A Narrative Analysis Of Persona 4

The Information Age. By all accounts an incomprehensible nihilistic chaos in which truth is impossible to discern underneath the mountains of conflicts, manipulations, and lies. I’ve fallen for it before, I’ll fall for it again, and I’m willing to believe you have and will again too. It is an unfortunate reality of the post-truth political climate of the world. We’re within closer proximity than ever before to each other, but also those that seek to hurt, disregard, and destroy. From politicians, to common criminals, and everyone in between. A breeding ground of extremist ideologies that seek to be prophetic. A religious-like dogmatism reinforced through endless noise.

“I never doubted what I saw on TV…and believed everything was as I wanted it to be…”

Persona 4, directed and written by Atlus directorial czar Katsura Hashino, is a game from the year 2007. Was it ahead of its time? Maybe. Maybe it was exactly at its time. Who can say for sure exactly when the tides turned so dramatically? The seeds were planted, but when did they start to grow? When we were getting off the train in the small rural Japanese hamlet of Inaba, they started right then and there for our intrepid Hero and the band of truth-seekers we will come to meet. It was so subtle we didn’t even know.

Inaba as a place is small, tight knit. The kind of locale you may be familiar with if you’re a small town kid like me. The grape-vine is long. You may not know people, but you know of them. It’s given so much life and personality through its townspeople, with simple passing remarks here and there, the authenticity of location is striking. Which makes the main thrust of the narrative all that more compelling as you watch a town descend into paranoia and disbelief at the events and uncertainty unfolding before them.

A crime scene, in the first part of the term no less, on the way back from school. A body strung up for display, the body of Mayumi Yamano. A local reporter in the midst of an adultery scandal. Your caretaker, Uncle Ryotaro Dojima employed as detective, his stubbled face and unkempt dress shirt a picture of a man run ragged by responsibility given an even bigger task as his daughter and your “little sister” Nanako Dojima a mere elementary student, often tasked with watching over the family home, her mother since passed away. Her maturity and innocence balanced out brilliantly through small instances of dialogue involving her own adeptness at handling the daily upkeep of the house as well as asking the understandably juvenile questions that you would expect. The maturity a product of her situation, rather than that of being ahead of her age growth.

As you attend Yasogami High School, meeting new friends Yosuke Hanamura, Chie Satonaka, and Yukiko Amagi along the way, they inform you of an urban legend: The Midnight Channel. Rumor has it that you're supposed to look into a TV that's switched off, alone, exactly at midnight on a rainy night. While you're staring at your own image, another person will appear on the screen. On a routine trip to the local department store Yourself and your friends find yourselves transported to a strange and foggy TV world, inhabited by an enigmatic teddy bear. Who accuses them of “throwing people into the TV” with the expectation that they will die if not one is able to rescue them. Soon after, Yosuke’s friend is killed by presumably the same person who killed the TV anchor Mayumi Yamano, and their friend Yukiko Amagi has gone missing. Prompting the remaining group of three to head in and rescue her before it is presumably too late. Awakening to their “true selves” in the midst of this supernatural TV world through confronting their repressed selves and gaining the power of a Persona. Their darkest thoughts and innermost feelings broadcast for the whole town to should they choose to tune in.

And that is what sets up the larger narrative story beats. Each major plot progression begins with a victim being thrown into the TV, usually after appearing on TV in some form. And using the time you have to make your way through their respective dungeons, in which their true desires are broadcast out into the world, all the while building up your bonds with friends, giving you extra ability in combat as well as experience points when fusing together personas. As someone who has worked his way back from Persona 5 to the earlier games in the series, it is a remarkably familiar mixture of elements you’ll likely be very good at optimizing along your potential play-through. 

Hashino has shown through his “trilogy” of Persona games (3, 4, and 5 respectively) that he is masterful at balancing engaging narrative focused storytelling, while also interspersing those important moments with character building that is backed up through the games numerous social links and bonds that can be forged with investigative team members and the general population. The character moments are able to shine through the main thrust of the narrative while being as engaging and cerebral as Persona’s stories often are. Thematically rich/ripe for analysis as well as being tightly written and focused. Over the course of the 70+ hours, I’m constantly blown away by the consistent quality that Hashino is able to sustain over such a long run-time.

Supporting later friends like Kanji Tatsumi, a brash and rogue local boy whose outward appearance of bicycle gang enforcer is contrasted with the actual person beneath that “persona.” A (presumably, as it is never explicitly mentioned though heavily implied) bisexual with a preference towards men who loves crafting and knitting in his spare time. Afraid to be openly himself as the social scorn and unwanted spotlight it would bring him. Or Rise Kujikawa. An idol struggling not only with her identity as the person she wants to be, but the persona that she puts on for the advancement of her own career. Constantly clashing with herself over what she has, her own identity, and what she wants to be in the small town of Inaba, with the spotlight turned off of her, unsure how she feels about the career she worked so hard to maintain slip away, while also feeling the relief of rural life. It’s character stories like these that support the main narrative while also allowing you to see the small moments of development not just as the collective group but each individual member of the investigation group overcoming their own personal stories.

It makes you feel an important outsider and emotional protector of your friends. They show their gratitude for you being so willing to listen to their problems, their personal plights, and most importantly, their growth. But believably so, they still, in group and main story sections, sometimes revert back to type. Rather than believe this to be an unfortunate byproduct of the separation of character plot threads and over-arcing narrative clashing against one another. I’d like to think of it more as an earned inconsistency. People are inconsistent, no matter how much they may try to change, the shackles of yesterday continue to be felt and shown in our moment-to-moment interactions with others as we try to apply the selves we want to be in every situation we realistically can be. Whether intentional or not, it’s effect works extremely well.

Not only must we become more in touch with our own personal truths, and sift through the lies that we tells ourselves we are not, accepting the parts of ourselves we most wish to repress, but in conjunction we must become fully aware of ourselves before we seek to extract the exact truth we want from situations that do not involve us. We are outsiders and cannot discern that truth reactively from 2nd, 3rd, and 4th hand accounts of what truly occurred. The echo-chamber is tantalizing, but in it’s most critical moments, Persona 4 reminds us that stacked against us is the weight of responsibility that we too must not be enticed by the easy answer the convenient “truth” in the echo-chambers we WANT to be true. That we believe we are better off living through a conniving artistic rendition of reality. If there is room for acceptable nuance within ourselves, that there is also room for variability in the stories of people whom we have no connection to, that we hear through filters upon filters. That need only begin with a simple spark of an unreliable narrator with an agenda.

“You ache to expose your suppressed sides, while the prying eyes around them are curious to see them laid bare. Only by comparing yourself to others can you define yourselves. Thus your ever present anxiety…Your anxiety causes you to see only what you want to see, and believe only what you wish to believe…”

A remarkable experience awaits for you should you wish to take it up on its offer. Be careful, however, as all is not as it seems. What you choose to believe will always be up to you. What you choose to do with that belief may ultimately end outside of your control.