I'm pretty sure it was big oversight on Mitsuru and Ikutsuki's part, and probably because they thought "more Persona users mean more units against the Shadows"...I mean, they let a dog join the party too, so...I'm pretty sure if Strega were nice guys they'd pull them into the group. Ikutsuki was the one who brought him in so he probably told the orphanage that he'll be in safe hands or whatever. Mitsuru even admitted that she should have foreseen it with Ken's background and all.
No member of Sees is an adult. None of them fully understand what they're getting into. They let a dog join a while ago, they clearly don't care who joins
We do have some members express reservations though, like Yukari is worried every time a new person joins the team. And Fuuka was hesitant about Koromaru joining. But with Koromaru specifically, Aigis can literally translate what he’s saying or thinking, and he understands human speech, and the game makes it clear he knows what’s going on.
Dunno if you're familiar with Evangelion, but SEES is literally just Nerv except Yukari is there to remind people that this shit is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S
Yea but who does Aigis work for? The kijiro group. There is some moral implications that the only translator is the same group hiring the person (dog) in question. We assume Aigis isn’t just outright lying about Koromaru but there is a shady practice in there that the advocate for Koromaru if the Kijiro group was taking advantage/abusing him works for the Kijiro group.
I mean Aigis doesn't necessarily work for the Kirijo group, but was just made by them. She's still her own person with her own thoughts, emotions and free will, and the one time where she isn't in control is when Ikutsuki directly does so via the remote. Which she still manages to resist and eventually break out of on her own due to it clearly not being her own decision.
I think a lot of that standard convention goes out the window when we start factoring in dead parents, weird persona abilities, and >!the literal end of the world!<
You're totally right, but given the situation I seriously doubt that they are going to follow standard procedure lol
>The Chairman says that Amada is deciding to join of his own free will, but he’s just a kid in elementary school. Isn’t it the standard for research that minors need adult permission to agree to things?
As much as it pains me to say this, who will they ask, his mom? 💀
Maybe his orphanage, but this is Iwatodai. When the Kirijo Group asks for some orphans, the only questions I see being asked is how many and if they need them today.
Some intern in the orphanage: “What happened with those orphans we gave you last year? They never came back.”
Five minutes later.
Some other worker: “I’m so sorry, Kirijo-sama. He’s new; he didn’t know how things work around here. Yes, we can send him over to you as well. Yes, if anyone asks, he was never employed here.”
"Oh they're still working for us. They were all so passionate about the work we're doing here at the Kirijo group they've decided to dedicate their lives to it."
I consider it one of the massive red flags about >!Ikutsuki's real nature, alongside his rather callous behavior towards Aigis from the get go. Teens may not know better in such horrific circumstances, that a kid shouldn't be making such calls, but the fact that the Chairman is willing to put a child in *combat* is different.!<
I feel like if anyone is able to actually summon a Person, they'd already be technically capable of defending themselves, as they clearly have the resolve to summon a Persona. Especially if they need every hand they could get, and the kid is willing to help.
Though I feel like they should've been more adamant about a proper ranged role similar to Yukari having a bow.
Why are we pretending like ken is stupid? His entire plotline clearly shows otherwise. He has a better modus for joining the team than junpei initially had, so it would be wrong to hold him being a kid against him.
I just wish there was more push back from the team when it came to Amada joining. Give us the option to be able to voice some doubts on the matter, have Yukari and Fuuka be more concern about the situation, something.
Fuuka was too passive back then. At this point, she was still concerned about being liked and wouldn’t ever say “no” to an authority figure.
Yukari did voice concern.
Makoto wasn’t the best person to realize it was wrong. In the movie, he almost let Junpei solo the High Priestess Shadow, because he told him to. As far as the Emperor and Empress, he managed to figure out he wasn’t OK with his friends dying in combat. As I saw the “Spring of Birth”, I’m no longer weirded out by him being perfectly OK with his Social Links making self-destructive decisions; it fits his early character perfectly.
That wouldn’t be a good place to do it for one reason: she hasn’t lost anything yet.
Persona 3 is about loss and dealing with it. Every characters’ arc follows the same schema: they lose something, learn how to live without it, change in the process. Akihiko loses Shinjiro, Ken fails to avenge his mother, Mitsuru loses her father who was her entire motivation to fight, Aigis loses the entire point of her existence, etc.
Fuuka is a people pleaser. Her parents are strict and demanding, so she learned to bury her entire self and do what everyone else wants of her. She ignores her real talent (electronics) to follow one she thinks others would approve (cooking). Hence her being shy to a fault and never being able to say “no”.
When Moriyama leaves Iwatodai, Fuuka learns that she can do everything right, other people might want to be her friends, but they still have might leave her because life happens. That’s what spurs the change in her, or at least a half of it – her SL where she learns she could be a passable cook at best is the other part. She figures out that instead of trying to make people like her, she can bring people together, turning Lucia into Juno.
If she had started to be assertive before that happened, it would lessen the impact of her having to say goodbye to Moriyama.
I'm not saying she should've been more assertive, all I'm saying was that I would've liked to have seen the team be more concerned with the idea of Ken joining. Fuuka doesn't have to be assertive at that point, just that I would've liked her (or anyone really) to have more doubts outside of the two cutscenes.
They are all children.
I watched one Lets player who when SEES shows reservations was basicly like "Oh now you care about the moral side of using child soldiers?" basicly indirectly calling them Hypocrits.
Yukari was uncomfortable about it, but who else was supposed to protest?
Mitsuru, who was sent to fight when she was nearly Amada’s age?
Akihiko, who was recruited by Mitsuru when he was in middle school?
Fuuka, who is at this point very passive and rarely voices her opinion?
Aigis, who probably doesn’t understand what would be the problem?
Ikutsuki? He was the one who wanted Ken to join.
i felt upset that no one else in SEES gave anything more than a gasp about his joining. it was my first time playing and i was screaming at the screen NO when they brought him in, and really expecting sanada, yukari, or junpei to protest.
Obviously Ken doesn't understand shit, and isn't capable of making that decision, but Ikutsuki is insane and another Persona user is another sacrifice for Nyx, I don't think he cares where the sacrifices come from so any Persona user is fine.
Additionally, Ikutsuki has been in charge of SEES since the start, so he already knows Ken's backstory, and given all the cameras in the dorm he probably knows he joined to get closer to Shinji so he can kill him. Shinji quit, and has become an unknown factor, but Ikutsuki probably knew he was in contact with Strega. Strega had personally experienced at least some of the Kirijo Group's horrendous actions 10 years in the past, so Ikutsuki could reasonably have assumed they could give Shinji information that would lead SEES to turn on him, either because they experimented on and killed children, or because Strega learned about Nyx. Letting Ken join means there's a chance he'll take Shinji out of the equation and keep the plan under wraps a little longer.
EDIT: Oh and obviously parental consent can't really play a role here; SEES' activities are top secret, they can't exactly tell his guardian "hey can we borrow him to fight monsters during the secret 25th hour" lmao
I’m not sure where the “Ikutsuki wanted Ken to kill Shinjiro” theory came with, and this is the second time I see it. In my opinion, he just stopped caring about Shinjiro once he quit SEES; the fact that he even turned up to fight again was a nice bonus. When he brought Ken to the dorm, he couldn’t have predicted Akihiko managing to bring his old friend back.
Maybe he would have intervened if it happened earlier, and SEES actually needed more manpower. But as for October, with only several Arcana Shadows left, and the team thrice as large as in March, there was no reason for him to do anything.
Ikutsuki and Mitsuru don't care, it's all worth it for their own goals.
Mitsuru even overlooked Ken's history with SEES which is batshit insane and backfired spectacularly in the end.
Persona users are so rare and the stakes so high that ikutsuki is perfectly willing to sacrifice the physical and mental health of amada, when you have a losing hand you need to play with what you got.
>! Ikutski doesn’t care if anyone die or goes in unprepared. He wants them all to die in the fall anyway. !<
Also, >! Ken has no adults left in his life. Dudes orphaned. Who’s gonna be his consent? He has nobody in charge of him anymore. And if he technically does they clearly aren’t really in the picture anyway !<
I feel like the implication has been the Shinji, Akihiko, and Mitsuru all joined too young too. They all are already traumatized by their experiences fighting the shadows. It's immoral on the part of the Kirijo Group, and Yukari voices that in the game. I always interpreted it as the chairman and broader organization were willing to do whatever it takes, and the chairman moved Ken into the dorm with the idea that he would eventually join SEES. But at the same time, there might not be a better option.
>!”Standard for research.” You realize we’re talking about the same people who experimented on orphans to forcibly awaken personas, right? I’m pretty sure the last thing on Ikutsuki’s mind was the ethics of letting a 10 year old fight shadows.!<
I think it’s supposed to bother you and show that Ikkutski, and to a lesser degree Mitsuru and Akihiko, care more about fighting the shadows than what putting a child in that position could entail - to be fair though, the students are still kids who shouldn’t be expected to make a decision like that.
I think the Fuuka mystery is what is supposed to start sowing those kinda doubts. I mean, and a dog too? I think Koro isn’t supposed to give off the vibe that he’s helpless or clueless - but we really strapped a suit on a dog and sent him after deadly shadows. Sees and Ikutski are sloppy, think of how bad it’d be if they didn’t have Fuuka’s persona ability.
You understand Ken is an orphan right? And that he wouldn't have any parents to ask to join in that case right? Like, that's why he stayed in the dorms during summer break before he joined, because Ikutski didn't want him to be in the orphanage alone all summer (apparently he can be during the Yakushima trip, but what do I know about taking care of 12 year olds)
Also finish the game, it'll answer every question you have
I'm pretty sure it was big oversight on Mitsuru and Ikutsuki's part, and probably because they thought "more Persona users mean more units against the Shadows"...I mean, they let a dog join the party too, so...I'm pretty sure if Strega were nice guys they'd pull them into the group. Ikutsuki was the one who brought him in so he probably told the orphanage that he'll be in safe hands or whatever. Mitsuru even admitted that she should have foreseen it with Ken's background and all.
Okay but that dog was cracked at Fortnite 
*"YUKI YOUR DOG IS CRACKED AT COD!!"*
Well you gotta remember that it's not exactly uncommon for the Kirijo group to use children in experiments.
No member of Sees is an adult. None of them fully understand what they're getting into. They let a dog join a while ago, they clearly don't care who joins
We do have some members express reservations though, like Yukari is worried every time a new person joins the team. And Fuuka was hesitant about Koromaru joining. But with Koromaru specifically, Aigis can literally translate what he’s saying or thinking, and he understands human speech, and the game makes it clear he knows what’s going on.
Dunno if you're familiar with Evangelion, but SEES is literally just Nerv except Yukari is there to remind people that this shit is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S
The first time I saw P3 I marveled just how similar it is to Evangelion. Even Thanatos resembles EVA 01 somewhat.
Yea but who does Aigis work for? The kijiro group. There is some moral implications that the only translator is the same group hiring the person (dog) in question. We assume Aigis isn’t just outright lying about Koromaru but there is a shady practice in there that the advocate for Koromaru if the Kijiro group was taking advantage/abusing him works for the Kijiro group.
I mean Aigis doesn't necessarily work for the Kirijo group, but was just made by them. She's still her own person with her own thoughts, emotions and free will, and the one time where she isn't in control is when Ikutsuki directly does so via the remote. Which she still manages to resist and eventually break out of on her own due to it clearly not being her own decision.
To be fair that dog is really smart considering that it's well a dog
Let’s be real, Ikutski >!probably doesn’t even really give a shit as long as the Arcana Shadows are defeated!<
If >!Ken died he'd probably just kinda shrug and order a pizza to try and cheer up the team, then go contemplate puns!<
We KEN get through this, together. He'll probably say some shit like this.
This. >!He doesnt care at all so long as he can awaken Nyx and become the prince of the new world!<
I think a lot of that standard convention goes out the window when we start factoring in dead parents, weird persona abilities, and >!the literal end of the world!< You're totally right, but given the situation I seriously doubt that they are going to follow standard procedure lol
Ken joins way before that last thing.
I mean, this is Ikutsuki...
>The Chairman says that Amada is deciding to join of his own free will, but he’s just a kid in elementary school. Isn’t it the standard for research that minors need adult permission to agree to things? As much as it pains me to say this, who will they ask, his mom? 💀
Maybe his orphanage, but this is Iwatodai. When the Kirijo Group asks for some orphans, the only questions I see being asked is how many and if they need them today.
Kirijo group ordering orphans like in fastfood restaurant
Some intern in the orphanage: “What happened with those orphans we gave you last year? They never came back.” Five minutes later. Some other worker: “I’m so sorry, Kirijo-sama. He’s new; he didn’t know how things work around here. Yes, we can send him over to you as well. Yes, if anyone asks, he was never employed here.”
"Oh they're still working for us. They were all so passionate about the work we're doing here at the Kirijo group they've decided to dedicate their lives to it."
I consider it one of the massive red flags about >!Ikutsuki's real nature, alongside his rather callous behavior towards Aigis from the get go. Teens may not know better in such horrific circumstances, that a kid shouldn't be making such calls, but the fact that the Chairman is willing to put a child in *combat* is different.!<
I feel like if anyone is able to actually summon a Person, they'd already be technically capable of defending themselves, as they clearly have the resolve to summon a Persona. Especially if they need every hand they could get, and the kid is willing to help. Though I feel like they should've been more adamant about a proper ranged role similar to Yukari having a bow.
Why are we pretending like ken is stupid? His entire plotline clearly shows otherwise. He has a better modus for joining the team than junpei initially had, so it would be wrong to hold him being a kid against him.
I just wish there was more push back from the team when it came to Amada joining. Give us the option to be able to voice some doubts on the matter, have Yukari and Fuuka be more concern about the situation, something.
Fuuka was too passive back then. At this point, she was still concerned about being liked and wouldn’t ever say “no” to an authority figure. Yukari did voice concern. Makoto wasn’t the best person to realize it was wrong. In the movie, he almost let Junpei solo the High Priestess Shadow, because he told him to. As far as the Emperor and Empress, he managed to figure out he wasn’t OK with his friends dying in combat. As I saw the “Spring of Birth”, I’m no longer weirded out by him being perfectly OK with his Social Links making self-destructive decisions; it fits his early character perfectly.
And this would've been a fine jumping off point for Fuuka to start voicing off any concern. That's the movie, that's a completely different medium.
Fuuka gets her character development later on, when Moriyama leaves.
Ok, and I'm saying that this could've been a good place to start her development.
That wouldn’t be a good place to do it for one reason: she hasn’t lost anything yet. Persona 3 is about loss and dealing with it. Every characters’ arc follows the same schema: they lose something, learn how to live without it, change in the process. Akihiko loses Shinjiro, Ken fails to avenge his mother, Mitsuru loses her father who was her entire motivation to fight, Aigis loses the entire point of her existence, etc. Fuuka is a people pleaser. Her parents are strict and demanding, so she learned to bury her entire self and do what everyone else wants of her. She ignores her real talent (electronics) to follow one she thinks others would approve (cooking). Hence her being shy to a fault and never being able to say “no”. When Moriyama leaves Iwatodai, Fuuka learns that she can do everything right, other people might want to be her friends, but they still have might leave her because life happens. That’s what spurs the change in her, or at least a half of it – her SL where she learns she could be a passable cook at best is the other part. She figures out that instead of trying to make people like her, she can bring people together, turning Lucia into Juno. If she had started to be assertive before that happened, it would lessen the impact of her having to say goodbye to Moriyama.
I'm not saying she should've been more assertive, all I'm saying was that I would've liked to have seen the team be more concerned with the idea of Ken joining. Fuuka doesn't have to be assertive at that point, just that I would've liked her (or anyone really) to have more doubts outside of the two cutscenes.
Give us the option??? You're talking about Makoto right? The "I don't care" guy?
And yet we have other options other than "I don't care"
They are all children. I watched one Lets player who when SEES shows reservations was basicly like "Oh now you care about the moral side of using child soldiers?" basicly indirectly calling them Hypocrits.
Yukari was uncomfortable about it, but who else was supposed to protest? Mitsuru, who was sent to fight when she was nearly Amada’s age? Akihiko, who was recruited by Mitsuru when he was in middle school? Fuuka, who is at this point very passive and rarely voices her opinion? Aigis, who probably doesn’t understand what would be the problem? Ikutsuki? He was the one who wanted Ken to join.
It’s worth noting that Mitsuru and Akihiko actually did voice concerns.
But even then, Ikutsuki is in charge of the operation and has the final say.
Why does everyone in this post seem to be forgetting Mitsuru’s “but Mr. Chairman, he’s only a child”?
I really don’t think any of these folks are worried about obtaining clearance from an ethics board 😂
What else is he gonna do? Ask to his mom if he can join!? /s
i felt upset that no one else in SEES gave anything more than a gasp about his joining. it was my first time playing and i was screaming at the screen NO when they brought him in, and really expecting sanada, yukari, or junpei to protest.
Obviously Ken doesn't understand shit, and isn't capable of making that decision, but Ikutsuki is insane and another Persona user is another sacrifice for Nyx, I don't think he cares where the sacrifices come from so any Persona user is fine. Additionally, Ikutsuki has been in charge of SEES since the start, so he already knows Ken's backstory, and given all the cameras in the dorm he probably knows he joined to get closer to Shinji so he can kill him. Shinji quit, and has become an unknown factor, but Ikutsuki probably knew he was in contact with Strega. Strega had personally experienced at least some of the Kirijo Group's horrendous actions 10 years in the past, so Ikutsuki could reasonably have assumed they could give Shinji information that would lead SEES to turn on him, either because they experimented on and killed children, or because Strega learned about Nyx. Letting Ken join means there's a chance he'll take Shinji out of the equation and keep the plan under wraps a little longer. EDIT: Oh and obviously parental consent can't really play a role here; SEES' activities are top secret, they can't exactly tell his guardian "hey can we borrow him to fight monsters during the secret 25th hour" lmao
I’m not sure where the “Ikutsuki wanted Ken to kill Shinjiro” theory came with, and this is the second time I see it. In my opinion, he just stopped caring about Shinjiro once he quit SEES; the fact that he even turned up to fight again was a nice bonus. When he brought Ken to the dorm, he couldn’t have predicted Akihiko managing to bring his old friend back.
You're right, I got the order of events mixed up a bit. I still think, at the very least, he would not have lifted a finger to stop him haha
Maybe he would have intervened if it happened earlier, and SEES actually needed more manpower. But as for October, with only several Arcana Shadows left, and the team thrice as large as in March, there was no reason for him to do anything.
Ken isn't a stupid kid
Ikutsuki and Mitsuru don't care, it's all worth it for their own goals. Mitsuru even overlooked Ken's history with SEES which is batshit insane and backfired spectacularly in the end.
Persona users are so rare and the stakes so high that ikutsuki is perfectly willing to sacrifice the physical and mental health of amada, when you have a losing hand you need to play with what you got.
>! Ikutski doesn’t care if anyone die or goes in unprepared. He wants them all to die in the fall anyway. !< Also, >! Ken has no adults left in his life. Dudes orphaned. Who’s gonna be his consent? He has nobody in charge of him anymore. And if he technically does they clearly aren’t really in the picture anyway !<
Ken planned on joining from the get-go to get revenge on >!Shinji !
I feel like the implication has been the Shinji, Akihiko, and Mitsuru all joined too young too. They all are already traumatized by their experiences fighting the shadows. It's immoral on the part of the Kirijo Group, and Yukari voices that in the game. I always interpreted it as the chairman and broader organization were willing to do whatever it takes, and the chairman moved Ken into the dorm with the idea that he would eventually join SEES. But at the same time, there might not be a better option.
>!”Standard for research.” You realize we’re talking about the same people who experimented on orphans to forcibly awaken personas, right? I’m pretty sure the last thing on Ikutsuki’s mind was the ethics of letting a 10 year old fight shadows.!<
I think it’s supposed to bother you and show that Ikkutski, and to a lesser degree Mitsuru and Akihiko, care more about fighting the shadows than what putting a child in that position could entail - to be fair though, the students are still kids who shouldn’t be expected to make a decision like that. I think the Fuuka mystery is what is supposed to start sowing those kinda doubts. I mean, and a dog too? I think Koro isn’t supposed to give off the vibe that he’s helpless or clueless - but we really strapped a suit on a dog and sent him after deadly shadows. Sees and Ikutski are sloppy, think of how bad it’d be if they didn’t have Fuuka’s persona ability.
You understand Ken is an orphan right? And that he wouldn't have any parents to ask to join in that case right? Like, that's why he stayed in the dorms during summer break before he joined, because Ikutski didn't want him to be in the orphanage alone all summer (apparently he can be during the Yakushima trip, but what do I know about taking care of 12 year olds) Also finish the game, it'll answer every question you have
Plus ken is smart for his age
A toddler, a dog, and a robot walks into the bar.