Following the previous demo impressions, Nekketsu Nikki has translated more impressions of the Persona 5 public and “Premium Experience Meeting” demos which took place on August 6th and 7th, 2016. These include a comprehensive description of the first 1.5 hours of Persona 5‘s story.

[SPOILER WARNING] THESE INCLUDE HEAVY STORY SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST HOUR AND A HALF OF PERSONA 5, CONTINUE READING AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION.

The title screen is an underground subway station. All the characters in their thief forms slowly gather in it, including one in a plague doctor’s mask. Trains run in the station and when you press start the trains stop. (Editor’s Note: The original source appears to suggest that the characters only appear as grey silhouettes wearing white masks.)

The parents of MC are friends with one of Sojiro’s customers. He doesn’t really welcome MC and just tell him “Listen to what I say” and “Don’t cause any problems”, and seems he got money from MC’s parents to cover MC’s expenses. The protagonist comes to Hideto for his one year under probation. His school nicknamed Shuujin is in Aoyama. When it rains, Sojiro tells MC to not forget his umbrella, and he makes him breakfast everyday, the same curry rice sold in the café. He keeps his distance from MC but at the same time still looks out for him. For example, the room he prepared for the MC has an attic, but he didn’t clean it at all before MC’s arrival, and it’s full of dust. Also, he seems like a playboy, or the type that doesn’t have other men’s numbers in his cellphone, he wears white suits or pink shirts with a white hat too. Nakata(Jouji)’s acting is very amazing too.

The MC remembers how he ended up living at Sojiro’s place:

There’s a woman being assaulted by a drunk man screaming “Help me!” to MC. The man says something like “the police does whatever I say, you’ll regret this” implying he’s someone with lot of influence explaining why the MC ended up getting a criminal record.

The scenes never show the full face of the drunk man who assaulted the woman, so maybe he’ll appear later. MC is in prison sleeping, with the same t shirt he was wearing when he got arrested.

All the following is 2D animated: The scene changes to Nijiima Sae speaking with an important looking person. They’re talking about how recently there’s been a lot of incidents involving people suddenly going wild, and this case might be related to this. Then the man invites Sae to eat together, but she declines saying she already has an appointment planned. Then Goro Akechi says “I want to eat sushi, as a treat for making me, a student, work until this late”. Sae answers “the ones that spins right?” and the other person answers “eeeh” with a really unpleasant face.

Then it’s the 1st day of school:

You need to change trains at Shibuya station to take the Ginza line to Aoyama, where the school is located, but the writer got lost.

The calendar still says 20XX just like in the PVs.

Masses of transparent NPC can be passed through and don’t hinder movement. Also when you speak to someone or hear people’s gossip, some will stop on purpose to listen while avoiding your gaze.

2D animated: You meet Anne for the first time when getting out of the train station near school. It’s raining and you’re taking shelter from the rain, and she runs over with her hood on to shelter herself form the rain as well. MC stares at her. She removes her hood and he sees that’s she’s quarter Japanese and he stares at her even more. Even though she’s glared at so much, instead of getting angry, Anne just responds with a smile, showing she’s strong. Or maybe she’s used to it? Then Kamoshida comes over in his car, asks in Anne will get in her car, and she gets in the passenger seat. The car leaves, and Ryuji comes running saying “that pervert teacher!”. And the Isekai Navi app starts up. Ryuji talks badly to the MC but then realizes he’s a transfer student and his attitude become nicer. They head out in the rain to school.

But the school has transformed into Kamoshida Palace:

When entering, they get surrounded and caught by people in knight like armor. Then the screen splits in two like in old style movies, shows the calendar flipping quickly, and goes back to the scene of the MC being interrogated by Sae san in the interrogation room.

Back to the past, MC is in a jail, and Kamoshida, dressed like in PV4, comes over with troops, saying he’ll execute MC. It feels like something happened before between Kamoshida and Ryuji. MC and Ryuji are onesidedly getting beaten up, and when it seems Ryuji will die, MC hears Arsène’s voice. Arsène tells MC “Was that a mistake?” After that MC rips his mask and changes into his thief outfit etc like in PV2, and a battle starts, enemy is a Jack Lantern.

After the battle ends, MC untransforms back to his school uniform. He runs away with Ryuji, then suddenly someone calls them. It’s Morgana. They talk about how it’s a cat, and it gets really angry. It seems as if Morgana’s claims of being a person might be true. Morgana says something like “return the distortion”. Then, the two takes Morgana’s hands and Morgana makes them escape. Morgana stays inside though, saying it has something to do.

Ryuji and MC are back in an alley. It’s not morning anymore but already noon. A policeman suddenly calls out to them. Ryuji is about to tell everything that just happened to the policeman, but MC stops him and hides the truth. They go to school. Apparently someone posted about MC on the net and there’s rumors about him, so everyone whispers about him when he passes them at school, saying stuff like “he has a criminal record”. Everyone avoids him. They talk about him as if he shoplifts alcohol and cigarettes regularly, it’s impressive. Also MC walks with his hands in pocket like you see in PVs, and he plays with his bangs or hit vertically his left feet on the ground.

Then something with Sadayo (a female teacher) happens. Apparently she’s not nice towards MC, but she becomes a coop later so this will change. After school, Ryuji calls out MC to the school rooftop. He says he knows how it is to be treated like a problem child, then they talk about the other world, then their conversation ends. Also there’s a desk in the corner of the rooftop, implying it was already used a reunion spot or base before. However now it’s actually off limits, but it was left unlocked.

MC returns to café Leblanc, where he stays at. Sojiro is angry at MC, he’s not yelling though, just saying something about not making problems. Sojiro gets a call, possibly from a woman, then closes shop and the day ends. There, MC gets to Velvet Room. Igor tells him he’s the one who gave him the Isekai Navi app, and that’s it. Igor’s personality is very different from before, and he no longer seems like a friendly old man. He feels more like a main character, and he refers to MC as “omae.” (A disrespectful way of referring to someone).

Next day, MC goes to school too, and you don’t need to do the changing train lines part anymore, it’s automatic. The questions you get asked in class are actually hard. After school, Ryuji is waiting for MC at the school gate, saying they’ll go look for the “castle”, but no matter how many times they go through the same path as the day before, they don’t find it. Then they remember that Isekai Navi activated back then so MC activates it with his phone, and Kamoshida Palace appears in place of the school. The visual effect is like the screen getting blurry, and a hole opening in real space. The visual effect inside Palace is similar to P3 during the midnight hour. MC transforms into his thief outfit. You got a choice there, and you can tell Ryuji “You’re jealous right?” and Ryuji says “I’m not!”. They meet Morgana again, who tells them that the Palace is modeled after how the owner of the Palace sees the world: Kamoshida sees the school as his castle, and the students as his servants. And it’s the same for the protagonists too, and their thieves forms are the representation of their true nature when removing the masks on their hearts. Their true nature are thieves.

They go back to the cells they were imprisoned at yesterday, and they see tons of students in them. Ryuji asks one of them what’s happening, he says they’re getting tortured because Kamoshida is in a bad mood after letting MC escape yesterday. Ryuji wants to help them, and Morgana says that as long as the MC comes along, Morgana is willing to help. MC agrees. They keep moving and Morgana teaches MC things along the way. They get to a place called “Order of Love”. There’s a big horizontal banner saying “Kamoshida’s Order of Love”. And yet there’s terrible screams coming from the inside, screams begging someone to please stop, it’s impossible, etc. When they get inside, they see a huge volleyball court, with people being beaten, people being forced to run on treadmills that have spikes in their back, stuff you could see in Catherine except they’re people not sheep. And they’re all people related to the Volleyball Club. Then there’s a flashback about Kamoshida speaking to the principal of the school. The principal says that the Volleyball Club has a lot of achievements, and that Kamoshida is the one thanks to who the school is popular. And the reason everyone was giving glances at MC at school was because Kamoshida sensei told them to spread rumors about him. Apparently Kamoshida sensei made the Volleyball team win the gold medal at the nationwide tournament, so everyone at school feels like they can’t defy him, hence what was said above about him thinking they’re his slaves etc. MC and Ryuji try to take pictures of what’s happening but it doesn’t work, so Ryuji says he’ll just remember every people’s face. They go to the exit and leave.

But Kamoshida was waiting for them in ambush at the exit. MC and Morgana fights him but are having a hard time, and end being defeated. In this fight the enemy starts with an advantage by surrounding the cast. Ryuji tries a desperate suicide attack on Kamoshida but gets repelled.

Next, there’s a dialogue between Kamoshida and Ryuji, the writer says he doesn’t remember it word by word but it’s more or less what was said:

Kamoshida says to Ryuji, calling him “Ace sama”,(ironically reminding him of his old Track&Field Ace status): “These two would have got swallowed up in your ideas anyway, just like the Track&Field club you ruined because of your sudden outburst of violence. Even though I took special care in advising you”.

Ryuji:”That wasn’t training! It was corporal punishment!”

Kamoshida: “That was also a form of advising. That’s why I stopped with crushing only one of your legs. Do you want me to break the other one?”

Ryuji is speechless and surprised.

Kaomshida: “Only my Volleyball Club should get achievements, the others are an eyesore.”

Ryuji says this means it’s this guy’s fault that I’m never gonna be able to run races again? Even though I was the ace? Even though I had the strength to aim for the national competitions? Because of his corporal punishment when he was my adviser? Everything was stolen away from me, just because his social status in the school was threatened? For this unilateral reason? He probably secretly schemed to become our adviser too, and the school covered it up. He’s using the students as his guards too. Don’t screw with me! Then Morgana spurs Ryuji on by asking him if he’s really fine just going with what he’s told. Ryuji hears Captain Kidd’s voice and screams in agony, then peels off his mask and awakens his Persona. He says: “If I have this power, I can have my revenge!”