Persona series

god, i remember defending OG Cathrine's handling of Erica. Not that it was perfect at all (it wasn't), but that it was a sign of progress. That Atlus could go from the island of transphobic jokes in P3, to the fumbling of gender expression with Naoto in P4, to a definitive trans character who was actually a character (and not just bad jokes, tho yeah, those jokes were there) with Erica in Cathrine. and i was really hoping it was signs that P5 would be even better with representation. but NOPE!

and with this I guess Atlus is officially making negative progress. uugh....

on a sidenote, i found someone on another forum respond with this:

just a pedantic annoyance, but the logic and believes of the villain, imposed on the cast by their power, is not "the game's logic". It felt pretty clear to me the game was being critical of the villian's belief on gender and society that they imposed, but I guess I was in the minority on that interpretation, since everyone seems to come away that the game somehow agrees with the villains, given the rules of the dreams.

God I have just went from zero to shaking from stress/anger. and I needed to vent.

x2 Thats the way the original game portrayed it. He was drunk too I recall. But I dont remember that for sure..

Interpretations can easily be destroyed when we dont know what the creators intended. Like the Ultra Nationalism that people saw in SMTIV, which Kanekos draft and IV Apocalypse reveals was the product of a Ultranationalist who kickstarted all the tragedy with Archangel Gabriels aid because he wanted "To Make Japan Great Again".

Its a shame too, but also a lot of time people misinterpret facts to be worse than they really are as well. So while it works sometimes it doesn't others.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Feb 15th 2019 at 11:32:26 AM

Welp, so much for this game getting localized

There's still plenty looking forward to it. As the person who tweeted unfortunately found out on /v/

I just...wish if the intent was to come across as a gay person being pushed into getting a sex change in their past(which is a real thing in the world btw), they had been more fucking clear what the hell the Nightmare was about concerning Erica being there. For all we know in the original Erica was there because Trisha is a bitch as expected of Ishtar and refusing to view her as a woman.

Its a hot fucking landmine they stepped on because of how they handled Erica to begin with, but it was salvageable and had good parts. Then they decided one wasn't enough and to step on an even bigger fucking landmine.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Feb 15th 2019 at 11:54:40 AM

pretty much my thoughts on Erica.

God, I wish Atlus would stop making their games narratively worse with their releases. First Golden, and now this.

Edited by Jetyl on Feb 15th 2019 at 11:58:53 AM

As someone who has never played Catherine, I honestly don't know why people are mad cause I lack context. Was Erica a really well written trans character? Or did the game at least flat out say she was a trans woman? Cause even that much is more than I've come to expect from Japan.

Shes implied to have undergone the change. There was problems with her portrayal, but also things people liked.

She was also in the Nightmare that only takes men, but due to how ambiguous about why she was there people came to different conclusions on it. From it applying due to biology, punishing her for bot being honest with Toby, Ishtar not giving a shit and punishing her regardless for not going out and breeding (Boss flirts with her so he doesn't have a problem with it since he knows the truth).

I heard Japan actually had a big problem with her in the original game. But thats secondhand knowledge.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Feb 16th 2019 at 12:22:40 PM

She was hinted to be Trans due to having the Nightmares (Something only men can get) and only got a full reveal in one of the endings as part of a throwaway gag. That's it. I've written a Fair for Its Day entry in the YMMV sub-page about it if you want a clearer idea about the backlash. It could probably use a rewrite from people more knowledgeable about the whole thing to correct a few bits here and there, but for now I think that it summarizes how people feel about her at the moment.

Edited by WolfThunder on Feb 16th 2019 at 12:22:59 PM

Erica was flat out post-op trans. She used to be named Eric in high school, and all her old friends more or less accept her now as a woman. There's some snickering about how their new friend who never knew her before has a crush on her, but iirc they do ultimately get together and it isn't like "trans-women are evil people trying to trick you." Maybe I'm smoothing things over in my memories, but I recall it being "flawed, but mostly positive."

In the remake, there's a super happy golden ending that involves going back in time to fix everyone's lives, and the solution to all of Erica's problems was apparently to stay as a man.

Only thing its missing form YMMV is that Erica is gay instead of trans in Fullbody.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Feb 16th 2019 at 12:25:54 PM

I see. So not great, but much better than the usual 'burly man wearing a dress that rapes other men and it's played for laughs' type that I see far too often. By which I mean more than once. ...More than zero times.

I think never is enough yeah never is enough~

^^ Oh, I see, that's actually pretty good.

Edited by Arha on Feb 16th 2019 at 2:27:19 PM

How well-written Erica was as a trans character doesn't have much relevance to the fact that implying she would be happier if she hadn't transitioned is a pretty transphobic thing to say. That Atlus has a bad track record with LGBT+ representation only makes it worse, but I'd argue this is among the shittier things.

I have to be honest though, I was never expecting any of Full Body's new additions to be any good. The original game, flawed as it was, still told a mostly coherent story that was built specifically on the duality between Catherine and Katherine. Adding a "third option" was only ever going to muddle that and weaken the story, and that was the worst thing that I thought would happen, but this is even worse.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Feb 16th 2019 at 4:32:27 PM

wasn't there an issue about deadnaming her in the credits too ? IIRC that was the negative thing noted in the trope page.

I'm not too sure what to think either (haven't played the game, was waiting for fullbody), so in a vacuum I could buy the idea was to do something like what omega was suggesting, with someone who transitionned before thinking it through and as a result is miserable in their life. It would still be a bit of a dick move considering the context we live in, but I'm not invested enough in the representation agenda to get angry about it, especially if it draws from real life stories. "Do your best to make sure you won't regret transitionning because it's not really something you can easily go back on" doesn't seem very transphobic to me.

Certainly poorly timed, and not something Atlus of all people should try to pull off.

But from what I gather it's not a character whose backstory is actively explored, it's a side character with half of their subplot being based on details in gameplay sections. So basically in the worst possible way to handle it.

Edited by Yumil on Feb 16th 2019 at 9:35:41 PM

^^ For the record, my question was more like 'was she actually trans? Cause I've only seen Japan do that like twice without totally screwing it up and offending me.' It wasn't really about the writing.

Edited by Arha on Feb 16th 2019 at 2:33:52 PM

Its a mixed area, because not being trans while being gay would still make Eric LGBT, but I honestly need more info on their high school days which Fullbody is suggested to have.

That said I havent heard anything really bad about Qatherine, who is an alien/angel/ALIENANGEL who Erica apparently got his clothes for.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Feb 16th 2019 at 12:34:40 PM

Yeah that happens in the credits.

Edited by deludedmusings on Feb 17th 2019 at 6:34:12 AM

The character is basically just the cute waitress of the bar they frequent. She's not a main character, and her situation is treated as mostly just a joke in one of the endings.

I've seen one sardonic "Good Job Atlus" about that reveal, so I'd only give it a matter of time.

Edited by WolfThunder on Feb 16th 2019 at 12:37:17 PM

Okay so, here's a clearer sense of the ending.◊

Ooooooooh now that's significantly better.

Yeah it's really not.

One of the characters present in that scene is ten years younger than the other characters and everyone looks like the same age they are in the main game. They also never met pre-transition Erica.

So the most charitable interpretation of the ending is that Erica didn't transition to set up a punchline. Oh and they still deadname her in the credits.

Edited by LordVatek on Feb 16th 2019 at 10:30:51 AM

... Oh. and here I thought the implication was she just transitionned later in the vanilla timeline.

Welp, looks lke atlus fucked up.

Its far better with full context, but iylt still sounds a lil tone deaf. Like Disney and POC characters for the longest time.

I have no real interest in this game, but if this situation is as bad as it seems I've lost a ton of respect for Hashino's writing. Really makes me wonder a) whether I was too lenient in assuming ignorance over malice with respect to his recurring sloppy handling of the LGBT community (minus Lala-sama) and b) just how sincere his attempts as being progressive in P5 were, even on top of the already frequent criticism that he was essentially patting himself on the back for doing the bare minimum.

Outside of P3 I'm honestly not that big a fan of Hashino's writing. There are parts of each game I enjoy or find compelling (like the broad ideas and themes of Catherine, the first few hours of P5 and some of the social links, etc) but it's always undermined in massive ways. At best, it evens out to average.

While there's a cultural divide at play with P5 I have never considered it that progressive for a number of reasons, not the least of which is how they undermine the social critique at multiple points like Yusuke being gross towards Ann with the nude model thing, the male party members ogling her later on in a few scenes, Kawakami and Tae being romanceable, etc. I get why it resonated with people, but it's got some huge problems. To me, it did seem like the aim of P5 was genuine, they just happened to botch it by wanting to have their cake and eat it too, compromising their vision for the sake of male Wish-Fulfillment.

Even besides the social issue stuff there was a lot I didn't like about P5's writing, like the party members being mostly bland and Akechi's character being a total miss.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Feb 16th 2019 at 3:27:13 PM