In media interviews, atlus producer Bo Tian Mumen defined the "Persona" series as a "modern drama". Throughout the series, many elements of the game do run parallel to the progressive development of contemporary society, and the further integration of the series with contemporary popular culture since "Persona 3" has not only earned great popularity with the style of "socialism", but also provided a window for foreign players to understand contemporary Japanese society.
Perhaps because of this, how to reflect "modern" has become a problem that the actual developer of this work, Glorious Tkumo, must constantly ponder at the beginning of the "p5s" project. Among them, the character design is particularly important.
In "p5s", the two new characters of the protagonist's camp, Sophia and Hasegawa Zenyoshi, are still in charge of the series of imperial painters Morishima, but the other character designs are provided by the glorious Tekumo. In order to pursue the immersive experience of the game, the latter tries to create characters that can make the player feel close, so the "modern" nature, that is, contemporary Japanese society, naturally becomes the source of creative inspiration. Based on this, several of the main enemy characters in "p5s" clearly reflect the fashion and influence of contemporary Japanese pop culture.
Shibuya, the "five wards of Tokyo's capital", is one of tokyo's busiest neighborhoods. Its iconic "Shibuya Station Front Crossing" (pictured below) has also become a symbol of the modern Japanese metropolis in contemporary times and has frequently appeared in various modern style game works. In particular, the Harajuku neighborhood is known as the birthplace of contemporary Japanese pop culture.
Harajuku neighborhood and pop culture, the first prison king Alice, appeared in the context of the intertwining of these two elements, and the player can see at a glance that her prototype is completely copied from the well-known model singer Peng Weiwei.
Peng Weiwei debuted as a model in her early years and is a representative of the fashion style of the "Qingwen Series". The so-called blue script system refers to the women's clothing style that is mostly found in the Harajuku neighborhood and is characterized by not pleasing men.
From 2010, Peng Weiwei began to turn to singer status, and released the single "ponponpon" the following year. The mv of this single claims to show the world inside the brain, the use of color is crazy, full of weird Japanese style, and the song itself is extremely brainwashed (she herself is called Peng Weiwei by the Chinese people because of the repeated "pon pon way way" in the lyrics, in fact, her stage name is kyary pamyu pamyu), so it caused a worldwide sensation at the time, and successfully made the world "misunderstand" Japanese pop culture.
Alice in the game, also like Peng Weiwei, is famous for her highly personal fashion style and songs. It is worth mentioning that in the vicissitudes of the fashion industry, Peng Weiwei's popularity has long been much worse than before, but for the p5s team, there is such a special situation: the p5s project is actually in 2016, when Peng Weiwei is popular...
In recent years, after the acg (anime, comic, game) that originally represents the general term of two-dimensional culture, the n(novel) representing light novels has been added, which shows the influence of this carrier in the contemporary era.
In the mid-to-late 2000s, light novels such as "The Melancholy of Haruhi in Ryogu" and "Catalogue of Banned Books of a Certain Magic", as well as a series of spin-off animations and games with this as the core, promoted the rapid arrival of the light novel trend. The four carriers of acgn are closely linked to each other around a specific IP, forming a huge commercial industry chain that operates quickly and orderly. However, as with any overdeveloped cultural form, clichés are always their usual end.
In p5s, the image of Wang Xia Ya Ango of Sendai Prison can be said to be a metaphor for the cliché of contemporary Japanese light novels.
In terms of setting, Natsuya Ango is the grandson of the well-known writer Natsuya Sogo, who is obviously the benchmark of the real-life literary hero Natsume Soseki. Natsuya Ango takes his grandfather's name as a sign, but his own talent is mediocre; his works are not only known as the result of the publisher's attempts to use his grandfather's name to profit and operate in a dark box, but the famous work itself is also a patchwork of copied works from others.
The Sendai Prison, where Ango Natsuya is located, is designed to be the worldview of the Brave Against the Demon King; this part of the plot is also filled with a large number of classic elements of real-life Japanese anime and games (such as the setting of "Four Heavenly Kings"). In this way, it is very cheesy now, and in turn is used to depict a light novel writer who claims not to be able to write a work, even if it is not insinuated, it also reflects the extreme homogenization of the contemporary Japanese light novel industry.
In "p5s", Kazuko Ikudo of Sapporo Prison is the mayor of Sapporo Chuo City. From the appearance point of view, her image design obviously incorporates elements of many well-known female politicians, such as Hillary and Thatcher. But for contemporary Japanese society, the identity of "female politician" itself can only directly refer to the real governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike.
As mentioned earlier, the P5S project was established in 2016. Coincidentally, the political scene of Tokyo also changed during the year. At that time, the 18th Tokyo Metropolitan Governor was forced to announce his resignation voluntarily after embezzling public funds. In the subsequent tokyo governor election, Yuriko Koike successfully won and went to the public — perhaps her external image was also targeted by the relevant production staff of the glorious Tekumo.
Koike's early years are legendary, such as her study in Egypt as a major in Arabic and the Fourth Middle East War. But once she is presented as a politician, the public's attention will shift from the past to the present, focusing on her specific words and deeds, and doing her best to ridicule things. In particular, the epidemic in Tokyo in the past two years has made her inevitable the object of public dissatisfaction. From this point of view, the female politician image in "p5s" may not fail to remind players of Koike Yoshihito.
The image of Akira Konoe, the king of Osaka prisons, may not be a single prototype.
From the Japanese side, his identity as president is easily reminiscent of Yusaku Maezawa, president of Zozo, a major garment industry company, who has frequently become a focus figure in recent years by his love affair with actress Gang Li Cai bud and the huge amount of money on Twitter, and even announced this year that he is preparing for a space trip. It is not uncommon for such a prominent figure to be ridiculed.
However, if we don't limit our gaze to Japan, we will find that this image clearly has a more matching prototype - Iron Man Tony Stark. Leaving aside the appearance that almost follows the shape of Robert Downey Jr. in the Iron Man movie, the identity of Akira Konoe, the fact that his daily work depends entirely on communication with AI, and the image of himself in steel armor in prison, are all the same as Tony Stark.
So why did the production team choose Tony Stark? In fact, marvel's film productions have also become popular in Japan in recent years, producing a very far-reaching cultural effect. For Japan, which is already keen on "becoming a hero" (such as "Kamen Rider", "Ultraman", etc.), Marvel movies are completely in favor of it. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand that the production team will use the roles of foreign films as an element to attract players in Japan.
According to Glorious Tekumo, the characters of the above enemy characters, while drawing on contemporary Japanese society, also incorporate elements of the "Seven Deadly Sins" into the design, such as Alice's shadow corresponding to lust, Ice Hall Juko's shadow corresponding to gluttony, and so on. But apparently, the numerical asymmetry (the real main enemy characters are actually only the four above) can't help but feel like this design.
However, although there are many ill-conceived aspects of the game design, as the makers have said, these characters, which can be seen at a glance, can really make players feel close.
The game's large and small elements imitate popular culture, while constructing a worldview close to contemporary Japanese society, but also invisibly deconstructing today's Japanese popular culture. The design elements contained in these characters, spanning all areas of society, fully demonstrate what contemporary groups have seen and heard in their daily lives, and it is impossible not to trace and explore where their archetypes came from. In this way, the existence of this article is probably completely in the middle of the picture for the producers.