Part 34: 07/08/09 - 07/11/09

Since we just had full moon antics, we're auto-tired which we're going to put to use today. And not for the normal reason we used to either.


Listening: Sounds cool to me! I wanna go to the sea, the mountains, everywhere! But, before that... we've got finals starting on Tuesday.
Gossiping: Ugh, I'd forgotten about that. But that means a break is after the exams! And summer vacation is just around the corner!
> The first bell has rung.

Ah, right. Exams are coming up very soon now. Hmm. This is going to present a problem twice over - schedule issues, yes, but also we're gonna get a lot of classroom scenes this week. Eep.





It's basic English grammar and even if you're not super great at something that you've never really thought about before, context makes it VERY obvious at least. Hurray!



It's important to remember at this point that answering these correctly gives Charm points. That we, uh, don't need any more. Still gonna be getting them right because it's more useful to do so, overall.
...Or maybe we could just skip these scenes wholesale from now on, but that has some issues. Namely with how they help with exams which do matter still. Doing well on your exams IS important.
I am now your mother, apparently.

Anyway, we'll deal with that in the future. For now, we can see immediately that we need to reschedule stuff... is what I'd say if this wasn't a Wednesday. Kaz isn't around then. Whoops.

But, yeah, week before exams so we can't do school S.Links anyway. So, first we're off to the Nurse's office to do a thing.

Or, rather, to NOT do a thing. We have to be Tired (or Sick!) to not just get kicked out of the office immediately. If we are Tired/Sick, we get this option like normal and drinking Edogawa's fucked up experiment shuts us out for the day and means we can't do what we want until we come back when we're Tired/Sick again in the future.
In short (too late), we're not drinking anything.





Well, this is actively definitely harmful rather than just a terrible idea. What the FUCK, Edogawa?
...The only mercy here is that no one is going to be taking this medicine anyway.

Decided to try the bathroom now to see if we'd luck out and get a status upgrade out of it. Now we can study tonight as well as do... whatever else we'll be doing.


Oh, and this little sidestory has updated too. We're no longer on the roof and I guess "he is a dickhead who throws rocks at birds" and "picks his nose when he thinks someone isn't looking" is all we know about the other guy.


Meanwhile, he's... well, he's definitely incredibly weird and probably not all that healthy either. It's really fucked that Edogawa is the school nurse, because clearly someone competent is necessary around here.


It definitely would be, yeah. Old Medicine is really absurdly bad.





At least our reward for giving Liz objectively terrible medicine is some rad medicine. Cures all ailments across the entire party. Possibly handy!
My favourite dumb thing about this, by the by, is that the Megaten Wiki in its infinite dumbness seems to think these don't even exist. Yeah, I dunno.

Anyway, it's interesting (to me) to note that we have access already to the next set of sidequests. Normally we don't get these until Liz gives us a call about Tartarus.
Anyway, let's talk about some of these for a sec. We're gonna feed a cat! We're gonna feed the heck out of a cat! This is a bit more involved than it sounds, though...

This one we can't do yet, because it requires a minimum level of 27 to do. Yes, really. But it's also the next one in a quest line so it was only unlocked by giving Elizabeth the awful medicine.

And this one is... simple but interesting. It gives us a Bus Stop Sign which has a new icon we've never seen before on it. It's clearly a gag weapon, but it's... an axe...? We don't have any party members who can use axes... I guess Makoto's unique weapon type, along with his versatility, is an axe. That's kinda rad and also I wanna beat stuff up with a bus stop sign.

So we WILL be going back to Gekkoukan to get some music in a moment, but first we have to buy some cat food. The pharmacy sells very fancy cat food purely for this one quest, which is cute and cool. We're buying 4 cans or whatever they are.


So, we want music from the school. Music room is a tempting idea for obvious reasons, but that's used for a club so that doesn't work here. Instead, we're going to the PA Room up on the 2nd floor (next to the Student Council).

> You hear bizarre music playing inside.

Male Student's Voice: ..."Gekkoukan Boogie"? Why does the school have music like this...? ...Must be a teacher's theme song or something. ...Crazy. *chuckle*
Well, that's an interesting idea but I think this'll do the trick quite nicely.

Male Student: Huh? This music? I have no idea what it's for, but it says "Gekkoukan Boogie" on it. Huh? You want it? ...Are you serious!? Sure, you can have it. We don't have any use for it, anyway... Here... Now, get out of here, before you get me in trouble.

Alright, so before we take this back to Elizabeth, we're going to head to the Port Island Station for a moment because there's been a bit of a change there lately.


Until relatively recently, there was a barrier on the left-hand side that shut us out from the cafe area. And more importantly, those stairs in the corner.

They let us get to a place that we've seen a couple of times before now, at last. More importantly, there's a cat hanging out here.
> He seems to be very weak. Maybe he's hungry...

We're gonna be giving 'em some top-tier Super Cat Food!
> The cat slowly started to eat.
Weak cat: Meow... Meowww...
> The cat is purring loudly. It seems happy.

That we can and DEFINITELY will do. Can only feed the cat once a day, so we're done here for now.


Which means we go back to Elizabeth!










Alright, NOW we're done with Liz for the time being.

So, the Bus Stop Sign can only be used by Makoto and it's the latest "joke" weapon naturally. That means it's top-tier for the time being and is most likely going to be glued to Makoto for a long while yet.

But for the here and now, uh, we can't do school S.Links so I guess we're off back to the bookstore for a while.



















> It seems Bunkichi and Mitsuko are counting on you.
> Your relationship is stronger now!


Well, uh, the next time probably won't be several months from now so that's reasonable!
> After saying goodbye to Bunkichi and Mitsuko, you decided to go back to the dorm.






So, I guess this is about that secret thing that Yukari asked Mitsuru to look into before. I really wanna know what that was...


But, well, first we have everyone else to talk to. Junpei is acting really pissy right now. Joy...


Sorry, Akihiko we can go to Tartarus tomorrow, but we won't be.

Mysterious vandalism has occurred at the hotel Champs de Fleurs. Mirrors in the hotel rooms were shattered. Though the hotel had many guests, none of them saw the culprit. Some guests have also reported theft in their rooms. Police are currently investigating the incident.
Depending on who looks into it, they might already know the answer but be unable to do anything about it.







The girls are upstairs and man, Fuuka, you are REALLY bad at this.

Like Akihiko said, Mitsuru's not around right now so all that remains to do something. Since it's a Wednesday, that means we go to the Arcade to play Who Wants To Be A Millionaire or something.

And since we got lucky with the bathroom, that means we can double-down on our Academics gain today and get 6 points. Which is not even really all that close to enough for a level.

But +6 is something we can only potentially do two days a week, so who knows when we'll hit the next rank right now.


Listening: It's because the building wasn't built that long ago, so everything is still gleaming. You know, I heard from my parents there was an explosion here 10 years ago. They replaced the building after that, but... There's more to it, too. Around that time, a lot of students stopped coming to school. Maybe that's why they put up the new building... To start with a clean slate...
Gossiping: An explosion!? Did someone screw up in chem lab or something? That must have been a dangerous lecture...
> The first bell has rung.






I, uh... I genuinely have no idea. So, I'm just gonna guess.





So, now that we're done with school stuff for the day we need to do the most important thing.


Gotta feed the cat some more. It's still not done but it's slowly getting there day by day.

Now that we've got the most important thing done, let's go be friendly to the elderly again.

Which isn't for the last time. We need a lot more points than the previous scene could give... so much so that this didn't push us to the threshold either! I do believe that's the first time spending time as a non-event hasn't been sufficient for a rank up.

Oh and NOW Elizabeth lets us know we can climb higher in Tartarus. We already had the sidequests available though, so okay I guess.




I agree. I am definitely going to invest my time very wisely.
Well, what time of it I can anyway. Exams do steal a week automatically which kinda sucks.







Natto has become surprisingly popular overseas. Called "Miracle Beans" in foreign countries, they sell five times what they do in Japan. A well-known natto producer said, "Good thing I kept making it!"
Natto sucks and is hella gross, sorry. You can disagree if you like, I won't stop you, but you're wrong.


The girls are up on the... third floor. Huh. I think this is the first time we've stopped on this one.






Alright, so now that we're done at the dorm we need to figure out what we're gonna be doing tonight. Hmm, let's see it's not a quiz night so we're not off to the Arcade...
Tanaka isn't around on Thursdays...
Wait, Thursday? I've got it!

Mutatsu, my other old friend!



Gotta admit, I wasn't expecting the chain-smoking, drunk old monk to the be The Tsundere and yet.


















> You saw through Mutatsu's harsh words and felt his kindness.
> You understand Mutatsu better now.



> You decided to go back to the dorm.
Reminder that we're still about like 8 levels out from the first Tower persona. That seems really close, but it's still likely gonna be a bit of work to get there at the moment.

And we're gonna keep on gettin' that free Academics boost because it's right here after all.

Awkwardly, we don't even start exams until Tuesday. That might be useful though, thinking about it...























Okay, in all seriousness here: the stuff Edogawa "teaches" is kinda genuinely interesting. Or, rather, it would be if it wasn't in one-sentence long text boxes that kinda go fairly slowly. And also if it wasn't just eyerolling and weird to have Edogawa be so consistently bad at his job.


Gotta feed the cat some more. He's slowly getting better thanks to the power of Expensive And Fancy Food. Awesome
We could spend the day at the bookstore, but right now that's kind of a waste. We know we won't rank up yet and we'll get better timing to go back there later on. So, what to do...

We haven't really spent time with Maiko since we gave her some takoyaki and cola.











> Maiko seems sad.

> Maiko seems to enjoy hanging out.
> You got to know Maiko, the grade-schooler.


> A mysterious voice rings in your head...











> You decide to go back to the dorm.
Man that's... pretty much the kinda thing I would expect from a small child's S.Link really. At least if it's a consistent through-line and not dropped after like rank 3 I mean.



So, Junpei is actively avoiding us. That's... not really a good sign, huh?

A miraculous flower which only grows once every 100 years has bloomed. It seems to be responding to the other strange events in town.
I do like the implication that this isn't a year it was supposed to happen. It takes almost a month for the Dark Hour to amount to 1 day of time, though, so that can't very quickly or easily cause that kinda discrepency.

Oh and Junpei is the only person with something new to say today. And it's new because it's nothing. Thanks, Junpei.

And with today being a Friday, that means we can go hang out with Mutatsu again.


Although we're still at the stage where no matter what, we'd need a scene-free time to get a rank up. Mutatsu is a bit awkward but he's a night link so it's fine since we don't really have much to do at night.

Academics are still a thing, and still aren't Rank 4 which is kinda amazing. You'd think it would be by now.

I reckon we've got enough time for one more day.















Masakado was born in 903 and died in 940. So, uh, we skipped forward "a little" alright. Almost 300 years is only a footnote, right?

> It's from Akihiko.

> "He has something to tell us."
> "We'll meet on the 4th floor as soon as everyone is back."
So, I guess we'll have a small plot scene this evening. Alright, sure. But first!


> The cat is purring loudly. It seems happy.
> The cat seems to have regained all its energy by eating the cat food.
> It seems you won't need to come and feed it anymore.
I'm glad that the cat is healthy again, but man it's a shame that now we just ignore it forever. It makes sense for Makoto specicially, sure, but it's still pretty awful!






Masukukaja in an item form. It's, uh, nice I guess? There's no request we can do right now that doesn't involve going to Tartarus in some way, so we'll get around to that at some point I guess.
...Well, there's Vetala which I might be able to finagle a way to get but it's definitely easier when I have funds to use again.

And, sure, Maiko's gonna be our main pre-exam week S.Link now. Makes sense to me!






> You decide to take a trip to Wild-duck Burger.







> Maiko is about to start crying.




> Maiko is sobbing loudly.



> Maiko is trying her best to smile.
> Your relationship is stronger now!



> You returned to the dorm after walking Maiko home.






























It, uh, seems like it's been relevant from before the start?












Suddenly, we're in the anime-zone...?














































































It, uh, it always feels weird having a scene that seems like it's the end of the day but whoops we have a bit extra afterwards. It's kinda jarring in a way.

But, well, we can take advantage of this to ask Ikutski some stuff.





















Whew, that was a lot more optional exposition than I expected.

















Today's guest is Masao "Mark" Inaba, who is in a group of 2 whole people! He was in the original Persona game, as a playable character during the SEBEC route, who does not appear in either Persona 2 game since he is busy being an artist in New York. Which is a bit of a shame since he can dance funky.
...Right, and uh you definitely know about this but in Revelations: Persona (the US release of the PS1 version), this is Mark:

Yes, this is real. And, yes, his dialogue was rewritten to be AAVE. Because obviously.
Anyway, Mark's primary arcana was the Chariot and his default Persona was Ogun. An interesting choice for a main character's default but hey.
I'm gonna mention this now because this is when I made the connection myself: the dates each episode of Who's Who has aired has been the relevant character's birthday. Go back and check if you want.

Meanwhile, in 2009, Yukari, Mitsuru and Akihiko have all shut themselves up in their rooms. That's why we can't Tartarus today and instead are off to study via the Arcade.

And, uh, actually studying. That helps too.
But it looks like we're not getting to Academics 4 before the exams, which is unfortunate but not really a bit deal in the end. Hopefully.
We could give it one last shot on Monday, sure, but that's definitely more of a "well if we have to" kinda thing. After all, that's a good time to go to Tartarus if we get the chance.