Essay: 7 Urban Legends from the Persona Series and the Real World!
If there is one theme that has drawn itself through the entirety of the Persona series since day one - Jungian psychology and demons non-withstanding - it’s the series’ repeated use of ghost stories and urban legends as a narrative device and sometimes even as a gameplay element.
Literally, the first scene in the very first game has our main characters trying their hands at what amounts to a room-sized Ouija board. No surprise, given how popular these sorts of stories are in Japan - I mean, there IS a reason Japanese horror movies are pretty much considered a genre all of their own. This theme also makes a lot of sense considering it in association to the games’ borrowings from Analytical psychology, since rumors and myths of all kind can be seen as an expression of the country’s collective cultural unconscious, very much in-line with Jung’s ideas. This interpretation is only helped by scenes such as one in Persona 2 where Nyarlathotep outright calls rumors the collective wishes of the people, or a page of the P3 club book, where Ikutsuki claims that information spread on the internet has been an important tool for feeding the collective death wish Erebus embodies, or the scene in Persona 4, where Izanami claims the Midnight Channel was her way of reflecting mankind’s own desires back at them— I think my point is clear, right?
So yeah, how about we take a look at some rumors from the Persona Universe and their roots in real life urban legends?
#1 “Persona-san” VS “Square” (Persona 1)
Literally the first thing we saw in any Persona game. Ever.
Hidehiko Uesugi coaxes his pals - this includes you and the majority of your future party members - into playing a game that involves 4 people standing in the corners of an empty room, one after another walking over into the next corner, tapping the shoulder of the next person, calling for “Persona” to “come”, then the person who’s shoulder has been tapped moves to the next corner, rinse-repeat. Eventually this results in awkward CGI- I mean a ghost girl appearing, lightning striking everyone and, bam, Philemon hands out Personas like butterfly Oprah.
This little ‘ritual’ is very directly based on a ghost story from real life Japan, however, unlike the Persona version, where the rumor claims the game’s purpose is to predict the future, in the original story the shoulder-tapping carousel’s purpose was very explicitly NOT DYING.
Context: The story called “Square” begins with 5 members of a hiking club going up on a mountain and getting lost in a blizzard. One of them gets hit on the head with by rock, dies. The others manage to carry their dead comrade to an empty hut, sit there for a while, then decide “Well, body count of 1 is quite enough for an after-school activity, dear chaps, let’s try to not get ahead of ourselves!” So they keep each other awake by walking from corner to corner and, what else, tapping each other’s shoulder. Only after a few rounds of that, the last one of them, let’s call 'em “D”, realized:
“Wait a minute. If A is in corner B, B is in corner C, C is in corner D and D is in corner A… Then WHOSE SHOULDER DID I JUST TAP!?”
Eventually, they decided that this mysterious fifth person -let’s call 'em F- was their dear, fallen friend, who’d come back from the dead to help them out with staying awake and alive by… lightly tapping someone’s shoulder. Because that’s what friendship is all about!
And no, I have no idea what this has to do with Philemon. Or Personas. Or anything. But hey, at least the ghost in this one is benevolent! That’s more than I can say for pretty much anything else on this list!
#2 “Joker” VS “Satoru-kun” (Persona 2 IS)
The Persona 2 duology has no shortage of creepy rumors, given that there’s an entire game-mechanic that involves gathering and spreading stories around town, however, none is quite as unsettling and familiar as the one that pretty much kicks off the plot. And when I say “familiar”, I mean “familiar” to Japanese players, because, again, this one is based directly on an actually existing Japanese Urban Legend.
In Persona 2 IS, “Joker” is an entity that one can contact by calling their own cellphone’s number and chanting “Joker, joker, come here.” Joker will then appear behind the caller and grant their wishes, unless they don’t have any, in which case he’ll pretty much just steal their minds and erase them from our plane of existence. Neeaaaaat. There’s another version of JOKER in EP who’s pretty similar, except this one only grants wishes that involve murdering people, but we’re not gonna focus on that one right now.
P2 IS’ Joker is based on the urban legend of “Satoru-kun”, which goes as follows: Grab a 10 Yen coin and search a payphone. You can’t use any other types of phones or coins, it has to be a 10 Yen coin and a payphone. Satoru is very specific like that. Anyway, once you’ve located both of these, call your own cellphone wait for the call to connect, then try not to feel too embarrassed about yourself as you chant “Satoru, Satoru, come to me” into the payphone.
By the way, this is also where the “Persona, Persona, come to me” chant from the previous number on this list comes from. That one wasn’t originally in Square.
Anyway, once you’re done chanting, you hang up the call and turn off your cellphone completely. If you did everything correctly, within 24 hours you should start getting calls from “Satoru” on your turned-off phone, informing you where he is right now. Once he says “I’m right behind you”, you can ask him a question, any question, and he’ll tell you the correct answer. Anything! There’s only a few things you gotta watch out for:
A) Never turn around to look at Satoru.
B) Never be a smartass and ask Satoru a question you already know the answer to, and finally
C) Never ask Satoru more than one question.
What happens if you break any of these rules? Ohhh, you’ll just get mysteriously spirited away. To hell.
#3 Reiko Kashima (Persona 2 EP)
I’m cheating a little with this one, since it’s literally just a real life ghost story that *happens* to appear in the game as a sidequest, but I just liked it too much to not mention it. Japan has a rich, fascinating culture of school ghost stories, which has spawned equally fascinating academic discourse in the field of Japanese Studies. A common trend among Japanese ghost stories is the appearance of female ghosts appearing in weird places doing terrible things to people for various reasons. This is one of those.
Reiko is a ghost without legs. How she died varies depending on who’s telling the stories, but the most popular version seems to be “After World War II American soldiers raped her, then she jumped onto a train track and killed herself.” (A KIDS’ GHOST STORY!!)
Anyway, she’ll appear to you when you enter the bathroom, often at night. She’ll ask you “Where are my legs?” You’re supposed to answer “At Meishin Expressway.” She’ll ask you “Who told you that?” You’ll say “Reiko Kashima did.” If she’s feelings especially persistent that day, she’ll also say “Give me your arms” (“I’m still using those!”), “Give me your legs!” (“I still need those.”) or “Do you know my name?” (Trick question. The right answer is “The masked demon of death”.) If you answer any of these wrong, she’ll dismember and kill you, so the two of you can go on tour together! Oh, also, it’s said she’ll appear to you within one month of first hearing about this story. You’re welcome.
#4 Fuuka’s Revenge VS “Hikiko-san”
In Persona 3, your first encounter with one of the most adorable members of your party also happens to be one of the creepiest friggin’ party member introductions in all of the franchise. Before you ever even get to meet her, Junpei’s theatrics and the Shinjiro Aragaki rumor mill are so nice to inform you that Fuuka is considered A) dead B) a ghost haunting Gekkoukan High School and C) responsible for inflicting two of her worst bullies on the mortal coil with a hefty bout of Apathy Syndrome. Of course, it quickly turns out that none of this true and actually she’s just been trapped in a parallel dimension filled with blood hungry monsters for the last couple of weeks (Because that’s, y'know, so much better) but the spread of those rumors at Gekkoukan isn’t surprising, given how common this exact kind of Ghost Story is around Japanese schools.
One such example is the story of “Hikiko-san”. She appears on rainy days, wearing a tattered white Kimono and carrying no umbrella. Behind her. She is dragging something that looks like a mannequin on first glance. If you look closer, it’s actually a kid. If you happen to meet her, she’ll knock you out, and drag you behind her, on and on, until you finally die, then, she’ll dump your corpse somewhere. Now, here’s the good news: Hikiko only targets school bullies. So hopefully all of you guys should be safe! …Hopefully
(If you’re, in fact, not safe, I’m seriously judging you.).
Hikiko is actually the ghost of a girl who was either bullied to death or into suicide. Either way, the place where she dumps her victims tends to be the same one where she herself died. Her motivations is to rid the world of the very bullies who’ve made her life hell. So remember, kids: If you don’t want to get brutally murdered in one stormy, stormy night, play nice.
Fun fact, there’s a theory that the story was originally derived from a short-story titled “Fukiko”, which is my reason for thinking that this might be the one that specifically inspired Fuuka’s rumor in the game. Also, Hikiko’s full name is often given as “Hikiko Mori”. …“Hikikomori”. Very subtle.
#5 Cursed/Magic TV Shows/Websites (Persona 4 with a side of dancing)
Okay, these ones are so numerous and varied, I really couldn’t pick out just a single one, even if I tried.
Both, the Midnight Channel in Persona 4 and the Cursed Video in Persona 4 Dancing All Night are based on a long-lasting trend of urban legend about screens or radios showing or playing things that aren’t supposed to be there, and causing effects to the people viewing them that are either extremely desirable or extremely bad.
One example I found are a story about a man who found a Quiz Show at night on a channel that was meant to show Anime. In said quiz show, people admitted to doing various, awful crimes. Finally, the man himself was asked about 'his’ crimes by the quiz show. When he refused to answer, he was tossed off his balcony and died.
Another example is the story of the “Red Room”, a pop up that will appear on your computer after you attempt to research the story. Well, sucks to be me I guess. It says that after you attempt to close the pop-up several times, it will ask you if you ’like the red room’. Then, you’ll kill yourself and paint your own room red with your blood. So if I go on another 6 months hiatus after this, you’ll know what happened.
#6 High School… of YOUR death (Persona Q with a side of Dancing and Arena-ish…)
This one…. has got to be cheating, but I found it relevant, so hear I go. Of course, Persona Q is full of school ghost stories, I mean, one of its major plot points is about a literal School Ghost (spoilers?) but the one that stands out to me the most is the legend claiming that those who hear the long idle school bell strike shall die - a story very similar to another rumor from early in Persona 2 IS, where hearing the school bell while wearing the school emblem would result in one’s face getting terribly disfigured. This story is— sadly not one I could find a direct real life equivalent to. (cry) BUT! I do have something else.
Dalies and Mentlegen, the Tale of the Dream School.
There’s a guy, let’s call him Kei. One night, Kei has a very strange dream. He’s wandering around a school he doesn’t know, full of closed paths he can’t go. The school is built like a Labyrinth that goes nowhere and the hallways seem to be going nowhere, which Kei finds very strange indeed. Now, unfortunately for Kei, he neglected to retrieve the key for the emergency exists and leave through there, because that might just have saved him. Instead, he stumbled upon a room of dismembered, dancing students. Yes. Dismembered AND dancing. It’s a weird school like that. Anyway, at that point, Kei’s fate was sealed, he stayed trapped in the dream world forever and never woke up. The end.
Stories like these are a nice potential source of the Persona series liking for school hallways turning into an impenetrable maze of death, as well the tidbit about “never waking up” in the cursed video’s rumor from Persona 4 Dancing All Night.
I, on the other hand, can only wonder if this means that I should be very worried about my recent tendency to flash back to the horrors of my high school years at night. Again. If I disappear, you know where I am.
#7 Magic Message Boards (Persona 5)
And finally, for the grand finale…! Drumroll, please…
The rumor… Is YOU my friend! Yes, you! The Phantom Thieves! Oh, wait, you thought I meant the real you? Eh, no, sorry. You’re just… someone, I don’t know… (JK I love you) CARRYING ON!
While Persona 5 is, for the most part, surprisingly light on the traditional sort of Ghost Story we’ve been getting used to from previous installments. It gives us one big Urban Legend right there in the premise: You, the Phantom Thieves, as an unexplained, supernatural force, granting the pleas of the oppressed and punishing the very minds of those corrupt. How do you contact this mysterious power for its aid?! Why, via an internet message board, of course! An urban legend of the modern age, indeed.
Reflective of current trends or not, the way how the world’s belief in the Phantom Thieves strengthens and weakens their power over Tokyo over the course of the game -something that is actually measured with an in-game meter- is very reminiscent of how rumors work in Persona 2, and while you may now say “The Phantom Thieves aren’t an urban legend in the game’s world, they’re one hundred percent fact!” Well, the same is true for almost everything else on this list now, isn’t it?
The Persona series is and has always been a story about thoughts altering reality, and what thoughts are more powerful than those passed on from person to person, shaping a story so well-known, it already seems real at times! In a way, Nyarlathotep was right, rumors, myths and Urban Legends are reflections of how we, as a collective perceive our world, how we fear it, and what we want from it.
Now, if only the collective unconscious could keep me from suffering the dire consequences of all this forbidden knowledge I have uneart- *disappears spookily and suddenly*
