16:17 This isn't exactly true. Ann definitely fits under this because of her being mixed race. Its brought up that it created negative assumptions about her that contributed to her position in the Kamoshida arc, as well as brought up throughout the game. Also Ryuji's choice to dye his hair could fall under that. We see numerous times him being harranged because of that.
Thanks for pointing that out, the point about Ann is something I definitely overlooked! Once the last part of the series is out, I'm going to upload all 4 parts together with any corrections and oversights included at the end since it's such a broad topic, so I'll make sure I mention this!
@garfieldkermit just keep in mind P5 tries to have its cake but eat it too. Ann is quarter white, but has the stereotypical phenotype of white women (visibly lighter skin tone, blue eyes, blonde hair, large breasts) and as you recall the discrimination/fetishization Ann faces is lightly touched on and never brought up again
Dying his hair is a choice, though, and I would argue P2 actually handles this better with Lisa, going into how she doesn't truly feel like she belongs anywhere.
@@VoidCael Yeah it's why I said "could". There are certain archetypes of people that are looked down on in Japan for their identity, neets and yankies respectively (which Futaba and Ryuji represent). They don't fall under born identity signifiers that come with genetics so I understand the want for a distinction. But this distinction wasnt made so I felt it was fair to bring it up. Even if it is their choice (in some cases not really) the defense that these identites should be allowed is still cool, freedom of expression is cool, I think. And uhhh, thats fine about P2, not what the convo was about but cool opinion.
i find it weird that atlus has been hesitant abt homosexuality in persona games when in catherine(full body) has trans rep AND a gay route,, they even OPENLY talked about homosexuality in full body with no negative connotations
My guess is it's a case of the games being sold/marketed to different audiences. Persona, at least since 3, has characters, plot points, and dialogue that I wanna say appeal more to fans of shonen anime about high schoolers with magical powers (which I'm not saying in a derogatory way), whereas Catherine to me definitely has a much more grounded story and world, with characters that are more reflective of people you'd meet in real life as an adult. That said however, I still find it silly and in ways even regressive to think there's no room for queerness in a game that has a more fantastical setting and cast, especially when it's supposed to be tackling rebellion, ostracization, and oppression as it's main themes.
@@DOCTOR.DEADHEAD I think you have overcomplicated the point Catherine is a game about relationship it's also a romance story. where as persona 5 is a game about rebilling against an oppressive "jappanese" society also not a romance story. In fact in P4 and P5 the romance in those game's is an after thought to the actually character story. now do I think there should by a gay option yes it wouldn't be the worst thing. but I doubt it will nothing more then an astatic option which might be better representation then a character who's whole arc is about there sexuality but this I don't know.
@@neelankoopman3718Hard agree but it's so weird that no matter what you do, you're always going to be in an illegal relationship inside the game...like where is Persona for completely adults or college kids smh. I wanna play Persona without people thinking I'm a pdf file.
And. I'm sorry but I do have to argue about the 'P5 cast being outcasts is just window dressing' thing because of all the Persona games I think P5 is by far the MOST Japanese culture centric and this is the area it really shows because MANY non Japanese do not get the unspoken details that make up every part of each character's Confidants: Ryuji is outcast for expression and social reasons, as dying one's hair is very much Not Allowed in most Japanese schools and that plus his noisy behavior and inability to read the room would very much paint him as a thug/someone to avoid in the eyes of many Japanese people. That his mother divorced his father is also part of this as single mothers in Japan are generally looked down up (note: taunting Ryuji about this until he lashed out is how Kamoshida was able to 'justify' breaking his leg btw and well, the hair dye and attitude made it easy for the school to disregard anything Ryuji had to say) and that's why Ryuji brings up his mother apologising to him after the school called her in to tell her about him 'attacking Kamoshida': she likely felt at fault because in Japanese society there is the thought that mothers who work instead of spending time with their kids are somehow failing them/raising them wrong, and that women who divorce are being selfish for considering their own needs over that of their kids... DX Ann is hāfu or 'half Japanese' and like, to many multicultural places that's a complete non issue but in Japan which is very isolationist? Hāfu have *many* negative stereotypes attached to them, with major ones regarding hāfu girls being can't be 'traditionally feminine' (aka demure, quiet, modest, etc) and that they're all 'easy'/sexually promiscuous... Which, as you'll note in the Kamoshida arc is absolutely *everywhere* in how all the people in school are talking about Ann (the girls mocking her for being a 'cheater', the boys saying she'd be easy to score if she weren't 'Kamoshida's bitch' etc. Hell that's probably why Kamoshida's targeting her so much in the first place, beyond the 'literally a model' thing: because as a hāfu her willingly dating a teacher is believably 'in character' to them... DX) Yusuke is outcast for being extremely weird (partly due to abusive upbringing, partly because he's clearly on the autistic spectrum and without being directly told he likely struggles to tell when he's making others uncomfortable) and he's an orphan, which means his 'prospects' are low. Note that the only person Yusuke seems to have any connection with outside the team and Sojiro is *maybe* Hifumi Togo, he has zero safety networks outside the team and his scholarship, and of all the cast is probably THE one most singled out by nameless NPCs and other confidents in optional hangout events as being weird, creepy, and possibly a stalker. It's out of focus but it never actually stops being a thing and Yusuke's entire confidant screams that Yusuke's got a long way to go before he even comes close to untangling the maladaptive behavior Madarame ingrained in him. Side note: I do wish Yusuke was a love interest for Joker but as someone who identifies as Asexual a LOT of what Yusuke says matches up with things I said for years before I realised what was going on and Autistic folks are more likely to be under the Ace umbrella than neurotypical types so I do wonder if they were trying to hint at a different sort of queerness going on with him there... Gonna skip Makoto and Haru because frankly they're much less 'outcast' than the rest (beyond general Japan's sexism problems and the worldwide 'rich kids are easily isolated and groomed/abused by their rich parents, and basically get no empathy or support in dealing with it even if they escape because people see the fact they had money and nothing else' things) but it's worth noting how hard they work to blend in to avoid being outcast. Futaba is hikomori, like Yusuke is almost certainly on the Autistic spectrum as well as probably having an Anxiety disorder AND trauma, and is a bastard orphan which... It is really, REALLY hard to get across how stigmatised children born out of wedlock are in Japan but like, there's a REASON all the Phantom Thieves went from GRRR to 'sympathetically talking down the hurt creature' to Akechi the second he revealed he was one and not 'just' an orphan (less that 0.8 percent of Japanese are born out of wedlock, they face numerous legal issues due to how the koseki works, the suicide rate for them and their mothers is something like 40%... It's not great). Futaba was lucky enough to have a mother who genuinely loved her but her being born out of wedlock is likely why it was so easy for Shido's lot to kill Wakaba and forge a suicide note blaming Futaba without triggering any kind of suspicion, why Wakaba's shitty family could abuse her so easily and why Sojiro adopting Futaba is such a big deal (his adoption of her would've fixed most of the legal issues she would've faced growing up) and yet still so easily threatened (blood family nearly ALWAYS have custody rights over a child in Japan even with proven abuse issues and signed adoption papers filed so Sojiro paying off Futaba's dirtbag uncle was pretty much the ONLY way he could have secured her living with him, and as Sojiro's Confidant shows, the situation is VERY precarious and easy for Futaba's dirtbag uncle to exploit). Futaba is so outcast that if Sojiro hadn't taken her in she'd likely be dead and no one would care. =( Akechi though... Bastard stigma, his mother being a sex worker stigma, likely blamed and mocked for his mother's suicide like Futaba, zero relatives willing to take him in so he ended up at a group home/orphanage (foster care systems aren't great but Japan's orphanages are worse. Average 30 kids to one adult, shared rooms so zero privacy, no free education past middle school, strict curfews so no after school clubs or studying which makes getting a scholarship much harder... Oh and being booted out at the age of 15 when the youngest you can be to sign the paperwork for most housing is 18...), was likely homeless at the age of 15, and in an effort to 'make something of himself' -Akechi says 'get revenge', I think desperation is more likely- gets involved with criminal types who ensnare him in a classic 'kill or be killed for knowing too much' situation and ends up doing the job so long he knows NO ONE in society would willing accept him any more... And forced into the role of being a Japanese idol type. ...The fact he's likely gay or bi on top of that is barely a cherry on the top of the shit sundae honestly XD And. It's worth noting that while Joker having a record only gets a lot of mention in the Kamoshida arc it never actually stops mattering? Its alluded to in Sojiro's Confident when Futaba's dirtbag uncle gets hurt slipping trying to punch Joker and threatens to sue, it's why Joker is locked up at the end of the game for as long as he is, NPCs in school never stop making rumors or being scared of him (flee from the library is a mechanic all game), if Joker's side jobs ever learnt he had a record he'd likely be fired etc (And the only reason in story Joker doesn't go down Akechi's path is because meeting Morgana and being taught the change of heart method stopped him from being desperate enough to kill Kamoshida... Which likely would've resulted in Joker still getting expelled due to Kamoshida's complaints, Sojiro tossing him out, him needing cash and heading into the metaverse and learning of more people who 'have to be stopped' etc) -Also does Morgana a really botched trans allegory or is that just me? Because every time someone calls him a cat (in game and out of it) I want to punch them and I hate the way its treated as a joke when literally every other non human who identified as human at least got TREATED like one by those around them and usually that was a key part of said non human's character development/happiness. D
Thank you for the feedback, and yeah I definitely overlooked a lot of this since I got a little caught up in focusing on queerness and forgot to acknowledge the whole host of other reasons people are outcast like you mentioned. Once the last part of the series is out I'm going to upload all parts in one video (since that's how I wrote it originally) and at the end include any oversights from the original uploads so I'll definitely mention some of your points here! :)
THANK YOU FOR THIS COMMENT, as someone who really likes to talk to people in the fandom of the west, I’ve seen so many people not understand P5’s character because they’re actually so cultured rooted in here, so only people from here would actually understand them.
@@amychi_ *blushes* Thank you, though I don't know much about recording/editing (much respect for those that do) and the idea of interacting with a larger chat section than the few brave souls who read my 'mega length' comments is mildly horrifying so no video making from me any time soon (maybe one day tho)~ XD
I adore persona 5 so fucking much thanks for reminding me what it does do right in the social commentary aspect which is a hell of a lot imo, it's just yeah lgbt stuff seems like such an obviously missed opportunity, atlus please have the balls to do it in p6
To speak on akechi and his "I hate you" scene, I also don't think akechi actually hates joker. Imo, to think this way blatantly ignores heaps of subtext and history between the two and also akechi's situation. During the engine room morgana says "you don't actually hate joker, do you? That smile before we fought, isn't that how you truly feel?" Akechi doesn't even try to refute this. Additionally, in psychology there is a term called reaction formation, which is a defense mechanism that involves hiding ones true feelings by acting in the opposite way. With these points in mind, wouldn't it make sense that akechi is hiding behind his true feelings with a statement like "I hate you"? And that isn't to say that I think akechi was necessarily in love with joker at the time. Even if you read them as completely platonic, there are still many reasons akechi would still feel the need to express his hatred. Namely, akechi is a hitman under shido. Joker is his next target and a threat to all of his plans. Whether you see them as good friends, rivals, crushing on each other or completely head over heels, it would make sense for akechi to be angry that joker is trying to undermine the plans he's laid out for over two years. It would also make sense that akechi, knowing he has to shoot joker in the face in a month, will do everything in his power to detach himself from his relationship with joker, to convince himself that this is what he wants, too. Hence, even he believes that he hates joker. Because it's what he has to believe to not spiral. Joker is akechi's only friend. The only person he's ever gotten close to, other than maybe sae. Yes, he got to know joker because he already knew he was a phantom thief. But that doesn't change that they truly got to know each other and enjoy each other's company between June and November. And with all of jokers reactions to losing akechi, you can't tell me he didn't feel the same way.
I'm a bit shocked you completely overlooked Persona 5 Tactica. Which is like the anti-Persona 5 in the sense of how it deals with sexualization and sexuality. You can make Joker imagine marrying any of his party members (barring Morgana), even the male party members. The game doesn't really treat it as a gag. It's a shame its a spinoff game that came at the absolute tail end of Persona spinoffs, but it does bode well That aside, this was another stellar video. I'm a pretty typical straight guy, but I got deep anxiety over how Persona 5 approached queer characters and lack of gay romance. Personally, I still wanted to be able to romance characters like Yusuke over any of the girls and women, so the game completely shortchanging me on that front is an example of everyone being hurt by Atlus's exclusionary approach to gay romance.
@@PKRockin7 That bit in Tactica was nice. It didn't feel like you were being punished for picking the guys, in stark contrast to a similar scene in Persona Q.
I really appreciate your sensitivity towards gay portrayals as a straight guy.:) Persona 5 Royal is one of my favorite RPG's of all time. As a gay guy the the two stereotypical creepy gay dudes in the game were a let down, but didn't hamper my enjoyment of the game too much, cause they were rarely present. Persona 4 Golden, despite it being a lot of people's fave Persona game, really bothered me to the point I was considering not finishing it all. Yosuke's blatant homophobia was really grinding my gears, but the overall sexist tone of the game (looking at you Teddy) made me really despise the main cast. And then there's also the hidden transphobia around Naoto too. I'm ok with hating NPC's, but not MC's. I'm glad P5 got better and P5 Tactica was even better like you mentioned. Now just hoping for LGBTQ+ romance options in P6!:) EDIT: Yusuke to Yosuke. Obviously I love Yusuke from P5!
Thanks for the feedback! I've actually saved Tactica for the last part of the series and wanted to keep this one just about the mainline Persona 5 & Royal, but I didn't make that clear!
Online there's a lot of JRPG fans who are like "no way, the hero is straight!!" But if he can end up falling in love with Girl X or Girl Y why can't he fall in love with one of the boys? Especially Persona protagonists who are such blank slates. Akechi and Joker's social interactions are very date-like, there's no way they didn't realize what they were doing.
the female route in persona 3 allowed you to romance aigis and elizabeth, making the protag canonically bisexual as well! but it’s sad that both of the bi protags are so neglected by ATLUS
Honestly when playing Persona 5 Royal I got the distinct impression the only reason Akechi's Confident didn't have a romance option was so that players couldn't back out of it XD That, and like, Joker *knows* Akechi is sketchy and Akechi knows that no matter what he'll be killing Joker in a few months time: Needless to say, even if you're madly in love that's not exactly a situation where you say 'Hey, let's date' at any point without potentially ruining your entire life. Additionally in the 3rd semester where both of those things wouldn't apply, Akechi says he realised from the moment he 'woke up' that it was highly likely he'd been brought back from the dead and was likely to be used as leverage against Joker by Maruki... Leverage that would be all the more effective if he and Joker grew closer by say, dating. So yeah. There's never a point in Persona 5 where those two would both willingly date each other even if they were 100% canonly madly in love with each other, and given the sheer amount of focus on the 'tragedy born of being on different sides' they've got going on in the main narrative, as well as how some of the lyrics in Royal's ending credits theme translate, oh and that one of the main ways they show the horror of Maruki's world in the 'Happy Ending' is via showing Joker dropping to his knees and clutching his head at the sight of an Akechi that's been scrubbed down to just his 'pleasant boy' facade, Akechi having a brief cameo as 'possibly alive' at the ending if you maxed out his confident (saving a 'doomed by canon' character has only been seen elsewhere in the series with Shinjirou in P3P if you romance him), the incredibly flirty 'I'm alone tonight' text invites Akechi sends Joker for night hangouts... I'd say the only reason they aren't officially canon is because the writers wanted deniability for all the players who did have a love interest they already liked and/or hate Akechi and alas, Joker IS still meant to be a player avatar rather than a fully fleshed out character in his own right so... *sighs in 'damn it would've been cool if messed up if they'd allowed it though'*
I'm going to answer this quickly with a comment from a creator shown from the recently released Persona 5 Royal Artbook, talking about the image of Joker and Akechi playing chess together after accepting the fake reality: “Creator's Comment: When I think that Akech's desire is to play chess with the protagonist after school, I feel like saying, "I guess he likes the protagonist after all." (Korin)”
I just get little annoyed that after Arc 1 with Kamoshida, the game allows/encourages like 3-4 inappropriate relationships with grown adults, (Kawakami, Takemi, Oya, and Chihaya (even if she’s 19-20 and Romeo&Juliet laws could apply, it’s still a bit weird)), and it’s just really tone-deaf of the game being like, “No, grown men with high-school girls is bad, but we’ll allow vice-versa.” All THAT, but gay romance options aren’t okay? That’s a deliberate choice. It’s not a dealbreaker from me playing the games, but it still hurts a little. 😲
i think its hilarious that people use "he tried to shoot joker" to try and disprove the idea of shuake as if love/hate and enemies/lovers are fairly popular tropes and should be easy to wrap your head around the existence of even if you dont get the appeal, but also i think the fact the protagonist is like "ik he tried to shoot me but i miss him :(" is even MORE telling here. its also worth noting that the writers for third semester royal weren't under the same director as the main game, as he'd already chosen to leave the persona series at that point, and thus i choose to look at their writing separate from the lack of male dating options. they were writing something new for a game that already had base constraints. an interview with these writers also had them referring to the dynamic of the third semester's trio as "a love triangle" where akechi had a very "oh you're here too" attitude towards kasumi, so they absolutely knew the whole thing came off as homoerotic
I remember seeing people mention that interview, I'll make sure to include it in the full upload of the series! I didn't know that the new Royal scenes were t directed by Hashino though, thanks for pointing it out!
yes but not enough, the weird anti-gay director is out so now P6 can (hopefully) breathe without shoehorning in a gross anti-trans/homophobic joke scene.
Being upset about censorship because a brain dead gross scene got changed to a slightly less brain dead gross scene is so stupid. There's no excuse to think that this is some grand censorship issue it's a small scene and the whole thing could have been axed with no effect on the game. These people aren't upset about censorship they're threatened by the idea that homophobia is slowly fading from being a majority opinion
There are some borderline romantic undertones to Akechi and Joker's dynamic, but I'm honestly glad that Akechi isn't a romance option, only because that character already gets unnecessarily whitewashed by the community. If he were a potential canonical romance, especially the first same sex option in modern Persona, the fanbase would be unhinged about him. That said, I do think a gay character would fit pretty well with the game's themes, so it is a bit of a shame that none were included.
Great video, thanks for diving into the topic with an open and nuanced mind! However one thing that I missed is that as opposed to Persona 3 & 4 (from what I remember), which largely don’t give the protagonist the option to say anything alluding to queerness, Joker, on the other hand, has at least some minor dialogue options like the shadow conversation where one of the options is literally “I like men” or the infamous “Honey, I’m home” line to Akechi. Now, obviously these lines are primarily meant to be a joke because we know that for some reason Hashino’s persona games looove portraying queerness as a punchline to a joke, but I do find their inclusion interesting because it at the very least introduced the notion of the main character being at least a little fruity. Particularly with the “Honey I’m home” towards Akechi and everything else Shuake have going on, I do think it also serves the purpose of ship tease and fanservice. Like one of the quotes from the video, you have to be very blind or very very inexperienced with fanservice of M/M couples in anime-adjacent media to not see it for what it is, especially in Royal with Akechi’s dramatic declaration of “I hate you because you’re so perfect and special and make me feel things I never knew before”. Now, I don’t think that fanservice necessarily counts as gay representation, and I also don’t think that Joker and Akechi should have had an actual romance going on in the game. It would not fit with Akechi’s character and the overall story of the game. However I think it is worth mentioning that it’s a deliberate departure from other Hashino Persona games that have next to no opportunities for the main character to do anything gay because the game doesn’t give you any options to express that-but Persona 5 is more open about at least playing with the ideas just still in a very non-committal way with plausible deniability to not actually alienate the largely straight male audience that these games are clearly made for.
I appreciate you bringing in the discussion of the 'censorship' thing as well. I used to be one of those people as a younger anime fan, and nowadays it feels like a lot of people who still want the Authentic takes fail to realize that they're never getting an 'authentic' japanese game because the rest of the game is still localized. (not to mention a lot of them veer into 'muh woke mob' mentality). I always love how well-researched your stuff is and I really appreciate you linking articles and sometimes also approaching topics like shipping with queer media discussion. Great video as always, keep up the good work!!
As a queer person myself, I always personally felt like not having same-sex dialog options in P5 felt natural since Joker feels a lot like his own character in the game despite the fact that he's meant to be a self-insert protragonist, and I always headcannonned that he was straight. At the same time, I too felt the same frustration a lot of other queer players felt for the same reasons you outlined in the video and I can perfectly see why it's so disappointing for many of us with the portrayal (or lack thereof) of gay people in 5 especially given the game's premise
Wouldn't a self-insert game protag allow players to insert themselves? I'm not sure how you're using the term? I do agree that he feels he had a defined personality and feels like his own person, though, so I may have missed your meaning.
I didnt really roleplay as myself when playing p5 so I didnt mind joker bit being able to have same sex relationships. Him being flamboyant and having a kinda homoerotic rivalry with aketchi was enough.
@@cassiedevereaux-smith3890 yeah, I’m talking about the fact that he feels more like his own character and not as much of a blank slate as most self-insert protags tend to be
i don't self insert as Joker either and also hc'd him as straight (shipped with Ann)... until akechi came along. I wanted to see them get together so bad :(
As a gay man i kind of dissagree with this video in a sense. I dont see it as a massive issue there is no same sex romance or same sex romance options, to be fair im not interested in dating anyone from the p5 cast (other than the adult's and thats it's own can of worms) so I'm not as affected by someone who did want that. My issues lie strictly with how the game trated same sex or queer identities in its orginal and current releases which i feel is more important. Also while i am not trans i do feel the need to comment on naoto, her arc is not about her accepting she is trans (alough she technically could be in the future) but rather about her gender not mattering when it comes to her ability and potential esspecially as a detective. Im not saying you can see this as the start of her deciding to throw gender away in the future, but it aboslutly does not mean that atlus "cowered out" at the end and made her regress. And its that argument that i take issue with. As for kanji and his sexuality i think love and attraction is complicated and outting a lable on a fictional charcter who we uave a limited view of is unhelpful. And again people geting mad about him not being confirmed gay are annoying.
Yeah I’m not interested in dating the party members either bc they’re minors, but it’s less about self-insert dating the characters, and more about wanting to see 2 characters together, and the developers just not letting that happen for some reason. I also agree on all the tone deaf queer inclusions Atlus has included in P4 with the party members and the less than ideal gay jokes in 5
Fun fact the scene with ryuji and the gay mem isn't a direct translation in the Japanese release of base p5 and p5 royal the gay men just compliment ryuji and ask him to drink with them and the reason he freaks out is because he's too young to drink but it's not implied that they assaulted him like in the English translation it's probably because English and Japanese work drastically differently so a lot of jokes and other things tend to get localized to make more sense and this is just an example of that falling flat on it's face
(Reposting this comment from the general franchise video) I don't know about you guys, but I wouldn't be too keen on dating someone, regardless of their gender, that planned ahead the exact place, time and method they're going to off me THREE MONTHS IN ADVANCE. Anyone who tries to push and make it a thing is absolutely of their goshdarn rockers, including the staff-members who keep profiteering by teasing and feeding it. And that's BEFORE bringing in the fact that he not only orphaned two of your comrades, but ruined the lives of countless innocent people while working for the man who ruined yours, all for the sake of a petty revenge plan who anyone with basic comprehension of how populists work knows will immensely backfire. No amount of gender-swapping or CIS-ification could not even for a moment make it NOT my most hated ship of any media ever. I would actually like to see a LGBTQ+ relationship in P6 that WON'T involve extreme moral and personal boundaries getting crossed and won't be opposed if they make souyo a reality in a P4 remake even if they would have to change Yosuke's dialogue drastically.
While I'm not trans I do dissagree on naoto, I do think that her arc was never about her being trans. Though I do think she could in the future consider being nonbinary or gender fluid. However as a very gay man I think people who say kanjis arc was ruined because he wants confirmed to be gay or bi are missing the point. Kanjis arc is about judgment, just because kanji likes feminine things or because he is hyper masculine doent mean he HAS to be gay or bi, and the fact people assume that purely due to those superficial appearances is stupid. Additionally, trying to wangle the sexuality of a fuctional charcter who we have limited screentime with is unhelpful and complicated even in real.life with real people. Labels exsist to give an idea of what something is like but nothing is a monolith. Additionally, expecting teenagers from the 2010s to have the same knowledge and labels as we have how is unrealistic. Its entirely possible that naoto didnt have a word for her deciding her gender was irrelevant while still liking being feminine, and kanji may not have known that there are several ways form someone to like both men and women and not be gay.
Video is fine, but bit dissapointed you painted the royal version of the drag/gay scene the way you did. Yeah, there's shades of homophobia there, but ultimately what we have are two individuals that look like "men" dressing in women's clothes kidnapping a boy and forcing him to dress in girl's clothes. This very heavily leans into transphobic (specifically transmisogynistic) portrayals of trans women and panics about "trans groomers." It would have been nice to hear this specific thing mentioned instead of heaving the scene kind of misinterpreted as about gay men. It's a subtler difference than you'd expect, but ultimately the disctinction is an important one imo. They changed the scene to be more "inclusive" or sensitive by leaning into transmisogyny as opposed to homophobia, and that was lost here.
That's really interesting and tbh the differences made to that scene in P5R do deserve a bit more attention since I mainly wanted to focus on the censorship angle. Do you know any readings that go into dive into this more since it would be great to mention it in the final cut of the full video? :)
Its kind of funny how unless you include gay crap your themes dont matter. Glad the message of P5 resonates with the masses. And as always Kawakami triggers the alphabets. At its core Persona is for straight japanese males (Young and old) and I am glad that ATLUS kind of ignores the push to have modern crap like that (Which also helps retain turn base).
16:17 This isn't exactly true. Ann definitely fits under this because of her being mixed race. Its brought up that it created negative assumptions about her that contributed to her position in the Kamoshida arc, as well as brought up throughout the game. Also Ryuji's choice to dye his hair could fall under that. We see numerous times him being harranged because of that.
Thanks for pointing that out, the point about Ann is something I definitely overlooked! Once the last part of the series is out, I'm going to upload all 4 parts together with any corrections and oversights included at the end since it's such a broad topic, so I'll make sure I mention this!
@garfieldkermit just keep in mind P5 tries to have its cake but eat it too. Ann is quarter white, but has the stereotypical phenotype of white women (visibly lighter skin tone, blue eyes, blonde hair, large breasts) and as you recall the discrimination/fetishization Ann faces is lightly touched on and never brought up again
Dying his hair is a choice, though, and I would argue P2 actually handles this better with Lisa, going into how she doesn't truly feel like she belongs anywhere.
@@VoidCael Yeah it's why I said "could". There are certain archetypes of people that are looked down on in Japan for their identity, neets and yankies respectively (which Futaba and Ryuji represent). They don't fall under born identity signifiers that come with genetics so I understand the want for a distinction. But this distinction wasnt made so I felt it was fair to bring it up. Even if it is their choice (in some cases not really) the defense that these identites should be allowed is still cool, freedom of expression is cool, I think.
And uhhh, thats fine about P2, not what the convo was about but cool opinion.
i find it weird that atlus has been hesitant abt homosexuality in persona games when in catherine(full body) has trans rep AND a gay route,, they even OPENLY talked about homosexuality in full body with no negative connotations
My guess is it's a case of the games being sold/marketed to different audiences. Persona, at least since 3, has characters, plot points, and dialogue that I wanna say appeal more to fans of shonen anime about high schoolers with magical powers (which I'm not saying in a derogatory way), whereas Catherine to me definitely has a much more grounded story and world, with characters that are more reflective of people you'd meet in real life as an adult.
That said however, I still find it silly and in ways even regressive to think there's no room for queerness in a game that has a more fantastical setting and cast, especially when it's supposed to be tackling rebellion, ostracization, and oppression as it's main themes.
@@DOCTOR.DEADHEAD I think you have overcomplicated the point Catherine is a game about relationship it's also a romance story. where as persona 5 is a game about rebilling against an oppressive "jappanese" society also not a romance story. In fact in P4 and P5 the romance in those game's is an after thought to the actually character story. now do I think there should by a gay option yes it wouldn't be the worst thing. but I doubt it will nothing more then an astatic option which might be better representation then a character who's whole arc is about there sexuality but this I don't know.
i will forever be mad that you cant date akechi like atlus YOU HAD THE PERFECT DOOMED YAOI RIGHT THERE WHYYY
Its genuienly crazy that you can date an alcohol addict but not the same gender
And also teachers and adults in general as a minor
Stay mad xx
@@mateeeeooo no one is "mad" just weirded out that you can date a teacher, and an alcoholic, but not a man
@@rhettmitchellman leave the teachers and adults alone they the only ones im legally allowed to be attracted to.
@@neelankoopman3718Hard agree but it's so weird that no matter what you do, you're always going to be in an illegal relationship inside the game...like where is Persona for completely adults or college kids smh. I wanna play Persona without people thinking I'm a pdf file.
And. I'm sorry but I do have to argue about the 'P5 cast being outcasts is just window dressing' thing because of all the Persona games I think P5 is by far the MOST Japanese culture centric and this is the area it really shows because MANY non Japanese do not get the unspoken details that make up every part of each character's Confidants:
Ryuji is outcast for expression and social reasons, as dying one's hair is very much Not Allowed in most Japanese schools and that plus his noisy behavior and inability to read the room would very much paint him as a thug/someone to avoid in the eyes of many Japanese people. That his mother divorced his father is also part of this as single mothers in Japan are generally looked down up (note: taunting Ryuji about this until he lashed out is how Kamoshida was able to 'justify' breaking his leg btw and well, the hair dye and attitude made it easy for the school to disregard anything Ryuji had to say) and that's why Ryuji brings up his mother apologising to him after the school called her in to tell her about him 'attacking Kamoshida': she likely felt at fault because in Japanese society there is the thought that mothers who work instead of spending time with their kids are somehow failing them/raising them wrong, and that women who divorce are being selfish for considering their own needs over that of their kids... DX
Ann is hāfu or 'half Japanese' and like, to many multicultural places that's a complete non issue but in Japan which is very isolationist? Hāfu have *many* negative stereotypes attached to them, with major ones regarding hāfu girls being can't be 'traditionally feminine' (aka demure, quiet, modest, etc) and that they're all 'easy'/sexually promiscuous... Which, as you'll note in the Kamoshida arc is absolutely *everywhere* in how all the people in school are talking about Ann (the girls mocking her for being a 'cheater', the boys saying she'd be easy to score if she weren't 'Kamoshida's bitch' etc. Hell that's probably why Kamoshida's targeting her so much in the first place, beyond the 'literally a model' thing: because as a hāfu her willingly dating a teacher is believably 'in character' to them... DX)
Yusuke is outcast for being extremely weird (partly due to abusive upbringing, partly because he's clearly on the autistic spectrum and without being directly told he likely struggles to tell when he's making others uncomfortable) and he's an orphan, which means his 'prospects' are low. Note that the only person Yusuke seems to have any connection with outside the team and Sojiro is *maybe* Hifumi Togo, he has zero safety networks outside the team and his scholarship, and of all the cast is probably THE one most singled out by nameless NPCs and other confidents in optional hangout events as being weird, creepy, and possibly a stalker. It's out of focus but it never actually stops being a thing and Yusuke's entire confidant screams that Yusuke's got a long way to go before he even comes close to untangling the maladaptive behavior Madarame ingrained in him.
Side note: I do wish Yusuke was a love interest for Joker but as someone who identifies as Asexual a LOT of what Yusuke says matches up with things I said for years before I realised what was going on and Autistic folks are more likely to be under the Ace umbrella than neurotypical types so I do wonder if they were trying to hint at a different sort of queerness going on with him there...
Gonna skip Makoto and Haru because frankly they're much less 'outcast' than the rest (beyond general Japan's sexism problems and the worldwide 'rich kids are easily isolated and groomed/abused by their rich parents, and basically get no empathy or support in dealing with it even if they escape because people see the fact they had money and nothing else' things) but it's worth noting how hard they work to blend in to avoid being outcast.
Futaba is hikomori, like Yusuke is almost certainly on the Autistic spectrum as well as probably having an Anxiety disorder AND trauma, and is a bastard orphan which... It is really, REALLY hard to get across how stigmatised children born out of wedlock are in Japan but like, there's a REASON all the Phantom Thieves went from GRRR to 'sympathetically talking down the hurt creature' to Akechi the second he revealed he was one and not 'just' an orphan (less that 0.8 percent of Japanese are born out of wedlock, they face numerous legal issues due to how the koseki works, the suicide rate for them and their mothers is something like 40%... It's not great). Futaba was lucky enough to have a mother who genuinely loved her but her being born out of wedlock is likely why it was so easy for Shido's lot to kill Wakaba and forge a suicide note blaming Futaba without triggering any kind of suspicion, why Wakaba's shitty family could abuse her so easily and why Sojiro adopting Futaba is such a big deal (his adoption of her would've fixed most of the legal issues she would've faced growing up) and yet still so easily threatened (blood family nearly ALWAYS have custody rights over a child in Japan even with proven abuse issues and signed adoption papers filed so Sojiro paying off Futaba's dirtbag uncle was pretty much the ONLY way he could have secured her living with him, and as Sojiro's Confidant shows, the situation is VERY precarious and easy for Futaba's dirtbag uncle to exploit).
Futaba is so outcast that if Sojiro hadn't taken her in she'd likely be dead and no one would care. =(
Akechi though... Bastard stigma, his mother being a sex worker stigma, likely blamed and mocked for his mother's suicide like Futaba, zero relatives willing to take him in so he ended up at a group home/orphanage (foster care systems aren't great but Japan's orphanages are worse. Average 30 kids to one adult, shared rooms so zero privacy, no free education past middle school, strict curfews so no after school clubs or studying which makes getting a scholarship much harder... Oh and being booted out at the age of 15 when the youngest you can be to sign the paperwork for most housing is 18...), was likely homeless at the age of 15, and in an effort to 'make something of himself' -Akechi says 'get revenge', I think desperation is more likely- gets involved with criminal types who ensnare him in a classic 'kill or be killed for knowing too much' situation and ends up doing the job so long he knows NO ONE in society would willing accept him any more... And forced into the role of being a Japanese idol type.
...The fact he's likely gay or bi on top of that is barely a cherry on the top of the shit sundae honestly XD
And. It's worth noting that while Joker having a record only gets a lot of mention in the Kamoshida arc it never actually stops mattering? Its alluded to in Sojiro's Confident when Futaba's dirtbag uncle gets hurt slipping trying to punch Joker and threatens to sue, it's why Joker is locked up at the end of the game for as long as he is, NPCs in school never stop making rumors or being scared of him (flee from the library is a mechanic all game), if Joker's side jobs ever learnt he had a record he'd likely be fired etc
(And the only reason in story Joker doesn't go down Akechi's path is because meeting Morgana and being taught the change of heart method stopped him from being desperate enough to kill Kamoshida... Which likely would've resulted in Joker still getting expelled due to Kamoshida's complaints, Sojiro tossing him out, him needing cash and heading into the metaverse and learning of more people who 'have to be stopped' etc)
-Also does Morgana a really botched trans allegory or is that just me? Because every time someone calls him a cat (in game and out of it) I want to punch them and I hate the way its treated as a joke when literally every other non human who identified as human at least got TREATED like one by those around them and usually that was a key part of said non human's character development/happiness. D
Thank you for the feedback, and yeah I definitely overlooked a lot of this since I got a little caught up in focusing on queerness and forgot to acknowledge the whole host of other reasons people are outcast like you mentioned. Once the last part of the series is out I'm going to upload all parts in one video (since that's how I wrote it originally) and at the end include any oversights from the original uploads so I'll definitely mention some of your points here! :)
REALLY well written! You should make your own video!
THANK YOU FOR THIS COMMENT, as someone who really likes to talk to people in the fandom of the west, I’ve seen so many people not understand P5’s character because they’re actually so cultured rooted in here, so only people from here would actually understand them.
@@amychi_ *blushes* Thank you, though I don't know much about recording/editing (much respect for those that do) and the idea of interacting with a larger chat section than the few brave souls who read my 'mega length' comments is mildly horrifying so no video making from me any time soon (maybe one day tho)~ XD
I adore persona 5 so fucking much thanks for reminding me what it does do right in the social commentary aspect which is a hell of a lot imo, it's just yeah lgbt stuff seems like such an obviously missed opportunity, atlus please have the balls to do it in p6
Yusuke my beloved
More like Ew-suke
Nah jk, I like him
Excuse me?
Yuske is *OUR* beloved.
To speak on akechi and his "I hate you" scene, I also don't think akechi actually hates joker. Imo, to think this way blatantly ignores heaps of subtext and history between the two and also akechi's situation.
During the engine room morgana says "you don't actually hate joker, do you? That smile before we fought, isn't that how you truly feel?" Akechi doesn't even try to refute this. Additionally, in psychology there is a term called reaction formation, which is a defense mechanism that involves hiding ones true feelings by acting in the opposite way. With these points in mind, wouldn't it make sense that akechi is hiding behind his true feelings with a statement like "I hate you"?
And that isn't to say that I think akechi was necessarily in love with joker at the time. Even if you read them as completely platonic, there are still many reasons akechi would still feel the need to express his hatred.
Namely, akechi is a hitman under shido. Joker is his next target and a threat to all of his plans. Whether you see them as good friends, rivals, crushing on each other or completely head over heels, it would make sense for akechi to be angry that joker is trying to undermine the plans he's laid out for over two years. It would also make sense that akechi, knowing he has to shoot joker in the face in a month, will do everything in his power to detach himself from his relationship with joker, to convince himself that this is what he wants, too. Hence, even he believes that he hates joker. Because it's what he has to believe to not spiral.
Joker is akechi's only friend. The only person he's ever gotten close to, other than maybe sae. Yes, he got to know joker because he already knew he was a phantom thief. But that doesn't change that they truly got to know each other and enjoy each other's company between June and November. And with all of jokers reactions to losing akechi, you can't tell me he didn't feel the same way.
I'm a bit shocked you completely overlooked Persona 5 Tactica. Which is like the anti-Persona 5 in the sense of how it deals with sexualization and sexuality. You can make Joker imagine marrying any of his party members (barring Morgana), even the male party members. The game doesn't really treat it as a gag. It's a shame its a spinoff game that came at the absolute tail end of Persona spinoffs, but it does bode well
That aside, this was another stellar video. I'm a pretty typical straight guy, but I got deep anxiety over how Persona 5 approached queer characters and lack of gay romance. Personally, I still wanted to be able to romance characters like Yusuke over any of the girls and women, so the game completely shortchanging me on that front is an example of everyone being hurt by Atlus's exclusionary approach to gay romance.
How is it not a gag atlus is literally telling you to keep dreaming gang
@@justanormalguy3151 because it applies to both the male and female party members? You won't be able to clap Makoto's cheeks or whatever either
@@PKRockin7 That bit in Tactica was nice. It didn't feel like you were being punished for picking the guys, in stark contrast to a similar scene in Persona Q.
I really appreciate your sensitivity towards gay portrayals as a straight guy.:) Persona 5 Royal is one of my favorite RPG's of all time. As a gay guy the the two stereotypical creepy gay dudes in the game were a let down, but didn't hamper my enjoyment of the game too much, cause they were rarely present.
Persona 4 Golden, despite it being a lot of people's fave Persona game, really bothered me to the point I was considering not finishing it all. Yosuke's blatant homophobia was really grinding my gears, but the overall sexist tone of the game (looking at you Teddy) made me really despise the main cast. And then there's also the hidden transphobia around Naoto too.
I'm ok with hating NPC's, but not MC's. I'm glad P5 got better and P5 Tactica was even better like you mentioned. Now just hoping for LGBTQ+ romance options in P6!:)
EDIT: Yusuke to Yosuke. Obviously I love Yusuke from P5!
Thanks for the feedback! I've actually saved Tactica for the last part of the series and wanted to keep this one just about the mainline Persona 5 & Royal, but I didn't make that clear!
Online there's a lot of JRPG fans who are like "no way, the hero is straight!!" But if he can end up falling in love with Girl X or Girl Y why can't he fall in love with one of the boys? Especially Persona protagonists who are such blank slates. Akechi and Joker's social interactions are very date-like, there's no way they didn't realize what they were doing.
Is water wet
#LetMeKissTheMEN
Persona 2 IS literally had a gay romance option and a canonically bisexual lead - but none since have! It's wild
the female route in persona 3 allowed you to romance aigis and elizabeth, making the protag canonically bisexual as well! but it’s sad that both of the bi protags are so neglected by ATLUS
Yeah the way gay romance can’t get in but stereotypes can is so silly
Honestly when playing Persona 5 Royal I got the distinct impression the only reason Akechi's Confident didn't have a romance option was so that players couldn't back out of it XD That, and like, Joker *knows* Akechi is sketchy and Akechi knows that no matter what he'll be killing Joker in a few months time: Needless to say, even if you're madly in love that's not exactly a situation where you say 'Hey, let's date' at any point without potentially ruining your entire life.
Additionally in the 3rd semester where both of those things wouldn't apply, Akechi says he realised from the moment he 'woke up' that it was highly likely he'd been brought back from the dead and was likely to be used as leverage against Joker by Maruki... Leverage that would be all the more effective if he and Joker grew closer by say, dating.
So yeah. There's never a point in Persona 5 where those two would both willingly date each other even if they were 100% canonly madly in love with each other, and given the sheer amount of focus on the 'tragedy born of being on different sides' they've got going on in the main narrative, as well as how some of the lyrics in Royal's ending credits theme translate, oh and that one of the main ways they show the horror of Maruki's world in the 'Happy Ending' is via showing Joker dropping to his knees and clutching his head at the sight of an Akechi that's been scrubbed down to just his 'pleasant boy' facade, Akechi having a brief cameo as 'possibly alive' at the ending if you maxed out his confident (saving a 'doomed by canon' character has only been seen elsewhere in the series with Shinjirou in P3P if you romance him), the incredibly flirty 'I'm alone tonight' text invites Akechi sends Joker for night hangouts...
I'd say the only reason they aren't officially canon is because the writers wanted deniability for all the players who did have a love interest they already liked and/or hate Akechi and alas, Joker IS still meant to be a player avatar rather than a fully fleshed out character in his own right so... *sighs in 'damn it would've been cool if messed up if they'd allowed it though'*
gay dating in persona 6 trust (copium)
I'm going to answer this quickly with a comment from a creator shown from the recently released Persona 5 Royal Artbook, talking about the image of Joker and Akechi playing chess together after accepting the fake reality: “Creator's Comment: When I think that Akech's desire is to play chess with the protagonist after school, I feel like saying, "I guess he likes the protagonist after all." (Korin)”
I just get little annoyed that after Arc 1 with Kamoshida, the game allows/encourages like 3-4 inappropriate relationships with grown adults, (Kawakami, Takemi, Oya, and Chihaya (even if she’s 19-20 and Romeo&Juliet laws could apply, it’s still a bit weird)), and it’s just really tone-deaf of the game being like, “No, grown men with high-school girls is bad, but we’ll allow vice-versa.” All THAT, but gay romance options aren’t okay? That’s a deliberate choice. It’s not a dealbreaker from me playing the games, but it still hurts a little. 😲
i think its hilarious that people use "he tried to shoot joker" to try and disprove the idea of shuake as if love/hate and enemies/lovers are fairly popular tropes and should be easy to wrap your head around the existence of even if you dont get the appeal, but also i think the fact the protagonist is like "ik he tried to shoot me but i miss him :(" is even MORE telling here.
its also worth noting that the writers for third semester royal weren't under the same director as the main game, as he'd already chosen to leave the persona series at that point, and thus i choose to look at their writing separate from the lack of male dating options. they were writing something new for a game that already had base constraints. an interview with these writers also had them referring to the dynamic of the third semester's trio as "a love triangle" where akechi had a very "oh you're here too" attitude towards kasumi, so they absolutely knew the whole thing came off as homoerotic
I remember seeing people mention that interview, I'll make sure to include it in the full upload of the series! I didn't know that the new Royal scenes were t directed by Hashino though, thanks for pointing it out!
yes but not enough, the weird anti-gay director is out so now P6 can (hopefully) breathe without shoehorning in a gross anti-trans/homophobic joke scene.
is the sky blue??
maybe next game they can write a good non-binary character and everyone will be happy and mad.
SHUAKE!!!!!!!!!!
UNEMPLOYMENT AND SHUAKE ON A MONDAY AFTERNOON!!!!!
@@Kameno-o So real
Being upset about censorship because a brain dead gross scene got changed to a slightly less brain dead gross scene is so stupid. There's no excuse to think that this is some grand censorship issue it's a small scene and the whole thing could have been axed with no effect on the game. These people aren't upset about censorship they're threatened by the idea that homophobia is slowly fading from being a majority opinion
There are some borderline romantic undertones to Akechi and Joker's dynamic, but I'm honestly glad that Akechi isn't a romance option, only because that character already gets unnecessarily whitewashed by the community. If he were a potential canonical romance, especially the first same sex option in modern Persona, the fanbase would be unhinged about him.
That said, I do think a gay character would fit pretty well with the game's themes, so it is a bit of a shame that none were included.
Great video, thanks for diving into the topic with an open and nuanced mind! However one thing that I missed is that as opposed to Persona 3 & 4 (from what I remember), which largely don’t give the protagonist the option to say anything alluding to queerness, Joker, on the other hand, has at least some minor dialogue options like the shadow conversation where one of the options is literally “I like men” or the infamous “Honey, I’m home” line to Akechi.
Now, obviously these lines are primarily meant to be a joke because we know that for some reason Hashino’s persona games looove portraying queerness as a punchline to a joke, but I do find their inclusion interesting because it at the very least introduced the notion of the main character being at least a little fruity.
Particularly with the “Honey I’m home” towards Akechi and everything else Shuake have going on, I do think it also serves the purpose of ship tease and fanservice. Like one of the quotes from the video, you have to be very blind or very very inexperienced with fanservice of M/M couples in anime-adjacent media to not see it for what it is, especially in Royal with Akechi’s dramatic declaration of “I hate you because you’re so perfect and special and make me feel things I never knew before”.
Now, I don’t think that fanservice necessarily counts as gay representation, and I also don’t think that Joker and Akechi should have had an actual romance going on in the game. It would not fit with Akechi’s character and the overall story of the game.
However I think it is worth mentioning that it’s a deliberate departure from other Hashino Persona games that have next to no opportunities for the main character to do anything gay because the game doesn’t give you any options to express that-but Persona 5 is more open about at least playing with the ideas just still in a very non-committal way with plausible deniability to not actually alienate the largely straight male audience that these games are clearly made for.
yes. video over.
I honestly speculate p6 will either have canon queers or be a queerbait disaster
May the Shinjuku Stereotypes be eaten by Shadows
I appreciate you bringing in the discussion of the 'censorship' thing as well. I used to be one of those people as a younger anime fan, and nowadays it feels like a lot of people who still want the Authentic takes fail to realize that they're never getting an 'authentic' japanese game because the rest of the game is still localized. (not to mention a lot of them veer into 'muh woke mob' mentality).
I always love how well-researched your stuff is and I really appreciate you linking articles and sometimes also approaching topics like shipping with queer media discussion. Great video as always, keep up the good work!!
Exactly, like if you want thee authentic Japanese experience, then you're gonna have to learn Japanese. Glad you enjoyed the video! :)
15:02 lala is amazing
I love these 3 videos thank you so much for making them
Glad you're enjoying them, still 1 more part! :)
Yeah
As a queer person myself, I always personally felt like not having same-sex dialog options in P5 felt natural since Joker feels a lot like his own character in the game despite the fact that he's meant to be a self-insert protragonist, and I always headcannonned that he was straight. At the same time, I too felt the same frustration a lot of other queer players felt for the same reasons you outlined in the video and I can perfectly see why it's so disappointing for many of us with the portrayal (or lack thereof) of gay people in 5 especially given the game's premise
Wouldn't a self-insert game protag allow players to insert themselves? I'm not sure how you're using the term? I do agree that he feels he had a defined personality and feels like his own person, though, so I may have missed your meaning.
I didnt really roleplay as myself when playing p5 so I didnt mind joker bit being able to have same sex relationships. Him being flamboyant and having a kinda homoerotic rivalry with aketchi was enough.
@@cassiedevereaux-smith3890 yeah, I’m talking about the fact that he feels more like his own character and not as much of a blank slate as most self-insert protags tend to be
i don't self insert as Joker either and also hc'd him as straight (shipped with Ann)... until akechi came along. I wanted to see them get together so bad :(
Short answer: yes
As a gay man i kind of dissagree with this video in a sense. I dont see it as a massive issue there is no same sex romance or same sex romance options, to be fair im not interested in dating anyone from the p5 cast (other than the adult's and thats it's own can of worms) so I'm not as affected by someone who did want that. My issues lie strictly with how the game trated same sex or queer identities in its orginal and current releases which i feel is more important.
Also while i am not trans i do feel the need to comment on naoto, her arc is not about her accepting she is trans (alough she technically could be in the future) but rather about her gender not mattering when it comes to her ability and potential esspecially as a detective. Im not saying you can see this as the start of her deciding to throw gender away in the future, but it aboslutly does not mean that atlus "cowered out" at the end and made her regress. And its that argument that i take issue with.
As for kanji and his sexuality i think love and attraction is complicated and outting a lable on a fictional charcter who we uave a limited view of is unhelpful. And again people geting mad about him not being confirmed gay are annoying.
Yeah I’m not interested in dating the party members either bc they’re minors, but it’s less about self-insert dating the characters, and more about wanting to see 2 characters together, and the developers just not letting that happen for some reason. I also agree on all the tone deaf queer inclusions Atlus has included in P4 with the party members and the less than ideal gay jokes in 5
yes
Yes. Next Question.
Another great video 🫶
Thank you 💜💜💜
You didn’t really talk about Yusuke possibly being aroace😔
Fun fact the scene with ryuji and the gay mem isn't a direct translation in the Japanese release of base p5 and p5 royal the gay men just compliment ryuji and ask him to drink with them and the reason he freaks out is because he's too young to drink but it's not implied that they assaulted him like in the English translation it's probably because English and Japanese work drastically differently so a lot of jokes and other things tend to get localized to make more sense and this is just an example of that falling flat on it's face
real
(also eventhough this video is well made, i wish you had more than one person voicing over the sources)
@@strvmpet I have kids to feed, I need this job
yeah akechi move when English or Japanese
(Reposting this comment from the general franchise video) I don't know about you guys, but I wouldn't be too keen on dating someone, regardless of their gender, that planned ahead the exact place, time and method they're going to off me THREE MONTHS IN ADVANCE. Anyone who tries to push and make it a thing is absolutely of their goshdarn rockers, including the staff-members who keep profiteering by teasing and feeding it. And that's BEFORE bringing in the fact that he not only orphaned two of your comrades, but ruined the lives of countless innocent people while working for the man who ruined yours, all for the sake of a petty revenge plan who anyone with basic comprehension of how populists work knows will immensely backfire. No amount of gender-swapping or CIS-ification could not even for a moment make it NOT my most hated ship of any media ever. I would actually like to see a LGBTQ+ relationship in P6 that WON'T involve extreme moral and personal boundaries getting crossed and won't be opposed if they make souyo a reality in a P4 remake even if they would have to change Yosuke's dialogue drastically.
I'm like 99,9% sure some asshole exec at Atlus made it so they fucked up Naoto's arc after someone suggested they could be trans.
Oh, and also Kanji.
While I'm not trans I do dissagree on naoto, I do think that her arc was never about her being trans. Though I do think she could in the future consider being nonbinary or gender fluid.
However as a very gay man I think people who say kanjis arc was ruined because he wants confirmed to be gay or bi are missing the point. Kanjis arc is about judgment, just because kanji likes feminine things or because he is hyper masculine doent mean he HAS to be gay or bi, and the fact people assume that purely due to those superficial appearances is stupid.
Additionally, trying to wangle the sexuality of a fuctional charcter who we have limited screentime with is unhelpful and complicated even in real.life with real people. Labels exsist to give an idea of what something is like but nothing is a monolith.
Additionally, expecting teenagers from the 2010s to have the same knowledge and labels as we have how is unrealistic. Its entirely possible that naoto didnt have a word for her deciding her gender was irrelevant while still liking being feminine, and kanji may not have known that there are several ways form someone to like both men and women and not be gay.
I do appreciate how this game shows a drag queen in a good light, she’s a really cool character!
Video is fine, but bit dissapointed you painted the royal version of the drag/gay scene the way you did. Yeah, there's shades of homophobia there, but ultimately what we have are two individuals that look like "men" dressing in women's clothes kidnapping a boy and forcing him to dress in girl's clothes. This very heavily leans into transphobic (specifically transmisogynistic) portrayals of trans women and panics about "trans groomers." It would have been nice to hear this specific thing mentioned instead of heaving the scene kind of misinterpreted as about gay men. It's a subtler difference than you'd expect, but ultimately the disctinction is an important one imo. They changed the scene to be more "inclusive" or sensitive by leaning into transmisogyny as opposed to homophobia, and that was lost here.
That's really interesting and tbh the differences made to that scene in P5R do deserve a bit more attention since I mainly wanted to focus on the censorship angle. Do you know any readings that go into dive into this more since it would be great to mention it in the final cut of the full video? :)
@@garfieldkermit I don't actually, it's an observation I had made myself. Still, I appreciate the response and wish you luck in your future research
Its kind of funny how unless you include gay crap your themes dont matter. Glad the message of P5 resonates with the masses. And as always Kawakami triggers the alphabets. At its core Persona is for straight japanese males (Young and old) and I am glad that ATLUS kind of ignores the push to have modern crap like that (Which also helps retain turn base).
No but nothing wrong with people thinking/wishing it was
: )
Long story short: no
is Water wet? Is Earth a planet? are mothers female?
No
Persona ain't Gay. The fandom is just weird and likes making it gay.
Casual homophobia is insane.
so persona is straight then?
No it isn't.
Next question
Do some real content next time
Ratio (yes I liked my own comment)
Yeah