There's some interesting merchandise for the original Shin Megami Tensei floating around in Japan, and one of Pascal's forms got its own gashapon figure as the secret item in Kotobukiya's sixth SMT-based One Coin Figure collection, and the name "Great Pascal." This design comes from a set of concept artwork for his demonoid form that was ultimately not used in the SNES or Mega CD games but was implemented for the PC Engine.
The Mega CD is responsible for a number of other revisions that carried over to PC Engine, including to this game's compendium with a lot of mid-level Law and high-level Chaos demons added, and I confess I'm uncertain how many of these iOS maintains. I do know that in the PSX release Cerberus doesn't have any of his unique sprites, and that in all versions of the game if you choose not to fuse Pascal he'll still become a demonoid on his own later in the game.
After some deliberation I choose to fuse Pascal with Pixie to create Cerberus, reasoning that she's easy to rerecruit as necessary.
>Touya used the ID card.
The ID card dropped by Amenojaku leads us to our next destination, the south entrance to the Echo Building.
Worth noting, treasure boxes in SMTI work differently than they do in II and III. In this game, they just flat out give you a reward for opening them like any of the cardboard chests, and the distinction between them is that the treasure boxes contain gemstones. In SMTII, the treasure boxes will only give you their gems on the correct moon phase, and if you open them at any other time, the box yields nothing. In III/Nocturne, the treasure boxes have a % chance to give you their real item whether it's an incense, a gemstone or something else entirely, but if they don't give their item they yield a life stone instead. If you open a treasure box during a full moon in Nocturne, you're guaranteed to get that box's item, whereas the probability waxes and wanes according to the other phases with the new moon having a 0% chance and 7/8th phase having an 87.5% chance.
>NO
Summoner: I cannot defile the chamber where my brethren will arrive. Let us take this outside! I won't allow you to escape this time! My plan will not be thwarted!
Again, the idea of a shrine as the boundary between the sacred and profane. Blood cannot be spilled within a purified Shinto construct. Confronting the Summoner is the first time we hear the theme of Chaos.
>Touya obtained Kikyo Amulet.
The music used for terminal rooms carries the same core melody used in Shin Megami Tensei IV.
This is the Echo Building COMP terminal. If you wish to use it, access it now.
And there goes our dog. From the terminals we can save, teleport to another linked terminal, or leave. We have no more business in Kichijoji, so it's off to the Research Lab terminal.
Very well. Teleporting to the Research Lab terminal.
This conversation is pretty exemplary of the differences even small translations can make. Aeon Genesis' translation ends the conversation with "...Hurry... ...Get out of here..." which gave the impression that the researcher, having been turned into a zombie, was losing control of himself and wanted the protagonist to leave before he would get hurt or eaten. The way that Atlus phrases it is more conversational, and it's debatable which approach is the original intention. The Japanese script reads「…はやく ここから……にげろ…」"...Hurry from this place......run..."
Orcs are part of the Dark-Law aligned Jaki race and so can't be recruited. They're weak to Gun and Elec damage, so Touya rips them apart easily, and the random encounter version can sometimes drop the Sanjiegun sword, which would otherwise run us ¥20,000 in a store.
>YES
Are you satisfied with the number of demons you can recruit?
>NO
This has been a huge problem for me, actually. We can only store six demons at a time, but there are currently nine usable demons available to me, and I'm a huge fan of recruiting and fusing everything I can. Need to fill up that Compendium somehow. There are approximately ~269 demons in the game and I've only filled about 10% of the Compendium/"Dictionary", even though it counts both seen and fused demons.
Man in Wheelchair: In that case, I'll up your computer's memory.
.........
There, all done. You can store two more demons now. That should let you put the Demon Summoning Program to even better use now.
Much as Stephen is derived from the physicist Stephen Hawking, Gotou's likeness is based on that of Yukio Mishima, a famed 20th century author who advocated for traditional Japanese values, a revival of imperial nationalism and the divinity of the emperor. Despite these views, he was not a militarist and regarded the emperor as a symbolic construct of Japanese sovereignty rather than as the human individual occupying the throne. Born into a samurai family, his career as a novelist came first and he became famous for broaching the topic of homosexuality in the early postwar years, while his later venture into politics was influenced by the turbulent relationship between Japan and the United States. Mishima was both an accomplished author and politically on the right, and is remembered as an ambiguous figure in Japanese history. He was a scholar and playwright, but devoted an inordinate amount of time to body building and doing military exercises with his civilian militia the Shield Society, alongside the Japanese Self Defense Force. Mishima is mostly known these days for the 1970 Mishima incident (三島事件 Mishima jiken, sometimes called the "Mishima plot" or "Mishima affair") his failed coup d'état at Camp Ichigaya near Shinjuku, where he attempted to stage a revolution through the JSDF to reinstate the emperor's powers and thereafter committed ritual suicide when it failed.
>The speech goes on...
Gotou's speech has thematic similarities to the final address Mishima gave during the incident, criticizing the moral character of the nation and dealing with the underlying threat of the west corrupting the national spirit. Mishima's argument was against materialism and greed, as he was addressing high-growth era Japan's abundant economy, while Gotou's is written to be more about general ignorance towards environmentalism and humanitarian needs, which is appropriate for the early 1990's. If Mishima's views sound too outlandish to be real, keep in mind that there is a long rhetoric of anti-westernization spanning more than a hundred years in Japan, and a wealth of literature to draw from on the idea that westerners are trampling over the country through unequal treaties and biased economic policies that have been replicated repeatedly from the first invasion by Commodore Perry all the way through the Allied occupation of Japan. This goes hand in hand with the idea of Christianity as a religious invasion of the country, discussed in the previous chapter. As early as the 1890's one of the great fears of government leaders was "the notion that outsiders from across the seas would poison the souls of Japanese people, convert them perhaps to Christianity, and demolish their true identity." (Gordon 110) The motivating fear throughout the empire-building of the Russo-Japanese and Sino-Japanese wars was that mainland Japan would be colonized by the west as China had been before her. That fear persevered long after it was no longer a practical reality, until by the close of the Pacific War in 1945 the prospect of an international occupation of Japan was treated by the Emperor Shōwa as "endur[ing] the unendurable." (Gordon 225) Closer to the present day, fears of western imperialism materialized during the postwar occupation of the 1940's and early 50's, most prominently in the American-authored constitution of Japan, and in the Anpo security treaty that guarantees the United States the right to maintain military bases in Japanese waters (as well as a certain degree of extraterritoriality extending to the bases) with no such provision for Japan in turn. I'll get to this in more specific detail further down, it's taking up a lot of space, but suffice to say the Anpo was a major factor in Mishima's turn to right wing politics.
"I am Gotou, commander of the armed forces, and leader of the country in this time of martial law! Civilization as we know it has rotted to its very core! This is because its very roots are founded in the exploitation and abuse of this great planet, Gaia! Meanwhile, the hatred and mistreatment brewing between fellow humans eats away at our own existence like a cancer! In such a world so filled with prejudice, poverty, and war, we need help, and so we have awakened the ancient gods known as "demons" to aid us! We have done so to help prepare ourselves for the true danger, a heinous scheme being plotted behind the scenes: the Japan Obliteration Project! There are those who plan to destroy our country in order to lay the foundations... for a new, totalitarian regime that will enslave humanity under the iron fist of a cruel dictator! In order to stop this mad conspiracy, the gods of old have lent their power to us! When it has been broken, they shall help us establish a new Utopia, where humanity and demonkind shall live side by side in happiness!"
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| Gotou, from Kaneko Works Vol. III |
The Shinjuku section of Shin Megami Tensei is about confrontations with idealists of Gotou's type, and it's where we have our first meetings with the respective alignment representatives. The underground mall features the first Law and Chaos healing houses, as well as the armies of both alignments debating their dilemma for the player, and a profession of faith is necessary to move the storyline along.
>Explanation
Did you come to learn more about the Gaea Shrine? This is a place which those who value their freedom can use as they please. Lawfully-inclined dupes, however, must pay a tithe of ¥1000 in order to use it.
Let chaos take this world...
And this is where I realized my mistake. In the Aeon Genesis translation you had the Church of Mesia, the Temple of Gaia and the Kaifuku, so I presumed that Atlus would reuse the Church and Temple names and use Ashram exclusively for the Neutral healing house. Instead every location is called an Ashram, although the terms Shrine and Church do come up if you ask for them to explain their position. Aeon handled the priest's dialogue as being less apocalyptic and erring more on the side of the inevitable, wording his introduction as "That which has life will eventually die. That which has form will eventually crumble." Atlus' translation instead sounds as if the Gaean religion were about choosing to destroy the world, instead of accepting the destruction as natural. I can't argue in favor of either one from an accuracy standpoint without the Japanese script in front of me, but I can say that the wider distribution and reception of Aeon's script has probably influenced a lot of players to have a more positive view of the Gaeans than those whose first experience with the game is in the iOS port.
The star banners are a common symbol of witchcraft and pagan belief, and they're used a couple times in II, if... and Nocturne in connection with traditional demon-summoning rituals. The statue at the back of the shrine is harder to place, but I'd suggest the numerous examples of Bodhisattva statues used to inspire ascetics towards enlightenment as a starting point. The style of wooden lotus lantern lining the shrine is likewise imagery borrowed from Buddhist temples (寺 tera as opposed to a Shinto shrine 神社 jinja) and the heavy borrowing from Buddhism is interesting because the Gaean religion has a clear Shinto slant with an emphasis on the living nature of the Earth and the lack of an afterlife. Like the native syncretic beliefs practiced in Japan since c. 600 CE, the Gaean religion is a combination of spiritual thoughts aggregated from different sources, drawing from Shinto, Buddhism, Luciferianism and imported demonology.
The Gaean religion was referred to in English as the Cult of Gaea for a long time, mainly due to the influence of Aeon's multiple translations and Aeria Games' exporting of the official MMORPG Shin Megami Tensei: IMAGINE, but the Japanese term is ガイア教団 Gaia Kyoudan "Gaia Religious Organization." As of Shin Megami Tensei IV they're called the Ring of Gaea in English, but still referred to as Gaia Kyoudan in Japanese, so the name for them has only changed for overseas players. They are supposed to be distinct from the Messiah group however, which is called the メシア教会 Meshia Kyoukai "Mesia Church."
Note that Gentleman has to pay double the healing cost of anyone else here, and the opposite holds true for Champion. The protagonist's prices instead fluctuate based on his current alignment.
>Explanation
Welcome to the Messian church, the abode of God. This facility is used by all those who place their faith in God. Though we still accept ¥100 donations from those more chaotically aligned.
May God remain at your side...
One notable difference in translations is that in Aeon's script, the Pastor says that "If you give thanks to God in the form of money, I have holy artifacts available for you." Contrast the more frank Gaean Priest who says,"Give us money, and we'll share our artifacts with you." This is emulating the mutual value placed by both Christianity and Buddhism on sacred relics and remains, and the medieval practice in the Catholic faith of selling indulgences to commute punishment for sins. Both religions have based entire economic systems on pilgrimages from site to site, wherein an influx of pilgrims creates prosperity for the area surrounding a reliquary through the both the pilgrims' natural needs for housing and food, and through their generous donations to the religious sites. The abuses of indulgences and the cult of saints surrounding this money-for-soul economy were cause for objection by religious reformers like Martin Luther, who criticized the Catholic authorities for essentially selling salvation to the public. Indulgences themselves could only absolve one of temporal punishment for sins (and of time in purgatory) while confession and forgiveness were still requisite, but the heart of the issue is that money should not be changing hands at all where salvation or enlightenment are concerned, because money is itself a means of cultivating greed (and therefore sin or the loss of enlightenment) in its receiver.
This comes off as an internal criticism of both the Order of the Messiah and the Ring of Gaea, as their theoretical religious charities are in practice just another type of shop. The preoccupation of Shin Megami Tensei with religious groups reflects the general popularity of new religions in Japan throughout recent history. The first wave of these came in the 1870s as a challenge to the Meiji government, with multiple religions starting up by way of a maiden-prophet being possessed of divine inspiration and dictating a new sacred scripture. (Gordon 86) One common element among them was the 世直し yonaoshi "world rectification" through which all wealth would be equalized, eliminating the severe class inequalities in early modern Japan. This gave the early religions a strong communist slant that put them in opposition to the developing capitalist economy, and sometimes lead to attempts at violent uprising. Much of their support came from former samurai and peasant farmers. In the 1930s these new religions instead emerged out of mainstream Shinto sects and went on to claim several million adherents, with their prophets and maidens claiming to be living gods. (Gordon 159) These religions were popular because they provided concrete solutions to the economic and personal hardships of individuals living through the trauma of an industrialized society. They provided a sense of community not found in traditional Buddhism or state-sponsored Shinto.
Following a period of oppression during World War II, in the postwar period the new religious movements resurged with support from those who had been left behind in the race for middle class affluence. The Sōkka Gakkai ("Value Creation Society") drew its roots back to the '30s and had seven million adherents by the late 60s. (Gordon 258) Unlike most of the '30s religions, the SG were a Buddhist offshoot known for their aggressive proselytizing and "pray now, believe later" policy. Adherents could test drive the religion by praying in a skeptical spirit, then after their prayers were answered, begin believing in it. SMT's discussion of new religions proved timely, as just three years after Shin Megami Tensei and a year after Shin Megami Tensei II, the March 20th sarin gas attacks were instigated by the Aum Shinrikyō cult, a new religion today known as Aleph. Originally formed in 1987 by the blind Yoga practitioner Asahara Shōko, the Aum Shinrikyō were believed to constitute around fifty thousand members by 1995, and sought to hasten the end of the world by releasing nerve gas into the Tokyo subways. (Gordon 316) The police suggested that their end goal was to install Asahara as the new emperor of Japan to prepare for the end of the world in 1997. The apocalypse cult's beliefs were a hybrid of Christian teachings, Nostradamian prophecy-fulfillment and Yoga practice. Nearly fifty-five hundred passengers were injured in the gas attacks, while twelve were killed. Knowing that these acts of terror were possible, SMT's critical position on new religions and the amount of sway they hold with people appears precognizant; that we ought to safeguard ourselves from being swayed so easily by the lure of an apocalypse.
Woman: Oh, my, that's not good. Join our Messian Faith and let us pray to God together. If we would all pray to God, He will surely save us...He will send a Messiah to help us.
Well, specifically I don't believe in the god she's presuming of. The main division between the Messian cult and most of Japan's new religions is that the Messians aren't founder-centric and they believe that the Messiah is yet to come rather than already here.
This is why I attribute the Ring of Gaea as practicing Luciferianism rather than Satanism. They have a Promethean view of Lucifer as a bringer of fire and morning star opposing a corrupt deity, rather than advocating for the self as god. Aeon's translation also makes mention of Lucifer's courage and that God transformed him into a demon, and the Gaean worshiper attaches the Lord title to him to express his respect.
>YES
Do you think it's okay to let demons kill as they please?
>NO
Do you think it's wrong to bring about peace through overwhelming force?
>YES
I have something for you. Take this. It should help you find the one you're looking for.
>Touya obtained the Matchbook.
This sequence is paralleled in SMTIV, where Flynn needs a similar Matchbook to enter Cafe Florida, which likewise served as the Neutral headquarters in that game. The only thing really disagreeable about this sequence is that you're required to respond from a Neutral prospective to proceed, but it doesn't make much sense from a storyline perspective that you proceed without such an alignment. Unlike later games, the first SMT essentially presumes that you'll start out from a Neutral perspective and then be seriously swayed by one of the alignments.
The Law bar is also an American one, and the presence of American soldiers in Shinjuku invokes a particular anxiety of the Japanese political scene. The use of the US military is a kind of timestamp for Japanese media analogous to the animosity overseas to Japanese car manufacturers post-World War II, as anywhere from 1945 onward the United States is a handy stock image of invasion and loss of cultural identity, as well as of subjugation at the hands of outsiders. A lot of this is centered around the initial outcry and public demonstrations against the SCAP from '45~52, and politically in the history of unequal treaties that dispelled Japan's tariff autonomy from 1858 to 1895, but because the presence of US military bases has continued to the present and has been contemporaneous with Ryukyuan independence movements, there's an enduring recognition of the Americans as criminals and violent outsiders throughout the 70's and especially the 90's. Shin Megami Tensei was released in 1992, three years after the death of the Shōwa Emperor, and the crime rate surrounding American bases in Futenma, Sasebo, Iwakuni and Yokota was as well known then as it is today.
Okinawa in particular is a hotbed for dialogue on the stationing of American troops; between 1972 and 2009 a sum 5,634 criminal offences took place at the hands of US servicemen involved with Futenma base, including 25 murders, 358 burglaries, 127 rapes, 306 assaults and 2,829 thefts. (Hearst) This topic proved timely for SMT, as just three years after the game's release the infamous '95 rape incident rekindled Japanese fears about American troops. (And yes, this was contemporaneous to the sarin gas attacks discussed above; it's called the "Lost Decade" for more than economic reasons.) A 12-year old girl was repeatedly beaten and raped by three American soldiers off-base, but instead of being turned over to the Japanese authorities they were initially taken into protective custody by the Americans. (Gordon 333-334) Animosity towards the soldiers quickly intensified, with false rumors circulating that they were able to roam the base freely and were--in an image painted by some clear stereotypes of the time--seen eating hamburgers. (Watanabe) More than eighty thousand Japanese demonstrated against the American bases in wake of the rape, and while western sources are fond of remarking on how the soldiers would have had harsher sentences in a military or American court, the Japanese courts finally being able to try, sentence and punish American soldiers for crimes committed on Japanese soil represented a major victory for Japan. More than just punishing the criminals, what mattered was also that Japan was able to threaten the soldiers with being tried on their own terms (in the minds of the soldiers, they could be tried in a more "primitive" court) acting as a deterrent against future crimes, and establishing Japanese sovereignty.
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| 1872 woodprint, “Joshu Tomioka Silk Mill” from hana-b.jp |
In Aeon Genesis' translation the American soldiers spoke in broken English (or rather by translation
convention, Japanese.) This line for example was, "Ambassador Thorman great man! I do anything he say!" while one of the other soldiers said "Our American Ambassador Mr. Thorman saw disorder in Tokyo, he stand up to it. He is true justice!" The American soldiers were like cavemen in Aeon's script. This is a somewhat accurate localization; in the original script they spoke in a combination of kanji and katakana, reflecting their heavy accent and the typical flat affect that accompanies speaking a language you've just learned, and occasionally they dropped particles and polite terms which left the sentences semi-grammatically incorrect. For comparison, in the Japanese script of the PSX release this soldier says 「トールマン大使素晴ラシイヒトデース彼ノ言ウコトナンデモ聞キマース」TOORUMAN-taishi subaRASHII HITO DESU kare NO iUKOTO NANDEMO kiKIMAASU "Ambassador Thorman is great person I listen to anything he say." The grammar is mostly correct but he forgets to use the topic marker wa after "Ambassador Thorman" even though he does use desu (equivalent to "is.") An alternative approach would be to render the words written in katakana in all capitals in the translation to English, and the words in kanji with regular case rules, or to screw around with punctuation.
Whether or not Atlus was right to not preserve the speech patterns (with the alternative not necessarily being AE's version, as there are many ways to render the Americans' dialogue) in translation is debatable. I would say that it was definitely authorial intent to present an offensive stereotype of American soldiers; but was it authorial intent to present that stereotype to non-Japanese readers? The stereotype is a tool intended to evoke the general anxiety surrounding foreigners, but if that anxiety can't be cultivated in an international audience, the tool falls flat and loses its narrative purpose. I'm in favor of the caveman soldiers, but it's true that if the cavemen just look like they're making fun of those silly jingoist Americans instead of being a legitimate threat to the safety of the protagonists' world, there's little reason for them to be in the game as-is. Is it the position of the translator to decide that? Both no and yes are correct answers.
A little more color to Gotou's character. He's willing to give authority to a young bully like Ozawa, ostensibly because Ozawa has the innate power to command regardless of his moral compass. Thus despite protecting native Japanese interests against Thorman's forces and trying to defend the country from annihilation, Gotou's faction enables wanton strength without reason.
At the disco...
We can't enter the disco while the party is four or greater, so we have to send back our demons to enter. As a trade-off, there are no encounters inside of the disco.
The Matchbook is our ticket to Nadeshiko's home base, and this establishes that Ozawa is a mutual enemy for each of the main characters; a bully to Champion, kidnapper of Gentleman's girlfriend and the antagonist to the protagonist's partner.
Embedded here in the bottom floor of the disco is a lone deserter, who casts a shadow over Thorman's faction. The Law and Chaos factions each have their own shortcomings, but where the Chaos faction is out in the open and uncompensating for its faults, the forces of Law hide their less than desirable traits and favor deception over honesty. Compare his line in AE; "If coup d'etat succeeds, and demons gain power in Tokyo, ambassador Thorman says he will drop nuclear missiles on Tokyo! I go awol when I heard that. That is too far!"
Dyad fusions
Lv6 Fairy Goblin/Lv9 Fairy Pyro Jack/Lv8 Fairy Jack Frost x Lv10 Brute Azumi = Lv15 Yoma Kimnari
Lv6 Fairy Goblin x Lv8 Fallen Andras = 14 Divine Angel
Lv6 Fairy Goblin x /Lv8 Fairy Jack Frost/Lv9 Fairy Pyro Jack/Lv12 Fairy Dryad = Lv11 Element Aeros
Lv6 Jirae Kobold x Lv8 Element Erthys= Lv16 Jirae Tsuchigumo
Lv6 Jirae Kobold x Lv12 Fairy Dryad = Lv13 Brute Bogle
Lv8 Element Erthys x Lv10 Brute Azumi = Lv13 Brute Bogle
Lv10 Brute Azumi x Lv8 Fallen Andras = Lv17 Ghost Ghoul
Ternary fusions
Azumi x Dryad x Pyro Jack = Lv28 Megami Kushinada
Azumi x Dryad x Andras= Lv24 Night Nightmare
Everything else is either too high level, too low level, or easily recruitable. Andras and Erthys will roll over into the level 66 Fallen Flauros. My current level ceiling is 13, so Bogle (a mostly-phys demon with weird stat distributions that let it do status healing and second level Elec magic) is the most immediately accessible fusions, and will complement well with Angel (the same but with Light instant kill magic and Media) but we can recruit her as a rare encounter from an upcoming dungeon. Kimnari has second level Fire and Ice spells coupled with somewhat underwhelming (overly spread out) stats, while Tsuchigumo has amazing St but awful Ma despite having Shibaboo and Angel's Hama, and Tsuchi has the typical Jirae resistances that pushed Knocker and Brownie down a peg. I won't be fusing Tsuchigumo, but Ghoul is more alluring despite lacking good skills. Ghoul would open up the possibility of fusing into Dark demons, as Ghoul himself is Dark-Chaos, and because Dark demons are unrecruitable, fusion is the only means of getting them into your party. Fusing them is difficult work; if the fusion is incompatible it will result in either nothing or the Dark demon reverting to a Slime, whereas if it is compatible it will behave as if the demon had just ranked up. Compatibility is dependent on the average level of the fusion material demons being a multiple of 3 and on the Dark demon's level being greater than that of the other material demon's level. Alternatively, fusing two Dark-aligned demons will bypass the typical Element and same race rules to create another raced demon (in this case, two Ghosts creates a Spirit, who aside from the Lv29 Phantom and Lv44 Legion are garbage.) The Ghost race on the whole is weak to Fire and Expel but resists Gun and Nerve, and while Expel is a terrible weakness to have resisting Nerve makes them invulnerable to half of the status ailments, and the higher level Ghosts switch to dropping their weaknesses for blanket resistance to magic and null/reflect Curse. A Ghost order demon can also eventually be ranked up into the totally fantastic Lv22 Man Eater who gets both Sexy Dance for multitarget Charm and Stun Claw for paralysis, as well as Demon's Kiss which lowers the enemy's levels.
Basically we should really fuse Ghoul even though his short-term value is limited to being a bad high-level Azumi clone. Any demons that is level 13 will rank up Ghoul into Man Eater, so it's not a bad investment. Setting aside Azumi for that in advance (Andras can be rerecuited in Shinjuku mall), I would fuse Kobold and Dryad into Bogle and Goblin and Andras into Angel, then reserve Bogle for fusing Ghoul into Man Eater.
A note on the possibility of fusing Aeros and then fusing him with Erthys. Whenever a same family fusion wouldn't result in an Element-race demon normally, it's overridden under a separate set of rules; the new demon will be a demon in the same family whose level is nearest to the combined level of the fused demons divided by 2 and increased by 3. If the fusion results in one of the fusion material demons though, the result defaults to a Lv13 Foul Slime. However these same-family rules are actually inapplicable to fusions between Elements, who have their own separate procedure. Each Element fusion results in a specific demon, with Erthys and Aeros fusing into Lv19 Jirae Bugaboo, a strong St-oriented demon with second level and multitarget Ice spells. The Element-specific fusions in general aren't great, as Bugaboo like many others can be recruited in the wild, but it could make use of the lingering demons left over after all these fusions are carried out.
These rules are so obscure that you'd never uncover them without either a strategy guide or through personal experimentation and documentation, but that's part of the thrill of fusion. Shin Megami Tensei has an effect of cloistering you away like a fourteenth century ascetic pursuing the occult through the study of tomes and ancient wisdom, only in this case the tomes are Media Works strategy guides from 2003 and the ancient wisdom is abandoned Japanese Geocities webpages. One aspect of fusion that many of the early Megaten games are missing is the pursuing of it for its own sake, as without any skill inheritance you can't simply try to perfect a party of demons on your own terms with Victory Cry and Megidola all over the place, but the retroactive introduction of a proper Compendium somewhat alleviates this since you can at least pursue 100% completion. Fusion, like the study of alchemy, is a transformative pursuit not just upon the materials but upon the master.
Shinjuku is the first time we can encounter the game's three Fiends--the empty room above the stairs on the far western side has a random chance of spitting one out--but we're too low level to handle them. I'll address Fiend mechanics, and how they've been changed for iOS, when we actually go after all three for Compendium completion, around level 28 or so.
Down a flight of stairs...
Man: Yeah? Show it to me...Okay, that's the real thing. Go ahead.
It's a bizarre conceit, but the "town" areas of this kind can be more dangerous because enemies don't drop Magnetite in here so it's harder to keep a large party of demons summoned.
Resistance Member: Hold on there! I'm not the leader. We don't let outsiders meet our leader face-to-face.
Woman's Voice: It's all right. I will meet with them personally.
Resistance Member: Are you sure...? All right then. She's in the back.
Gentleman: Your name's Nadeshiko, too?
Nadeshiko: I know you recognize me from somewhere. I was saved by all of you when I was being sacrificed in a dream. And so, I waited for you. For you to come and help me for real...There is something I must talk about...Right now, right here in Tokyo, a man named Gotou is summoning demons. And with that power, he is trying to remold the world in any way that pleases him. Seeing this threat, the American ambassador Thorman is taking action. He has called for his nation's army to come to Japan and suppress the situation. We cannot stop Gotou alone, nor can we hold back the American army. At this rate, Tokyo will be destroyed. Please, help us. First, we must save those who were captured for having the same name as me...
Gentleman: You know where Nadeshiko is!?
Nadeshiko: After that, we must subdue Gotou's recently recruited henchmen...Ozawa's gang...
Champion: Hey, what did you just say!? Did you say "Ozawa"!?
Nadeshiko: ......Please. Lend us your power.
Gentleman: If I can be of any help to you, I would gladly do so.
Champion: Any enemy of Ozawa's is a friend of mine. I'm in.
>Will you help the Resistance Leader?
>YES
Nadeshiko: Thank you very much.
Aeon Genesis' translation specifies Gotou as the current regent in Tokyo, and phrases Gotou's world-creation as being "a world molded after his own personal ideals." This suggests a more specific world than Atlus' "any way that pleases him." AE also says of Thorman that he "convinced the American government to send their troops into Japan to suppress Gotou's coup d'etat and will impose their will instead." The emphasis on government, and the idea that the United States will be imposing their will on Japan in Gotou's place should they succeed, casts Thorman's faction in a much more negative light. Finally, Tokyo's destruction is worded more specifically, with Nadeshiko stating that "If Gotou's forces meet head-on with the American army, the carnage would be overwhelming, and Tokyo would likely be reduced to rubble in the conflict."
Woman's Voice: Hmhmhmhmhm...So there you are.
Overall I believe that Aeon's translation emphasizes the imperialist undertone of Thorman's occupation better, while Atlus' is working within the constraints of the app's limited space and potentially trying to avoid controversy. There is one exception where caveman dialogue is used, but it's an isolated instance that I believe is a relic of a point when the American dialogue was going to be translated differently.
>The Resistance members all ran out.
Where Yuriko stood outside the Neutral bar...
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| Image credit. |
Interestingly, among Tochō's numerous statues there is currently a modern piece on Adam and Eve eating from the fruit of the tree of knowledge, Munehiro Ikeda's Adam y Eva. It may or may not have been installed in the courtyard when Shin Megami Tensei was in production; the courtyard statues were commissioned during the Metropolitan Government Building's construction from 1988 to 1990 and based on the various photographs of the statues circulating the net, the inscription at the base of Adam y Eva might read 1991. On the other hand, some of the statues at the site were installed as late as 1995, like An Appeal for Peace. SMT was released in 1992, and the building was only completed in 1990, so this history all came together very quickly within the span of a few years. Adam y Eva is a more positive interpretation of the story, the statue is about the acquisition of knowledge rather than the fall of man, and it notably lacks a serpent in its tree.
Before proceeding to the execution site, there's a location we need to visit north of the Shinjuku underground as the deadline for completing this sidequest is approaching fast.
Ozawa: You're that brat from Kichijoji...Still playing demon slayer, huh?
Gentleman: Why are you trying to capture Nadeshiko? Where is my Nadeshiko!?
Ozawa: I don't care about her, or even Gotou. Only Gotou's power interests me. Eventually, I'll take his place. I can already summon demons, after all. But I don't have time to deal with you. Why don't you play with this guy for a while?
Aeon's translation specifies that he's interested in both political and military power. Kaneko's artwork of Ozawa portrays him with a three-star rank, making him a Lieutenant General under Gotou and implying Gotou himself as the standing General of the ground forces in SMT. What's more interesting is that Ozawa doesn't wear a uniform, his rank is stitched onto his regular clothes. Both Ozawa and Gotou value each other primarily for their merit as powerful men, and as far as Gotou's faction is concerned foregoing the dress code and regulations of the SDF is acceptable as long as you have the power to back your decisions. If nobody can defeat Ozawa by force, he has every right to do as he pleases; which is more or less an invitation for the player to intercede.
>Ozawa left...
Champion: Dammit! Where'd he run off to!?
Soldier: The public execution will be starting soon.
Champion: Cool it! What good will it do her if we rush out?
Yuriko: We've finally captured Nadeshiko...The leader of the resistance that was such a thorn in the grand Gotou's side! Gotou has graciously forgiven this woman for the relentless sabotage she ordered...But her crime of defying the mighty Gotou cannot be so easily wiped away! And so, this woman Nadeshiko's sentence...is execution! Wait...There are rats lurking among us! Come out voluntarily, and you'll get good seats.
The execution sequence is harkened back to in in IV, but the irony of the situation there is that it's Yuriko being executed, by the Law faction. Aeon has Yuriko go on a bit more in detail and invoke the nationalist undertones of the Gaean religion, accusing Nadeshiko of terrorism and sabotage against "our great country" and the death sentence in their translation comes from Yuriko herself so that it's clear that Gotou himself has no interest in executing the Resistance leader.
In AE, Yuriko tells the protagonist that "this wouldn't have had to happen to her" instead.
Yuriko: Looks like I'm done here...
Slightly awkward wording, specifying "this hideout" without being inside it. Aeon approaches the line with "We can't use our old hideout any more, so come find us at the bar."
In the Kichijoji underground...
Resistance Member: Yes, that's correct.
Nadeshiko: Touya...Gentleman...Champion...Thank you very much. Not only did you save my life, you have saved the last hope of avoiding Tokyo's doom. As thanks, I will tell you the information we have obtained. Gentleman, you search for Nadeshiko...She seems to have been taken to the coup's headquarters in Ichigaya.
Gentleman: So that's what happened...
Nadeshiko: Champion, you know Ozawa well...We have located where he and his group are hiding. We will soon begin an operation to raid that place and capture Ozawa and his men.
Gentleman: Touya, I am going to go rescue Nadeshiko. If I don't hurry, I may be too late.
Champion: Sorry, but I'm gonna take part in the Resistance's operation too. I can't let Ozawa get away, no matter what.
Nadeshiko: It seems you're all alone now...Please, won't you come with me? We must meet with Gotou and the American ambassador at Ichigaya to save Tokyo.
>Nadeshiko joins your party.
Nadeshiko: The coup unit's headquarters in Ichigaya are east of Shinjuku. The American Embassy is in Roppongi. We will need to pass underground from Yotsuya, south of Ichigaya, to get there. With this Fake ID Card we have prepared, we will be able to enter both locations.
>Touya was given Fake ID Card.
Nadeshiko: Now, let's go.
Again, in AE she's more specific; "In order to save Tokyo from destruction, we either have to convince one of them to stop what they're doing, or get them to reach some sort of compromise." The idea that the Neutral option is to stop refute both of their ideals is understated. Nadeshiko also mentions public transportation being shut down as the reason that you need to use Yotsuya, and the omission of all these smaller details in the translation leads me to believe that much of the script has been cut out for memory purposes.
Of course, the first thing I do with her new gun is put it on the protagonist.
I delegate to meet with Gotou at the Ground SDF headquarters in Ichigaya first, as he's at the center of the whole situation.
>Yes (Law, -1)
No (Neutral, +/-0)
Girl: Thank you! My name is Nadeshiko! I was kidnapped and taken here.
The basement level of Camp Ichigaya is optional and is primarily used as a prison. Regardless of whether I support Thorman or Gotou, there's no reason to keep detaining these girls when the Resistance leader's identity is now known to Gotou.
>Yes (Law, -1)
No (Neutral, +/-0)
Young girl: Thank you. A little while ago, a man named Gentleman came. He tried to save us, but a huge bunch of guards showed up and he couldn't do it.
There's three of these girls in all, each of which serves as a Lawful prompt for the player. It's an indicator of one of the flaws in Gotou's system that two thirds of the girls that Ozawa captured were too young to possibly be the Resistance leader, and that this went completely unnoticed by the rest of his faction throughout the entire process of arrest and detainment. Ozawa's shotgun solution to stopping the Resistance is to keep arresting every Nadeshiko in Tokyo until they find the right one, showing the weakness of his simple-minded brute force approach.
>Yes (Law, -1)
No (Neutral, +/-0)
Woman: Thank you. There was another girl with me, but they took her away somewhere.
This would be a reference to Gentleman's girlfriend. After saving these three girls my alignment is at around 121 after factoring in my use of the Gaean and Neutral Ashrams, which is leaning towards Law but still ten points short of actually qualifying as Lawful. I admit that I haven't paid much attention to how many demon summoning is affecting my alignment, because it's only shifted by like 0.1 each time something is summoned.
Atlus' script is much more barebones compared to Aeon Genesis'. Compare this transcript of Gotou's introduction in their translation;
Commander: Welcome, my friends. I've been waiting for you. As you may have guessed, I am Gotou. I'm sure you've got a bone to pick with me about Pascal, but hear me out, let me try to explain where I'm coming from. While I wanted my subordinates to keep the resistance out of my hair, I certainly didn't want her executed. That was entirely their idea. Quite frankly, I haven't paid much attention to what they've been doing, as I've been busy with more important matters. There's...a plan that's being carried out. Behind the scenes, very secretive. The gist of the plan is to create the "Thousand Year Kingdom" in the name of God. Only a select few know about it. Maybe you've heard of it before, a lot of old religious texts mention it. The basic idea is that those that live in the Kingdom will be promised eternal peace and tranquility. A paradise on Earth, if you will. Problem is, there's a catch. It's like an exclusive club, and only those that worship God get a chance at membership. Anyone else? Well, they get the lovely runner-up prize of getting to be slaughtered at the hands of the American army, courtesy of God's orders. You may not be aware of it, but at this very moment there are nuclear missiles pointed at Japan to accomplish this end. The only thing that's keeping them from blowing us all away is a force field that the ancient gods have put up to protect us, and even they can't hold out forever...As far as we've come, we're still weak though. We need an ace in the hole. I think you'd be the perfect candidates. I want your help. I won't force you to make up your minds now though. I'll wait here for you to make your final decision.The key points that Atlus' translation omits are that Gotou denies responsibility for Nadeshiko's execution, the secretive nature of the Millennium Kingdom, that one must worship God to enter, that the United States is using nuclear missiles, and that the ancient gods are holding the attack back with a force field. On the other hand, the Atlus translation does specify that the ancient gods are the Japanese ones. I'm critical of the official translation because it makes Gotou's arguments much weaker and recasts him as unapologetic for the execution, which is opposed to how he was originally presented.
Gotou's full name given in Devil Summoner is 五島公夫 "Gotou Kimio," identified on the news as a first-class officer of the Ground forces. The use of Mishima's fictional proxy as the leader of the Chaos faction is appropriate in light of Mishima's own views. He criticized modern society in Mishima on Hagakure, believing that because of the emergence of a "technocracy" where individuals and celebrities were reduced to puppets performing their one skillset, that to "degenerate into a single cog, a single function becomes [society's] greatest ambition." (Mishima 20-21) Like Gotou, he was opposed to the oppression of freedom and believed that Japanese society was on track to become a system of cogs in a greater machine.
The calligraphy on his wall's hanging scroll reads 天照大御神 Amaterasu-Ookami "Great God[dess] Amaterasu" honorific language for the Japanese goddess of the sun, Amaterasu. The sun goddess is a favorite deity for nationalists to crowd around because descent from her lineage (through the grandchild of Amaterasu's grandson Ninigi-no-Mikoto) is the basis for the divinity of the Japanese emperor. The scroll is really for Gotou's own benefit; it's an aesthetic display of the writing itself as an artwork, and the recessed space it's hung within is a common feature of traditional Japanese architecture used for such purposes.
This is all we can do in Ichigaya for now, so it's time for some fusion back in the underground followed by a trip to the American embassy.
1. The results of a dyad fusion between a Messian- or a Gaean-race and a demon are randomized.
2. The results of a ternary fusion involving a Messian- or a Gaean-race and two demons are always a Slime.
3. Humans cannot be fused with other humans.
4. Fusion results are based on the level of the material demon, and unrelated to the level of the human being used. The exact formula is (Random number between 0 and 31 + Demon's level divided by 2) with the result that is closest to the material demon's level being chosen.
5. The resulting race will be different depending on if you use a Messian or Gaean in the fusion.
6. In the case of human and Dark demon fusion, the laws of Dark fusion are applied.
7. You cannot fuse a human with a Foul Slime.
It's known that there are more rules being observed than just these, but you can infer them from these seven. Generally humans from the Church of the Messiah will result in Lawful demons during fusion, while humans from the Ring of Gaea will result in Chaotic demons. Each combination of a human with other demons has, in most cases, ten possible fusion results, and the two human races are more likely to produce races of the following, sorted from most to least likely;
Messian: Jirae > Jaki > Fairy > Divine > Vile > Avian > Flight > Raptor > Avatar > Holy > Element
Gaean: Touki > Brute > Tyrant > Yoma > Night > Fallen > Femme > Dragon > Snake > Drake > Beast > Wilder
Because the level of the material human is unrelated, all recruitable human characters are effectively interchangeable, while the level of the material demon is the most important point.So we know that fusing the Suicide Unit with any of our demons will produce one of ten possibilities, and many of those will be out of our range. How do we decide what to experiment with? By ruling out what we won't use. Andras and Azumi will be set aside for fusing Ghoul, and Bogle will likewise be saved for fusing into Man Eater, and Angel should probably not be used because even though she's in an upcoming dungeon she's Light-Law and Light-aligned demons can't be negotiated with in this game. That leaves Erthys, Pyro Jack and Jack Frost. Right now I'm planning on rerecruiting one of them after fusing the two Jacks into Element Aeros, then recruiting two Beast order demons to fuse into a Flaemis. For Compendium completion, the Elements are some of the few demons that can't be encountered in fights at all, and fusing three separate first tier Elements will create a second tier Element of whatever affinity was not used in the fusion. So Lv8 Erthys, Lv11 Aeros and Lv17 Flaemis will result in Lv30 Undine, giving some long-term viability to doing Element fusions now. On the other hand, this means giving up three slots in my COMP for the next thirteen levels, which inhibits fusions until that time. Doing the Aeros-Erthys fusion mentioned above to create Bugaboo at Lv19 would also be an option.
What this means is that I'm probably going to use Jack Frost as the material for Suicide Unit's fusion. No better case study than Atlus' own mascot, right?
Lv15 Gaean Suicide Squad x Lv8 Fairy Jack Frost
Lv7 Night Imp
Lv8 Fallen Andras
Lv10 Brute Azumi
Lv12 Fallen Gamigin
Lv13 Brute Bogle
Lv14 Touki Spartoi
Lv15 Yoma Kimnari
Lv16 Beast Tan-ki
Lv18 Fallen Forneus
Lv19 Beast Nekomata
Lv21 Yoma Apsaras
Lv22 Drake Worm
Lv24 Brute Momunofu
Lv27 Fallen Berith
Lv28 Night Lilim
Lv30 Touki Yaksini
Lv31 Fallen Sytry
Lv33 Femme Lamia
Lv35 Night Celuluk
>NO
Thorman: Have you come to a choice? Are you going to aid us?
>NO
Thorman: ...I see. So you're fine in leaving Gotou be? Hmm...
>NO
Thorman: I am faithful that if you think hard about it, you'll pick to help us.
I'm pretty certain that answering "Yes" to his third question starts a fight. Comparing this to AE's translation;
American Ambassador: Welcome! Nice to meet you hello, everyone. I am Thorman, the American ambassador. I apologise my Japanese not very good. I hope you can understand me. I hear rumor about you! I give you big welcome! We bring out American army to save everyone from demons. But...we are not strong yet. Gotou...He want to call Lucifer to Tokyo. We need to defeat him first. Lucifer want bring many imprisoned demons to world. We just soldiers, we not trained to fight demons. You can fight demons please help us, defeat Gotou. If Lucifer is summoned, terrible, terrible for Japan! There will be no way to sotp that many demons that he will free. If you defeat Gotou, peace will return to Tokyo. We will be able to bring back former era of peace. You not make up your minds yet? Do you want to hear my story again?The detail about his poor Japanese, Lucifer summoning imprisoned demons in Tokyo, the soldiers being unable to fight demons and setting things back to the way they used to be are not present in Atlus' translation.
One of the benefits of the Let's Play as a format is that it presents all of the main evidence in direct quotation of the script and assists a macro-view of the issues at hand. Summarizing Gotou's arguments, the established world order is complacent with the problems of war, famine and pollution. Society is engaged in acts of inequality and infighting brooked by systems of severe class division, an out-of-control global military-industrial complex engaged in continuous war, and mass pollution created by the harmful exploitation of the Earth's natural resources. These problems each originate from humanity becoming out of touch with the natural order and divorced from its relationship with Gaea, the personified Earth. Furthermore, the Americans are cooperating to try and cultivate an expatriate totalitarian dictatorship in Tokyo. According to him, the "Japan Annihilation Project" that Gotou uncovered was on the verge of establishing that dystopia. Gotou aimed to attack the JAP preemptively by summoning demons from the Expanse--which he revers as the ancient gods, and also sees as the key to restoring humans' natural harmony with the Earth. The JAP would break Japan's free will, but his answer is to preserve it by living side by side with the demons in a utopia. Even if the JAP's existence cannot be corroborated, it is known that the Americans are preparing to launch a missile strike against Japan because of Gotou's martial law, and the Japanese gods are presently defending the country's air space from that happening.
But Thorman counters that Gotou's use of the demons will be catastrophic for Japan's welfare, and that the general has a secret plan of his own to summon the demon lord Lucifer once the occupation is dealt with. Lucifer's rise would bring with it an unstoppable effusion of demons that would cast the whole country into chaos. If the occupation is victorious and Gotou is defeated, then peace can return to Tokyo and a return to normality made. Whether returning things to normal is a good thing or not is debatable; the world that Gotou is trying to change is already ruinous and on the path of environmental destruction, corporate exploitation and global war. Given the option, would you prefer the world as it is today to the possibility of improving it? The catch is, if both of them are telling the truth, then Thorman has no intentions of returning things to normal regardless. Returning Tokyo to normal would only be for the greater purpose of cultivating the Millennium Kingdom. Gotou wasn't being particularly up front about his plans to summon Lucifer either, and his demonic utopia may not be feasible. The Gaeans view Lucifer as a Promethean lightbringer, while the Americans see him as the dread lord of hell. The Messians see God's Millennium Kingdom as a paradise and the long-awaited salvation of mankind, where the coup forces view it as a totalitarian dictatorship building a paradise of the minority on the exclusion of the masses. The Resistance is opposed to favoring either argument, arguing that martial law should be lifted and the American occupation be ousted to restore domestic democratic control. However, while the Neutral solution would genuinely restore the world to the way that it was before, it also wouldn't do anything to answer the problems of the world at large in the process. Returning to business-as-usual would mean resuming the steady destruction of the Earth and banal day-to-day evils, charting a course for destruction through rejection rather than progress through compromise. Thorman and Gotou each have a solution to the problems of contemporary society at the expense of making sacrifices on one front or another, but Nadeshiko only has a plan for opposing those solutions with no model for the future.
Given the options at hand, the choice is between being safe or free. Thorman favors containing the situation at the expense of the public, Gotou's demonic utopia would grant freedom with no other guarantees. Neutrality grants either everything or nothing with no certainty of curbing these same questions from arising again. If we return the world to the way it was, then eventually another Gotou and another Thorman will break that Neutrality once more in a ceaseless cycle, but if we try to change the world for the better then the situation becomes winnable. And I'm inclined to side with Gotou; free men guarantee their own safety. Agency once surrendered cannot be taken back. Ironically, the only certainty of the Millennium Kingdom is that of a softer failure. If it turns out that the Kingdom is less than a perfect paradise, then there will be no way to undo the new regime--whereas the very essence of Gotou's demonic utopia is constant change. The failure of one system means the rise of another, polishing the system to satisfy the world's needs. If Lucifer is a poor king, then a better one will take his place by force.
Gotou: Ah, so you will aid me! Then I want you to head to the US Embassy. I want you to convince the US ambassador to stop their attack. I'm counting on you...
From this point on, Gotou disappears from his chamber. Siding with either Gotou or Thorman begins an early game alignment lock.
Ambassador Thorman: I see...So, then...
Thor pulls this on every single route, even Law. He never intended to restore peace in Tokyo; the nukes would always drop as soon as he got the chance to use them.
>Nadeshiko cast Traport.
Lightning strikes in the chamber.
An Onmyōji is a practitioner of a specific branch of Japanese magic, Onmyōdō, a system of divination that fuses natural science and occultism, much like the esoteric Christian magic of the medieval period. The field has been historically significant in Japan, with there once being a government-maintained Bureau of Onmyō until the ports were opened by the west in the 1850s and it was banned. At one point Onmyōdō was so large as a field of magic that rival Onmyōdō practitioners were common, with the most famous being the historical Abe no Seimei and his opponent Ashiya Douman. The demon Douman is thus a historical figure reenacting the events of his life just as a god in the franchise reenacts its myths.
Shinjuku is the last time that Shin Megami Tensei comes together with a sense of normalcy. The arc is a massive zero-sum game treading towards an unwinnable course of nuclear destruction. The only question within it is how it will approach that end, and the player's ideals are tested within this framework as the only fluid thing in Tokyo. All else is unchangeable, the player is the only one who will grow under these circumstances. Hereon out SMT delves ever deeper into weird, unfamiliar territory that strips away the everyday environs set up by Kichijoji and Shinjuku, to get at the demonic nature of humanity lying beneath the skyscrapers and shopping malls.
Touya: +8 Vi +4 Ag
Gentleman: +4 Ma +3 Vi
Champion: +6 St +1 Ag
Nadeshiko: +1 St +5 Vi +5 In +2 Ag +5 Ma +1 Lu
References
Gordon, Andrew. A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. Print.Hearst, David. "Second battle of Okinawa looms as China's naval ambition grows." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited, 7 Mar. 2011. Web. 18 May 2014.
Mishima, Yukio. The Way of the Samurai: Yukio Mishima on Hagakure in Modern Life. Trans. Kathryn Sparling. Basic Books, 1977. Print.
Nakae, Chōmin. A Discourse by Three Drunkards on Government. Trans. Nobuko Tsukui. Trumbull: Weatherhill, 2004. Print.
Tsurumi, Patricia E. Factory Girls: Women in the Thread Mills of Meiji Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. 26-198. Print.
Watanabe, Teresa. "U.S., Japan OK Pact on Military Crime Suspects." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 6 Oct. 1995. Web. 18 May 2014. <http://articles.latimes.com/1995-10-26/news/mn-61240_1_military-facilities>.
