So a good chunk of this part of my playthrough is the relatively long downtime between my (early) beating of Madarame to the third Palace... but there's a lot of confidants, cutscenes of the Makoto storyline, stat increasing encounters and a whole lot of me going to Mementos.
More importantly, it's around the time that I started really making use of trying to fuse the Shadows and Personas available to me in order to try and get certain Personas demanded by the characters Justine and Caroline, in order to progress the Strength Confidant... which exposes me to a bunch of new Personas only available through fusing!
I have been immensely enjoying this game, by the way, which might not be apparent since I'm not really talking about the game experience or my reactions to the stories of the many characters that populate Joker's surroundings... but everything about this game gives me so much to talk about, so much to appreciate and so much to interact with. Not just the stories or the combat, but even things like the shops, but even like... I unlocked several new parts of the overworld, the districts of Kichijoji and Shinjuku. The actual interactable parts of that place are maybe two or three locations, plus a couple of stores, but I absolutely love that they had so much commentary and bothered to model in individual unique shops and bars and even bothered to create two very distinct versions for day and night!
On with the reviews!
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"Phoenix"
- Monster Name: N/A
- Arcana: Faith
Actually very consistently called 'Ho-o' (or Fenghuang to Chinese speakers) in the Shin Megami Tensei franchise, the Phoenix is a completely different fire bird! The actual Phoenix is Egyptian, and the Fenghuang/Ho-o originated from Chinese myths that spread to other parts of Asia. It's just that when they're translated into English, the name 'Phoenix' stuck. The actual Fenghuang is a normally female ruler of birds that normally represents the Empress of China, which is paired with the Dragon (or Long), representing the Emperor. The appearance tended to be that of a peacock-like bird in five colours, with each colour representing one of the Five Elements in Taoism... and, yes, Persona's Ho-o is indeed a multi-coloured bird.
The conflation with the Western, Egyptian-based Phoenix is probably thanks to a confusion between the Fenghuang and the Zhuque ("Suzaku") which we covered before, and some legends actually do consider the two as the same creature. The Zhuque does have an association with fire, but with the SMT franchise making hard segmentations between the Zhuque, Fenghuang and the western world's Phoenix, it's clear where they stand. 'Phoenix' gets translated into fenikkusu, a reading of the English word, in other SMT games that it appears, anyway, whereas Zhuque and Fenghuang are consistently called Suzaku and Ho-o, based on their Japanese names.
It is interesting that the original Fenghuang was actually a pair of male and female birds that eventually got merged into a single female entity to play off the dragon. And back in the day, just like the Chinese Dragon, the Fenghuang is also a chimeric entity -- with "the beak of a rooster, the face of a swallow, the forehead of a fowl, the neck of a snake, the breast of a goose, the back of a tortoise, the hindquarters of a stag and the tail of a fish." Depictions that end up kind of finalizing what the Fenghuang looks like ends up doing a different kind of chimera, compositing it of multiple different birds -- "the head of a golden pheasant, the body of a mandarin duck, the tail of a peacock, the legs of a crane, the mouth of a parrot, and the wings of a swallow."
Anyway, it sure is a majestic bird. They went for a relatively safe and mundane design, but it's a pretty cool rainbow bird!
Orthrus
- Monster Name: Twin Headed Guardian
- Arcana: Hanged Man
And here we go with something a bit more interesting! Orthrus, a bit popularized by the original Clash of the Titans, is mostly remembered for being a 'two-headed Cerberus' and... that's not exactly really wrong! Persona's Orthrus is a pretty damn cool two-headed demon dog, though, with a mass of green mane that gives the creature a pretty feral design. Orthrus also has a cool skeletal tail gives the design a bit of an 'oomph'! A pretty nice monster dog all around.
Orthrus is one of the monsters born to Typhon and Echidna -- the 'father' and 'mother' of a lot of monsters in Greek mythology. He is actually the brother of the more iconic Cerberus! Orthrus was the guard of the three-headed giant Geryon's herd of red cattle. And then in comes Herakles (or Hercules), who, for his tenth labour, killed Geryon and Orthrus to get the cattle. Yeah, Hercules just walks up to this giant, killed him and his doggo just to steal some cows. Why is this guy the hero of the story anyway?
Ahem. Anyway, Orthrus is a good boy. He's two good boys for the price of one! With so many of our recent Personas being more humanoid, it's neat to get one that's more conventionally a 'monster'.
Setanta
- Monster Name: Hound-Killing Maverick
- Arcana: Emperor
Setanta is the birth name of the Irish folk hero Cú Chulainn, believed to be an incarnation of the Irish sun god Lugh. Setanta killed Culann's guard dog in self-defense, and offered to take its place until a replacement could be found. Hence, then name Cú Chulainn (Hound of Culann). Cú Chulainn would train in the martial arts, particularly with the spear Gae Bulg, and a prophecy said that he's going to achieve fame but his life would be short. Cú Chulainn would battle against various enemies of the kingdom, and is well-known for his moments of frenzy in battle where he would be unable to differentiate friend nor foe. He's also known for taking several geis (vows), which would eventually be broken by his foes one by one. Even weakened, Cú Chulainn still battled to his death, dying standing up after tying himself to stone.
That is a very abridged tale of Cú Chulainn, and I really do encourage you guys to read the pretty lengthy story... but as far as a monster design goes, Setanta is just a dude in armour with a spear and a scarf. Not really much to say there, though I appreciate them bringing in other mythologies beyond the far more mainstream Japanese, Greek, Christianity and Egyptian, yeah? It's not Setanta's fault that he's just some knight dude!
Nigi Mitama
- Monster Name: N/A
- Arcana: Councillor
Hmmm, this is a bit of the disadvantages of reviewing the monsters as I meet them. The Nigi Mitama is another one of the mitamas, which we've covered before, and the Nigi Mitama is the calm and functional state of a person's soul. I really have exhausted all I'm able to say about these guys in the previous Mitamas I've talked about. I suppose it's neat that they're spread out a bit more across the game?
Oh, and I'm not sure if I've mentioned it or not, but Royal introduces two non-standard Tarot arcanas that aren't found in the normal major Arcana, "Faith" and "Councillor", corresponding to two characters that only appear in the Royal re-release, and a lot of these Personas were classified as something else before. Nigi Mitama here was previously of the Temperance persona, which I does correspond to the 'calm soul' bit.
Orobas
- Monster Name: Equine Sage
- Arcana: Hierophant
We get another Ars Goetia demon, and this time it's Orobas, who is described as a prince of hell that could give perfect information about the past, present and future, is unable to deceive anyone, and can even protect his conjurers from being tempted by demons. He actually sounds like a swell guy compared to all the other demons! He's depicted as a horse that can shapeshift into a man...
And, of course, Persona 5 took this and ran with it, making Orobas into a disturbing-looking horse-man. I'm not sure why Orobas's design kind of gives me a bit of a disturbing vibe. I've seen satyrs and minotaurs before, and Orobas is basically that but a horse. Maybe it's because he's buck-ass nude? Maybe it's the unnatural crimson and green colours? Maybe it's how they draw the horse face?
Flauros
- Monster Name: N/A
- Arcana: Devil
Showing up in the menu for 'special summons', Flauros is only able to be created by combining Berith, Eligor and Orobas. And what do you get by combining two knights riding demons with a horse-man? You get, uh... uh... this guy. Yeah. Let me try to describe Flauros as best as I can, yeah? He's a humanoid figure that looks like an anthropomorphized leopard guy, but instead of the head being placed where a head is, the leopard head is on his chest. But he's got arms and legs like a man, and also he wears some rather leathery-looking gimp suit thing on his arms, shoulders and feet. His shoulders also extend upwards like towers. Oh, and in place of a head, above the leopard head is a weird thin tower-like structure with what artworks confirm is an angry scowling marble face on the tip of the spike.
Yeah, okay. This one is pretty creative! Disturbing as hell to look at, but that's the feeling you're supposed to get when you gaze upon these demons and angels!
He's a very creative-looking demon design, and I'm actually rather surprised how little he draws from the source description in the Demonology books, other than the leopard thing. Flauros is described as a 'mighty leopard that can assume the shape of a man with fiery eyes and terrible countenance', and... and sure, Persona's Flauros doesn't contradict any of those descriptions, but none of the leather outfit, the spiky knuckles, the shoulder towers or the face on his chest are mentioned there.
There's also an interesting bit about Flauros where he can see the past and future, but will lie about it all when standing in a triangle. A very... specific restriction, yeah? He can also command fire and burn enemies to death, as mentioned in his flavour text and even when you first summon him... except he doesn't learn a single innate fire skill by level up. Doy!
Sudama
- Monster Name: Noisy Mountain Spirit
- Arcana: Hermit
Thanks to the similar name and appearances as a flat paper-thing with swirly patterns, I thought the Sudama is just a weaker version of the Kodama we saw earlier! But the Sudama (literally 'lurking souls') are described as mischievous spirits that live in rivers, mountains and ancient trees. They will never cause trouble ('not evil', as mentioned in the description) and will sometimes take a humanoid shape to guard their mountainous homes. Basically, any time you go on a mountain and feel the sensation of being watched without anyone there, it's actually a Sudama watching you. Anyway, the Sudama here is a yokai also known as the Chimi, kind of an umbrella term for mountain spirits. I got a bit confused with this Sudama from Hindu mythology!
The design is a bit of a less-humanoid Kodama that we saw previously, though the Sudama's anatomy is a bit funnier, with four arms on round body and two swirling eyes. Not too much to say beyond that, it sure is a li'l paper guy!
Oni
- Monster Name: Chivalrous Fiend
- Arcana: Strength
Anyone who knows anything about Japanese culture probably recognize oni, yeah? Often translated as 'ogres', 'trolls', 'demons' or 'devils', Oni are some of the most prevalent mythological creatures in Japanese culture, often being depicted as savage, brutish, monstrous horned humanoids that live in mountains and have horns and tusks. They're also often associated with wearing tiger-skin loincloths and wielding giant iron clubs called kanabo... which Persona's Oni notably doesn't have. He wields a glaive-weapon instead, and a more wholesome outfit that covers his chest.
As the text mentions, many legends often use Oni as a generic monstrous villain, having them attack, raze and pillage villages and humans to either rob, kill or eat them. Oh, and they are also supernaturally afraid of beans, which leads to the spreading of soybeans around a house during the Setsubun festival. However, stories featuring 'noble' (or at least neutral) Oni have also shown up in ancient Japanese culture, and I do really like this facet that the Oni aren't all treated as 'completely chaotic evil'. Overall, I don't think I can really say too much about the Oni beyond how it's a rather pleasant-looking depiction of a common monster.
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...and that's about it! You guys might not see a Persona 5 review for a while, because I do think that it'll take some time for me to reach Kaneshiro's palace. I don't play games as quickly as I used to, and the sheer amount of things that you can do in a Persona game have really gotten me to run around and try to interact with everything!
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