Table of Contents for Shin Megami Tensei V:

1. Critique and Review of the Original Switch version from 2021.
2. Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance: Review.
3. Critique and Thematic Analysis of Canon of Vengeance.

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Please note the following: This General Impressions and Story Critique contains Massive Spoilers for the Original Shin Megami Tensei V / Canon of Creation and Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance’s Canon of Vengeance. Spoilers for Shin Megami Tensei IV and Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse. Also, I couldn’t help but discuss some of my personal life and certain non-partisan political beliefs because of how profound I felt the story was in tackling its themes. The “discord penpal” being referred to generally goes by the username of Beadman on discord or Bunkerman on reddit.

9/1/2024: Very slight updates and corrections after beating Tao’s route and seeing her ending. 

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I finished my first playthrough of Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance a few days ago. I find it difficult to express into words how Atlus Japan went far beyond anything I thought was possible for a Mainline Shin Megami Tensei game. This is especially the case with Shin Megami Tensei V, because the original was honestly the worst Mainline story that I’ve ever played and possibly among the worst stories of any turn-based roleplaying game in recent memory. The experience of finishing the original Switch version to going straight into Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance made me even more unprepared for how amazing Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance was. When Yoko was properly introduced, it felt natural enough; but I was shocked when, upon doing the first optional side-quest with Yoko in the party, and choosing Apsaras instead of Leanan Sidhe because I’d done the opposite in the original Switch version, Yoko critiqued my choice and pointed to the similarities of how selflessness, camaraderie, and honesty are moral lessons that set children up to fail in the adult world. Due to a recent personal experience, that line felt painful to read. Yet, unlike the pain of watching the most obnoxious and misogynistic cut scene that I’ve ever seen Atlus Japan make for a story attempting to be serious in the original Shin Megami Tensei V; this was a sharp pain regarding my own recent life experience and how it made me rethink the values I was instilled in by society writ large. My brain once again felt invigorated by a philosophical critique about social norms and I just felt so happy that something I had missed so much from Mainline Shin Megami Tensei was finally back. I suppose it might be self-refuting to say that, because I censured a wannabe-anime of a Western story for “relatability” but the Western style of “relatability” is honestly about dumbing down a story for the lowest common denominator to portray binary narratives of good versus evil that preclude questioning the systems that make these problems. The difference here is that Atlus Japan’s social critique is of Yoko pointing out how systems have design flaws that purposefully set others up for failure, regret, and pain by manipulating them in order for the system to justify itself. In other words, the difference is one dumbs itself down so as not to piss people off and the other challenges you to re-evaluate your own life circumstances by giving you a differing perspective to consider on how best to improve your life. That is honestly why I prefer the majority of Japanese animated media to be free without the filth of modern Western influence. Japanese media often challenges us to think about boundaries of free speech, free expression, and free inquiry; it unsettles the mind and asks us to think. Western media, even when utilizing the Cyberpunk genre such as the show Cyberpunk Edgerunners, tries to morph it all into living in a rut and never questioning the system of abuse while passively accepting that being a victim to it is somehow inevitable.

Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance fixes so much of what was wrong with the original game to the extent that it is honestly still jarring to me that they’re even considered the same game. After the Tokyo Tower cut scene, Vengeance becomes a completely different game. Same worldbuilding concepts, same characters, and mostly the same settings except for two major changes, but the characters now feel alive and follow goals that make sense, the new antagonists are the driving motivation of the majority of the plot, the new female lead and Tao are given so much depth in terms of characterization and character arcs, and the theme of systems of oppression carry on throughout the entire game so seamlessly and consistently that I’m amazed. The subject matter even tackles misogyny with a pro-feminist critique about systems of oppression usually being more unfair to women. Moreover, I’m left in disbelief that the character of Tao from Canon of Creation and Tao from Canon of Vengeance could ever be the same person, even if diverging due to timeline differences. Tao in Canon of Creation is quite honestly just a painfully misogynistic object for male power fantasies as a “reward” by the end of the original game. In Canon of Vengeance, she’s involved throughout the narrative and gives one of the most realistic depictions of a hopeful teenager completely out of her depth, but constantly striving for an equal and just world for everyone. I can understand how reading that sentence can sound so completely generic, but I struggle to describe the full breadth of how amazingly well-written her development throughout the game was. You see this woman have a hopeful Persona series view of various situations; yet, you see the other characters and the horrors of a Mainline Shin Megami Tensei world slowly break down, destroy, and crumble this young woman’s idealistic views about life . . . and she doesn’t let it define her and pushes back in favor of an equal world for everyone, even the extremists because they deserve equal rights too. I could not believe what I was seeing as I experienced this game. This new story is what the original should have been; Persona-like characters being put into a Mainline Shin Megami Tensei world and being pushed, and pushed, and pushed to the brink and forcing them to deal with serious consequences and yet, seeing them still strive for a hopeful world and to make the world a better place for the future generations or to point out the horrific flaws in what are gradually revealed to be oppressive systems that need to be overturned to bring true equality.

Before I continue on, I want to make it clear that – judging from my impressions of just one playthrough so far – I’m not ignoring that this game doesn’t still have flaws. However, the positives overwhelmingly surpass the flaws, but I should make an effort in acknowledging the flaws that I did see. The Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne Maniax co-writer and director of Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance, Shigeo Komori and likely one of the other Nocturne co-writers, could only fix so much, but what they did fix was genuinely breathtaking and left me in awe. Nevertheless, the flaws that I see for this game would be the following: Yoko, Tao, and Yuzuru act more like freshman and sophomore college students than 18-year old third-year high schoolers (to the best of my knowledge: in Japan, high schools have three-years, not two and Third-Years are often 17 – 18 years of age). Their perspectives are more sophisticated and indicative of college students who’ve taken the time to read some genuine philosophy in their spare time. This is not a bad thing insofar as characterization, but the aims and intentions of the rewrite feel like a mismatch for what were suppose to be high schoolers. Arguably, Tao feels the most consistent and believable as a mature high school student, but she seems far more like a freshman or sophomore college student who is still figuring out the world and learning as she goes with no one to really teach her but with two helpful friends to challenge her mind. There’s a subplot involving newly added African deities of the Ashanti people of West Africa. I’m not familiar with their mythology, but Atlus Japan almost certainly seemed to make very strong efforts with an amazingly cool art design and a mostly intriguing and funny subplot involving them. The conflict didn’t make much sense by the end, as one discord pal mentioned to me, because it became rather nonsensical; the conflict became a choice between embracing their oppressors or allowing themselves to die. I was personally confused by Anansi’s arguments for a Pan-African movement; to the best of my knowledge, Africa is so huge to the extent that you can fit several other continents into the African continent due to Africa’s sheer size. A Pan-African movement would be as ridiculous as arguing for a Pan-Asian movement with every country in the continent of Asia joining together despite the diverse cultures, religions, languages, national origins, and so on. That being said, this was clearly an honest attempt and I can appreciate that. They emphasized Anansi’s values towards storytelling and it’s fun to read his perspective on other things in the newly added Demon Haunt of Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance. I think virulent ridicule often discourages creative people from even trying to get out of their comfort zone. I try to focus on the art and list the positives, while also making my criticisms known so as not to discourage people from trying to improve on their craft. I would say that any mishap in this portion could be seen as similar to JK Rowling’s own worldbuilding foils when trying to expand on the Harry Potter series outside of Great Britain, such as the idea that the entirety of the US and the entire continent of Asia had only one magical school to them respectively. Another criticism I personally have is that Aogami remains a pointless character and his failings in the narrative are worse, because even characters like Shohei Yakumo and Director Koshimizu / Tsukiyomi were made adequate or serviceable for the narrative. They had some bit of character growth, unlike Aogami. Aogami has a scant few good moments, but it’s mostly annoying to go into a Demon Haunt conversation to see him recite what happened less than five minutes ago in the story without any real sense of perspective. This is made altogether worse by the fact that both Yoko and Tao provide deeply insightful, funny, and interesting bits of optional dialogue in the Demon Haunts that never once disappointed me. In other words, everything else is improved, but Aogami remains the same and while he might have a few interesting scenes, he’s the same stock character with no change and I don’t find him terribly important for most of the story. He’s simply a nothing character. It’s made worse by the fact that the main character’s new Nahobino form is from another Protofiend character who provides so much more personal depth with his own interesting views that Aogami feels actively harmful to the story, by the end. I want to reiterate that I wouldn’t be saying this, if not for the fact that everything else involving the plot and characters of Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance is such an astronomical improvement from the original story. Finally, Director Koshimizu fusing with the main character in the latter-half, while being given a cool (and frankly superior in my view) new design as a Nahobino form; it presents worldbuilding problems that negatively impact the suspension of disbelief. The Nocturne writers couldn’t really fix the idiotic idea of making Koshimizu the Prime Minister and I wouldn’t be surprised if the original Shin Megami Tensei V writers thought “Prime Minister equals important and it makes people feel important to work for someone important.” and that’s probably all the amount of thinking that they did for making him the Prime Minister. The Nocturne writers desperately attempt to salvage this by having unique quests where it’s mentioned that Director Koshimizu’s body is breaking down and he’s overworking himself in the area of combat that he’s not designed for, instead of sticking with logistics. It’s an attempt at giving empathy and better characterization for the Director’s motives. It’s unfortunately half-baked, but there was only so much they could do with this pathetically stupid decision by the original writers to casually add that the Director of the Japanese branch of Bethel was the Prime Minister and give no thought to the worldbuilding problems. I do like the new Nahobino design far more than the original and I’ll be calling it Nahokino herein to differentiate it from the original design. But, the fact that you lose the form at the end of the route that I did, Aogami miraculously returns and you fuse back with him, and then you get the same high-definition cut scene as the original game felt more like the developers were rushing and making sure not to go over a set budget than serving any sort of compelling narrative purpose. The explanation was decent enough and I’m sure most people will like the cut scene that they did present to players, but I was dismayed that we didn’t keep the new design or see it in a high-definition cut scene at the end of the game. The Nahokino design is far superior to the Nahobino design in my opinion. Also, they need to go back to using actual imagery as foreshadowing in dungeons; they should have had Mandala imagery in the Temple of Eternity, if the final plot twist contained an explanation about a mandala system that exists due to the Throne. I was surprised to learn that Nocturne’s Kalpa dungeons had plenty of Mandala imagery, but it’s sadly absent for a game that has a major plot twist that involves the cultural concept.

All that aside, here are the reasons that I cannot stop gushing about how amazing the Canon of Vengeance plotline is for Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance:

1. The Main Theme of Canon of Vengeance is about Systems of Oppression.

2 Thessalonians 1:8-10 King James Version (KJV)

⁸ In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:

⁹ Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;

¹⁰ When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.

This theme permeates throughout the entirety of the Canon of Vengeance’s narrative. From Yoko introducing the concept as commentary when doing an optional side quest, to a disturbingly realistic argument for how those bullied by people in school can feel when the situation with Sahori is actually explored unlike in the original game, to NPC angels explaining that any teenager who is a Knowledge Bearer and joins with the fallen God who seeks to unite with them must be eliminated (and reasons for why are explained early in this game in the first Nuwa scene, unlike the original), to optional dialogue from NPCs like the angel guarding a major highway and commenting on a plausible but unlikely threat to their system of Order by an anomaly (which is obviously Amanozako for those who played the original), and to the new enemy force, the Qadistu, revealing their motives in dream sequences throughout the game. In particular, the discussion where Yoko suggested murder when talking to Tao about how to help Sahori, while extreme and “edgy” for many and arguably slightly exaggerated for dramatic flair; it reminded me of a discussion I had on the r/megaten discord. Multiple people, from various ethnic and national backgrounds ranging from the US, to the Middle East, and to Europe all agreed that the only way to truly stop bullying was to physically attack the bully so that the bully did not see you as an easy target. One person in particular had suffered bullying despite one of their own parents being the Principal at the children’s grade school they were part of at the time and they tried and failed to stop it through peaceful methods by informing their parent. Yet, despite the parents’ best efforts from what I understand based upon what was described, nothing truly changed until the bully no longer saw the victim as weak and to the best of my understanding of the discussion, the bully was socked in the face and that’s what finally convinced them to stop. Others primarily from the US and Scandinavian countries strongly agreed with their approach and explained how ubiquitous it truly is and how no one will truly stop the bully unless the target stands up for themselves and physically hurt the bully back. I’m sad to say, as I’m sure it’ll look pathetic to admit this, that I got bullied throughout the entirety of grade school by various ethnic backgrounds of mostly other young boys and I never chose violence for most of it due to my cultural upbringing and because I thought it would get me into trouble. The lessons taught on how to prevent bullying were unhelpful and a form of victim-blaming from what I recall such as telling the victim to apologize once the bully has targeted them. For some reason, I was under this persistent and false assumption that the adults either knew better or didn’t care throughout the years; I guess I was just a dumb kid in that respect. I did get in trouble once and was accused of bullying in one incident because this one girl came up to my desk before class started, ripped my homework, elbowed me in the face, and when I shoved her that’s when the other classmates walked in and I got in trouble because I was the boy in the situation and the others hadn’t seen what she had done but they, predictably, did see me shoving her back in response. Just as expected, nobody cared to listen to my side, I’ve found the same treatment in the adult world with the only difference that I can walk away and I don’t have to be stuck pleasing an incompetent group of idiots that prove beyond any doubt that they have no idea what they’re doing. Unlike middle school and high school, which felt like prison sentences to me when I was growing up, I am free to not have to deal with other people’s bullshit in the adult world. That experience was still nothing compared to being burned on the neck with a heated sharp pen in middle school by a bully, but even that only resulted in a forced apology under one of the middle school principals and not formal discipline for the bully’s actions. Ironically, the same principal got promoted to a position of vice-principal in the high school I was in and did try to get me punished for the shoving incident without listening to my side at all. Real life situations for people who experience even worse than anything I went through or who may be going through similar situations to the character of Sahori even now, can be why the narratives immediately engage and interest potential players. To be clear, although it shouldn’t need to be said, murder is obviously wrong and should never be the go-to for any situation and we should seek out peaceful means at every step. A fictional game exploring an unsettling concept certainly isn’t real life advocacy for such an obviously wrong decision that’ll ruin the victim’s life in the long-run. However, those who’ve experienced systems that should protect them having repeatedly failed them throughout their entire lives as I have, . . . we begin to question the moral values of it all and it can be cathartic to see that point of view expressed with frank honesty instead of the trivial half-measures that Yoko rightly criticizes. In the end, the power dynamic was all that mattered in those simple social situations and not any of the nonsensical pleasantries and half-assed measures by self-important dipshits who don’t know the first thing about instilling children with good moral lessons to live by. Multifarious points of view on both a micro and macro-scale regarding systems of oppression are explored and elaborated throughout Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance’s narrative in a much more upfront manner than the original game and they encourage people to actually think about the social issues in an honest way.

There is a litany of examples throughout the Canon of Vengeance route of Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance that truly shows how having a competent and experienced staff of writers makes for a world of difference in quality storytelling, because they take the same worldbuilding concepts and produce amazing and insightful critiques using them. The discord pal of mine had mentioned how awkward the Bethel meeting cut scene of deities indigenous to each geographical location felt, because the original writers tried to avoid and ignore the fact that no country in North or South America could credibly claim to be following an Indigenous religion due to the brutal legacy of colonial oppression upon the Indigenous peoples of Americas (which has not stopped even in the United States, by the way). The meeting itself in the original Shin Megami Tensei V’s story had scant few deities, possibly because of this inconvenient fact about the reality that we live in. The original writers attempted to dodge this glaring elephant in the room completely and it was far worse off because of it. The players of the original Shin Megami Tensei V would have been led to assume that two entire major continents simply agreed to serve Yahweh based on Abdiel’s remarks, while ignoring a legacy of genocide ranging from state-sponsored rape campaigns, forced conversions, organized mass killings, and forced expulsions that his barbaric religion brought to those two continents; many Christian followers in the US claim that their religion reformed after the Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions while conveniently ignoring Thomas Jefferson’s support for the Doctrine of Discovery and how Native American people living in reservations still cannot sue non-Native, predominately White male, registered sex offenders of the US who come into Native American reservations to rape and kill their children for sport (which still goes on to this day, by the way). The leaps in logic that the cut scene would have had to make in order for such a Bethel meeting to exist just didn’t make much sense in terms of coherence from how the discord pal pointed to its flaws. When I observed the cut scene, it did seem like a bizarre cut scene to me and it was fairly weak on delivery. It stretched credulity why Odin and Zeus wouldn’t have figured out that the Condemnation had lifted and that YHVH really was dead with so many demon attacks where demons sought their human Knowledge-Bearers; this was only after finally being given an explanation on what the Condemnation even was, from the brief text infodump when talking to them. Why wouldn’t they have questioned it after Lucifer’s very public announcement approximately eighteen to twenty years ago? Even if they didn’t know about it because Abdiel somehow successfully managed to keep it a secret, the demon attacks were still a huge tip-off. They should have already known about the Nahobino; the Nahobino being there as proof made even less sense when I thought over the events after being given a clearer explanation from the poorly added and seemingly rushed infodumps. What were Tsukiyomi and Abdiel even thinking by letting Odin and Zeus see a full-fledged Nahobino then, when that’s precisely what led to Bethel falling apart in the original story? These nonsensical contradictions were directly made relevant by the Nocturne writers re-writing the plot by reframing the Condemnation as a metaphor for Western imperialism itself. Whereas the original writers of 2021 version of Shin Megami Tensei V staunchly avoided the massive topic to the detriment of the narrative, worldbuilding, plot, and coherence of the story, likely so as not to get into “icky” topics like real life situations that still negatively harms Native Americans of the US; the ethnic background most likely to serve in the US military at a five times higher per capita basis than other ethnic backgrounds, putting their lives on the line to protect the freedom and security that US society is still never willing to afford them; by sharp contrast, the Nocturne writers provide dream sequences with the demoness Lilith who goes into the history behind the Condemnation. She explains how YHVH took the throne, gave blessings to his followers to empower them with miracles, and how his Christian followers then used that power to brutalize, slaughter, and conquer the entire world and thoroughly wipe out any and every deity that resisted his absolute rule and how it was all for his own self-glorification. The only reason Odin and Zeus are therefore still around is because they agreed to serve YHVH’s glorification so as not to be completely erased from existence. In other words, a global system of oppression brutalized the world, hunted down and slaughtered the majority of the followers of the Indigenous deities of the Americas, and championed itself as heroic in order to justify maintaining itself via their brutal hegemony over the world. There’s even a tidbit that YHVH and other scions of the Bull God Marduk wanted to especially eradicate serpent deities across the world; the Serpent deities throughout the game are reinterpreted as part of a lineage that was repeatedly denied the throne, because they originate from the original Chaos Mother Goddess, Tiamat. A peaceful motherly deity who existed during a time when the Chaos alignment was solely focused on egalitarianism and equality, before the Law faction vilified and defiled it into the violent extremism that it exhibits in the game. The player realizes by the end of the game from the allusions of the world of the Qadistu and the throne room of the Emperyeon itself that Marduk had slew and broke Tiamat’s body into pieces to create the throne in the first place similar to the mythology of Marduk. Even worse, due to setting up Goddesses as a guide for the next deity to take the throne, the throne is heavily implied to reject women outright when they try to take the seat of power and it is confirmed to deny anyone of Tiamat’s serpent and dragon lineage which is an allusion for discrimination against minority ethnic backgrounds. It was a direct metaphor to highlight how misogyny often goes hand-in-hand with imperialism. While there can be criticism of even this, as obviously Native American cultures have their own separate traditions that have absolutely nothing to do with either European or Middle Eastern cultural traditions and belief structures, this is still a way better explanation that reinterprets an awkward storytelling event of the original into Canon of Vengeance’s explanation of a system that benefits from cruelty, hypocrisy, and an ongoing form of oppression. Moreover, there’s unfortunately, inevitably going to be lore issues when making a game that has mythological figures throughout the world, but only focuses on one or two specific areas as that’s the focus of the central plot and themes of a story. For example, the discord pal mentioned how odd it was that Chinese deities never took the throne since China was much more of a global power than most Middle Eastern faith traditions; but I pointed out that, more than likely, they probably wanted to avoid accusations of bigotry towards Chinese people, especially after they received criticism within Japan itself for the Xiwangmu storyline in Shin Megami Tensei IV. This was probably also why the Goddess Nuwa was changed to be more compassionate throughout the story of Canon of Vengeance.

Other facets of the game were improved with the rewrites by the Nocturne writers. Amanozako’s final side quest was improved; my recollection of the brief dialogue insinuating Amanozako to be the fusion of a tortured human girl who survived the Conception and an Amanozako protofiend unit seems to have been rewritten to be that of a human soul and a protofiend unit forming into a malfunctioning Amanozako. The protofiend units were rewritten to be explained from Izanagi’s self-sacrifice forming his body into three parts in an optional side quest; the Tsukiyomi unit for logistics, the Amaterasu unit for governance, and the Susano-O units for combat. The Amanozako unit idea was tossed, which means Amanozako was no longer insinuated to be a Nahobino but rather just a defective protofiend unit. Her dialogue about “soul mates” and “destined partners” was removed so that there was no longer the misunderstood insinuation of loli-bait due to the original writers incredibly poor explanations and the Canon of Vengeance story simply changed it to a reciprocal agreement whereby Amanozako just wants to be your friend and help you because you helped her by defeating the demons who want to assassinate her. The implication that she was your future daughter or your real-self’s daughter was also removed; it’s possible that I drew upon too much speculation, but I was under the distinct impression – due the Nahobino main character’s odd dialogue choice when first meeting Yuzuru in netherworld Tokyo – that the original idea may have been that the netherworld was actually the future and you were trying to prevent a horrible future from happening until the original writers changed it, but then forgot to update Amanozako’s backstory. So, the original intent may have been that Amanozako was indeed your future daughter or your real-self’s future daughter tortured by the Tengu and turned into a Nahobino. I only came to believe this about the original Shin Megami Tensei V story on Switch, because apart from Odaiba which is unlocked late-game, the entirety of Da’at Minato’s NPCs only talk about the past and future, but they’re completely silent on the two Tokyo’s that exist unlike the other Da’at locations. There were implications of heading into a horrible future, but nothing about an alternate world or parallel dimension in the first Da’at area in the original Switch game. For example, why hadn’t Nuwa and Yakumo mentioned it at all when first meeting them? It read more like the original writers hadn’t fully thought of the setting, or didn’t care to, before they began production of the game and then forgot about the Amanozako plotline, which is why the Nocturne writers had to rewrite it because it hadn’t made any clear sense. If Amanozako was heavily insinuated to be a Nahobino in the original game, then why hadn’t the angels found her or discovered her existence with the Tengu chasing her, and her flying around carefree for most of the story of the original Shin Megami Tensei V? They should have had hard evidence and been able to interrogate the Tengu over what occurred far before the side quest with the main character ever came about, because that’s approximately eighteen years in which Amanozako was never found, spotted, or inquired into by Bethel; the organization that makes it clear that they’ll slay any Nahobino that they find. Thus, the Nocturne writers had to change her to a defective unit that wasn’t insinuated to be a Nahobino. Otherwise, the plot of Canon of Vengeance would lose coherence like it did in the original game’s depiction of what came to be known as the Canon of Creation. Other improved worldbuilding changes were Goko’s dialogue changed from claiming he didn’t care about the throne (which made absolutely no sense given the plot twist involving his character in the original story) to mentioning that the Qadistu were monsters that needed to be stopped, because of their supposedly insane machinations of no longer wanting the throne system to continue (which makes sense for what is revealed about his character later). The absolutely awful Chaos dungeon of Demon King’s Castle was replaced with an amazingly cool Law dungeon of Shakan, which was much better and more creative than whatever nonsense they were trying to do with that awful Demon King’s Castle that looked like an edgy Bowser dungeon with poorly planned and implemented puzzles. I found Shakan to actually be fun and simple enough for most of it, since I recognized early that the player was supposed to find the triangular control mechanisms that weren’t listed on the map with only the final area giving me a bit of trouble before I figured it out myself.

In the original Shin Megami Tensei V, Atsuta Yuzuru and Dazai Ichiro were nothing characters; in the Canon of Vengeance, they’re given deeper characterization and I would argue that Yuzuru’s character arc was the culmination of the themes of systems of oppression. Ichiro messes-up and gets scared when demons attack the school. Yet, in this version of the story, Yuzuru gets realistically upset that his sister was kidnapped by demons unlike in the original version of the story, where there was no reaction depicted from him. He blames Dazai’s cowardice out of anger and fear for his sister’s life. After a lengthy journey, in which Tao leads the Nahobino main character and Yoko to find and save many kidnapped classmates, with discussions on their maimed appearances alluding to Eisheth’s violent personality and in-game skillset, Dazai helps Yuzuru save his sister and later backs him-up when it is thought that Atsuta Miyazu is in danger once again. Afterwards, Yuzuru works closer with Director Koshimizu and thinks over what he really wants for his future with his sister now in safe hands and Ichiro is recruited by the angel Abdiel and given a unique blessing by Mastema, which gives Ichiro the opportunity to obtain the power and fame that he’s been yearning for his entire life. Eventually, Yuzuru explains that he’s decided to become a Nahobino like the main character, because he loves Tokyo. He wants to protect his people like the main character has been doing and he finally has the opportunity to formulate and go after goals of his own instead of worrying about his sister’s health, while working hard to keep her safe and relatively happy. Much later in the Canon of Vengeance, after the Qadistu’s nefarious plans to resurrect their revered Mother Goddess Tiamat are enacted to bring forth an egalitarian world of freedom and peace for all humans and Gods as per the original Chaos world that was corrupted by Marduk and his descendants, the shocking plot twist of the aftermath of Ichiro murdering Yuzuru is shown. Ordinarily, it would seem like an ordinary plot twist of the brutality of the Mainline Shin Megami Tensei world expressing itself with the fallout of former friends. The scene does demonstrate that, but the subtext behind it provides so much more depth than any previous Mainline entry that I’ve played. Ichiro and Yuzuru’s backgrounds, their wants, their insecurities, and their disposition towards the world play a central role in this moment as part of the overarching theme of systems of oppression. The two characters serve as juxtapositions for this theme: Ichiro comes from a dysfunctional wealthy family where his parents exploit him as leverage against each other, he’s the class clown and a slacker in classes, he wants everyone in the school to like him and he tries to get famous through his clownish streams of haunted places in the hopes of being loved by millions or more because his parents emotional abuse resulted in him not developing a healthy understanding of love and social boundaries. Yuzuru is a hard-working top student, close to becoming valedictorian. Yuzuru lives in poverty because his parents died and he has little free time, because he has to care for his sick sister by himself. He works for Bethel to keep protecting his community and loved ones from harm. After Dazai kills Yuzuru, he laughs about how he finally has power and how that power makes him the true justice. Yuzuru had a private and mature conversation with you, explaining his motivations so that it wouldn’t come as a surprise, and how he wants to become a Nahobino out of admiration for your self-sacrifice to protect others and prior to that, how sorry he is about falling for the Qadistu’s trap and putting you in harm’s way. Yet, because this hard-working, compassionate, and caring young adult made the “wrong” choice and held the “wrong” political belief for having a different point of view; he is made a victim by being assassinated by his much more privileged close friend, so that the system of oppression can continue to justify itself. Ichiro and Yuzuru’s characters also probe deeper than Mainline Shin Megami Tensei was ever willing to go before. Although I haven’t played it much and most of my knowledge comes from Let’s plays that I’ve seen on Youtube, Ichiro’s actions reminded me of the line by the Law Hero in Shin Megami Tensei I: “Power without God is evil.” and this pervasive mentality is what helps to justify systems of oppression like the Doctrine of Discovery, which is the Euro-centric view that all non-Christians abrogate their rights to their own lands and human welfare because they don’t serve Yahweh or Jesus Christ, and that Yahweh and Jesus Christ are concerned with the political order of man and so vilify anything that doesn’t grovel in obedience to them as “materialism” and “idol worship” in a brutish, narcissistic, and cult-like mentality. These justifications exist to reinforce a system of oppression and they are indeed part of Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance’s themes. Both Lilith’s dream sequences giving metaphors for Western imperialism on a macro-level and Yuzuru’s lived experience on a micro-level give ample evidence of this pervasive theme. I cannot stress enough that the depiction of Ichiro and Yuzuru in Canon of Vengeance is a lot more insightful than any previous Law-aligned and Chaos-aligned character, because of the following reasons: Mastema giving Ichiro a blessing and Ichiro living out his power fantasies by brutalizing others is a lot more realistic of a depiction than any previous Mainline Law-aligned Hero that I’ve witnessed. This game brought to the forefront a form of nuance completely absent from any previous game, which unfortunately made Law seem more rational and intelligent within previous subtexts than it actually was: you can have brutal, psychotic warriors who convince themselves that they’re good moral people, because they uphold a Lawful system that they believe will keep the peace without questioning it. By viewing their own actions as “necessary evils” and “putting themselves through hell, so as to protect the greater good of the community” they’re actually just being brainwashed. They can convince themselves that they’re being self-sacrificing heroes, while glorifying their brutal atrocities and wanton violence as glorious because the system of oppression doesn’t care that they do these harmful things to others who disagree with it. It could credibly be compared to the depiction of a teenager who has been radicalized to become a religious terrorist. The system of oppression only concerns itself with justifying its own power and dominance over those other people. The reason Mastema gives Ichiro his blessing is because having someone who doesn’t question the system of oppression to live out their brutal power fantasies of subjugation and violence in order to gain fame and glory by the majority of society, simply serves the system of oppression’s self-interests. The system justifies itself to itself and nothing else. The morals, such as values of compassion, and the hypocrisy of the violence initiated simply doesn’t matter to a system that justifies its own existence by maintaining the power imbalance. Moreover, people who seek fame and love from the wider world are easy targets to turn into useful pawns to continue the cyclical system of oppression; Ichiro has no self-worth deep down and thus seeks it from being praised by others. Unlike Yuzuru, he has less self-control and his insecurities make him less likely to openly discuss his problems unless it’s to ruminate in self-pity. By the end of the game, Miyazu, Tsukiyomi, Khonsu, and – if you choose to – the main character all discuss and recognize the strength of Yuzuru’s character, his ambitions that were tragically cut short, and the compassion that he demonstrated in each of their lives; no matter how long they’d known each other. Tsukiyomi calmly explains to Miyazu that Yuzuru fought for a better world and Yuzuru tragically became a victim of the fundamentally broken world that he criticized. Even a random NPC mentions how Yuzuru saved his life from demons and how he regrets never getting the opportunity to thank him. By contrast, Ichiro is remarked as seeming strong and confident by his distant pal, who refuses to call Ichiro a close friend. Yet, by the end, Ichiro himself remarks that he never really changed and no one concerns themselves for his death, because he left the world fundamentally more broken through his thoughtless actions to preserve a system that he didn’t question the morality of. He only sought to appear to be something that he truly never was, because all he did was seek approval from others instead of setting his own personal boundaries. He did not try to think over what would be the best or correct direction to take his life towards by developing personal goals, he simply obeyed a system that told him that he could be a hero because it would get him recognition and power. That is fundamentally the most honest critique of the problems of a Law Hero and arguably a radicalized teenager that I’ve ever seen in a Mainline Shin Megami Tensei.

2. The Canon of Vengeance is Shockingly Pro-Feminist.

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” – John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, first Baron Acton (1834–1902); English Catholic Historian, Politician, and Writer.

In my review of the original Shin Megami Tensei V on Switch, I mentioned how Miyazu was essentially a nothing character and how Tao ended-up being a “reward” in a moment meant to look “cool and awesome” as a male power fantasy. I could not hold back my words with how blatantly misogynistic the latter depiction was in its entirety. During my course of playing the original Shin Megami Tensei V, I had chosen the Tsukiyomi path and I was dismayed to find that Miyazu’s dialogue didn’t change at all when I went to talk to her at the fairy village after Yuzuru was killed. I hadn’t even known that she was the girl that Khonsu was referring to in the original, because I had chosen to assassinate him for Bethel. When I started playing Vengeance, I was surprised to learn that Miyazu was Khonsu’s Knowledge-Bearer. I recalled discussions on the “female NPC” that was mentioned on the r/megaten discord and I had thought of how the Atlus staff could have foreshadowed the NPC girl being Khonsu’s Knowledge-Bearer by having her be curious to join an occult or mythology club at school and take an active interest. It would have been generic and mundane, but it would have been something of note. The Nocturne writers have you meet with the Occult club for a side quest for exactly this purpose and it begins a logical sequence of events for why Miyazu would go to live with Khonsu after seeing her brother nearly killed or willing to kill one of their friends because she got kidnapped and her life was threatened by the Qadistu. It was decent overall. For me, the really good portion of her story was when she and Khonsu tricked the Nahokino main character into giving Khonsu the sun crest – which was thankfully reinterpreted as the eye of Horus so it actually has relevance with legitimate forms of Egyptian mythology – and blaming Director Koshimizu / Tsukiyomi for Yuzuru’s death. It felt like a natural reaction and to be honest . . . the funniest part about her speech for me was that . . . everything she and Khonsu said was correct. I really couldn’t find a single flaw in anything that they said regardless of their negative interpretation of what was said. I asked a close friend about it and he mentioned that so long as Tsukiyomi gave Yuzuru the choice and didn’t try to force it on him, then it can’t necessarily be Tsukiyomi’s fault. The only counter I could think of to that was that Yuzuru was a young, high school kid and surely Director Koshimizu / Tsukiyomi had more responsibility for what ultimately happened, even if we assume the likely possibility that Yuzuru was eighteen years of age. Yuzuru was also under constant stress and pressure throughout his young life and tried to do his best with the horrible circumstances that he bore. Nevertheless, I was pleasantly surprised that Miyazu’s development was decent or adequate enough. The Nocturne writers did what they could with the restrictions that they were surely dealt when working to improve Miyazu’s character.

This brings me to my absolute favorite change that differentiates the Canon of Vengeance from the original Canon of Creation story. The introduction of Hiromine Yoko and the massive depth given to Isonokami Tao. I honestly still find it jarring that Tao of the original story’s Canon of Creation and the Tao of Canon of Vengeance are different versions of the same person. The character arcs given to these two genuinely make the original story’s Canon of Creation seem like bad fanfiction by comparison to the new story in Canon of Vengeance. Whereas Canon of Creation Tao dies, resurrects, and dies yet again with no discernible explanation for what on earth was going on, as it was actively happening; this game provides a more thorough explanation for Tao’s first death by having the system of the Throne explain that she has a sacred purpose that she needs to fulfill to help the world by finding and guiding the next ruler of it. Tao doesn’t have time to grieve over the loss of Sahori due to the kidnapped students, including her friend Miyazu, and she strives to do what she can. Tao’s fundamental desire has always been to do her best to help others in need. Unlike her abrupt death and lack of character in Canon of Creation, Tao and Yoko join forces with you throughout the majority of the game and work alongside you as guest characters to help in your journey. In a very real sense, Tao and Yoko are the two main characters of Canon of Vengeance and their character arcs are absolutely amazing. What I especially loved was the fact that, as the Saint of Bethel, Tao is the one who takes charge and makes the decisions because she’s the senior leader; the player character is basically her bodyguard and muscle alongside Yoko. We see Tao work to help maimed students and how she has to decide, due to the circumstances of the situation, whether to work on finding enough medical resources to save the lives of all the rescued students who are at risk of dying from their injuries while sheltering in the fairy village or to help Yuzuru’s desperate search for Miyazu, who is still kidnapped in the clutches of the disturbing Eisheth. Tao chooses the former; she chooses the lives of anywhere from around thirty to a hundred or possibly more students over the life of her close friend in service of Bethel and to serve the greater good of her community. The result is a missed opportunity to initially save Miyazu that Yoko says is Tao’s fault because she made the decision; when they finally do rescue Miyazu, the group of Bethel friends see that the humans and the faeries sheltering the humans were turned to salt. Tao made the right choice both times for the greater good and it resulted in a disaster due to forces outside of her control. After some much needed rest, they work tirelessly to learn more of the salt curse to save people and continue the search to stop the Qadistu from hurting more human civilians. The investigation helps to express Tao’s thoughts and feelings to further flesh her character. Tao meets a member of her lacrosse team friends due to one of them missing in the illusory Tokyo and the lacrosse team member being the last one to see her, Tao and Yoko discuss disagreements about the angels with Tao admitting that she knew them to be extreme but not to the extent that they would actively kill their own allies to preserve Order and expresses her disappointment at that, and still chooses to believe in the possibility of a peaceful future for the world, even for the extremists like the angels, because she believes that there is still possibility for peace in the future. She doesn’t have any personal doctrine and she’s still figuring it out as she goes until near the end of the game, but that honestly made her feel far more realistic.

Interestingly, I’d still argue after getting her ending, Tao’s decision to try to take advantage of the current system’s oppressive and patriarchal power structure in order to keep the people of Tokyo safe, struck me as one of the most brilliant Machiavellian tactics in a fantasy setting. She acknowledges the double-standards and historic injustices of the system against the Snake deities, women in general, and the Qadistu more specifically; yet, she wishes to utilize out of the box thinking in order to advantage the people of Tokyo that she loves. She wants to take advantage by putting the Nahokino main character on the Throne, because while the system is oppressive and founded a misogynistic legacy of injustice; it is still part of her cultural history as a human being and it is the world that she loves and cherishes. It is all she desires to know and experience after her fateful journey. It may seem empathetic, and to a certain extent it is, but this is essentially a woman who is part of a privileged culture that acknowledges the privileged culture has misogyny, decides to learn a few aspects of the other culture and agrees those other aspects are either truthful or better, and then uses that to further reinforce her culture’s hegemony and power structure while denying the other culture of any justice because it would disadvantage her position. People actually believe that she’s the “good” option, just because she’s the Law-aligned character and she’s a genuinely nice person for most of the story of Canon of Vengeance. I absolutely love the skillful brilliance of the Nocturne writers. In fairness, Tao was more a victim of the Qadistu’s machinations than of the oppressive system that requested she put her own life in danger, but she does seem to understand that the Qadistu were oppressed themselves and the brutal legacy of Bethel’s imperialism is likely known to her. It was worse for Snake deity followers that resisted than it was for the people serving Bethel who gained privileged positions. She even acknowledges that the reason she supports the main character to take the Throne is because the old god, Yahweh, was a cruel and brutal failure of a deity that hurt the world just to preserve his own selfish reign. Nevertheless, this doesn’t stop her from choosing to preserve a system of oppression simply because it advantages her and her interests for Tokyo’s future. The best part of this is that she behaves in this nationalistic and Machiavellian way out of genuine love and compassion for her fellow people of Tokyo. I’m honestly left in awe at how compelling this character become from what she was in the original Shin Megami Tensei V.

The new character of Hiromine Yoko for Canon of Vengeance seems to be an Egalitarian rationalist from how I viewed her. I loved everything about both her and Tao’s development throughout the Canon of Vengeance. I was amazed that she and Tao gave their perspectives for the majority of side quests when you have them added as guest characters in the party. The cut scenes felt less like Persona-style social links and more like the Tales of Series’ skit format, but with actual cut scenes. The scenes weren’t relegated to either shounen anime tropes or the women doing anything boring like gushing over the main character like Tao’s behavior in the original Shin Megami Tensei V’s Canon of Creation story. Instead, they constantly give their opinions and perspectives on the ethics of your choices and on the long-term consequences therein. This provides a wealth of critique and perspectives; we observe Yoko slowly loosen her jaded personality and Tao grow more confident in her views in the main story, while the side quests provide ample evidence of these slow changes. The best part of this for me was that we experience this on what is a fantasy adventure and it is just so much fun to observe each of the side quests have their own special little dialogue skit as a reward for completion. I honestly found most of the dialogue to be amazingly insightful or at least interesting from both of them. In the main game, we observe Yoko challenge the hypocrisy of trash characters turned somewhat adequate like Shohei Yakumo. Or, when she finally leaves Bethel and breaks into a supposed holy ground, Abdiel chastises her for obtaining a power forbidden to humans. Yoko turns around and bluntly asks Abdiel, if she’s ever thought to question anything and ridicules her for believing something is forbidden because she’s simply been told it is. As it happens, Yoko wasn’t trying to obtain something “beyond human comprehension” due to “hubris” as one would typically expect from your typical brainless Western and especially brainless American story, she was recovering her own sacred power that had been stolen from her unjustly by the jealous Yahweh. Yoko doesn’t hold back on her sharp criticisms and the reason why is actually quite striking. It is heavily insinuated that she used to be a lot like Tao and tried to help others to the best of her ability, but her teachers in another branch of Bethel became jealous of her supernatural gifts that took them years to learn, and so they tried to get her murdered by sending her on increasingly risky and dangerous missions because of their jealousy of her abilities and jealousy of her previous personality of being a compassionate do-gooder. Yoko’s experience resulted in her growing more jaded and selfish, because everyone around her in the other branch that she tried to help was just a selfish opportunist who tried to get her hurt. According to Mastema, and confirmed in her personal dialogue with Lilith, this was how her human life was like prior to experiencing the Conception approximately eighteen – twenty years before the main story’s events. It is revealed that she was a human who experienced the Conception and the Conception awakened her powers as a Goddess to guide the next ruler for the throne; Yahweh stopped this by splitting her sacred power from her and sealing her away for what he hoped to be all eternity. The Shekinah Glory that keeps the illusory Tokyo alive wasn’t by any divine miracle of Yahweh’s power, but because of Yoko’s sacred power and because Yoko is still alive. Yahweh’s miracle was fake in that he used the throne system and Yoko’s power to conduct “his miracle” for the illusory Tokyo. Yoko reveals that she slowly began to feel hope for the future thanks to Tao’s compassion and the main character’s actions, but reverts back to her negative feelings after the Qadistu successfully deploy their plan and Yoko is led to believe that both Tao and the main character died. By the end of the game’s journey, it seemed heavily insinuated, without the need for any sort of love confession scene, that Yoko fell in love with the main character alongside the fact that she began feeling hope for the world but couldn’t admit that specific tidbit to herself until after she was led to believe that the main character had tragically died. Despite how generic that may sound, I felt it was surprisingly done well and it’s more left to viewer interpretation than outright said, but I definitely believe that was the intent due to the allusions and unspoken implications involving her ending. Furthermore, I really loved how she gave a rational critique to things, so that the other characters felt more self-assured, relaxed, and didn’t jump to the most emotionally reactive decision like in most stories including many Shin Megami Tensei Mainline stories. Her perspectives throughout the main story, the Demon Haunts, and the side quests helped give the entire story a breath of being a lived world that was absent from the original Shin Megami Tensei V on Switch.

At the end, I was actually leaning towards Tao’s goal, but then Yoko’s argument was so on point and rational that I ended-up agreeing with her. I can’t find any fault with Yoko arguing that just because the main character feels special and unique, it doesn’t mean that he won’t be corrupted and turn into a tyrant when he has absolute power. Should the player character really trust themselves to always do what is right when given absolute power? Why should we as the player character consider ourselves special or immune from corruption? Does that really make sense? Why are we special? As absolute monarch, you can choose at any point to abuse your power and convince yourself that what you’re doing is for the greater good. Moreover, being on a deluded power-trip and believing what you are doing is for the greater good are not mutually exclusive. This is how real life British imperialism was justified upon India by both John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx. When you have absolute power, what stops you from abusing your power at any point that you want? The guarantee that there will be no upheaval by Lucifer after you consume him to gain his unique Knowledge only adds a further aphrodisiac for abuse of power by the main character. It further lulls the player into the temptation. Yet, Yoko’s point still stands and it seems implied to me in Tao’s route that Yoko’s true desire in that ending would be to stop you from making the mistake of corrupting yourself into something unrecognizable to her because she loves you. I’m honestly of the belief that Yoko’s route is the strongly implied “good ending” based upon the themes and subtext of the story and that Tao’s ending is a misguided and subtle “bad ending” that leads to an eternally corrupt world because the main character shouldn’t have seen themselves as unique or special. After observing the Tao ending, I honestly don’t see how it meant anything meaningful; if it was suppose to be anything beyond the surface-level, then it seems to arguably show that Yoko was correct. Ghost-system Tao seems to be prioritizing her newly created alternate self having a happy life with her friend Sahori instead of the bigger picture of creating a world to help everyone like she claimed as Panagia Tao. Why wouldn’t prioritizing the life she once knew lead to a corruptive form of nepotism? Also, how exactly are they going to have every human being’s wishes fulfilled? Why is that even considered a good outcome? If someone sincerely wished ill or to do harm upon others with all their heart, what then?  While it may be disheartening to sacrifice the current humanity and undo all of human history as Tao rightly chastises, the throne is a system of oppression that has repeatedly been abused to create new forms of humanity in each of those eons when a new deity took the throne, in the first place. Undoing the system that is the intrinsic cause of the abuse and putting a chance at a genuine egalitarian future, even if not guaranteed, is the more democratic, rational, and compassionate choice so that everyone may live in peace in my honest opinion.

All that being said, I wanted to make a point to mention that while I love Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne and it remains my favorite game of all-time, the characters of Yoko and Canon of Vengeance Tao are completely superior to the cast of Nocturne, every other mainline that I’ve played, and probably every other Mainline before it. They’re better characters than most Tales of Series games that I’ve played too. The Canon of Vengeance finally does something that no Shin Megami Tensei Mainline did before; it is no longer minimalist. Yoko and Tao have vibrant and realistic character arcs, development, and attitudes throughout the entire story. Whereas Tachibana Chiaki and Nitta Isamu have their own unique goals and interests as a response to their limited circumstances of living through the Conception; Isonokami Tao and Hiromine Yoko have an entire life history, friends, hobbies, and their own goals and interests. They’re so much more fleshed out than either of the other two. Whereas Persona 4 and Persona 5’s social links involve limited situations with the focus often being more character development for side characters and the Persona Confidante’s reaction to it in Persona 5 or just random nonsense happening after the fourth social link to keep a conflict that comes out of nowhere continuing in Persona 4 like with Yukiko and the Nurse’s social links; Tao and Yoko get heavy focus and development because the game limits it to just these two characters and they share their opinions, perspectives, and shifting goals based on both a confluence of their situation and their personal desires. Due to being in a fantasy adventure with them eventually growing to be the player character’s two closest friends, they’re given more breathing room to feel authentic and display shifting opinions based upon the evidence and their understanding of each individual event that comes up. The game doesn’t have to worry about a huge cast of side characters like in a Persona game or have a large cast of six characters to focus on like in a Tales of Series game. The focus exclusively on Tao and Yoko allows their character arcs to develop in a way that truly astounded me and it made me rethink what is possible for developing a compelling group of main characters. The limitation of focusing on these two characters became an amazing strength for the Canon of Vengeance story that honestly went beyond anything that I believed Megami Tensei was capable of as a series. The only two characters who I’d argue are equal to or surpass their development throughout the Canon of Vengeance would be Velvet Crowe from Tales of Berseria and Luke fon Fabre from Tales of the Abyss. I was genuinely completely blown away by the amazing depth and development of these two women. Atlus Japan’s Nocturne co-writers don’t fall for the “strong woman” trap of your typical Hollywood writers; these women are allowed to be strong, vulnerable, compassionate, selfless, they seemingly fall in love, and they eventually decide on what is best for both their circumstances and the people that they love regardless of the specific man that they fall in love with. Isonokami Tao and Hiromine Yoko are amazing characters and I am so happy that I was convinced to purchase and play this game by both the discord pal and by a close personal friend. If you take nothing else away from this essay and aren’t sure if you want to get Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance or not, consider getting this game because of these two well-written and amazing characters. In my humble opinion, and perhaps I am indeed very biased in this, they’re way better than any Persona 4 or 5 and previous Mainline entry character from the games I’ve reviewed or done thematic analyses on. My mind was blown away by their development as I didn’t think that Atlus Japan could make characters with such fantastic development for a Mainline Shin Megami Tensei game.

3. The Qadistu vastly improve the story and Canon of Vengeance managed to trick me into becoming a hypocrite.

Another consequence of the new mode of production is assumed to have been conquest as an essential requisite to the accumulation of communal capital needed for the accomplishment of the urban revolution. But there was a still more basic reason for the invention of war as an institution: the contradiction between an economic system that needed unification in order to be optimally effective, and political and dynastic separation that conflicted with this economic need. War as an institution was a new invention, like kingdom or bureaucracy, made around 3000 B.C. Then as now, it was not caused by psychological factors, such as human aggression, but, aside from the wishes for power and glory of the kings and their bureaucracy, was the result of objective conditions that made war useful and which, as a consequence, tended to generate and increase human destructiveness and cruelty.30 These social and political changes were accompanied by a profound change in the role of women in society and of the mother figure in religion. No longer was the fertility of the soil the source of all life and creativity, but the intellect which produced new inventions, techniques, abstract thinking, and the state with its laws. No longer the womb, but the mind became the creative power, and with this, not women, but men dominated society.

This change is poetically expressed in the Babylonian hymn of creation, Enuma Elish. This myth tells us of a victorious rebellion of the male gods against Tiamat, the “Great Mother” who ruled the universe. They form an alliance against her and choose Marduk to be their leader. After a bitter war Tiamat is slain, from her body heaven and earth are formed, and Marduk rules as supreme God.

However, before he is chosen to be the leader, Marduk has to pass a test, which may seem insignificant-or puzzling-to modern man, but it is the key to the understanding of the myth:

“Then they placed a garment in their midst;

To Marduk, their first-born, they said:

“Verily, O lord, thy destiny is supreme among the gods,

Command ‘to destroy and to create,’ (and) it shall be!

By the word of thy mouth let the garment be destroyed;

Command again, and let the garment be whole.'”

He commanded with his mouth, and the garment was destroyed.

Again he commanded, and the garment was restored.

When the gods, his fathers, beheld the efficiency of his word

They rejoiced (and) did homage, (saying)

        “Marduk is king!”

                                      -A. Heidel, 1942”

The meaning of this test is to show that man has overcome his inability for natural creation-a quality which only the soil and the female had -by a new form of creation, that by the word (thought). Marduk, who can create in this way, has overcome the natural superiority of the mother and hence can replace her. The biblical story begins where the Babylonian myth ends: the male god creates the world by the word. (E. Fromm, 1 951.)

One of the most significant features of the new urban society was that it was based on the principle of patriarchal rule, in which the principle of control is inherent: control of nature, control of slaves, women and children. The new patriarchal man literally “makes” the earth. His technique is not simply modification of the natural processes, but their domination and control by man, resulting in new products which are not found in nature. Men themselves came under the control of those who organized the work of the community, and hence the leaders had to have power over those they controlled.

In order to achieve the aims of this new society, everything, nature and man, had to be controlled and had to either exercise – or fear – power. In order to become controllable, men had to learn to obey and to submit, and in order to submit they had to believe in the superior power-physical and / or magic-of their rulers. While in the Neolithic village, as well as among primitive hunters, leaders guided and counselled the people and did not exploit them, and while their leadership was accepted voluntarily or, to use another term, while prehistoric authority was “rational” authority resting on competence, the authority of the new patriarchal system was one based on force and power; it was exploitative and mediated by the psychical mechanism of fear, “awe,” and submission. It was “irrational authority.” – Erich Fromm, Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, pages 164 – 165.

The juxtaposition of the Qadistu and Bethel is quite interesting. Bethel acts as system to preserve its own status and power; eventually leading to assassinations, turning innocent people into salt, brainwashing demons, brainwashing power-hungry humans like Dazai into killing other humans like Yuzuru, and then secretly splintering into divided factions which is even emphasized in the Bethel side quests. The splintering directly impacts your friend group of young Bethel recruits due to Dazai’s actions. Meanwhile, the Qadistu do expose disagreement and even outright dislike among their group such as Agrat’s admonishment of Eisheth and Naamah’s violent methods, but they unite and sacrifice themselves for the ritual in service to resurrecting the Mother Goddess of Chaos, Tiamat. Their name is also revealed to mean their firm devotion in the Mother Goddess of Chaos. The greatest threat to Bethel’s oppressive power for the majority of the story is the unwavering faith that the Qadistu have in the Mother Goddess of Chaos. When I played the Yoko route, I couldn’t help but find it interesting that Mastema argued in favor of the hierarchical system that benefitted him against Yoko’s conversion to the faith in the Qadistu’s vision for the future. Incidentally, this was another dynamic that I really loved about this game; just because someone is largely a rationalist towards most subject matter doesn’t mean that they completely lack faith-based belief structures on core beliefs that they hold. It provided a more interesting and insightful juxtaposition than the minimalist storytelling of yesteryears and I can honestly say that I was proven wrong by the discord pal when he argued that Atlus Japan should drop the minimalism. The story is so much better without the minimalism that I’m left astounded by the depth and nuance that is displayed.

When I was arguing with the aforementioned discord pal about whether Tao or Yoko’s views were the better choice, I had a strange sense of déjà vu. We’d argued before about other Shin Megami Tensei Mainline endings on Reddit and I initially chalked it up to that, but then I realized later that Atlus Japan skillfully tricked the both of us. For those of you who support either Law or Chaos alignments generally, I would like for you to try to separate the terms “Law” and “Chaos” from Tao and Yoko’s arguments and think over them again. Perhaps pretend that they argued the opposite of what they did, if that helps. If that doesn’t help, then perhaps try to view the system that is being argued in favor of without associating the arguments to Tao or Yoko on a personal level. What do we get from this? I hadn’t realized it at first, but . . . Tao’s argument in support of the patriarchal power structure is basically advocating for the same power structure as the Dagda ending of Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse and Yoko’s argument for an Egalitarian Chaos redo is essentially advocating for the Bonds route of Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse. They’re structurally the same exact endings, but the depictions are more balanced. The only real difference is that the endings of Canon of Vengeance switches which path has you keep the current humanity or not. I was still convinced of Yoko’s argument because I felt that taking a chance at a truly Egalitarian world was better than imposing a permanently corrupt system that – I would argue – the player character deludes themselves into believing will never negatively influence their future behavior. I hadn’t realized it initially and fell for the instantaneous snap judgment that our flawed human brains are prone to, because that’s how our species evolved; yet, I believe this may show how well the Nocturne writers know their Mainline fanbase and they can subtly influence us into hypocritical decisions without us initially realizing it. Perhaps it was just me, but I have to commend them for an excellent job in making us rethink our values.

The conclusion of the themes that the Qadistu, and especially Yoko, bring to the story strongly remind me of Erich Fromm’s noteworthy sociological and anthropological book that I was assigned to read for my Masters dissertation in college, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness. I can’t be sure that Atlus Japan was referencing it specifically or perhaps know of some equivalent due to Erich Fromm’s scholarly influence. The Canon of Vengeance’s emphasis on Jewish mythology of the Zohar which is directly mentioned in the Lore tab for the Qadistu, what appears to be ample evidence of the critique and possible support for a world-famous Jewish professor’s work on premodern civilizations, and Yoko’s ending itself being a possible reference to Jewish mythology’s views on primordial Chaos as the origins of the universe; all of this together seems to be a celebration of and appreciation for Jewish cultural contributions to humanity and it might possibly be a homage to Erich Fromm’s Anatomy of Human Destructiveness in particular. Please note, Atlus Japan now seem very aware of accusations of anti-Semitism, because Kurama Tengu no longer has his small hat that was accused of being similar to a kippah. If it was a kippah, I don’t believe it was meant to be anti-Semitic and it may have been a stylistic choice. When creative people take the time to learn of other cultures out of genuine fascination, it can sometimes be ignorant of social norms without meaning to be insulting. At the same time, communities shouldn’t harshly repudiate anyone curious about another culture just because that person or group of people either disagree with a specific conclusion or they did not understand something clearly enough. Moreover, I’m under the strong belief that even if a creative person disagrees and makes something offensive, that is their right to freedom of expression, as is your right to not purchase their product or repudiate what aspects that you disagree with about their product. People should be free to exercise their creativity without being subjected to censorship, even for content that we find strongly disagreeable. I think it should be made abundantly clear to long-time fans that Atlus Japan’s creative team seems to love both Middle Eastern and Jewish mythology; given the depth and breadth of their depictions of it and the strong likelihood that much of the critiques in the Canon of Vengeance can be traced back to one of Erich Fromm’s most prominent works in sociology and anthropology. I honestly never thought I’d see such a staggering level of creativity and began to subconsciously lower my expectations because of how awful the original story of Shin Megami Tensei V was. Yet, the Canon of Vengeance, similar to Lucifer’s speech at the end of the game, became more than I could possibly imagine.