Persona 3 Club Book: World Guide Q&A [Translation] Part 1 (Pages 174-176)

OK, you are probably all wondering where the letters for yesterday and today have been. Well, seeing how I have recently realized that I am using a lot of information in these letters that the majority of English-speaking fans has no access to, I have decided to share with you one of my primary sources that I refer to for questions regarding the inner working of the current Persona Universe:

Enter the “Persona 3 Club” Book (ペルソナ倶楽部 - P3 - Persona3). This book was released in December 2006, just a few months after the initial release of Persona 3. It is often mistakenly referred to as an “Artbook”, but this couldn’t be further from the truth.

In reality, the first chapter of this book is a recap of Persona 1, Persona 2: Innocent Sin and Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, commented by Kazuma Kaneko. The majority of the following chapters contain character profiles of all of Persona 3’s characters and a collection of selected fanart and fanfic regarding the Main Characters, as well as the occasional Yonkoma.

However, what’s most interesting and relevant to me is the last chapter of the book. Pages 174 to 207 form the “World Guide Q&A”. This section, written by an Atlus Staff Member, reveals a lot of important backstory and supplementary information regarding the inner workings and rules of the current Persona Universe, especially regarding Nyx, Deities, Shadows, Plumes of Dusk, and much more. The Information given in this “World Guide” chapter is definitely canon. This is proven by the fact that, though this book was published in 2006, many of the concepts first mentioned in it have since implemented into the games. It indirectly explained Erebus before there was a P3FES, the Shadow Selves before there was a Persona 4, and a lot of information quickly dumped onto us in Ultimax actually originated from this book as well (and was also much better explained in it.) It can thus be assumed that Persona 5 is probably going to be using concepts from it as well.

Seeing how the “World Guide Q&A” is written in a dialog-style which fits quite well with the format of the letters on this blog, I’ve decided to translate it in the same way I’m writing letters for this blog, using sprites instead of names to indicate who is speaking. Aside from that, this is an absolutely authentic translation of the book’s contents, as far as my abilities allowed it, and I am paying great attention to not mistranslate anything that is said, so this translation will be usable as a reference for the Fandom

That said, enough with the introductions! Follow me under the cut to take a look at facts about the Persona Series that were never officially released for an English-Speaking audience! Have fun and enjoy! ♪

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Questions covered in this Part:

Q: Could you tell me what Nyx really is, bluntly and unpoetically?

Q: What exactly is this “Fall” that Nyx was going to bring?

Q: What are Shadows?

Q: What does it concretely mean “To be eaten by Shadows”?

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