The Ghost of Local Businesses Past continues ranting at his now-dead daughter, all “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? You’re the eldest daughter of a family who’s owned this store for generations!” Yes, heaven forbid she wanted to do something other than work behind the counter of her parents’ store. Okay, I’ll admit that wiping down tables at the Walmart Food Court isn’t exactly a step up the career ladder, but still. Yosuke expresses shock at what Taylor’s home life must have been like, claiming that she was always so happy at work. Well, from the little Gary saw of her, she wasn’t exactly shitting sunshine and rainbows, but she did discover a body the previous day, so he’s willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

“You’re telling me THIS is how Senpai really saw things?!” Yosuke screams to nobody in particular, and then runs over to the counter, where he sees a torn fragment of a photo the Walmart workers took the other day. We don’t get to see it, but the IN helpfully informs Gary that Taylor apparently cut herself out of the picture. On cue, Taylor’s voice rings out of the darkness, going “I…I never had the chance to say it…I always wanted to tell Hana-chan…” Don’t you fucking dare, Gary thinks, but to his relief, Taylor doesn’t predictably say that she secretly loved Yosuke — instead, she thought he was “a real pain in the ass”. Well, that was unexpected. She continues that she was only nice to him because he was the store manager’s son, finishing her outburst with an ice-cold “What a dip”. Well, now Gary feels slightly less guilty about thinking ill of the dead — the girl was a total bitch.

“Who cares about [Walmart], anyway?” the echo of Taylor starts up again, as Yosuke shakes his head in denial. “Because of that store, our business is ruined, my parents hate me, the neighbours talk behind my back…” God, nobody held a gun to your head and forced you to work there. “I wish everything would just disappear…” she finishes melodramatically, and if she still had a body, she would undoubtedly run to her room right now, complete with much sobbing and door-slamming. “I-it’s a lie! Senpai’s not like that!” Yosuke cries, even though the evidence to the contrary is ringing in his ears. See, the game seems to be implying that Yosuke was in love with Taylor, but here’s how the story really goes — Yosuke is gay, but hasn’t fully come to terms with himself yet; worried about coming out at school, he had hoped to use Taylor as his beard, as well as having someone to go clothes-shopping and talk about boys with. In light of this, it’s easy to see why he’s reacted so badly to her death.

Apparently, Gary and Yosuke didn’t get the memo that Konishi Liquors was throwing a Disembodied Voice Party this fine evening, because yet another unseen individual now makes his presence known. This one, however, is helpfully identified as “Yosuke?” (note the question mark) and his voice does actually sound like Yosuke’s would if it were played through some kind of distortion filter. “It’s *sniff* so sad…” Yosuke? says mockingly. “I feel so sorry for myself…boo hoo…” As one, Gary and Yosuke emit interrobangs and spin round to face…another Yosuke?!

‘Just come out of the closet already!’

Now, one might assume that Gary would be pleased by this unexpected development (imagine the possibilities that having two Yosukes conjures up!). Not so fast. Yosuke? — who I’m now going to drop the pretense and refer to as Shadow Yosuke, since that’s what he is — might superficially look like the regular one, but there are a few subtle differences, such as the glowing yellow eyes, insane grin and creepy voice, not to mention the aura of blue fire surrounding him. “Actually, I’m the one who thinks everything’s a pain in the ass. Hahaha…” he continues, arms folded in a “Bitch, please” stance. Yosuke loses his shit and charges across the room to confront his evil doppelganger, which I’m sure is going to go just swimmingly.

There’s a standard “Who are you, strange person who looks exactly like me?”, “I AM you, you idiot!” exchange, then Yosuke angrily denies ever thinking what his antagonistic clone claims he did. “How long are you going to keep deluding yourself?” Shadow Yosuke taunts, as the ominous background music thrums away intensely. “Screw the shopping district, and [Walmart] too! You’re sick of everything, especially living out in the sticks!” If you haven’t figured it out yet, the deal here is that the TV World can manifest a person’s innermost thoughts, as well as any facets of their personality that they try to hide or deny. Obviously not knowing this, Yosuke continues to refute his Shadow’s accusations as Gary and Teddie look on awkwardly. Among other things, Shadow Yosuke claims that Yosuke puts on an act of being carefree in order to hide his fear of isolation and that, rather than coming here to investigate Taylor’s death, he really only wanted to come because it was something new and exciting. “What else is there to do out in this shithole?” he jeers manically. I’m sure Gary could think of a few things for him to do, but not here — the ambience is all wrong.

“A world inside the TV…now that’s exciting! You didn’t have a single other reason for coming here, did you?!” Shadow Yosuke babbles on, continuing that Yosuke just wanted the chance to act the hero and that Taylor’s death gave him the perfect excuse to do so. Yeah, anyone still shipping them after all this is in serious denial. “You can’t be me, you son of a bitch!!” Yosuke howls in response. As we’ll soon come to see, denying one’s Shadow is a big no-no — almost like the TV World’s equivalent of wearing white socks with sandals — and, of course, the poor saps in question will have to find this out the hard way. Boss fight time!

We get a quick anime scene where Shadow Yosuke transforms into a rather interesting monster. For those of you who may still be in denial, screaming “B-but Yosuke is straight! He loved Taylor-senpai!” in indignation, allow me to draw your attention to the fact that Yosuke’s Shadow — which represents an aspect of his personality he attempts to hide away — has taken the form of a figure on all fours, wearing an enormous grin as another male figure mounts him from behind and bounces around on top of him. Hey, I’m just pointing out what’s there on the screen.

What the fuck?

With his Pokeball Tarot Card of Summoning at the ready, Gary enters the fray. This time, Yosuke is too shocked to get involved, scoring him 0 out of 2 in battle participation thus far. I mean, I get that he hasn’t been sitting out through laziness, but it would be nice if Gary had a little help sometimes, you know? Anyway, the game’s first boss battle is essentially a prolonged tutorial on guarding — not that I’m complaining, given how ass-rapingly hard some of the later fights are going to be. Shadow Yosuke opens with “Wind of Oblivion”, an attack that makes Gary snicker immaturely (even he isn’t immune to fart jokes) as well as fall on his ass. That dick Izanagi never mentioned anything about being susceptible to wind! However, he learns from his mistake and guards the next time Shadow Yosuke gears up for the attack, which gives Izanagi an opening to cast Zio. As fortune would have it, Shadow Yosuke is weak to lightning, meaning that the fight turns into a test of endurance from here on out. Naturally, Shadow Yosuke is no match for Izanagi and his incredibly-distracting groin cup, which, I’m fanwanking, he actually conducts his Zio spells through.

Once the battle is done, Real Yosuke gets to his feet just in time for the Piano & Brass Theme of Acceptance to kick in. He turns around to see his Shadow still standing there, back in human form, and once again snarls “You…you’re not me!” I think the universe is about to implode, because Teddie once again speaks the most sense in the ensuing exchange. “That thing came from you, Yosuke…” he says gently. “You have to admit it…or it’ll go berserk again…” Having had a time-out for a while, the Invisible Narrator jumps in between them like an attention-seeking child and duhs “Yosuke seems reluctant to accept it…” Gary now gets the opportunity to encourage him, and since all three of the available options pretty much say the same thing I have him choose the first, “You’re still yourself.” Finally getting it, Yosuke sighs “It hurts to face yourself…” and then turns back to his Shadow, confessing that he knew it was telling the truth but was too ashamed to admit it. “You’re me…and I’m you. When you get down to it, all of this is me.” This is all very moving, but Gary is getting hungry now, so hurry it up, please.

I don’t know what the hell the Konishi family puts in their liquor, but it must be strong stuff.

Having been accepted as a part of Yosuke, his Shadow nods in acknowledgement as the IN drones “The strength of heart required to face oneself has been made manifest…Yosuke has faced his other self, and has obtained the façade used to overcome life’s hardships, the Persona Jiraiya!” In less pretentious terms, Yosuke has caught a Pokemon Persona, and how has a Tarot Card of Summoning of his own. Shadow Yosuke now turns into Jiraiya, whom a quick Google search tells me is a ninja in a Japanese folk tale. In this game, however, he’s a red-cape wearing, frog-eyed mannequin with a huge v-shaped smile and a Staryu (Pokemon #120) stuck to each hand. And this is one of the less crack-induced Persona designs.

The scene isn’t quite over yet; Yosuke gets into a momentary funk because Taylor secretly hated him. Ugh, just forget about her. “If you weren’t here, I don’t know what woulda happened…thanks, Gary,” he smiles, as Gary extends the hand of friendship HoYay. Gary can think of plenty of ways Yosuke can thank him later, but not here and now while Teddie’s huge, dead eyes are fixed on him like those of a particularly unsettling portrait. Having a lightbulb moment, Yosuke theorizes that maybe Taylor was attacked by her own Shadow (and I’m shuddering just thinking of what abomination that would have been) when she was thrown inside the TV. Teddie believes so, since “the Shadows here were originally born from humans”. When the fog clears, they go berserk and attack anyone in sight, like Gary needed any confirmation of that — he can still feel that Fleshlight Head’s tongue defiling his porcelain skin. He’ll have to have an extra hot bubble bath tonight to cleanse himself.

I don’t know…Melisandre’s vagina?

After some more back-and-forth, the gang establishes that Taylor and Mayumi Fucking Yamano must have fallen victim to their own Shadows, and that Yosuke probably would have died too had Gary not been there to defend him. How romantic! Yosuke vows that they can’t let the same thing happen to anyone else, and promises that they’ll come back to save anyone else who shows up on the Midnight Channel. Teddie reacts far too enthusiastically to this, making my flesh crawl, then abruptly wonders where he came from, since the Shadows all came from humans. Wait, he doesn’t even know what he is?! I can’t even get into this right now. I need sleep and alcohol.

Eventually, Gary and Yosuke manage to shake Teddie off and…I’ll rephrase that. They eventually persuade Teddie to shut up and open up the exit for them. Since their last exit from the TV World wasn’t quite brain-scarring enough, we get another prolonged black screen, during which Teddie yells “Squiiish” and Yosuke shrieks at him to “stop squeezing”. I don’t want to know.

By the time I’ve opened my eyes, Gary and Yosuke are back on the Walmart shop floor. Chie doesn’t exactly greet them with a hero’s welcome — screaming that she was “scared stiff” after the rope snapped, she yells that she hates them both and runs off, presumably to find Yukiko in order to rant and…release some tension. Women, Gary sighs, as Yosuke sheepishly goes “I think that might’ve kinda sorta been our fault.” Yes, because they clearly knew they were in for an hour-long conversation with Teddie, an attack by living sex toys and an encounter with an evil version of Yosuke when they stepped through the screen. Promising to apologize to Chie tomorrow, Yosuke says something about going home to soak in the shower, then, with the ubiquitous wink, goes “Hehe…well, see you in the morning!” God, accepting his Shadow has turned him into such a pricktease.

Gary doesn’t need to know what the two of you get up to.

While walking home across the Samegawa Flood Plain, Gary spies Yukiko sheltering from the rain inside a gazebo. Even though he really isn’t in the mood for any more talking, he approaches her, since it’d be rude to ignore her. There’s some slightly-awkward small talk where Yukiko tells him, as explanation for her wearing a kimono, that her parents sent her out on an errand for the Inn. Uh, that’s nice. “Are you getting used to your new town and school?” she asks, sounding like his mother or something, and then enquires as to how he’s getting along with Chie. Deciding not to mention their spat just now, he tells her they’re getting along just fine, and then she makes an eyebrow-raising reference to frottage. It’s always the most innocent-looking ones! “We had homeroom together last year, too, and I still remember how we’d cut class sometimes…” she says wistfully, realizes she’s said too much, and then hastily makes her excuses to leave. Fine by Gary — he doesn’t need to hear about that kind of shit.

Back home, Hot Uncle is — surprise — not home, so it’s another TV dinner for Gary and Nanako. Turning on the TV, they’re just in time to catch the news. The newsreader reveals that the police have finally confirmed that they’re treating the mysterious deaths as a serial murder case, then moves on to a feature on the Amagi Inn: “After the incident with Ms Yamano, the manager has stepped aside, leaving her daughter Yukiko to fill her shoes…” Gary lets out his biggest exclamation point yet as the Invisible Narrator redundantly tells him “Yukiko is on TV, wearing a kimono…” He can see the fucking screen, IN. A creepily-excited reporter has apparently cornered Yukiko on her way back to the Inn and tries to grab an interview with her, which she wants no part of. However, she still appears briefly on the screen, which probably isn’t a good thing considering what happened to the last girl who showed up on the local news.

This pervert couldn’t be any more obvious if he came out and said ‘I want to spank your hot teenage ass’.

Gary is exhausted by now, so leaves Nanako to wash the dishes and heads to his room. But before he goes to sleep, curiosity gets the better of him and he approaches the TV. Sure enough, just like last time, the faint image of a person appears on the switched-off screen, causing the IN to practically combust with excitement: “It seems to be a woman. It looks like she’s wearing a kimono…”

HMM. I WONDER WHO THAT COULD BE?!?

Well, the inevitable rescue of this mysterious kimono-clad girl, who is almost certainly someone we’ve never met before, will have to wait until next time, because I’m wiped out. Join me in Part 2 for more escapades inside the TV, jiggling boobs, and the completionist’s nightmare known as Social Links. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s a rainy night — I’m just going to see if there’s anything interesting on TV…

NB: All of the options in that last poll are actual monster names. Yes, really.