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systematicallycapricious · 5 months

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I'm a bit late to the party, but I recently got the first volume of the English P4U2 manga!

I am absolutely geeking out over comparing the Jap, Eng, and fan-Eng versions, so if anyone has any pages or panels they want to see side-by-side across the three, let me know and I'll make a post for you! I can't do the entirety of the book of course, but I can do a few pages at least.

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(Below the cut is my initial opinion on the quality of the translation work, some comparisons between various details of the Jap volume and the Eng volume, and some more manga page side-by-sides.)

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As for my impression of the translation work so far... To me, it feels like the translator was trying to preserve more of the original Japanese language/culture than Eng-P4AU chose to? Not in every instance though, as there's definitely cases where vernacular translations are utilized instead of literal. But where more literal translations are favored, the wording can feel a little awkward or OOC in English.

Even still, it's a pretty cohesive reading experience, in my opinion.

Also, they translated "Plume of Dusk" correctly, which is a relief. I was worried that some of the technical lore terms might get bungled by literal translations, lol. Conversely, while I'm glad that they didn't preserve Jap-Teddie's "-kuma" habit, and happy that they included a few bear puns in accordance to Eng-Teddie's speech habits, I do lament the low quantity and diversity of bear puns in Teddie's speech overall. Maybe there just wasn't a lot of good places for those in this volume though, so I'll have to see going forth.

Oh- and I noticed that some of the background signs and text got translations as well, which I think is really neat. (I don't read enough manga to know if that's just a standard feature of manga translations though, lol.)

Granted, this is just my first-read first impression, and I don't know enough Japanese to know if some lines may be translated less accurately or not. Plus, I tend to be on the lenient side when judging the quality of creative works. So please refer to other opinions as well if you're trying to decide the quality of the translation for yourself!

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Fun fact: the Eng version was printed bigger than the Jap version (at least for the Jap volumes I have; no clue if they printed those at multiple sizes).

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Also something cool about the Eng version is that it comes with the same color illustrations as the Jap version had, just sized-up. The exclusive edition also comes with a bonus fold-out poster of the original volume cover!

The end-of-volume artist/editor comic was included as well! I'm personally very glad to finally know what this comic says. My respect for Rokuro-san and Sakamaguro-san (the fish) as creatives has grown even further.

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Here's a few other page comparisons too because I found them interesting. xP

(If you wanna see the fan-Eng in higher quality than the screengrabs I used, you can find it on Mangadex [here].)

#P4AU/P4U2 manga #Persona 4 Arena Ultimax #Sho Minazuki #Yu Narukami #(Honestly I kinda got used to reading slightly-OOC Persona content via fan creations -)#(- and fan-translations of other Jap Persona content; so the translation choices don't affect me all that much lol)#(Though Sho's “loser trash” makes me cackle because it's such an awkward way to translate “ゴミ”)#(Especially "Now to set up some fun surprises for you Investi-loser trash-Team goons.” lmao)#(Also still waiting to see how Labrys's dialect is handled; as well as the 皆月・ミナヅキ name difference)#(I've heard things about both already so that's going to be interesting lol)#P4AU #P4U2 #Persona 4 The Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold #ペルソナ4 ジ・アルティマックスウルトラス―プレックスホールド

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systematicallycapricious · 4 months

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Time for English P4AU manga volume 2! Like last time, shenanigans are below the cut and requests for page comparisons are always welcome.

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Overall Opinion

My initial read-through this time was done while I was sleep deprived, so take my impressions with a grain of salt, lmao.

I think the the three most memorable impressions I took away from the translation this time around were:

The syntax felt more markedly stilted to me than last time. As well, the writing was a bit awkward in some places, though I'm unsure if that's a trait of the original Jap writing or if it only arises from attempting to format it into Eng grammar and culture.

The fan-Eng translation took creative liberties with some words that I think were better served by the official-Eng's translation staying truer to the Jap text. Also, the official-Eng transl provided interesting insight into some things that the fan-Eng transl didn't, which I'll go into a bit below.

The scene where Minazuki ambushes Naoto was mistranslated as Sho being the speaker, despite the Japanese text clearly being Minazuki's language patterns. TuT

Overall, I had a positive impression of it and would say that it's worth reading for those who don't mind a few errors and awkward lingual choices.

As for the ミナヅキ・皆月 naming differentiation... Thus far, both Sho and Minazuki have been "Minazuki", as per adherence to the Jap naming scheme. No alternative font, font effects, subtext, special text bubbles, nor anything to clarify the distinction. However, I'm personally reserving judgment until I get my hands on Vol 3, as I have a sliver of hope that the protagonists knowing the difference is permission for the audience to know the difference. I'm not sure how much I actually believe in said sliver, but I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt at the very least. ^^;

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Illustrations and Author Comics

Vol 2 still has the illustration pages and end-of-volume author's comic! The exclusive edition also has the fold-out poster of the original cover, of course.

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The mistranslated ambush scene was, in fact, Minazuki

So y'all can see for yourself that the text in the Minazuki-Naoto ambush scene clearly uses 俺 and 君 rather than 僕 or テメエ. (Though to be fair, I've actually found an instance where Sho uses 俺 in Vol 2. The line is 「テメエこそ俺にカンショーすんじゃねえ!!」, towards the start of Ch14 when Kagu's mocking his Ikutsuki issues (so Sho's pretty irate). He then returns to using 僕 immediately after; and as there are no visual indications that he switched with Minazuki to say this, I'm pretty confident that this is an exception and not the rule, lol.)

(Said instance of Sho using 俺)

The non-pronoun words should be indicative of whether it's Sho or Minazuki speaking as well, but I'm not fluent enough in Japanese to be able to go into detail on those in this post. ^^;

Overall, I think the translator has been doing pretty good at nailing Sho and Minazuki's respective patterns of speech and employing them in the correct moments – and they go back to getting it correct for when Minazuki reveals himself at the end of Vol 2, too. This one scene just got goofed for some reason I guess. P:

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Translation Upsides

Translation Win 1: Ch15's name was translated properly! The Jap name is 「幻月」 (gengetsu), but the fan-Eng translated it as "Minazuki", which would be 「皆月」 if it was in kanji form. Which – I mean, it is the chapter that Minazuki first formally introduces himself as "Minazuki", so it makes sense? But I personally think that "Paraselene", aka the phenomenon called "moon dogs", is a much cooler and more fitting name for how the chapter goes, including Minazuki's reveal. (-v-)

Translation Win 2: At the start of Ch14, Sho says "Tch! Must've fallen asleep. Hate that dream.", which implies that he's had that dream before. I don't know enough Japanese to know if the original line of 「チッ　寝ちまったのか...　嫌な夢だぜ」 also means a recurrence specifically, but it's still interesting fanon-characterization fodder nonetheless.

Puppet-Ikutsuki's following dialog was also a pretty interesting translation, I think. For example: "The smarts to rule the mental battle. The strength to command the physical battle..! You excel in both! In fact, I'd say you're my greatest masterpiece! I'm proud!"

Translation Win 3: In Ch13, Kagutsuchi's first line of reaching out to Sho is translated correctly as "wings of death", versus the "Plume of Dusk" that the fan-Eng transl uses. Conceptually, they're probably the same thing, but literally the word used is 「死の羽根」 (shi no hane), not 「黄昏の羽根」 (tasogare no hane; which is typically "Plume of Dusk" in Japanese). And this isn't a mistake on the part of the Jap writer either, as far as I can tell, as 「黄昏の羽根」 is used in other places, such as when Labrys is explaining what Plumes are to the Investigation Team ([see here]).

Additionally, though the syntax was exceptionally awkward, I thought the essence of Kagu's dialog in this scene was translated pretty well. And honestly, it's fun to headcanon that Kagu could only communicate limited concepts or words before establishing a stronger connection, thus explaining why the syntax is stilted like: "Your suffering will continue. Eternally. End it."

Translation Win 4: It's a small detail, but Ikutsuki specifically saying "If this is all it takes to kill him... Then that's just how weak he was." is heckin' brutal. Switching to past-tense like Sho's already done and over with when he's still alive and listening, oof. (For comparison, the fan-Eng translated it as "If he dies here, it'll just mean he's worthless.")

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Translation Downsides

Typography Loss 1: Kagutsuchi's text still lacks a cool font like the Jap version has, and that reduces the artistic impact a bit, IMO. In the Jap version, it looks a bit like the text was scorched onto the writing surface – which, given Kagu is a kami of fire, is a pretty apt vibe. While in Eng, he's relegated to the font that all the other characters use while speaking. It's probably better like this for readability purposes, but from a stylistic perspective it's a bit sad.

(Also fun fact: In Jap, the Shadow-Kanji and Shadow-Chie puppets briefly use this burnt font in their speech bubbles. It's for about 1-2 bubbles each (S-Kanji calling forth a fighting ring, S-Chie being in disbelief that Naoto had been holding back against her), and the rest of their dialog is in various other fonts. I'm not sure if there are other instances of non-Kagu characters using it beyond that, nor what exactly it's intended to imply through these additional instances, but it's interesting to note.)

(Additionally; examining it more closely, the Japanese typography is really dynamic in general, which is pretty cool. I'm not sure if that dynamicness invalidates any literary significance to Kagu's burnt font though, lol.)

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Translation Intrigues and Amusements

Typography Intrigue 1: They left the page of fiery "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"s as-is, rather than trying to turn the 「あ」 and 「ア」 into "a/A". Which, while I immensely respect the fan-Eng version for trying to transcribe that artistic text, I think the horrific vibe comes through a bit better with the original text and art preserved. (Maybe in part due to the wave effect on the text having 3 dimensions rather than just 2?)

Translation Intrigue 2: In Ch13, one of the double page spreads is translated as "This world doesn't need anyone. There's no one in this world." Meanwhile, in the fan-Eng version, it's written as "I don't need anyone! I'm fine by myself!"; and the original Jap text is 「この世界には誰もいらない　この世界には誰もいない」 (the same line, just minus the ら).

I personally prefer the fan-Eng's take on it, as the official-Eng's version confused me for several weeks after the fact; but as I don't understand the nuance of the Jap version, I have no clue as to which Eng interpretation is more accurate. >_>;

Translation Amusement 3: Yu apparently has the word "welp" in his lexicon. And on the second page, the way that his dialog is worded makes it sound like he's smitten with Sho, lmao.

Translation Amusement 4: Yu's so used to his friends' antics at this point that he can just tune them out like that, lol. I also just appreciate Chie and Yosuke's dialog here in general.

Translation Intrigue 5: Ch13's title is translated as "Crimson Memories" in the official-Eng transl, versus fan-Eng's "Scarlet Memories". The original Japanese words are 「緋色の記憶」.

Translation Intrigue 6: What's typically translated as "the rules of this world" (regarding Adachi) is translated here as "reality's rules". The original Jap text (in this manga at least) is 「現実のルール」, not 「世界のルール」; so literally "reality", like "reality of the situation", and not 'reality' like "world/society".

Translation Intrigue 7: Ikutsuki's iconic "the death of everything... but also the beginning" speech is translated a bit differently compared to the fan-Eng, and drastically different compared to Ultimax's EpP3 Ch1. It keeps the same general concepts, but the cadence, word choices, and syntax are executed differently.

Translation Intrigue 8: Side-by-sides of the kendo/fencing pun because I think the differing translation choices, as well as the original context of the pun, are interesting.

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(If you wanna see the fan-Eng in higher quality than the screengrabs I used, you can find it on Mangadex [here].)

#Sho Minazuki #Yu Narukami #Chie Satonaka #(tagging Chie mostly because of the cover art; in case any fans of hers want to see it)#Shuji Ikutsuki #HinoKagutsuchi (Persona)#P4AU/P4U2 manga #Persona 4 Arena Ultimax #P4AU #P4U2 #Persona 4 The Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold #ペルソナ4 ジ・アルティマックスウルトラス―プレックスホールド

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systematicallycapricious · 3 months

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Ultimax English Volume 3, coming hot at'cha from me, who did the read-y thing!

Gonna repeat it for the folks who might be landing here for the first time: I've written up my initial impressions and observations below the cut, as well as sprinkled in some pictures comparing the three versions of the manga (OG-Jap, official-Eng translation, and fan-Eng translation). And if you don't see something there that you'd like to know more about, you can always hit me up with requests and I'll see what I can do for ya!

Oh– and of course, spoilers are no holds barred. So if you want to read the manga blind, then this is not the review post for you. Nor are my other ones.

So without further ado... The post!

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Main Opinions (5)

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[1]

Like the volumes before it, I continue to both agree and disagree with the various translation choices. Using the page above as an example: I think that translating 道化 as “cabbage cop” rather than the literal meaning of “jester/clown”, especially after using the latter translation before in Vol 1, wasn't the best choice. On the flipside, I think that choosing to retain the presence of the “俺が...!” by including “I still...!” in the translation was a good call, because the specific ways that characters speak are a quintessential window into who they are as people.

(Re: "cabbage cop"; the translation also just suddenly spikes in referring to Adachi as “cabbage” in the aforementioned chapter and the one immediately following it, lol. Sho says “I wanted to help even a loser like you have a good time... So I went outta my way... to keep your lame... cabbage ass alive...”, though nothing in the Jap text even makes mention of “cabbage”, much less Adachi's ring title.)

[2]

Though I don't think I mentioned it in my previous posts, I also retain my opinion that the onomatopoeia in this translation is on point. Much like the original Japanese version, the chosen sounds make sense for the actions they're supposed to be accompanying. And this has been consistent throughout all volumes, rather than having ups and downs of quality... at least from what I can recall.

[3]

However, in reading this volume, I have come across my first genuine critique of the translation: in all the volumes thus far, quotation marks that should be carried over from the Japanese text are often ignored, to the immense detriment of the English reading experience. Fortunately, this problem hasn't extended to text emphasis (e.g. bolded text and bōten) or the rest of the punctuation, as they have been relatively good at preserving and employing those. But, to exemplify what the lack of quotations does to the text...

...just read through the side-by-side page examples I edited above. The difference should be apparent, hopefully. (Btw, edits are in the middle and on the bottom, respectively. Jap text is also included for quotation placement reference.)

The thing that baffles me about the lack of quotations, though, is that the translation does use them on rare occasion. For example, when Minazuki says “Welcome to 'his' world.”, and “Oh yes. You call those shackles 'bonds', don't you.”, those quotations exist in the Japanese text as 「“彼”」 and 「”絆”」. But in the vast majority of cases, even sometimes when the usage in Japanese is back-to-back, they're just kinda... glossed over? I really don't get it. ^^;

[4]

Moving on to a semi-related topic... The 皆月・ミナヅキ naming differentiation... uh... yeah. That's a weird thing. The simple part is that both are continuously referred to as “Minazuki”. The weird part is that the translation seems to want to refer to them as a "single but plural" entity? For example;

“I sat back and let Minazuki do their thing and they just wasted time forever.”

“There's much to sympathize with in their past. And they're clearly a victim of the Kirijo Group's darker side.”

"But we're gonna get back at that jerk. Both of 'im!".

"We can't let Minazuki get what they want! Stop 'em, Narukami!"

Which, in all fairness, the Japanese version is partially responsible for. Since [plural nouns are implied more than said outright in Japanese], and there are some occasions of 「皆月達」 (Minazuki-tachi; look under "Plural Suffixes" in the linked article) interspersed within the writing, I can understand how the "single but plural entity" translation came about. I'm not knowledgeable enough to know if interpreting just "皆月" as plural is always correct or not, but I can see why it might be tricky to interpret, at the very least.

So personally, my gripe with it is just the lack of distinction between instances of ミナヅキ and 皆月, as when which one is used is extremely important for story context. The characters awkwardly referring to Sho and Minazuki as singular but plural (in a purely-Eng reading) seems logical enough, since none of them have experience with plurality up until this point, and it's not like they're getting the opportunity to ask the system in question what form of address they prefer.

[5]

Oh, and while we're within the topic of “things that could be better off if a guide of important pre-established terms was implemented”...

Y'all might think “holy heck, why did they turn Minazuki's edge factor up to 11 here?” with a slow cringe of disturbance or disgust. (Or maybe the laughter of vicious mockery. What do I know? Lol.) I concur! So I did what I do when I'm confounded by something: question everything about it. In doing so, I thought to myself; 'Hey, isn't that "hero" one one of Minazuki's VLs from Ultimax?' The answer was yes, it was, although it goes slightly differently. And what had the manga done back in previous volumes? Quote combat-VLs from the game during battle scenes.

So after transcribing the Japanese text of the lines in question into Jisho and Google Translate, as well as listening to the Jap versions of the EngVLs that I thought were similar enough, this is what I got:

“Writhe in pain!” = “Struggle. Suffer.” (「もがき　苦しめ」, [VL nb315a])

“Did you think you could become a hero?” = “Did you think you were some kind of hero? No. You're just the loser.” (「（君は敗者だ）英雄になれるとでも思ったか?」, VL nb342b)

(Note: The “No. You're just the loser.（君は敗者だ）” portion isn't a part of the VL in Ultimax, and aside from Adachi's Winner's Interview line for defeating Minazuki, I couldn't find anything similar in any of Mina's non-Story Mode Eng VLs. (I didn't check their Jap equivalents, as I still need to compile those lines into a searchable resource. >_>) So unless it's somewhere in Story Mode, it may have been ad-libbed in by the author.

“Let despair swallow you.” is less cut-and-dry. The Japanese text is 「絶望へ堕ちろ」; but when I listened to similar VLs (nb313a: “It's time to despair.”, nb317a: “Fall into darkness!”, nb320a: “Descend into the abyss!”), I only ever got partial matches. Nb313a has 「絶望」, while nb320a might have 「堕ちろ」, but my auditory comprehension of Japanese still needs a lot of work, so I may be mistaken. And nb317a matched nothing, from what I can hear. So unless this comes from a story VL, or a VL that isn't translated closely enough for me to sleuth back to the Jap VL... then I guess this might also be ad-libbed or frankensteined by the author?

Also, I'm not sure if it's coincidence or if there actually was some knowledge of the pre-existing translations, but the translator got “God and Demon Annihilation” correct, lol.

So yeah. "Edginess"? Not really more than normal when you have the context; but as a standalone experience, a great deal more than normal and would have realllllllly benefited from referencing the pre-established translations. The translator can take stylistic liberties with the whole rest of the translation, so I really don't think that employing such a small list would compromise their freedom?

(And if you want to see how the fan-Eng version handled it for comparison...)

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Additional Thoughts (6)

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Alright, let's see, what else do I have left to cover...

[1]

Labrys doesn't talk a ton in this manga, so her “Southern, not Brooklyn/Boston accent” issue, while still there, isn't too glaring or easy to spot in a lot of lines. However... Honestly, I think it's just the translator's style overall to use a more 'Southern USA dialect' in their wording. Please note that I'm not an expert on this matter what-so-ever! But that's just the vibe I've been getting from how all of the characters have been speaking across the official-English volumes (and which isn't present in the fan-Eng translations).

[2]

I referenced the line briefly before, but the translation of Minazuki saying “...Yu Narukami. How about you throw away those shackles you cling to? They're dead weight to you. You can hardly fight, or even run, while you carry them. […] Oh yes. You call those shackles 'bonds', don't you.” in reference to Chie and Yosuke being incapacitated is brutal and I love it.

[3]

Before learning Kagutsuchi's name, Adachi calls Kagutsuchi "Mr. Crazy-Pants", lol. ("That's why you set up your whole little plan to use the power inside me to control that. And that means you've only been pretending to be best buds with Mr. Crazy-Pants.")

(Or in Japanese: つまり　君らは凶悪なクマ君に従っているフリをしていたってワケか || Though, I'm not sure if 'vicious Bear-kun' has a similar vibe to "Mr. Crazy Pants" in Japanese or not?) (Also fun note: Adachi's 「君ら」 (kimi-ra) is another pluralized address of Minazuki and Sho, so it's not always just their direct name getting that treatment.)

[4]

Labrys is secretly Elvis confirmed. Also, the author comics are to be found on the inside covers for the Eng translation, versus being on the outside covers (and obscured by the book jacket) in the original Jap print. This is something that only Vol 3 and Vol 4 do, as Vol 1 & 2 had enough space left to print the author comics on actual pages.

[5]

I think some of the gikun nuance might've been glossed over, but I honestly still don't know whether it's the subtitles or main words of gikun that are supposed to be "spoken" in-story. I only just found out the proper name for them while making this post, and the things I've read about them so far contradict each other, lol. Also, the official-Eng translation takes the third example below and translates it as both "Minazuki"(Sho) and "this child" at different points in Vol 3, which doesn't help my confusion, lmao.

(Checking out an instance of the first example as well, it gets translated from "ジュネスでミナヅキ[あの男]に襲われもしたが" to "That man. Minazuki? He attacked me at Junes...", occurring when Labrys and Naoto save Chie and Yosuke from Minazuki's attack in the faux-Tartarus lobby.)

E.g. "ミナヅキ　[あの男]" ("Minazuki" subtitled with "that guy") - "皆月達　[あのコら]" ("Sho & Minazuki" subtitled with... my guess is "those kids", but the 'ko' is katakana and not kanji, soo...) - "皆月　[あの子]" ("Sho" subtitled with "that boy")

[6]

Take this with a huge grain of salt, because I don't know enough Japanese to certify that the official-Eng translation shouldn't be pluralized the way that it is, but, uh... the possibility that there's more than one hidden server and more than just Sho as attempted Plume-implantation subjects??

If the translator had been reliably sticking to the pre-established translations, I would give more weight to the possibility of it being a retcon of how the game presents the information. But since it doesn't seem like the translator is familiar with the original material... I'll personally just add this one onto the “fan-characterization fodder” pile and continue hoping that P3RE might give us more clarity on what exactly the experiments of 1995-1999 entailed, lest my fluency in Japanese reach the point that I can ascertain the answer. TuT

For anyone who wants the Japanese lines in transcribed form:

先日　エルゴ研の隔離サーバから　幾月修司のパーソナルファイルが発見された

その中に”人形使い計画”と名づけられたデータが隠されていた

それは皆月翔という少年が”黄昏の羽根”を使った人体実験の最年少被験者であったことを記したものだ

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Misc. Pics

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(If you wanna see the fan-Eng in higher quality than the screengrabs I used, you can find it on Mangadex [here].)

#Sho Minazuki #Yu Narukami #Mitsuru Kirijo #Tohru Adachi #(tagging Mitsuru mostly because of the cover art)#(tagging Adachi because he appears in about half the pages pictured here)#(Sorry everyone; I have no clue how it got wordier than the last review post. I tried to segment it for easier reading at least. >_>;)#(Fun fact: I don't usually describe things as “edgy” -- including Minazuki -- )#(-- but the 'dark' non sequitur dialog was exorbitant enough to defy other applicable descriptors lol.)#(Also if anyone has an enby Sho or Mina headcanon y'all might have fun with this translation lol.)#P4AU/P4U2 manga #Persona 4 Arena Ultimax #P4AU #P4U2 #Persona 4 The Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold #ペルソナ4 ジ・アルティマックスウルトラス―プレックスホールド

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systematicallycapricious · 2 years

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Hey y’all. So in the middle of the myriad Persona-related researching things I’ve been mired in as of late, I ended up getting curious if, by chance, Ikutsuki’s highly-specific house in the P4U2 manga was based off of anything in real life, seeing as many things within the Persona series have been up until this point.

I still don’t know if this actually was the inspiration for it or not, but by golly are they really similar, so I figured that I’d share it to perhaps help out some people with finagling a floor plan for that dang knockoff igloo of a house structure, lol. Or anything else that such information might be useful for.

Also just to share some cool architecture. The people that made these, Studio Velocity, have made a few other structures with similar design elements as well, so if you want to see more, you can check them out at their webpage here! (That’s also where I’m getting the pictures from, by the by.)

Oh, and the specific pictured buildings are called “ 空の見える下階と街のような上階 “ and “swelled house”.

#P4AU/P4U2 manga #Shuji Ikutsuki #Sho Minazuki #Persona 4 Arena Ultimax #(lowkey HC'ing that Ikutsuki just commissioned the in-'verse version of these architects to build his house)#(weird eccentric man that he is)#(especially if it's just for enjoyment and not safety a la a 'retreat' rather than a 'refuge')#(Also have to wonder if those windows in Ikutsuki's circular room lead to small rooms between the int and ext walls)#(They don't show up from the outside and there's a giant skylight to spread light around from so it'd make sense maybe?)

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systematicallycapricious · 9 months

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Capri’s Guide to Sho Minazuki Content — Masterpost

Disclaimer: I don’t know, nor care to hunt down, every last piece of official content for him, as especially with the merch stuff can be really obscure. But I’ll list anything I do know or other people inform me of here.

This will also be updated if I get around to making new posts, new content comes out, or I learn of content I haven’t listed here before.

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Games:

Persona 4 Arena — (indirect appearance)

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax — (the game all about him)

Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight / Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight — (DLC dance & limited character interaction voicelines)

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Art Books:

[P4U2 Official Design Works]

[P4U & P4U2 Super Official Design Works]

P3D & P5D Official Visual Book — (character graphic & screenshots, Japanese VL transcript, potentially mentioned in the interview but I haven’t checked yet. No concept art or art pieces)

Shigenori Soejima & P-Studio Art Unit: Art Works 2 — (art pieces)

P4U2 Persona 4 The Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold Stage Project Visual Book — (seems like a photoshoot of the actors in costume?)

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Manga:

[P4U2 manga adaptation by Rokuro Saito] — (Eng fan-translation)

Udon Entertainment publication of the P4AU manga adaptation — (official Eng translation; will finish releasing by February 6th, 2024; has an exclusive edition with new cover art and a standard edition with the original cover art)

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax Comic Anthology (published by DNA Media Comics) — [Eng fan-translation of a couple comics here] — (~4 non-comic art pieces, 1 koma, 5 multi-page comics, and small cameos in 2 multi-page comics)

「タルタロス劇場」 Vol 3, 「ワイルド」 Vol 1 & 2 — (AKA “Tartarus Theater”; a couple to a few komas in each volume, appears on the cover of Vol 3)

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Theater:

Persona 4: The Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold Stageplay — (prominently featured. For a list of screentime timestamps, see [here])

Persona Super Live P-Sound Wish 2022 (concert) — (Day 2 I think, but I haven’t watched it yet. There’s also photos of the actors in costume online, for example [here], [here], [here], and [here])

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Merch:

To be honest, I don’t particularly seek out merch, nor do I always remember to document it when I come across it, so if anyone has information on this, I would be very grateful!

As well, if any of the active shop links are discontinued, let me know and I’ll add their screenshots to the merch documentation folder.

Folder of documented merch [here]

Ultimax Stageplay list of merch [here]

“Rule Smashing Pun Machine” embroidered cap [here]

P4AU box art poster (normal version) [here]

P4AU box art poster (Shadow version) [here]

A Tumblr user’s keychain & pin collection [here] — (note: no clue how much is official and how much is unofficial)

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Etc.:

Persona 4: The Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold The Complete Guide — (an official game guide from the original release, going into mechanics for each fighter, from what I can tell. I don’t own a copy though, so this is just estimations from internet pictures)

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Additional Resources:

For resources uploaded to the internet like VL files (Jap&Eng), sprites, understanding the Cyrillic script on Sho’s armband, etc., see my page [here].

#Sho Minazuki #Capri's guide to finding Sho Minazuki content #(If the formatting is wonky or hard to read for any reason let me know and I'll see what I can do!)#Persona 4 Arena Ultimax #P4AU #P4U2 #ミナヅキショウ #皆月翔 #Persona 4 The Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold

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systematicallycapricious · 2 years

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Out of curiosity, does anyone know exactly what's going on in this part of the P4U2/P4AU manga? I've been trying to figure it out for several weeks now, and the best I can comprehend is that somehow Minazuki got so startled by the sudden gun fired at him (understandably) that he faltered on whatever he does to keep control over Sho's body/consciousness (demonstrated by the gripping of his forehead/resting his head in his palm, a visual indicator used up until this point to signal that a switch of consciousnesses was occurring, and “No... Not yet...!” panel followed by Sho's sudden violent rage.. although for the stuff before Sho’s rage, I'm still not sure if that's wholly 'spoken' or 'thought' dialog, nor if it's definitely Minazuki and not Sho or Adachi, or even a combination of characters, though I think it'd make less sense if it was exclusively Sho or Adachi? :?), seemed like he was speaking to Sho for a moment, ..and then somehow Sho suddenly knew what had been going on despite otherwise demonstrating a lack of awareness of what goes on when he's not controlling his body..?

I get that the scene in the game required this to be Sho out at this point so he could pummel Adachi and then have his confrontation with Yu and all of that, and that they might be somewhat limited on pages they can either produce or include in these manga issues so maybe there could have just not been enough time/space to explain it better, but... is that actually how that occurred? Or am I missing something (like maybe their matters of consciousness are supposed to be somewhat more gradient or something, like how Minazuki seemingly used their body's left hand in stopping Sho from using their right hand to knife their face despite not being the one in explicit control of their body at the moment, so maybe Sho had just overheard Minazuki's comment about trusting Adachi having been a bad idea and assumed from there or something?), or?

(If that is actually what happened though, then for one, that's something I'll have to keep in mind for future characterizations and musings... but for two, on Sho's sudden comprehension/awareness of the situation, how and why even? Is it just a case of 'needed for plot so just accept it as fictional entertainment', a lack of resources available to be expended on showcasing or explaining it better, or actually meant to be a feature? And how does that even work if it's intended? That would also be important for future musings and characterizations. :T)

EDIT: I got a possible answer to this! I wrote a post for it [here].

#question #Sho Minazuki #P4AU/P4U2 manga #legit if people know I'd also like to know; I don't mean these rhetorically quq;#Capri's dense at interpreting comics sometimes <_<;#Capri's theories and queries

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systematicallycapricious · 2 years

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Update to my prior Vol.3 manga-things questioning post (and subsequently some theories on how Sho and Minazuki function system-wise)

For the other people who were curious about what was going on in that part of the manga too, I've recently had carnage-scissors give me his take on it! So this is like part-my interpretation and part-what he posited.

Basically, my questions/confusions boiled down to:

Why is Sho suddenly front(in this case, the one with dominant control over their body)?

Why does Sho seem to know what's going on when Minazuki was the one priorly shown to be in control of their body?

Who's speaking on that one page?

And the answers to those were;

--2--

Sho and Minazuki actually experience more co-consciousness/co-presence than is let on about throughout most of the canon stories, having developed the ability to do so more over time. Meaning, initially they likely weren’t so great at it, so you’d get more of Minazuki having a difficult time taking/retaining front for himself (like is shown in the flashbacks to their childhood in the lab), more of Sho losing time/experiencing amnesia when Minazuki takes the front (like is shown many times throughout the game and manga), later on perhaps more of Sho having a harder time taking front from Minazuki if Minazuki doesn’t want to yield it to him, and etc.

So Sho happens to know what had been going on in this scene prior to taking front for himself as, after recovering from passing out, he had been around in the background of their headspace with Minazuki not yet wanting to cede control back to him. Technically, he could have instead chosen to ignore whatever was going on in the outer-world, but given his intrigue in Adachi, Minazuki’s interactions with Adachi caught his attention. (Alternatively, he could have had some other reason for paying attention as well, such as maybe antsiness, ‘well, I can’t do anything else in this situation’, or interest in their plan being so close to complete, but with his past actions towards Adachi, some sort of trust or idolization being at play here seems to be a pretty likely option?)

Also of note: In at least the DNA Media Comics P4U2 anthology, a couple of those stories actually do feature Sho and Minazuki as being more co-present. I don’t think they’re considered canon? But it’s still pretty neat to note.

--1--

So, taking point 2 into account, Sho probably was able to snatch front from Minazuki here because A) Sho was incandescent with rage and hatred at Adachi for that moment of betrayal, more so than Minazuki could probably hold up against, and B) (my personal theory) because their shared body was already in a ‘fight or flight’ state after the gunshot, so with their background of more or less being trained to be a soldier, of course their instinctual reaction would be to immediately fight. (If you observe Sho’s appearance and behaviors in the following scene of pummeling Adachi, you can actually see a lot of indicators to this notion; wide eyes, physical tension/a readiness to retaliate, aggression, raised voice volume/quickened speech, sweating, etc. Like those are also indicators of just anger too, but I feel like it’s kicked up a notch from/a bit more primitive than prior displays of anger illustrated by the manga? It could just be my imagination though... although Minazuki dropping his sword seems like a pretty convincing argument for the shock that precedes fight or flight to me. I mean– Minazuki, of all people, dropping his weapon in a hostile situation? Plus also the widened eyes, freezing in place, etc. etc.)

Then, after that point, Minazuki likely either wasn’t able to take front back for the same reasons that Sho was able to snatch it in the first place, or else just decided that they would be better off with Sho getting his rage out of his system, though it was more likely the former than the latter considering Minazuki had been visibly opposed to Sho taking control when he did.

--3--

..Which leads to the last point! Everything from “Ugh...” to “Not yet..!” (on the page I’ll re-include below) is in fact Minazuki speaking out loud, and his dialogue is directed at Sho, who as we now established was co-con/co-present at the time and, in this moment, probably giving some sort of internal indication that he was trying to assume body control in his anger. (’Internal indication’ potentially ranging from innate knowledge of that being what was happening, some kind of mental or physical pressure, irate verbal shouting (internally), maybe a sudden flood of anger accompanying a contention for front, etc. etc. possibilities that vary a lot per individual system and instance.)

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And then, using this interpretation of things as the basis, moments such as the face-scarring scene suddenly make a lot more sense, because it would be within their realm of capability to be able to take such actions. It also might change the context of some of the scenes to being more indicative to co-presence or co-fronting as well, buut that also could just be me looking too closely and seeing nonexistent things again. <w<;

So yeah! There’s probably other possible answers to these questions as well, but at the very least I find this one quite intriguing, so I figured I’d share it. uwu

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EDIT: Adding in a few weeks later after I’ve learned a little more about the Japanese language, I’ve also learned about this:

The self-pronoun “ore ( 俺 )” is being used in this speech bubble, which out of the three speakers, only Minazuki uses. Sho and Adachi both use “boku ( 僕 )” (unless I’ve missed some instance of Adachi using “ore” I guess? I haven’t looked into it particularly deeply thus far, so it’s always possible. :P). [Insert some kind of concluding sentence here because I presently do not have one.]

[Clip grabbed from here, btw!]

#P4AU/P4U2 manga #Sho Minazuki #Capri's theories and queries #//wishing for more headspace scenes intensifies

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systematicallycapricious · 2 years

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Just rambling about a couple things I noticed in the P4U2/P4AU manga while I was trying to find some stuff for Hi-no-Kagutsuchi.

Minazuki slew the reanimated remains of 024 when he awakened to Tsukiyomi. When I first read through this, I thought it was just a generic robot like the ones in Scarlet Memories(Ch13) that just happened to have the same hairstyle due to being the same generation. But no, this is the only one drawn like this in the manga I think, and it matches 024 perfectly. And she’s missing an eye! And an arm, but that eye is right there. Q^Q

The rings in Sho’s eyes seem to be caused by the Plume of Dusk’s awakening? Or like actualization or something? By that I mean the initial gain/formation of sentience, not every time Minazuki takes control of their body. Because almost every drawing of him as a child in this, where the eyes are visible anyway, those rings are absent. Then when Minazuki first awakens to Tsukiyomi, suddenly they’re there... and then suddenly they’re gone when he ends up reverting control back to Sho. There seems to have been enough room to draw them if they were supposed to still be there, so where did they go?

According to the game, Labrys specifically;

“He(Minazuki) was still unstable then and got captured. After that, Ikutsuki tried to erase Minazuki-kun while leaving the Persona.”

So perhaps it was due to him still coming into a stable existence? Which would kind of reflect in how Minazuki saving Sho during the ch13 combat chamber flashback seemed to be something more survival-instinctual and less really something coherent I guess, and why it began and ended so abruptly. (There wasn’t really a ‘personality’ to speak of yet, just that innate instinct of living things to struggle against impending harm and death... Which kind of now makes me wonder if Minazuki saw Sho’s body as his own when he first awakened to a sentience/consciousness, given there potentially wasn’t really time or a potential level of coherence to learn otherwise. Plumes consider themselves whatever they’re in the physical form of when it comes to sentience, so a human body would just, at first, be... a body, and by association it must be the Plume’s body, right? Then it wouldn’t just be “this is Sho’s body” from the start.. {Capri, you’ve been writing a similar scenario for how many months, and you just now consider that possibility? /)_-;} That understanding would come later. ..And also that makes me wonder now if Plumes inherently know that they’re Plumes when they become sentient enough to think/feel such things, or if they only learn that fact if an outside force enlightens them on the matter. Huh..)

And explain why the rings remain beyond that point I suppose... After all, Minazuki is, presumably, always aware and conscious after whatever point he fully stabilizes/solidifies, while when he’s not yet like that they fade when his consciousness does. Or, alternatively, just a stable soul versus one that’s kind of fluctuating in and out of existence I guess (maybe kind of like a kindling flame?)? (And additionally explain why they would match the ASSWs’ eyes, that also have those rings in them and more developed/sentient Plumes of Dusk within them? Though the rings were still drawn on the rebuilt 5th gens, whom I’m not sure if they actually have Plumes at this point or not (since they were removed during Labrys’s story, but were they put back in for the purposes of Sho’s past? Can ASSWs still logistically function with missing Plume/personality module components, since they’re still technically just robots and computers alongside that? :?), so maybe not? I guess on the ASSW’s they could instead be indicative of like camera lenses or something, since their eyes are artificial? But they were also included pretty prominently on other supernatural entities from the Sea of Souls/Collective Unconsciousness such as the Velvet Siblings and any and all Shadow-selves/replicas included, soo...)

Although then there’s these two pictures as well, so ???? They’re offhand, so there’s not really any context I can scour for clues for clarification on this. :T Sho went into his coma when they tried to remove Minazuki post-Awakening, so it doesn’t seem likely that these would be from after that? I guess it could be from before the Awakening but after that one specific combat test though? :? I suppose all that can be done on that is speculation.

Completely unrelatedly to that, Kanji just ripping a Shadow apart with his bare hands. ..in the middle of the torrent of Shadows, but regardless. Dang dude.

And Minazuki with a gun is terrifying and we should all be glad that he doesn’t have nor use one on the regular. That is all. xP

#SystematicRambles #P4AU/P4U2 manga #Capri's theories and queries

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