Hilarious In Hindsight / Persona 4

• During the Okina event where you, Kanji, and Yosuke compete to pick up girls, you can talk to a religious fanatic. While it's clear she's nuts and has no idea what she's talking about, she does mention despair being the source of human suffering and hope being the path to salvation. This could very well be a reference to the whole plot of Izanami's plan—Namatame is the piece representing Despair, and drives most of the plot by kidnapping people and is the source of most of the conflict in the game. You, the player, are the piece representing hope and are indeed the only one able to save the world.
• Yukiko joking that Teddie wearing a cape would be silly. The joke pays itself off in Persona 4: Arena where she sees Teddie in said costume and bursts out laughing.
• Golden has Feathermen outfits◊ for the Investigation Team, which is triply hilarious because of Johnny Yong Bosch's well known role as the Black Power Ranger in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, was introduced as a transfer student to Angel Grove, and that Power Rangers Operation Overdrive episode "Once a Ranger" had him leading a team of assorted Power Rangers. Taken even further in Persona 4: Arena Ultimax, with the returning Persona 3 party member Yukari Takeba being revealed to be the actress portraying Phoenix Ranger Featherman R's Pink Argus, and that she's wearing her Pink Argus costume as she wanders around Inaba.
• Theodore's Fan Nickname "Flight Attendant Kanji" can be this if you let Kanji wear the Deep Blue Clothes.
• Hiimdaisy's webcomic has Chie using Bufu on Shadow Yukiko, one hit KO-ing it (which in the original isn't weak to Ice and thus qualifies as the original's Wake-Up Call Boss). Now in Golden, Shadow Yukiko is weak to Ice.
• There was a lot of fan art of Izanami joining the Investigation Team, or at least playing a bigger role in the overall story. When Golden was released and Marie turned out to be a part of Izanami, this came true.
• Mitsuo's dungeon was supposed to be styled after old NES Role Playing Games. Nowadays, it's hard to look at it and not think of Minecraft.
  • The boss from his dungeon, likewise, has become much more amusing with the news that Atlus was going to publish the North American version of 3D Dot Game Heroes.
• The common comparison that Ameno-Sagiri looks like a giant disco ball has become this after the announcement of Persona 4: Dancing All Night, a rhythm game featuring the Investigation Team.
• 3 has Personas being activated by having the user shoot themselves in the head with a pistol. Fast forward to this game, and we have Naoto, whose weapon is a pistol, which is used for the Persona Activation scene by shooting the card.
• Nanako asking if the weather forecaster decides the weather becomes this after the ending of Golden, when Marie becomes a weather forecaster who really can decide the weather.
• During Rise's Social Link, you frequently hear about her rival idol, Kanamin, such as from a group of people who say that Kanamin's true to herself, unlike Risette. In Dancing All Night, it turns out that Kanamin's main appeal is her manufactured character, and in terms of appearance and personality, the difference between Kanamin and the "real" Kanami is perhaps even larger than the difference between Risette and the "real" Rise. Similarly, Nanako says that she tells all her friends that "Rise-chan's way better" than Kanamin, but ends up bonding with Kanami during Kanami's B-plot.
• Naoto's Social Link has you aid Naoto in investigating a culprit known as the "Phantom Thief", and in the process rekindling her passion for detective work. In comes Persona 5, whose main characters operate under the name "Phantom Thieves", with one of their enemies also being a high school detective, even referred to as "the second Detective Prince" and the successor to Naoto herself.
• Yukiko is known for randomly laughing at anything. This became funny years later when her VA Amanda Winn Lee started posting videos about cannabis on YouTube.
• During the school's culture festival drag show, Teddie's pickup line is "Gimmie your hearts!" when he introduces himself. Come Persona 5, now it sounds like Teddie is trying to be a really aggressive Phantom Thief.
• All the Midnight Channel dungeons consist of an exaggerated place created by the mind of someone forced into the TV World that has a swirling red and black vortex as the entrance along with the same pattern in the sky. Minus the Midnight Channel, this sounds a lot like a Palace.
  • Aoi Yūki and Cassandra Lee Morris voice Canon Foreigner Aika Nakamura in Persona 4: The Animation. Both of them would go on to voice primary characters in the next installment (Futaba Sakura and Morgana, respectively.)
• As noted under Meaningful Name on the character page, Yu Narukami, when translated phonetically, means "You become a god". Daisuke Namikawa would later go on to voice "God" in the anime Hand Shakers.
• Due to cultural touchstones about how a cute mascot character is supposed to sound despite being separate VA, Dub Teddie ends up almost identical to Dub Monokuma. Them both sharing the running gag of bear puns while being horny on main bear mascots who can suicide bomb without dying only adds to it.
• The Final Boss of this game is revealed to be Izanami. Shiren the Wanderer 3, which was released one month earlier in Japan (June 5, 2008 vs. July 10, 2008), actually used the same twist; in the US, where both games were released by Atlus USA, this game beat Shiren to it by more than a year (December 9, 2008 vs. February 9, 2010)!
• Nanako being the innocent daughter of a police officer unwilling to use a gun becomes darkly hilarious come the next game in the SMT franchise, particularly in Overclocked, where the same VA would go on to play a tough, no nonsense SDF officer whose first scene has her threatening to shoot the teenage protagonists dead on the spot.

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