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Tohru Adachi « 足立 透 » ([personal profile] foggiestidea) wrote2011-12-03 11:33 pm

asgard app

OOC Information;
Name; Daemyn
Personal Journal; [livejournal.com profile] tosaga
Contact; email: daemyn@ymail.com,
AIM: ivollias,
plurk: boyisamonster
Other Characters; n/a


IC Information;
Character Name; Tohru Adachi
Canon; Persona 4 at Wiki | Adachi at SMT Wikia
Canon Point; Post the Ameno-sagiri boss fight as the Investigation Team brings him back out of the TV World into the real one.
Age; 27

House; Loki!
Power; Telepathy.

Personality; Adachi has some problems.

While at first (and second and third and even fourth) glance he's cheerful and jovial, often serving to add to the light-hearted comedic value of the first part of the game while it's still the Happiest Game About Murders You'll Ever Encounter. To put it simply, he's fun! Dojima's rookie partner who he bosses around mercilessly, Adachi takes it all with little more than a smile and a seemingly harmless offhand comment or two about how Dojima's always like this, even chews him out when he brings him useful news. It's clear that while he takes the abuse he's an enjoyable guy to be around, and he takes good care of his older partner when he can. The kind of guy you'd trust to make sure you get home safe and sound after ten too many drinks at the bar.

During this part of the game, he's the main source of information for the Protagonist and the Investigation Team on what the police are up to. It's through this tendency to speak too much regarding the case and then later getting scolded for it by his partner that he intends to throw your personal investigation off base and it's not unlikely at one initial point he did it to keep the spread of rumors the town has circulating even more wild than they would become naturally. Souji and Yosuke are just a couple of kids to him at that point, after all. And still at that point, he's nothing more than the young detective who's Souji's uncle's partner who's a little goofy.

A steadfast and hard worker, not to mention sharp and with a clever mind, Adachi first entered the police force for an interesting job and the legal rights to carry a gun. Being such a young detective is part of the reason his butt monkey status has been obtained, that and the air he holds around him is a good-natured and dippy one. He is comic relief for a good time, after all.

Of course, that status of comic relief doesn't last, and the game takes a darker turn. Suspicion is thrown upon Adachi and he's found out to be the killer of Mayumi Yamano and Saki Konishi, two women he describes to the Investigation Team as worthless bitches (and in Saki's case, dippy school girl). He gives the IT a motive rant, monologues for quite a long time in two separate instances. One, to explain how the murders went down complete with flashbacks and boasting, and two, to explain his larger scheme and his motivation behind that. The entire theme of the motive rant is ressentiment. This tendency to place all the blame upon the world has been one of Adachi's for a decent time, it seems, only that it never bit him in the ass quite as hard as it is when you force him to take responsibility for his actions.

His reasoning behind killing was simply because he could, it would be fun, all because he was bored with his life as a young police detective who wasn't treated as well as he might've liked. In his motive rant, he refers to the Investigation Team as brats, saying that when he was in high school all he was allowed to do was study his ass off, implying a strict upbringing based around the ideals of it paying off in the long run. And, well, when it didn't, when life failed to supply the hopes, dreams and expectations the high performing young Adachi had put on it, this moment is when the ressentiment begins to form inside him and grow into a nasty chip on his shoulder that isn't just against any one person, but the entire world.

But there are layers of truth to that statement, because there is a part of Adachi that believes shrouding the world in fog and turning people in shadows would be the best thing for everyone (but most of all himself), there's still the first monologue to go back to, the explaining of the deaths of two innocent women, one just a high school girl. First there's Mayumi Yamano, an announcer he had his eyes set on for what seems to be a decent amount of time (he "noticed her first"), though she has no prior knowledge of who he is or had even seen him before he volunteered to be a guard for her at the Amagi Inn during the scandal of her affair with the council secretary Taro Namatame. That was his excuse to be alone with her, when his real intention was to find out if the affair rumors were true. When she wanted to know why she should explain herself to a stranger after being questioned, he took that as confirmation and turned onto the offensive, calling her a "bitch". When she threatened to call for help, it was clear this triggered some sort of reaction out of him, since in return he told her to shut up and threatened to make her feel what it was like to fear for her life, that it would get her head on straight. His intention was initially rape, but he failed to on account of pushing her up against a television and her falling through it due to the power granted to him from the goddess Izanami when he first got into town.

He was overjoyed, excited. What a cool power he was granted! And so, he left the Amagi Inn, leaving Mayumi inside the TV only to be found on the next foggy day hanging upside down from a telephone tool antenna, dead. Which, for his part, he was shocked to find, as the first appearance he makes in the game is to throw up right after seeing her dead body. He had no idea what the TV World would do, or that he'd have to face seeing her corpse even if she died in there, so it was a shock.

A shock, yes; an exciting one.

His second victim was the girl who found Mayumi's body, Saki Konishi, a girl he hardly remembers the name of. What becomes apparent during the backstory about her is an unusual discrepancy from what you might expect from a jilted admirer. While he saw Taro Namatame, Mayumi's lover, speaking with Saki not too long after Mayumi's body had appeared, and assumed their meeting was not one of innocent intentions, he blames it all on Saki. Adachi holds no grudge against Namatame, in fact, he accused both Mayumi and Saki of gold digging due to Namatame's position as a council secretary. In short, Adachi really hates women, especially those he deems "worthless bitches", a category under which both Mayumi and then later Saki fall.

His final meeting with Saki happened at the police station. (Which a. for some strange reason either has no security cameras, perhaps due to being stationed in such a small town where crime is not such an issue or b. Adachi switched out the tapes; in either case it speaks to Adachi's observational skills or perhaps sheer dumb luck. Considering his luck score listed down in his abilities section, I'd assume the former. He is a detective, after all.) She came in under the guise of questioning, since she was the one to find Mayumi Yamano's body and they had no leads on who might've done it. The encounter went about as well as one might expect. Adachi tried to force himself on her, Saki slapped him, and he, deeming her another worthless bitch and saying he knew how to deal with girls like her, pushed her into the television in the corner of the room (which just so happened to be the corner Adachi pressured her into). This time he took a moment to taunt, sticking his head inside to the TV to tell her to beg and he might let her out, only to have laughed it off a moment later, saying he'd never enter that death trap. Again, let's take a moment to point out his ugly and serious case of the misogyny blues. Damn bitches never let you have their way with them nowadays!

When Adachi is finally cornered, he flees into the TV World. I'll stress the importance of the fact that he ran away. Adachi is a coward who runs away from his problems and hides, staving off the inevitable outcome as long as possible before being forced to face the truth. This is exactly what happens when the Investigation Team corners him and he loses his cool, calm collectedness (in the form of his dippy happy go lucky facade), which admittedly was something he was slipping with for a while by then. He doesn't give up, and instead he runs by throwing himself into a large screen television that was in Namatame's previous hospital room (long story; I'm sure if Namatame's ever apped you'll get to hear more of it).

What the Investigation Team learns soon after locating Adachi for the first time and he tells them the stories of what happened with Mayumi and Saki, he also lets them know that this world likes him. He doesn't have to fight shadows off like them, in fact, he accepts his shadow right away upon entry, though they never get to see how that scene goes down. Throughout the entire game, the Investigation Team has had to fight off the shadows of individuals that go berserk due to being denied, but Adachi never has to fight his shadow. He accepts it straight off (a deduction based on his line "Don't you remember what it was like when your Shadows came out? They must've been enjoying life far more than you!"), and through that gains insight into the nature of the TV World and shadows themselves. It gives him an advantage: control over the terrain of his dungeon, a phenomena unseen prior to then.

Adachi may be a coward, but he takes the "Be Yourself" motif better than any of the main characters, who have each denied an integral part of themselves (aside from the Protagonist, who is a special case). Though one could argue that avoiding the fight between himself and his shadow, one he was sure to lose in his state, was the cowardly thing to do in order to survive longer, but in truth it takes courage to face oneself no matter what form it comes in. It may, instead, go to show his intelligence, a point he has bragged on himself while drunk to a confused Nanako.

As I've eluded to before, the ultimate goal of his is revealed in the second monologue as a blanketing of the real world in fog and a fusing of the TV World and the real, resulting in turning everyone into shadows. At this point Adachi is so completely bored with his life and what reality has cracked up to be, he would eagerly trade it for a more exciting world where repression doesn't have to exist. He is disappointed in the metaphorical box he has been set within by reality. In fact, he's frustrated with its very presence.

Once the Investigation Team defeats both him and Ameno-sagiri, a highly powerful shadow entity that is the source of the fog leaking out into the human world that looks like a giant disco eyeball, Adachi accepts that as well, and promises to take on responsibility for his actions in terms of what it means in the real world. He assures he'll play by the rules of reality. So while immature and a coward, he also understands when he's defeated. His ego likely took a bruise after he lost to a bunch of kids, but it turned out for the better because it assured his compliance.

On a final note, while Adachi is a criminal, deemed worthless by Yosuke Hanamura himself, and yet, he is still in touch with his humanity enough to be touched when Dojima orders a stretcher to be brought out for him due to his assumption Adachi would need one. He cares for Dojima as his partner and later proves to help the IT out a little by writing the Protagonist a letter in the True Ending, which takes place a couple months from then. So while this may not have happened yet for the Adachi being brought to the game, there is still the heavy potential carried within him.

Samples;
Network Sample; Adachi's second post in EV.

Log Sample; And just like that, it was over. Ameno-sagiri was defeated, and Adachi's body was falling limply onto the round roared platform that hovered in a previously red and black, currently gray world. He knew where he was and what had happened. A host he had been for a powerful being and he had experienced it consciously. As his tongue had spoken the words, he was aware of its actions. He was simply not in control of it. It was an experience, spiritual and unlike he had known previously. His body had been ripped into by shadow after shadow to transform into Ameno-sagiri's true form, and as soon as the being was gone, evanesced into the air around them, he was returned to his usual state. Feet hit the ground, collapsing onto themselves as his entire body fell back onto the harsh pavement of the world his subconscious had created.

Satonaka was the first to speak, expressing doubts onto Adachi's true intentions, but no, Ameno-sagiri had not controlled him, not this entire time. Shirogane expressed that doubt as well, but even the great Detective Prince had no way of knowing. And so they approached. By that time, Adachi's eyes were open, one hand over his torso, his stomach, and the other splayed to the side against the pavement, and his body otherwise unmoved.

"So that's it, huh?" This was it. This group was brats had beaten him. They didn't say anything. They weren't going to. They didn't need to. Adachi could've sworn he heard Shirogane express a sound that implied thinking as well, but it was soft, and he was panting enough that he wasn't as alert as he'd otherwise might be, audibly. "Fine." He breathed, struggled, "Live however you want. If you think you have the power to change the future, go right ahead." The words came out bitter, harshly. He was defeated, his points moot in their eyes and it was likely they would keep on living their naive and idealistic ways. He had tried and failed, his perspective overwritten by theirs by a giant eyeball. What Adachi had to accept now, with their victory, was that he had no choice but to let them try to do whatever it was they wanted, and it left a bad taste in his mouth.

Everyone has the power to do that. Hanamura this time. The kid who'd been fawning over that high school girl.

"Heh…" Adachi had no difficulty overriding those words in his mind. They were a lie, after all. Look at what he'd done, trying to change it and failing. He was ready to die, now, had no reason to keep living. Those kids wouldn't want him to keep on living, anyway, not after what he'd done. He was fine with that. In fact, he expected nothing less. There was even a part of him that looked forward to death, to not having to deal with the boredom and panic and paranoia his every day life had become. He sighed, wincing and breathing heavily, letting himself look off to the side and avoid their eyes. It would be easier that way. "Get outta here… The shadows will finish me off… Just leave me be…" All he wanted at this point was solitude. It was that desire that he looked up once again, wincing at the kids there as if he couldn't stand the sight of them. "You came to kill me in the first place, didn't you?" And he knew the answer to that; the question was rhetorical.

It was with genuine surprise he got a 'no', and before he knew it Hanamura was lecturing him about the rules of the world, and if they'd let him die there a dead body would show up in the other world. Of course they cared about wrapping the case up neatly… All Adachi could say was "Right," and agree to what the kid was saying. Shirogane mentioned Dojima after that, and for a moment no one said anything. Adachi didn't want to think about what Dojima would want, not now that he knew he'd be forced to face him after all this.