| This article is about the false name used by the main antagonist of Q2. For the entity's true identity, see Enlil. |
"Oh, ah...I apologize for being so forward. It's truly fabulous that the doors are open - However, I've grown concerned. Hikari-san, when you return to reality, you may end up facing the same hardships as before..."
Nagi is a major character in Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth.
Appearances[]
- Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth: Major Character
Design[]
Nagi resembles an elegant and middle-aged woman with black, long hair and wears a white suit whose sleeves are long enough to cover her hands. She has a white lily decoration on her head and a ribbon with blue and white stripes on her neck. She also wears a black lipstick.
When she drops off her guise, her hair and lips become red and she has white beads on her hair. She wields a rapier in combat.
Personality[]
At first glance, Nagi appears as kind and caring, especially towards Hikari. Hikari views her as a comforting figure and the only person that she could vent her hardships to, and thus always stands by her. She seems to be able to sympathize with Hikari's hardships and appears to be saddened when she hears of her desires to discard her self. She also seems to be very polite, as she uses the most formal first personal pronoun, "watakushi" to refer to herself. She would congratulate the party when they clear a labyrinth and seemingly lets them do whatever they want to do to escape the cinema claiming that she didn't have a choice, which in fact, holds true even if she drops off her guise, as she technically allows her clients to leave whatever time they want to and it was their cognition that prevented them from considering leaving.
However, when she drops off her guise and reveals herself as Enlil, she reveals herself to be an administrator of the collective unconsciousness with a delusional and patronizing view towards humanity, believing that they are weak willed and the only way to give salvation to the weak is to trap them inside her cinema domain, putting an end to their thoughts and isolating them from the hardships and suffering of reality in the place of sacrificing their freedom and increasing their depression further. As a result, her views of "salvation" and patronizing of humanity turns out to be amoral and comes with a severe disregard for the actual benefits of others. She is also implied to be a poor script writer in her choice of movies, as it is hinted that the movie Labyrinths seen in game are initially nothing but meaningless films with nearly identical scripts that fuels negative impulses further until Doe appeared to turn them into meaningful forms.
While her desire to help Hikari and other people whom she is supposed to protect from external harm seems to be genuine, it is extremely conditional and self-centered; Nagi wishes Hikari to stay in the cinema to soothe her own loneliness and to feel like a good person, and does not accept criticism or advice from people she regards as her social inferiors, feeling betrayed when Hikari tells her to find a different way of helping people than isolating them in her world.
Profile[]
Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth[]
Nagi is the curator of the Cinema that acts as the hub of the game. She protects Hikari from external harm by keeping her inside the Cinema, and Hikari initially believes that she is the only person she could trust due to her seemingly kind and caring nature, and stands on her side for most of the early game.
She first appeared in front of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts alongside Hikari when they escape a city inside the movie world into a cinema with the price of Makoto Niijima and Haru Okumura missing. Despite the Phantom Thieves first mistake the women as enemies and are put on guard, they quickly expressed a lack of hostility and befriended the Thieves. According to her, she was the manager of the cinema and she and Hikari were suddenly trapped there as all other visitors suddenly vanished and strange locks had been put on the Cinema's exit. She became Hikari's caretaker because she was the last visitor remaining in the cinema and it is the manager's responsibility to protect her.
The Phantom Thieves ask her about the whereabouts of their lost comrades, in which Hikari whispers to her that they were inside a movie, which is revealed to be Kamoshidaman. The party instantly recognizes Kamoshidaman as Suguru Kamoshida and Ryuji and Ann began to express disgust on why the lustful bully of Shujin Academy is considered a hero, but she doesn't know who Kamoshida is. When they begin to think that the Cinema and Doe are related to Kamoshida, she explains to them that Kamoshidaman is not Kamoshida and is just another entity taking his form and the movie was also initially not called "Kamoshidaman" nor is its titular superhero until the Phantom Thieves arrived.
She also claims that the cinema began to act oddly when Doe appeared and he is a projectionist who would just broadcast the same movie over and over. When she overhears the name of the party being the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, she gets curious as she and Hikari had not heard about them despite their notoriety in the real world, even stating that the two women had isolated themselves from the television and the internet for an amount of time. Nagi would run the snacks booth acting as the in-game store briefly afterwards. When Theodore asked her about the whereabouts of his guest, both women also do not recognize that person.
When the residents of the Velvet Room are unlocked, Nagi lets them take over the facilities in the cinema, such as passing the store to Theodore. For the rest of the game, Nagi would only watch the party's progress in the movie alongside Hikari. Hikari treats her as a comforting figure and speaks her hardships to her including her wish to commit personality suicide, with which she appears to sympathize.
After clearing the manifestation of Hikari's self-destructive desires, Hikari expresses to Nagi the will to escape the cinema. While upset that Hikari is leaving, she states that she does not have a choice and lets her and the party do so.
However, at this time the outside world of the cinema reveals itself to be a twisted landscape, and Nagi's hair turns red. She drops off her guise and reveals herself to be Enlil, one of the administrators of the collective unconsciousness. She reveals that the cinema and the game's setting, the Theater District, is actually her domain and reveals her twisted view of humanity, saying that weak willed humans such as Hikari should accept her "Salvation."
Her plan is to draw people into cinemas and have them watch negative movies in order to help them cope with the hardships of reality and end their suffering. The price, however, is their free will and any positive thought. She also reveals that multiple people have taken refuge in other cinemas within her domain, and Hikari is only one of them. Technically, she lets anyone she's trapped leave of their own volition—but just like Hikari before the Persona users' arrival, they succumbed to apathy and were deprived of any desire to go on with their lives, effectively preventing themselves from escaping.
Despite her claims that the party and Hikari are strong enough to leave the Cinema on their own, they do not approve of her misguided and delusional salvation plan and decide to confront her in order to free the other trapped people. Enlil then flees to the deepest floor of her domain, waiting for the final confrontation to commence.
Etymology[]
"Nagi" (凪, Nagi)? refers to a still wind or a calm before the storm. This foreshadows Nagi's true nature.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Nagi's status mirrors Zen, as they were gods appearing as caretakers of a major character original to the Q series.
- However, their roles are exact opposites; While Zen is an ally of the party and helped his client Rei face the truth of her death, Nagi appears as an enemy of them and indirectly manipulated her client Hikari into being isolated from the truth and submerging in her depression and apathy.
- Nagi shares striking similarities with Boss from Catherine, as both are Mesopotamian deities disguising themselves as elegant, charming folk in white, curate the in-game hub, harbor good intentions but execute them poorly, ensnares people in nightmares or nightmare-like complexes and don't do much unless they are revealed as the main antagonist.
- Her status as the final boss of the game is foreshadowed in the opening "Road Less Taken," where she can be seen when the "hiding in plain sight" verse is sung.
- According to an interview with Daisuke Kanda and Yuta Aihara by Dengeki Magazine, Nagi was very difficult to design just like the other original Persona Q2 characters, as they feared that she would not stand out.