Midnight Channel

The Midnight Channel , also known as the TV World and Mayonaka TV, is a recurring term in Persona 4. The stuff of urban legends, its existence is spread through the town of Inaba through rumors.
==Appearances==
*Persona 4 / Golden
**Persona 4 (Manga)
**Persona 4 The Animation / Golden Animation
*Persona 4 Arena / Ultimax
*Persona 4: Dancing All Night
*Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth
*Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth
==Profile==
===The Urban Legend===
Chie Satonaka tells the protagonist and Yosuke Hanamura about the popular urban legend of the Midnight Channel while they were eating at the Junes Food Court. Earlier, she also pointed out that she heard a student had seen the Midnight Channel, claiming that his soulmate was Yamano, the TV announcer. 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.
The protagonist informs Yosuke and Chie of the incident, but both laugh it off as a joke. The protagonist finds that he retains his ability to reach through the TV by reaching into a large, widescreen TV at Junes, alarming both Yosuke and Chie. Due to a freak-accident, the three wind up falling into the TV. Upon hitting the ground, they find themselves in a strange dimension blanketed by a thick fog.
===Persona 4===
*Music: "Studio Backlot/Backside of the TV"
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. According to Teddie, the place a person is pushed into the TV World from the real world determines where they land in the Midnight Channel.
Victims who fall into the Midnight Channel do not attract Shadows unless the fog clears. When the fog clears, the shadows go berserk and will kill any humans trapped. Due to this, it is possible to kill victims by pushing them into the TV, but they can also be saved if they are rescued before the fog disappears. Victims who are killed in the Midnight Channel are expelled from the TV World and their corpse is found hanging from a telephone line with no physical indications of their death. If the person is too young or innocent to have a Shadow Self, its oppressive climate will instead put them into danger; even if they are saved, they will still fall critically ill due to the side effects caused by its climate.
The fog that blankets the Midnight Channel clouds the vision of anyone attempting to look through it with normal eyes. Specially made glasses created by Teddie causes the fog to disappear from the wearer's vision. Each member of the Investigation Team receives a personalized pair of glasses when they join the team and wear it through their adventures through the Midnight Channel.
When a Midnight Channel area is unlocked, the protagonist will be given a deadline to complete it, up to the next foggy day. Failure to rescue the target within the deadline will result in a Game Over. Therefore, unless one has excellent time management, clearing them if they are newly available should be of utmost priority. Midnight Channel areas can be explored any number of times, and the target at the boss floor will be replaced by a substitute boss after they are rescued.
For a long time, the purpose and origin of the Midnight Channel eludes everyone involved - it seemingly serves as a warning message of the next victim to be pushed into the TV. Several days prior, usually only a blurry image can be seen, with no audio aside from static with identity of the victim unclear. As the days pass, the image slowly becomes clearer and sometimes their voice can be heard. When the image becomes its clearest and the full voice can be heard, that usually signals that the victim has been thrown into the Midnight Channel.
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 coincidental. (This means that images of people of public interest will appear on the TV regardless of people being thrown into the Midnight Channel or not.) 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.
=== Persona 4: Dancing All Night ===
* Soundtrack: "Heaven" (ATOLS Remix)
* Dancer: Hatsune Miku
Midnight Channel reappears as one of the DLC stages.
===Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth===
The Investigation Team enter the movie world via the Midnight Channel. During a planned regular exploration trip, they enter the TV in Junes that they used to enter the Midnight Channel, but it brings them to a strange dimension with a movie screen initiating a countdown instead of the supposed lobby. They were sucked into the screen, ending up in Junessic Land.
==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. Extra dungeons were added in other Persona 4 series of games; Persona 4 Golden added a dungeon that can only be accessible once along the storyline, while Persona 4 Arena created a high school-like setting for the tournament.
Dungeon 	Available 	Deadline 	Floors	Victim(s) 	Access
Twisted Shopping District	April 15 only 	- 	1 	Saki Konishi 	Yosuke Hanamura
Yukiko's Castle 	April 18 	April 29 	8 	Yukiko Amagi 	Yukiko Amagi, Chie Satonaka
Steamy Bathhouse 	May 19 	June 4 	11 	Kanji Tatsumi 	Kanji Tatsumi
Marukyu Striptease 	June 25 	July 9 	11 	Rise Kujikawa 	Rise Kujikawa, Teddie
Void Quest 	July 29 	August 12 	10 	Mitsuo Kubo 	Rise Kujikawa
Secret Laboratory 	September 17 	October 5 	9 	Naoto Shirogane	Naoto Shirogane
Heaven 	November 6 	November 20	10 	Nanako Dojima 	Rise Kujikawa
Magatsu Inaba 	December 8 	December 24	9 	Mayumi Yamano 	Teddie
Hollow Forest 	February 13 only	- 	10 	Marie 	Margaret
Yomotsu Hirasaka 	March 20 only 	- 	9 	- 	Rise Kujikawa
P-1 Grand Prix 	May 3 only 	- 	- 	Labrys 	Depends on Story Mode^
^Access varies depending on Player Character of Story Mode, listed as follows:
*Self — Kanji Tatsumi, Teddie, Elizabeth, Yu Narukami, Aigis, Labrys
*Yu Narukami — Chie Satonaka, Yosuke Hanamura, Yukiko Amagi
*Aigis — Mitsuru Kirijo, Akihiko Sanada, Naoto Shirogane
===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 protagonist
*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
==Gallery==
MidnightChannel-Intro.jpg|Panel found on the floor of the Midnight Channel.
MidnightChannel-Concept.jpg|Concept artwork of the Midnight Channel.
Manga-MayonakaTV.jpg|The entrance hall as depicted in the manga.
Mayonaka area seen in Persona 4 The Animation.png|The entrance hall of the Midnight channel in Persona 4 The Animation
Midnight Channel Original State.jpg|The Midnight Channel's original state.
STAGE2.jpg|Persona 4 Arena
==Trivia==
* The yellow poisonous fog in the Midnight Channel is reminiscent of (mustard gas), chemical warfare used in the World Wars, which caused extreme pain to its victims. Later, the gas seeps into reality, alarming Inaba residents who think the fog is dangerous, suspecting it is filled with neurotoxins or a deadly virus.
** Additionally if one looks closely while at the main area of the TV World one can see that the fog forms images of skulls.
* According to Mr Kondo, fog covers Inaba every 50 years. This indicates that the Midnight Channel has been around for an extremely long time.
* The Midnight Channel bears similarities with the movie world in Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth, as both are manifestations of their host's thoughts projected into an electronic screen.
* DLC costumes in Persona 4 do not work outside the Midnight Channel.
=== Appearances in other media===
*BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle: Stage
Category:Persona 4
Category:Persona 4 Locations
Category:Persona 4 Arena
Category:Persona 4: Dancing All Night
Category:Persona Q2 Locations