Kamoshidaman

Kamoshidaman is an enemy encountered in Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth.

Appearances

 * Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth: Major Character (Antagonist)

Design
Kamoshidaman is a cross between Suguru Kamoshida and the fictional hero Superman. He appears as Kamoshida wearing a superman outfit, with "K" on his chest. He is much more muscular than the original Kamoshida and is always present with a daunting smile, even if he is angered. He also seems to be slightly taller than the original Kamoshida.

When he uses the power of the Cinema to transform into Super Kamoshidaman, he transforms into a monstorous creature with Kamoshida's face and appears like a rabbit, having white skin, long ears, red eyes and a pair of rabbit teeth in front of his mouth. His upper body and lower body become larger and his legs become longer, and his waist appears as narrow. He has red claws as toes in this form. He holds a pair of carrots as weapons, which are also missile launchers.

Personality
Kamoshidaman is a selfish and vain bully who considers his dictatorship as "justice" and anyone who opposes him as "evil," and is best described as a dictator in a superhero outfit. The people in Kamocity worship him to the level of idolatry, but he actually forced them to do so, as those who do not worship him will be considered evil and will be smitten. He does not care about the benefits of others and only seeks to keep his "justice" and power around the city if possible. When he transforms into the monstorous Super Kamoshidaman, he loses his mind and goes berserk, relentlessly attacking the party while calling it "justice." This mirrors the original Suguru Kamoshida, who views himself as the untouchable king of Shujin Academy, and nobody but the Phantom Thieves of Hearts dared stood against him despite the heinous acts he performs.

However, as Kamoshidaman is not the original Kamoshida, he does have significant differences from the person that he is based from. Most notably, he lacks the sexual lust that the original entity has, and he seemed to simply kidnapped Makoto Niijima and Haru Okumura just because they were considered evil instead of out of a sexual desire. In fact, he does not even know what Shujin Academy is. He also doesn't seem to be particularly bothered by Ann Takamaki, Ryuji Sakamoto, or the P5 hero's appearance, indicating that he is not related to the real person, as the real Kamoshida would react to those three with extreme hostility.

Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth
Kamoshidaman is a superhero that appeared in the movie Kamoshidaman. He is a superhero of absolute justice, and he is justice regardless of how selfish or amoral his actions are. He has turned the city which acts as the movie reality, Kamocity into his own utopia, where the citizens worship him out of idolatry and those who oppose him are instantly ridiculed.

The Phantom Thieves of Hearts land into his reality from Mementos and managed to escape. However, via a F.O.E pursuing them he managed to kidnap Haru and Makoto and the Phantom Thieves were left with 2 less members. After they escape to the cinema lobby, Hikari and Nagi appeared in front of the lost Phantom Thieves and they asked them for the whereabouts of their lost comrades. While Hikari was too shy to express any direct speech to the Thieves, she seems to instantly know that they were inside the movie and whispered to Nagi about that, in which she informs the party that their lost comrades are inside the movie.

In the movie trailer, when a giant burglar appeared to wreck havoc, Suguru Kamoshida entered a hotel and transformed into Kamoshidaman, who easily defeats the burglar. However, a father was buying his daughter a plush toy and Kamoshida threw the burglar into the girl's father, killing him instantly. The girl sees Kamoshidaman with tears on her eyes, which he did not even bother sympathizing and just stood there with a daunting smile, with the citizens considering him as justice.

After the trailer, Ryuji and Ann express to Nagi about their disgust towards Kamoshida but she does not know anything about him. The party also believes that the cinema and Doe are related to Kamoshida. However, Nagi explained to them that the Kamoshidaman in the movies is not related to the PE Teacher with the same appearance and name, but a completely different entity.

When the party is exploring the dungeon, they notice a news broadcast where Kamoshidaman is shown to had been caught two thieves that disrupt the order of the city, in which true to Nagi's word and Hikari's knowledge is indeed Makoto and Haru. He announces his plans to execute the two and sends wanted notices to catch the remaining members of the Phantom Thieves. The people in the city unanimously idolize and praise him. The party confronts Kamoshidaman in the center square of the city at the next time they enter the movie after getting the P3P heroine to join the party, where he reveals that he is the strong justice that rules over the weak people, and his justice is actually the belief that the weak only exist to be ruled by the strong. He then taunts the team cannot beat him, in which true to his word, he easily overwhelms the party and nearly defeats them, forcing them to escape. Makoto Niijima tells the team that the golden statue at the square is the source of his power thanks to an officer slipping the clues, and if it is removed Kamoshidaman is powerless. They formulate a plan to steal Kamoshidaman's power by shutting down the city's electricity and tying the statue with balloons and make it float away, as the statue is abnormally light.

They successfully execute their plans moments before their comrade's execution, as the city's electricity shuts down and the statue floats away, being replaced by a cardboard sheet. This severely weakens him to the point that the P3P heroine can trample him just by landing on top of him. In battle, the loss of the statue makes him incredibly pathetic and he is also prone to doing nothing in a turn. After he is defeated, he is considered weak by the people of Kamocity and the people of the city began to doubt his "justice."

However, Kamoshidaman now uses a pair of carrots to transform himself into Super Kamoshidaman, a monstrous rabbit-like creature that possesses incredible resistances until the pair of carrots he holds as weapons are destroyed. They manage to defeat him and Kamoshidaman's justice is proven to be false and he vanishes. The movie ends and the credits roll with Hikari and Nagi watching it. After he is defeated, Doe creates the key to enter the second movie.

It was later revealed that Kamoshidaman is based on one of Hikari's childhood traumas that resulted in her extreme depression and low-self esteem. She used to believe that teachers are superheroes due to a movie she watched, but during her primary school era an event broke that illusion. The class rabbit in her school one day fell ill due to food poisoning, and she and two other students were responsible for feeding the rabbit. The other two students responsible for feeding it simply apologized, but Hikari refused to apologize because she was not responsible for feeding the rabbit at that time and simply warned other students that the food was poisonous. In reality, the vegetables that her teacher gave to the students to feed the rabbit was poisonous, so the teacher was the culprit of its poisoning. However, her teacher in return, did not accept any explanation other than an apology. Since she did not, her teacher called her a bad kid and the class unanimously put the blame on Hikari because they did not want to oppose their teacher. They successfully forced Hikari to apologize, which she begrudgingly does.

Via the movie, Hikari views her teacher as Kamoshidaman and the students as the passerby that idolized him, effectively making them cognitive existences of their real life counterparts. She used to think that teachers are superheroes before the traumatic events happened, which forms Kamoshidaman's appearance and behavior. Due to the trauma caused by the alleged poisoning of the class rabbit, the resulting Super Kamoshidaman also appears as a monstrous rabbit, representing Hikari's resentment for the baseless crime that she was forced to admit. While the gender of Kamoshidaman and the source of the cognition were different, Kamoshida's form was simply an actor for the movie, and thus was able to appear as a completely different entity while only inheriting the same traits of how his host perceives the person that he is based on.

Before the final confrontation against the true mastermind of the game, a monochrome projection of Kamoshidaman is one of the 4 negative films that need to be fought in order to confront her. Unlike the one fought at the first stage, this Kamoshidaman does not transform into Super Kamoshidaman, but his attacks deal a noticeable amount of damage. He still has the same traits as his original variant, such as wasting his turns and being vulnerable to All-Out Attacks.

Right before confronting the mastermind, Hikari's positive film had managed to change Kamoshidaman's heart, and he came with the decision to protect the weak. At the credits, he is seen carrying an old woman on his back.

Trivia

 * The way that Kamoshidaman is weakened mirrors the special operation during Shadow Kamoshida/Asmodeus's fight in Persona 5, as they involved an operation that involves removing an item that represents their owner's authority to severely weaken them.