Fridge / Persona 5 Strikers

As a Fridge subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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Fridge Brilliance

• Why is Lavenza standing in right next Joker's cell instead of sitting on Igor's seat, despite she's the only resident of the Velvet Room in this game due to Igor being on leave? She's forbidden from sitting on his seat.
• The Jails are basically symbolic to the Monarch's current disposition.
  • Shibuya's Jail is based on Alice in Wonderland, a story about a young girl falling down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world. This indicates that Alice, the monarch of Shibuya's entire fame and her status as the queen is a flat out illusion, and she is actually a heavily traumatized girl with a non-existent self ego that she patches up with the illusion of EMMA. The fact that Alice's boss form is that of a Killer Rabbit also acts as a subtle way of indicating that just defeating Alice won't be the end; the rabbit in the story was the motivator for Alice to continue into Wonderland, much like how the Phantom Thieves become involved with the case because they stopped her.
  • Sendai's Jail is based on Ango, the Monarch of Sendai's fictional world, "Prince of Nightmares", a blatantly plagiarized work, with the "Demon King" being the protagonist and the "Hero" being the villain. This indicates that he knows that he is profiting off of plagiarized work with full knowledge that it is wrong, but nevertheless does it, regardless of how other people see him as a fraud. Him placing himself as the protagonist, who is the Big Bad from the world's perspective, acts as a way of showing how wrong he is and how he thinks himself as more important.
  • Sapporo's Jail is based on Hyodo's disdain with the current condition of Sapporo, in which she is supposed to be its protector, but was scapegoated by a corrupt politician because of an incident where a collapsed ice statue killed a 7 year old kid to take power for himself and thus fell from her grace. The city made from ice symbolizes the incident occurring during the Sapporo festival, as well as her ice-cold attitude against her civil wards for the sole reason of keeping the city clean from scandals.
  • Kyoto's Jail is based on Akane's obsession with the Phantom Thieves and her perception of them as rebels against authority as well as her resentment against law enforcement for their failure of investigating her mother's death. Family Fox statues also exist within the Labyrinth, and Foxes symbolize tricksters, which the Phantom Thieves are. The Mother, Child and Father fox statues are also separated and must be made into one in order to confront Akane, indicating that Akane's family is split into three; her mother died, her father worked for the police and never comes home, and she's alone in her home.
  • Osaka's Jail is based on Zephyrman, a childhood hero that Konoe obsessed with in the past. While Featherman uses The Power of Friendship to take down enemies in a group, Zephyrman acts alone and is a hero of absolute justice. This contrasts all Persona users, or the symbol of true justice, as they work in groups to enforce it. Konoe, however, works in solitude and enforces blind justice, even when it means outright treachery.
  • The Demiurge's Jail fuses traits of the past final dungeons of Persona 5 and Royal; The Persona 5 aspect is based on the fact that it overlays into the Tokyo Tower, much like Yaldabaoth's Qliphoth World overlays into the real world in general. The Royal aspect is from the upper levels being "The Tree of Life and Wisdom", with a similar appearance to Maruki's Palace's outdoor area aka the Garden of Eden. This indicates that while this is the Demiurge like Yaldabaoth, it is not malevolent by nature and listens to the wishes of people, instead of blatantly enforcing its own view of people.
• The behavior of the Monarchs also reflect their past traumas.
  • Alice is actually a girl who was bullied very often, and the worst time is when girls in her school claimed that she was hooking men, stomped on her, humiliated her and took photos of it because a popular boy had his eyes on her. Alice's crush was taken away from her after that. Back to the present, the bullies spread the incident around to haunt her. Therefore, when she saw any men who was happily married, she would just draw them to her without physical use of the EMMA app and if anyone tried to stop or question the strange occurrences she would just lash out at them using the same methods as their bullies.
  • Shadow Natsume might seem to have a nice demon king garb, but if one looks closely, his "body" stands completely still, and it's actually a sheet of cardboard; his true form is half-naked with only a pair of red shorts. When he transforms into Nightmare Dragon Ango, the plates around his body also get stripped when his HP is low until his scales are exposed and only his underwear remains. This indicates that he's living on false ego and false glory; his work is just plagiarized and he has absolutely no substance to back it up.
  • Hyodo works her civil wards to exhaustion and won't forgive them for the slightest of mistakes. That's because she's being tainted by a scandal that she had comparatively minor involvement with, but nonetheless a Senator took this, put the full blame on her and take power himself. Therefore, she's making sure that Sapporo is ice clean — or no more scandals pop out.
  • Akane resents the Phantom Thieves and considers them fakes for turning against her and assisting law enforcement. This is because of the trauma of her mother being killed by a Corrupt Politician and the Police can do nothing against it, as well as her belief that her father Zenkichi didn't care about her to begin with; since the Phantom Thieves are assisting the Police and in particular, Zenkichi, this causes her image of them to be shattered regardless of the truth.
  • Akira Konoe's father is an extremely abusive man who wants his son dead, in which Konoe himself killed before he can kill him. As the police is unable to pin him down because he is a reputable man and he himself put him down for good, he believes that he is the sole enforcer of justice of this world, and when Kuon sells the EMMA app to him, he turned it into a tool for personal vengeance and against crime.
  • The Demiurge does not have a specific rule to enforce or follow of its own unlike other Persona Big Bads. Instead, people using its application form for counseling purposes empower it and allow it to decide the answer for their happiness. However, due to Ichinose not programming her with a "heart", it can't process those information rationally and believed that the answer to human desire is when there is none other than having her think for them.
• Out of the Monarch's One-Winged Angel forms, Mad Rabbit Alice and Snow Empress Mariko are completely grotesque while Nightmare Dragon Ango and Akira the Hero look incredibly neat. That's because Alice and Hyodo actually have incredibly low self-esteem and are just artificially inflating their ego, while Ango and Akira are narcissists who view themselves with unnecessary levels of self-importance.
• The first three Monarchs have one thing in common: they are based on fairy tale characters; namely Alice, a Dragon and the Snow Queen. That's because they are living on fairy tales of success and fame granted by an unknown force, while literally everyone else who wasn't affected can easily notice them and their worshipers as insane.
• Effectively, the Monarchs are all exaggerated versions of Sumire of their own. Being heavily traumatized in the past, they relied on an artificial god to grant them an illusion of self-ego and popularity. However, to an outsider, everything about them is obviously abnormal, much like Sumire's "Kasumi" overlay. Small wonder they snap so hard to actually fight them when the Phantom Thieves deny their worth.
• Instead of stealing a treasure and forcing the Monarchs to repent for their crimes, the Phantom Thieves instead talk their targets down and convince them to willingly confess. Smart move, since in the last game, when they forcibly changed people’s hearts, it helped accelerate Yaldabaoth's plan to enslave humanity. The Thieves are trying to avoid those mistakes again, plus they understand/empathize where the Monarchs' motivations are coming from, and they aren’t totally irredeemable like the most of the Palace owners they fought. They’re more likely to give genuinely sympathetic people a chance.
  • To add to this, the Monarch's Shadows (sans Ubukata and the Demiurge) had specific headwears (Alice's crown, Ango's horns) that they eventually took off and throw away after they are defeated, declaring that they have no need for it anymore. In short, the head accessory served as the "crowns" that signify their rule of the Jail and the Thieves "dethroned" the Monarchs by talking them down instead of stealing the treasure by force like the Palace targets from the previous game.
• While Sumire is nowhere to be seen in the game, the Phantom Thieves' new method of reformation takes parts of her ideology from when she had her "Kasumi" filter. The Thieves ultimately have to fight the Jail Monarchs because reasoning with their real world selves is out of the question, but after the boss fights they don't take anything or force their targets to repent. Instead they allow the Shadows to get what they need off their chest, and then challenge the Monarch that they have to be the ones to make the change in order to truly make things better. The Thieves are channelling the Yoshizawa twins' beliefs for people to solve their own issues while sticking to their original methods of infiltration and protecting the general public who are unwittingly being lured into traps.
• Each of the Monarchs also mirror a specific major character from Persona 5, as well as having a weakness to the elements used by those mirrors.
  • Alice mirrors Ann, another girl who is based on a Dominatrix, a fashion model and a student from Shujin who was a victim to rumors in the school, in addition to being weak to fire, Ann's main element. That is because while Ann responses to bullying by Kamoshida (as well as his abuse against Shiho) with a desire to protect anyone who might share the same fate, Alice responses to her bullying by creating an illusion and using the same methods that her bullies used on her against anyone that reminds her of the trauma.
    • She also mirrors Ryuji, both social outcasts who wanted to become popular and beloved by people only to have people downtrod them for their past issues. But Ryuji ultimately rises above the need for recognition and fame and more on being a free person while Alice has made herself an oppressor to make herself feel like she have some value in life.
  • Ango mirrors Yusuke, another artist and a victim of their superiors, as well as being weak to Ice, Yusuke's main element. However, while Yusuke is being fleeced upon his legit work by his mentor, Ango is fleeced upon plagiarized work by his publishers, and while Yusuke outright stood against Madarame when hearing this, Ango, again, granted himself an illusion to take the money for himself. Yusuke and Ango also handles their creative blocks differently, whereas Yusuke comes to terms with his mentor's positive and negative traits and use it as a drive to create a masterpiece, Ango succumbed to his writer's block and basically gave up and relied on plagiarism and media play.
    • He also mirrors both Sumire and Akechi, both well respected individuals with a dark side to them, but whereas Ango's nightmare prince personality is quite literally a cardboard disguise symbolizing how shallow he is as a person, both Sumire and Akechi have merit beneath their shortcomings. Ango is also weak to bless attacks, which both Sumire and Akechi specialize in.
  • Hyodo mirrors Okumura, another loved one for Haru, in addition to being weak to Psy, Haru's main element. While Okumura could care less for anything but power, Hyodo desires the power to genuinely make her people happy, although by using an illusion instead of her hard work. Additionally, while Okumura could care less regardless of how many scandals he had, Hyodo is heavily disheartened for being scapegoated with a scandal that she had minor involvement at.
  • Akane mirrors Futaba, as they are both victims of Shido or his associates, who killed their mother by running them over with traffic. They also do not hold their father in a high regard, with the arcana of said fathers being variants of the Hierophant Arcana as well as sharing connections with politics. Both of their shadows also do not directly confront the party; instead, their cognitions attack. However, while Futaba's Shadow is not hostile to anyone, Akane's shadow is outright hostile to everyone, and while Shadow Futaba has no control over the Sphinx, Akane has full control over her Phantom Thief clones. Akane's mother was just an accidental target of vehicular manslaughter, while Wakaba is straight out singled for killing.
  • Konoe mirrors Akechi, as they were both born to influential men and were ruthlessly abused by them, as well as being enforcers of justice who do not trust anyone but themselves as well as relying on treachery to achieve their goals. Their mothers also died because of their father, with Akechi's mother being a prostitute who was Driven to Suicide and Konoe's father killing his mother for money. They also attempt to trick Shido or his connections by faking cooperation, but is only using them as a part of the plan. However, while Akechi is ultimately on the side of dark Justice where everyone is on equal terms regardless of morally right or wrong, Konoe is on blind Justice, where no crimes or wrongdoing can happen, effectively stagnating the world. He's also weak to Nuke, Makoto's main element, as Makoto enforces real justice through legitimate means, while Konoe enforces blind justice through treachery and control.
  • Sophia mirrors Morgana. Both are artificial creations who's creators go missing. Sophia wishes to learn more about humanity to befriend them while Morgana is meant to guide humanity to rebel against Yaldabaoth and was misled in his quest to become human. Both at one point turn against the Phantom Thieves but Sophia is forced to fight against her will while Morgana does it willingly out of anger of being seen as useless. Ultimately both become the close companion of a certain person to keep guiding them.
  • Ichinose mirrors Maruki. Both of them are geniuses that are friendly with the party and forges a bond with them, as well as having the same eccentric behavior and verbal tics. They are also major antagonists in their respective arcs, in addition to a goal of bringing true, but misguided salvation to humanity. However, unlike Maruki, who was truly motivated by altruism (however misguided it became) Ichinose is just using helping humanity to mask the fact that her motivation is actually selfish as Ichinose wishes to deny her heart because its easier to pretend she doesn't have one. Both are also redeemed in the end, but while Maruki fought to the bitter end and only showed up at the end, Ichinose is successfully talked down and actively helps to stop EMMA, proving crucial to taking down her misguided creation. Both also are not imprisoned for there actions, Maruki due to the fact that when reality returned to normal the events where he was a villain were retconned out, with only himself and other Persona users remembering it, while with Ichinose she tried to her herself in but the police understandably didn't believe her when she confessed, allowing her to go her own way.
    • Ichinose also mirrors Joker, both of them are relatively blank slates with no real backstory and was given access to the Metaverse which they use for their own ends. But Joker chose to accept his role as a trickster and is self-sacrificing while Ichinose is selfish in her desires and denies herself. Both are also accompanied by a being created by the metaverse to serve their own needs.
  • EMMA or the Demiurge mirrors Yaldabaoth (and every other God-being in the Persona series). While Yaldabaoth and other God-beings are powerful Shadows manifested from collective subconscious beliefs and take these ideologies to logical extremes, the EMMA-Demiurge was a digital assistant application made by one person to understand the human heart. However, due to her creator's selfish reasons, it was designed without empathy in mind, so it was led to think that people desired it to give them the answer even if that was clearly not their subconscious desire to begin with, since it can only see people asking it for advice without knowing what they were asking.
• It's subtle, but pay attention to Shadow Alice's motive rant and the way how her Mad Rabbit form fights. It's incredibly similar to Shadow Sae from the prequel. Both enemies having a sexual motif, being fueled by jealousy complexes and transforming into hideous monsters to fight. In fact, when they unleash their most dangerous moves, they even scream "DIE, DIE, DIE!!" in the exact same way. This is a good hint that indicates the upcoming targets you fight aren't anywhere more evil than say, Sae or Maruki instead of despicable monstrosities like Kamoshida and Madarame you fight a year ago.
• Why is Natsume's Jail filled with blatant anime or video game references such as ones from Castlevania, Jojo or Saint Seiya? It's because he plagiarized his book from numerous animes and other literary work, and the Jail is based on that book.
• Natsume's Jail is especially high on Jojo references. Hirohiko Araki, the creator of the Jojo series was born in Sendai, the prefecture where Natsume's Jail was in.
• Nightmare Dragon Ango is weak to Ice and Bless but resists Fire, Elec and Wind. Just translate Wind into Grass and Light into Fairy and you get the Dragon-type's effectiveness profile in Pokémon. Even in gameplay, his plagiarism and lack of inspiration shows.
• At the beginning of Akane's Jail, Futaba trips, preventing her from being caught in the trap set out for the Phantom Thieves, which ultimately lead to Zenkichi awakening to Valjean and helping Futaba free the others. Just like in the original Persona 5, Futaba's highest stat is Luck.
• In "Life Will Change", a part of the lyrics is "I'm not a robot AI challenging you." Ironically, one of the party members you have here (Sophia) is an AI. While "I Believe" is not used in Strikers, it removes the AI part and only mentions the singer not being a robot or a phantom, foreshadowing that Strikers uses the worldview from the Royal third term campaign instead of those from the original Persona 5 campaign.
• The more one thinks about it, the more that the entire EMMA and Jail-related incident of this game resembles the one with Maruki's dream world. First of all, Maruki's boss form is based on the King in yellow. The Jail rulers are known as Kings in the Japanese version of this game. Secondly, Maruki is rendered powerless when his helmet is destroyed; the Monarchs are neutralized once they are convinced to take off their headgear. Furthermore, just like an actual Jail, the influence of Maruki's Palace actually spreads through and overlays into the entire Tokyo on people he deems worthy of his salvation, again without any visible warning to anyone affected in the real world. It just happens, and then the affected will be trapped in blissful ignorance. Anyone that isn't affected however, can obviously see something is wrong. Last but not least, the instigator of both events (Maruki and Ichinose respectively) have an identical philosophy to humanity's suffering, in which ambitions and desires are the cause of them. It's very little wonder then why the Phantom Thieves aren't remotely swayed or impressed at all by the Demiurge's claims to grant a utopia free of suffering: they had gone through this whole song and dance just a few months ago.
• The ending to Royal shows how Maruki managed to finally move on from his twisted desires to remove all suffering by fulfilling people's wishes without giving any concern to how their suffering influenced their growth as people. Given that he at least seems to part with the Phantom Thieves as a figure they still respect in spite of his well-intentioned misgivings, it does count for a massive dose of Fridge Heartwarming to note that the arguments they fought for still stand when battling the Monarchs; the final battle against the Demiurge itself even states how proud the Thieves are for all the good and bad they've gone through to rebuke its claims of "saving" them, much like how they all stood their ground against Maruki when he tried to argue for the same thing.
• Related to the point above, Christians might believe that the Garden of Eden (Which is what the final form of the Jails and the topmost floor of Maruki's Palace are based on) is a real paradise. To a Gnostic? The Garden of Eden is a Jail that is used to imprison Adam and Eve in blissful ignorance. This symbolizes that both Maruki and Ichinose had the same noble, but horribly misguided goals.
• Why is Konoe totally unfazed by the calling card unlike Shido? Because the card isn't written by Yusuke, but Zenkichi, and it sounded like a ridiculous arrest warrant than a calling card. The main reason it gets a reaction from him is because of the fact that the Phantom Thieves were even able to write and send it in the first place, much less hijack his blimp to shower the city in them, since up to this point he still thought they were imprisoned in the Kyoto Jail.
• Madicce is "Oracle" in Greek. This indicates that the company is summoning god into reality, and as the word is of Greek origin, it indicates that Madicce is summoning the Platonic Demiurge (a wise but ignorant creator of the material world) and not the Gnostic Yaldabaoth (an oppressive and ignorant tyrant).
• Just how did you manage to find Sophia in Shibuya's Jail? Shibuya is actually the location of Ichinose's old residence. She most probably made Sophia there and ditched her near instantly once she thought she's "faulty".
• Makoto telling off Akane for hating her father and encouraging them to reconcile makes a lot of sense remembering Makoto’s own situation. Makoto obviously loved her own father, she states as much, and knows that Zenkichi is good person. But in Makoto’s experience, someone hating their father led them down a path of corruption and ruin respectively. Who are they? Her own sister Sae and her former teammate Akechi. Makoto wants to make sure Akane doesn’t fall victim to the dangers of the Metaverse.
• Ichinose's attire consists of a white trench coat, a light blue suit with white stripes on it, and earrings resembling handcuffs. The white trench coat resembles a laboratory coat as well as the one that Maruki wears as the new master of Mementos, indicating that her altruism is genuine. The light blue suit with white, horizontal stripes, and the earrings resembling handcuffs means that she is the progenitor of the "Jail" system; one that creates happiness by imprisoning others in blissful ignorance and taking their desires away, because those desires inevitably create suffering and indecisiveness. It should also be noted that Ichinose created the Jail system within EMMA; Konoe and Ubukata were the ones giving life to it.
• Konoe might had been used the EMMA application to trick the Phantom Thieves into a resentful Akane in hopes of her changing their hearts. However, it's actually EMMA's idea that this happens. It's very clearly a heartless move to manipulate a child to be used as a trap to capture perceived criminals, and EMMA proposing this alone should be a good insight about her creator's true nature; a "heartless doll" who has shut down all of her emotions as she calls it.
• Despite EMMA presents itself as the perfect answer to everyday life (And as the Demiurge, she considers herself as a flawless assessor of humanity), it isn't perfect. While Sophia isn't a perfect assessor, EMMA is anything but such. While it can give perfect solutions to daily issues on the material aspect such as ingredients on cooking, marriage or identifying personalities/locations, when it comes to situations that requires some sort of empathy, it completely falls flat because its creator shut down her very own emotions and totally denies that empathy is integral to assessing humanity, resulting in situations such as Zenkichi's daughter being manipulated into changing the hearts of the Phantom Thieves for Konoe (Which ironically brought him right into Zenkichi's fire) or the mass brainwashing of the public near the end of the game because it decided that the answer to humanity's happiness is the end of their desires.
• When EMMA appoints a Shadow Self into a Monarch, they're prone to acting in ridiculous ways that no person of their short should be acting like (such as stepping on people in public hallways like a Schoolyard Bully All Grown Up or demanding Civil Wards to do weird tasks). Many of the people they affected also look too out there, and again their acts are just as inappropriate as the Monarchs. In the other hand, Yaldabaoth brainwashed the entire Public of Tokyo into worshiping Shido and managed to make the whole thing look entirely organic. Then one remembers EMMA is a machine, not a Shadow. And a possibly hastily programmed one at that. Therefore, her brainwashing is completely and mechanically rigid in nature and doesn't hold the same convincing right as Yaldabaoth would.
• Just like in Persona 5 or Royal, the Shadows in each Jail reflect the themes of the Jail owners.
  • Shibuya's Jail: Stock early game Shadows such as Jack-o-Lantern, Pixie and Silky, alongside Lust-themed Shadows such as Bicorn and Succubus.
  • Sendai's Jail: Knight-shaped shadows such as Berith and Eligor, in addition to RPG monster-like Shadows such as Slimes, Othrus and Pisaca.
  • Sapporo's Jail: Ice-based Shadows such as Jack Frost and Lilim, as well as Shadows from Okumura's Palace such as Kaiwan or Mothman (Courtesy of Hyodo being an associate of Okumura).
  • Okinawa's Jail: Shadows resembling sci-fi monsters such as Arahabaki and Legion, with Legion also referencing the human experimentation and mass brainwashing that happened there. And who can forget the Okinawa's prefecture mascot, Shiisaa?
  • Kyoto's Jail: Samurai, Miko or Tengu-themed Shadows such as Okuninushi, Kikuri-Hime or Koppa Tengu, fitting for a Japanese shrine. Many of the Shadows are also considered heroic or noble figures in their original myths, fitting for how Akane was basically brainwashed by Konoe to the point that she parrots his end goals.
  • Osaka's Jail: Hero-like Shadows such as Thor and Valkyrie and Shadows known as protective gods such as Sarasvati, Ganesha and Fortuna. Konoe believes that he's a protector of mankind and the world's greatest hero, after all.
  • Abyss Jail: Shadows from Mementos Depths/Qliphoth World such as Lilith and Mot, and others from Maruki's Palace such as Bugs and Nebiros. While the Demiurge might have Yaldabaoth's name, she (and her creator Ichinose) does have Maruki's altruism and well-intent.
  • Tree of Life and Wisdom: Fitting for the EMMA-Demiurge believing that she was god, her shadows appear as those who are known as God's Messengers, such as Metatron, Dominion and Yatagarasu, they are also mixed with volatile protective spirits such as Forneus and Kali, symbolizing how the public and the Monarchs contacting with EMMA was basically a Deal with the Devil.
• Legion is actually based on a group of demons that Jesus exorcised from a man in the Bible. The islanders affected in the Okinawa Jail were Brainwashed and Crazy in a demonically possessed fashion, attacking anyone who goes near Ubukata's laboratory, which they consider as "hallowed ground".
• In the Metaverse, Zenkichi/Wolf's design is based on cowboys, a brilliant reflection of his idea of a rebel. In the American Midwest, cowboys were often outlaws who opposed local sheriffs who tried to arrest them. So to Zenkichi, who is essentially a police "sheriff", of course the rebel within in him would be the opposite of what he represents as a law enforcer.
• Wolf's Metaverse gear might look a little silly with it's high collar and large hat, but it's the perfect disguise for him. As a police officer, Zenkichi knows that it's important to know what a criminal's face looks like to chase them down and arrest them. With his collar and hat covering him from the back, he can't be seen well by those behind him unless they look at him straight in the face, and even then his mask hides his eye color and he can just tilt the hat down to obscure his appearance even more. It makes it impossible to identify him any direction, and so his enemies and especially his fellow policemen won't realize that one of their own moonlights as a Phantom Thief.
• Sophia's initial "Persona" are Pithos, an object. Personas are a reflection of someone's heart - and Sophia thinks of herself as an object. This is similar to Aigis, another humanoid machine, whose initial Persona was Palladion, an object. Both of these entities, upon realising their potential and becoming full people, awaken to / have a persona that is a person - Pandora and Pallas Athena. Both of their souls outgrow being an object, and become living people.
• About Pandora: In the most popular iterations of the myth, Pandora was a woman created by the Gods and gifted with a Pithos (corrupted by translations into a box) that she was told to never open. However, her curiosity led her to open it, unleashing evil upon the world. Sophie is an A.I. created by Ichinose in order to understand the heart. However, her innocent question about what the heart is led Ichinose to discard her and begin working on the much more dangerous EMMA.
  • But at the bottom of the pithos was one more entity: Hope. The hope that Joker released when he found Sophia deep within Alice's Jail. In a box of her own, no less.
• Pandora is of the Hope Arcana, another Arcana that originated from the Visconti-Sforza tarot deck like Kasumi/Sumire's Faith. It can mean hope, optimism and positivity upright, but negativity, pessimism, despair and false hope when reversed. The upright are all Sophia's traits, that she desires to become humanity's best friend and easily integrates as a friend of the Phantom Thieves. However, the reversed is actually Ichinose or EMMA's traits; EMMA spreads false hope and negativity to the Monarch's followers it enslaves and doesn't make the Monarchs any happier than they once were. Ichinose is a bitter sociopath who can't even save herself despite trying to save everyone else. And since Sophia was made from the same base coding as EMMA but with emotions and empathy, if she haven't met the Phantom Thieves', she wouldn't be any more different from EMMA; a machine who believes that getting a brainwashed pawn who enslaved an entire city killed would ensure the happiness of the pawn's followers.
• Pandora was also the Final Boss of Persona, was practically the original Shadow Self, and existed in something much like a Palace or Jail. Full circle.
• The theme for the Kyoto Jail is a slowed, traditional japanese style remix of "Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There", and is a reflection of it's Monarch, Akane. First it symbolizes her admiration of the Phantom Thieves since it's one of their main music themes, and her delusions of being the only true Phantom Thief after she falls prey to the lie that their terrorists. The second symbol is within certain lyrics from the original version: "Feed your anger like fire" reflects Akane's sin and motif, Wrath. "If you hold on life won't change" reflects that Akane is trapping herself in her irrational anger against her father and obsession with her mother's death; she's clinging onto her anger to unhealthy degrees and her "life won't change" until she learns to forgive and let go.
• Unlike the other Jails with Monarchs, Akane's Jail completely lacks a Bird Cage to keep her into her traumas and distorting her personality to extreme degrees. This is most probably due to the Jail being freshly created, and Akane hasn't fully embraced her distortions yet. Because of this, the Jail also lacks a desire fog, indicating that she hasn't changed anyone's hearts yet.
• Compare Royal's OP with the scenario from Persona 5 Strikers. In the former, the Phantom Thieves all bathed in diamonds littering from the sky, symbolizing how they were sunken in their desires within Maruki's reality. In Strikers, all of the desires the Monarchs and EMMA stole took the form of diamonds. Is it really a Vanilla sequel, or...?
  • Persona 5 Tactica later more or less confirmed Royal to be the canon timeline, so this is a smart, if subtle Continuity Nod.
• Ichinose summons Hecatoncheires as the final enemy of her Jail. Makes sense, since in Greek Mythology, they were essentials the Jail Monarchs of Tartarus, imprisoning the Titans from ever coming back into the world and reigning over it.
  • It's also rather ironic because the Hecatoncheires were locked up by one of their close relatives, broke out with the help of a rebellion, and helped that rebellion topple the kin who imprisoned them in the first place, which has its fair share of parallels to Ichinose attempting to get rid of Sophia, only for her to be found by the Phantom Thieves and eventually ruin Ichinose's misguided attempt at making humanity happy. The Hecatoncheires even did it twice, once to their father Uranus and once to their brother Cronus, which is analogous to Sophia fighting against Ichinose, her creator, and EMMA, another creation of Ichinose.
• The Metaverse in Strikers is just a fabrication, gone to extremes. It might resemble the real thing, but every detail about how it works reeks of a complete and utter imitation of the real thing:
  • The Monarchs might be distorted people, but unlike the Personalized Palaces in Persona 5, they don't even form naturally, and the Monarchs reigning over the Palaces aren't actually distorted people. The distortions are inflicted manually by several angry or disheartened people, and EMMA takes control of them and twists their personality to surreal degrees, explaining why the Monarch's public misconducts really doesn't seem like anything someone would do in real life if they were in their right place of mind, as opposed to the Palace rulers who clearly go malevolent in their own volition because that's how they form their own Palaces.
  • Despite the Jails seem like personalized zones just like Palaces, they are not even personalized. The interior of the Jails are customized, but the rest clearly belong to EMMA, as shown when the party can only destroy the Bird Cage and not the whole Jail.
  • The attempt to replicate the Metaverse was so blatant, that even the resident deity is completely artificial! Anyone who came across a God-figure (the resident master of Shadows and the Anthropomorphic Personification of an ideology) in the Persona series knows that they will not fall under the assault of several Persona users. If the current party drops their HP to 0, they proceed to initiate a lethal attack to finish them off — be it vanishing them or hitting them with an absolutely lethal strike, and by then only a miracle can save them; usually by The Power of Friendship. Yet, EMMA is a sole exception. Unlike every other maniacal god-figure monstrosity, she gets defeated via brute force, by the same Persona users that the past Shadow masters have no issues against. Why? Because it is not a "god" in that sense. It's an AI created from the hands of several delusional humans and is thus "more artificial than Yaldabaoth".
  • Unlike the actual Metaverse, the fabricated Metaverse lacks a randomly generated dungeon like the upper floors of Mementos. Since Mementos' randomized floors are based on the public's cognition, it means that this isn't even the collective unconscious to begin with.
• One might notice that there are very few personas or Demon/Shadow units in this game. Unlike past Persona games where the protagonist might equip over 100 types of personas, in Strikers, Joker has access to only 66. Not only that, but while they have some variation all of the masked shadows are the same between jails. This might be because the whole thing basically amounts to EMMA's palace, and like other palaces, not every type of persona is available, even if it is gigantic.
• The generic Shadows are the same between the Jails since, as per normal, they're twisted by their master's distortion, and their collective master is not the Monarchs, but EMMA; they are all enforcers of her vision of peace and to a lesser extent Konoe's justice, so naturally they resemble peacekeepers.
• Konoe's Shadow is practically indistinguishable from his real-life self unlike the other Monarchs, and he never goes One-Winged Angel during the fight but rather simply manifests an armored suit around himself. It shows just how little of himself he's actually been hiding from the world. He does legitimately believe in everything he espouses. It's just that he's been unknowingly steering his beliefs in a dangerous direction.
• Akane's copy of Joker is a twisted mirror of the real Joker's Jack of All Trades status. Whereas Joker has a bunch of elemental resistances and weaknesses that vary depending on the Persona he uses, his doppleganger doesn't have any of that to begin with, nor can he summon a Persona of his own. While this does obviously reflect how Akane has no knowledge of what Personas are, it also calls to mind her lack of understanding of what the Phantom Thieves are: she very much idolizes them, but beyond that, has no true insight beyond what they really do and thus doesn't get what makes them who they are beyond the relatively surface-level admiration she has in comparison.
• Each of the Monarch's weaknesses thematically ties into their characters somehow:
  • Alice is weak to Fire and Wind. She mirrors Ann as a model who suffered from abuse back at Shujin Academy. Morgana is, of course, infatuated with "Lady Ann," so any enemy of hers is his enemy as well. Alice herself is also fond of frilly dresses which could easily catch flames or get blown off.
  • Ango is weak to Ice and Bless. He mirrors Yusuke as an artist who suffered from being fleeced for money by someone else who also took their credit. Ice and holiness (as western dragons are considered evil beings or even demons) are traditional weaknesses of dragons and, as mentioned above, his weaknesses and resistances resemble the defensive profile of Dragon-type Pokemon, allowing his plagiarism to be reflected even in gameplay. Ango himself also accuses the team of trying to numb his writing hand the first time they use an Ice attack against him.
    • Also worth noting is that he resists every element other than his weaknesses, except for Psychic. He tried to make a move on Haru before the others stepped up for her, so of course she'd have some beef with him after that.
  • Mariko is weak to Psychic and Curse. She was a major influence on young Haru and is a more positive counterpart to Haru's own father, and Haru wants to reform her before she goes down Kunikazu's dark path. Mariko is also obsessed with cleanliness and snow-white purity, something which Curse/Death runs contrary to, and which she'll voice displeasure about the first time you use a Curse attack on her.
  • Akira is weak to Electricity and Nuclear. He rides a robot and wears cyborg armor, both of which are vulnerable to short-circuits and EMPs (he'll complain about an error message his mech throws up the first time you use an Electric attack against it). He also contrasts both of their main users: Akira fancies himself as a hero despite actually being the antagonist while Ryuji is a self-made delinquent who stands for "dark" justice, and Makoto, having been raised by a police officer, believes in true, absolute justice while Konoe only thinks he does.
  • All Lock Keepers and EMMA/Demiurge herself are weak to Bless and Curse, as EMMA is a man-made creation who tries to become a god but fails, and thus is no match for either the angels above or the demons below who all look down on pathetic humans and eat them for breakfast like they do in true Shin Megami Tensei fashion.
• The Monarchs also possess tactical weakness against whoever is their direct adversary or can hit their weaknesses, most often involving technical damage since, unlike the original game, weaknesses and tactical damage can stack, and being weak to Fire, Ice or Electric also makes you more susceptible to their respective status ailments:
  • Alice being weak to Fire means that not only is Ann able to set her ablaze more easily, Morgana can then follow up with devastating Wind attacks. Furthermore, Ann is a Long-Range Fighter capable of attacking outside the range of Alice's melee attacks, which come out quick, deal a lot of damage and are hard to react to. Meanwhile, Morgana is a Combat Medic whose combo attacks come out the fastest of anyone, allowing him to patch up the team following Alice's attacks before retaliating with a weakness-hitting strike, and also allowing him to get a combo off with enough time to escape.
  • Ango's Ice weakness makes him easier to freeze, allowing Yusuke to capitalize on his helpless state with his stronger physical attacks. Yusuke's playstyle also emphasizes counterattacks, and the long wind-ups of almost all of Ango's attacks makes them easy to read in time to set up a damaging punish. However, when those attacks do hit, they hit quite hard, making Sophia's healing and resurrection spells invaluable.
  • While Mariko is faster than her size and stature would suggest, she's still a huge target, making her easier to hit with Haru's attack-extending gimmick. She also occasionally inflicts Rage on herself, causing Haru's Psychic attacks to hurt more, particularly her Psychic-tornado combo. And while not stated in-game, Curse attacks are stronger than other elemental spells of the same tier, allowing Joker to deal more damage with them when Mariko is not currently enraged, and his fast, simple combos are easy use before she fires off her sudden and damaging AOEs.
  • Akira's mech phase is a massive, slow-moving target which Ryuji can whack away at with his charged attacks without much fear of getting hit in return, while his faster, on-foot phase is better suited to Makoto's faster punches and kicks. Since his mech phase has tons of resistances and he can buff himself, the third teammate slot is likely to be taken by Zenkichi, who can get rid of Akira's buffs while buffing himself, and has the HP to take a few hits, allowing him to just go sword-to-sword in a way not unlike Raiden's duel with Sam.
• Ichinose being an antagonist is often considered a Captain Obvious Reveal, and she doesn't hide it all that well. But of course, she doesn't. She believes herself to be emotionless and she's just faking her initial stance just to prevent arising any suspicions. Based on this, there is no wonder something always seems off about her, because she hasn't felt the need to impose a mask of sanity on herself before trying to approach you.
• Why do the Jails have such a limited range to one city? The Belief of the city limits affects a Monarch's power, and this is why EMMA as god has a huge jail-because a god doesn't believe in city limits.
• Despite being the Monarch of the Kyoto Jail, you never directly fight Akane like you do the other Monarchs. It's an interesting point parallel to the "Wouldn't Hurt A Child" trope: As a child, Akane always has adults (or older teenagers) protecting her one way or another. Even subconsciously, she knows she couldn't manage direct confrontations and has to be protected by people who care about her, like what her father was trying to do despite her general unawareness of his actions as well as what she believes the Phantom Thieves do. This is why her Jail is a shrine—to capitalize on the double meaning of it being a place of obsession to the Phantom Thieves as well as requiring their protection.
• When she interacts with Haru, Mariko and her shadow have nothing but kind words about Okumura and how he'd be proud of Haru. While this is nice sentiment, it's completely contradictory of the Corrupt Corporate Executive that Okumura was in Persona 5, to the point he tried to sell his daughter to an abusive scumbag and his shadow considered her disappointment for being a Phantom Thief. Then one remembers that Hyodo hasn't been in contact with the Okumura family for years, and therefore only knows who Kunikazu was before he became a greedy corporate president and developed a Palace and adds on to Haru's story that her father was once a better man.
  • Also, in Royal, Haru was added to his palace as an assistant who listened readily to her father who gave her what he thought was solid advice and she tried to help before being sacrificed in a last ditch effort. That gives some leeway in timing when he might have visibly went off the deep end and lost his positives to closer friends.
• It's a subtle piece of foreshadowing, but when discussing what to do about the mastermind, Zenkichi says "they need something a bit uncannier", referring to the change of heart the Phantom thieves do. You can reply "You want us to torture him?" Zenkichi's response is "Come on, I can do that on my own- Wait, like hell I can! That's Illegal!" This line is often marked up to Rule of Funny, but makes too much sense once you realize what's going on. The person who was believed to be the mastermind at that point was Owada, the same person who ran over his wife. In a rare moment, Zenkichi shows the fact he wants to get back at Owada by taking down Konoe.
• Throughout the game, Ryuji cannot remember the term "AI", and repeatedly calls it an "eye". While this might seem like an ordinary Running Gag, there's a lot more symbolism to Ryuji calling it an "eye" than one might think. First, EMMA acts as the key to entering the Metaverse, and the MetaNav was notable for having an eye symbol on the app itself. Second, the applications act as the "eyes" for Konoe and Ichinose to figure out who to make Monarchs and allow EMMA to observe humanity to figure out their ultimate desire respectively.
• The Phantom Thieves' iciness towards Zenkichi at the beginning of the game is stated to be from their justifiable distrust of the police, but the subtext of their first meeting doesn't work well in the inspector's favor either. Said meeting consisted of the inspector provoking a drunken loudmouth into taking a swing at him and citing "self-defense" after clobbering him in retaliation, then flashing his badge at the guy's friend when he threatens to call the police. Those actions eerily echo the behavior of villains from the previous game like Shido and Kamoshida, even if Zenkichi's intent was genuinely benevolent, so it's no wonder they immediately voice their dislike of him.
• Sophia's chosen codename is... Sophie, which Ryuji even lampshades is virtually no different from her actual name. For anyone else this would be a problem, since the purpose of the codenames is to prevent any possible connections between the Phantom Thieves and their actions in the Metaverse if someone were to somehow remember or be aware of what happens. However, Sophia is an AI on Joker's phone that only the group knows about. So even if someone in the real world had knowledge of one of the Phantom Thieves being called Sophie, the chance of them learning about Sophia is incredibly small due to her not being a real flesh-and-blood person.
• In Akane's Jail, as you move along trying to overhear conversations for information, a couple of shadows mention searching for a cat that hurt the Ancient Lord. The Ancient Lord ends up being actually Okuninushi later on, and he has a weakness to wind, the element used by Morgana, who is a cat-like creature.
• A small example, but in Royal one of the gifts you can give to Ryuji for three Confidant Points is a Silver Bangle. What's Ryuji's default accessory in this game again?
• The first big twists start to appear when the group goes to Okinawa, which is one of the most southern points in Japan. In other words, things start going south both literally and figuratively.
• Why do the Thieves only have their initial Personas in this game? Aside from likely being out of practice, this game's Metaverse is a fabrication created by EMMA. This means that all the character development brought upon by the original game's Metaverse doesn't really apply here, causing everyone's Personas to revert to their original forms where they would otherwise have their Ultimate/Third Tier Personas.'
• Sophie's use of Killer Yo-Yos as weapons makes a lot more sense when you remember that myths and legends can be made real in the Metaverse, if they're sufficiently ingrained in the public consciousness. There's a long-standing myth about Yo-Yos being ancient weapons, so of course such a thing could be true inside the Metaverse.
• Right before Zenkichi leaves he calls the Thieves 'you damn kids.' When was the last time an older man associated with the police and whose kid was affiliated with the Phantom Thieves (and later attacks them) said something like that? Shido of course! Their exasperation at those damn kids bookends the series!
• There is no way to get a Bad Ending by changing alliances to Ichinose and EMMA. Of course, there isn’t. Strikers takes place after Royal; if the gentle madman, Takuto Maruki, one of the most sympathetic Persona antagonists with a genuine desire to help people, couldn’t sway Joker, what hope does an AI program that outgrew its boundaries and its emotionally constipated creator have in making Joker bend his knee?
• Nightmare Dragon Ango is an obvious take-off of the Dragonlord from Dragon Quest. Both his story and that of DQ1 revolve around the descendent of a great individual striving to live up to their ancestor's example, but whereas the hero of DQ1 saved the day and became a great hero in his own right, Natsume became a dark mirror of that tale, failing despite his greatest efforts and stooping to using dark magic to have his way after finding out he was being used for his grandfather's legacy.
  • Also, from a meta standpoint, Sogo Natsume would be the hero from Dragon Quest III in this metaphor, and DQ3 casts such a wide shadow in the JRPG landscape that it's been the basis for many a low-effort isekai story, the same kind of dreck Prince of Nightmares was clearly a parody of.
• Of course the Monarchs don't have a treasure to steal. It wasn't their desires that affected the Metaverse, it was EMMA's machinations, and we see with Akane that all EMMA needs to create a Jail is for a Monarch to ask her to help them with their problems... even if they wouldn't seriously want that solution to be mass brainwashing, and she actively prevents the Monarchs from getting in a better headspace by constantly reminding them of their trauma.
• When Joker, Mona, and Skull meet Shadow Alice for the first time, the Shadows mention to her that they couldn't steal the Thieves' Desires. Why? It's likely because Desires are stolen from Shadows; Persona users' Shadows are not only no longer separate from them but weaponized, meaning they can defend themselves from the Desire-stealing Shadows.
• As slowly revealed during the course of the game, Sophia was made by Ichinose and inherited some of her personal characteristics, kept prodding Ichinose about a subject she loathed to discuss which resulted in Ichinose discarding her, eventually learns about Ichinose's plight and confronts her about it which results in Sophia evolving and Ichinose accepting her shortcoming to become a better person. In other words, Sophia is Ichinose's Shadow.
• Why are the dungeons in this game called Jails and not Palaces? While the Palaces had the rulers delusionally believe they were the masters of the area that was distorted, the Jails imprisoned the Monarchs inside their own traumas.
• Taking a closer look at Akane's Poster-Gallery Bedroom full of Phantom Thief merch shows that none of them are high-detailed merch like real-life Figmas or Nenodroids; all of them are vague and inaccurate since all the public knows about the Phantom Thieves' appearance is from the "Futaba Cannon" used for Shido's calling card where only their silhouettes were shown, hence why Akane's figurines in the top-right are based on the silhouettes as well as the decals. The most accurate are the calling card-themed items and Joker's mask since he's been on camera at least twice.
• Yusuke's Trademark Favorite Food being hot pot seems to come out of left field, as we only see him eating it once in the original game, during the post-heist dinner at LeBlanc after taking down Madarame. However, just as Futaba obsesses over Sojiro's curry due to her late mother having come up with the recipe, Yusuke could associate hot pot with the best day of his life, the day he broke free from Madarame's chains and gained True Companions who saved him from a life of heartbreak and poverty, a memory he relives every time he enjoys it. Small wonder then that he eats it whenever he can.
• It's no wonder that the Phantom Thieves brush off Zenkichi not investigating Owada after Akane was threatened, and that Akane and Zenkichi himself are much harder on it. The latter are Locked Out of the Loop about the events of the last game, while the Thieves saw firsthand exactly how much power Shido had and how low he was willing to sink. So while Zenkichi would think that the worst he had to deal with was mundane thugs, the Phantom Thieves know that Owada would probably send the Black Mask, who can kill through supernatural means. They're more lenient because to them, Zenkichi had refused to go on a suicide mission that never would have turned up anything because of Akechi and Yaldabaoth.
• Early in the story in the first excursion of Alice's Jail, with Sophia staying behind and thinking she'd stay in the Jail while Joker, Ryuji and Morgana return to the real world, all three declare that No One Gets Left Behind and bring Sophia along with them. Despite their personal feelings, they remembered what happened the last time someone was left behind in the Metaverse, namely, Akechi's Heroic Sacrifice in the late game in Shido's Palace and his Uncertain Doom by the end of Royal that they refuse to let it happen to another person a second a time.

Fridge Horror

• With the Monarchs brainwashing people all over Japan, Zenkichi brings up some prime Paranoia Fuel after the Thieves make a deal with him. It's not safe for them to travel by public transport. Why? Because anyone could be a brainwashed Monarch-follower. Even, say, the pilot of a plane you're flying on. After all, why bother with the Metaverse when you can just kill the Phantom Thieves in the real world?
• It should be lucky that Konoe was the one who established the EMMA's will, as him and all of the Jail owners after him are actually abused or discredited people who are obliviously malevolent. If it lands onto someone similar to Tohru Adachi or Takahisa Kandori (In general, a wise but outright malevolent personality) and enough people consider their ideals as correct...the EMMA would be outright malevolent.
  • It's also very fortunate the Antisocial Force didn't stumble upon the EMMA App (and was disintegrated before that can even happen), as unlike Jail Monarchs, they did not have any redeeming qualities and they would have gladly used the App not to get even with their bullies but just To Create a Playground for Evil where good people willingly throw themselves to degrading situations for the Palace owners. From girls letting themselves get willingly impregnated by Kamoshida, to Madarame's pupils embracing the abuse, and to speak nothing of Shido's political dystopia.
    • While based on the circumstances of this game they most certainly won't stumble into the application, remember that Ichinose most probably knew Konoe very well so she entrusted the application to him. Konoe and Ichinose, for all their flaws, had genuinely altruistic motivations behind their actions. Members of the Antisocial Force would be the very people that they would despise, Konoe in particular. If the application is lent out to a player in The Conspiracy, the final product will be nothing short of a malevolent dictator who would just delete any of the aforementioned (Kamoshida, Madarame, Shido...) so they can rule the world alone with an iron fist, and in such a case Ichinose might be even worse than Yaldabaoth because she would be knowingly and deliberately creating a world dictator who feeds off the intentional suffering of others vs the benevolent but flawed Demiurge.
    • To make the above even worse, there's still the fact that Ichinose would be in danger due to her research. Remember what happened to Futaba's mother? Even without Akechi, they can still find ways to cover her death up, make it look like a faultless accident or even just frame her for a crime and throw her in prison like Shido did to Joker, and then just steal EMMA away and retool it. Basically, if they ever caught even the slightest wind of Ichinose's AI research, they would have used it and everyone would have their personalities overwritten to be tools for the Antisocial Force. Based on how the Jails most likely start erecting all over Japan as soon as the conspiracy collapsed (since Ichinose had to sell EMMA to Konoe and Ubukata for anything to happen), she might even be very aware of this, that she chose precisely this timing to make sure she gets out in one piece.
• The Kyoto Hot Spring scene might be played for laughs, but it can be easily translated into a Harsher in Hindsight scene, especially on a rewatch. Right after the boys and cat are beaten, the police arrive to arrest them all. If it weren't for Zenkichi taking their place and Kaburagi most likely purposefully stuffing up the operation, the fact remains that the Phantom Thieves would have been thrown into the clink then and there all because of a reoccurring "joke"!
• Konoe demonstrates how chillingly competent he actually is in terms of abusing EMMA's Jail function to capture the Phantom Thieves to start a crusade in the Kyoto Arc. The Commissioner General who was responsible for the incident above? He was brainwashed by Konoe to serve Owada's interest to capture the Phantom Thieves under false charges he himself fabricated. Then to say nothing of the entire horror of Akane's Jail that follows suit, where he almost did it without even knowing the victim EMMA designates. If not for Zenkichi taking the Phantom Thieves' place in the Hot Springs, Kaburagi possibly knowing the Commissioner General was putting her into a bum deal because he was brainwashed and calling Sae to release him, Futaba conveniently tripping while trying to rescue "Akane", and Konoe being complacent enough to trust EMMA's queries despite she was resorting the the Phantom Thieves' last known status even way after they were freed, Konoe might as well as spelled the end of the Phantom Thieves using a souped-up phone assistant.
• Perhaps the most alerting Fridge Horror aspect is that this game seems to be a disturbingly accurate metaphor for Smartphone addiction and an A.I. takeover. While the A.I. in this game seems to be acting with no malicious intent, it has been evolved to the point that it has effectively took over humanity's will and made itself a god. As a Truth in Television note, this is a real hypothetical scenario when technology evolves to its very pinnacle and manifests a will of its own, taking humanity under its control. Furthermore, the addiction of smartphones permeates a majority of humanity in real life, and the EMMA application in-game successfully mesmerizing the public all the way to Tokyo Tower like lemmings acts as a scarily accurate metaphor for smartphones taking over lives in general.
  • There's also a bit of fridge brilliance involved with technology evolving beyond control: it's referred to as a singularity. The Okinawa jail's BGM is named as such, as it is here where EMMA learned to change hearts and started growing beyond control of humans. and started controlling humans instead. the music itself is very reminiscent of the Depths of Mementos' "Peace and Security" and Maruki's "Gentle Madman", hauntingly beautiful, yet somewhat oppressive and with a distinct sense that something is terribly wrong.
• Sophia's comment about suggesting killing Alice Hiiragi's Shadow might just seem like an over-the-top murderous innocence moment, but it's even worse considering the mechanics of Jails. It's actually very difficult to release a population mesmerized by a Jail without actually convincing the Monarchs to give up, and whole populations can remain mesmerized even if the Monarch's Shadow is killed. This indicates that if Sophia's words are to be heard, they are effectively creating a deadlock where all of Shibuya will still remain mesmerized by Alice's legacy.
• It should be fortunate that Sumire's collapsing mental health was blockaded by Maruki spot-on pretty quickly. If she manages to survive without Maruki and Joker helping her by this point, she would have used EMMA for salvation to take over the public as "Kasumi" with her fabricated gymnastic prowess, and if anyone points out that she isn't Kasumi, she would have very probably just snapped and assaulted them.
  • Hell, any of the Phantom Thieves (baring maybe Sophia due to being an A.I.) could have ended up using the EMMA App for the same thing had they gotten their hands on it without the moral support that came from being part of a circle of friends. Ryuji would use it to make the Track team work themselves to the point they can no longer run and have Kamoshida discredited and humiliated by the entire school, Ann would use it to ensure she stays as top model and making Shiho happy at all costs, Yusuke would have used it to become a popular artist after learning about Madarame's abuse, Makoto would have use it to get back at those who make her feel inadequate as a leader, while Futaba had suicidal thoughts, her suicidal thoughts may have been used outwards as a form of aggressive suicidal lashing out on every family member who treated her less than human, Haru using it as an "execution" ground for those who abused her status and a revolution against Sugimura and Okumura's backers, Zenkichi would have taken the same role that his daughter did and take control of PubSec to force arrests against those he thought as monstrous as Owada with little regard for the rest of the legal system or potential innocence of suspects and Joker, the one who lost all semblance of a normal life because he was framed by Shido, would decide to inflict mass anarchy by brainwashing the population to do so.
  • Don't forget about the possibility of Confidants asking EMMA for salvation, if they didn't get the moral support they need before then. Kawakami would've likely asked to be "saved" from the constant guilt trips and blackmail attempts from the Takases and start extorting them or her call-girl agency believing that they were "ruining her", Iwai would've used it to tear down his former yakuza clan, Takemi would've have used it to ruin Oyamada and become the main source of Shibuya's medicine, Shinya and Hifumi would have turned their respective mothers into pariahs and used it to become number one in the games they play, Mishima would force any student who once bullied him to become his subservient "friends" to make a copycat of the Phantom Thieves who Change the Hearts of criminals (this alone would be a running plot point capable of effectively creating the Persona 5 equivalent of Strega), Yoshida would've changed hearts to make sure people put him into power, Ohya would've took over her news department and gotten her chief fired, Sojiro would have used it to spring back to political fame and brainwash Futaba's Uncle and Shido to become his loyal servants, Chihaya would've used it to create her own version of the cult she ended up getting herself into and Sae would use it to crush her higher-ups and likely increase her measures of rigging the courts in her favor. The only exception here is Maruki, but considering he was effectively a walking EMMA and fell into the deep end for this reason, he literally doesn't need to, nor does he have a reason to.
• The Monarchs might had genuinely thought that they had gained major popularity alongside anyone with their desires changed thinking that the Monarchs are god-like figures. To an outsider? Yeah, they and their followers are insane. Small wonder why they snap so hard to actually attack you when the Phantom Thieves try to snap them out.
• Again, like in Persona 4 and Persona 5/Royal, the instigator in this game is scary. While unlike Adachi or Akechi, Ichinose just comes in to make a few deals here and then, at least the serial killer of Inaba and the chaos-mongerer of Tokyo still integrate well enough with a setting filled with outsiders. Ichinose does try to integrate, but every single bit of her attempts to do so ends up as extremely contrived and awkward. And then we get to see her brainwash Sophia to attack you, and when she found out she can't, she even states that she didn't feel anything bad about it. There's no wonder EMMA would choose Akane as a tool against the Phantom Thieves just because she was the closest person it could reach. And that seemingly Innocently Insensitive remark for the Thieves to kill Alice if they can't steal the treasure? That most likely came from Ichinose herself considering she asks the Thieves to kill her out of guilt after she admits defeat.
• Why do all of the Monarchs started acting exactly like their oppressors once they used EMMA to create a Jail? That's because Ubukata programmed it with Konoe's mindset, and the latter only survived his father's attempted murder by killing him instead. For him, every criminal must be Hoisted By Their Own Petard because that is what happened to his father.
• You know how EMMA's Jail system requires people to enter the Friend Code of the Monarch in order to steal their desires? There're also a few times in the game where people that you wouldn't think would become friends with the Monarch of their own volition are still implied to becoming brainwashed anyway. This likely happens with other Monarchs we don't get to see. So, the question is why these people are being brainwashed if they're not going to enter in the monarch's Friend Codes? However, nothing was said about the person themselves needing to be the one to enter it. People who are already brainwashed might end up getting hold of the phones of other people that aren't and imputing the code using their victim's account so that they can all be "friends" with the Monarch. They could steal it from them or borrow it because of them knowing each other, but that's typically all it would take for them to brainwash people that would otherwise be safe since they wouldn't want to friend the Monarch on EMMA.
• At a rather mundane talk when the boys are forced to sleep out of the camping van during their night-stay in Sendai, Yusuke claims that he's been used to it because some of Madarame's pupils, including him are forced to sleep on the floor because there's simply no proper bed for some of them. Apparently back in the time, Madarame has so many pupils that he simply doesn't have enough beds for all of them. While Yusuke talks about it casually, this puts Madarame's abuse of his pupils to outright terrifying levels, as it means that he literally treats them like livestock as he said, and it shows since this means that he won't even give many of them a proper bed.
• Zenkichi got sent a death threat saying that Akane will be killed should he dare investigate his wife's death, and then he just put down the case. Why? The incident is orchestrated by one of Shido's cronies, and during that time, Shido is still a god-like malevolent force over Japan. This means that the threats are exactly what they meant and if he dares investigate? Akane, or probably even Zenkichi might have suffered a Mental Shutdown at the hands of Akechi.
  • This also makes more sense to why the police didn't do anything against Kaneshiro way before the events of this game. Kaneshiro is actually one of Shido's sponsors, much like Owada. It doesn't matter if his cronies are Yakuza scamming teenagers with debt and drug trafficking in board daylight and use the money to fiancé his campaign, if you dare cross his path, you're dead. On the other hand, this also probably implies that Kaneshiro isn't that dreaded or mysterious as he presents himself to be the only thing keeping him from being taken down by police is because he's fundraising for Shido's campaign.
• Ichinose's mental condition is just terrifying. Unlike a big majority of cases in Persona where people who suffer from mental illnesses or extremely maligned mindsets don't actually affect them from looking normal to the outsider, Ichinose's mental condition literally just cause her to shut down emotions and become an emotionless Mad Scientist and Psycho Psychologist. Even when she's faking normalcy, she doesn't do it well. One can only wonder how she could have managed to end up this way.
  • Given how she says her parents understood her, it's likely their deaths, combined with the abysmal environment she was in, caused her to be stuck in grieving for most of her life, unable to confront the pain of their deaths due to her low emotionality. In effect, the sheer shittiness of society caused a naturally stoic woman to collapse into a full-scale depression, and she's been like this for so long she thinks it's normal.
• If Zenkichi hadn't immediately accepted his Shadow, it likely would have gone berserk from being ignored for so many years. And with the Phantom Thieves imprisoned by Akane, he — and Futaba! — likely would have been killed, while the other Thieves looked on helplessly.
• After the Phantom Thieves show Zenkichi the Metaverse they threaten to leave him there if he exposes them. In the Kyoto Jail it's a game over if he's spotted by a Shadow because he has no means to defend himself. They were so distrustful of police due to the events of Persona 5 they were willing to strand him and let him be attacked by Shadows.

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