Destructoid‘s Dale North recently reported on an “accidental slip” that a redditor picked up on regarding p-ch.jp. For a while now this site’s been suspected of being related to Persona. The image in question on Destructoid reveals that the website is for the release of Persona 5. So some are psyched up while others are suspicious as to what this site is for. However many are pointing out that the image is a fake. Since then the site has reverted back to the above image — or maybe it’s been like this the whole time since the image from reddit has been deemed fake. Regardless, let’s go ahead and analyze what this site is about anyway.

So right away we see on the lower left that this is something by Atlus and P-Studio, the team behind the Persona games. They were also responsible for Catherine. So we have a link to Persona game, but the team’s association with Catherine brings the conclusion to a halt. So let’s look behind the scenes. Probably one of the first things one should do when visiting a site with very little information is to check the page source. On the seventh line of the html log, we have this (bold for emphasis):

<meta name=”keywords” content=”ペルソナ,アトラス” />

Here it is again in screenshot form.

ペルソナ is the katakana spelling for Persona. The fact that it’s under keywords though makes us wonder if this is directly related to Persona or if it’s tangentially related due to the team working on this game, whatever it is. “何かが、起こる…” or “something will happen…” doesn’t give us much of a lead either, and probably refers to the November 24th date.

So we got that taken care of. So what’s with the cities at the bottom? All of the Persona games so far have taken place in one city with many smaller locations. Mikage-cho and the surrounding areas in Persona 1, Sumaru City in Persona 2 IS and EP. Iwatodai in Persona 3, and Inaba in Persona 4. All these areas are, more or less, fictional. Not only that, the locations in each city are pretty close to each other and not as far as the cities listed on the site. Speaking of which, the cities listed on the site are real. Tokyo is a common setting for the mainline Shin Megami Tensei series. All except Sendai can be visited in Devil Survivor 2. Speaking of which, the boxes and the cities vibrate when you click on them. I’ll be honest, I have no idea what this could mean. It could be earthquake related like Devil Survivor 2, but P-Studio has no connection with that game nor the first one. It could just be a site quirk Atlus added.

Going back to these cities, this could mean several things. One is that whatever is in this game, the problem must be huge. The other could be characters that come from each of these cities. Another could just be a simple timezone indicator, telling everyone in these cities to come to this site on the 24th.

And that’s it. Nothing much left to talk about. Whether the image is from reddit is fake or not, this site somehow in some way related to Persona. Is it a game? Is is by association? We’ll know this for sure on November 24th.