Protecting Nanako Dojima - Persona 4 Analysis

Nanako is the most successful motivating factor in gaming no debate.

When I was Nanako’s age, my parents separated. My dad was an alcoholic who sunk the pain from the break up into booze. I remember being so confused. Wanting to help my father but not even understanding fully what was wrong. And just how lonely I was. To add on, I had a big brother around the age of Yu. Who let me hang out with his friends. I completely understand why and how you as the main character must been so much to Nanako, the ways that my big bro meant everything to me when I was young.

"That extended introduction weeded out the weak people" No, it weeded out those who don't appreciate Nanako. Good riddance.

Playing other P4 dungeons: careful strategizing to select the the correct day. Rescuing Nanako: DAY 1. ALL-OUT ATTACK. IF WE ARE NOT VICTORIOUS LET NO ONE COME BACK ALIVE!

I rarely tear up over video games but man Nanako's "death" scene always gets me.

In this house, we stan Nanako Dojima, absolutely zero exceptions

I'd argue that Nanako is a realistic child given her circumstances. She's basically left by herself to take care of herself practically 24/7. Therefore she wouldn't have time to do typical child things or act like a child. Plus it's a pretty common thing for especially mature kids like Nanako, for their maturity to be a result of the trauma they've gone through. It wouldn't make sense from a character perspective, to have Nanako be immature.

I think Nanako playing piano at the end of the game is meant to convey the fact that she used music as a coping mechanism. The lyrics of Heaven have lines such as “Music keeps on turning me from the words that haunt my soul,” and “Finding ways through the favorite tune played all day with my eyes closed.” This can not only be interpreted as a connection to her mother playing piano, but it could also be a reference to her love of the Junes jingle. The parts about her closing her eyes and ignoring the words are meant to show that she uses the music to deny the truth that her mother is gone. So, just as how music used to get her through her struggles, she now learns to play music to help lift up others, as in contrast to the lyrics, one can not play the music with their eyes closed.

I don't know why they chose the Piano specifically. But it seems to me that the reason they only reveal that Chisato was a piano teacher, her actual job and something fairly significant about her, in the time-skip scene is because it represents how Nanako and Dojima have moved past their grieving somewhat. Chisato is sort of a ghost in the house, and you don't learn a lot about her because Dojima and Nanako are both still grieving and don't want to think about how much they miss her. It's only when they come to terms with her death that she becomes more than a lost mother, and Nanako and Dojima especially are able to connect with her and talk about her as she was, without being bogged down in loss.

For anyone with younger siblings Nanako was designed to trigger those protective big bro/sis instincts.

It's probably unintentional, but Nanako sharing her English VA with Izanami kinda makes Yu going into Heaven (an afterlife) to save her into a psuedo redemption for Izanagi.

I wasn't aware that you could visit her in the hospital! That's interesting and something I should probably do sometime

[Something bad happens to Nanako] Yu and the collective Persona fanbase: THERE WILL BE BLOOD! SHED!

Broke into senseless babbling as soon as I saw the thumbnail, as someone who played the game while my own little sister was very little nanako took my whole heart and shattered it. Excited to see analysis of how devastatingly likable she is

On my first playthrough, I kind of just dicked around throughout the whole game, didn't take much seriously. When heaven became available, I snapped into grind mode. I finished the dungeon, underlevelled, in one day.

It's impossible to not like Nanako. She truly is an angel, that child.

I am in that 5.3% of "Big Bro is Worried" on Steam, lol. I originally expected to hate Nanako based off what I saw before playing P4G, but her impact through the whole game made the ending sequences hurt so much more. It genuinely felt like she was your little sister, very fitting.

Nanako is a powerful motivator and a strong reason why this game works so well. Just naturally integrated with both the main character and those close to him. When threatened, in danger, or just bringing joy, her actions matter. She's a good means of getting the player and character to resonate. I didn't even need tricky questions to get the initial bad ending when it came to Namatame. I was ready to throw that guy into the TV along with the others anyways. I like the epilogue for Golden since it does allow them to expand on her character some more. Get to see how Nanako and Dojima are moving forward. Trying to put it simply, Nanako's mother is a mystery for most of the game. We know she died, we know how she died, and we know the impact it had. But Nanako and Dojima give up few details while still actively grieving. So it makes sense in the epilogue to have a new detail emerge after they are feeling more comfortable. If you want to stretch it, there were hints. Nanako singing the Junes jingle just seemed like a normal thing a kid would do. But it could have been pointing at that musical interest she shared with her mother. Definitely a stretch, but maybe she and her mother sang now and then when she played the piano. Even if that had nothing to do with it, it makes sense that there were hobbies Nanako's mother had that neither she or Dojima were willing to talk about while missing her.

funfact: any social link event that should involve nanako has a somewhat more stilted version of the scene without her in case it is done during the time where nanako is in the hospital. obviously this does not apply to dojima, whose social link has a deadline for completion before that. It is interesting how the piano serves little importance to p4 as an in-world object until nanako brings it up at the very end, but at the same time has subconsciously been the heart of many songs and moments you had experienced up to that point. Regardless of in-universe explanation, tying an element of the game with such a description to a character like her feels like a perfect decision.

I love that small detail in the anime when Nanako felt her dad's presence when Yu summoned Kohryu during her rescue. This is after the Justice/Hiero Social Link episode and imo, it adds to Nanako's growth in empathy knowing her father is there protecting her, even though he wasn't physically in the TV world to rescue her. Even before that scene, Yu was being controlled to fight against his friends and snapped out of it from Nanako's silent plead to stop fighting. She was on the verge of dying and her thought was to stop her Big Bro from fighting his friends.