Midnight Channel

The Midnight Channel (マヨナカテレビ,　Mayonaka Terebi lit. "midnight televison") is a term recurring in Persona 4. The stuff of urban legends, its existence is spread through the town of Yasoinaba through rumors.

The Urban Legend
Chie Satonaka relates to the protagonist and Yosuke Hanamura about the popular urban legend of the Midnight Channel while they were eating at the Junes Food Court.


 * "It is said that if one would stare at the screen of a closed television, alone, at midnight during a heavy rain, one could see their soulmate."

Chie also pointed out that she heard a student had seen the Midnight Channel, claiming that his soulmate was a famous TV reporter. Knowing that it would rain pretty soon, they agreed to try it out and see if the legend is indeed true.

The protagonist stays up and stares at the TV in his room when the clock struck twelve. Without warning, blurred images of a female student appeared. When he touched the screen, his hand was sucked into it. Luckily, the TV he had was too small, and his body could not fit. He managed to pull his hand away (but accidentally fell and hit his head on the table in the process) and soon went to bed.

Ever since that incident, the protagonist found that he has the capability to go through any kind of TV. As a result of a freak accident that occurred while they were window-shopping for TVs at the Junes Electronics section, the protagonist, Yosuke and Chie fell through a wide screen TV. Upon hitting the ground, they find themselves in a strange dimension blanketed by a thick fog.

Profile
The Midnight Channel looks like a television studio, with large floodlights spread all over the place. The party discovers that Teddie is a resident in this world, along with innumerable Shadows. A heavy fog blankets the area, but at certain times, the fog clears, and this is when the Shadows go berserk and kill any humans trapped there. This fog is the reason why the party now wears glasses whenever they enter the Midnight Channel, as the glasses clear the fog from one's vision, so that they can see where they are going. They were given by Teddie, and each member of the Investigation Team has a personalized pair.

For a long time, the purpose and origin of the Midnight Channel eludes everyone involved, but the apparent facts that kidnapped victims appear on the television before they're abducted, and that dangerous Shadows will kill them on foggy days, are what the Investigation Team acts upon, going into a television at Junes and retrieving any would-be victims trapped there. In the end, Izanami reveals the truth, which they'd been mistaken about all along - the so-called "Midnight Channel" is the world of human consciousness. She merely turned television into a window into that world, then spread the rumors about it to attract the attention of those whom she had given the power to cross into it.

When people appear on the Midnight Channel, it's because their recent mentions on television put them in the public interest. The fact that Tohru Adachi's victims happened to appear on the channel before he threw them into the Midnight Channel where they died was largely coincidence. When Taro Namatame made the same connection and called the police, Adachi took the call, and made a suggestion in apparent jest that if Namatame was so certain who the future victims would be, he could keep them someplace safe. The result was as Adachi hoped; Namatame began kidnapping people appearing on the Midnight Channel and putting them into the television world where he thought they'd be safe. This pattern only reinforced the Investigation Team's assumptions. Their failure to recognize the true nature of the Midnight Channel also nearly drives them to throw Namatame into a television as execution, when his Shadow's image appears on television right in front of them all and gloats about his guilt. In fact, they all saw that because they believed Namatame was guilty, and the television was merely reflecting what was in their thoughts.

In the end, defeating Izanami prompts her to lift the fog from the Midnight Channel world, revealing a beautiful landscape which Teddie vows to protect. The Shadows attacked the Investigation Team and the initial murder victims because they were comfortable in their clouded delusions and despised any source of truth. With that temptation gone, the Shadows have apparently become relatively peaceful.

Dungeons
The Midnight Channel contains dungeons that materializes the dreams and desires of those trapped inside. Within the dungeons are the Shadows - suppressed feelings and emotions within humans.

Symbols
Players can refer to the map of every dungeon by pressing the "Start" button. The map has different symbols to denote the elements of a dungeon.
 * Green arrow: The player
 * Yellow star: Treasure Chest
 * Red dot: Shadows
 * Green human symbol: Fox or Allies offering random Items
 * Three lines: Exit to the previous floor
 * Stairs: Exit to the next floor