Board 8 > Jeff & Leon Save Estelle in the Same House: Homecoming [JZLF]

(+) Yeah! (+)

Persona 5 playthrough topic if this dies
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Speaking of Persona 5, time to play some more.

also I decided to look at all the DLC for the game

got all the free stuff and I am very tempted to get the P3 and P4 ones but I feel like spending 7 bucks on each of those is too much
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Haikyuu is amazing
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oh man totally amazing question in class in Persona 5 just now (well more for one of the options, really)

"What do people generally call a woman who has a charm that sometimes leads men to their doom?" and one of the options is Elizabeth. So good.

Also I like that several people are already suspicious of them being the Phantom Thieves and they're not getting away with it without a hitch. I mean, I guess it has to happen this way considering how the game started, but it's nice that they're not treating them like they're perfect at this right away.
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All right, just unlocked Mementos, which seems to be where we'll be doing all of our Quests this time around. Feels like an offshoot of Tartarus a bit, but the EXP, the money, and the items were all good, so that was very helpful.
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LeonhartFour posted...

also I decided to look at all the DLC for the game

got all the free stuff

Sell the Soma
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dowolf posted...

I'm uncertain if I even want to watch this season of GoT. I doubt I'm going to like it, given that I haven't liked the last couple seasons, but I feel like I'm pot-committed at this point.

that's how they've got us man (This matches my opinion pretty much exactly.)

Jeff Zero posted...

He's smarter than everyone else, perhaps even the writers themselves. He knows exactly what to do and commits.

think you mean hange

Erwin and Levi up there too. With those 3 it feels more earned too.

LeonhartFour posted...

Should we continue the topic series even while he's gone?

Yeah, so long as you're up for it. I was secretly hoping it would somehow but didn't have my hopes up since I didn't know those were the reasons for it stopping last time.

LeonhartFour posted...

I guess I could use some new anime recommendations because we finished out our current queue, and I've only got a few episodes left on my SNAFU re-watch.

Uhhhhh... Gonna note that we've entered territory where I've become notably unsure with recs, so you may very well be better off giving other recs more weight than mine.

Samurai Champloo - I mentioned this before, but it's basically Cowboy Bebop in 1800s Japan. Same creator and I think you'd like the main guys and the wacky stuff they get up to.

Soul Eater - This might veer a bit too close to shonen for your tastes, but I think it walks the line well enough for that to not be an issue for you. Core cast is pretty strong, and I think you'd like the leads for the most part.
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Yeah, I've heard good things about Samurai Champloo. I might give that one a shot.

Soul Eater I don't think I've heard anything about. Let's see.

Maka’s a Meister and Soul is her Weapon, and they’re a freakin’ lethal team in battle against the monsters and ghouls that feed on innocent souls. That’s when Soul transforms—literally—into a razor-sharp scythe and Maka wields her partner and unleashes her inner-slayer. Fighting alongside their Meister/Weapon classmates, Maka and Soul are the world’s last line of defense against evil.

Sounds like a pretty generic description, but it probably doesn't do it justice.
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Yeah, that doesn't do it much justice at all.

or feel all that accurate at points

I'm perhaps even worse at competent summaries though so I'm gonna hope somehow else can do a better job. >_>
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I'll still recommend Angel Beats as another Key anime worth watching.
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Yeah, I definitely need to watch Angel Beats at some point since Key has a pretty great track record with me so far.
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All right, first round of exams complete in Persona 5! We've also met our next prospective party member: Yusuke Kitagawa, an aspiring artist working under our next target, this Madarame dude. Makoto also keeps snooping around about us. I've completed a couple of Mementos sidequests, too.

By the way, it feels like the way some of the names are pronounced in P5 is different from how I've heard the same names pronounced in other Japanese media, like Kitagawa or Sakamoto. Is P5 getting them right and other things have been getting them wrong, or what?
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I tried reading Soul Eater. The character design and general style grabbed me but it ultimately felt too generic to continue.

Magi is a pretty great! I don't think I've mentioned that one before.
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From what I've heard (dowolf would know better I think, assuming he's heard how the dub pronounces them) the dub gets a few of them "wrong" (Most notably Takamaki and Sakamoto) but it also came out from some of the VAs (or at least Ann's) that they were specifically directed to pronounce them that way.

Which seems weird but there it is.
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Mac Arrowny posted...

Cool that you're going to watch HxH, Jeff.

confirmed!?
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pjbasis posted...

Mac Arrowny posted...

Cool that you're going to watch HxH, Jeff.

confirmed!?

Jeff Zero posted...

pjbasis posted...

I can't state enough that it's one of my favorite pieces of well...storytelling. I hope it's enough to get you to check it out if you think our tastes line in any way!

I'm certainly gonna check it out. I'll watch HxH while I'm away. I'm doubtful it'll do anything that'll scream "no, seriously, try to compel Leon to watch it" at me, but I'll likely enjoy it. YYH is one of my favorite anime!

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Well, I've heard Ann and the other party members pronounce "Takamaki" one way and I've heard NPCs pronounce it another, so it's weird.

I assume most of the VAs (at least the major ones) are told how to pronounce certain names when it comes to projects like this. Like, some of the VAs pronounce things differently in P4 the game and P4 the anime, and I imagine it was because the directors told them to.
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Yeah, I know what you mean because it caught my attention. My understanding is that the NPCs pronounce it correctly. I always assumed in light of what Ann's VA said was that the main VAs were given those instructions and acted accordingly while the NPCs either weren't or the instructions came later in the process and they didn't bother redoing minor characters like that.
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Also, Ann seems pretty great so far, but I never really see anyone talk about her as the best female character of the bunch (although I generally don't go looking because of spoilers, naturally), so I'm assuming the others must be awesome (or there will be some disconnect between me and the rest of the board).
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Ann was my pre-release prediction for favorite because of my history of liking the Lovers Arcana characters the most (and her Japanese VA was one of my favorites) but I ended up disappointed. Don't get me wrong, she's a solid character, but she's outshone by some of the others.
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Angel Beats is great! Seconding that rec.
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Ann was my waifu in my first playthrough.
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whoa it's Yukiko's VA

heck yeah
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All right, got a new Confidant in Justine and Caroline! They're the Strength Arcana, huh? Wonder which one will be Kou and which will be Daisuke. Actually, I already have a pretty good idea. Looks like theirs is going to be just like Margaret's, where I just have to bring them specific Personas.

I also unlocked Madarame's Palace, which is a gigantic art museum. Looks like we have to complete it soon for the sake of Ann's purity, too...!
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Now that you've met Yusuke, switch to JP audio. He's Kyon.
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Did Leon even watch the JP Audio Haruhi...?

JP has some great voices in general in this though.
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BK_Sheikah00 posted...

switch to JP audio

gross no

As much as I love Kyon and his Japanese VA, Yusuke's English VA actually sounds a bit like Crispin Freeman, so I'll stick with that...!

Also, Madarame's Palace feels way easier than the first Palace. I guess part of it's because I'm at a higher level and have better abilities and items, but it's usually not until the third dungeon or so that Persona games start to feel easier for me.

Anyway, I just broke the security at the halfway point of the Palace and found out the dirty secret Madarame's been hiding about his original painting and how he's disseminating forgeries of it. Suddenly, it feels like I'm playing Apollo Justice...! Yusuke's entered the...other world with us (almost typed "TV World" out of habit, but I'm not sure what to call this place here), so I imagine he'll join the party soon.
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Mac Arrowny posted...

Did Leon even watch the JP Audio Haruhi...?

I watched the Japanese version of the Nagato spinoff because I wanted to watch it ASAP, even if the dub was only a week behind.

Plus, I've listened to a lot of the image songs, so I'm familiar with how the VAs sound.
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They eventually come up with a term for that. If you want to know: Metaverse. Forget when they start using it.

Yusuke's VA is Matthew Mercer (Kanji's replacement from P4AU and Q, also Levi from AoT)
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Oh right, they did start calling it that already. My bad.

And yeah, I know it's Matt Mercer (a.k.a. the guy you get when you can't get Troy Baker). I can hear bits and pieces of him in there. He sounds more like Kyon than Kanji or Levi though.
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New topic:

https://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/75577403
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Fully 100% accurate Soul Eater summary: I want you to take your favorite power couples from every show ever. Now I want you to imagine that one of them is literally a weapon wielded by the other.

...That may have only made things more confusing. I'm kinda surprised you don't like more shonen, to be honest; they seem like they'd be up your alley. Plus, Soul Eater is finite! Always a plus.

xp1337 posted...

From what I've heard (dowolf would know better I think, assuming he's heard how the dub pronounces them) the dub gets a few of them "wrong" (Most notably Takamaki and Sakamoto) but it also came out from some of the VAs (or at least Ann's) that they were specifically directed to pronounce them that way.

Short answer: Neither way is wrong.

Long answer: Japanese doesn't have stressed accents. What do I mean by that? (Feel free to skip this bit if you got a proper education, but I know a lot of English speakers who are completely baffled by this stuff so bear with me.) Well, let's take a completely random sentence from English literature:

You are what you eat from your head to your feet.

Say that sentence aloud. Now, you probably wound up emphasizing certain syllables: "are," "eat," "head," and "feet." English has a natural cadence to it, a rhythm that poets capture and emphasize, and these stressed syllables set that cadence. For instance, consider another classic English line:

Baa baa, black sheep, have you any wool? Yes, sir, yes sir, three bags full.

Notice how "have you any wool" is literally faster than the rest of the line? That's because that phrase has lots of unstressed syllables, which don't take up any time. So in summary, English has two types of syllables, stressed and unstressed, and one takes up time and the other doesn't. (Formally, we say that English is a stress-timed language because of this.)

But Japanese is not stress-timed because, again, Japanese does not have stress. At all. What this means is that, for instance, a native Japanese speaker is physically incapable of distinguishing between Daniel and Danielle. And believe me, I've tried (I may have once jokingly called a friend "Danielle-chan," and then spent the next ten minutes trying to explain the difference to some very perplexed Japanese friends). Or, more usefully, between "desert" and "dessert" (which probably helps them spell "just deserts" correctly, but I digress [even more than usual]). Instead, Japanese is a mora-timed language, where a mora is something like a syllable, only some syllables get two. Don't worry about it too much. Anywho, instead of stress accents, they have pitch accents -- in other words, certain mora are higher or lower in tone than other mora. For instance, "ame" with a rising tone means "candy," while the same word with a falling tone means "rain."

Now, why have I told you all this? Because, just as Japanese speakers struggle to hear the differences in English words, so too do English speakers struggle to hear the differences in Japanese ones. However, because pitch accents and syllable timing are so ingrained in our brains, we manage to hear them even in a language where they don't exist. (Personally, I tend to put stress accents where the pitch accents are as a mnemonic tool; I have no idea if that's just me or if other native English, fluent Japanese people do the same.) People say "Sah-KUR-uh," for instance, and weeaboos tend to be proud of themselves when they "correctly" pronounce "Sasuke" as "SAHS-kay."
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Except, of course, they're wrong. "Sasuke" has three mora, just like it's written. The 'u' is devoiced, but it's still there -- it still gets a beat in the Japanese cadence. Anglophones can't naturally hear that, because their brains just go "stressed-unstressed we're done here." Therefore, while "Sah-sue-kay" will sound wrong to the weeaboos, it's still actually correct, though the normal pronunciation would be something more like "sah-s-kay." We also get fun stuff like how "Tokyo" has three syllables in English, but four mora in Japanese -- "Toh-oh-kyoh-oh," and it's why "Hououin Kyouma" sounds so deliciously amazing pronounced in Japanese as "hoh-oh-oh-oh-i-n." (Completely random aside: yes, this is the same "hoh-oh" as in the pokemon.)

Anyways, to bring everything back around, what happened in the dub is that some Japanese producer who, through no fault of his own, does not have the physical capability to know what sounds euphonic in English, demanded a pronunciation that sounded right to him. This disobeyed the assumed rules that English speakers have applied to Japanese, and so sounds wrong to English speakers.

Leon posted...

Also, Madarame's Palace feels way easier than the first Palace.

Yeah, the balance at the end of the first palace is kinda off IMHO. This is just getting things back to where they should be for this point in the game.
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that's why you're the best, dowolf

thanks as always
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I learned something today!

Well, I feel like a lot of that was vaguely familiar, but still!

Thanks for the explanation.
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Ah, now I think I worked out why. I knew about English and the stress part as well as Japanese not having stress, but my understanding of mora was incomplete/kinda wrong.

Definitely understand it a lot better now though, I think, so thanks again!
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That should be enough Persona 5 for tonight. Made it all the way to the end of the Palace. All that's left now is to send the calling card and steal the treasure, and that can wait until tomorrow!
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All right, second Palace done! That was a pretty tough boss fight with how all the pieces of the painting worked in tandem to take you down. Not used to bosses being so clever! Glad I stockpiled a few revival items!

After we defeat Madarame, Yusuke says he won't kill him but intends to make him go back to the real world and confess his crimes. Madarame mentions something about a person in a black mask, and while I initially think he means Morgana, they all seem to think it's an entirely different person who infiltrated along with us. It makes sense if there's someone else out there besides us because these weird incidents were already happening before we all got our Personas. I guess these psychotic breakdowns are the result of actually killing the Shadow instead of forcing it to return to the person. Wonder who it is.

Yusuke asks some probing questions about the Phantom Thieves and why they do what they do. Ryuji says they want to get back at society and give people courage who suffer because of the selfishness of others. Yusuke asks what good the courage to stand up for yourself will do, and no one really has an answer. He seems okay with that though, saying it may vary from person to person.

Although I agree with Joker's dialogue option when Yusuke joins the team, "We have too many dudes."

Also the fact that Morgana keeps insisting he must be human and there's no way he's anything evil is raising all sorts of flags.
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Oh man, looks like one of my Confidants is my teacher. Please live up to the glorious legacy of Maya! Seems like we're off to a good start there...except my Guts isn't high enough to fully initiate it. Oh well.

Looks like that weapons shop guy is one of the Confidants, too, but again, not enough Guts. Need to spend more time building my stats, I guess.
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you should be GRATEful
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Jeff Zero posted...

you should be GRATEful

Heh...My skills have improved.
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Oh man, I rented the Bubbly Hills 90210 DVD. I love that they use the Persona 3 S. Link music and they even make a reference to the dude dating multiple girls.
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Palace 2 boss is probably in the Top 2 for hardest main story fights IMO.

Also Guts is probably the toughest/longest stat to level up in the game so don't be surprised if it's not until much later in the game that you're at the higher ranks of it.

Oh, right! You never asked but if you're curious about a way to (slowly) help with social stats at no time cost: Every Sunday you can use that vendor in the station for a drink that gives you 1 note in a stat without passing time. What stat it is is on a rotation and it only moves to the next one when you buy the current one. It's 5000 yen though which can be a bit pricey early on.
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Knowledge is the only stat that's still at level 1 for me, but I think I've only studied once so far, so most of my points come from answering questions correctly in class.
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IIRC, knowledge requires the most points to level up.

But it's also the easiest to get points for, especially if you go crazy with min/maxing, so it balances out.
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Well, I finally got to level 2 there shortly after I posted that. The deadline passed for Madarame and he gave his full confession press conference. Looks like more and more people are getting suspicious of us, and Makoto continues to dog us from afar. Wonder who the next person to join will be. The prosecutor lady already showed us who the next target will be, we've gotten a look at some of the other "adults" who are looking to be major players in the story, including some dude who looks suspiciously like Howie Mandel.

I also started hanging out with that politician who gives speeches at night, but I haven't initiated the Confidant thing yet.
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Also whoo summer uniforms now
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Yukiko best Persona girl
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