ending even highlights the fact that a fulfilling life requires you to overcome challenges. But I think everyone can agree that when society reaches to the point where it gives unjust treatment to higher and lower socioeconomic groups it’s just messed up. However alot of people think a world like this should just be accepted because “it is what it is” and because we simply cannot change something as big as the collective society, but that’s really the mindset that prevents us from doing so. Some people have just accepted this way of life and but it doesn’t have to be that way.
As someone who did suffer under an abusive teacher in my freshman year of high school, though thankfully he was only psychologically abusive instead of physically or even sexually, seeing Joker, Ryuji and Ann gain their Personas from standing up to Kamoshida felt so empowering to me and basically told me how much I would relate to all the Thieves.
Worked in factories my entire adult life where the majority of my coworkers were East Asian immigrants. They definitely had the overtime mindset and I got sucked into it, was used to an easy 80-100hr week. They were so afraid of being viewed as worthless to our supervisors if they didn’t do this, at least it wasn’t mandatory and we got paid 1.5-2x for that overtime.
That's also a huge reason many of these types of immigrants can get ahead later on in America they literally outwork the Americans, that much overtime can easily be over 1k a week more money
It's always interesting to me how games connect to the real world in ways we never thought. Especially Japanese games. Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire allude to the land reclamation battles that were happening at the time in the region of Japan Hoenn is based on. The entire Phoenix Wright series is commentary on how ridiculous the Japanese justice system actually is and how much it relies on guilty verdicts. And now the connections in Persona 5 with real issues that were happening in the country at the time are being made known thanks to you.
Thank you for examining these kind of themes in Persona 5 and giving more context to those of us who were missing it. When I get around to playing Royal, keeping all this stuff in mind will give me that much of a greater grasp on what the game is really trying to say.
It’s helpful to note that the Liberal Democratic Party has always been a bad translation. It’s not Liberal, it’s Libertarian. The party’s name is 自由民主党 or literally “Freedom Democratic Party”
Whoever translated it mixed up liberal, which means doing things (such as making changes) without restraint, with libertarian, which means the government not getting in the way of the people and allowing them to live freely. Both of them have the “without restraint” or “free” idea, but they’re used in different ways.
Libertarian **definitely** makes the party's naming make more sense.
Thanks for this!
No, it's an issue with Americans. Liberal does mean freedom and people's rights. But in America you have Liberal in the sense of Social Liberalism, which is pro-welfare state and government interventionism, and typically very progressive, in the sense that it adopts new ideas and legal and policy changes very quickly, aka "the left". And "Classic" Liberalism, which is what Liberalism is in Europe, and is more conservative, aka "the right".
Not that this is a perfect definition, as parties and politicians and policies all vary a lot, and names don't always mean what you expect. But in most Democracies, classical Liberal is the conservative position, because Democracies are founded on Liberal values.
In Japan, the Liberal Democratic Party is Classic Liberal (but also somewhat Nationalistic). The Constitutional Democratic Party is Social Liberal.
@@AusSP I’ve only ever seen liberal in a standard sense be used as an opposite to conservative. Do you apply peanut butter to the bread liberally, a lot, or conservatively, not much? By that definition, it makes sense to apply the liberal definition to those who want to make changes liberally, vs those who want to conserve the old ways, and be very conservative with changes they do make.
I know there are many political definitions, but I try to keep mine to the base root words. Shit like “classic liberalism” actually being conservative and stuff like that just complicates the words when you want to apply the basic definitions in ways that make sense.
Whereas Libertarian specifically emphasizes freedom and liberty of the people. Which is what the Jiyuu Minshu party stands for. It’s a classic centrist/conservative leaning party, but its name does show the face it shows to the people: we won’t get in your way, not if we don’t need to anyway.
@@HyperLuigi37 Liberal also means "not strict", or "generous", or the liberal arts. You can't pick one definition out of a list of several and say that all uses of the word must abide by one definition.
It is confusing, certainly, but we're well past the point where the English Language can survive restricting definitions of words.
Anyway, Liberal doesn't mean conservative or progressive. Conservative and progressive are comparative terms, and have nothing to do with Liberalism at all. Progressive means you want to change stuff, conservative means you want to do or change as little as necessary. Back when Europe was made of monarchies, Liberalism was hyper-progressive. Now, it's not, because most western nations are Liberal, and you can't be progressive if everyone's doing it.
More than that, Liberalism isn't just a word, but a philosophy, with centuries of writings that all collectively add up to explain and justify the beliefs of these political parties. "People have a right to Life, Liberty, and Property" is an idea that's hundreds of years old. The reason why Social Liberals have a different name is because they believe a different, newer philosophy. Classic Liberalism is conservative because it believes the *old* tried-and-tested philosophy.
Libertarian, in America, is a synonym for Classic Liberal, thanks to the American Democrats adopting Liberal instead of Social Liberal. Because of that, Liberal is the term used by everyone except the Americans. You can be as American as you want, but the Jiyuu Minshuu party isn't going to change it's translation after nearly 60 years just because an American says so.
I think videos like this show how both American and Japanese are both similar and different in a way.
While there times where American fans can related to dealing the abuses of villians and understand stuff like kamoshida(especially since me too start to happen around persona 5 western's release), Okumura, and even Kaneshiro(if you live in a bad neighborhood) and shido. However the way is present can be lost to some. It didn’t help that were a fuss about the “freaks” joke and unfortunate implication(I.e making of lgbtq+ in a bad way).
It interesting to see as a American, that most Asia societies have a too collectivist problem, while the USA it the opposite with hype individualism. In fact we call it this hype individualist problem as “F”ck you, got mine”
Great points!
I've always like to think that *outcomes* across the world are quite similar, hence the universality of so many societal ills (for example, exploitation of workers for own gain)... but the *reasons/mentality* behind why these things happen vary from culture to culture.
And I'd have to agree. That's why I hope we're all able to find a healthy balance between these two extremes some day!
Us humans are often tempted into "all or nothing" approaches to the world around us... either 100% individualism, or 100% collectivism, for example.
@Caleb OKAY oh god people not understanding naoto and kanji arc is a pain. With persona 4 golden being released to the switch and other console, it going to be re-ignited
You may want to check out an Anime called psycho pass. It is a dystopian science fiction anime about about a world were brain scans of your emotional stress "cloudiness" dictates your life and even if you are allowed to be in that society at at.
I bring this up as it wares a lot of its western inspirations on its sleeve, and there are parts, especially the ending, that you can clearly see the difference between western ideals and eastern (Japanese) ones.
Both individualism and collectivism in the us or japan are similarly hypocritical. Namely, both are "value" sold by the power structure to the population, value they never live up to. The values are different due to different cultural historical context.
"Collectivism" in Japan manifest in these act of power abuse for personal gains, across any era in their history. It's just the question of whether they could get away when shit hit the fan.
"Individualism" in America will gladly discard individuals who stand against injustice to perpetrate an inherently unfair system. The name of national securities have been invoked various time for psychopathic goals.
Wow, I always said that pesona 5's only bad mark was that the villains were so overly evil it takes away all of the moral issues the PT might face. They lightly touch on it the day before Shiho attempts suicide but otherwise they're up against people who can only be dealt with by changes of heart. I had no idea that this was legitimately what happens in Japan. Damn, I always told people that I wanted to move to Japan since they would be more cultured and accepting.
As a tattooed (with fucking flowers too God I'm stupid!) Gay man, I'd probably be absolutely hated in Japan. Oh well, there's great Japanese food and culture here in the states.
Yeah for better or worse, conformity is everything in Japan. If you're not willing to act and think exactly like the status quo, you're gonna have a rough time...
It's slowly getting better and better with the younger generation(s), but there's still a ton of xenophobia towards foreigners still (even if it's not blatant, or even intentional) :/
I think it's an excellent place to visit as a tourist! But very hard to settle down in for those not born and raised there.
@@LadyVirgilia Well I at least know how to use chopsticks, slurp my ramen, and dip the sushi fish side down...
I'd love to visit a gay bar in Shinjuku like crossroads (I'm assuming that's it's a gay bar??). I would at least assume in that neighborhood I'd be more accepted.
It's not like that kind of people only exist in Japan.
Sure the specifics will be different, but adults who abuse their position of power or "geniuses" to abuse young people exist in the states
Same for scammer artists who abuse their notoriety to exploit their students
Same for shady organisation that make young people sell drugs
Very very same for awful CEOs who treat their employes like tools (might be worse in the states for that one)
ANd of course I don't need to explain the shady cops and polician do I ?
We shouldn't idolize Japan but we shouldn't use it as a scapegoat to pretend our country is perfectly fine either.
@@naproupi It goes to show that despite cultural differences, problems and awful are still the same
Well even in this game the only two openly gay men where portrayed as pedofiles and rapists so yeah. But hey at least you got Lala-chan 1/3 is decent right.
Major Disservice not including Futaba Palace. Futaba castle was all about the ever growing depression in Japanese Youth. Hikikomori is a ever growing issue in Japan.
I remember there's a video dedicated for Futaba. She discussed about hikikomori there
As the title says... "villains". Sae's absence from the video is rather questionable(even if the main topic of her arc was covered in part in the Akechi video), But neither Futaba nor Shadow Futaba are outright "evil" in any sense of the word, and the only actual abusers involved her arc are nameless goons of Shido.
I didn’t know Futaba was a villain lol
can you read?
The video was about the villains. The bad adults. Futaba’s palace was not about a bad adult.
Relax fam…
As an American who spent several years living in Japan, the game hit the cultural psyche elements dead on. It's one of the reasons I enjoyed P5 so much. It was a great reminder of my time there.
I noticed Shido's campaign posters right away. They do the exact same thing here in montreal, though with a lot more parties than just a few. The visual pollution has gotten so bad now that when election season is over, they are obligated to remove the posters within a few days, or else they will get fined.
Fun fact Samuragochi is responsible for the basement song from the uncut version of the first Resident Evil game
As a fan of both games, Madarame is a special villain.
(clown farts intensify)
Igor: This game is a work of fiction!
Me: Cap!
Wise word Doraemon. 😼👍
Great video. I, actually, was surprised ,when heard that people think P5 villains are "too evil". Because for my whole life (21 years) I've met and know at least 2 "Komoshida's", who enjoyed to abuse their students, 1 Okumura -like and 1 Shido-like. Shido-like especially pretty realistic, because he rules my country for over 28 years. After collapse of ussr in 1994 were elections and he also said a lot of sweet things, especially to old folks, who missed that garbage - ussr. So majority elected him and almost immediately started to make his regime more powerfull by creating his "gestapo" and "silencing" everyone, who could oppose him. Under him economic became garbage, corruption raised and other typical dictatorship things. And still he does truly belives that what he did was right. There was a lot of protests, involved hundred of thousands people, who opposed him. In result, people who was involved got captured were beaten daily, raped and some even killed in literal concentration camp. Who didn't fled the country got imprisoned for decades. And now I live in another country and can't go back to my home and parents.
Well, I think that people, who really think, that such villains are unrealistic - pretty lucky
Maybe you just hang out with weird people my guy. Or you are into this stuff but hey you do you.
Ummm are you Russian?
What country was this?
@@fojisan2398 belarus
@@FunTomAsh Ah ok
Great Video!! I recently finished P5 Royal for the first time, so it was really cool hearing about all the real world inspiration for these characters!
hi spaceman!
While I do get the dislike of the sentence "rotten adults", I feel that people tend to get an unnecessarily surface level reaction to it at times. Ie, it's only taken at face value and makes you think "these kids think all adults are rotten", when in practice, it's more that the PTs hate "adults who are rotten" - that's a very important distinction imo.
^When it comes to adults who aren't rotten, like Sojiro, Kawakami, Sae, Maruki, and the like, the PTs were generally fine with them despite all they've been through - heck, when Sojiro was under suspicion of abuse regarding Futaba, the PTs (not just Joker, mind) were reluctant to believe he was capable of that, and carefully looked into the matter before they jumped to any conclusions/accusations. And it's not just the major NPCs; people like the art founder in Yusuke's Confidant, the Okumura employee who listens to Haru's feedback and calls off her arranged marriage when he finds out the truth, the ever-liked Lala (:P), those reasonable detectives after Futaba's uncle called "assault", and so on... even in a story against corrupt individuals, and all that entails, there's plenty of reasonable people that makes it difficult to say they're merely the exception to the rule.
As an adult myself, I saw that thread very early on in my first playthrough of Vanilla P5, and mused how that - like many people tend to do IRL - the "rotten adults" thing was simply a generalization (and not an entirely unfounded one in-universe, all things considered). Plus, our heroes are teens who are still learning much about the world, and themselves; it takes time to develop the more mature views of the world and people at large, which we take for granted when looking at their words from the outside.
As such, I believe taking it at face value in the above manner is a disservice to the story, and to the characters
"rotten adults" makes me think of Kids Next Door.....😆😆😆
But Persona 5 wins over the fact that the youngsters don't forget their adventures....even in the alternate reality created by that teacher....
..while KND falls flat for me because if most of its members lose their memories of their adventures, how are they going to become better people than their parents and usher in reforms that protect future generations of children???
@@DrawciaGleam02 I mean...they can still become better people without remembering being part of KND it is possible.
@@Jdudec367 True, one such example was Numbuh 1's own dad, a legend in his own right. But he chose to wipe his mind after one last mission because he knows what he is now and knows what his most important mission is: being a father.
To be fair KD uis whimsical and from unreliable narrator stories and big imagination. Like takes on what kids might imagine , happening in the story while shoing h wonders of it, but not uncritical. I think knd for what it covers, relies too on the unreliable narrator if you arent a kid anymore and like the critical stuff knd does show, the critical , yeah all that can be good but also make you wrong, i think it does show too.
hil being whimsical. So i think its very difrent stories for very different reasons. like i think knd really wants to be good family media with added comentary, and persona is commentary made to media. .
@@ChaldeaWarmaster exactly
I feel Madarame also reminds me of Mamoru Samurahochi, especially since he portrayed himself as a musician who was deaf when he was neither deaf nor even a musician, or at least a good one. He was outed by a ghostwriter (I guess that’s what he basically was). So with Madarame not only not being an artist and claiming other’s work as his own, but also being a “humble man” who isn’t humble at all, I feel he’s similar to Mamrou. And the latter “worked” on the dual shock director’s cut of the original Resident Evil, which has some godawful remake of the soundtrack.
Lol, I commented before I got to that part of the video. 😂
cue the farting clown
It’s most likely Madame is more based on him than the former because of the ghostwriting, playing a false public facade and that tearful apology conference.
I think the closest phrase to 'shoganai' in black american culture would be "It is what it is". But for us, our history has been to maintain a culture of protest and vigilance when it comes to injustice in order to avoid ever going back to the atrocities of our past. We have a very real fear that if we dont maintain momentum, all that we've worked for can slip away. Current incidents and uncovered stories tend prove it. But unfortanately we also have to accept the way people are, what things happen to us and how the world works.
Not that Culture has turned into a Culture of Male Believe Dragons that need to be slayed. Of Micro aggressions and such.
@@silverhawkscape2677 Are you black? Im asking because I wouldnt mind hearing a different black perspective on this. Otherwise, your theory is duly noted
@@ebmage8793 I can't write too much cause I'm traveling. I can say that many of the topics in PS5 definitely resonated within the African American and Black Diaspora. Corrupt Criminal justice system (Central Park 5 case as well as many other cases where people were put in prison and were not guilty ).
Gang affiliations due to reganomics and the cia infiltration of crack to the inner-city (read the book Dark Alliance). Which broke down family homes. Corruption with teachers and schools black children are more prone to having violent tactics used on them more than any other children of racial background.
Within West Indian culture your name is everything you have and the idea of always respecting your elders. The phrase "it is what it is" definitely coincides with endure but more specifically enduring systemic racism within a country specifically built on white nationalism. The ideology of Manifest Destiny, now Trump's America First, and coming up the rank DeSantis who is much worse than trump because he is a career politician. As well as many corrupt politicians who do not care for their citizens specifically in people of color ans black communities (ie: Flynt- environmental racism and many messed up tactics to bring "America" back to "normal"). And as the author talked about enduring her medical condition (which I hope she is ok). That was that kind of mentality of many black Americans deal with of enduring the impossible due to the generational trauma of slavery. Trauma doesn't go away it sits there till you confront it.
The connection of overworked employees in low paying jobs usually resonated with many Black Americans. However due to the shift in population and the growing numbers in the Latino and or Latin X Diaspora. They're shifting slave labor / low wages onto them which is disgusting. In connection to the Nissei and WW 2 that is somwwhat similar to many Black American soldiers who were questioned as to why they would fight for the country that enslaved them. I think that's why Persona 5 really really really hit home with me. It was like seeing a mirror and although some things were different there were so many similarities it was shocking. Sorry for typos and grammatical errors. If you would like to discuss more happy to chat more about this. Also I'm not doing suppression Olympics I am just showcasing how many topics in P5 reflected what many Black Americans see. At least what I saw.
Despite Persona 5 being my first persona game, I always like the villains and disagree with the common criticism where people say that they are “cartoonish.” I feel some people did not properly analyzes the villains very well.
The shikataganai and gaman really hits home, I am from a certain south east asian country that study abroad for 4 years in america. I came home and found myself frustrated with certain situation that I cannot solve by myself, all the people that I ask for help always just says endure it and be patient and things will get better, while I keep thinking most of the time situations will not get better unless someone start do something about it. Life problems is not like a storm that will calm down eventually by itself. Anyway just saying my piece, thanks so much for your amazing video, your channel deserves way more viewers and subcribers. Keep up the amazing work!
I find it really interesting that "Hangure" sounds very similar to the English word "hungry", and that Kaneshiro is associated with gluttony. I don't know if that was on purpose, but it's pretty clever either way.
Kaneshiro's name itself is also funny meaning money and white
@@hartstukken Or also "money fortress"
@@mahiru20ten Or money castle
I still think Kaneshiro should've been Greed and Okumura should've been Gluttony. One runs a bank and the other runs a fast food place for Pete's sake.
@@DementedDuskull I totally see where you're coming from. At the same time, maybe they thought it'd be too predictable, and I think that makes it more exciting.
I think Kameshiro is a very interesting villian who is marred by the fact that, as a coward who uses proxy, you dont see much of him in his arc (Which Ryuji even notes) but the idea of litterally using money as a weapon is pretty evocative.
Kamoshida also serves as a reference to Ginji Sazaki from Persona 2 similarly to how Ann borrows elements from Lisa Silverman from the same game. Sazaki was based off music producer Tetsuya Komuro who at the time had a rather colorful reputation and was the manager of the singer HITOMI who was the main vocalist for P2.
Ginji is Kamoshida with Persona powers, which is scary.
Joker recruited the strangest people into his own masked circle. And no, I am talking about the original Joker, a cooler character imo.
I am surprised you didn't go into Sae and the game's references to the Japanese Justice system. It echoes Naoto's Social link in P4 a bit but does discuss some issues in Japanese criminal justice, it's a little distorted thanks to the casino vibe but the idea was that the Japanese courts will do anything for their guilty verdicts, even if it meant using dubious means.
Actually, isn't that also a theme in Phoenix Wright? I believe a lot of the prosecutors in that game have a lot of problems with corruption, especially early Edgeworth and the von Karmas'.
@@TheXVodkaXFairy Definitely, I would argue that the AA games are the main reason people who live outside Japan are even informed about the Japanese justice system, those and maybe Judgment (from the creators of the Yakuza games) because the story elements of those games come straight from reality and history.
It turns out that because LadyVirgilia did individual videos for each P5 confidant character, there were 3 Palace Rulers that all got their issues talked about in their Confidant video instead. (Futaba's video being more about the societal circumstances that *led* to her situation, rather than her *causing* any of course)
As someone born in Korea and now living in Canada, I could not help but notice the similarities between Korea and Japan - specifically the issues that are plaguing the young people. I too was accustomed to the expected obedience to one's elders (even the nasty and uneducated ones), and corrupt politicians in bed with corporations "too big to fail". On a more personal level, my wife has been struggling with her parents for much of her life. While it is still a work-in-progress, she has been attending counselling with a social worker for a few months now, and it has been helping. I am sure you will also help many people who are in need of your expertise. Congratulations on finishing one your studies!
NO WAYY...?!! Thank you so much! I'm so grateful for your generosity! 🙏
My cousin is half-Korean, and she often recommends me these movies and kdramas that focus on the sociocultural issues going on in Korea. I definitely can't help but notice the similarities as well. I really hope this social worker is a good fit for your wife and that she's able to get the support she needs from such services. Hoping the relationship she has with her parents can be on the mend/turn a page for the better someday. Sorry to hear she's had a rough time with it for so long.
Wishing you and your family well! Thank you for sharing some of your story~
I wish you would have brought up Mamomoru's most infamous scandal, the resident evil basement theme. Capcom when they were planning the directors cut found out about the ghost writers, and forced Mamomoru to REDO the entire sound track, and it was horrendous. Luckily for anyone wanting to play re classic the ps classic uses a EU copy which was untouched by the scandal
I know it's cliche, but to quote Akihiko, "I've been waiting for this." Ever since I first discovered you videos.
People are hung up on "death of the author" now but I still think authorial intent is always important to consider. YOU might interpret something differently, but that doesn't change what the story was designed to do.
2:22 I wish the localization subbed these news headlines, because they're actually illustrating the theme. Tldr: "Everything In Japan Sucks Right Now".
Thanks for touching on Kamoshida's often-overlooked physical abuse. I feel like corporal punishment in general lacks the taboo it does in the west. In my Japanese translation class, which had a mix of native and non-native speakers, one of my Japanese classmates casually smacked me when I got a question wrong.
I still think Madarame is an underrated villain. Coming after Kamoshida really hurts him, but I find Madarame a scarily realistic depiction of an abuser, Unlike Kamoshida who acts audaciously because no-one will touch him due to his authority, Madarame gaslights the public and his students into believing he's a nice guy, and makes them doubt themselves every time they think about speaking out. Yusuke is implied to have had stockholm syndrome for years and only snaps out of it when he sees Madarame's Shadow acting openly evil in the Metaverse, which is a luxury real-life victims don't have. The thought of being abused and not realizing it because you've been gaslit so well is... terrifying.
...I caught that Killing Bear theme in the Kaneshiro section. Nice.
Never knew about Hangure before. That's why I love these videos, as a "baka gaijin" it's easy to fall into the trap of judging all Japan by the most common tropes in their media, in this case assuming all organized crime there is Yakuza, which is obviously untrue.
I knew about the Watami suicide but I didn't know it was only two months after she started working at the company. I... actually feel sick. This really is just a real-life Okumura.
Also, "when karoshi is most likely to occur." IF YOU KNOW THAT, WHY DON'T YOU DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT?!
I'd heard of the Abe/Shido comparisons, but was planning to lay off them in my videos due to the assassination this year, which I agree was shocking regardless of your views on him. One thing I'll add is that Shido's battle form's outfit draws heavily from Char in Mobile Suit Gundam, and he shares a voice actor with a variant of Char in both Japanese and English. The Principality of Zeon in Gundam is allegedly based on WWII-era Japan, so that adds more to the ultra-nationalist angle. Even disregarding Abe, much of Japan's political elite are openly nostalgic of its WWII administration. You know, back when they were literally fascists. There's this group called the "Nippon Kaigi", which most of Abe's cabinet were members of, who deny Japan's war crimes and support textbook revisions. The infamous composer of Dragon Quest held similar views.
I actually think the Yakuza miniboss is due to 24:25 though. From what I've read, it's common for Yakuza to join far-right ultra-nationalist political groups to loophole some of their actions under free speech for political opinions.
I highly recommend checking out Ace Attorney if you're interested in the social criticism of Sae's arc, it's rooted in the same Japanese issues.
And finally, the last Palace is entirely shou ga nai, especially the last part. Tokyo covered in bones, raining blood, and people disintegrating in public? Let's just go about our business, nothing we can do about it.
Glad I'm finally getting to it to round out the P5 series after having floated it for nearly 2 years lol!
My Japanese cousins were okay with "playful swatting," as well as a number of the Asian friends (from other cultures) I grew up with. I really think it's just normalized in these communities.
I'm glad the Kaneshiro and Okumura drive home now. This game is one of the most precise/detailed I've ever seen when it comes to addressing pop culture and societal issues geared towards a specific group of people.
Karoshi stuff is the same way I feel about U.S. and the declining power of unions over the decades vs the big corporate spending/lobbying since repeal of Glass Steagall in the 90s and Citizen's United decision in early 2010s. Very sad state of affairs where little to nothing is being done...
Yeah Shido's section can easily become a rabbit hole since there's honestly just so much to say. At one point his section in the video was ~4x longer than any of the other Palace Rulers, so I had to cut it down a ton lol. Since Char is from anime, I decided to just keep it solely to irl stories/articles, but yeah for sure! The symbolism of his uniform runs deep with Imperial Japan nationalism.
I remember seeing a lot of people comparing Abe to all these other alt-right figures that've been cropping up especially in the late 2010s, but Abe and the LDP (and as you say, the lobbying Nippon Kaigi group) are so different from other developed nation's situations. He and his supporters were not outsiders/a populist movement... they've legit been THE ruling party for over half a century... crazy how much of the Diet is made up of these nationalists. Not all of them are necessarily revisionist but... ya know...
Japanese populace though, a great number of people absolutely disagree with this.
And yes it's true that many Yakuza clans have been tied to alt-right and nationalists groups throughout history. I just think it's particularly fitting that some Japanese early on in Abe's PM-ship speculated he may still have Yakuza ties from his maternal grandfather's side, since Nobusuke as a PM was *very* close to the Yakuza, hang out with them all the time, and made no real effort to hide it either.
I have more Ace Attorney games on the backlog! I bought the original trilogy earlier this year during the summer steam sale ^^
Thanks always for the thorough and insightful comment Klingy!
I grew up in a VERY "no hitting" family so I'd been on the opposite end of that mentality.
I think Kaneshiro gets overlooked a lot too. I wouldn't say he's "underrated", but I think his ARC is better than people say, and he doesn't need to be a fleshed-out character for it to work (one of my video titles during his Palace was "Kaneshiro Isn't Deep, And That's Okay"), since the arc is less about him and more about the public starting to trust the PTs (by going up against an obvious criminal the police have had trouble with, the public sees them as "on the side of justice").
I remember back in 2005 Australia's conservative government introduced a controversial "WorkChoices" bill that, although it's complicated, would've greatly reduced union power and made smaller companies exempt from unfair dismissal laws, which caused so much backlash it's part of why they lost the next election by a landslide.
And in addition to Char, Shido's later phases look far to similar to Senator Armstrong from Metal Gear to be a coincidence.
Another note about the Abe thing: SMT4 Apocalypse named the leader of the Ashura-kai (a sorta-Yakuza group that literally harvest people's brains to feed to Demons) Abe, so... they've been even less subtle. It also has a subplot involving an ultranationalist politician trying to revive Izanami to cleanse Japan of foreigners.
Correct me if I'm wrong but it feels like a lot of the Yakuza see themselves as upholding "old Samurai values".
Enjoy the original AA trilogy! They're still really good to this day. (Though you might get some whiplash going into the first game's first case, which is by far the shortest and simplest in the series)
@@BigKlingy
Joker: Why won’t you DIE?!
Shido: Cognitions, son. They respond to the people’s collective cognition. You can’t hurt me, Ren.
Sorry, you mentioned Armstrong and I HAD to say this.
@@BigKlingy I view the Authorial intent as a rather weak defense. For one, the story has to tell you it's message, not the writer, and if the writer failed to communicate a point correctly, then this is their failure to write a story that communicates clearly and honest with their viewers. Unless you work hard to make sure no one gets the wrong message, you endorse every single bad take if you aren't careful. That is why you get people claiming that Thanos was right in infinity wars, because no one points the problems out with his ideas or why we have no one really agreeing with anything in the Fódlan Saga, because the writers are bad at communication, look at the discourse regarding Rhea and Edelgard no less. The same is true with how Dune is a subversion of the white savior narrative, when it isn't.
Also, I find it unfair to the readers to understand the story by looking up interviews, because the story should have told it. Interviews are important to get more out of the world, but if you are in need of an interview to explain something, you have consumed a bad story.
@@basilofgoodwishes4138 Not sure if I agree with that mindset.
People by nature are different depending on the circumstances,their viewpoint on the world and people around them and as they grow these viewpoints also grow and change with them.
I say this because these different viewpoints we have,play a part on what message we get out of the story we're consuming,whether it's the good message or the bad one.
You can be the greatest writer,create the most cohesive story with the most"in your face"message about it and you're still gonna have a minority of groups that got a different message out of it.
So when a lot of viewers or readers get the wrong message out of story,that doesn't mean that it's the writer's fault every time that happens.
A consumer's interpretation of the story isn't always gonna be the same as the one the author intended to tell them because the author and all of us consumers are different and because we are different we're always bound to end getting either the good or the bad message out of a story.
Heck in the case of persona 5,the game explains you quite well why yaldabaoth's view on humanity is flawed and you still have people that agree with him.
So I don't see how it's the writer's fault when he already explained in P5's story why yaldabaoth's view is incorrect and yet some consumers still misinterpret it because the message offered isn't something that their viewpoint on the world agrees with.
This video was amazing! I really appreciate the in depth look. Keep it up!
Glad you enjoyed it Tony! and thanks so much 🙏
I had always written Kaneshiro off as "some cliche yakuza guy", but yeah looking back on it he doesn't have any ties to the yakuza and never claims to. I'd never heard about the rise of hangure and this video gave me a new appreciation for what he's meant to represent
Thank you for the real world parallel. It's interesting how much difference we have between cultures, but when have people with the same villainous aspirations.
Great job, Lady. I was gonna just watch a little bit of this while I was eating, before getting back to the game itself, but I ended up just watching through until the ending section. Pretty interesting to learn this stuff, and thanks for putting in all the effort!
Eastern games, or media, have always experienced a degree of values dissonance in the western culture due to their difference in society and culture. Maybe because I am in more contact with japanese media, like anime, manga or literature I can see some of those critics. While many aspects of the game's story still resonate with Western audiences due to its fairly universal themes of rebellion against corrupt authority, many of the finer details are lost in translation due to cultural differences, so I wasn't surprised when some of those critiques went over some people's head.
But I was surprised that even I didn't knew about some of their critiques or their deepth.
Your videos shows how Persona 5 gets this dissonance especially hard due to its very intense and deliberate focus on examining and criticizing fundamental aspects of Japanese society and Japan's culture. Or at least shows deeper meanings and the reasons of the why. As an example, I knew that bastardy is seen horrible in eastern society, but not at what degree or why.
Good video analysis, Lady Virgillia. :D A must watch for those who want to enjoy better their Persona 5 experience.
Holy shit! 10,00 WORK-RELATED DEATHS PER YEAR?! No wonder the majority of Japan's population is above retirement age!
this might be the most important video about persona 5
I’m also a Japanese American, and I enjoyed the cross cultural ideas too! 😊 loved your discussions!!
This is an amazing analysis video and does a great job highlighting the cultural significance that Hashino intended!!
With regards to gaman and shikata ga nai, the first things that came to mind were "lakas ng loob" and "bahala na" in Filipino psychology respectively, though bahala na can also take on a more confrontational meaning (but it usually does have a fatalist connotation depending on the context)
Another amazing video with great insights into Japanese culture, Persona 5's storytelling, and why certain elements resonated or didn't resonate with Western audiences. Your work always makes me appreciate the Persona series more
I just found this, but I really want to say it: Thank you. I always love to learn new things about the culture of other places and all of this really stick out to me. Thank you, and have a nice day!
Damn this video is some hot sauce on a perfect plate of chicken and fried rice. This is some informational goodness. Thank you so much, you made a fan of me.
This is exceptionally well researched. It looks like you're finally getting the attention you deserve.
Excellent video! I always kinda figured Shido had roots with Shinzo Abe, but never understood the full context. I remember Shin Megami Tensei IV also had a Shinzo Abe expy that wasn’t… flattering either.
I remember the American Atlus office did a livestream of the English version of vanilla P5 right before release and the hosts repeatedly said that several moments in the game would resonate with Americans. In all honesty, I wondered if Shido’s translated campaign message was meant to be evocative of Trump’s 2016 message. That clearly wasn’t the case.
yeah, that sounds more like those Atlus USA people decided to display their political illiteracy
considering Atlus USA's track records; that's par for the course~
probably both
or it was a coincidence, but I kinda doubt that
Yes! I've been waiting for this since your videos on the party members! It's gonna be so cool!
So, part of Madarame's inspiration is the "farting clown song"
The most powerful scene for themes in my opinion was the final dungeon.
Having people turning a blind eye not wanting to think for themselves be basically palace rulers was genius and pointed out the big issue in every society.
As long as people turn a blind eye and don't want to be inconvenienced, nothing can change.
I am assuming this hits even harder in Japan, but even in western countries this feeling of powerlessness was conveyed perfectly. Humanity's ignorance would have been humanity's doom, were it not for the new generation taking charge and actively changing society (even when it's one small step at a time instead of killing a god)
17:47 Samuragochi gained some notoriety in the video game world for being the lead composer for the Director’s Cut rerelease of Resident Evil 1. Yes, this is the “Clowns Farting” guy
*Zombie farting intensifies*
He’s not in the Yakuza!?!!!? Learned something new today. Well, lots of new things but that one caught me off guard.
I can’t tell if it’s fascinating or sad that there are such clear parallels for each of the palace rulers. A little of both I guess. Hate to see it happen to real people, but good to have the public be made aware.
After working until midnight because of end of the year submissions at work, the Okumura section hurt my soul so much. (Luckily I have a manager who is adamant about everyone getting paid their dues. I know that’s not always the situation. She’s the best).
Great video as always. Hope you have a nice day!
Yakuza are mostly boomers nowadays.
I think kamoshida hit us weston people so hard was down to Larry nassar (especially if like me you played this after that story broke) even with out the Japanese specific context we all relate to every emotional beat of that ark in a very similar way to the intended audience I recon. The helplessness felt exists across all cultures and is far to real for us all.
Nah, it's not because of that. It's because while all the other villains are plausibly realistic, odds are we won't meet them. Kamoshida on the other hand... we all have encountered a Kamoshida at one point in our lives.
You might've also encountered a Madarame or an Okumura, in the form of a crappy exploitative parent or boss at work. @@tcrpgfan
@@F1areon woosh. Big woosh. MASSIVE WOOSH. My comment wasn't about the fact that the palace owners weren't abusive, they are, but on the kind of abuse they predominantly partake in. That's exactly why I said Kamoshida is the most common type you will see. He's the everyday abuser who will force his way onto others for self gratification and small amounts of power.
Yeah, but what *I* was saying that abusers in the vein of Madarame and Okumura are ALSO pretty common, possibly to the same degree as Kamoshida. @@tcrpgfan
Thanks for the video and still willing to talk about it even as the game had passed beyond their 5th anniversary mark. I think the longer we've been with the game, the more we need this kind of indepth video to see it with authorial intent as fanon and fan theories can only get wilder overtime as the main canon story has "ended" long ago. These video series you've done had always been a reminder of what the game and our world once was, back when it was created as a reflection of life in Japan in mid 2010s.
Videos like this makes me wonder how a persona game would even looked like in current, post-covid, post-truth world if Hashino keep the ball on making another coming of age story set in contemporary setting. I think theres alot of beauty waiting in it.
Thanks for your work with these video, again!
Best persona analyses are on this channel! Thanks for the extra effort and the personal angles.
This is a great cideo. I had no idea how accurate all these P5 villian topics were
What makes Kamoshida the worst is how abusive teachers like him exist around the world, not just Japan.
Very impressed by the video. I completely persona 5 royal literally the day this came out so it made for a good recap with context
Each one of the 7 main Palace Rulers are also titled by the 7 princes of Hell as well
With Kamoshida's being ............. Asmodeus the Prince of LUST (Also, his Arc on it's own made me want to kick the guy's teeth in)
Madarame takes on the title of the Prince of Envy/Vanity
Kaneshiro was the Lord of the Flies (Hate his dungeon)
And so on
I am only a recent subscriber to the channel but I have to say, this was really interesting! Discussing the implications behind these characters and how they relate to real-life was a brilliant idea. Thank you for all the effort you've put into them so far! It sounds like you had a lot of fun making it which is really great too! I shall definitely be coming back for more :)
What a great video. Thank you.
By the way, this may sound odd, but your voice reminds me a lot of the maid teacher confidant from P5.
Brilliant video, Persona 5 has really captured some very important aspects of Japanese societal issues and the way you touch on all of these issues is very respectful and helpful. Thank you! I feel especially bad for the youths, life is damn hard for young people.
Sadly, there is a lot of Kamoshida like people in UK news too lately in sports and schools, e.g. British Gymnastics has many abusive coaches like him and people suffered in silence for decades and were very scared to speak out (until only very recently).
This is just a gift I wanted to give you before the end of the year. Merry Christmas, LadyVirgilia, and a happy New Year!
Thank you SO much again! 😭🙏 Wishing you a Merry Christmas and happy new year as well!
I had no idea the story was so deep into the real world, this is a great video, well done!
I think Shido was supposed to be Lex Luthor too since him becoming president is a common occurrence in DC works. It works perfectly since his enemy is a mild mannered man in glasses just like Superman.
When you compare both characters to their DC counterparts, they really do have plenty in common.
Akira/Ren/Joker: Country boy going to the big city to live there, has an adopted parent, no one takes notice of him and he rose up to injustice because he believes it’s the right thing to do.
Shido: A man who has the connections to do as he pleases, ruthless beyond compare, sees others as tools, ignores the wrong person that turns out to be his nemesis and make use of something only he has the resources for.
You could argue Joker is a modern day take on Golden Age Superman, specifically the early iteration in being a vigilante who sends the fear of god into the hearts of criminals wronging the innocents and will break the law to dish out his own brand of justice against the crowd the law would be blind to or leave well enough alone.
This was very good to watch! You can feel all of this in the game and other medias from Japan, but with the context and parallels you brought, it made so much more sense! Subscribed ❤
Fascinating! Thank you for sharing. Context is always enjoyable when you're not a first-party to the info like this.
Reminds me of the saying "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps"
A extremely misused statement 😅
As it was originally meant as attempting to do something physically impossible now just means you're not trying hard enough
There’s a reason why they got the voice of Char to be Shido
A lot of UC Gundam especially Zeta and ZZ deal with similar thoughts about youth and adults who’ve left a broke world for the next generation
And here I was, thinking that those villains were a tad exaggerated. Turns out, reality is scary.
Honestly I never really bought criticisms like that... you just gotta do some digging and I GUARANTEE you'll find stories of someone all but acting like a cartoon supervillain :S
@@F1areon I never bought that criticism either because exaggeration in itself isn't a narrative fault. Regardless, the point is that it's terrifying how evil real people can get.
@@Drakenwild Yup!! :S
It mostly just bugs me how much some people tend to plain dismiss things altogether bc they look at it and go "oh but that's unrealistic and cartoony; People Don't Act Like That!!!" ...when for all they know it could turn out to be based on IRL events, in which case yes there's a person out there who DID Act Like That (tm).
@@F1areon there is plenty of popular criticisms aimed at stories and games which don't hold any water, yeah. One of my favourites is how game journalists have turned the word "linear" into a criticism rather than a descriptor.
And would be cool, if P6 main color was green and touched in the relationship of old vs new, Nature vs Technology (both use green as a reference) and Japan has a nice contrast of old and new, Nature vs tech, old vs new mindset, since this is one of biggest issues in Japan. And the "all Inaba vs Junes" thing, isn't expand as much and would be a nice excuse to return to a more rural town setting, instead of P5 Tokyo.
agree!
maybe the theme could be change and transition with the inevitable deity you fight being the god of stagnation born from humanity’s desire for things to stay the same. and the social links could focus on the characters accepting change (like divorce/remarriage of their parents, moving somewhere unfamiliar, a small family business getting bought by a major company) because change is a fact of life and not a distinctly bad one either its inevitable event and stagnation would never allow things to get worse but things also wouldn’t get better
@@larsthememelord3383
Yep. This fit with Japan biggest issues, unwillingless to accept change and like Portugal, they have an overabundance of old people and not enough young people and the old ones are deeply stuck in the past.
@@larsthememelord3383
She can inspired on "Stagnate (スタグネイト, Sutaguneito?) is a malice goddess associated with undeath." From "The Faraway Paladin"
@@larsthememelord3383
She can inspired from Stagnate from The Faraway Paladin or Nurgle, The Fly Lord- Many gods claim the epithet of 'Lord of Decay' but that title in truth belongs to Nurgle, the father of plagues and pestilence. He is also the embodiment of despair and stagnation, or mortal hardiness against adverse situations, such as the myriad diseases and poxes he visits upon the world.
Another thing to take into consideration when wondering why people don't speak out publicly against people who do this sort of crap is the legal definition of defamation in Japans legal system. The sad truth is that there is no point in speaking up when not only will it not change anything but also the person you're speaking out against can sue and penalize you for doing so regardless of whether or not what you are saying is true. As for why they don't defend themselves....self defense is also illegal in Japan. There are countless cases where people have been arrested for "dueling" for no other reason then them trying to protect themselves....
also... I'm not going to begin trying to spell or even understand what that politicians name was but damn.... OUR politicians and social elites do a better job feigning remorse. Which actually brings up a good question... Why can't Hollywood actors and politicians fake remorse and compassion very well? Isn't that a prerequisite for acting out a part or just generally blowing smoke up everyones ass for a living?
Kamoshida: how teachers and education system can impose corporal punishment and student not having a said
Madarame: a twisted form of “Confucianist values”
Kaneshiro: gang violence and how it affects communities
Okumaru: CEOs abusing there worker force and be vert selfish about it(something that Americans CAN’T RELATE TOO! NO SIR THEY CAN’T)
Sae: Justice system just wanting to get high and successful results of dealing with rotten criminals.
Shido: populism and nationalism( Again something that Americans and other CANT RELATED TO)
Yaldaboath: Corrupt religion.
@@christiancrusader9374 Yaldabaoth is actually just "shou ga nai" in physical form.
Nationalism isn't wrong nothing is wrong with liking and wanting to improve the country you live in
People confuse nationalism and a hatred of other countries loving your home country isn't wrong and that is all the idea of nationalism is wanting to put your country fist in politics and then dealing with the rest of the world after that
@@animeproblem1070 I was asking about hyper or blind nationalism.
@@starmaker75 so radicals and extremists
I really appriciate you deviding up the video into those sections, because I'm only at the pyramid at the moment, and was kinda afraid of spoilers
This was super informative! I do think Persona 5 can easily be seen from a perspective outside of Japan, it really does add a lot to understand the Japanese perspective, at least a little bitm
This is an incredible video!!
I recently replayed P5R and read into Okumura as a mix of Amazon’s cruelty towards workers and Elon Musk’s ridiculous spacecapades…but this really is very enlightening about the creator’s intentions.
I also hugely appreciated the commentary about Shido / Shinzo Abe, as when I went through the last play through I spent half the game going “what even are Shido’s politics??? does he have any???” haha
Abe's assassin not leaving a Phantom Thieves calling card on the body was a missed opportunity tbh
💀
I don't think we need more cases of innocent media being illegitimately associated with the actions of literal criminals...
Yeah, we totally needed yet another dumb controversy about videogames making people murder each other
Great video. Stumbled upon this one while browsing Persona related content. Always questioned our society and its history and how it operates with all the questionable stuff you can find everywhere. Several forms of media have covered these issues and Persona 5 did it pretty well. People often dismiss these things but it goes to show that even a video game can convey a message. Still can't forget how the game tells you that its content having any similarity to IRL stuff is purely coincidental. I always find those disclaimers kinda funny
I wonder if Nijisanji ceo fits here, he will have a yacht instead of Shido's ship
Even after Shido got exposed, his men does their best to cover the issue to save their jobs and avoid sinking the ship.
Similarly, the top livers in Nijisanji kept on defending their company even on the expense of their own channels since they know they'll lose the comfortable life they have with the company if it sinks, even if they already got exposed.