Part 22: Part Nineteen: Sumaru TV Preparation and Introduction

Part Nineteen: Sumaru TV Preparation and Introduction

Last time on Persona 2...

Ellen joined up! She, along with the Persona crew, is headed to Sumaru TV in order to talk to Wang Long Chizuru. Chizuru, a famous fortuneteller, is most well-known in Sumaru City for introducing the mysterious fortune-telling style known as Wang Long; she may have ties to the New World Order, which is what sparks our heroes' interest.
First off, though, we'll explore the new and final district, Narumi, and do the ol' dungeon prep thing.


First up is the new rumormonger, the Rumor-Lovin' Bartender, who works at the bar Ebony in Narumi. Let's see what she's got for us.

Oh god, deja vu.

Well, we didn't know about that jewelery shop, but apparently it's in Narumi so we'll check it out momentarily.


Salam has you map dungeons and gives you rewards for doing so. Actually making these maps is a gigantic, enormous, soul-crushing pain in the ass; you have to go over the entire place with a fine-toothed comb because if you miss so much as a centimeter you get squat. The rewards are definitely worth it, though; I'll show them off as we collect them.

Ebony also has drinks, as we see here.

Next up is Clair De Lune, which is apparently about to be the victim of a rumor.

At the moment, though, all they have is a variety of food I've never heard of. Not exactly the most useful place just yet.

Padparacha is a high-class jewelery store, and another place that's about to get hit by a rumor...

...at the moment, though, they only sell extremely expensive jewelery and gems. We'll check back after we spread that rumor and see if it's a little more helpful - at the moment, the rings only add a single point to a single stat and cost way, way too much; the gems are entirely useless until the rumor is spread.
Let's see if our other rumormongers have anything new for us.

Who didn't see this one coming?

Made her dream come true? Huh, that's new. Rumors like this are similar to the split-decision rumors we've messed with earlier, except instead of offering you a choice between the outcomes, it just picks one randomly and goes with it.

Over at the Johnny Roger, Ellen mentions something odd - anybody playing Devil Summoner these days?

Affinity Readings are yet another new feature we can add by spreading rumors; we'll have to give it a shot sometime, even if the new features usually aren't all that vital.

Here's another random split rumor.
For the next rumor, we drop by Shiraishi and pick up a mansearch for 'Humphrey'; apparently his ex-girlfriend is trying to find him, but she only knows his nickname.

We check around the city, and eventually come across him in Parabellum.

We guess his name, and...

...he gives himself up right away. ...I've counted the number of the stars before, but I've never counted the women from my past. This will be a hard one. Tell that person I'll always be in here. ...Tomorrow? I don't know about that far in advance. I wish Humprhey would join the party.

Though he doesn't join up, he does give us another random split rumor.



We also pick up a split decision rumor about a magazine. Again. Proof that people have way, way too much time on their hands?
We've got a pretty solid set of rumors to spread, so let's head to Kuzunoha and see what we can do about them.



Tammy knows Nate and Ellen, unsurprisingly, as they both went to the same high school.

Before we spread anything, not even delicious butter, we decide to satiate a sudden generous streak and give up a metric fuckton of money to the lucky cat statue.


Look, feedback!

That's about eight hundred bucks, by the by. Fucking cat.

Wait, maybe we'll get some kind of valuable prize that made it worth it all!

Oh god, I can't wait!

...oh good god. We paid eight hundred bucks to meet a furry in the bathroom. We could've gotten that for free, for christ's sake.


Tammy: I'm sorry, Maya. She just likes playing tricks on people. Geez!! Apologize to Maya also, alright?!
Nekomata: S, so-wee...As a token of apology, I'll tell you my most treasured rumor, meow! Let me start over...How do you do, meow? I'm the rumor-loving Nekomata, meow. I collect rumors unknown to humans, meow.
God, even transcribing this makes my soul cry.

Well, guess we should make the best of this and see what she's got.

This unlocks aromatherapy at Kaori, obviously...

...this one unlocks treatments at Etheria...

...and this one unlocks ice cream at any Trish's Fountain. Not bad; not exactly worth eight hundred bucks, but hey, it's worth it for a little bit more completion, eh?
We spread the single-choice rumors, saving the split decision and random split rumors for the moment, and head by Kismet since Maya hasn't been to work since...ever at this point.

Mizuno starts chewing us out right away, of course.

Uh...were we there? Nope. Nobody saw us. Why do you think we were there?

Look, a woman is a flower when she's bound to her work! Don't shake your petals just because of some cute guy! Men are monsters! ...They approach you with a sweet face, then take your money and stuff! Now get back to work! What are you doing?! Hurry up and get back to work!
This appears to be typical Mizuno bitchiness, but it's actually significant later on, so keep it in mind.
Let's continue with preparation for Sumaru TV. We need to replace Ellen's shitty Persona with something that's actually worth using, so we head into the bomb shelter and see if we can fill our Tarot deck a bit.

Let's see how Ellen deals with the demons...

...errr... Maya interviews them, Ulala tells their fortune, Katsuya interrogates them, Baofu blackmails them...Ellen seduces them.

This feels so, so wrong.

Let's see if it's any less weird when we pair up Maya and Ellen.


Well, that was obvious, especially since you RUN AROUND TRYING TO GET DEMONS TO BED YOU GOOD CHRIST.

It only get more insane if we pair Ellen up with the guys.

Baofu's a pig, as well? Damn, who would have expected that?
Here's Ellen, Katsuya, and Ulala.



How in the world can they be taking themselves seriously at this point? I already can't look at Ellen the same way ever again. :cry:
And the best contact of all, at least of the ones we currently have unlocked...



Yes, Ellen corrupts Ulala and Maya and they all get in on the self-prostitution. :cry:
After a few battles' worth of this craziness, we've got enough Free Tarot to head back to the Velvet Room. There, we convert them into Hierophant cards in order to summon...


...Shaka. Remember him? Well, you should, because I'm not linking to his Wikipedia entry again, you lazy bastards. :argh: Shaka is an Earth Persona from the Hierophant Arcanum, which Ellen is fairly compatible with. His spells aren't very fusion-friendly, but they don't really need to be; he does a fairly crazy amount of damage all on his own, especially with Ellen's nutty TEC stat. The main reason we want him, though, is because he's Strong Against All; this includes being immune to both flavors of instant death spell, Light and Dark. We call him up, hand him to Ellen, and head on over to Sumaru TV.


There, we immediately run into yet another returning character from the first Persona. Brad here was an optional character from that game; he fought using a spear, a submachine gun, and his Persona Nemhain, which was poorly translated to "Talon" for the US version.
Ellen: Hi, Brad...how are you doing, Yuki?
Yuki: I heard about what's happening, Maya. I came with Shunsuke to take some pictures of Brad, but I'll help, too!
Ellen: Brad...have you seen her yet?
Brad: Yeah...Wang Long Chizuru is up in the dressing room.

As the group talks, a black cat walks in and starts observing their conversation.
Yuki: That was about the time when a bunch of magazines did articles on Wang Long. That's obvious manipulation.
Katsuya: The question is whether that woman is in New World Order or not. There is the possibility of her just being a pawn.

Katsuya: What a cute cat...it's probably a star's pet or something...
Brad: Now that you mention it, Wang Long Chizuru had a cat like that...
Baofu: Forget the stupid cat...let's go...
Before we head up, we chat around. The characters don't have anything all that unusual to say - Brad's here for an interview, Yuki's here for a photo shoot, Katsuya is in fact allergic to cats, Ulala thinks the cat is suspicious, and Ellen tells us that Chizuru's dressing room is on the second floor.

Oddly enough, security guards have the real gold here, in the form of a new rumor demon.
If you meet Reiko Kashima, you must say..."The R in Reiko stands for 'revenge'. The E in Reiko stands for 'eradication'. The I in Reiko stands for 'inescapable'. the K in Reiko stands for 'kill'. The O in Reiko stands for 'obfuscate'." Or else you will die. Will someone exterminate her before it's too late?!

No, I have no idea what the fuck he's talking about either.
You heard it from him, right? Just ignore it. ...It's just a misunderstanding. Do you know Ms. Kurosu? Yes, the actress. He mistakenly saw Ms. Kurosu as Reiko Kashima. It's not that I don't understand, with Ms. Kurosu's "unique" appearance and all. But it's rude mistaking her for a monster.
Well, whatever. We spread the rumor anyhow; afterwards, we're all set for the next dungeon. Stay tuned!

COMING UP NEXT: The revolution will in fact be televised! ...Or some stupid TV joke like that.