About Persona 4

The Middle

When Tatsumi is rescued, the group comes to realize that all 4 of the kidnap victims - Yamano, Saki, Yukiko and Kanji - appeared on real-life TV before appearing on the Midnight Channel. Additionally, Yukiko and Kanji's first appearances on the channel were blurry and out of focus, though those appearances happened before they disappeared. After they disappeared, their appearances on the Midnight Channel became clear and in-focus and representative of their inner emotions. Therefore the group concludes that the victims will first appear on the real-world TV, then appear in a blurry form on the Midnight Channel, then they will be kidnapped, then have vivid appearances on the channel until they die on the next foggy day. Also, the Shadow forms of the victims are their true emotions, which gain their power from their host's inability to accept them (since each victim denied their Shadow form).

It a comes to the attention of the town that a local celebrity model, Rise Kujikawa, is coming to Inaba. However, the group becomes worried when they see an indistinct silhouette on the Midnight Channel that seems to resemble Rise. The group is unable to prevent her from disappearing, and after she is abducted, she begins to clearly appear on the Midnight Channel. When she is confronted in her dungeon, the Marukyu Striptease, she refuses to accept her shadow form; it engages the group in a battle, but eventually, it will simply use the move Supreme Insight to make it invincible.
The group is unable to do a thing about it, but Teddie steps in and uses his inner power to destroy the monster. This results in his body being completely and utterly flattened, almost killing him. Eventually, Teddie's inner emotions about himself manifest and create Shadow Teddie, which battles and loses to the group. Teddie gains his own Persona after its defeat, and so does Rise. Rise will take over Teddie's role as the analytical support, while Teddie will join the group as a playable character. Teddie also gains a human body in the real world. The group, for the second time now, encounters the slender teen from before, who has now taken an interest in Kanji, the next victim.

After Rise's rescue and recovery (and Teddie doing "training" in the TV World to repair his exhausted body and prepare him to be a playable combatant), the foul-mouthed and largely unpopular schoolteacher Kinshiro Morooka - despite never appearing on either the news or the Midnight Channel beforehand - was found dead in a manner similar to the first two victims. The group is shocked at how the killer's pattern has completely been abandoned. The strange slender teenager the group encountered before reveals himself to be Naoto Shirogane, a young, aspiring detective whom is assisting the P.D. in the case. He comments that the police have found a suspect who has confessed his guilt, though they have not yet revealed his identity - Naoto does say that he is a student from another high school.

As summer break starts, a clear and vivid image appears on the Midnight Channel showing a strange boy taunting the protagonist's to "come and get me". An investigation around town by the party to find the boy's identity reveals him to be the suspect being sought after by the police (and a student from another high school) named Mitsuo Kubo. When he is confronted in his Midnight Channel dungeon, Void Quest, his shadow form attacks the group and is defeated, and he is pulled out of the TV and handed over to the police as the true killer... But the group suspects that something isn't right with the theory that he is the killer due to the large incongruities in his profile (as well as how Morooka was simply beat to death with a blunt object). The group tries to piece together any evidence to confirm or disprove the theory that Kubo is the killer.

But it is confirmed that Kubo must be a copycat killer when Naoto, after first deliberately appearing on the real world TV himself in an attempt to bait the killer, appears on the Midnight Channel. When the group goes out to his dungeon, the Secret Laboratory, to save him, they find that in reality, Naoto is actually a girl who took on a male identity to avoid the sexism of the police department. After her dark self is defeated she also joins the group, whose excellent detective skills prove to be a highly valuable asset for the rest of the game. But on October 20th, the protagonist receives a letter addressed to him - the sender's name and address are nowhere to be found on the letter which literally only reads: "dont rescue anymore" with no capitalization or punctuation. The player's party members offer some theories but nothing definitive about the letter.

November 5th marks the start of the climax of the game, when another letter is addressed to the protagonist; it reads "if you dont stop this time someone close will be put in and killed" again lacking any capitalization, punctuation or grammar. Unfortunately, Dojima sees the letter and sends the protagonist to the police station, his suspicions about him being involved in the case (what with him and his friends being found at crime scenes) now affirmed true. Nanako is then reported kidnapped and is indeed seen on the Midnight Channel that night; the group, using Naoto's deductive reasoning, find that the culprit should be a small-time suspect in the first murder, Taro Namatame since he uses a delivery truck, something that can both hold a TV with access to the TV World and is not suspicious to ordinary people. No signs of force entry were found at the Dojima house as well, a clear indicant that this was someone who knew Nanako (like Namatame).