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I never got the impression that the Principal was part of the conspiracy; he was just some schmuck whose boss or boss' boss was in the conspiracy and was leaning on him. Same way Makoto and Sae weren't in on it but were pressured into doing their bidding.
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Nov 26, 2022 13:49
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I mean, she did. That was the one good call he made.
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Nov 26, 2022 22:48
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The Royal semester doesn’t give you a lot of time, but you should be good because Devil and Hanged Man are both night confidants, and I think all of the new optional events are daytime ones. Personally I always found Haru to be the least wholesome of the non-adult romance options, because Futaba at least has a relationship and boundaries with the other Phantom Thieves, and I read her teasing of Inari as something resembling a crush, while Haru's Confidant story is entirely about her having zero peers her age and how Joker is the only man she has ever interacted with as an equal. I think the confession scene is even the very same scene as the one where she finally gets to cut off her abusive ex, meaning that the only way for her to be single for more than five minutes of her life is to turn her down. That’s not making any sort of universal judgment; it really depends on what you read into the characters. My favorite of Joker's options are Yoshisawa chiefly because she's into him from day one. If you read Joker as reciprocating that, it’s a relationship of two kids with obvious chemistry hitting it off from day one, rather than Joker winning over the girl with his friendship. Nothing wrong with the latter, but the former is hella underrepresented in these kinds of stories. Also there are a lot of less healthy ways to read that relationship.
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Nov 28, 2022 04:20
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Also they get to know each other before he crashes into her life by kicking her personal demons' manifested rear end. Which also goes for Makoto, which I also like because if they get together, their relationship is being dorks who have no idea they're into each other until they've been on three dates, which is a wholly different underutilized trope. Plus Joker's debilitating anti-cop aura can only be good for her.
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Nov 28, 2022 20:13
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Royal was my first Persona game and I've played through it once but I absolutely adored it. No notes, it should have been longer so I could spend more time with the characters. Playing through Strikers rn and I'm not really a fan of the gameplay, but it has more Phantom Thieves and therefore is good.
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Nov 29, 2022 18:21
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I named him Joseph Kerr and I ended up forgetting it was supposed to be a joke name because people only ever refer to him by first or last name.
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Dec 1, 2022 13:38
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hobbez posted:Like the scene where the boys meet up with the "maid service" essentially with the subtex they're attempting to solicit a prostitute? Like what the gently caress, why? And it's still unclear if Kawakami is just a maid or if she actually performs sex acts for money with other clients. There is some heavy innuendo it's the latter. Her storyline will eventually make this clear. If you'd prefer to just be spoiled on it rather than roll the dice, she's not a prostitute or escort, just a maid
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Dec 1, 2022 17:28
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They're supposed to have tiny cracks that only show up in thief-vision, but they're real easy to spot in the first several layers because they're the only thing that looks like a normal wall. Actual dead ends are either open rooms or have the rails going up the wall to block you or something weird; if the rail just ends in a plain, non-descript wall, that's a breakable one.
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Dec 1, 2022 19:26
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He did! Once.
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Dec 1, 2022 20:41
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Obviously, Joker did realize at the time who Shido was, and again that other time his name comes up and it's obvious he's the big bad, but then forgot after getting drugged by the cops and had to remember a third time.
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Dec 2, 2022 00:39
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How could you forget such a pivotal scene? It's so unceremonious it loops right back to being memorable; he doesn't get an animated scene, dramatic camera angles, or even get out of the chair. Just a static scene like all the others, except at the end he goes arghlebargle and his eyes pop out.
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Dec 2, 2022 14:01
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IIRC you can also change the difficulty to Safety at any point during the game; you just can't change out of it once it's set. I'd recommend starting on Easy just to see if that's breezy enough on its own. You can always change it to Safety later, but you can't go the other way if you start to get bored with it.
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Dec 3, 2022 20:56
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man nurse posted:So in the interest of saving myself that potential heartache for 5R, is there a bare minimum non-spoilerish requirement I should be aware of going in to set myself up for getting the real ending? Or would it be too much spoilers? If you want to know specific cut-off points and rough dates, you need to get Justice to level 8 and Councillor to level 9 by mid-November, and Faith to level 5 before late December.
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Dec 4, 2022 21:50
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wait what did they do to Last Surprise? I've only played Royal and it was definitely one of the standard battle themes.
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Dec 5, 2022 05:12
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I heard plenty of Last Surprise; sorry you're not as bad as video games as me i guess  And, I mean, you can pretty confidently say Take Over rules without ever hearing it; it's by the same people as the rest of the soundtrack, but if you're wondering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ2KB5LVdqA
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Dec 5, 2022 06:21
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Yusuke is actually amazing once you just get past his interactions with Ann in his introduction (which are intended to read as oblivious rather than creepy, even if they fall short in that regard).
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Dec 8, 2022 05:20
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IIRC there's a throwaway line about (Royal) Maruki vetting desires and only fulfilling ones that do no harm, so if you want your boss to drop dead or your crush to dump her boyfriend and get with you or whatever, you're SOL and he'll get you something else nice. But also there's news stories and background chatter of everybody winning the lottery and getting promotions at work, so I wholly believe that in the Marukiverse there are as many gold medals as there are people who want one. I don't think that's a plot hole so much as it is the game choosing not to dwell on the ways in which Maruki's world is untenable and just letting it be background noise. dw about akechi he probably just used his cat-like reflexes to jump out at the last minute Also hard disagree on the losing party members stuff, because I shamefully never got to the end of Futaba's confidant and it would both really suck to not have Futaba and be an extremely different world state if she stuck to her alternate reality. Zulily Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 07:00 on Dec 8, 2022 |
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Dec 8, 2022 06:43
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I may have forgotten some interaction, but IIRC they deliberately avoid having Haru or Futaba say anything nice to Akechi or interact with him at all when it's not strictly necessary. It may not be given the weight it deserves, but they haven't forgotten! ...Well, outside of Futaba's battle commentary being the exact same for Crow as it was in vanilla, that is a bit jarring.
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Dec 8, 2022 08:28
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I think it would be polite to mark posts with spoilers for the Royal ending stuff as such, given that the conversation was started by someone still playing through that storyline.
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Dec 8, 2022 20:45
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Sydin posted:Maruki grants the specific desires of the phantom thieves as they express to him in their therapy sessions, partly because he actually knows their desires as a result and because he's grateful to them for helping him realize his power and vision. For everybody who is not the phantom thieves, he sucks up their shadow from Mementos and puts them through a battery of psychological test to see if they conform to his values and worldview or not, and if they don't brainwashes their shadow until they do. They're then dropped back into Maruki's "perfect" reality not caring about their issues, but not necessarily having those issues solved. Like Ryuji as a phantom thief gets a perfect life where he gets to be a track superstar and go on to get a scholarship, but all the rando track team people who might not be great at track just get made to decide eh it's not worth it, don't push something you're not all that good at because it's easier that way. Maruki's world is just the world Yaldy wanted to make, slapped with a particularly insidious coat of paint. There's at least a bit more to it than that (Royal semester). All the random background NPCs around Tokyo also get a sudden happy ending similar to the Phantom Thieves': the little girl learning about dog mortality in Yongen-Jaya magically gets her dog back, the overworked salarymen at Shibuya station get swanky promotions, the Novice Pickup Artist outside the arcade is drowning in digits, et cetera et cetera. Maruki is definitely presented as adding the personal touch wherever he can, because the whole point is that the problem doesn't lie in his execution, but in his goal itself.
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Dec 8, 2022 21:57
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Ytlaya posted:The main issue is that the protagonist's party don't really point this out, and instead just repeat "but you should face reality" a bunch. I genuinely think this is the best way they could do this, because any way I try to envision the alternative is a significantly worse story. The Phantom Thieves have a rock solid moral compass, and are also idiot teenagers (and a magic cat), so they know the Marukiverse is wrong, even if they lack the critical analysis tools to express exactly why it is wrong on a grand scale. Once they start unearthing Maruki's story, however, they understand it on a personal scale and see it for what it is; a big ol' dissociation from the doctor's own unexamined trauma, and that is a lot closer to their area of expertise. What's the alternative? You could dig into a big meta-ethical analysis and argue the fundamental flaws of Maruki's plan, but that is an absolute minefield of a conversation, out of character for the Phantom Thieves and a hell of a lot more boring than the character drama the story has been so far. Persona 5 is definitely a commentary on social issues, but the actual plot beats center on characters. I respect that Yaldabaoth had to be there because it wouldn't be an SMT game without letting you kill god at some point, but I bet exactly zero posters here would list him as their favorite villain. Maruki ultimately rolls in with the exact same detached utilitarian erasure of the human condition as Yaldy did, and his is a better story not because it has a hotter coat of paint, but because it has an actual person at its core. And it's fun to theorize how Maruki could have been smarter in they ways he uses his powers, but that serves even less of a purpose for the actual plot. That is not a repudiation of what he is doing; it carries with it the implication that there exists a proper implementation of the Marukiverse. Having the Phantom Thieves only address the premise of the idealized world and ultimately reject it is a much stronger display of their convictions than anything involving them examining its finer details. like I'm wholly open to the idea that there's a better way to tell the story, and also I only discovered persona 5 a month ago so if all of this stuff is a dead horse, that's on me Zulily Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Dec 8, 2022 |
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Dec 8, 2022 22:41
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It really didn't need the timer on top of everything else. I managed to pick up what they wanted in the first couple waves and the final wave took me like five tries because I was underleveled and needed to stack my buffs and time everything just right. It felt good, and I felt cool for powering through it and being able to engage with a system I hadn't really actively employed! Then the next phase is just a wall that eats into your timer, and there's another phase after that which is plain ol' timed and I ran out of time during that. That sucked! Like, yeah, a baton pass boss fight is a good idea, and a timed battle, sure, but it is unspeakably rude to do both at once and make it such a long fight that you have to start over from scratch if you lose. 
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Dec 14, 2022 16:38
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The big roadblock is in the middle of the fight. You were absolutely going to win if you can clear that, but you still have another two phases designed only to take your time. That's not good design.
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Dec 14, 2022 16:47
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*pretending to be someone who never looks under spoiler tags* hey pancakes sound like a good idea
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Dec 19, 2022 20:08
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Huh, I’m also replaying that part and think it’s a lot more reasonable on a second playthrough. Makoto's flaw is that she believes the system will protect the vulnerable, despite being surrounded by examples to the contrary, and also that she has no value, thanks to the aforementioned examples. She's book smart but naïve, and thinks she is safe because she is a minor with a clean record and the “backing” of the principal and a hot shot prosecutor. She's also desperate to prove herself because after she blows Joker's cover, he still unflinchingly steps in to save her rear end, making her realize that the people she's currently blackmailing care more about her well-being than the adults in her life. She's just had her worldview shattered and overcorrects, which is something that happens to smart, inexperienced people all too often. Plus her actual plan is to sacrifice herself and put her faith in someone who deserves it for once. The latter pays off with dividends, not only do the Phantom Thieves save her and stop Kaneshiro, she also gets her sister to spend an afternoon with Joker, shattering her illusion that there’s such a thing as a good cop, which is priceless. She grossly underestimated what the sacrifice would entail, but again, that’s more naïve than stupid. Advisor is exactly the role she should have; she gets to puzzle out game mechanics and suggest a path of action, but she also gets to be overruled by the sensible folks like Yusuke when it comes to critical matters.
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Dec 22, 2022 15:47
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Yusuke may be a lot of things, but he never takes his eye off the ball to let things like personal matters or a quest for fame or social reform get in the way of the Phantom Thieves. He's there because they saved him and he wants to pay it forward, and he only ever considers the victims of the current target and the potential consequences of going after them. He's the first to hit the brakes when it's obvious you're being railroaded and only relents when he decides that saving Haru is worth the risk of whatever the villain is planning. Name one time Yusuke has steered anyone wrong (after joining the Phantom Thieves), I dare you.
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Dec 22, 2022 16:40
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Ytlaya posted:What are you referring to here? I only remember Sae visiting the cafe a couple times to interrogate Sojiro. I wanna say, November 20th? It's part of the two-hour-cutscene marathon so you may have glossed over that one, but it's when you get your first rank 10 plot confidant.
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Dec 23, 2022 03:13
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Strikers will technically spoil a few remaining details of the vanilla P5 storyline, but if you have an inkling of who the seventh target might be, I don't think there are any you'd care about. I'll second that you're fine any time after joining up with Haru.
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Dec 26, 2022 19:10
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I mean, it's not like Nier: Automata is undeserving of those awards. I personally like P5 better but that is also a sublime game. And was the big "twist" really that obvious to everyone else? I genuinely did not see it coming until his really convenient story at the start of Sae's palace and also breaking out the Hubert voice and admitting to having been a metaverse user for years in his rank 8 confidant. I really thought he was just a Pleasant Boy... Is there any hint other than pancakes and his generally shady behavior? I totally missed the former until the game spelled it out for me, and I don't think the latter ever really broke through to me until it gets really obvious by like late October. I had a whole half-baked idea that the black mask was some evil version of Joker, and the whole "rehabilitation" nonsense and Morgana's amnesia would tie into that. Which I guess technically was the plot, but I hadn't pegged Akechi as the evil Joker. I am on my first replay and I still read their confidant events as Akechi finding his equal and being genuinely curious if he's capable of friendship and what that path could have been like. Zulily Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 03:21 on Dec 29, 2022 |
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Dec 29, 2022 03:18
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RenegadeStyle1 posted:He's a cop. Fair point; yeah, that's on me.
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Dec 29, 2022 10:20
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Sophie is so good it's almost unfair to all the other characters.
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Dec 30, 2022 17:41
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I don’t have the [guts] to check, but in my heart I believe that every single instance of “Okay, I've got it!” is a unique recording. E: Also it's not like anyone doesn't see it coming, but it's technically a spoiler that Strikers has two new party members. Which I'm mostly just putting here so I can nest the bigger spoiler, which is that there's two persona awakenings. That one I wasn't expecting and I would have been sad to have been spoiled on that! Zulily Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 03:50 on Jan 2, 2023 |
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Jan 2, 2023 03:40
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Strikers is the most competently-designed Musou-like I have played; you actually have to pay attention to what you're doing and use all the tools available to you and can't get by with just button-mashing and spamming big attacks. yeah i turned that sucker down to easy and just stayed for the plot, worth it I think the guys in Shido's palace were cognitions fused with generic shadows as an anti-Phantom-Thief measure, not the actual shadows of his cronies. The game kind of glosses over this point, but I think at least the TV director is shown to be around and suppressing footage of your and Shido's activities after the calling card.
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Jan 4, 2023 13:28
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Endorph posted:whenever people post stuff like that i dont get what people got out of strikers at all.it feels like we played different games. every fight in strikers was over so quickly i didnt have time to do anything other than do a couple skills and like two combos. Regular fights are fine and fast, but the boss-type ones got me. Your characters go down in like four hits and I'm not hardcore enough to consistently dodge, but too hardcore to conserve SP for healing. I muddled through the first major boss fight, after having used all my healing items and still lost all my party members, by just running in circles as Joker and spamming the gun-gungungun combo for like ten minutes. I might have been underleveled, but I am even more averse to grinding than I am to getting good.
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Jan 4, 2023 16:11
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well joker you don't have a yukata but you can't not dress up so how about you take off your glasses that's kind of like dressing up ryuji you don't need to do anything, E: That sounds dismissive, but I honestly respect the script just not giving a gently caress and have much more beef with "yeah turns out you can shunt a literal army and their materiel into the metaverse no problem, let's never explore that and assume no villain ever thinks to do it again." Zulily Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Jan 5, 2023 |
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Jan 5, 2023 18:21
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Eh it sucks for gameplay reasons and it would be really nice to have her around for any time at all, but narratively it makes no sense for her to join you at any other time than when she does. Literally everyone except Joker and Morgana already knows her real name and it's probably common gossip that Kasumi is dead. There is no way this wouldn't come up if she were to formally join the gang; it's already convoluted enough that Joker never hears the name "Sumire" uttered until January. Plus she's already made it explicit that she opposes the Phantom Thieves (which is vital to her character arc) and only wants to keep Joker safe, and Joker's not the kind of guy who'd take an uncommitted newbie on their deadliest heist yet, that's not railroading him any harder than when he stands up to an abuser with no player input. Even if they could slot her into vanilla cutscenes for free, they'd have to write an entirely different character for that to work. E: I mean, Yoshizawa gets plenty of screentime, but is deliberately written in a way where it makes sense for her to mostly just interact with Joker and rarely the entire gang. Akechi's new confidant is also original one-on-one Joker time. Maybe they would have written a different story if they were free to replace the animation, but the stuff they did write slots neatly into the story as-is. Zulily Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Jan 5, 2023 |
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Jan 5, 2023 19:50
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Shyrka posted:I spammed the hell out of Chihaya's fortune reading [snip] This is response to someone asking about playing Royal for the first time; you should probably spoiler tag some of those details.
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Jan 7, 2023 03:06
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As I understand it: Joker did get arrested as a Phantom Thief, twice, and is still under investigation by some unspecified law enforcement/government agency. Who these guys are is never really specified, but they were also in the vanilla ending I think? The Phantom Thieves are just super forgiving, they were also trying to mend fences with Akechi during Shido's palace, and were cool with teaming up with him again with little more than a nod and a vague threat from Haru and Futaba. A little world domination by a well-meaning lunatic is nothing that gets their hackles up, just gotta change his heart for his own sake and things are peachy. Sumire is his victim and he did all kinds of horrible poo poo to her, and she's still explicitly thankful to him in the end. They're too good for their own good, really. She's using Kasumi's phone, which was in the car crash; her cognition does not allow her to see the obvious damage so she just thinks it's acting up. She has her own phone which works fine, but only uses it consistently once she's aware that she's Sumire. I don't think this is ever actually addressed in any way, but it's what I've been assuming. Zulily Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 21:59 on Jan 7, 2023 |
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Jan 7, 2023 21:48
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Maruki's deal is that unlike all the other jaded or villainous adults, he comes right out the gate so earnest that it's almost cloying. To be honest, I'm not sure how I'd feel about him if he weren't voiced by the late, great Billy Kametz, because Maruki's dialogue leans into the earnestness to the point where a lot of the lines as written come off as insincere or even condescending, but god drat does the man sell that here is a dude who, from the bottom of his heart, just wants to support others.
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Jan 8, 2023 03:02
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Yeah, to be clear, I'm saying Kametz absolutely nailed the performance; I would have found Maruki to come off as insincere or grating if his VA had been weaker, but Kametz sells that this guy is just awkward and earnest.
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Jan 8, 2023 06:00
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