#starrysoro

That's so bizarre, nearly every single item in the game has flavor text underneath its description, in slightly darker grey text. Granted, for some reason the flavor text usually doesn't show up in Shady Commodities, but you can easily see it by finding the item in your inventory, or clicking on a gift that a Synergy character likes... at least in the other regions. Did they just not have time to translate it all for Global...?

The only items that do not have flavor text but show up in your inventory, as far as I'm aware, are the special tickets that let you automatically complete Realm of Repression fights. It's possible there are a few other things like that, but virtually everything else does.

Here's as many screenshots as I can fit in one post, with the flavor text for a wide range of items, plus the real-world versions of the Treasures (minus Shimotsuna's, so there aren't spoilers here) and the Cores. Trying to document everything's flavor text would be a massive task, so this is just to give you an idea of the variety:

Sure, although as usual, I can only Google translate it, since it's in Chinese!

2-star: Aran Hirano's signature melee weapon. A replica sword with a blade that curves like lapping flames. 3-star: Aran Hirano's signature melee weapon. A beautiful replica sword that symbolizes destruction. 4-star: Aran Hirano's signature melee weapon. Fiery crimson and shadowy darkness. A replica sword with interwoven shadows. 5-star: Aran Hirano's signature melee weapon. An elegant and mysterious replica sword, with wings gently encircling the hilt on both sides, as if determined to protect the wielder to the very end; love needs no words, it will be conveyed.

As for the portraits, luckily, for Aran, this is possible! See, the way the Metaverse portraits work, the base piece has the shadows for the mask drawn on, even if you hide the mask itself (first image below). However, because Aran's Metaverse and regular portraits are the exact same image size and pose, I can sneak her regular face base in between the layers, although I needed to erase the edges of her body that don't fit behind the Metaverse body piece afterward (second image below):

So, I'd consider these maskless portraits to be edits, but I was able to make them for you! Here you go:

It's not a one-off typo it's fairly consistent- I'm just confused by this lol

Huh, actually, this never would've occurred to me if I hadn't read this ask, but I wonder if "Shedim" is actually plural, and "Sheyd" is the singular? Sort of like cherubim is the plural of cherub. In all your examples here, they're talking about one single Sheyd that was chasing them, whereas the first screenshot is Lufel talking about that whole type of shadows.

I feel like the last two Palaces could be for Magatsukami and Mementos. Yeah I am assuming the last Palace will be Mementos again though I feel like they could do a different sin with it. I'm not sure on the Palace Ruler coming before those two being anyone we know rn so that so I'm just gonna say they're an unnamed Palace Ruler

My guess is the order of Rulers will be an unnamed Ruler, Magatsukami, then Mementos. For the order of sins it's sloth, greed, then envy

With how much importance is placed on it the most likely option for greed is either Magatsukami or Mementos and if they wanted to do a different sin for Mementos then it's going to either be greed or envy

While I don't have much reasoning for Magatsukami being greed, the other sins of sloth and envy make less sense for his motivations. He's not lazy and he does so much to make sure things go the way he plans. Also he's already a famous producer in the entertainment industry, he's rich, and Divine Justice is already popular so he has no reason to be envious of anyone. So greed makes the most sense for Magatsukami, wanting Divine Justice to be more popular and wanting it to stay popular, getting rid of anyone who tries to bring it down. Still not too sure but it felt like it made the most sense out of these options

I do kinda have ideas of how the other sins would work for the other two

Sloth for the unnamed Ruler. I'm thinking that since Aran is going to sue Magatsukami that the Ruler could be related to the justice system in some way? Someone cutting corners and wanting things to be settled quickly so they won't have to do as much work

For Mementos, while sloth could still work the reason people don't do much is because their desires are being stolen. With them being returned the sin for Mementos could be different (not sure if it will be but it'd be nice to see something new). My reasoning for envy (other than the process of elimination I did with Magatsukami) is the public loves Divine Justice, seeing the downfall of celebrities and wanting to imitate Menaces to be famous themselves

Let me put my thoughts under a cut, so this post doesn't get even longer, haha:

Honestly I don't have much else in theories (that I haven't seen others already mention) all I do have is random stuff with little to no basis that came from me throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks lol-

Maybe Aran's Phantom Thief outfit could be based on either her characters in Phantom Famiglia or her sister. Maybe both? I'm just thinking of what she would think a rebel would be like though there isn't much to go off of

(I'm thinking of the voicelines where Wonder calls out "Anri") The Phantom Thieves could maybe use "Anri" to easily differentiate Aran and her Shadow? I have no idea why it'd be used I just really can't think of any explanation lol

This is just a random thought but "Polter" and Biddy Early likely being her originally intended Persona made me think of this drawing in her sketchbook. Little ghost in a witch hat

If it wasn't clear by my asks so far all being about Aran, I really like her so far and want to get to know her more. Depending on how things go she could potentially become a top favourite character of mine

Also, wanted to say that this blog's been great. I happened to find it when I was recently getting back into the game and the story and was looking up stuff about it. It's nice having all this info here and seeing the thoughts and theories you and others have on the game

I could certainly see her Metaverse outfit being related to her manga and/or sister in some way! They both seem like important things that might be related to her desires, after all.

I'm hoping your theory about why there are battle voice lines for Wonder calling to "Anri" is true, just because I'd be really disappointed if that's her codename, heh.

Back before Chapter 4 (and the school questions being switched to Ghino and Gentileschi), I remember people were theorizing her Metaverse outfit might have some witchy and/or ghostly aspects, given "Polter" and Biddy Early, and I think someone might've brought up that little witch ghost doodle then, too, haha. It's so fun!

I feel a bit shy to be sharing my own thoughts tbh but I wanted to try-

So one of the headaches Aran gets is right after she tells Wonder that she hasn't thought of changing anyone's heart which makes me think that there is someone who she wants to change the heart of. Maybe that person could the next Palace Ruler. The reason she'd want to change their heart could be that they're involved in her sister's death in some way, maybe even causing it. Wanting to change their heart could possibly also tie a bit into Gentileschi? Given that the question about her mentions revenge? I'm not too sure

I feel like if this were the case then her Shadow could know the Palace Ruler and might want Aran to explore their Palace

What do you think about this?

I'm glad you decided to share your thoughts despite feeling shy!!

I definitely agree that Aran's headache timing seems to imply there is someone whose heart she wants to change that she's forgotten about! From there, that person being the next Palace ruler feels like a reasonable jump to make (though there are of course other possibilities), since it'd be weird if she joined the team during the Palace of someone she has zero connection to, haha.

And either way, the person whose heart she wants to change having something to do with her sister's (assumed?) death feels very reasonable! Like you said, revenge could certainly be involved here, especially given the school question about Gentileschi mentions that.

Considering that Shadow Aran keeps trying to get her to confront the truth about everything (as a shadow should), I think you're also right that she wants Aran to explore the Palace, and probably knows who it belongs to.

I find it kinda funny that Aran wears platform shoes because she's probably wearing them to be taller and yet despite that she's still the shortest of the Phantom Thieves- shorter than Motoha who's 5'3"- I saw you mentioned that Aran appears to be a bit taller than Futaba but her Phantom Thief outfit does have platform heels

I feel like people are generally in agreement that Kokoro is definitely Magatsukami though I still feel like mentioning this moment myself- this exact moment meant he was close enough to the Phantom Thieves to send them to the Metaverse and send a Sheyd against them. He could've done something to the school speakers here too for the fake calling card

I don't really have a theory for this but I find this interesting to think about. What determines who has the Meta-nav? Because it seems like only those who end up becoming Phantom Thieves get it but also the people who get it are different in each timeline. Tomoko for example was shown to be a Phantom Thief in a different timeline with Wonder's vision but with the current timeline she doesn't have the Meta-nav and never becomes a Phantom Thief but Motoha does. Despite there seeming to be a timeloop each timeline played out differently with different teams where different people get access to the Meta-nav

(The Shedim/Sheyd post) Ok so I somehow completely forgot to mention this fact but what made me even more confused was that the voicelines called the singular Sheyd "Shedim" which contributed to me thinking it was a mistake but no- it's the voiceline that's incorrect here- I guess maybe they didn't know the singular form when they recorded those??

Haha, no need to apologize for long asks! As long as you don't mind them taking me a bit longer to respond to sometimes, then it's all good.

Heh, yeah, when I mentioned that "in the Metaverse, Anri appears to be a bit taller than Oracle", I meant counting her shoes and their thick soles- that's why I specified I meant in the Metaverse, and mentioned her thick soles just before that. I think she and Futaba are probably close in height otherwise.

As for that moment with Kokoro, I feel like that was brought up (either by me or someone else) back when the start of Chapter 4 dropped for China, but I definitely agree that Kokoro was in the perfect position to send the Thieves into the Metaverse when he came to Kokatsu with Shimotsuna. It's entirely possible he came back to Kokatsu to set up the thing he did with the school announcement on the day of the festival (since it was open to the public), but I suppose it's also possible he set something up back then for that as well!

For the Meta-Nav, yeah, that's been defined about as vaguely as the ability to hear Lufel (like we talked about before), haha. I would assume that Wonder and Magatsukami got the app due to whatever deity-like being is influencing things here putting it on their phones (like Yaldabaoth with Joker and Akechi, even down to Magatsukami getting the MetaNav two years early), so I guess maybe that same being could be putting the MetaNav on the phones of other people as well? Or maybe this is like Lufel, and it has something to do with having desires or whatever, but not quite the same...? That's certainly still a bit of a mystery/point of confusion.

(The Shedim/Sheyd post) Assuming you mean the Japanese voice lines, I'm guessing the confusion there is at least partially because Japanese doesn't really have singular/plural words, the way English does? While you can add words to a sentence that specify you mean multiple of something, the noun itself only has one form. For instance, "book" and "books" would both translate as 本 (hon), and "die" and "dice" would both translate as 賽 (sai). It's like how the word "sheep" is both singular and plural in English.

Before making theories though, wanted to say I really love this chapter- I'm not that good at giving in-depth reviews but just so much about this chapter was good imo, the story, characters, music. The scenes especially in Aran's Palace. I feel like I could go on

I can say now that I really like Aran and can't wait to see more of her now that she's officially part of the team. Also, while Motoha was originally not that high up for me in terms of P5X favourites, she definitely is now thanks to this chapter

I wasn't expecting any of my theories to get anywhere even slightly close- I have no confidence in my thought process lol

Ok now I'm going to get into the theories

Maybe Haigamine could've worked together with Airi to investigate Magatsukami. Being a detective, Haigamine would be able to help Airi gather more information. Her knowing Airi could also be part of why she's asking about her after all this time and carries a photo of her. She could suspect that something was off with her death so she's still looking into it. I do question why would she use that younger image of her in the family photo especially since there does exist a photo of her when she was older in the newspaper. One possibility is she could be specifically trying to find people who knew her when she was part of the Hirano family for whatever reason

While I'm not as sure on this, maybe Haigamine wants to find the Phantom Thieves for a similar reason to Aran wanting to get close to them, to get revenge for Airi. At the very least she may want their help going against Magatsukami

Airi going through the trouble of changing her last name and leaving the family could probably be her trying to protect them. If she knew going against Magatsukami could be dangerous then she'd want to distance herself from them to protect them. Her acting coldly to Aran could also be due to not wanting Aran to go after her and get caught up in this

What sin tied to Aran's Palace if any? Not that related to the theories just thought of this question while typing

I feel like since Aran's Palace wasn't fully developed and there wasn't a treasure to steal, maybe her Palace doesn't count towards the 7 needed. She herself could probably at least act as the key to open the next part of Mementos since she was once a Palace Ruler even if her Palace wasn't completed. Since there was no treasure to steal though they still need 2 more Palaces

What if the appearance of the Velvet Room is connected to Magatsukami and Ceto in some way? They're both related to the sea with the Velvet Room being an underwater tunnel and Aran's Palace being flooded by seawater. Also, one of the first things Wonder sees waking up in the Velvet Room for the first time is a whale (not Ceto but it's still a whale) and seeing the silhouette of a whale at the top of the stairs in Aran's Palace reminded me of this

Maybe Aran wasn't a teammate in a previous timeline. With the one vision Wonder had with Aran in chapter 2 there wasn't any dialogue so it's unclear if she was directly helping him. I think the logo in her sketchbook is the logo for the characters in Phantom Famiglia given it was used on the stage play's costumes. I feel like Wonder just happened to see Aran draw that same logo in his vision and was inspired to make something similar. There also hasn't been any visions involving Aran since chapter 2 despite her being in a lot of danger in chapter 5. I feel like her not hearing Lufel at first adds to this because if the conditions for hearing him in the real world work like Morgana then it makes sense for other characters like Motoha and Riko to hear him before ever entering Mementos. They've been shown in visions before and have been teammates in other timelines. But Aran has only been shown in one vision and it's unclear if she was even part of the team then

I appreciate you trying to give me a chance to play through the new stuff before sending this ask! Like I said in the other post, though, don't worry, just mentioning at the start that your ask has spoilers for new story content is plenty warning for me, no need to wait (and I've accepted that I'll get spoiled sometimes because I'm running this blog, haha).

That aside, I agree, short as it was, this was a really good chapter!! While I wouldn't quite say it was full of twists or anything, there was great characterization all around, and I really love that we're starting to dig into the deeper issues and questions now, and learning more about Magatsukami finally. Plus, Katayama's officially helping the Phantom Thieves, and everything with Aran and Motoha... so much to love here!!

Haha, Motoha's always been my favorite story teammate, though I sensed Aran would take her place once she properly joined the team, and I was entirely correct. So the fact that the climax of this chapter revolved around two of my favorites interacting was a huge plus for me! I'm glad that this chapter helped bump Motoha up for you as well, she deserves the love.

Onto the theories-

Ooh, Haigamine having worked with Airi in the past would be really fun, I hadn't thought much about why she might be investigating Airi yet! I suppose it's also possible she's investigating Airi's family rather than Airi herself for some reason, and that's why she's using a photo with Aran in it? Honestly, the meta explanation is probably just that they needed Wonder to recognize that the photo had something to do with Aran, though, haha. I agree that it seems likely that Haigamine probably has a positive interest in the Phantom Thieves, at the very least- I doubt they'd have her spotting the PT entering the Metaverse in this chapter if she was purely a bad guy, because then the next chapter would just be her throwing them directly into jail, haha. Helping them go against Magatsukami seems like the logical direction from here, whether or not Haigamine herself is currently trying to go against Magatsukami. It is entirely possible she's just been looking into them because it's her job, at least up to this point, even if that changes going forward, but I could see there being a personal motivation just as easily.

Airi distancing herself from her family and turning away from Aran was definitely her trying to protect them, yeah. I think someone (Aran) even came to that conclusion within this chapter, although my memory's a bit fuzzy there?

I covered my thoughts on Aran's Palace in this other ask already, so I'll just link that here! Seems like we largely agree there, anyway, haha, although they don't need to worry about opening the next part of Mementos yet, since they haven't finished going through this current part (that they opened using Shimotsuna's Treasure) yet.

It certainly is suspicious that Ceto/Cetus and Magatsukami are so connected to the sea when Wonder's Velvet Room is also underwater (plus his Persona awakening), I completely agree. I'm not really sure what conclusion to draw here, but it could be something similar to how Yaldabaoth was manipulating both Akechi and Joker in the original game? I'm positive that the running ocean theme and connections are intentional, at the very least, whatever it means.

It's entirely possible that Aran wasn't a teammate in any previous timelines, but I'm not sure we actually have any solid evidence to point things either way here? Like you said, it's possible Wonder's vision for the logo was Aran working on something else that inspired him, but since we didn't get to see it, we don't actually know. Similarly, Shouki's only been in one vision so far, and Wonder didn't get that one until after Shouki had joined the team, whereas we haven't really had an opportunity for Wonder to get a vision since Aran joined the team yet, since that was so close to the end of this chapter. If she still doesn't show up as a teammate in any visions in Chapter 6, I think that's when I might start considering it suspicious?

I don't think her inability to hear Lufel is really usable as evidence, though, because from what we know, understanding Lufel has something to do with a person having desires? Or the potential for desires/a Persona...? It's admittedly sort of unclear- if it takes desires, then Wonder shouldn't have been able to understand Lufel in the train at the start of the game, but if it's about the potential for a Persona, then why don't the real world versions of the Phantom Idols understand him...? My point being, Aran's desires had been stolen/repressed/forgotten up until she awakened her Persona, which could be the reason she was unable to understand him, but "understanding Lufel" has kind of confusing requirements to begin with, so it's hard to draw conclusions from that alone, haha.