In this month’s episode of “Persona Stalker Club,” a talk show with freelance writer Mafia Kajita and voice actress Tomomi Isomura, we get to see the first footage of Rise Kujikawa in Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, some Persona Q action, and a special guest from the Persona team to participate in their shenanigans.
The episode starts out with a white “fog” that covered their vision, but upon putting on their special glasses, our favorite hosts found themselves somewhere with a poster that read “P Studio”.
As it turns out, their previous episodes have been such a success, they’ve unlocked access to more Persona content and the go-ahead to start airing episodes from where the games are currently being made, the Persona studio itself.
After playing a short romantic quiz game where Kajita answers various questions to find out which Persona Q character is his best match, the two hosts try their hand at Persona Q to see if they can take on an F.O.E. starting at the 15:12 mark of the video.
In order to take on the tough enemy, the Persona team put together a party suitable to take it on, but also limited items and equipment to make things a little challenging. One thing worth noting is that the new characters Rei and Zen seem not to have any Personas. The fight starts at 17:25.
After throwing everything they have at the enemy, Isomura and Kajita are finally able to defeat the F.O.E. and completed the challenge, which actually takes them around 50 minutes to finish. Kajita jokingly states that Normal mode was just too easy for him.
Next, we have the Midnight Station part at 28:40, where they show us some of the latest of all things Persona, starting with a special alternate color Mitsuru figurine. At 30:20, they get a special video message from Yumi Kawamura, one of the vocalist for the soundtracks of Persona 3 and 4, who also mentions that her new album featuring 45 Persona tracks will be released on May 14.
Those of you who’ve been keeping track of the past episodes know that Isomura and Kajita have been twisting the lyrics to certain Persona songs to what it sounds like in Japanese. As it turns out, Kawamura is a fan of their skit, and asked if the two could invite her as a guest sometime in the future.
We previously reported the latest on Persona 4 Arena Ultimax’s new playable character in Rise Kujikawa, and you can see her in action for the first time starting at the 33:39 mark of the video, where the hosts get the OK from the staff to show off Rise and Shadow Rise.
Kajita points out that Rise has plenty of long-ranged attacks in her repertoire, but the delay might cause a few problems. Isomura also mentions that she has a lot of moves, which might be tough to understand at first. Finally, at 38:10, we get the fan-favorite section of Persona Stalker, where Isomura and fans get English Persona lyrics and show what it sounds like to them in Japanese. In this third episode, the segment gets its first guest, who is apparently a surprise even to the hosts—Yumi Kawamura herself.
Kawamura jokingly talks about how she can’t “un-hear” Isomura’s lyrics, and will likely sing those out during her next live show.
The first one is from Persona 3’s Paulownia Mall track, “When the Moon’s Reaching Out Stars,” where the lyrics say “[I’ve never felt] so miserable,” which sounds like “Sumizurai-po” (It’s hard to live-po!) According to Isomura, this interpretation was submitted more than any other thus far.
The next one is also from “When the Moon’s Reaching Out Stars,” which seems to be a popular one to twist. This time, it’s the part of the song that says “You gotta tell now, your love came all over me”. This part apparently sounds like “Yukari-chan mo, Hiro-chan mo, oobaa nii” (Yukari-chan and Hiro-chan, over-knee).
Following, is Persona 4 Arena’s opening song “Best Friends,” when the lyrics of “Could turn out to be” ends up being misinterpreted as “Kutta nasubi” (ate that eggplant).
Isomura also adds a collaborative addition to it at the following part of the song that says “Sometimes I cannot,” with “Itadakimasu” (a Japanese term for “let’s eat,” said prior to eating a meal), showing a sad Yu and Nanako. While Kawamura tries to sing it out again to check for similarities, it doesn’t sound the same; however, upon hearing the recorded version again, there’s no denying it.
While Kajita jokes about how people are just hearing things like that because they’re terrible at English (as a jeer at Isomura), Kawamura thinks it’s quite amazing that some people have listened to the music so much that they can dissect certain parts of it and hear the things they do.
At the end, Kawamura also agrees to becoming an official member of their comical lyrics section, and will be appearing in future episodes, to which Kajita says they no longer have anything to fear now that she’s on their side.
