"...not be... I said... that time... must not be set free... I said it... so often..."
Akinari Kashihara is a character from the Persona 2 duology. He is the father of Jun Kurosu, and a prominent History teacher in Seven Sisters High School.
Appearances[]
Profile[]
Persona 2: Innocent Sin[]
Akinari teaches World History in Seven Sisters High School. His charming personality made him quite an idol among the students in Seven Sisters, including Junko Kurosu, a beautiful girl who is the very-first Miss Sevens, and Maya Okamura, the Japanese History teacher who admired him as a genius.
Akinari was troubled over the idea that the current world history is actually incorrect. He met with Tatsuya Sudou, a fellow disciple who had been rambling about voices in his head. The voices were supposedly a prophecy from Maian aliens known as the Oracle of Maia that if fulfilled, would transform humanity into transcendent, godlike beings who understand the true meaning of life through mass extinction. Akinari was convinced that Sudou was channeling the voices of Maians, and with the cooperation of Okamura and Sudou, they worked on writing the In Lak'ech. In actuality, the voices Sudou heard were not prophecies from Maians, but nonsense purposefully spread by Nyarlathotep to see humanity destroy itself. They teamed up to keep the prophecies secret, under the fear of them becoming true.
He married Junko after the latter's graduation. Junko was a famed celebrity, but she did not forget her love, and pursued Akinari. Together they had a son who they named Jun. However, the marriage did not prove to be a blissful one as Junko began to miss her life as a celebrity. Akinari and Junko fought constantly. When his home life got worse and worse, Jun began to hate both his mother and father. Jun's regard for him is so low, that he does not recognize him as his father but rather his "uncle."
Junko began spreading vicious rumors about him, weakening his hold on reality and partly aiding in his death; he died by falling in the Seven Sisters clock tower and being crushed by the gears. Nyarlathotep then impersonated him to deceive his son Jun Kurosu into unknowingly serving him and bringing the Oracle of Maia to life, answering the boy's desire of having a parent that won't embarrass him. As Nyarlathotep as Kashihara acted far more confident and less conflicted than the real one, he was a desirable paternal substitute to Jun, but secretly considers him as another gullible human being he could freely toy with. He was able to easily drive Jun into madness and set his sick game into motion, as Jun eventually rechristens himself as Joker and sets the Oracle of Maia into motion.
After his death, rumors began to spread that his ghost haunted the clock tower, causing his spirit to appear to Tatsuya Suou's party when they visit the clock tower. The ghost Kashihara begged the party to stop the gears of the clock tower from moving once more.
His spirit, along with his wife's, was summoned by Nyarlathotep during the party's initial confrontation with him to torture Jun with the realization he had a hand in destroying his own family. Kashihara apologizes to Jun, and states that while he had written the In Lak'ech to have the younger generation become ideal humans without suffering, he was a fool for believing that the people's hearts could create anything by relying on someone else's dream to find their own. Upon Nyarlathotep's victory and Philemon making a counter-move against him by creating a new timeline, he was revived and placed there with no memory of the events of the old one.
Persona 2: Eternal Punishment[]
"World History teacher for seniors. Though strange, he is a kind teacher."
He returns in the second game, still happily married and oblivious to the events of the previous game. He states that he is a fan of Kismet's monthly occult magazine, "Moo", and says that while he used to write books like "UFO discovered Underneath City!", he's now taken to just enjoying them for fun.
Later in the game, he appears at Kismet Publishing, convinced that he's the editor-in-chief of Moo's office. If asked to by Maya Amano, he will tell her about the legend of the Ancestor Persona, how Kiyotada Sumaru rose to power with Wang Long and was slain by the samurai Tatsunoshin Suou, and that when he rebelled, the Ameno Torifune rose, along with an eerie castle being built.
Etymology[]
- The name Akinari means "bright" (明) (aki) and "become" (成) (nari).
- Akinari's surname Kashihara means "oak" (橿) (kashi) and "field, plain" (原) (hara).
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Nyarlathotep already began impersonating Kashihara shortly after the real one was dead and way before the Alaya Shrine arson incident took place and the former Masked Circle did witness him fetching his "son" back home. This indicates that he only began corrupting Jun after the Alaya Shrine arson took place (that he also presumably deliberately engineered by channeling Tatsuya Sudou with "voices").