Before our search (well not much of one thanks to the mugshots that some of the event icons on the overworld map come bundled with) for Naoya begins there’s a Shoji scene in Kanda. Shoji’s eighth day scenes are a little strange because they’re an example of Characterization Marches On within a single story, her personality going from somewhat neutral to the energetic, scoop-obsessed reporter stereotype, and Atsuro and Yuzu act like she’s always been that way. It’s a little jarring. Anyway, the point of this scene is that she’s able to tell us what things are like outside of the lockdown. She says that downtown Tokyo is pretty much a ghost town because everyone’s staying indoors, confused by what’s been happening. The government’s statement is that they welcome the angels and that the country will abide by their laws, even if they conflict with Japan’s own. Even so, a lot of people think the proclamation’s a hoax, and there’s a big outcry from religious leaders. I like this sort of scene: usually when you get to an ending in these games that results in a new world order you just get a brief blurb saying that things have changed and what the new status quo is, but here this route is actually touching upon, even if only lightly, some of the logistical and societal changes that such a transition would entail. They should do that more often.
Before we’re railroaded into meeting Naoya we can learn a little bit about Okuninushi from either Izuna or Amane, though the latter’s more knowledgeable, unsurprisingly. The main takeaway from this little mythology lesson is that one of the stories involving Okuninushi involves him being killed by his brothers, twice. Sounds a little familiar doesn’t it? Unlike Abel, Okuninushi was revived by his mother, Sasukuni-wakahime, and when his brothers tried to kill him a third time he fled.
Well, Naoya’s in front of the Diet Building, surrounded by thugs who want his help, presumably because they think he can give them more altered COMPs or whatnot. The crew chases them away, but Naoya has no thanks for us. If anything he’s even more bitingly sarcastic than before, and openly mocks the idea that we’re going to redeem him (“Then help me. Well? I’m waiting.”). He says that we could never understand his pain and leaves, but not before threatening to kill us if we keep bothering him. Once he’s gone Keisuke observes that it looks like he’s searching for sympathy and is rejecting change.
The crew decides that they need to know more about Cain to make any headway on this, and to do so we need to speak with two people. The first is Honda, because Atsuro thinks he might know something about this sort of thing since he identified Pazuzu so quickly. Kinda tenuous, but eh, roll with it. Honda’s roaming Roppongi now, broken, and says he’s in no mood to speak with us but eventually relents. He says the thing that strikes him about the story of Cain and Abel is the question of how the murder happened in spite of God’s omnipotence. His conclusion is that God always meant for Cain to kill Abel, to teach humanity a lesson on the dangers of jealousy. From that perspective, he sees Cain as another victim, the first of many in the Bible. He finishes by imploring the crew to leave him alone, as he tells them that he just learned that his son ended up dying after all. They express their condolences and thanks and the man leaves them, despondent.
The second person we have to speak with makes a little more sense. In front of the Shomonkai HQ we encounter Azuma, who’s turned over a new leaf and renounced his title as a Shomonkai executive, claiming that now he’s just a simple believer. He goes over the Cain and Abel story again, and while I know the audience this game was originally made for probably doesn’t know much about it, as someone who went to Catholic school when I was younger, hearing the story outlined for like the third or fourth time feels a bit much. Azuma’s opinion is that the murder itself was not the true, mortal sin for Cain, it was when he tried to hide it by asking God “Am I my brother’s keeper?” when asked where the slain Abel was. So God gave him eternity to face his sin, to realize it and repent, not to punish him. Thus Azuma says that he believes the whole thing was a test of character, an ordeal if you will, and Cain failed it at every juncture.
Atsuro says that that’s like God left Abel to die then, and Azuma cites the Book of Job as a possible means of divining His motives. Once he goes on his way Amane summarizes the story of Job and the wager between God and the Devil for the others and says that perhaps God wants Cain to reach enlightenment through facing his sin, the same sort of enlightenment that Job reached by remaining pious despite all the suffering thrown his way. That’s what Naoya needs to understand, the crew decides, but the problem is getting him to admit it.
I’ve been mostly ignoring them since the whole Okuninushi thing started in favor of more plot-relevant events, but miscellaneous ones where you continue to deal with and talk down guys with the Brand of Dream are still available. I’m making a note of one certain event that takes place at the Diet Building, where the crew finds a group of people gathered around one of the giant fissures in the pavement. A little boy’s fallen into one of them, and as they’re trying to devise ways to get little Timmy out of there a Gagyson appears all on its own, saying that it wants to help (and apologizing to Akira for coming to the human world without being summoned). It retrieves the boy, obverses that being Good Feels Good, and as it vanishes says that it’s going to tell its fellow demons about this. Amane says that the overlord’s actions as the Messiah is probably influencing the demons so hey, maybe that thing about demons living in harmony in God’s kingdom isn’t such a pipe dream after all.
The event I’m going to choose next is a battle at the Ueno barricade. Okuninushi-powered demon tamers are attacking the SDF so that they can get out, but we also find Kaido helping to defend the barricade because, uh, reasons.
Amane Mission 11
- All demon tamers must be defeated and none can escape
- The whole party cannot die
- Kaido cannot die
The majority of the enemy demon tamers have Behemoths and Garudas, so they’re well-prepared for this sort of escape mission. But that’s only half the problem - the other half is that there are just so damn many of them. There are something like six or seven enemy tamers on the map to start with, and as the battle goes on more will arrive as reinforcements at the bottom of the map. I didn’t keep count to see what the final figure was, but it was probably at least ten to twelve.
As such yeah, you need to be careful, and definitely prioritize teams with Garudas since they can simply fly over the map’s many obstacles and chokepoints. It’s pretty easy to get bogged down fighting guys while someone else manages to slip past and make a break for it, and the enemy’s smart enough to not engage the party if they don’t have to. The two SDF soldiers won’t be able to contribute all that much (though every little bit helps), but on the other hand Kaido’s quite capable of taking teams out on his own, as he’s buffed his HP to its maximum and has Diarahan for healing. It’s too bad that even though he’s ditched Pazuzu his low Speed prevents him from moving as much as he could.
Completing the mission earns us 2900 EXP and 2100 macca.
Once everyone’s caught their breath Atsuro thanks Kaido for helping out and the guy just shrugs and says he couldn’t just watch the SDF get flattened. After we explain everything that’s going on he says that we’re going to have real trouble with the demon tamers if Okuninushi isn’t dealt with, and he reluctantly decides to help us out. He doesn’t actually join the party though, he says he’ll make sure other demon tamers don’t escape. The reason for his change of heart is that he’s seen people he knows being let out of the lockdown deciding to come back to help with the humanitarian effort in order to atone for the things they did, so he’s convinced that we really did set the world on the path to becoming a better place. His parting words are to tell us to beat the snot out of Okuninushi and come out on top. Well, that was nice.
On a less nice note, it’s time to confront the other Chaos representative, Naoya, again. He’s in Shinjuku and when the crew spots him Yuzu volunteers to talk to him first. She asks him that if he knows how to end his punishment, why doesn’t he just do it? Naoya’s response is that he welcomes eternity, seeing it as an opportunity to gain infinite knowledge and kill God. This is when Akira steps in, “asking” if he really hates God that much. His cousin finds that question to be quite rich, and he starts going on a tirade over how God set him up, stoked his desire to kill by favoring Abel. Oh, so the reason behind the murder was jealousy after all, huh? He says that looking at us now reminds him of Job, who praised God despite his suffering and insists that Akira has to hate God too, as how else would Abel’s soul have fallen into the demon world and became a Bel? When we say that no, we don’t hate God, Naoya decides that that must mean we really hate him, instead. Once again we’re prompted to say that we don’t hate him, since he is still family and thanks to his actions we were able to survive the lockdown. Yuzu says that the fact he let Akira make his own choice as to what to do and become is proof that he does actually care for him, even though he tries to hide it. Which again I feel would work better if he hadn’t tried to fight us for going the Messiah route. This line of reasoning works in the other paths, where he doesn’t flip out, but really, not so much here. Well, regardless, Naoya tells us to leave him and departs, leaving Yuzu to wonder if they screwed up. We’re supposed to have faith in him, and Amane expresses the hope that their conversation will lead him to change, so we...tried I guess?
Well, it’s 6:00PM now, and we get a notification telling us that the time has come to confront Okuninushi. Oh well, time to go and meet Japan’s maker.
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