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Hello naughty children, I am going to talk about “psychotic breakdowns” in the P5 localization, and the fact that it’s a (very big) mistranslation that could mess up your perception of a fair amount of things in the game. (also, the fact that “psychotic breakdowns” and “mental shutdowns” are different things).

As usual, post is pretty long & screenshot heavy.

In Persona 5, there are incidents the localization refers to as “psychotic breakdowns” throughout the game. “Psychotic breakdown” is wildly different from what the Japanese version of the game seemingly wanted to convey.

In Japanese, they’re often referred to as 暴走事件(lit “runaway incident)” & the term relating to those incidents and the power used to create them is 暴走(lit “runaway/run wildly)”

A more correct translation for these would’ve been things such as human rampages, rampage incidents, berserk incidents, berserk, rampage, frenzy. “Psychotic breakdown” is straight up wrong, and nigh contradictory for how the power is explained to work(more in that later in the post).

In this post, I’ll be using the terms “rampage incidents” and “rampage” in English, and 暴走事件/ 暴走 to cite the exact term in Japanese.

The term in Japanese the localization refers to as “mental shutdowns” is 廃人化(literally “cripple/invalid/disabled person -ification.)” I’ve seen it translated as “shellification” but the localized term “mental shutdown” is fine, so, those will just be referred to as “mental shutdown(s)” for simplicity’s sake.

The rampage power is specifically a power that Akechi’s initial persona, Loki, can use. It was the power used to create the subway accident near the beginning of the game (which was later revealed to have been at the request of one of Shido’s men) by using it on the driver. This ability is not fatal on its own. The subway engineer is still alive after this, and none of the people on the subway were killed, just injured. He also uses it on the two shadows before you fight him the first time, and again on himself when you fight him the second time.

“Bastard, you made yourself rampage!” or along those lines. The thing of note here is the usage of 暴走



What it does is remove the bonds on one’s heart, causes them to run wildly, and they forget what happened afterward. He describes how it works here:

Localized line is mostly fine, however “chains” is better translated as “bonds.” He uses 枷 here, which can refer to literal or more metaphorical bonds, such as society’s restrictions, relationships, or what you’re allowed to do. The explanation for how the power works is (mostly) intact in the localization, but “psychotic breakdown” doesn’t convey that at all.

Localized line is fine, thing of note: usage of 暴走(rampage). “Psychotic” also changes your perception of the character, because the power is noted to have been born from his own heart:

Localized lines are mostly fine, but “control” should’ve been “manipulate” in line #2. He can’t control people with the ability, just remove their restraint and cause them to run wild. This isn’t a “psychotic breakdown.”

Before the first boss fight, Akechi noted how he was jealous of Joker, because he wasn’t imprisoned by who he’s been so far or his relation to others, the very same types of bonds the rampage power is able to temporarily free one from. The localization messes this up by translating 暴走 as “psychotic.”

The first should’ve been “the person you’ve been until now” rather than “past selves.” The second line should’ve been “I envy that from the bottom of my heart” instead of “To be honest, I’m envious.”

In short, any and all instances of “psychotic breakdown(s)” and “psychotic” are better translated as “rampage incident(s)” and “rampage.” The latter gets the point across way better than what Atlus USA localized it as.

Moving on, “psychotic breakdown(s)” vs “mental shutdown(s)” are different things. The localization also made the mistake of giving these two similar sounding terms when they are completely separate events. The Japanese terms 暴走事件 (rampage incident) and 廃人化 (shellification) do not sound similar at all.



A mental shutdown occurs when the shadow self is killed. It’s not necessary lethal per se (it’s left people comatose, such as Ohya’s partner) but, it is what was causing deaths throughout the events of the game. What happens is something similar to apathy syndrome in Persona 3, but, it causes death when the person is in poor health(like the SIU Director, Okumura) or in immediate danger (Wakaba, the principal).

A “psychotic breakdown” does not lead to a “mental shutdown.” They’re two different things with different causes.

The localization also made the mistake of combining the two into a general statement when both were explicitly mentioned in some lines, such as this one:

Here it doesn’t mention 暴走 specifically, but, it was “mental shutdowns & chain of incidents” rather than just “mental shutdowns.”

Akechi’s approach of Shido was offering the rampage power, specifically.

And and all instances of killing had come from Shido(or the adults you spent the cruise ship talking to). I go over that a bit more in-depth here.

Shido even says so, here:

Localization left out “to achieve my ideals” at the start of the sentence, implying that eliminating people for his ideals was his idea. A common misconception I’ve seen is that Akechi killed people to get Shido’s attention or that he had killed people before he approached Shido, which is wrong.

tl;dr “Psychotic” in the Persona 5 localization is better translated as “rampage” and “mental shutdowns” and “psychotic breakdowns” are different things. Hope this clears up some misconceptions!

shoutouts:

@redwhiteandgold for helping me with translation stuff & proofreading, that one anon on my blog who helped me word some things here, another friend for helping w translation stuff