The Sad Story of Saori Hasegawa (Persona 3 Portable) 

The fact that FeMC receives and reads her letter - where she tells just how much meaningful her friendship to her was, and how it changed her current way of living, while also revealing her deep regret and sorrow of losing a loved one due to past action/inaction - on MARCH 5TH of all days... (Graduation Day, if you played you know why it's relevant) I mean, I know it's "standard procedure" for maxed Social Links to do that on that day but... Damn. :V Poor girl's pain train got NO brakes at all...

If social isolation is a bullying tactic then that puts a whole new perspective on most my time in school. That whole bit hit real close to home for me

The theory you made actually makes a lot of sense and that's really fucked up. It makes Saori a much more painful and tragic character that really has no way to really completely fix what has happened in her life, yet nevertheless she tries to move on forward, living and not letting others control how she should live while growing a spine of her own. But yeah the implications of her dating her uncle as a highschooler and making her uncle kill himself due to guilt is...a lot. And it also explains some of the stranger things in her social link like her parents attitude towards her. Honestly she deserved more spotlight when people talked about Persona 3 since she's certainly a highlight in terms of the writing of the game

Saori is one of my favorite non-party member links. I feel like you can really tell her link was written later than persona 3's original links, as the depth and nuance of her as a person really shows off the team's experience creating these one-on-one storylines.

"You're going down right now!" was my favorite choice when she got slapped. FeMC unhinged.

I shed tears when I was doing her social link. Poor girl, she deserves more 😔

>local Japanese girl who thought that she couldn't have less luck loses last bit of luck she didn't know she even still had

that's the one thing I love about choosing to play as a girl in japanese games. This is exactly the sort of story that wouldn't have worked in the male route since Saori would've just "gone with what's expected" and tried to date the MC as a way to repay him for "being nice to her" which would kind of undermine the whole message. The story works because it's a commentary on the dangers of overly passive behavior and the need for even the nicest of people to stand up for themselves. Saori didn't need to be saved or miraculously have all her problems solved. She just needed a single person to point out how messed up her life was and that she had the right to be pissed and expect better. That sense of growth feels a lot more satisfying than just getting a scene of the bullies apologizing and her staying the same which is basically what Fuuka got.

Saori needs a hug shes one of my favorite soical links from persona 3

Finally some Saori recognition

Oh yea. I literally forgot about this girl until you mentioned the bullying. Yeah, that was uncomfortable and it sucks that things never really get much better for her until she has to move. Poor girl.

Saori my beloved

Saori is my favorite female link as FeMC in P3P. She is that gentle, mature but lonely girl, even her smile which many find creepy looks sad to me. And her ending was heart-wrenching, you want to help her but what can a single schoolgirl do, yet your presence alone warms her heart and gives her strength. You feel she truly cherished your friendship and possibly something more if being gay wasn't such a taboo in persona.

"It's too grim" I mean, it IS persona THREE.

The feMC links were so good, I loved this video. It reminded me of how good they were. The writing might actually be a consequence of them going for a visual novel style, since writing was most of the game they had to make the new stuff really good.

My favorite quote from Saori in her social link is "My personal experiences aren't worth shit here." As she then proceeds to laugh uncontrollably she truly is best girl social link

Saori was probably my favorite part about the FeMC route tbh, happy to see you talk about her she’s a great character

I wonder if the whole "forcing the one she loved into a corner" was her getting pregnant? I could totally see these psycho parents either forcing an abortion on the kid and forcing her away, or forcing her away to have the baby and it being put up for adoption. Either way, could also see them forcing her to "repent" for her "sins". Even without all the inferred horribleness, poor girl. :(

I JUST REALISED SHE HAS THE SAME LAST NAME AS ZENKICHI

Saori is one of my favorite social links, and by far the best femc link Rio is a good character but her social link kinda sucks, every rank feels like the same thing

Hearing your thoughts I can't help but feel you are on to something. Also, I miss stuff like this from Persona social links. P3P was my first entry into the series and is still my favorite. And having a male and female mc you could choose was genius.

I personally think you're correct in your conclusion about Saori's uncle and her dead lover being the same person. I think the likely scenario is that he'd been grooming her since childhood, and that when his sexual abuse eventually got exposed, he killed himself. Rather than supporting Saori after such a horrifying revelation, her parents victim-blamed her and made her feel responsible for his death, hence why she thinks she pushed her uncle into a corner. It would explain why they seem to have such animosity for her. It's definitely an incredibly grim backstory for her to have, but the Persona series has covered the subject of grooming before, so I don't think the implication is entirely unintentional.

Theres also some implications towards a romantic interest in the player. If only atlus had the balls to go all out and let us romance npcs of the same sex. But for now, it seems the closest we'll ever get is implications and Aigis.

Love that this has become a named series. Love Saori

Dang that was super interesting, and totally makes sense why she wouldn't want to want anything or have opinions or desires of her own considering what they led to in her past...

IVE NEVER DONE THIS ONE BECAUSE I DIDNT PLAY P3P HOLY SHIT THIS WAS AMAZING

Saori is my second favorite ship for FemC, I really wished you could have romanced her.

This social link is so good, thanks for making a video and reminding me of all the details of it. P3P is still my favorite Persona game by a lot.

Damn. Just hearing about this girl is very concerning, because aside from the dating her uncle thing, it seems all too real, at least to me

There is a weird amount of subtext in this social link, almost like they had to leave some of it intentionally blank. So much so that, even though the pieces all seem to fit together, you really can't put something together definitively. There's a significant chance that the writers simply couldn't write this social link the way they wanted. Maybe it was meant to be more fleshed out?

it's been 4 years since i played portable and seen this social link. there are a lot of details i missed that you mentioned in this video, but even back then i thought highly of her social link. i really don't remember the female route links too well. i'll have to rewatch them.

I haven't played P3P but man this social link sounds amazing. And one I relate to quite a bit, her innocence, isolation, being blamed for things I didn't actually do. Saori is a great character, and I'd to see Fither analyze Futaba another character whom I relate to strongly

Aka the most underrated girl in the series.

This Social Link is one of the main reasons why I personally can never return back to playing as a male protagonist after experiencing Persona 3 Portable's female route a couple of years ago, even if P3 FES looks better and is, ugh, "canon". People give FeMC a lot of crap - and some of it is totally deserved - but I felt like her interactions with other characters and the relationships she built over the course of the story were a lot more real and genuine than whatever the male MC had. The original, despite having a lot of good writing, was intentionally trope-y, full of things that the target audience of that game - lonely, sad teenage boys with no friends or luck with girls - would most likely be into, but FeMC's route is not like that at all. Yukari went from a somewhat stuck up and arrogant cunt (who is still best girl even in the OG Persona 3, by the way) to a genuinely good friend, a bit bratty sometimes, but overall always meaning well. Junpei somehow managed to become even more of a bro, having both a more justifiable reason for being butthurt in the very beginning (being overshadowed not only by a newcomer, but by a girl as well) and a much more interesting dynamic with you later in the story (treating you with care and respect, but purely as a friend, with no romantic feelings whatsoever). Now you talk to Mitsuru because you want to help her with her problems, and not because "please, step on me, my Queen". There are a lot of other Social Links that were either recontextualized or outright replaced to make the relationships seem much more sincere, and Saori Hasegawa is the most shining example of that. The best thing about this particular SL is that you don't really solve anything by the end of it, because, realistically, there is not a lot that you, as a teenager schoolgirl, can do about Saori's problems. They do not magically go away because of your intervention, like it very often happens in Persona. *You alone cannot solve everything*. No matter how hard you try, how hard you support her, in the end she still has to leave - that is simply how life works sometimes. Breakups are unavoidable. Parting with someone close to you is an integral part of human experience. But even if from now on you both will go your separate ways, it doesn't mean that the time you spent together was meaningless. So treasure it. Remember them, and remember the lessons your relationship has taught you.

The way you describe this link and Saori in general kinda reminds me of myself in a lot of ways. I was never the "mature one" in school, but I was basically the same way in terms of agreeableness. Like kids my age could've done anything to me and I wouldn't have put up much of a fight at all. Like, my elementary school years, I didn't have many friends because all the kids around me could tell that something was "off" about me. I often spent time alone and when I did find a friend, I would basically agree to do whatever they wanted, because looking back perhaps I knew even then, that if I didn't I would go back to wandering aimlessly around the playground. Weirdly enough, it didn't bother me as much then as I assumed it to be my "normal" and adapted accordingly. As a result I got really good at being at peace with being alone and at entertaining myself. While I did get picked on occasionally by other kids, I think a lot of them eventually realized that it wasn't a good look to pick on the special ed kid (the "Retarded one" note that the early 2000s were brutal for kids with autsim). Fast forward to high and I finally started to actually notice how I needed to actually stand up for myself even if only a token amount. However, I was still easily fooled and taken advantage of. In the 2010s, low rise jeans were considered fashionable and I followed the trend. However, lowrise jeans never fitted quite right on me Because of my bodytype. This caused my butt crack to show. I would try to keep pulling my pants up. Classmates complained and while I can't blame them what one of them did to me was unforgivable. They came up to me asking for my phone number under the guise of yearbook signing and wanting to keep in touch with me over the summer along with our other classmates. I of course being the dumbest and most guillible person in school agreed and when I got home, my parents were very upset because that classmate then proceeded to criticize me, insult me, and even asked my parents if I had even worn underwear with my jeans. Not only was I stupid enough to give this person my phone number, I gave them my home phone number. Oh and cherry ontop, I stayed at school late working on some project that I needed to catch up so my teacher kindly gave me a ride home. When i got home, my parents had just answered the phone and the teacher was there to witness all of that. Had I: A) stopped following the popular style of clothes and wore something actually more suitable to my body. B) not given that classmate my number and actually thought "huh, maybe this person who think is kinda cool might have an ulterior motive" And finally C) Actually stood up for myself Then that situation and a bunch of other situations could've been avoided. Like damn people really could've done anything to me and I wouldn't have done anything worth a damn. It's been a decade since highschool and I still have to figure out how not to be a doormat. So seeing Saori is quite upsetting because i was and kinda still am a lot like her. My romantic partner still occasionally has step in and tell me that how someone treated me was not ok. Im getting better I think but im so used to tolerating people treating me poorly that my sense of normal in social situations are still a bit warped for me.

Despite the whole "Shinji survives and undermines the most crucial part of Persona 3 story" I really enjoyed P3P as much as I did enjoy P3 and it was mostly because of the new SLinks. Any game that makes me spend 1 hour becoming friends with an dog is good in my book.

So much of what you said about Saori are things I've thought myself about her. This girl really NEEDS a hug.And this is like the 2nd (or in my game, 1st) time Ekuda has caused severe problems for a student which also makes you think HOW does he still have a job? Saori is one of my favorite link in 3 along with Shinjiro and the female line with Fuuka. (and Fuuka and Shinjiro are 2 of three favorite party members along with Aegis) And that Saori's family name is Hasegawa? I wonder if she's related to a certain OTHER Persona character. And the tragic thing is that Saori and the FemC will never meet again even though the impact they made on her life can't be denied.

This social link for me is easily one of my favourite social and the and especially for a series that is kinda made for the type of people who aren’t necessarily the most social and is pretty relatable to me

and the femc dead her only true best friend fuk pesona 3 really hits as fuk I cry to only 2 social links Sun and Hermit plus Aigis in the ending

Oh gosh, one of my favorite links in the female route. Despite the game's overall depressing atmosphere, the links really did sell it for me. What I took from her about her parents' treatment of her reflected more or less the other things that she experienced in the link. They treated her like a tool to better their own reputation and punish her if anything made them look bad, so she couldn't speak her mind. It's unfortunately common in Japan to hold bad reputation over someone/a group forever, to the point the victims have to keep moving to try and live a new life if the info keeps spreading. I do like your theory, but I think the link's more reflective of the saying "the nail that stands out gets hammered in".

One of the reasons why I play FeMC

The true hidden queen....

Akinari is less sad honestly Like he finds peace and is remembered as an author Given graduation day…Saori might not even have a good future

Hee Ho best persona 3 social Hee link Ho i want to protect her Ho she deserves the best Hee Ho

SAORI MY GOAT i remember delayin the last sl cause i didint wanted her to leave

Her social link always stuck out for me for someone not in the main cast as someone who is a late bloomer because for a long time I was just existing to please others. Never moving forward

>Sad social link >Persona 3 Color me unshocked

Who would've guessed Zenkichi'd have a sister like this

I wonder what the original Japanese P3P dialogue is for this link? There is often cultural undertones, mistranslations, or straightup censorships between regions.

she's literally one of my favorite characters ever

Low key one of the best if not the best social link portable brought in

I remember that when I first did this social link it hit super close to home (specifically the parents being awful and the intense bullying) and when I did this link I did it super fast (I think I did the first three and than forgot about her before I basically focused all my time on it until I finished it) but when I finished it I basically cried for the rest of the day and she’s still easily my favorite character in persona 3 (which is an extremely hard bar to clear)

Not to detract from the statements made here but this was a baller video, these social link/confidant videos come out really good

god i really need to replay p3p, it’s unironically so good

I tots love her! Thanks for reminding us of her graceful smiley-eyes.

The best part of portable were the new social links.

BEST HERMIT SOCIAL LINK EVER!! And the one that got me the most in the feels for reasons brought up all over this video. This is one of the reasons I tend to prefer 3P's female protagonist social links to that of 5R's.

i'm sorry but when you said "this is the social link's final secret attack" i burst out laughing. this video was so interesting and thought provoking and then you said that

6:43 this is why i love femc

I remember I had a weird feeling about saori, like she secretly was trying to seduce girl's boyfriends and was up to no good and just put up an innocent front in front of the main character, then I ended up feeling bad b/c it really did seem like she was genuinely innocent and everyone was against her for no good reason

WSAFGHRETYUHJIKL MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE S LINK IN THE FRANCHISE AND YOU MADE A WHOLE VIDEO ON HER I LOVE SAOIRIIII

this one was very underrated. thanks for covering this.

I'm so glad to hear that someone else loves this link as much as I do. It's probably my favorite in the whole series!

Hermit Social Link, Male Route: Wow, this old couple is so nice! It sucks that their kid died! Hermit Social Link, Female Route: _Oh my fucking god this poor child-_

Wow. Holy fuck.

I'm a little late to watching this, but this Social Link itself is one of the reasons why I say that Portable is better than FES. She's such a very good character, and I'm really glad you've made a video on her, as a lot of people won't give Portable a chance for a multitude of reasons. I'm not really in the Persona 3 Remake camp, but if it does happen, I hope that FeMC is included so more people can experience my favorite Social Link and side character, Saori Hasegawa.

That theory you made about Saori's past family life, it reminds me of this one freaky story rSlash had read (If you don't know who rSlash is, he's a RU-vidr who's known for his main priority of reading stories from Reddit that can go from being funny and ridiculous to downright messed up and cringy. When I say 'cringy', I don't mean like the way he makes his videos or makes jokes in his videos like so many other RU-vidrs tend to do, I mean that some of the stories he reads tend to be so cringy and crazy to read that even he has a hard time reading through them sometimes, like, often he laughs at them not because he thinks it's funny, but just to get through how messed-up they are). How the story goes is the OP of the story spotted her son with his aunt, making out in the bed. I know, it's creepy. But the father, OP's husband, had put the blame on their son for it, not OP's sister-in-law whom it's pretty clear in the edits is the one who started it all. So yeah, the parents put the blame on their kid for something that is clearly the fault of the adult. It's messed up, but unfortunately, weird and unfair things like this do happen in real life and can have dangerous effects on the relationships that are involved here. The Persona series at this point is not afraid of getting into creepy, yet unfortunately, real life problems like an adult teacher sexually abusing high school women and child abuse from other family members while blaming the child for something that she didn't have any involvement with.

I agree on that speculation, she got the whole fuck up doujin character vibe on her.

Hell yeah another Fither video! Earlier today I checked to see if I had missed one, but I didn't. Now this came out!

As someone who was bullied to the point where they nearly dropped out of school I really relate to Saori

She reminds me of Helen from Jane Eyre. …Anyone? …Classic Victorian Lit?

Thank you for bringing this social link to light. I haven’t played P3P; however, I’m debating on purchasing it on the PS Vita. Although, much like others, I would prefer a remaster of Persona 3.

Damn, I thought Futaba was my most relatable character

Femc is best girl for helping Saori out.

I am playing FES right now. Yeah I wish they will come out with a PC port with everything on it.

I like the subtletly of early Social Links/interactions of the Persona games like this one. I don't need to be reminded or explained of every single thing every 5 seconds, *cough* Persona 5 *cough*.

The moment you said UNCLE i was already bracing myself for what was coming.

so uh. i think saori's uncle was sexually abusing her. let me lay out my evidence: -saori saying that people lie, even with "i love you". who could have told her that? -adults liking her when she was quiet, and called her cute. this is likely adults in general, but takes on a more sinister angle considering her uncle. abusers like to control their victims and likely groomed her to be silent about their "secret" -saori was a quiet, "mature" child. abusers telling their young victims that they're "mature for their age" to justify their actions is very common. saori was also isolated, another risk factor -her ultimate idea of love is to be "needed"... not looking good here -her sin that she prayed about was that she didnt kill herself... to follow her uncle? did he want a double suicide? like how lovers commit. -with the driving him into a corner... victims often blame thesmelves, and others blame victims. its not uncommon to blame a child for somehow causing or "asking for" their abuse. like maybe the uncle is about to be found out, or got her pregnant, or otherwise saw no way to remain undiscovered, so he demanded she commit suicide with him. a very "you made me do this" kind of dynamic overall... given how the protag in the blue route is always just going along with others, and the endgame... it feels like the pink route is the protag also confronting her own weaknesses. its a really interesting and frustrating route bc atlus snatches bothh girls away as soon as they find healing and solidarity

Omg it's been so long I'm so glad

This video is Fither Cheems worthy

random thing i think saori might be related to zenkichi, as they share surnames and both have wavy hair 🤨

I didn't even know Portable had a different Hermit link, makes sense

She needs some Door-Kun in her life 😂 but on the real tho it would of been awesome to see him interact with her, they both seem to be dealing with death in a similar way, apathetically , he’d be perfect to help her given how he was able to move away from that mindset

P3P lament of innocence

I can't believe he set up that entire story arc for us just so he could end it with a Fitheory, beautiful.

this was my favourite social link from P3P when I played it back when it got ported

Yeah, that's why I love P3. It's such a mature game.

The worst social link destiny has to be Sadayo Kawakami. She ends up hooking up with me, and that's just the worst. I'm into some really sick stuff. Stuff that makes me unable to look her in the eye afterwards. Like, does she have ANY self-respect? I feel bad for her.

She's one of my favorite characters, but I didn't know about the letter after rank 10

Wait the only reason she moves out is because of us the player If we didn't talk to her she wouldn't have Oh I see we are the true antagonist in this social link. Fither I'm sorry we must commit seppuku for ruining this angels life

this is one of my favorite social links in the female route....its why the female route is forever the definitive version of 3 for me because the hermit in the female route is SO MUCH BETTER

I have mixed feelings about this link? Cause it’s one hand it’s good not to be a doormat and there does come a point where ultimately being stepped on constantly is kind of your fault. Because at some point you should learn not to get stepped on. But also the situations presented aren’t her fault? She was a child, if she and the uncle did end up in a relationship and he killed himself out of guilt over that, he’s the adult here. He should have kept saying no and maybe told her parents “hey can you talk to her about this?” And then when she gets bullied how was she supposed to know the other guy had a girlfriend or that the picture was gonna be used to ruin her reputation. And yeah maybe she’s stunted and distant and hard to get to know so that made her a target, but none of those are crimes? Idk it’s just so tragic. Honey I’m glad you’ve decided to take control of your life but it shouldn’t be to right the wrongs of the past. It should be because you can’t change the past and the only thing you can do is move forward with your head held high. Edit: also this is more clear in the Japanese version but her uncle and the other person are in fact one in the same. Not sure whether this was accidentally lost in translations or if the translators just wanted to make it less awkward.

Saori started from a enigmatic passive girl learning to stand up for herself to a fallout of an incest hentai plot (most likely Metamorphosis/Emergence). Huh...

I never played P3P and had no idea this character existed until now.

Saori is like a random NPC who you only interacted once in MC route (as the girl confused about the library outside the library when u enter Gekkoukan High the 1st time), only to have her background and character expanded in her Social Link in FEMC route

this social link hit close to me on how realistic it was

Saori got a Raiden room

I always thought that she got pregnant and that’s why she was shipped off and the guy killed himself.

"But everything was a lie. Everything... Like when rhey said things like "I love you..."" Considering she was talking about "the adults" when she said this, i really think your theory is onto something here. That and the fact rhat right before that she mentioned being called mature for her age when she was younger.

i know this video is older but i wanted to say that while playing this route myself, i immediately believed that the "love" who passed was the uncle. honestly, it just pulls everything together. but i dont believe saori actually "did anything" to him. she mentioned her first love starting when she was little or at least younger. young kids having silly crushes on family members can be normal as they have no understanding of why that would be wrong, however, i dont really know if thats the case there. as someone who was groomed as a child, and knows many other people who also were, i do believe that she was 100% taken advantage of from an early age. Its unfortunately incredibly common, especially in other countries, for the victim or child to be blamed rather than the abuser. Whether its because the victim was "seductive" by just existing, or somehow the child/victim had some master scheme in their head to do this. I believe that she had probably heard that sort of narrative from her parents and maybe even uncle multiple times that she just believed that it was true, because she didnt have any reason not to believe it, which is also very common in victims. We blame ourselves for what happened, even convince ourselves that every part of it was our fault, when in reality its no ones fault other than the adult. Real kids and victims get the blame even when the abuser either is imprisoned, or dies by suicide when that does happen. (either from guilt or to avoid prison) i dont understand how adults could blame a child for another adult taking advantage of them but somehow it happens way too often. Its disgusting. Obviously, saori is not real, but her story is one that has so many similarities to many people in real life, and honestly with how it was written i wouldnt be surprised of someone on the team had been through it or something similar themselves.