Kimi wo I will never leave you
Pointless trivia about the Persona games. Mostly Persona 3, since that's what I've been playing recently, but I'll touch on the other games too.
The first game was initially translated as the heavily Americanised "Revelations: Persona" series. Most of the names were changed and all the Japanese cultural references were removed or replaced with American ones. Fortunately, Atlus realised the error of their ways and kept the subsequent games' translations as faithful to the original as possible, in many cases even leaving in the Japanese honouriffics untranslated in the dialogue. Future remakes of Megami Ibunroku Persona had more faithful translations, though the line "Mark danced crazy!" (Mark was called Masao in the Japanese version) was kept due to its popularity (similar to Square Enix keeping the line "You spoony bard!" in better-translated remakes of Final Fantasy IV).
The changing of names actually made a certain plot point make no sense in the English version. In the Japanese version, the two young girls in the other world are called Mai and Aki, which indicates that they're aspects of Maki's mind - Nanjo points out that it's simple wordplay. The English translation changed the twins' names to Mae and Maggie, and changed Maki's name to Mary, which means the names no longer have anything to do with each other - yet Nanjo (whose name was changed to Nate) still comments that it's simple wordplay, which makes no sense.
In Persona 3, Junpei refers to Yukari as "Yuka-tan", using the "-tan" honouriffic, which is a "cuter" version of "-chan" (used to denote a close friend or female), and also a pun on Yucatán, the Mexican state. In the original Japanese, he calls her Yukaricchi, which is basically another "cuter" way of saying Yukari-chan.
Also in Persona 3, in the original Japanese version, Mitsuru often uses English words and phrases in her speech. In the English translation of the games, this was changed to her using random French words and phrases. You might think that Bébé, who uses random Japanese words and phrases in the English translation, also spoke English randomly in the Japanese version, but you'd be wrong. Bébé spoke Japanese in the original, but his Japanese was incredibly stilted and formal (as one translator put it, he talked like a samurai), using a lot of katakana to imply odd stressing and using the archaic pronoun "sessha" when referring to himself, and referring to the protagonist as "(name)-dono", to show that he was a foreigner. To keep the "obviously foreign" nature of his speech, the translators gave him a French accent and added random Japanese words in his dialogue.
The method of summoning Personas in Persona 4 (crushing or breaking Tarot cards) is very similar to the method of summoning demons in Persona 1 and 2, which was basically just striking a pose.
The plural of Persona is Personae. However, the translators of the games say they chose to pluralise it as "Personas" as a deliberate stylistic choice, so it wasn't an error.
Persona 4 and Persona 3 have clever subtle nods to the previous games, at around the same times as well. In Persona 3, at one point a character says that no one takes rumours seriously - the plot of Persona 2 involved people with the power to make rumours come true. In Persona 4, Yosuke accuses Teddie (called Kuma, meaning Bear, in the Japanese version) of "practically holding a gun to our heads" - in Persona 3, Personas were summoned by characters putting gun-shaped Evokers to their heads and pulling the trigger.
In Persona 4's Japanese version, Kuma (Teddie) adds "-kuma" to the end of his sentences as a kind of verbal tic. This was changed to him making lots of bear puns in the English translation.
A few Easter eggs can be found in Persona 3 (possibly 4 too) in party dialogue. After all possible party members are unlocked, try making a party with only male members (only Junpei, Akihiko and Ken or Akihiko, Shinjiro and Ken actually work for this), all female members (except the main character, of course), all second-graders (Junpei, Yukari and Aigis), original SEES members (Mitsuru, Akihiko and Shinjiro)
The kanji on the back of the Shirt of Chivalry changes depending on who's wearing it. The main character has "honourable man", Akihiko has "fight", Junpei's literally means "colour" but can also be read as "dirty-minded", Ken's is "grudge" and Shinjiro's is "life".
Female party members will make unique comments if you equip the High-Cut Armor (renamed to Battle Panties in Persona 3 Portable) on them. In FES and Portable, it also changes the character model, and the female MC can also wear it.
What exactly Mitsuru's "Execution" punishment is is never specificially said in the games, but in the manga it's revealed to be being frozen alive and conscious by her Persona. Akihiko, who in the games is weak to ice, seems to particularly hate it.
A very common fan interpretation of the Persona 3 male MC is to portray him as an emo. In the manga, he's actually quite friendly and brave, and has a huge appetite and a habit of randomly dozing off. The movie interpretation is closer, showing him as mostly emotionless or emotionally-suppressed, but he's more like a death seeker due to the past trauma of his parents dying, and he ends up opening up and becoming more friendly around the third movie.
Atlus has stated that the butterflies that can be seen in Persona 3 FES's "The Answer" mode and Persona 4 are Philemon, a major character in the previous games, who is now taking more of an "observer" role. This, among several other minor elements, is a clue that Persona 3 and 4 do in fact take place in the same universe as Persona 1 and 2.
In the Japanese version, the two modes of Persona 3 FES are referred to as "Episode Yourself" and "Episode Aigis". This was changed to "The Journey" and "The Answer" in the English translation.
A lot of LGBT fans interpret Naoto as a canonical female-to-male transgender, but this isn't really the case, since she clearly identifies as female in the game itself. The whole reason for her pretending to be male was because she didn't think a female fit with her interpretation of a classic, hard-boiled detective. It was meant to be a satire on Japan's rigid gender roles, an interpretation that is sort of lost on most Western fans.
The Priestess Shadow has the letters B and J on her breasts, which are supposed to stand for Boaz and Jachin, two pillars in the biblical temple of Solomon. However, they're the wrong way round - Boaz is supposed to be on the left and Jachin on the right.
The Hell Biker Persona is very clearly based on the Marvel Comics character Ghost Rider. His original Japanese name is Hell's Angel, referring to an infamous real-life biker gang.
The FES in Persona 3 FES is pronounced "fess", not "eff-ee-ess", and is short for "festival".
The online game you get from Junpei in Persona 3 is called Innocent Sin Online, a reference to Persona 2: Innocent Sin, which was half of Persona 2 (the other half being Persona 2: Eternal Punishment). The other player, Maya, who you befriend as part of the Hermit Social Link, names herself that in reference to Maya Amano from Persona 2, and uses Maya's "Let's think positive!" catchphrase. She suggests the protagonist name his character Tatsuya, referring to Tatsuya Suou, another character from Persona 2. Lunarvale Hospital, the starting location in the game, references Mikage-cho, the main setting of Megami Ibunroku Persona, which had its name changed to Lunarvale in Revelations: Persona. The city was said to have multiple "wards" in the translation, just like a hospital does. In the original Japanese version, the game is called Devil Busters Online, a reference to Devil Busters, a recurring "game-within-a-game" in the series, that first appears in Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei II on the Super Famicom. The protagonist and Maya are called N-jima and Y-ko in the Japanese version, referencing Akemi Nakajima and Yumiko Shirasagi, the hero and heroine of Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei, the games that started it all.
In the Japanese version of Persona 3, the Dark Hour is called Kage no Jikan, which literally means Shadow Time.
In Greek mythology, Tartarus is a deep abyss that is used as a place of torment and suffering for the wicked, and is where Zeus cast the Titans after they were defeated by the Olympians in the Titanomachy. (In the Disney movie Hercules, Zeus calls it Tantalus, who was actually a mythological figure who was imprisoned in Tartarus).
Many elements in Persona 3 also come from Greek mythology. Orpheus was a poet and lyre player who journeyed into the depths of Hades to bring back his lover, Eurydice, but failed. Thanatos is the Greek god and personification of death, and brother of Hypnos, the god/personification of sleep, who is Takaya's Persona. Nyx is the goddess/personification of the night, and was the mother of Thanatos and Hypnos in Greek mythology. Aegis means "shield" in Greek, and refers to the shield that Zeus used. Her Persona, Palladion, is an image of cult antiquity on which the safety of Troy, and later Rome, was said to depend, a wooden statue depicting her evolved Persona, Pallas Athena. Hermes was the messenger of the gods in Greek mythology, and Hermes Trismegistus was the combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth, who were worshipped as one by the Greeks due to being basically identical. Io was the daughter of Inachus and Melia, and one of Zeus's many mortal lovers, who was turned into a cow, hence Yukari's Persona riding on a giant cow skull. Nemesis was the spirit of divine retribution against those who succumb to hubris (arrogance before the gods). Polydeuces is another name for Pollux, a Greek mythological hero, twin brother of Castor. The twins are collectively known as the Gemini. Medea was a sorceress who murdered her children when her husband left her for another woman. Moros, Jin's Persona, was the being of impending doom who drove mortals to their deadly fate. Erebus, the final boss of The Answer, was conceived in Greek mythology as a primordial deity and the personification of darkness, and was the father of Hypnos and Thanatos. His name was also the name of a place in the underworld, like Hades, and sometimes used interchangeably with Tartarus. Metis was a Titaness and the first wife of Zeus. Psyche was a mortal woman who ascended to divinity when she became the wife of Eros. Penthesilea was an Amazonian queen, the daughter of Ares, god of war. Cerberus was the three-headed dog who guarded the entrance to the underworld. That's not even getting into all the Personas that can be used by the main character that originate from Greek mythology.
The first game was initially translated as the heavily Americanised "Revelations: Persona" series. Most of the names were changed and all the Japanese cultural references were removed or replaced with American ones. Fortunately, Atlus realised the error of their ways and kept the subsequent games' translations as faithful to the original as possible, in many cases even leaving in the Japanese honouriffics untranslated in the dialogue. Future remakes of Megami Ibunroku Persona had more faithful translations, though the line "Mark danced crazy!" (Mark was called Masao in the Japanese version) was kept due to its popularity (similar to Square Enix keeping the line "You spoony bard!" in better-translated remakes of Final Fantasy IV).
The changing of names actually made a certain plot point make no sense in the English version. In the Japanese version, the two young girls in the other world are called Mai and Aki, which indicates that they're aspects of Maki's mind - Nanjo points out that it's simple wordplay. The English translation changed the twins' names to Mae and Maggie, and changed Maki's name to Mary, which means the names no longer have anything to do with each other - yet Nanjo (whose name was changed to Nate) still comments that it's simple wordplay, which makes no sense.
In Persona 3, Junpei refers to Yukari as "Yuka-tan", using the "-tan" honouriffic, which is a "cuter" version of "-chan" (used to denote a close friend or female), and also a pun on Yucatán, the Mexican state. In the original Japanese, he calls her Yukaricchi, which is basically another "cuter" way of saying Yukari-chan.
Also in Persona 3, in the original Japanese version, Mitsuru often uses English words and phrases in her speech. In the English translation of the games, this was changed to her using random French words and phrases. You might think that Bébé, who uses random Japanese words and phrases in the English translation, also spoke English randomly in the Japanese version, but you'd be wrong. Bébé spoke Japanese in the original, but his Japanese was incredibly stilted and formal (as one translator put it, he talked like a samurai), using a lot of katakana to imply odd stressing and using the archaic pronoun "sessha" when referring to himself, and referring to the protagonist as "(name)-dono", to show that he was a foreigner. To keep the "obviously foreign" nature of his speech, the translators gave him a French accent and added random Japanese words in his dialogue.
The method of summoning Personas in Persona 4 (crushing or breaking Tarot cards) is very similar to the method of summoning demons in Persona 1 and 2, which was basically just striking a pose.
The plural of Persona is Personae. However, the translators of the games say they chose to pluralise it as "Personas" as a deliberate stylistic choice, so it wasn't an error.
Persona 4 and Persona 3 have clever subtle nods to the previous games, at around the same times as well. In Persona 3, at one point a character says that no one takes rumours seriously - the plot of Persona 2 involved people with the power to make rumours come true. In Persona 4, Yosuke accuses Teddie (called Kuma, meaning Bear, in the Japanese version) of "practically holding a gun to our heads" - in Persona 3, Personas were summoned by characters putting gun-shaped Evokers to their heads and pulling the trigger.
In Persona 4's Japanese version, Kuma (Teddie) adds "-kuma" to the end of his sentences as a kind of verbal tic. This was changed to him making lots of bear puns in the English translation.
A few Easter eggs can be found in Persona 3 (possibly 4 too) in party dialogue. After all possible party members are unlocked, try making a party with only male members (only Junpei, Akihiko and Ken or Akihiko, Shinjiro and Ken actually work for this), all female members (except the main character, of course), all second-graders (Junpei, Yukari and Aigis), original SEES members (Mitsuru, Akihiko and Shinjiro)
The kanji on the back of the Shirt of Chivalry changes depending on who's wearing it. The main character has "honourable man", Akihiko has "fight", Junpei's literally means "colour" but can also be read as "dirty-minded", Ken's is "grudge" and Shinjiro's is "life".
Female party members will make unique comments if you equip the High-Cut Armor (renamed to Battle Panties in Persona 3 Portable) on them. In FES and Portable, it also changes the character model, and the female MC can also wear it.
What exactly Mitsuru's "Execution" punishment is is never specificially said in the games, but in the manga it's revealed to be being frozen alive and conscious by her Persona. Akihiko, who in the games is weak to ice, seems to particularly hate it.
A very common fan interpretation of the Persona 3 male MC is to portray him as an emo. In the manga, he's actually quite friendly and brave, and has a huge appetite and a habit of randomly dozing off. The movie interpretation is closer, showing him as mostly emotionless or emotionally-suppressed, but he's more like a death seeker due to the past trauma of his parents dying, and he ends up opening up and becoming more friendly around the third movie.
Atlus has stated that the butterflies that can be seen in Persona 3 FES's "The Answer" mode and Persona 4 are Philemon, a major character in the previous games, who is now taking more of an "observer" role. This, among several other minor elements, is a clue that Persona 3 and 4 do in fact take place in the same universe as Persona 1 and 2.
In the Japanese version, the two modes of Persona 3 FES are referred to as "Episode Yourself" and "Episode Aigis". This was changed to "The Journey" and "The Answer" in the English translation.
A lot of LGBT fans interpret Naoto as a canonical female-to-male transgender, but this isn't really the case, since she clearly identifies as female in the game itself. The whole reason for her pretending to be male was because she didn't think a female fit with her interpretation of a classic, hard-boiled detective. It was meant to be a satire on Japan's rigid gender roles, an interpretation that is sort of lost on most Western fans.
The Priestess Shadow has the letters B and J on her breasts, which are supposed to stand for Boaz and Jachin, two pillars in the biblical temple of Solomon. However, they're the wrong way round - Boaz is supposed to be on the left and Jachin on the right.
The Hell Biker Persona is very clearly based on the Marvel Comics character Ghost Rider. His original Japanese name is Hell's Angel, referring to an infamous real-life biker gang.
The FES in Persona 3 FES is pronounced "fess", not "eff-ee-ess", and is short for "festival".
The online game you get from Junpei in Persona 3 is called Innocent Sin Online, a reference to Persona 2: Innocent Sin, which was half of Persona 2 (the other half being Persona 2: Eternal Punishment). The other player, Maya, who you befriend as part of the Hermit Social Link, names herself that in reference to Maya Amano from Persona 2, and uses Maya's "Let's think positive!" catchphrase. She suggests the protagonist name his character Tatsuya, referring to Tatsuya Suou, another character from Persona 2. Lunarvale Hospital, the starting location in the game, references Mikage-cho, the main setting of Megami Ibunroku Persona, which had its name changed to Lunarvale in Revelations: Persona. The city was said to have multiple "wards" in the translation, just like a hospital does. In the original Japanese version, the game is called Devil Busters Online, a reference to Devil Busters, a recurring "game-within-a-game" in the series, that first appears in Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei II on the Super Famicom. The protagonist and Maya are called N-jima and Y-ko in the Japanese version, referencing Akemi Nakajima and Yumiko Shirasagi, the hero and heroine of Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei, the games that started it all.
In the Japanese version of Persona 3, the Dark Hour is called Kage no Jikan, which literally means Shadow Time.
In Greek mythology, Tartarus is a deep abyss that is used as a place of torment and suffering for the wicked, and is where Zeus cast the Titans after they were defeated by the Olympians in the Titanomachy. (In the Disney movie Hercules, Zeus calls it Tantalus, who was actually a mythological figure who was imprisoned in Tartarus).
Many elements in Persona 3 also come from Greek mythology. Orpheus was a poet and lyre player who journeyed into the depths of Hades to bring back his lover, Eurydice, but failed. Thanatos is the Greek god and personification of death, and brother of Hypnos, the god/personification of sleep, who is Takaya's Persona. Nyx is the goddess/personification of the night, and was the mother of Thanatos and Hypnos in Greek mythology. Aegis means "shield" in Greek, and refers to the shield that Zeus used. Her Persona, Palladion, is an image of cult antiquity on which the safety of Troy, and later Rome, was said to depend, a wooden statue depicting her evolved Persona, Pallas Athena. Hermes was the messenger of the gods in Greek mythology, and Hermes Trismegistus was the combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth, who were worshipped as one by the Greeks due to being basically identical. Io was the daughter of Inachus and Melia, and one of Zeus's many mortal lovers, who was turned into a cow, hence Yukari's Persona riding on a giant cow skull. Nemesis was the spirit of divine retribution against those who succumb to hubris (arrogance before the gods). Polydeuces is another name for Pollux, a Greek mythological hero, twin brother of Castor. The twins are collectively known as the Gemini. Medea was a sorceress who murdered her children when her husband left her for another woman. Moros, Jin's Persona, was the being of impending doom who drove mortals to their deadly fate. Erebus, the final boss of The Answer, was conceived in Greek mythology as a primordial deity and the personification of darkness, and was the father of Hypnos and Thanatos. His name was also the name of a place in the underworld, like Hades, and sometimes used interchangeably with Tartarus. Metis was a Titaness and the first wife of Zeus. Psyche was a mortal woman who ascended to divinity when she became the wife of Eros. Penthesilea was an Amazonian queen, the daughter of Ares, god of war. Cerberus was the three-headed dog who guarded the entrance to the underworld. That's not even getting into all the Personas that can be used by the main character that originate from Greek mythology.
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