Okay! This is a bit of a more 'special' review, where I started working on this around the time I finished Kamoshida's palace, but I ended up being way more interested in talking about the more varied-looking enemies I met in-game, I got confused on how to introduce some of the special DLC personas, and decided to go 'screw it', compile it all into a single article (which I obviously split into two) and slowly work on it over the weeks months. And since I'm currently in-between arcs in Persona 5, I decided to finish talking about the DLC personas!
And currently, I'm stuck between the long cutscene-heavy scenes between the end of the Futaba palace and the beginning of the next, as well as playing through The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, so I figured I'd wrap these two articles up and post them.
Also all of these Personas are all important Personas or demons from other games in the wide franchise, but I will immediately admit that I'm only familiar about the franchise in regards to Persona 5 and I saw a bit of the Persona 4 anime before. Which is why I was a bit hesitant about talking about these guys in the first place... they're all protagonist Personas and thus a lot of them have a rather typical 'humanoid robotic hero' look to them, which I always can appreciate. But usually I tend to not be able to talk too much about them. I have only the slightest idea about any of the other characters in the previous Persona games, and so a lot of these reviews will revolve solely around the visual designs and their base mythological inspirations.
While I don't want to use a lot of these clearly overpowered 'summon a level 65 Persona when you're level 5' guys, I mark myself as being 'allowed' to use them when they start appearing in the fusion ersults of the Personas I collect from the dungeons equal to my level.
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Izanagi / Izanagi Picaro
- Monster Name: N/A
- Arcana: Fool
Each of the old protagonist Personas also arrive in a Persona-5-exclusive "Picaro" variant, which basically means that they get a sick, black-and-red outfit and some punk-rock alterations to their traditional look. The Picaro ones are slightly stronger level-wise, but I will be reviewing all of them in the same entries with their base forms. Picaro is a term meaning 'roguish adventurer', which, again, I think is meant to fit a lot of these more traditionally heroic-looking Personas to the vibe of the P5 cast... though honestly, I think the real reason is that any black-and-red repaints just look cool.
Izanagi here is the default Persona of the protagonist of Persona 4, the game before this one. All the party member characters from Persona 4 have Personas themed after Japanese cultural or mythological characters. I'm not sure if the 'rebellion' motif is as prevalent in Persona 4 as it is in Persona 5 (the main theme of all these games seem to be more 'self-expression' or 'acknowledging your hidden self'), but Izanagi is a pretty interesting humanoid design. It's another one that really looks like a JoJo Stand, being a humanoid with a badass longcoat (with way too many '90's buckles), a metal mask, very fancy platform shoes, two ribbons flowing down from his head, and a gigantic naginata. But instead of a traditional blade, Izanagi has a combat knife!
Izanagi, I think, is modelled after the 'delinquent' look. Again, I don't really know too much about the plotline of Persona 4 other than the television motif and that the entire game has a 'serial killer' theme, so I can't say whether the delinquent motif fits the character or not, but it sure is cool. Izanagi Picaro basically just inverts the already-existing colour scheme, pushing the red colour of the undercoat out and replacing all the silver. Not sure about the resulting plaid pattern, but the gloves and sword do look a lot cooler!
The myth of Izanagi-no-Mikoto is one that is intrinsically tied into Japanese mythology and creation story... and to explain all of it would proably take up this entire page. But trying to quickly summarize it, Izanagi and his sister-wife Izanami were some of the ancient gods that were born before the physical world was created. They stirred the primeval ocean with a giant jeweled spear, and created the first landmass, eventually leading to the proliferation of mankind.
Izanagi and Izanami sired many children (all of whom represented the islands of Japan), but during the birth of the fire god Hi-no-Kagutsuchi, Izanami died in childbirth, burned by the flames of her child. Izanagi slew Kagutsuchi in rage, and from the remnants of Kagutsuchi were born volcanoes, while Izanami's body became even more gods. The spirit of Izanami was sent to Yomi (the underworld), Izanagi pursued her there. However, Izanami had eaten of the food of Yomi and was unable to leave. Izanagi attempted to bring her out of Yomi regardless, but when on the way out of the underworld, he looked back and sees that Izanami is in a rotting, maggot-ridden state. Ashamed and enraged, Izanami attempted to kill her husband, and Izanagi ended up sealing her in the underworld with a rock. Thus, their bond is broken.
Izanagi then performed a cleansing ritual to rid of the taint of Yomi... and multiple other great gods were born from this ritual. From his left eye was born Amaterasu the sun god, from his right eye was born Tsukuyomi the moon god, and from his nose Susano'o the storm god. After this event, Izanagi leaves the realm to his three children and is never mentioned in the myths.
(Also, yes, Naruto's Uchiha clan secret skills all draw names relating from this myth).
Magatsu-Izanagi / Magatsu-Izanagi Picaro
- Monster Name: N/A
- Arcana: Tower
I missed this the first time around! There's a lot of DLC Personas, many of which have different names. Magatsu Izanagi, or "Calamity" Izanagi, represents Izanagi while he was still tainted by the Underworld, before he washed himself from the aforementioned cleansing ritual. In Persona 4, this was the Persona used by one of the main antagonists.
Regular Magatsu-Izanagi is just... Izanagi, but all black and blotchy with red vein squibbles running through it. A bit hard to see what's going on with this background too, TBH. Not much to say, it sure is an evil form! Magatsu-Izanagi Picaro, on the other hand, goes for something completely new, with a jack-o-lantern grinning face that just pops off, and replaces the black-and-red texture with a classy white pattern not too dissimilar from the patterns on this game's load screens and the Thieves' Den. Ultimately it's still just another variant of the Izanagi model, but I do appreciate them having some fun for the 'Picaro'.
Izanagi-no-Okami / Izanagi-no-Okami Picaro
- Monster Name: N/A
- Arcana: World
Located much, much later in the level line is Izanagi-no-Okami, and Okami means 'Great God'. And this is basically a 'super mode' of the starter Persona, and this basically symbolizes Izanagi as the god of creation, sky, ocean and night. I guess that's why he is classified as the 'World' Arcana, since this is Izanagi at his full power, presumably after a certain event happened in the game.
A lot of the 'evolution' from regular Izanagi to Izanagi-no-Okami is pretty much expected. The mask covers his face now, his long-coat becomes white, he gains a tie to go with his more formal look, but most strikingly his giant spear becomes two giant blades attached to a ring thing that can be spun. Oh, it's hard to tell by the pose in this, but his shoes now have gigantic blades that point forwards which he stands tippy-toes on, which I thought was interesting.
Izanagi-no-Okami Picaro (whoof, the name) is also a fair bit more different than his base look, with the bright solid reds and whites being striking. the blades of the weapon are a lot more elaborate, too, with a golden jagged knife on one end and a spike with a a snowflake-like design.
...not a whole lot for me to say here, actually!
Kaguya / Kaguya Picaro
- Monster Name: N/A
- Arcana: Moon
Kaguya here is the ultimate Persona of the character Marie from Persona 4 Golden, an 'expansion'-exclusive character. Princess Kaguya is a character featured in the Japanese folktale Taketori Monogatari, the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, and it's one that gets referenced a lot in anime. Kaguya was found by a bamboo-cutter within a stalk of bamboo, and was later raised as his daughter. Princess Kaguya became renowned throughout Japan for her beauty, and many men came to court her and ask her hand for marriage, but Kaguya gave them all trials and ultimately refused them all, even the Emperor of Japan himself. Eventually, it was revealed that Kaguya was a member of celestial people that lived on the moon. Kaguya was escorted by her people to ascend to the moon, despite the protests of the Emperor. As she passed to the celestial realm, Kaguya left behind an Elixir of Life to him. The distraught Emperor, refusing to leave as an immortal without the princess, burned the elixir in the mountain closest to heaven. The mountain would become Mount Fuji, whose name sounds similar to fushi, or never-dying.
Anyway, Persona's Kaguya is... she's got a unique silhouette. The central person, just like a lot of the humanoid attached-to-a-character Personas, looks like an emotionless JoJo Stand, but Kaguya has this giant... disc? I'm honestly not quite sure what it's supposed to be. It's got multiple colourful layers and patterns of it that kind of reminds me of a musical sheet of sorts? Her hands go through the holes in the terminus of both ends of this C-shaped structure. Presumably there might be some additional context if I had played through Persona 4.
Also, this is one of the handful where I really do think that the black-and-red Picaro form doesn't really look anywhere as cool as the original. Sure, the multi-colours are a bit distracting, but I do think that it's so much easier to 'get' what's going on with the regular Kaguya compared to Kaguya Picaro.
Tsukiyomi / Tsukiyomi Picaro
- Monster Name: N/A
- Arcana: Moon
Parsed as Tsukiyomi instead of the traditional Tsukuyomi, this Persona also hails from Persona 4, specifically the character Sho Minazuki from Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, because P4 has quite a bit of spinoffs. I've been calling the deity Tsukuyomi for years, though, so I'll stick with the more traditional spelling. I think it might be because Tsukuyomi is featured in other Megami Tensei games as a major character, so they wanted to establish this as a unique entity?
Tied to the Izanagi legend above, Tsukuyomi was one of the three children born of Izanagi after he bathed after the whole underworld/Izanami debacle, born of Izanagi's right eye. Tsukuyomi is the ruler of the night and representation of the moon. Tsukuyomi went into a disagreement with Ukemochi, the goddess of food, due to the disgusting manner that she made a meal presented to him -- which involves eating up the raw materials and spitting up the completed meal -- and Tsukuyomi would killed Ukemochi. Tsukuyomi's elder sister Amaterasu, goddess of the sun, learned of what happened and was so angry that she refused to ever face Tsukuyomi ever again, causing the two to live in different parts of the sky and separating day and night, sun and moon, forevermore.
While I vaguely know the plotlines of the base Persona 3 and Persona 4 games, I haven't really read through the spinoffs, so I have no idea if the user of Tsukuyomi is a hero or a villain or somewhere in between. The design of both Tsukuyomi and Tsukuyomi Picaro does feel like they were built similarly to the protagonist Personas like Izanagi and Arsène, being the sort of unapologetic, cool gentleman guy with flowing coats and a badass gentleman outfit. It's a bit hard to see thanks to the background, but Tsukuyomi has like this Spartan helm thing made out of burning black flames that is shaped like a crescent moon, and a giant shadow glaive.
The Picaro version goes even more obvious with the helmet, and since the original Tsukuyomi already has a 'Picaro'-esque colour scheme, I do think that Tsukuyomi Picaro did need a fair bit more changes to make him stand out compared to his original. This translates to giving him a bunch of metal plating on his limbs, and swapping his helmet to one that really looks like it's stolen from a 300 extra.
Raoul
- Monster Name: N/A
- Arcana: Fool
And now we cut to a Persona that's specific to Persona 5's protagonist, Joker... who, if you remember, has Arsene as his starter Persona. And Arsene... isn't super-powerful. I've been trying to keep Arsene as long as I can, but it takes a lot of effort to do so. Which is why they introduced this guy, Raoul. Raoul is the middle name of Arsene Lupin, and he comes in at level 76, meaning that if you just want to curb-stomp the entire game with as 'canonical' of a Persona as you can get (which I will probably do in replays) Raoul is your guy.
And this guy is basically the base Arsene look, but with a more mechanical-inspired steampunk vibe. He trades in Arsene's black angel wings for a series of metal-punk bat wings. He also swaps Arsene's demon suit for an absolutely fancy set of vaguely Victorian-ish inspired set of suit, pants and hat, and... he looks pretty dapper, yeah? I do like that Raoul captures a lot of the essence of the base Arsene design while look so different. I like him. Arsene's face, which is normally rendered as swirling shadow, is now a solid metal demon face, which also fits the theme pretty well.
Apparently the characters in the game do have multiple stages of evolutions to their Personas, and many people note that Raoul is basically fitting for a 'second' evolution before an 'ultimate' one, which we unlock in the climax of the game? I mean, I don't have the full context, but sure.
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