Well yea, hindsight is 20/20. I'm assuming most of the people who first played Persona 4 when it was all the rage were in their mid to late teens, and were questioning their own identity or not comfortable with who they were. So game that explores things like that is obviously going to resonate.
But I feel the dissonance that so many people are getting is that the identity issues are rooted more in Japanese identity issues rather than American ones, and there's a surprising amount of nuance there that admitelly went over a lot of people's heads due to cultural differences.
Not that it invalidates your feelings or anyone else's on Hashino's writing, but I do feel it's important to be aware of that inherent cultural divide there.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.I just thought of something terrifying.
So Maruki has become so powerful with his reality warping and Actualization powers that he is stronger with it then Yaldaboath is (This is confirmed multiple times by a few characters in the game including Lavenza) and more on the level of someone like Philemon or Nyarlathotep. But what honestly freaks me out is that it makes Jose so much more mysterious, and yet so terrifyingly powerful that even after Maruki takes full control of Mementos, Jose can still casually Change mementos to the Phantom Thevies benefit using the stamps and his Piko Piko hammer, and iss completely unaffected by Maruki's Actualization power. And in his boss fight, he's shown to never get out of his car, and its pretty much confirmed that he wasn't even trying in his fight with you and saw it more as playing with you. And yet, Lavenza never comments about him at all.
If thats True, then Jose, despite looking like one, ISN'T affiliated with the Velvet Room at all. That bears the Question. What the FUCK is he?
Watch SymphogearThe problem with P4's handling of Kanji in particular is that whether you read him as gay or not, his character arc is pretty rough either way. If you take him as not gay (which is certainly the intended read, death of the author and all that aside), then the tldr is "it's fine for a man to have girly hobbies, as long as they're not actually gay", especially with Yosuke's repeated homophobia always drawing vigorous denials from Kanji. If you take him as gay, then the tldr is "it's fine for a man to have girly hobbies, it just means they're gay", which is... also less than ideal, to put it mildly.
Reading Naota as trans has similar issues, where "it's okay to want to follow a traditionally male career path even if you're AFAB, it just means you're trans" is not the greatest takeaway. Though unlike Kanji, the intended "she's a cis woman who hates that her gender is a barrier to how she wants to live her life" read doesn't really come with any glaring unfortunate implications.
One of the criticisms leveled at P4 in general is that most of the party members have character arcs that revolve around their own desires potentially conflicting with societal expectations, the character doing some soul searching, and then deciding "no, I don't actually want to go against social norms after all" (at least, not too much). Yukiko feels pressured to take up the family business and eventually decides that yes, that's what she wants to do. Kanji is worried that his feminine hobbies means that he's gay, and comes to the conclusion that no, he's definitely a manly man and straight as an arrow. Rise is burnt out from the demeaning and exploitive idol industry, but decides that she really does love it and returns after taking a break.
All of these are reasonably well justified in terms of the individual characters, so it's not like the various story beats feel forced or don't make sense, but taken as a whole it comes across as very "we're all human and unique and different, so it's okay to be a little weird, but you'll be happier if you just confirm to expectations without making any big waves". Also: Yosuke is a shithead and I hate him.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.That's an odd statement to end your post on.
Not unexpected mind you, but still odd.
Man, I actually think this series did Yosuke the dirtiest, because they made him the poster boy for everything people dislike about the series due to his stupid actions.
So much so that whatever virtues he has have all died in the exact same fire that many want Yosuke himself to die in.
One Strip! One Strip!![]()
Yea, that's the biggest sticking point about P4 and it's so firmly rooted in traditional Japanese values; that any rebellion against the norm or what society has decided is just considered a "phase" that you will eventually grow out of and eventually conform.
It's not bad per se, but it has a very uncomfortable undertone of You Can't Fight Fate so don't bother.
Now to the series` credit, the next game feels like a direct response to that with the Phantom Thieves similarly being considered rejects and outcasts by society, but they fully embrace their roles as fitting the game's theme of rebellion against the system. But it also , rather conveniently, never touches upon the gender related issues that P4 had.
Imagine Kanji and Naoto were apart of the Phantom Thieves, and rebelled what society said they had to be.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.![]()
Yosuke is a sexist, homophobic prick (I don't recall him specifically being transphobic as well, but that may just be my memory failing me, since it's not raised as an issue nearly as often) and the game presents him as your average wholesome teenage boy with a good heart although he's occasionally a bit thoughtless.
Fuck that noise. Yosuke is privilege incarnate and he spends most of the game being a dick to his "friends" without ever getting called out on it. He's supposed to be The Everyman and you, the player's, ultimate best bud, but he's a dumpster fire of a human being and he never grows out of it.
P5's better about that sort of thing in that they're at least explicit about the idea that Society Can Be Wrong, but they're sort of half-assed about it, since the solution for basically every problem is still "expose the wrongdoing to the appropriate authorities". While P5 embraces the idea of bad apples corrupting the system, it still rejects the notion that the system itself can be the problem. It's certainly a step up from P4's recurring theme being "happiness is doing what you're supposed to", but it's still a bit disappointing in that despite the aesthetic being based on rebellion against corrupt authority, it stops short of criticizing the system that let that authority fall into corrupt hands in the first place.
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Jose has to be a robot, right? Like, look at his eyes and how he's designed. I can't make heads or tails of him at all, but he definitely heavily implied we'd end up seeing more of him.
As for Yosuke, I really like his character, and him being bisexual and the gay option would have been so good for his character. Since it would have matched up with his whole character arc of, well, everything else he develops through and accepting himself and whatnot. I cant wait for the gay Yosuke mod to be finished, and i'm still baffled that it was removed (likely) so late in development.
"There's not a girl alive who wouldn't be happy being called cute." ~Tamamo-no-Mae@Handsome Rob
There are only two things Yosuke ever does wrong: a couple interactions with Kanji very early on and That Scene.
Now, I cringed as hard as anybody else with how he treated Kanji. But this game is from 2008 so it was probably written even earlier like 2006 or 2007? And Yosuke is a teenage boy in high school. I can't hate Yosuke any more than I can hate myself or my friends because we said all sorts of the same kind of shit at that age. To nobody homosexual so far as I know but "lol ur gay" was just a thing back then.
None of this makes what we did or what Yosuke does right but he's a teenage boy and, more importantly, he has TONS of otehr scenes to balance it out. We know he's fundamentally a good friend who cares deeply for everyone in the Investigation Team. It is entirely conceivable he'll grow out of his juvenile attitude just as every teenage boy at that time did. Because, as I said, those like two scenes with Kanji are very early on and he's nothing but helpful and considerate the rest of the game.
As for That Scene...this gets people just as mad, which is surprising to me. They're like "she ain't your sister so shut the fuck up!" Now people forget Naoto was the one who suggested throwing Namatame in the TV. It's especially curious because she contributes nothing else to that scene and is treated like an innocent bystander who was always against it. I'm left to think she just says it because she's the Smart One and Yosuke's vigilante idea would have been to just smother Namatame with a pillow or something. But anyway, everyone was a moron in that scene because everyone loves Nanako and is very upset. Her being your sister does not give you greater say in the matter.
But yeah, I love Brosuke because he's 99% of the time nothing but awesome and lovable. That is the core appeal of Persona 4 that has evidently not died or lessened one bit in over 10 years. The Investigation Team are the most charismatic group in the series. As one YT Comment so aptly put it "Persona 4 made me feel like I had friends." I prefer the OG Team of Yosuke, Chie and Yukiko but they're all great. They're all family who you'd do anything for.
Edited by Nikkolas on Jun 28th 2020 at 11:31:46 AM
@Native Jovian: You CAN make an argument that the system itself isn't to blame, but the people who run it. The game runs with the idea that adults are rotten, but you have plenty of adults who are presented as firmly altruistic and supportive of the thieves.
Soooo, it's 50/50?
Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Jun 28th 2020 at 2:35:53 PM
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.![]()
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I'd respect your opinion more if you didn't try to not so subtly state it as if its factual and that we are wrong for not agreeing with you....
@ Native Jovian: P 5 R actually goes into this during the third semester, and its made more obvious with some third semester Mementos requests that there's systemic issues at hand in society.
Edited by Demongodofchaos2 on Jun 28th 2020 at 2:37:26 PM
Watch SymphogearBecause clearly, the world would be a much better place without Yosuke around...
Edited by CybranGeneralSturm on Jun 28th 2020 at 11:48:43 AM
Saying its boring proves my point more, really.
And everyone was OOC during that sequence, Not gonna lie.
Watch Symphogear
x4 that's a VERY odd read of the ryuji vs morgana argument when the dominant narrative is that morgana constantly beltitles ryuji and ryuji doesn't ever take it to heart while morgana runs from the group from one mean line.
Royale also did great to improve his character so he's likely to only get more and more liked as time goes on.
Also, I'd rather not get into that argument about p4 cause I haven't finished it yet but while I can sorta buy that yosuke is still pretty good (although I can actually see his IQ decay over time right now, now that yukiko has joined the group) but to say that Chie is a perfectly likeable buddy i'd do anything for is something I'd already give a big no to. At this point of the game, everything that could be said about yosuke about how he's a loud, inconsiderate asshole at times applies to her too. And the fact that the regular crticism of 4 is that the intended comedy crosses one too many times into the cruelty territory doesn't make me think I'm going to revise that opinion as the game progresses.
Also, I find it funny to try to use a youtube comment about p4 making you feel like you have friends as some kind of validation, because you see that kind of comment about all three games on vids of all threes. There's the same kind of drivel in comments in the ost of sunset bridge of a guy saying that if he had the phantom thieves as friends he could die happily, having gotten everything he wanted from life. news flash, that's the core appeal of modern persona, not specifically 4.
Edited by Yumil on Jun 28th 2020 at 9:16:40 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."The YT comment proves nothing, it's just a nice way to sum up P4's appeal.
P4's appeal is emotional. One sentence or a 500 page dissertation makes no difference. You either get the feeling of loving these characters, oif forging a bond with them that aches in your heart as you drew near the game's end, or you don't. I can't explain why me and thousands others love them. I can tell you why we love them but that's not really the same. All the endless arguments about P3 and P4 has shown me that. We perceive the exact same events entirely differently.
ALL of modern persona's appeal is entirely emotionnal. What you feel for 4 is no different than from how people feel about 3 or 5. If you don't feel like trying to actually argue about what makes the emotion stuff work, there's no point in engaging in the discussion in the first place.
Edited by Yumil on Jun 28th 2020 at 9:23:08 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."Yosuke's homophobia is more than just "very early on", it keeps resurfacing over the course of the game, which is one of the reasons I'm not willing to forgive him for it. There's room for bigoted characters in works that handle these issues positively, but you have to make it clear that the bigotry is bad, either by making the bigot a bad person or having them realize their mistake and change their attitudes. Persona 4 does neither, and Yosuke continues to make "lol gay" jokes even when it visibly pisses off Kanji. It gets even worse when you remember that Kanji isn't even supposed to be gay in the author-intended reading, meaning that Yosuke spends a year making fun of Kanji because they thought he might have been gay at one point.
There's also the fact that Yosuke is a prick to the girls, which you didn't mention at all. He expects them to cook for him, and to be good at it, just because they're girls, and refuses to let it go when they end up being bad at it — despite the fact that he offered neither help nor advice to make it any better. And he continues to make fun of them for being bad at cooking even when they're making genuine, legitimate efforts to improve — which just makes him a prick for not being supportive of his friends, above and beyond the sexism in demanding that girls be good at cooking in the first place.
Plus the fact that he sexually harasses them — he pressures them into going swimming during the camping trip because he wants to see them in swimsuits, despite them being visibly uncomfortable with doing so. He browbeats them into it by making them feel guilty for being bad at cooking, and when they try to avoid it by saying they didn't bring swimsuits, he reveals that he picked out and brought swimsuits for them to wear. This is well beyond "lol high school boys are horny", it's straight up emotional manipulation and sexual harassment — which he pre-planned far enough ahead to pack swimsuits for them so he could force them to wear them.
The other scenes were he's your best bro who's 110% got your back do not make up for this. If someone is a good guy most of the time and a bigot occasionally, then they're a bigot, full stop. If they'd ever addressed his behavior and had him admit that he was wrong and make an effort to improve, that'd be one thing. But they don't. So fuck Yosuke.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Jun Kurosu would probably punch Yosuke in the face like the badass gay he is for his remarks, at any rate.
Eikichi would think he's a disgrace to the Bro archetype.
Watch Symphogear