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| “ | Why do you keep pushing forward? You will be happier with the illusion. Embrace the fog and immerse yourself in a world that matches your desires. | „ |
| ~ Izanami-no-Okami to Yu Narukami in Persona 4: The Animation. |
Izanami-no-Mikoto, or simply Izanami, is the overarching antagonist of the Persona 4 sub-series within the Persona series.
She is the creator god of Shinto and Japanesse mythology who is disturbingly intrigued by humanity's desire and is the creator of the Midnight Tunnel, which would make her responsible for the actions of Tohru Adachi and as well as his desire to merge the real world with the TV world and also the events of the entire game. Growing insane with their acheiving their desire to fufill their desire, she attempted to drown the entire world in fog, which would cause all of humanity to become Shadows, before splitting up into Marie upon her defeat.
While disguised as gas station attendant, Izanami was voiced by Daisuke Namikawa in the Japanese version of the game, Takahiro Mizushima in the Japanese version of Persona 4: The Animation, Karen Strassman in the English version of the game, and by Derek Stephen Prince in the English dub of Persona 4: The Animation. As Izanami, she was voiced by Romi Park in Japanese and by Karen Strassman in English.
Biography[]
Background[]
As every other deity in the universe of Persona, Izanami is a manifestation of a human unconscious desire. In this case Izanami represents the human wish for lies, and to refute the truth in favor of comfortable falsehoods.
Persona 4[]
In her pursuit of discovering humanity's true desire, Izanami went to mortal place, specifically Inaba, Japan, under the guise of the androgynous-looking male attendant working in the Moel Gas Station there. As the first step of her experiment, she awakened the Persona using abilities of random people she met with three of them standing out most: Tohru Adachi, representing Emptiness; Taro Namatame, representing Despair; and Yu Narukami, representing Hope. Then, she spread the rumor about Midnight Channel through which she should be able to understand humanity's wishes owing to its true nature as the world of human consciousness hence how it reflected the images of the viewers' desires. Lastly, to observe the progress of her experiment, Izanami created several facets of herself, the gods of fog Ameno-sagiri and Kunino-sagiri. Persona 4 Golden introduced one more facet of Izanami named Kusumi-no-Okami whose purpose being perpetuating the cycle of fog within Inaba; for most of the time, Kusumi-no-Okami assumed the form of a human girl named Marie who bereft of her memories until she kill herself by absorbing said fog.
Izanami was the true identity of the mysterious figure in Yu's dream goading the latter to see the truth.
As the year went on, it occured to Izanami that Adachi's actions (killing Mayumi and Saki, tricking Namatame to continue the killing spree on his behalf, and throwing Mitsuo Kubo into TV World) had the greatest effect on people. Unfortunately, this inspired the goddess to prepare to flood the world with fog and turn everyone into Shadows out of belief such drastic measure would grant them their greatest desire; to be free the sufferings they face in their daily lives. It was her unexpected discovery of mankind's "hidden potential" — the ability to confront one's Shadow to summon Personas — that had manifested in Yu's friends as well as their success in confirming Adachi to be the culprit behind serial killings in Inaba and pulling Namatame's strings all along which prevented her from commencing such insidious scheme. As Yu and co. even managed to vanquish Kunino-sagiri which appeared through swarms of Shadows forcibly merging with Namatame who had Nanako in his mercy and later Yu himself demanded his friends who angry at Namatame for nearly killed Nanako so they could calmly reassess what truly happened, Izanami decided to put the group into a trial by manifesting Ameno-sagiri via. the defeated Adachi and swarms of Shadows to fight them with, all while remaining hidden. After they defeated Ameno-sagiri, she spoke to them through the latter, congratulating the "children of the new potential" and understanding their desire to continue living, but warns that she will continue to observe and watch mankind
But Yu proved to be more tenacious that Izanami credited for. While having one last meeting with his friends at Junes Food Court, Yu confided to them about the letter Adachi sent to him earlier on; the former police detective had indeed come to terms with his defeat, though he couldn't ignore the feeling someone or something had facilitated the whole thing thus entrusted Yu in figuring it out. It finally dawned to the group that someone pulled Adachi and Namatame's strings without either of them knowing and therefore had bigger plans in mind. Based on that logic, Naoto believed Yu had better luck in getting a bottom of this, especially with implication of him, Adachi, and certainly Namatame attained their powers to enter TV World and summon Persona via. different method than facing one's Shadow Selves like Yu's friends did. The only one who had such power was of course, someone he met beside Nanako and Dojima, which the former confirmed to be the androgynous-looking Moel Gas Station attendant. Upon being confronted by Yu, the attendant, unfazed at first, finally unveiled his true identity as Izanami and chastised him for his determination of seeking the truth. Before disappearing, Izanami told him that she would await his defeat at the "other world".
The "other world" in question was a new part in TV World, Yomotsu Hirasaka, which different compared to ones before it; Rise noted it lacked the feeling of distress, let alone instability of whoever waited at the heart of it. Not only that, the new dungeon and foggy maze Yu visited in his dream during his first night in Inaba WERE one in the same which Izanami herself confirmed as she taunted them from behind the scenes as they pressed on. Izanami further revealed how he chose Yu, Namatame, and Adachi with the former surpassed the latter two while playing their role, and reaffirmed her flawed conclusion regarding what humanity truly wanted.
In Yu's final confrontation with Izanami, she faces the party with her goddess form, but it was eventually revealed to be a fabricated appearance when Yu uses the Orb of Sight, an item given by Igor to shine upon the truth. Having her facade taken away, Izanami reveals her true form as Izanami-no-Okami, a rotting, death-ridden being. Izanami-no-Okami later sends the Yu comrades to the underworld, and finally, Yu himself.
When Yu is about to give up, he hears the voices of his friends who encouraging him to fight. In anime, it's not just their voices that encouraging him, but also Margaret, Igor's current assistant whom snapped Yu from his breakdown as his said mental breakdown dangerously reduced his Izanagi into a powerful Shadow which represented his fear of losing his friends. Margaret's encouragement, as well as voices for his friends, enable him to regained his senses and acknowledged his fears, allowing his Shadow to revert to its Persona form Izanagi once more.
Now returned confront Izanami once more not long after his defeat, Yu confront the goddess again. Accumulating powers from bonds from people he met in his life (which in game referred as Social Links), Yu channels the powers to his initial Persona, Izanagi, transmogrifying Izanagi to his true form, Izanagi-no-Okami. Bemused by the Protagonist's powers, Izanami-no-Okami repeatedly attacks the Protagonist, but is surprised to see the Protagonist enduring all her attacks. Angrily asking how the will of so few could defy a divine will, the Protagonist ultimately summons Izanagi-no-Okami, ending Izanami with one powerful attack, known as "Myriad Truths".
Upon Izanami's defeat, Yu's friends whom banished to the underworld instantly teleported to his side with the weakened goddess exclaims that she will not interfere with humanity anymore. She encourages them to live and face their own decisions, but cannot guarantee their happiness, and fades away.
All in all, despite Izanami's antagonistic approach in her schemes considering one of her pawns, Adachi, has indirectly swayed her towards a darker path, she truly wishes for humanity's happiness, as evident that she later congratulates the Investigation Team for discovering the truth, as well as defeating her.
Powers and Abilities[]
Being a goddess, she had a nigh-omnipotent powers that made her a formidable adversary that Protagonist aka. Yuu Narukami ever faced.
- Power Bestowal: Like Philemon, Izanami can bestowed anyone the ability to summon Persona. Unlike Philemon however, Personas that she awakened were limited to Izanagi form. Even so, how their respective Izanagi Personas looked like still depend on their psyche and conscience: Yu's Izanagi looked pure and dignified that mirrors his good heart, whereas Adachi's Izanagi looked feral, bloody, and malevolent.
- Immortality: Izanami is immortal in spite of suffer mortal demise once, and is returned as undead being.
- Invulnerability: Izanami is technically invulnerable due to died once, though she eventually defeated when Yu uses Myriad Truths against her.
- Thousands Curses: She can banished her victim to underworld with Thousand Curses ability at will.
Trivia[]
- Interestingly, both Japanese and English voice actresses of Izanami's true form voices another supporting character in Persona 4. Her Japanese voice actress, Romi Park, also voiced Naoto Shirogane. Her English voice actress, Karen Strassman (who also dubbed Izanami's gas attendant disguise in the game), also dubbed Nanako Dojima.
- Also, counting The Animation, this is the second time Derek Stephen Prince voiced a character from the Persona series, his first role was Takaya Sakaki in the English version of Persona 3.
- Izanami is similar to Yaldabaoth, the primary antagonist of Persona 5. They're both entities beyond humanity and appears in the story at first, manipulating the protagonist and their future villains into their own games. After the protagonists defeated the human Big Bads (Adachi and Masayoshi Shido, respectively) in the story, they both revealed themselves and their true intensions.
- However, Izanami is interested on human nature and that interest makes her intrigued on Yu, meaning she has no disrespect towards humanity, and she was happy to accept her defeat and respects humans. Yaldabaoth, on the other hand, scorns humans and attempts to use the Phantom Thieves as his puppets so that he can either rule humans with an iron fist or destroy the world and create it anew, and Yaldabaoth fails to acknowledge humanity's true power prior to his defeat.
- There are some foreshadowing of Izanami being the actual threat Yu Narukami and co. deal with all along in addition of the one who gave him the ability to summon his Persona.
- Yu became dizzy after he and Izanami's human disguise, the unnamed Moel Gas Station Attendant, shook hands. This didn't go unnoticed by Nanako, which didn't help by her remarking the latter as weird.
- On related note, during their conversation prior to this, the unnamed Moel Gas Station Attendant claimed the gas station she worked at was looking for part-time help. However, a student in the shopping district claimed the same gas station had no openings, contradicting such offer and indicating an oversight in Izanami's part.
- When Yu is facing a mysterious figure obscured by the fog at the end of a strange labyrinth, a closer look reveals their silhouette suspiciously resembled humanoid half of Izanami's false goddess form.
- The lecture Yu and co. during his school's trip to Tatsumi Port Island by Mr. Edogawa which tells about Izanagi and Izanami's past and end of marriage, particularly due to the former being horror-struck by the latter's decayed state. This hints what Izanami's true state of being she concealed when she eventually faces off against Yu and co.
- Yu became dizzy after he and Izanami's human disguise, the unnamed Moel Gas Station Attendant, shook hands. This didn't go unnoticed by Nanako, which didn't help by her remarking the latter as weird.
External Links[]
- Izanami on the Megami Tensei Wiki.
- Izanami on the Magnificent Baddie Wiki.
[]
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