So yeah, I cleared Futaba's palace within like three days of the time limit set by the game, so I feel like this is probably the longest 'downtime' in the game I had in-between Palaces? It doesn't hurt that the threat of Medjed, the antagonist of this arc, is nowhere as foreboding as the previous three antagonists.
Regardless, this means a lot of side-questing for me and going through Confidants. I've maxed out Takemi, Yoshida and Ryuji (hence why he's here), and I maxed out Kasumi's measly five levels (I know I need to get her and a couple others to maximum if I want to play the final arc of Royal) and I have finally dipped my toes into some of the other confidants we meet a bit later into the game.
I also have kind of been ignoring Mementos because I wanted to power through the story content, which meant that I had like the entire area unlocked by Kaneshiro left unexplored... and in addition to a couple of extra requests given from the confidant missions, I went in with six missions at once. It was a pretty long Mementos session, and I was just continually going back aorth to the Velvet Room to basically try out fusion combinations with random nd fnew Personas I got in Mementos.
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Seiten Taisei
- Monster Name: N/A
- Arcana: Chariot
So when you reach maximum Confidant with your party members, turns out that their Persona will evolve! Ryuji's Captain Kidd evolves into... Seiten Taisei, the Japanese reading of Sun Wukong's title "Qitian Dasheng" (齊天大聖) or "Great Sage, Equal of Heaven". Sun Wukong, if you don't know who he is, is the protagonist of the famous Chinese novel Journey to the West. (And inspiration to Son Goku, for all of you anime geeks out there). A monkey born from a rock who eventually caught the attention of heaven, Sun Wukong spent the first half of the novel wreaking havoc all across the various planes of hell and heaven, learning 72 transformation skills, stealing a giant pillar that he can shrink into a pole, and stealing and changing the artifacts of the heavens to obtain immortality. After his rampage where he manhandles heaven's troops, the Jade Emperor calls Buddha himself, and imprisons Sun Wukong for 500 years. In the second half of the novel, the monk Tang Sanzang frees Sun Wukong, and teaches him the values of peace. As they travel to India in a pilgrimage, Tang Sanzang would recruit two more companions, the pig demon Zhu Bajie and the river demon Sha Wujing. The group would continue to fight demons that would menace them, intending to consume Tang Sanzang's flesh which could bring immortality. Eventually, the group would reach their destination and obtain the holy scriptures. They would be rewarded and Sun Wukong would ascend to Buddhahood.
Anyway, keeping in the themes of 'rebels' and 'thieves', Sun Wukong was rebelling against the heavens and the rules laid to him, using his mighty powers to knock everyone around. But there's also a story of redemption and of temperance there, and Ryuji's confidant story, while not a one-on-one, does feature him confronting the people who think he betrayed them and ending up solving the problem through guile and investigation alongside a companion who teaches him how to be better.
Seiten Taisei's design is... basically rock-punk Sun Wukong, yeah? Gigantic crown, loud colours, a cape, some chains around his body... I think there's a neat little visual evolution from Ryuji's initial Captain Kidd. Instead of riding a boat, Seiten Taisei is instead riding on a cloud, just like Sun Wukong is often shown to be riding on. And the cloud has angry eyes! He's holding the Ruyi Jingubang, Wukong's magical size-changing staff. In the story, Wukong sought to find a weapon, but constantly breaks through the weapons offered to him because they were 'too light'. The East Sea Dragon King then presented Wukong with this giant pillar, which weighs 13,5000 catties or almost 8000 kilograms -- hence the graffiti on Seiten Taisei's version of the rod. The rod expands in girth and size when Seiten Taisei attacks, just like how it is in the original Journey to the West. Love the punk aesthetic, too, with both ends of the rod having spikes and nails attached to them.
Pisaca
- Monster Name: Corpse-Eating Corpse
- Arcana: Death
The Pisaca, or more accurately the Pishacha, are demonic flesh-eating demons in Buddhist and Hindu mythologies. The origin of the Pishacha vary depending on the myths, but are often noted to be the creation of Brahma, and myths note that the Pishachas are evil, monstrous spirits that haunt cremation grounds. They aer described to have bulging veins and protruding red eyes -- the protruding red eyes gets translated by the SMT monster design team as snail eyes, which I thought was an interestingly fun way to make it a bit more distinct than 'just a monster with a big mouth'.
Pishachas are noted to be able to shapeshift, become invisible, and can possess human beings and cause insanity, and some myths say that anyone who sees a Pishacha is doomed to die within nine months. Thus, certain mantras are done to keep them away, and they are given offerings during certain religious rituals and festivals to keep them sated. Also note that while the Persona description call them as a type of Preta, or Hungry Ghost, I really can't find anything in the myths to connect the two, other than getting offerings and being malicious spirits.
Lachesis
- Monster Name: N/A
- Arcana: Wheel of Fortune
We talked about Clotho of the three Moirai of Greek legend, or the Sisters of Fate. Whereas Clotho the Spinner spun the thread of fate, it was Lachesis the Allotter who measured the thread of life allotted to every person. Allotter means the 'drawer of lots', and she decides how much time was allowed for each person's thread. After using her rod to measure each person's fated life, some myths also note that Lachesis would be the one to choose a person's destiny. Some myths note that Lachesis will visit babies after three days of their birth to decide their fate.
I really couldn't say much about Lachesis as a design, though. She sure is a woman with a fancy purple-white hairdo, a full-body jumpsuit thing, a cape, and she's holding a thread. There's a neat bit where the three Fate sisters actually make a full image if you put their official idle poses (and their artworks) side by side, and the pattern on Lachesis's cape is the same on Clotho's skirt and Atropos's, uh... weird hat-thin on her head (I've spoiled myself on what she looks like in this franchise). I do like my Greek mythos, and I appreciate the three Fates being here, but I really can't find much to say about Lachesis that I already haven't said about Clotho.
Lilim
- Monster Name: Woman Who Brings Ruin
- Arcana: Devil
And now we have Lilim! The Lilim (or Lilin) are seductress demons that reside in hell from ancient Jewish and Mesopotamian folklore. There really isn't too much about them that I can find that isn't from pop culture, unlike the Lilim's mother, the demoness Lilith (who I'm sure will show up eventually). The Lilim are the daughters of Lilith, and are characterized as night spirits who harm children and seduce men, but drain them of their life-essence.
I really don't have a whole ton to say about the Lilim, because they are always mentioned in passing and in reference to their mother. I do appreciate them making her look more 'modernized' with hot pants and an open shirt, compared to the more medieval, fantasy-looking Succubus design earlier.
Ara Mitama
- Monster Name: N/A
- Arcana: Chariot
I think this is our last Mitama? I have even less to say about the Mitamas than I do Lachesis. Ara Mitama, as shown by its angry angry face, is one of the four aspects of Shinto thought, and represents aggression, forcefulness, and other angry and passionate emotions. It can lead in a negative direction, sure, but it can also increase one's bravery and endeavours. It's the wild and more untamed side of someone's spirit, the opposite of the more harmonized Nigi Mitama.
Mitra
- Monster Name: N/A
- Arcana: Temperance
NOT to be confused with Mithras, who we covered a bit earlier, that's a Roman guy! Which might or might not be inspired by this guy, who inspired another god in Zoroastrian myths called Mithra! Ain't archaeology and the bleeding of cultures fun, guys?
Anyway, I got a bit confused reading all about Mitra, Mithra and Mithras (get confused here!), some of which inspired each other, but I think this guy is specifically the version in the Zoroastrian mythology. Mithra is a deity of contracts that was the protector of truth, created by the supreme deity Ahura-Mazda, and would become one of the greatest Yazatas (a term roughly equivalent to deity). In addition to his role as a god of covenants and justice, Mithra is also sometimes revered as a sun god, and is often seen as a sun god that is associated with time as well as seasonal change. Mithra is also one of the three judges at the Chinvat Bridge, who will judge all souls as they pass to the land of the dead.
The lion-headed figure with a snake wrapped around him is actually something that's associated with the Roman Mithras! Click here, about Arimanius to learn a bit more. The two pictures in the Wikipedia article there basically form the shape of the Persona design, yeah? A man holding two ritual sticks, with a lion head, and a serpent wrapped around him, with wings... that's basically the figures associated with Mithraic worship, yeah?
...which is to say, it's a pretty cool and unexpected design, but boy oh boy I am a bit too tired to talk any more about this without going on a wide, long tangent about how cultures influence each other and end up causing the spread of several similarly-named gods, some of which evolve and change within the myths of their own separate individual cultures!
Bugs
- Monster Name: Killer Teddy Bear
- Arcana: Fool
...and I absolutely love the interpretation of Bugbear by the SMT team as a literal evil bear. Get it? Bug-BEAR? Except this is clearly a nightmare teddy bear, fitting with the 'boogeyman' thing. I've seen so many interpretations of the Bugbear as just... well, a standard goblin, most likely inspired by D&D's take on the Bugbear.
And, well, I've seen a bunch of creepy teddy bears in my time, but I love the beady yellow eyes that glow so unnaturally, the fangs, the blood splattered around its body... but, of course, the most striking feature is that line running down the Bugs' stomach, exposing the skulls of her victims that she proudly shows off in her belly. Damn, that's a pretty creepy look for a nightmarish monster meant to scare little children!
Unicorn
- Monster Name: Expressionless Beast
- Arcana: Faith
We'll close this with a Persona I got through fusion, and... it's a unicorn! We met the Bicorn as one of the earliest monsters in the game. It sure is a unicorn, it's a horse with a narwhal's horn! It's... it's basically the most basic way you could make a unicorn, although Persona's unicorn is a tad bit angrier with blood-red eyes and a grimace. The text notes some of the most common myths about the unicorn, like how its horn has miraculous healing properties, and how it can only be ridden by virgin maidens.
I almost wished that the game design, which had been shown to be a bit more creative in cherry-picking its inspirations, to take some of the weirder unicorn depiction. Like the versions with a cow's body? There's also a lot of 'distortion' about the myth of the unicorn, where the oldest legends focus more on its wildness, whereas later on its association with being companions to pure maidens ended up turning the unicorn into the mildest, sweetest thing ever. Again, I guess it's going to be a bit hard to portray it visually as a monster, but they manage to do it with some of the other deities and mythological creatures that evolve over time.
Anyway, this sure is a unicorn! Kind of a letdown after Mitra and Bugbear, huh?
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