post defeating the darker lord, joker realized he literally could NOT find a way back to shibuya. kronui literally sent him with the purpose of helping failboat defeat the dark lord and forgot to send him back to shibuya so he’s been living in miitopia for like decades. no phantom thieves, no soujiro, nobody from japan.

however, when he got teleported to miitopia he kept everything he had on him, including the phone with metaverse app. and he realized that miitopia wasn’t actually a palace and somehow he could access mementos in miitopia and change people’s hearts like he would in japan.

i want to say that my interperation happens before 3rd semester could ever happenso joker never had that arc with maruki.

since joker is the only person in miitopia to have access to mementos, he realized that he can just change any mii’s heart whenever he wants to and only he will know the secret of who changed their ways.

so he does just that, beasts in miitopia just inexplicably give away their faces back to their owners as if they had died to a unnatural force. then he escalates to mii’s who think the darker lord did great things to miitopia, and then he goes to people he generally disagrees with. little by little the encounters in mementos become more easy to him as he learns he can change anyones heart if he pleases.

by the time season 2 starts around and hank returned as the dark lord once more, joker realized that he could maybe join the fight once more and secretly change the heart of hank for real and maybe the cycle of suffering wouldn’t have to happen in miitopia anymore.

but he didn’t. because by the time he wanted to join. failboat and his new posse of friends defeated and befriended hank, now floop. and this felt like a betrayal of everything he ever knew about his friends of the past. and failboat.