Next thing, Chie bounds up, telling Yosuke what we already know — Taylor was the one who discovered Mayumi’s body. Yosuke worriedly wonders if this is why Taylor never showed up at school today. If you’ll excuse me just a moment, I have to go get some ibuprofen — we recappers never get used to being hit on the head with anvils and foreshadowing mallets, no matter how often it happens.
Where were we? Oh, right, more corpse chat. Yukiko says she’s sorry for having to leave early to help out at the inn again — I really should start a Yukiko Apologizes Count — and departs, leaving the others to discuss what they saw on the TV last night. Chie is adamant that she saw a girl on the screen (can we get a show of hands for those who aren’t surprised Chie’s apparent soulmate is a girl?) but is confused as to what it represents. Maybe she’s just concerned that the girl wasn’t Yukiko.
I think you know what it means.
Chie then gives a description of the girl she saw, who apparently had shoulder-length wavy hair and was wearing a Yasogami High uniform. Yosuke freaks out because he saw the same girl, and of course, we all know Gary saw her too. Amazingly, though, none of them seem to make the connection between the girl on the screen and the girl at their school who looks exactly like her and is conspicuous by her absence today. Instead, they see fit to concentrate on Gary’s claim that he was almost sucked into the TV. “You must’ve just fallen asleep in front of the TV,” Yosuke suggests, while Chie says it sounds like a dream. “I like the part where you got stuck ’cause your TV was too small,” she tells him. “That’s pretty realistic.” It’s the only part of this entire situation that even comes within ten miles of “realistic” so far, but I digress.
Having dismissed Gary’s experience as a dream or hallucination, Chie mentions that her family is looking to get a new TV, and of course Yosuke starts shilling his daddy’s electronics department before she even has time to pause for breath. To Walmart it is!
Right..’kung-fu movies’. The ones with the scissoring that you and Yukiko like to watch together.
The trio leaves — not before Yosuke makes a flirty TV-related comment to Gary — and takes a shortcut to the Walmart electronics floor via a sneaky black screen. Standing in awe in front of a huge flatscreen, Chie gasps “Holy crap, it’s expensive! Who buys something like this?” Uh, people who aren’t still in school? Resigned to the fact that the TV is way out of her family’s price range, Chie instead decides to get mucky handprints all over it by attempting to replicate Gary’s hand-through-screen experience. Naturally, it fails, and she declares “Haha, that proves it. It was all just a dream.” Gary glares at her, hand on hip, as Yosuke dumbasses that even if it were possible to pass through the screen, they’d just end up on the other side since it’s so thin. Et tu, Yosuke?
…..
Gary stares at his feet as Yosuke guides Chie across the shop floor to a distinctly smaller TV, giving her his best sales patter along the way. Left alone with only the Invisible Narrator for company, Gary’s thoughts begin to wander back to the previous night. He’s sure it wasn’t a dream, so why won’t his friends believe him? As he stares at the humongous screen before him, the IN purrs “With a TV this big, you really might be able to go inside…” Chie is busy yelling at Yosuke to use his connections to knock off a few zeroes from the price of the “cheaper” set, so Gary takes the opportunity to reach out and touch the screen, if only to shut the IN up.
Just like the previous night, his arm slips through the screen, so now we can assume that the phenomenon isn’t localized to the battered old portable in his room at Hot Uncle’s place. Suddenly noticing that Gary is fisting the TV, Yosuke feels a pang of envy and blurts out a few exclamation points. Chie once again fishes for a rational explanation, even though the evidence to the contrary is right in front of her: “Uhhh…is that some kind of…new model? L-like with a new function?” Yes, Chie. Forget HD and 3D — this is the future. As his astonished friends gather around, Gary once again hears the Invisible Narrator whispering in his ear. After telling Gary that Chie and Yosuke are staring at him (thanks IN, Gary never would have worked that out by himself!), he continues “You might be able to put more than just your arm in…” Nope. I am NOT going there. I’m sure a few dozen fanfic writers have beaten me to it anyway.
Oh, stop pretending you’re not enjoying the view.
Deciding for some unknown reason that sticking further parts of his anatomy into the TV is a good idea, Gary kneels on the display cabinet and pushes his head and shoulders through as Chie and Yosuke continue to freak out. “It seems very spacious in here…” the IN remarks, as though putting one’s head through the TV is the most normal thing in the world. Yosuke starts hopping from foot to foot, because all the excitement has weakened his bladder, or something. I don’t know. Demanding to know what Gary can see on the other side of the magic screen, Chie tries to get closer. At the same time, Yosuke sees some customers approaching and starts to panic, rightfully doubting he’ll be able to pass the half-visible Gary off as some kind of sales promotion. And of course, this somehow results in all three of them colliding and tumbling into the TV. Well, at least now they’ll get to find out what’s on the other side.
After a trippy transition screen, which for some reason reminds me of Doctor Who’s Time Vortex, we get a short and completely unnecessary anime scene in which Gary, Yosuke and Chie crash-land in a strange environment. Following some generic “I don’t think we’re in Inaba anymore, Toto” dialogue, the trio tries to figure out where the hell they’ve ended up. The gantries and floodlights would suggest some kind of TV studio, but the thick yellow fog and the weird floor design — incorporating monochromatic circles and crime-scene style chalk outlines in various positions — are a little more difficult to explain. What’s more, there doesn’t appear to be an exit anywhere. Resisting the temptation to say “We’re doomed”, Gary chooses a more diplomatic dialogue option and suggests they look for a way out. Yosuke agrees that they all need to calm down, like he and Chie weren’t the only ones losing their shit, and figures that there must be a way out somewhere, since they managed to get in. With a brain like Yosuke’s on their side, I’m sure they’ll be back at Walmart in no time.
A short while later, the group find themselves approaching some kind of building. In fact, what with the silhouettes of other buildings and power lines off in the distance, they appear to be in some twisted alternate version of Inaba, just without any people. I think I prefer this one already. Figuring that there’s nowhere else to go, they approach the entrance of the building — a red and black vortex in the shape of a door. Inside is what seems to be someone’s bedroom, and thankfully there are no anime posters, used tissues or crusty body pillows in sight. Yosuke remarks that the fog seems lighter in here — no shit, it’s indoors — just as Chie enters the room, chewing them out for moving ahead too quickly. Christ, girl, can’t you even give them some privacy in the bedroom?!
Cozy!
Cockblocking aside, there’s something else wrong in here — as the camera operator helpfully follows Yosuke’s shocked expression, we see that this seemingly-innocuous bedroom is, in fact, a Room Full of Crazy. Two entire walls of the room are covered in posters of an unknown woman wearing a kimono, each poster appearing to have its face scratched out. Oh, and there are also huge splashes of blood-red paint all over the walls, too. A noose hanging from the ceiling, chair conveniently placed underneath, provides a lovely finishing touch. Who wouldn’t want to bed down for the night in here?
Chie points out the faceless posters, observing that whoever cut out the faces must really hate the woman depicted in them. Chie Satonaka, A+ in Stating the Obvious! Yosuke claims to recognize the poster, but can’t recall who the woman is, and then both he and Chie declare that they don’t feel well. “Your body does feel heavy…” the IN informs Gary, like he wouldn’t fucking know himself. “Could it be due to this place’s oppressive atmosphere…?” No, it’s because he ate a carb-heavy lunch. Feeling creeped out by the mutilated posters and suicide apparatus, Yosuke persuades the others to leave, and pretty soon they’re back in the “studio” area with the spotlights and freaky chalk outlines.
“Whew…we finally made it back here,” Chie sighs, like they were gone for days as opposed to minutes. But they’re not out of the woods yet — she suddenly sees something out of shot and starts freaking out. We switch camera angles as an indistinct, bipedal figure with a large, rounded upper body slowly approaches out of the fog. As this strange figure ambles towards the group, I pour myself a stiff drink and dig out a pair of butt earplugs. I know what’s coming, see.
A being from my nightmares?
As the…being gets closer, we can finally make out its features. It seems to be some kind of life-sized stuffed toy wearing a red and white jumpsuit and a profoundly terrifying expression. OK, it’s smiling, but just look at the damn thing and try telling me you’re not even a little bit disturbed. Chie, mouth agape, asks if it’s a monkey or a bear — I have no fucking idea what undiscovered species of monkey or bear she’s familiar with, but they clearly look nothing like conventional ones — before the creature begins to talk. “T-that’s what I want to know!” it screeches, rupturing my eardrums even through the plugs. “Who are you guys?” Two things are apparent here: the entity seems to be male, and, like most other mascot characters, it has an absolutely awful voice. I don’t even want to put this down to a bad voice actor, since the game’s voice work, on the whole, is pretty decent. So I can only assume that the VA in question was directed to sound as shrill and grating as possible — the alternative is too horrible to contemplate.
Chie once again freaks out, this time because the thing can talk (though not, presumably, because his voice is more annoying than Vickie Guerrero’s) and asks if he wants to fight. The thing, which is initially identified as “Mysterious Bear” (WTF?), responds by cowering and pleading with her not to yell at him. In an attempt to smooth things over, Gary, in the nicest possible way, asks Mysterious Bear what the fuck he is. “I’m a bear! Can’t you tell? I live here by myself!” he cries in his ear-melting voice, his black, soulless eyes fixed firmly on the group. Okay, I can’t let this slide anymore. This thing is NOT a bear. His ears are his only vaguely bear-like feature, and they could just as easily belong to any number of mammals. But hey, whatever he is, he’s a talking stuffed toy who lives inside a TV, so I’m not going to get too hung up on realism here. He continues by revealing this place “doesn’t have a name” and that he’s always lived here. Yeah, this world just got a whole lot creepier.
As I wonder whether the creepy noose-and-poster room belongs to MB, he suddenly drops a bombshell: “If I was you guys, I’d hurry back to the other side. Someone’s been throwing people in here.” DUN! Yosuke asks what the hell he means, but all MB says is that he doesn’t know who’s doing it; he just wants them to stop inconsiderately dumping random people into his home. Even though this information seems like something the gang should want to look into, none of them see fit to ask MB obvious questions like “How many people have been thrown in here?”, “What happened to them?” or even “Am I on crack?” Instead, Chie just screams at him for yelling at them, even though he wasn’t shouting at all (trust me, we’d all know about it if he had). He responds by skittering behind Gary and cowering like a scolded puppy as Chie continues her verbal barrage, ending with “What the heck’s going on here?” Maybe you’d find out if one of you, I don’t know, bothered to ask the only known inhabitant of this place what he knows. But of course, that would make sense.
I don’t want to think about what he’ll be getting up to after they’ve left.
“What it comes down to is, you want us to get out of here, right?” Yosuke asks. He’s not the only one. MB says he’ll let them out and then stomps on the floor a few times, an action which somehow conjures up…a triple-stack of red vintage TVs in the middle of the area. Although it looks like some kind of modern art sculpture commissioned by someone with more money than taste, this strange arrangement is actually the exit — as the group goggles at it, MB creeps up behind them (making disturbing squeaking sounds with each step) and shrills “Okay, now go, go, get outta here! I’m a busy bear!” BUT HE’S NOT A FUCKING BEA-ugh, I give up.
Next, something even more disturbing happens. Mysterious Bear lunges forward with his hands raised and the screen fades out as Chie screams “What’s going on now?! Whoa! Hey, what are you doing?” Did I mention that MB continues to make rhythmic squeaking noises throughout the scene? Yosuke complains about being touched, too, but we all know Gary’s the culprit in his case. After what feels like hours, but in reality is less than ten seconds, the Black Screen of Stuffed Animal Molestation gives way to a nausea-inducing transition screen, much like the one we saw when the group entered the TV. Thankfully for all involved, but especially me, the party now find themselves sitting back in front of the huge TV in the Walmart electronics department. How fortunate that no customers were passing by at the very moment the TV vomited them out!