Anh-Thu Nguyen

While the success of JRPG PERSONA 5 (2016) may surely be attributed to its densely packed socio-political commentary on contemporary issues within Japan, it also portrays the struggles of high schoolers who are dealing with mental health. This begins with the protagonist who is falsely accused of a crime and bullied at his new school, leading to classmates who are mentally and sexually abused by their teacher, culminating into a suicide attempt by one of the victims. In addition to the story, the game eventually introduces the spatial exploration of mental illness. Although one half of the game is typically set in modern-day Tokyo, the other half takes place in what the game calls the ‘metaverse’ with conquerable ‘palaces’, a physical manifestation of mental corruption. The protagonist’s party usually target corrupt people in power and their palaces with the goal of changing their mental state. One exception in the series of targeted palaces is that of teenager Futaba Sakura, whose palace is not as much of a manifestation of corruption, but one created through self-destructive desires. The palace is a spatial representation of her mental state and as the party advances, her depression as well as suicidal thoughts are revealed. The palaces of the metaverse can be understood as ‘mindspaces’. Although the term has had a wide application in literature studies particularly within the science fiction and fantasy genre (Slusser and Rabkin 1989), mindspaces have become popularised in films such as INCEPTION (2010) or the television series SHERLOCK (2010-2017). However, they are understood as cognitive spatial constructs. Borrowing from film and television studies then, the focus will lie on cognitive spaces, or “Erinnerungsräume” (Beil 2010) in Persona 5. This project seeks to widen the scope of research for interactive spaces that includes mental and cognitive aspects of game design.

Panel 1 - Representation