Application

[findthepenguin]

Out-of-Character Information

Name: Carbon
Are you over 15?: Maaaaayyyybeeeeeee
Time Zone: EST (GMT -5)
Personal Journal: carbonatedwater
E-mail: carbonatedwater84@gmail.com
Instant Messenger: GodofPaper84
Plurk: GodofPaper84
Tegaki: Carbonatedwater
Anything Else?: Me no have grammar good.

In-Character Information

Name: Kanji Tatsumi
Game/Series: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4
Teacher/Student/Other: Student
Canon Point: January (whatever day this gets accepted) 2012 (since the game takes place then) – after defeating Ameno-Sagiri and celebrating Christmas and such (so, before the true ending). Level 5 Social Link with the Protagonist.
Age: 16
Grade Level/Class Taught/Job: Sophomore
Dorm or Living Arrangement: Student dorms

Personality: To the uninformed observer, Kanji is a juvenile delinquent, a gang member, a troubled child. The media initially assumed Kanji was a member of a rogue motorcycle gang causing trouble for the small Japanese town of Inaba, because he was caught with them, and because of his outlandish way of dressing. He dons a leather jacket, a scar over his eye, bleached hair, and a tattoo on his arm. He looks like your typical violent teenager, and most are wary of approaching him. Kanji, however, is more than that, but he prefers to keep up the image of the “tough guy,” wanting everyone to see how butch he is.

However, while Kanji may be a butch, tough guy, he is a kind person. He has an extreme passion for sewing and crafting, and has quite the talent for it. However, because he was teased as a child for it, he put up his angry, delinquent façade to appear masculine, to dissuade any sort of stereotypes one might assume from a man who likes to sew. He was the victim of many gay jokes as well, causing him to be extremely insecure about his masculinity, and to question his sexual orientation. While he insists that he is straight, he’s actually not so sure.

When the party first meets him, he is spotted with a boy about his age, and he seems defensive about the nature of their relationship. In reality, the boy was merely questioning him about his goings-on, as the boy suspected he was going to be Inaba’s next kidnapping victim. Still, Kanji is extremely defensive, and it’s likely he felt attraction to the boy. (Later, it is revealed that this boy, Naoto Shirogane, was actually a girl pretending to be a boy, and Kanji’s attraction to her throughout the game is rather ambiguous, and more up to the player to decide.)

Kanji also had a “Shadow,” which is essentially a person’s repressed feelings, the part of a person that they don’t want to acknowledge. Kanji’s Shadow is an extremely stereotypically gay man with a “gay lisp,” wearing nothing but a towel around his waist and hanging around in a bathhouse. When the Shadow turns into a boss for the party to fight, Shadow Kanji’s torso is in a pool of roses, with two large legs and two large arms carrying the symbols of Mars (AKA the male symbol). So, obviously, the game is hitting us over the head with Kanji’s Shadow being gay.

Finally, when Kanji accepts his Shadow, he acknowledges that the Shadow was a manifestation of his fears of being gay, of his fears of being a sissy and everything that people would make fun of him for. So, his sexual orientation is never spelled outright, but it’s very obvious that he questions it constantly, and it’s likely that he is gay.

Beyond his craftsmanship and sexuality, though, Kanji is a good person. He joins the “Investigation Team” to track down the mystery murderer in Inaba, and is very passionate about making sure no one else is kidnapped or murdered, and the killer is brought to justice. While he may not have many friends, he is very loyal to some of them, the Protagonist in particular, for rescuing him and pulling him out of his shell a little bit. He is still very self-conscious about his love of craftsmanship, and does not make it known to others unless he has to.

Kanji does not do very well in school, most likely because he skips it a lot. This is probably to both assert his attitude, and to avoid the people who can't seem to accept him. After being kidnapped, he comes back to school more often, most likely because he would either be expelled or held back if he did not show up. But when exam time comes, he seems to be clueless as to many of the answers, even claiming that he "gives up" after simply looking at his mathematics notes while studying. Again, though, this doesn't seem to stem from a lack of intelligence; it's most likely because Kanji does not care much. While he is very passionate about solving the murders and kidnappings, school is at the bottom of his priority list.

He is generally a good kid, though he skips school a lot and maintains a tough attitude, often getting in fights. He is difficult to begin a relationship with, and if anyone gets on his case about his sexuality, he will not be happy. But once you get on his good side, he will be loyal to you and defend you, provided you don’t harass him too much.

Backstory: Kanji Tatsumi grew up in the small Japanese town of Inaba, living with his mother, whom he loves deeply. His mother ran a textile shop, so Kanji was exposed to arts and crafts from an early age, developing quite a knack for sewing and craftsmanship. He loved what he did, but unfortunately, a man who sews was not considered “normal” when he was young. He was teased as a result, being the victim of not only gay slurs, but attacks on his masculinity.

Kanji was determined to prove that he was masculine and heterosexual, but due to the teasing, and possibly due to his own unconfirmed sexual orientation, he constantly questioned internally whether he was gay, straight, or anywhere in between. As mentioned before, he most likely felt some form of attraction, or at the very least confusion, to Naoto when he thought she was male. The attraction may or may not have persisted upon finding out her true sex, but he always seemed to be embarrassed around her, likely because of his embarrassment at his attraction to her “male” personality.

However, it is clear that he was confused, but he tried to hide his confusion and angst by dressing and acting like a stereotypical delinquent. He is first heard of in the game on a news report about being found with a biker gang near his residence at the textile shop. While it at first looks like Kanji is a member of the gang (as said by the Protagonist’s uncle Dojima), he actually was going to challenge the gang for keeping his mother awake at night.

Meanwhile, before Kanji appeared in the game, the Protagonist had begun investigating a series of murders that occurred in the town of Inaba. He and his friends discovered that the murders were somehow connected to this strange world inside of the TV, referred to as the Midnight Channel. The Midnight Channel would appear on peoples’ TVs at midnight on rainy nights, supposedly broadcasting the viewer’s “soulmate.” In actuality, what would be broadcast was a person who was on a lot of people’s minds, but the Protagonist’s team had yet to figure out. All they had found out at this point was that anyone who appeared on the Midnight Channel was going to be the next victim of being kidnapped and tossed into the TV world.

Once inside the TV world, a person is defenseless until fog envelops Inaba, causing the fog in the TV world to lift. When this happens, Shadows appear and ruthlessly kill the victim. The Protagonist and his friends, however, are able to withstand the attacking Shadows in the TV world due to the fact that they are able to wield Personae. While the Protagonist receives his Persona from the goddess Izanami (though this is not found out until the true ending of the game), Yosuke, Chie, and Yukiko receive theirs in the TV world after confronting their Shadows.

In the TV world, a Shadow of a person appears, which is essentially the part of a person they want to repress. Yosuke was the first to receive his Persona through his Shadow. Essentially, his Shadow appeared, saying everything Yosuke did not want to hear about himself, and Yosuke denied that this was a part of him, causing the Shadow to turn into a very large boss fight for the Protagonist to defeat. Once defeated, Yosuke accepted his Shadow as a part of him, and he gained a Persona as a result, allowing him to attack and defend in the TV world. A similar process occurred with Chie, Yukiko, and all other party members (including Kanji).

So basically, after rescuing Yukiko from the TV world and receiving her Persona, Kanji appeared on the Midnight Channel due to him being on the news and subsequently being on the minds of many in Inaba. Due to this, Naoto Shirogane, a young detective who has seemed to figure this Midnight Channel thing out, questions Kanji about his activities, trying to prevent his kidnapping. Kanji feels a strange attraction toward Naoto, as described before. However, the Protagonist’s Investigation Team has also figured out the connection between the Midnight Channel and the kidnappings, so they follow Kanji around, causing him to become suspicious and defensive. He immediately assumes that anything Yosuke or Chie says is implying that Kanji is not heterosexual, so he chases them down, trying to prove that he’s totally straight and butch.

Eventually, Kanji does get kidnapped and thrown in the TV world, and the Investigation Team goes to save him from being killed. However, they find his Shadow in the TV world in a bathhouse, with the Shadow being an extremely stereotypically gay version of Kanji, talking about how much he loves men. He also talks with a “gay lisp.” When the Investigation Team reaches the real Kanji, Kanji of course denies the Shadow as being a part of him, still insisting on his heterosexuality and “manliness,” causing the Shadow to morph into an extremely difficult boss (as described before). When the boss is defeated, Kanji finally accepts his Shadow, and while he does not admit to whether or not he’s gay, he does admit that it’s a fear he has, due to the amount of teasing he endured for his hobbies. As a result, he gains the Persona Take-Mikazuchi, a tall and buff figure who specializes in physical combat.

Kanji then joins the Protagonist, Yosuke, Chie, Yukiko, and Teddie to investigate the murders and kidnappings, contributing to future battles with his fighting skills and Persona. Along the way Rise Kujikawa and Naoto Shirogane join their team, and Kanji begins to develop his relationship with the Protagonist and the rest of the team to uncover his suppressed issues.

Kanji begins to come out of his shell a little bit when it comes to his love of crafting, but is still very weary to admit anything about it to anyone else. He also still gets extremely defensive about his sexual orientation, particularly to Yosuke, who seems to hound him the most about it.

The Investigation Team finally discovers a lead with the man Taro Namatame, who is actually the one throwing people inside the TV. While they initially assume Namatame is the murderer, they discover that he unknowingly thought the TV world was a safe haven, so he wanted to protect the victims from the murderer. Since the first two murder victims had appeared on the Midnight Channel, Namatame made the connection and sought out anyone who appeared on the Midnight Channel, throwing them into the TV thinking it was protecting them.

The Investigation Team believes Namatame and they discover that the real killer is Tohru Adachi, Dojima’s bumbling sidekick detective who seemed to only be in the game for some comic relief. They chase him into the TV world, discovering that he wields a Persona very similar to the one the Protagonist wields. After defeating him in battle, though, they discover that that wasn’t the end. They are confronted by a giant eyeball thing named Ameno-Sagiri.

Ameno-Sagiri is the deity of the fog, granter of mankind’s wishes. However, Ameno-Sagiri assumes that the way to grant mankind’s ultimate wish of ending their suffering is to envelop the world in fog so that all mankind is devoured by Shadows. Obviously, the Investigation Team does not want the world to be destroyed by the fog, so they fight Ameno-Sagiri, and he ultimately decides to withdraw the encroaching fog from the real world.

Finally, all is over, or so it seems. Ameno-Sagiri was defeated in mid-December 2011, so the members of the Investigation team shortly resume their normal lives afterward. Kanji continues being friends with the Investigation Team, but due to his delinquency in school and constantly missing class, he is expelled.

Kanji is in shock over this fact, as being expelled is a huge slap in the face, and now he won’t be able to attend school with his friends. So, he sadly says goodbye to everyone and heads off to a new boarding school: Smash Academy.

Anything Else?: Okay I am… not sure how the Persona thing is going to work. The characters never summoned their personae outside of the Midnight Channel, but since this is a game with fighting, I don’t know how this will work. I’m thinking that for now, Kanji will be able to summon his Persona in the stadium (but he won’t know that he can yet), unless a plot device comes up that enables him to summon it elsewhere.

Also, I’m going to have Kanji take a brief hiatus sometime in April, when the date of the true ending occurs, so that he can go see the Protagonist off and defeat Izanami, obtaining the true ending. I will canon update at that time.

In-Character 1st person sample: Yo, what’s up? The name’s Kanji Tatsumi, and I’m a new transfer here. Yeah, you’d better get used to it. I failed out of my last school but I ain’t failing out of this one, y’hear?

And what the flying shit is up with that Space amusement park I keep hearing 'bout? God, the asshole opens it up for like two days and now it's closed down? Christ, maybe I should have failed out of Yasogami sooner so I could've gone into outer frickin' space.

There'd better be some fun shit to do here in this place. It can't be worse than Inaba, though. That town was so god damned small there was nothing to do except sit and rot.

[Private to Students] So uh... anyone know of a good place an "underage" guy like me can get a decent drink?

In-Character 3rd person sample: It was so stupid that Kanji had failed out of Yasogami High. All because he was devoting all that time to finding the murderer. Well, how come Senpai didn’t fail out? Or Yosuke or anyone else? No, Kanji knew he skipped a lot of school, even before the whole murder fiasco happened. He had a tough guy image to maintain, you know? School was so dumb anyway. They shove useless information down your throat and give you the boot if you can’t be bothered to remember that shit.

But now… now he was gone from Inaba. What if the murders happened again? What if Ameno-Sagiri decided to send in the fog again? Yeah, Senpai and the others could probably handle it themselves, but Kanji felt like they needed him.

No, he needed them. That was the sad truth. Senpai was one of the best friends Kanji had ever had. He was patient, understanding, and held no judgment for Kanji. Hell, he could be the gayest mo-fo ever and Senpai wouldn’t care. Not that Kanji was gay or anything, oh hell no. But still, he knew that Senpai would be by his side if he needed it. But he had barely confided much in him anyway, beyond what that stupid Shadow had revealed. But it wasn’t as if he’d see much of Senpai anyway. He was probably going back to the city after the school year ended, and Kanji was stuck here in some stupid other school.

Edits since this application was written: Kanji has since obtained the true ending of Persona 4 and maxed his social link with the Protagonist (Yu Narukami). As a result he is much less insecure about his interests and abilities, though he stlll suffers from insecurity from time to time. But he is more willing to be open about things like his sewing ability.