ABSTRACT
Transmedia practices assume that characters are foremost elements of a diegetic world and that the coherence of their identity is analogous to human persons. This chapter diverges from these assumptions by moving beyond the Westernized discourse of transmedia storytelling. It looks instead at characters whose coherence of identity is discontinuous when they appear in a Japanese media mix strategy. Both transmedia practices from the West and from Japan face a similar challenge when characters appear in videogames, caused by the structural differences between games and media with narrative affinities. Therefore, this chapter explores the challenge videogames pose to contemporary transmedia practices when a media mix strategy attempts to converge games with various narrative media. Through a case study of the Japanese role-playing game Persona 5 (2016) and its peripheral narrative media, this chapter reveals that while characters in a media mix strategy do not have to have a fixed coherent identity—even when the player can affect the characters’ identities within the videogame—the media mix’ property owner still maintains a position of authority to determine which identity should be counted as normative and which as heresy.
