Taro Namatame

Taro Namatame is a character in Persona 4.

Profile

Taro Namatame is the former secretary to the Inaba City Council. Some time within the previous year, he married Enka singer Misuzu Hiiragi but began cheating on her with a news reporter from Inaba, Mayumi Yamano. Six months prior to the events of Persona 4, Namatame started working in a larger unnamed city that Ryotaro Dojima referred to as the central place of government.^[1]^[a] At the time of Mayumi's mysterious disappearance and death, he was away from Inaba working in a councilman's office and was thus quickly dropped as a suspect in the investigation. Due to the scandal, he was fired from his job and returned to Inaba where his parents gave him a job working for the family business.

Shigenori Soejima originally designed Namatame to look like a crazy person, but after the story was more concrete, he instead designed him to look like an unfortunate person who is constantly troubled. He wanted to contrast Namatame, a simple-minded person who does not fully understand what is going on, with Adachi, who is actually quite sharp.^[2]

Game Appearances

Persona 4

On April 11th, news of Namatame's affair with Mayumi Yamano is airing on the news in both the city that the protagonist comes from and in Inaba. As the news reporters say, Namatame married Enka singer Misuzu Hiiragi within the previous year, but there is a rumor that he had an affair with TV reporter Mayumi Yamano. When the protagonist settles in the Dojima Residence, the local news that night also has a report about the affair. Mayumi turns up dead, but Namatame is ruled out as a suspect due to him being away from Inaba working in a legislator's office around the time she died. The protagonist can sometimes find Namatame in the Central Shopping District or the Samegawa Flood Plain, and he will mention how he got fired from his job and express his sadness over Mayumi's death.

November 2011

This section contains spoilers. (Skip Section)

On November 5th, Nanako Dojima gets kidnapped from her home. Naoto Shirogane recalls that Nanako does not open the door for strangers, meaning the kidnapper must be someone she knows or trusts. The Investigation Team determines that the suspect they are looking for is a delivery truck driver who drives around with a large TV in the back of his truck that he uses to put people into the TV World.

As the Investigation Team realizes the suspect uses a delivery truck, Namatame's presence throughout the game becomes known:

On May 16th, a delivery driver comes to Tatsumi Textiles
On June 23rd, Namatame's truck can be seen going down the street towards Marukyu Tofu while the Investigation Team chases after the photographer
On November 4th, a delivery driver comes to the Dojima house and asks Nanako where the neighbor's house is

Tohru Adachi thinks it's ridiculous that a bunch of teenagers could profile a suspect. But when he looks at the information about Mayumi's murder, he realizes that Namatame fits the bill, and he goes to tell Ryotaro Dojima, who has set off in search of Nanako. Dojima spots Namatame's truck, and the two get into a car crash in the Central Shopping District. When the Investigation Team checks Namatame's truck, they find a large screen TV in the back, Namatame's diary, but no Namatame or Nanako. They realize their hunch was correct and that he must have gone into the TV World with Nanako. Naoto reads Namatame's diary and finds Mayumi and Saki Konishi's addresses but not Kinshiro Morooka's. She also sees the latest diary entry is from earlier that day, and Namatame wrote about a child that he was able to put in the TV.^[b] Chie Satonaka assumes must be about Nanako.

The Investigation Team enters Heaven to save Nanako and apprehend Namatame. While the dungeon was born from Nanako's desire to see her mother, the set of steps on the last floor, representing the 13 steps on the gallows, was influenced by Namatame.^[3] On the top floor of Heaven, the team finds Namatame with his arm around Nanako's neck. Namatame recognizes many of the Investigation Team as those he "saved" and he tells them that he will save Nanako the same as he did the rest of them. When trying to figure out why he did the things he did, Namatame tells the group that on rainy nights, he saw them crying out to save them.

Namatame suddenly gets yellow eyes and starts glowing, calling himself a savior. Yukiko recognizes this as something similar to a Shadow, but unlike the other Shadows they saw, Namatame's is not separate from him. Yosuke Hanamura and Kanji Tatsumi rush Namatame, causing him to drop Nanako, and the protagonist rushes to catch her. Namatame lashes out, yelling at them to return Nanako. He then begins amassing Shadows to himself and merging with them,^[4]^[5] transforming into a being called Kunino-sagiri. Namatame collapses after the battle, and the Investigation Team brings him out of the TV World.

On November 21st, Namatame regains consciousness, and the Investigation Team sees news about him being the murderer in the newspapers. On their way to school, the group also sees Adachi, who tells the police have been reading Namatame's diary and think he might have been hitting on Saki.

End of spoilers.

December 2011

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On December 3rd, Nanako flatlines at the hospital. In his grief, Dojima heads towards Namatame's hospital room. Officers outside of the door stop him and take him back to his room. The Investigation Team hears a noise from Namatame's room and enters while there is no one standing guard outside. They find a scared Namatame and see that his window is open. Yosuke assumes he is trying to escape the hospital. The Midnight Channel then comes on the large TV in Namatame's room. On it, a Namatame talks to the Investigation Team. He says that while he failed to save Nanako, it doesn't matter because the law can't do anything to him, and he will continue saving more people in the future.

Naoto observes how large the TV in Namatame's room is and brings up how, since Namatame can go into the TV, he could technically escape the hospital at any time, yet if he does so, there is no guarantee he will be able to get out. Yosuke follows Naoto's lead and suggests they take this matter into their own hands before more innocent people die, as he does not want Saki and Nanako's murderer to walk free.

If the protagonist agrees with Yosuke, then time fastforwards to March, it is foggy in Inaba, and the news is talking about how Namatame's death has been ruled a suicide. If the protagonist stops Yosuke but cannot convince the group to pursue the case further, then Nanako will revive shortly after but be very weak. The game fastforwards to March, and it is still foggy out. As the protagonist prepares to leave Inaba, he hears a news story about Namatame confessing to kidnappings but not the murders.

If the protagonist can calm the Investigation Team down, stop Yosuke, and convince the group to continue seeking the truth, then Nanako will revive. The group tells Adachi they were just watching over Namatame while he was with Dojima, and leave Namatame's hospital room. As Namatame lies in his hospital bed that night, he mumbles about not being able to save Mayumi or Saki.

On December 4th, Naoto uses her detective status to get herself and the whole Investigation Team back into Namatame's hospital room to question him. At first, Namatame is unresponsive, but with some coaxing from the protagonist's questions and Naoto's deductions, the group is slowly able to get Namatame to tell his side of the story. Before their marriage, Namatame's wife, Misuzu, became a big name star, affecting their relationship. He felt useless as both a politician and a husband. Then he met Mayumi and found they had a lot to talk about since both of them were from Inaba. Shortly after, he began his affair with Mayumi, feeling she was the only person who could accept him as he was.

In April, when news of the scandal broke out, Namatame returned to Inaba. One night, he remembered the rumor about the Midnight Channel. He tried watching it and saw Mayumi. He then reached out his hand, trying to touch her, and discovered that he could stick his hand into his TV. The next day, he was fired from his job, learned that Mayumi was dead, and began working at the family delivery company. He started thinking what he saw on the TV the previous night was some message or cry for help from Mayumi. He saw another girl on the Midnight Channel and recognized her as Saki, the girl who discovered Mayumi's corpse and worked at the liquor store. He met with her in person and warned her, but she turned up dead as well.

He then saw Yukiko on the Midnight Channel. He tried to tell the police, but they did not take him seriously, and he began taking matters into his own hands. He convinced himself that Mayumi had given him the power to stick his hand into the TV and Yukiko was smiling from inside. Thus, he could protect her by putting her into the TV. And since Yukiko turned up in Inaba perfectly fine, he assumed he had saved her and continued this for Kanji, Rise, and Naoto.

Through his chat with the Investigation Team, Namatame realizes he never saved anyone. He had been endangering them all along, and the group was actually rescuing people. Additionally, he had never been inside the TV himself until the incident with Nanako. And when he went inside the TV for the first time, he saw it as an ugly place and began to doubt that the TV was really safe. As he only saw those whom he "saved" go back to living normal lives, he had no idea that once inside, a victim was unable to escape on their own.^[c] A couple of police officers return to Namatame's room and talk about preparing him to be transferred, and Namatame asks the Investigation Team to find out who really did this.

On December 5th, Namatame gets transferred from the hospital, and the Investigation Team figures out that Adachi is the real culprit who is responsible for Mayumi and Saki's deaths. When they find Adachi in the TV World on December 7th, he mentions that he happened to take the call back when Namatame called the police. In a flashback, Namatame has seemingly mentioned the TV World and the Midnight Channel, and Adachi told Namatame that there was no way that the police would buy that story. He then suggests that Namatame put the girl he sees on the TV somewhere safe.

When the group confronts Adachi in Magatsu Inaba, they also encounter Ameno-sagiri, who clarifies things regarding their understanding of the Midnight Channel to them. Hearing that the Midnight Channel reflects what people want to see, Naoto and Rise realize that is why it showed them people who appeared in the media first and the Namatame who goaded them.^[8] After the group defeats both Adachi and Ame, they bring Adachi out of the TV, and Namatame is presumably no longer a suspect in the murder case, though he still has multiple counts of kidnapping against him.

End of spoilers.

March 2012

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On March 20th, before the protagonist leaves Inaba, he instinctively goes to Junes one last time. The rest of the Investigation Team shows up and discusses something still unresolved about the case: Why could the protagonist stick his hand in the TV to begin with? The protagonist reads a letter from Adachi where he wonders about the same thing. He recalls hearing a rumor about the Midnight Channel when he first came to Inaba, even before he heard it at the police station, and Adachi recalls that Namatame wrote something similar in his testimony.

The protagonist uncovers that the mastermind who gave him, Namatame, and Adachi the power to go into the TV was Izanami. She posed as the Moel Gas Station Attendant and greeted the three when they passed through the gas station,^[9] giving them all the power to enter the TV, hoping to stimulate Inaba. Though Namatame is from Inaba, when he returned due to the scandal, he had been working in the big city for half a year.^[1] When the Investigation Team regroups before confronting Izanami, Naoto and Yosuke assumes the clarity of the image on the Midnight Channel varied person to person, with Naoto hypothesizing that Namatame believing himself to be a savior allowed him to see clearer images before anyone else.^[10]

As the Investigation Team makes their way through Yomotsu Hirasaka, Izanami indirectly refers to Namatame as the one who could never awaken his power because he did not know the truth, explaining why the protagonist and Adachi were able to use Personas while Namatame did not have one.

End of spoilers.

Persona 4 Golden

During Rise's Junes concert on October 10th, a man in a teal uniform appears to be eavesdropping on the Investigation Team before they get on stage. Yosuke feels like someone is watching them.

This section contains spoilers. (Skip Section)

When the Investigation Team questions Namatame on December 4th, Namatame says it was him at Junes. He admits that he knew deep down inside that the TV World must be bad, or else he would not have felt compelled to check on the group at Junes.

If the protagonist completes Marie's Social Link and pursues Izanami, then on March 20th, Izanami retcons that Kunino-sagiri is an aspect of herself that she hid within Namatame.

In the new epilogue, during summer vacation of 2012, the protagonist leaves Inaba Station and sees Namatame giving a speech. He learns from a woman listening to the speech that Namatame is running for mayor. At first, people were not willing to listen to him, but now he is able to draw a small crowd. While the protagonist and his friends catch up at the Dojima house, Dojima mentions that Namatame was eventually released as the diary was not good enough to convict him with, and that no one, including Namatame, can reproduce the methods he used to abduct people, implying that Namatame can no longer use the TV. Namatame tried to apologize to Dojima, but Dojima told him to find a way to make up for it.

End of spoilers.