Mementos

Mementos, also known as the Prison of Sloth or the Prison of Regression, is a location in Persona 5.

Appearances

 * Persona 5
 * Persona 5 The Animation The Day Breakers
 * Persona 5 The Animation
 * Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight
 * Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth

Persona 5



 * Background Music: "Mementos", "Freedom and Security" (Depths), "Life Will Change" (Qliphoth World)
 * Available: May 7 (December 24 for the depths)
 * Deadline:  Few days after December 24 (Rearrest)
 * Owner: The people of Tokyo/Yaldabaoth
 * Location: Shibuya Railway

Mementos is the Palace for everyone's hearts. Free missions unrelated to the story are done here so that they can steal the hearts of humans on these missions. The Phantom Thieves of Hearts explore the dungeon by using Morgana's bus form. While it is initially an optional place meant for grinding levels and solving optional missions, it later becomes the final dungeon when Yaldabaoth awakens his true form, the Holy Grail, within it. It appears to be a massive series of subway tunnels with wooden train tracks in place of rails, with various features of a prison such as chains or bars. Where a Shadow Self inhabits the area, the walls develop red cracks that resemble a spider web or fractal patterns, and the veins that power Yaldabaoth's regeneration become prominent.

Mementos is divided into multiple "paths", each of which has its own unique architecture and floors, referred as "areas". They are randomly generated and areas open up as the fame of the Phantom Thieves grows with each Palace they defeat.
 * Path of Qimranut: Consists of 2 areas.
 * Path of Aiyatsbus: Consists of 7 areas. (rest on area 4)
 * Path of Chemdah: Consists of 8 areas. (rest on area 5)
 * Path of Kaitul: Consists of 10 areas. (rest on area 6)
 * Path of Akzeriyyuth: Consists of 12 areas. (rest on areas 4 and 8)
 * Path of Adyeshach: Consists of 13 areas. (rest on areas 5 and 9)
 * Path of Sheriruth: Consists of 14 areas. (rest on areas 6 and 10)
 * Path of Iweleth: Consists of 1 area and acts as an entrance to the depths of Mementos, within which the Holy Grail has hidden itself.

Its enemies are affected by weather in reality:
 * Thunderstorm: Increases appearance of rare enemies and items.
 * Torrential rain: Same as thunderstorm, but to a greater effect.
 * Pollen warning: Enemies may fall asleep in dungeons and request Eye Drops in negotiation.
 * Heatwave: Enemies may suffer Burn at the beginning of battle.
 * Flu Season: Enemies may suffer Despair (dying after 3 turns) at the beginning of battle.

All bad weather conditions also boost the appearance rate of rare Personas from shiny treasure containers.

On 24th December, the Phantom Thieves discovers that Mementos continues to be exploited, and resolves to take the public's Treasure so that it cannot be used for such purposes again. The game forcibly sends the player into Mementos and prohibits them from going to the overworld due to the thieves trying to avoid detection by law enforcement, although they can temporarily leave it to shop with Takemi or Iwai. Also, while the player is unable to advance time any further, Caroline will provide free healing at the entrance of Mementos Depths. The moment the party reaches into the deepest parts of the Depths to engage the Holy Grail, the player enters the endgame and will no longer be able to shop.

After the Holy Grail expels the party from Mementos, the real world begins fusing with it. The party is transported into the Velvet Room, where the true identity of the Grail is unmasked. Upon escape, they find themselves in the Qliphoth World, and begin the ascent to take down the Grail. Like Caroline before her, Lavenza remains at the start of the area, providing free healing when needed, as the player can no longer access any other parts of the real world until they finish.

During the ascent, the Thieves will confront the 4 archangels before the final battle against the Holy Grail commences.

Missions
Mementos is also the setting of missions, called "requests", some of which are needed to progress Confidant links. After finding out a target's name in the real world, the protagonist must find and defeat the target's shadow in the Mementos in a boss fight to make the target have a change of heart.

"Beware the Clingy Ex-boyfriend" acts as a tutorial mission while other missions are received through Yuuki Mishima's chat messages, certain Confidants or certain part-time jobs. Due to plot reasons, the player can only access and complete missions up till the 23rd December.

Several Mementos bosses are susceptible to Confusion. This weakness is one of the fastest methods to obtain money in Persona 5. A boss confused with the spell Pulinpa by a Persona with Confuse Boost and a high Luck value can drop up to 150,000 yen per turn at around a Luck level of 70.

Missions marked with an asterisk contribute to the progression of the Moon Confidant.

†While the final mission can be accessed as early as 3rd December, the player must finish Shido's Palace to unlock it.

List of Enemies
In general, demons that spawn in Mementos are the ones that were already encountered in previous Palace dungeons. Mementos will generate new floors based on story progress and act similar to Devil's Peak and Mikage Ruins from Megami Ibunroku Persona. The Reaper can also spawn if the player stays in the same floor for about 2 minutes.

Mementos Depths

 * Moloch
 * Lilith
 * Nebiros
 * Dionysus
 * Melchizedek
 * Chernobog
 * Thor
 * Belial
 * Yamata no Orochi
 * Baal
 * Mara

Qliphoth World

 * Dominion
 * Kali
 * Mot
 * Mara (with 2 Slimes as Torn King of Desire)
 * Abaddon

Bosses

 * Uriel
 * Raphael
 * Gabriel
 * Michael
 * Holy Grail
 * Yaldabaoth

Trivia

 * Mementos is an auto-generated dungeon like Tartarus and the Midnight Channel. However, the Depths has a fixed layout and its own set of puzzles like the Palaces before it.
 * Mementos becomes mandatory in December, as it generates a new palace to be entered by the Phantom Thieves.
 * Mementos, like all other Palaces, symbolizes one of the Seven Deadly Sins-in its case, Sloth or Apathy. Theologically, Sloth is the most complex of the sins, encompassing laziness (the desire to perform evil deeds or let them exist unopposed because it is easier than doing good), cowardice (evil born of fear), and despair (disaffection from life motivating selfishness and abandonment of moral and ethical duty). Acedia (Apathy) is the neglect to take care of something that one should do. It is translated to apathetic listlessness; depression without joy. It is related to melancholy: acedia describes the behavior and melancholy suggests the emotion producing it. In early Christian thought, the lack of joy was regarded as a willful refusal to enjoy the goodness of God; by contrast, apathy was considered a refusal to help others in time of need. When Yaldabaoth awakes, and the Conspiracy starts invoking its power to control Tokyo directly, it is shown in the city's populace choosing to believe an obvious lie (that somehow, the Phantom Thieves are not responsible for the high-profile reforming of several individuals), rather than a cutting truth (that Masayoshi Shido was a terrible leader, and yet most of Japan still voted for him because of nothing but raw charisma), showing cowardice. As the Phantom Thieves manage to find their way into Mementos' core, it's also revealed that the Shadow Selves that had inhabited Mementos have been willingly imprisoned by Yaldabaoth, choosing to let him dictate the future rather than allowing fallible humans to make their own decisions, showing both the laziness and despair aspects.
 * The overall design of Mementos is reminiscent of La Mappa Dell'Inferno painted by Botticelli and based off of Dante Alighieri's written work The Divine Comedy.
 * Unused files in the game indicate that it is intended to have a bad ending for failing to complete the Mementos Depths before the deadline or re-arrest. This unused bad ending is near-identical to other pre-Shido deadline bad endings, although the police officers congratulate that the protagonist has been "chosen by god" and is now an inmate for an eternity, and Sojiro wishes that he could be an inmate and sighs that the world is already in ruin, which ties to the personality of people being distorted by the Holy Grail.
 * The minibosses of Qliphoth World Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel consist of the Demons needed to fuse Michael, including Michael himself.
 * The music for Mementos Depths is used for the bad ending credits roll for Persona 5.
 * The paths of Mementos are named after the, specifically the versions given by William G. Gray in his book The Tree of Evil. This ties into the ultimate master of Mementos being Yaldabaoth, as the Qliphoth is taken to be the "shadow of God", just as Yaldabaoth is only a deluded impostor of Ain Soph, Kabbalah's name for God as He was before the creation of the world. In the Japanese version, names of these paths are given their literal meaning: