Naoto is great at being a commentary about the sexism of Japanese work culture and its media consumption. Especially in the S-link and its great how the grandpa is the one quietly pushing things. Hands down a great character when things get personal... not so much when it comes down to the overall role in the plot as Naoto's role comes off as stilted.
A lot of people tend to have worse opinions as they expect Naoto to be more than that. Kanji too tbh.
Naoto's characterization is I think kind of emblematic of how sub textually queer the original Persona 4 was. Sure, the intent of Naoto's character was to be commentary of Japanese sexism and work culture, but that is not entirely how it reads, especially when read from a culture without those specific contexts to draw upon, Naoto's character becomes kind of a Rorschach test. You see what you want to see.
For my personal reading, based on the original P4 (I haven't played golden, and am waiting for the yosuke romance mod before I do), Naoto came across to me as someone who, in a better society without all the sexist baggage she did grow up in, would probably be Agender, or just identify as a girl because that is what assigned at birth, with no real attachment to it. Because basically, at her heart, I didn't really see Naoto as someone who cared about gender identity, divorced from what the rest of society thought about gender.
But Naoto doesn't live in a society without sexist baggage, and did grow up having all these exceptions and assumptions thrown on her because of sexist connotations. Her childhood interests were all coded male, and her preferred career is heavily coded male, while, being AFAB, Naoto is hefted with a lot of gendered expectations on how they are "supposed" to be, that they really just are not. In that context, I could very easily see naoto as more comfortably identifying as male, which is what you see both pre and post reveal, never really expressing a discomfort in male attire, in fact the opposite clearly preferring male attire and expressing extreme discomfort in traditional female attire.
And don't even get me started on her romance, where it felt to me that Naoto was constantly extremely uncomfortable with the MC viewing them as a girl, but tried to put up with it because the MC expresses in no uncertain terms that they'd only like them romantically if they were a girl (which I hate and would prefer was removed, but c'est la vie).
Edited by I-M-THE-Jetyl-1 on Jun 27th 2020 at 1:52:01 AM
I forgot my password, and I want my old Forum handle back!!!IMO neither Chihiro nor Naoto are really that ambiguous if you read the actual text. Naoto isn't really that comfortable with femininity as a whole but it's nothing to do with her being trans and more to do with how she thought masculinity was the only way to be viewed as legitimate in the profession she wanted to pursue; you could see it as a commentary on sexism.
Chihiro is more or less the same thing, wanting to present as a woman because it made what he perceived as his own flaws more socially acceptable.
With P4 specifically though, Atlus kinda bungled the presentation/delivery, especially with the theming of the dungeon.
Well, I finally managed to replace New Day with Good Morning Morioh Cho! and I couldn't happier.
@Draghinazzo: Text is one thing, but you can't really ignore the subtext and say "oh it has nothing at all to do with queerness". Transphobic ideas don't go away just because the writers didn't try to write something trans. Both works dipped their toes into areas they weren't well equipped to handled and the works suffered for it.
The thing that Kanji and Naoto are about is Gender Stereotypes Are Bullshit. Kanji likes arts and crafts and those are seen as girly so he must Hard Gay, Naoto grew up where all her heroes were guys and wants to work in an industry which is 99.999% male and the girls are “encouraged’’ (read as forced) to retire at 25 and go house wife so she must become a guy.
So they put on a mask like every other person in the game. The public mask and the private self every single character in the game is dealing with both, the Slinks are all about accepting both sides and revealing their true self while those lost Becoming the Mask or discard it completely.
Trying to label them as gay and trans is really missing the point of the entire thing, it doesn’t matter, those applying those opinions IS part of their problem.
Edited by Memers on Jun 27th 2020 at 11:49:54 AM
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That is not how narrative theory works. Theoretical frameworks can be applied regardless of cultural background or time periods. It doesn't matter if Posthumanism is a relatively modern theory, it's perfectly applicable to Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde due to the text blurring the division between animal and human.
Narratives do not dictate readings of a text. The text constructs readings itself. There are narrative schools of thought that completely reject taking background details such as place of production and time periods into account. The authors intending something else is irrelevant.
Queer theory is excellent for Persona 4, since queer theory is about rejecting the non-binary nature of the sexes and the fluidity of gender.
"If you aren't him, then you apparently got your brain from the same discount retailer, so..." - FighteerIf Kanji's dungeon was all there was to his possibly being gay, that be one thing. But as people always point out, he was okay with going out with Naoto when he thought she was a he.
I'm still disappointed Naoto wasn't just a very feminine boy, honestly. Some people say it's obvious but I didn't see anything to suggest Naoto was a girl.
I don't disagree, my point was just that the authorial intent is pretty clear despite the bungled execution.
Her voice was a dead giveaway.
Edited by Draghinazzo on Jun 28th 2020 at 11:18:44 AM
Feminine male characters can have women voicing them, though.
I had seen that in plenty of anime before I played P 4 G.
Previously, someone in this topic said just because the jokes are tactless doesn't mean the overall message falls apart.
In which case, considering Kanji's arc, I respectfully disagree.
"Humor is the affectionate communication of insight." –Leo Rosten. With homophobic jokes at Kanji's expense, it ruins his arc because the actual message is "being gay is bad." Like if he just sexually confused, it'll be one thing, but it's not. Thus the game's messaging of "being yourself" falls apart.
Be yourself.... unless what yourself is considered by society.
This is all really comes down to if you subscribe to Death of the Author and feel narrative intent doesn't, and shouldn't, influence how you feel how a work should be interpreted.
Given how low the opinion of Hashino is due to the questionable plot threads he puts in, I'm not really surprised that people look at Kanji and Naoto as a poor representation of LGBTQ issues regardless of his intent. Especially when becomes obvious that's not what he was going for.
Interestingly, Sae is in the same position as Naoto. She's even told outright by her director that she should focus on getting married and settling down, and nobody ever takes her seriously as a prosecutor on the case. But Sae also doesn't seem to have any gender identity issues despite being discriminated against as she's comfortable wearing feminine clothing.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.As other people pointed out, the point of Kanji pointedly is that he's not gay. You can read the story differently because of how it was executed but there's little room about what the authorial intent was. Even if we run with the idea the game truly thinks being gay is bad, Kanji isn't meant to be gay in the writers head so it still doesn't invalidate what the game is trying to say about gender roles and Toxic Masculinity, and the game neither states that gay people should go straight.
You could say that a game that promotes homophobia shoots whatever other positive message it has in the foot, and. I don't really have a good comeback to that. Someone I know argued that Yosuke constantly making homophobic remarks isn't meant to be entirely taken as comedy and that you're meant to disapprove of him but I'm not going to argue that line of thinking any further until I finish p4g so I can have an opinion about it myself.
(EDIT : Although I will add that considering Yosuke was seriously considered as a gay option to the point of having datamined content in the game where he declares he loves the protag, I find it really hard to argue p4 geniunely believes being gay is bad. I don't know how the decision making process went down but you don't almost add a romance option you personally think is against nature and shouldn't exist)
But that one doesn't really make the bad homophobic jokes go away so let's put this another way : Unless Yosuke manages to shame Kanji out of sewing, then there's no message falling apart. The (intended) message of Kanji's arc is "You like girly things but you're a boy ? Keep at it and don't let anyone tell you otherwise, you're not gay because of that and you're not an error of nature either." And Kanji, unless Atlus pulled it's head in it's ass so hard it shrunk to nothing, does exactly that. He doesn't stop liking sewing because society thinks that makes him gay.
Be yourself, even if it means society will frown upon you for it. Sounds pretty on point to me.
Edited by Yumil on Jun 28th 2020 at 6:02:21 PM
"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."Been playing more of P 5 R.
Man, they knocked it out of the Park with the third Tier Personas for your party members, even moreso then the ones from P 4 G.
Seriously, Ryuji's being a aparty wide charge and increasing Physical abilities by 80% as an inherent trait, Ann's being a party wide concentrate and her innate ability of reducing SP by half for Magic being party wide as well, Morgana making it so that everyone can get increased healing via his innate ability AND a AOE Miracle punch is fucking absurd. And I haven't even unlocked all of them yet.
I seriously want to see P3 remade with new third tier personas just to see what Atlus can come up with, and maybe even make Orpheus T-elos a canon third tier Persona for Door Kun/Chan.
Edited by Demongodofchaos2 on Jun 28th 2020 at 11:57:31 AM
Watch SymphogearIt certainly would put his homophobic jokes in a completely different light and make him just being insecure about himself instead of being the carrier of atlus's worst kind of joke.
"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."It's easy to say it never meant anything when you take the conclusion and apply it backwards, but it's pretty important to remember the linear progression through the game is "implication of queer themes -> psyche!". I'd have a much better opinion of the storylines if they didn't use gay and trans set dressing only to both refute it and use it as a stepping stone.

I like Naoto because she's the one member of the main cast that has a level head.
The legend has returned.