Persona 5 Royal – Game, Comic view, and References to Persona 5 Royal

Persona 5 Royal: An Incredible Game

The Persona 5 Royal game starts with a bizarre bit of onscreen text narrating to the player that “This story is a work of great fiction.”
This disclaimer has a voice, asserting that any similarities to real people are incidental as seemingly a part of the efficient intro to the game.
In the end, the voice asks you to agree with the ongoing statement before letting you progress.
It’s a different moment that Persona 5 never returns to, at least not directly.
And also, I imagine many English-language players leave wondering what the point of it was.
These strange kinds of disclaimers are uncommon enough in most games, but they present it as a part of the experience makes it mystifying.
However, the reality of its presence deliberately highlights how much of Persona 5 is based on actual Japanese events and politics.

Persona 5’s stance, which is almost comical, is that adults cannot take care of the problem and can’t trust.
While that’s obviously a generalization, reality proves that the education ministry is still failing its students in some key ways.
Atlus’s game postures that people need to take control of their own lives for real change to happen and make their voices audible because nobody else will.
Is this a naive stance to take? Sure, in many ways, but it’s still efficient nonetheless.
The 5th arc in Persona 5 revolves around Okumura Foods, a giant corporation having rumors to be one of Japan’s “black companies.”
In Japan, the black company is a term that refers to an exploitative workplace.
Kunikazu Okumura is the president of the company in-game.
Despite his outstanding success in the business world, he views his employees as nothing but replaceable cogs in his giant machine.
To illustrate this, they represent in his palace by toy robot enemies.
Due to his upward status and political ties, however, he’s untouchable by the law.
The Phantom Thieves target and bring him down by stealing his heart.

There are plenty of direct and indirect references to real-world events in Persona 5, and the examples are simply the tip of the iceberg.
Atlus’s latest giant wears its themes on its sleeve.
And also, while it doesn’t offer a proper fix to Japan’s biggest societal problems.
It’s good that a big game like this is willing to criticize all things in such a public way.
These kinds of tent-pole releases are good and rare to direct in their criticism.
In a post-2011 tsunami Japan, it would not be terribly surprising if we see more of this kind of commentary moving forward.
If we are interested in digging up more of Persona 5’s influences.
I highly recommend looking into zaibatsu, the lost decade, black companies, and current Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The villainy is strictly grounding in reality (save for some late-game elements).
Helps making it different from the world-ending monsters of P3 or the magic TV antics of P4.
Ironically, Persona 5 ends up a much darker game than its two predecessors because of the way it tackles Japanese news headlines.

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