sincere | Persona 5 LIVEBLOG (COMPLETE)

9/15. After school, the party heads to Okumura Foods HQ to boggle at how tall it is. Futaba has discerned that the final keyword is "outer space", and no one asks how she did it and no explanation is provided. I mean, I have my theory, but still, it feels like it's being glossed over!!

...anyway, Akechi happened to be passing by, and/or was stalking us, when we entered the Palace. Ehe.

So Okumura's Palace is like a satellite in orbit above the earth, and his cognition of his employees is that they're robots who get thrown out when they're no longer useful. Futaba has to keep reminding Ryuji that they are here to find Morgana, not to deal with Okumura.

Okumura's security system proves difficult to overcome, and the party quickly finds themselves trapped. Just then, someone calls out to them -- a girl in a black mask

Even though this is obviously not the dude who's been threatening people in the Metaverse, it's not a completely unreasonable assumption, I suppose. I mean, what else is she doing here.

For all that she called out to the party, she doesn't say anything afterward, so they flail for a bit until Morgana reveals that he has teamed up with, uh, with the Beautiful Thief. The seriousness of the moment is promptly punctured, even though she rolls with her new name.

This other Persona user scolds the party for not being good enough at phantom thieving! She is adorably bad at it. Morgana confers with her and then she tries again, throwing out a few insults for him.

Anyway we're taking the Treasure, POSE! for the third time.

Somehow she gets through the biometric scanner securing the door that we couldn't get past. Hmmmm! But there are a small army of Shadows on the other side of the door and everyone runs for it.

The party meets up in Joker's room, as per usual. Futaba also finds it suspicious that she was able to get past a biometric scanner. Okumura's daughter or something? Makoto muses that she thinks that girl reminds her of someone from school... So they decide that tomorrow, they will investigate the Student Council's photos.

9/16. After hours of poring over photos, they find a match. Okumura Haru. Okumura!! But she's doubtless already gone home for the day.

...they think, until Joker leaves the building and sees her in a track suit attempting to do some heavy-duty gardening. He helps her with the heavy lifting and she is super happy about it. She recognizes that he's one of the second-year students, whereas she's a third-year. Just contemplating how virtually every one of Joker's love interests is a minimum of one year older than he is. I have questions for the team behind this game.

Haru: --Have I seen you before...?
Makoto: (darting out from behind a potted plant) WHY WERE YOU IN YOUR FATHER'S PALACE LAST NIGHT
Haru: ...oh, that's where I've seen you before. :D

Haru seems like a precious cinnamon roll type. She even admires Makoto's biker outfit!

She confesses that she's had some doubts about her father's management practices, and she wants to make amends as more and more of the shitty things he's doing are coming to light. But idk, maybe sneaking into his brain while in disguise isn't the most reasonable course of action? It just seemed like the best way to actually change his beliefs.

She accidentally followed Morgana into the Metaverse. He looked lonely!!

Makoto: Can we work together?
Haru: ...you guys are creating total chaos, and for what?
Haru: And what kind of champions of justice ditch their own teammate??

Touche. She is quite firm about this. She and Morgana are doing this on their own.

I love her so much. I am going to try to resist descending into an elongated fit of OMG HARU MY QUEEN AKDHSKIFHDH ♥ because no one has time for that shit. But make no mistake: I'm feeling it. Just. Quietly. Over here, in the corner. where I also keep my Haru shrine.

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slayerofgod - 2019-07-20 16:25 (UTC) - Expand

Haru arrives home that evening and her dad won't even look at her, he's so busy doing "evil CEO" stuff. His only concern is if the media asked her about him.

He tells her that he's the #1 rated target for the Phantom Thieves and she's startled. He claims it's pure jealousy, and is suspicious that she still doubts him. Interesting he used the same word. They've obviously had a conversation about this and she was very cowed by it.

Anyway, how is your arranged courtship going? It's very important to the business that you get along!

9/17. It seems from the Phan-Site that some Mementos requests are being fulfilled even though we aren't doing them, so maybe that's where we can find Morgana and talk to him. The party lies in wait at the entrance to Mementos. Ann harasses Ryuji in whispers about apologizing to Morgana.

Morgana warms up a little when Makoto asks him to come back.

Morgana: S... so you guys do need me??
Joker: Yes.
Ann: Yes!
Ryuji: Not really, though.
Ann: RYUJI SO HELP ME
Ryuji: I mean, uh... whatever...
Ann: Ryuji wants to apologize
Ryuji: Well...
Ryuji: I guess some what happened was kind of maybe my fault too
Ryuji: Anyway, I don't care if you're not human or if you're useless
Ryuji: Both of which are obviously true
Futaba: omfg

Morgana rages out and leads us on a chase through Mementos. Poor Haru is just collateral damage in our petty emotional feud, no one was even listening when she had something to say.

On the way home, Haru is unsure that Morgana actually wanted things to turn out that way, because obviously. But she is stopped suddenly by a very menacing young man who demands to know where she's been. Was she out late having fun with a guy?!? He deserves some fun too...

Yikes, her dad is a dick and he has bad taste in men

He is physically hurting her, and an enraged Morgana launches himself at the guy's leg, but is quickly kicked into the wall. O, ow! Haru is very upset and Morgana feels even more useless.

The party hears Morgana crying out and comes running, and they confront the asshole, who promptly lets go of Haru and makes a slick statement about how it was just "a lover's quarrel with my fiancee". When this does not get the immediate deference he expected, he threatens everyone and stalks off.

The party wants her to talk to her dad about her fiancee's behavior, but lol, that would not work. Haru miserably says that he would just make her beg for her fiancee's forgiveness.

Morgana gets back up and convinces the party to take Haru to Joker's place, where she curls up and passes out for a little bit.

When she wakes up, Morgana apparently resumes a speech that he was apparently allowed to begin about how no one should risk themselves for his useless nonhuman self, so he's quitting. Nobody is allowed to have input about this; this is Morgana and Haru's time to have their moments.

Haru picks Morgana up and gently reprimands him about how he told her he was a Phantom Thief and he wanted to get stronger to make the others acknowledge him, because he loves being here and loves them. Morgana profusely denies it! But she knows what lying to yourself is like, because before she got her Persona she thought she was just doing this because her father was doing bad stuff, but actually it's because she is so fucking done letting him decide stuff for her like who she's going to marry.

Morgana admits that when he started out, this whole group was just a means to an end: regaining his memories and becoming human again. But that didn't go anywhere, and he slowly realized that he had no real reason to be here, doing this.

But he wants to stay

That's perfect, because everyone wants you to stay, too.

Morgana overcomes his choked and tearful confession and mutters some apology. He re-establishes his deal with Joker, which gives us Magician, Rank 8!

It's late at night now and everyone has to shuffle home before the trains stop running. Futaba takes Haru home to spend the night at Sojiro's, which is nice. Morgana is happy to be at home in Joker's rundown room. Looooove

9/18. It's Sunday, and Haru is having breakfast at Leblanc with the Sakura family and Joker. Sojiro seems deeply impressed by Joker's swag. He brings home a lot of attractive girls, is all. Even if they just found his missing cat.

Anyway, Haru is in a pretty good mood! Yaaaay eating with other people!! She's going to go home, you know, so her dad doesn't get suspicious and make it harder to steal his heart! They all trade contact info.

MORGANA: Will you be okay on your own? I can go with you!
HARU: I'll be fine. And you belong here, right?
MORGANA: W... well... yeah~

Cute.

Haru goes home to find that her dad has already decided she's going to move in with that douchebag, before they're even married. "Go prove your sincerity to him." Yikes. I can't tell if he's deluding himself to think that dude would still marry her or if that dude would still marry her just to make her miserable. Anyway, he's busy, don't cause trouble.

So Haru immediately calls a meeting.

She will move in with him on October 11, so that's our deadline to give her dad a change of heart. Yusuke wants to be sure that she's okay with what it will mean after her father confesses to his crimes. Not only is she okay with that, she actually requested the Phantom Thieves do it via the website before she ever met Morgana. It was fate!

She is officially welcomed into the group. Morgana warns us that her Persona still hasn't taken a set form yet (aha!) -- she can transform but that's basically it. I'm sure we'll fix that for you, honey.

Haru is extremely formal and respectful in text messaging, so Makoto tells her to lighten up, so Haru immediately switches to "Mako-chan". Adorable! Makoto decides she's okay with that. Ryuji also calls her "Mako-chan" and there is dead. silence. until he apologizes.

From what I see, Haru's text bubble looks too similar in color to Ann's. I feel like they could've done better picking a color for her.

9/22, and Mishima has dragged Joker to Akihabara to look at gadgets. Superheroes are supposed to have gadgets, right? They're interrupted rather quickly by Chihaya the fortune teller, who Mishima recognizes, and he gapes at the fact that Joker knows her.

CHIHAYA: Um, is this a friend of yours...
CHIHAYA: No. I think more like a fanboy.
MISHIMA: You can tell that just from looking at me?!
MISHIMA: You really are psychic
CHIHAYA: But why would you be a fanboy of his?

Mishima makes up a story about how Joker is, like, so smart about electronics and Mishima suuuper respects that. So Chihaya makes Joker help her pick out a new TV.

The Mishima situation got weird.

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pict - 2019-07-21 10:09 (UTC) - Expand

I now possess a Nintendo Switch and two 80 hour Nintendo Switch games, so it's time to FINISH SOMETHING. I'm an idiot, so it's apparently going to be this game, the game I am probably least close to finishing.

Where were we. 9/24. Soon to be doing Haru's dad's dungeon. I GOT THIS.

Is one of them FE:3H!

also give me your friend code.

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sincere - 2019-12-21 18:16 (UTC) - Expand

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pict - 2019-12-21 18:17 (UTC) - Expand

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sincere - 2019-12-21 18:43 (UTC) - Expand

I feel bad for dragging out the Haru situation, but my guide doesn't want me to go into the Palace until 10/5, just a few days before the deadline. Meanwhile we're all just dicking around while she's being handed off to an abusive rapist and her family is receiving death threats. Feels uncool?

Anyway, it's October now, so everyone is wearing their winter uniforms again! I forgot how neat those looked.

Ann: Good morning.
Ann: Why haven't we done the fucking Palace yet?

Excellent question, Ann! But today is infiltration day.

I went to Chihaya to get a money fortune, and she told me that she did some readings about Joker and she kept getting the "Empress" card. Is he having trouble with women? Well, Haru is the Empress, so maybe even the arcana is trying to tell me to get on with this shit.

Today we hold the pre-infiltration meeting in Joker's room, because we're finally making good choices. I'm not allowed to put Haru in my party because her Persona isn't ready yet.

Unsurprisingly, now that Okumura's daughter is with us, the biometric scanner recognizes her and grants us access deeper into the Palace.

Ryuji wants to know what was up with all that "beauty thief" stuff from last time, and Haru bashfully explains that people have always just seen her as a way to win favor from her dad, and were only interested in her for personal gain. So she's always been into the heroines she saw on TV, who were selfless and brave!

Suddenly, Shadow Okumura appears! He is some sort of Darth Vader/space alien hybrid. With him is Shadow That Douchebag who assaulted Haru, I think.

SHADOW OKUMURA: Are these the Phantom Thieves?
SHADOW OKUMURA: I see... You're turning them over to me as a plea for forgiveness!

You have badly misread the situation.

SHADOW OKUMURA: "Overcome failure at any cost, even if it means betraying others."
SHADOW OKUMURA: That's the Okumura family motto!

That is a shitty-ass family motto, dude.

Anyway, Shadow Haru's Fiance validates all my concerns by sniffing about how Haru is clearly damaged goods and he's not really interested in marrying her anymore, and Shadow Okumura is like, "I totally understand, you don't have to marry her, you can just fuck her or whatever," and Shadow Haru's Fiance is like, "Okay, I will." Um????????????

I just want to reiterate that this is literally Okumura's cognition of Haru's fiance, so it's not like Haru's real fiance sprung this on him and he reacted to it, this is what he believes this guy is like.

So now that the worst thing ever has happened, it's time for a cutscene where Shadow Haru's Fiance turns into a boss monster and gets even more creeper on. "A high school fiancee, what a turn-on!" Yikes. That's a lot for a character whose name is just "Haru's Fiance".

Obviously Haru has been pushed past her limits and she Personas up. Her Persona ("Milady"?) is a very dramatic queenly figure who has an arsenal of weaponry under her humongous skirts. It's awesome. Haru embraces the drama (even in pain as her Persona forms, she has a dramatic spotlight on her, lol) and goes full phantom thief with speeches about righteousness.

Shadow Okumura leaves Shadow Haru's Fiance to handle this, and Morgana proclaims, "We, the Phantom Thieves, are here to take your bride!" lol I love that.

Anyway, Haru feels pretty great about that. She decides her own Phantom Thief nickname, "Noir". After all, the Phantom Thieves are on the dark side of justice, so a dark nickname fits! The ones called Panther and Fox are skeptical of this nickname for some reason, but Makoto is into it.

Blah blah, no breaks for you, Big Bang Burgers are made of people, etc etc.

Finally we find the Treasure. Yusuke is troubled that we didn't find any indication that Okumura is involved with the mental collapses going around town -- we thought he might be the guy responsible, for reasons I don't recall but I'm sure were very convincing. Whatever. We'll find out for sure after we change his heart! Then he'll tell us everything we want to know.

Time to send a calling card-- Wait, chatter first. The team briefly talks about stuff to catch Haru up on. Umm, your dad's cognition of your fiance may have been familiar, but usually other people's cognitions are not accurate. Kamoshida's cognition of Ann was not in-character, and Madarame's cognition of Yusuke was just...... a painting.

HARU: Actually, why wasn't their a cognitive version of me in there?
MORGANA: I can imagine a couple of reasons why we haven't seen it... but I don't think you'd like them.

orz orz

Anyway, if Haru can grok all that, she knows everything she needs to know.

NOW TIME TO SEND A CALLING CARD

Haru takes it home and secretly places it in her father's study. She comes downstairs the next morning to find him reading it. THREAT LEVEL MAX

OKUMURA: ...I must take care of this before it becomes a problem.

That sounds ominous. He immediately calls and starts to have the police investigate and protect him, a law-abiding citizen being threatened by vigilantes.

This is the first time the police have gotten involved before the victim started confessing his crimes, so it's potentially a problem... and the gang is starting to also realize that it's potentially a problem that the Phandom is seeing their justice as a form of entertainment now, not even interested in the outcome so much as the spectacle.

But there are no other options. Haru is in an untenable situation right now and her dad's heart needs to change ASAP.

Let's head out, team.

When everyone arrives at the Palace, we find out that the "frisbee"/"hamburger bun"/obviously a UFO is in fact a UFO. Okumura is taking his Treasure, which is a component of the UFO I think, like a power supply, and he's about to blast the hell out of here and leave the Phantom Thieves in an empty Palace. This is a metaphor for his intentions to move into politics, but also it's literal, so we're in trouble if we don't finish the Palace in the next 10 minutes. I'm down for that!

...Okay, so it took 2 minutes, whatever.

At the spaceport, we find Shadow Okumura boarding the UFO. He promptly throws himself on the ground and apologizes and proclaims that he's had a change of heart. That's...... not how this works. But Haru falters a little, and he lavishes some fatherly affection on her, how proud of her he is, etc. Haru falls for this because she's a cinnamon roll, and he promptly traps the Phantom Thieves, with only Haru and Morgana still free.

SHADOW OKUMURA: "Overcome failure at any cost, even if it means betraying others," remember?

...your family motto still sucks

Shadow Okumura offers a chance for Haru to accompany him on his spaceship if she agrees to ditch the other Phantom Thieves. She doesn't even bother to answer that, instead turning away from him and walking toward them. So he extends the same offer to -- Morgana?! He knows Morgana has been fighting with the others!

Cutscene time! Morgana burns him. How can he have lived with Haru all this time and not realized that there are things that money and fame can't buy? That no one can replace the people who are important to you, so why sacrifice them to help yourself?

Morgana uses his slingshot to knock the switch out of Shadow Okumura's hands, freeing the Phantom Thieves and initiating a boss battle that has a 30 minute timer on it. I'm still down.

Easy Mode rocks. I don't know why I keep arguing with myself about whether or not I should use it.

After Shadow Okumura runs out of minions to throw at us and we punch him in the face, he has a sad. He tells Haru that he'll contact her fiance and rescind the marriage offer, and begs her forgiveness.

RYUJI: You're behind the breakdowns and mental shutdowns, right?!
SHADOW OKUMURA: Not personally. I had a contract. I just made requests to have them eliminated!

He's too busy sobbing to tell us anything about the person he contracted with, and the Palace is collapsing, so we snatch the Treasure and run. We'll just have to interrogate him in the real world!

Shadow Okumura is just sitting there when -- suddenly, he gets sniped. Surprised me!

Our mysterious figure killed Okumura's Shadow... I'm pretty sure that's bad.