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“It’s okay, you’re not queer and therefore are fine” is a message that actually is kinda bad! The attempt at working through societal expectations of gendered activity is undermined by the framing of being gay as this negative thing that is actually harmful for Kanji to identify with. Yosuke in the game’s framing isn’t a lovely teen because he’s homophobic, he’s lovely because he’s being homophobic to someone who isn’t actually gay.
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Jan 18, 2021 07:38
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Ibram Gaunt posted:Huh? That's not what Kanji's character arc is about at all! It... kind of is? After his dungeon, they really walk back on saying anything about gayness at all, and make the rest of his arc about masculinity instead. They even have him blush a lot around Naoto, who secretly has girl parts, to sort of imply that maybe he actually likes girls after all (because of course Naoto's inherent femininity radiates through any disguise).
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Jan 18, 2021 07:39
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Jazerus posted:in light of p5 i understand why it's hard to give the persona team any benefit of the doubt, but p4 has always felt to me like an earnest attempt to engage with queerness at a time when RPGs were, uh, not doing that at all. but somebody higher up was not really on board, took out stuff that made it work (like the yosuke romance), and then p5 was heavily managed to be as "not gay" as possible as a reaction to p4 being relatively bold I don't want to say you're wrong or anything, it was my viewpoint for a while and I think there's an argument to be had there. But I just think the whole Yosuke 'romance' is tenuous at best and it often feels like an excuse to explain that the game's lovely jokes were originally not so lovely, and considering those jokes weren't totally uncommon in 2008 and that the same team would repeat similar gags in 2016 I don't really buy it.
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Jan 18, 2021 07:40
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Orcs and Ostriches posted:The Kanji dungeon is easily the most offensive part of the game. The only part, in my opinion, but there's a segment later on that people interpret in various ways. That section is actually held pretty dear by a few friends of mine that weren't actually "out" like me at the time. It actually really speaks to some people, and quite a few out there that hold Kanji and his dungeon kind of dear just for questioning gender norms and the like. Accepting the feminine coded aspects of yourself felt pretty great at the time to a section of the world that didn't feel seen. Kokoro Wish fucked around with this message at 07:50 on Jan 18, 2021 |
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Jan 18, 2021 07:40
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FractalSandwich posted:How often do you see content added in localisation, though? That's almost unheard of. I don't know of a single case off the top of my head. https://clips.twitch.tv/TangibleTrustworthyHerringDuDudu
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Jan 18, 2021 07:41
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Ibram Gaunt posted:Huh? That's not what Kanji's character arc is about at all! I havent finished the game so I could be wrong but that was deffo the impression I got from the post boss dialogue
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Jan 18, 2021 07:41
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Clarste posted:It... kind of is? After his dungeon, they really walk back on saying anything about gayness at all, and make the rest of his arc about masculinity instead. They even have him blush a lot around Naoto, who secretly has girl parts, to sort of imply that maybe he actually likes girls after all (because of course Naoto's inherent femininity radiates through any disguise). I guess I just never saw Kanjis thing actually being about gayness in the first place but that stuff being an extension of his main conflict about masculinity and gender norms. I do think the way the game handles it is less than ideal in execution though, but that's what I got out of it.
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Jan 18, 2021 07:46
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persona 4's sense of humor frequently has a sense of needless meanness to it when it's not just being gross. you can claim its accurate to the teenage experience all you want but it still sucks
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Jan 18, 2021 07:48
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SyntheticPolygon posted:I don't want to say you're wrong or anything, it was my viewpoint for a while and I think there's an argument to be had there. But I just think the whole Yosuke 'romance' is tenuous at best and it often feels like an excuse to explain that the game's lovely jokes were originally not so lovely, and considering those jokes weren't totally uncommon in 2008 and that the same team would repeat similar gags in 2016 I don't really buy it. Honestly, relistening to the dummied audio for the first time in like a decade it feels like most of it is from a group scene and then the "i like you" line being from something else, combined with it in order to make it seem like part of a whole...Unless the audio was all labeled as being part of the same scene. IDK how that crap works. Mr. Maltose posted:“It’s okay, you’re not queer and therefore are fine” is a message that actually is kinda bad! The attempt at working through societal expectations of gendered activity is undermined by the framing of being gay as this negative thing that is actually harmful for Kanji to identify with. Yosuke in the game’s framing isn’t a lovely teen because he’s homophobic, he’s lovely because he’s being homophobic to someone who isn’t actually gay. I honestly did not get the vibe thatt you're supposed to think being gay is bad. The poo poo with Yosuke is dumb and tedious but he's always the one treated as the bad guy in those scenes. There's no way you're supposed to agree with him. It feels more like a cake and eat it too situation to me than them endorsing his opinion. Ibram Gaunt fucked around with this message at 07:54 on Jan 18, 2021 |
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Jan 18, 2021 07:51
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Looper posted:persona 4's sense of humor frequently has a sense of needless meanness to it when it's not just being gross. you can claim its accurate to the teenage experience all you want but it still sucks Yeah, that's one thing that really rubbed me the wrong way about the later Personas. 3 is easily my favourite because of the absolute bleakness of the tone, but with sparkling moments of humanity dotted amongst it all. Shame about Aigis being underdeveloped though. I really love her design.
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Jan 18, 2021 07:53
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Looper posted:persona 4's sense of humor frequently has a sense of needless meanness to it when it's not just being gross. you can claim its accurate to the teenage experience all you want but it still sucks yeah persona 4 is occasionally funny but whenever it decides that its time to do a Funny Scene it becomes the absolute worst thing shoutout to the game simultaneously having two characters where: one of them has the backstory is "i was overweight as a kid and was harshly bullied for it so when i transferred schools i constructed an entire popular mean girl persona for myself to cope" and the other is a walking fat joke with no depth or narrative sympathy who only exists so the party can be disgusted by her
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Jan 18, 2021 07:58
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Ibram Gaunt posted:I guess I just never saw Kanjis thing actually being about gayness in the first place but that stuff being an extension of his main conflict about masculinity and gender norms. I do think the way the game handles it is less than ideal in execution though, but that's what I got out of it. You can interpret it that way, and I feel like this discussion is just a rehash of the same stuff thats already been said many times, but the way the Kanji dungeon plays out is a complete swerve from what has happened before, where the Shadows were always explicitly a part of themselves the person was rejecting
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Jan 18, 2021 07:59
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Ibram Gaunt posted:I guess I just never saw Kanjis thing actually being about gayness in the first place but that stuff being an extension of his main conflict about masculinity and gender norms. I do think the way the game handles it is less than ideal in execution though, but that's what I got out of it. Nah, I think you’re on it. At least as was what was intended. Kanji even states it’s never been about guys or chicks, it’s about how to be a man. Kokoro Wish posted:Yeah, that's one thing that really rubbed me the wrong way about the later Personas. As terrible as, uh, most of the social links are, I agree. There’s something about 3’s story and tone that catch me the hardest. As well as characters growing independently of the main character.
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Jan 18, 2021 08:00
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Orcs and Ostriches posted:
It was cool seeing little things like sometimes you can't hang out with Yukari and if you went around town you'd see her and Junpei hanging out. It's super minor but I liked seeing stuff like that, it was a bummer to see how 4 and 5 both just have everyone revolve entirely around the protagonist and basically not have any sort of life of their own. I was a fan in general of the cast dynamic being that you're more like coworkers than best friends for the most part as well.
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Jan 18, 2021 08:04
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Kokoro Wish posted:Shame about Aigis being underdeveloped though. I really love her design. English p3 is cursed, Junpei is a child grooming creep and Aegis is a trump loving covid denier
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Jan 18, 2021 08:07
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i mean kanji and naoto are the obvious ones but you've also got yosuke and chie, plus teddy's whole "i'm a literal alien that doesn't understand sexuality" thing. some faction of the p4 team managed to embed queerness as a theme pretty deeply into the game.Clarste posted:It... kind of is? After his dungeon, they really walk back on saying anything about gayness at all, and make the rest of his arc about masculinity instead. They even have him blush a lot around Naoto, who secretly has girl parts, to sort of imply that maybe he actually likes girls after all (because of course Naoto's inherent femininity radiates through any disguise). i have gone back and forth on the kanji-naoto thing over the years. for a while i interpreted it exactly as you just posted - that him liking naoto is an attempt to de-gay him and transform his conflict into being exclusively about masculinity (it is definitely partially about masculinity regardless). but honestly, i feel now that kanji liking naoto regardless of gender presentation, and trying to figure out his own identity in response to that being the case, is pretty real and it doesn't cheapen his arc at all. it just means that "gay" was (maybe) not the endpoint of his exploration of his identity, and he's actually bi/pan/etc.. it's left pretty ambiguous and you could read it either as "complex gender stuff" or "actually everyone is hetero" depending on your inclination. the game seems like the product of two very divergent visions wrt queer themes and it is hard to know what is nuance and what is the product of the director saying "make it less gay" Jazerus fucked around with this message at 08:11 on Jan 18, 2021 |
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Jan 18, 2021 08:07
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Ibram Gaunt posted:Honestly, relistening to the dummied audio for the first time in like a decade it feels like most of it is from a group scene and then the "i like you" line being from something else, combined with it in order to make it seem like part of a whole...Unless the audio was all labeled as being part of the same scene. IDK how that crap works. It's been a long time since I've looked at the DDS engine files but I think audio files weren't particularly named any special way and were just called by name from the scripts. Those Yosuke lines weren't called by any script so there's no reference for them other than what he says in the audio itself.
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Jan 18, 2021 08:08
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Ibram Gaunt posted:It was cool seeing little things like sometimes you can't hang out with Yukari and if you went around town you'd see her and Junpei hanging out. It's super minor but I liked seeing stuff like that, it was a bummer to see how 4 and 5 both just have everyone revolve entirely around the protagonist and basically not have any sort of life of their own. I agree completely. 3 felt more natural as to how the group operated, even if it was dumb you could s. link the women and not the guys. I also liked the Fool link being the team, which also then matures to the Judgement link when the final goal is in sight. Thematically that always hyped me up. Such a minor thing but it was a disappointment for me in 5.
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Jan 18, 2021 08:09
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Ibram Gaunt posted:It was cool seeing little things like sometimes you can't hang out with Yukari and if you went around town you'd see her and Junpei hanging out. It's super minor but I liked seeing stuff like that, it was a bummer to see how 4 and 5 both just have everyone revolve entirely around the protagonist and basically not have any sort of life of their own. I somewhat agree, but I think the problem is it works well on paper as showing they're their own people with their own lives going on (along with only controlling the protagonist in fights), but gameplay-wise it turns into not being able to do the S.Links the player actually wants to do because they've arbitrarily decided today they're not available. Trails of Cold Steel does a better job of P3's take on S.Links, with not everyone available on every free day, but the ones that are are relevant to that particular day (general example; "We're going swimming, want to join us?") rather than an arbitrary set of progression events.
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Jan 18, 2021 08:12
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Jazerus posted:i have gone back and forth on the kanji-naoto thing over the years. for a while i interpreted it exactly as you just posted - that him liking naoto is an attempt to de-gay him and transform his conflict into being exclusively about masculinity (it is definitely partially about masculinity regardless). but honestly, i feel now that kanji liking naoto regardless of gender presentation, and trying to figure out his own identity in response to that being the case, is pretty real and it doesn't cheapen his arc at all. it just means that "gay" was (maybe) not the endpoint of his exploration of his identity, and he's actually bi/pan/etc.. it's left pretty ambiguous and you could read it either as "complex gender stuff" or "actually everyone is hetero" depending on your inclination. My take on it is that the Japanese version was strictly heteronormative (which fits with what we know about the director and writers), but the localization team was more progressive than the Japanese devs and tried to insert more of their own "complex gender stuff" despite the text. Edit: There's also that whole thing about Troy Baker claiming that he was told to play Kanji as gay. Clarste fucked around with this message at 08:18 on Jan 18, 2021 |
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Jan 18, 2021 08:14
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P4's message of "find your true self, it's okay to be who you are" generally would have worked better if they didn't have practically the entire team land on being basically what society expected of them Kanji being a straight man who likes to sew is fine on its own, but it's part of a broader pattern of the game being cowardly with its themes, imo
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Jan 18, 2021 08:20
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I'm gay and Kanji is my bf
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Jan 18, 2021 08:26
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cheetah7071 posted:P4's message of "find your true self, it's okay to be who you are" generally would have worked better if they didn't have practically the entire team land on being basically what society expected of them I think the theme is actually more about not having one aspect of your identity define your entire identity. Just because Kanji likes sewing and other "girly" things doesn't mean he is gay, Naoto doesn't have to be a man just because she wants to be a detective, Yukiko doesn't have to be serious all the time just because she is going to be an innkeeper., etc..... The shadows basically represent what the characters believe what they will be like if they accept a part of their identity. Its not really about them fundamentally changing who they are, but letting themselves to become a more complex person. IShallRiseAgain fucked around with this message at 09:03 on Jan 18, 2021 |
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Jan 18, 2021 08:56
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the issue there is the characters still wind up more socially acceptable, not less, in a game where societal pressure loving you up is a big theme. kanji stops dying his hair and wears glasses, naoto dresses femininely, yukiko does what her parents want, rise goes back to being a pop idol, chie doesn't have a character arc and yosuke's whole deal was never really about societal pressure. p5 still bungles the same theme even worse tho so edit: also plenty of RPGs before, during, and after p4's release engaged with gay stuff. liek yeah social attitudes have changed in the past 13 or so years but p4 doesnt get some credit for being 'the first' because it isn't and it wasn't particularly bold with its attempts at bringing stuff up. like freaking paper mario had a halfway decent trans character three years beforehand. nintendo of america took that away because theyre cowards but still.
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Jan 18, 2021 09:09
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Clarste posted:Given that we're talking about the director of Persona "I don't believe men and women can be friends" 3, I think the alternative is even less plausible.
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Jan 18, 2021 09:10
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Clarste posted:My take on it is that the Japanese version was strictly heteronormative (which fits with what we know about the director and writers), but the localization team was more progressive than the Japanese devs and tried to insert more of their own "complex gender stuff" despite the text. edit: also the troy baker thing was him talking about shadow kanji. hes saying he was told to put on an over the top gay lisp for the evil demon.
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Jan 18, 2021 09:13
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Endorph posted:the localized version is also strictly heteronormative I didn't say they tried very hard.
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Jan 18, 2021 09:15
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Endorph posted:the issue there is the characters still wind up more socially acceptable, not less, in a game where societal pressure loving you up is a big theme. kanji stops dying his hair and wears glasses, naoto dresses femininely, yukiko does what her parents want, rise goes back to being a pop idol, chie doesn't have a character arc and yosuke's whole deal was never really about societal pressure. p5 still bungles the same theme even worse tho so What pre persona 4 jrpgs dealt with gay people better? Not trying to call you out, I haven't played Persona 4, just genuinely looking for recommendations for games of that era because it's one I don't know a lot about.
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Jan 18, 2021 09:21
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i dont think they tried at all, is the thing. theres nothing in the relevant scenes that differs that drastically from the original jp, at least as far as i recall. if anything there's parts where the original jp is slightly ambiguous just due to the nature of the japanese language that the english translation takes a firm stance on. nothing in p4 is as offensive as the transwoman on the beach in p3 or the gay guys in p5 but the fact that p4 gets any kind of credit for its extremely basic 'you know, i guess gay and trans people sort of exist, somewhere? BUT DONT WORRY THEY ARENT IN THIS GAME DONT WORRY WERE COOL' angle is, to me, more annoying than the quickly forgotten gags in p3/p5. at least theyre just brief hateful jabs rather than the game pretending its just said something really deep. and i didnt have to hear about how woke it was for a decade. and id say p3p is the only thing resembling gay rep in modern persona but im sure someone would bring up the ken thing even though thats entirely unrelated to the femc/aigis s. link.
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Jan 18, 2021 09:21
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Skwirl posted:What pre persona 4 jrpgs dealt with gay people better? Not trying to call you out, I haven't played Persona 4, just genuinely looking for recommendations for games of that era because it's one I don't know a lot about. Persona 2.
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Jan 18, 2021 09:25
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Endorph posted:i dont think they tried at all, is the thing. theres nothing in the relevant scenes that differs that drastically from the original jp, at least as far as i recall. if anything there's parts where the original jp is slightly ambiguous just due to the nature of the japanese language that the english translation takes a firm stance on. I think it's that exactly lack of ambiguity which adds the "complex gender stuff" to the game where it didn't exist before. As in, it allows the reader to maybe interpret the game as possibly saying something about gay or trans people, when I'm not sure that was the intent in Japanese.
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Jan 18, 2021 09:27
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Skwirl posted:What pre persona 4 jrpgs dealt with gay people better? Not trying to call you out, I haven't played Persona 4, just genuinely looking for recommendations for games of that era because it's one I don't know a lot about. not 'gay' but like i said, vivian in paper mario thousand year door is trans in the jp version. there's bits with her sisters making fun of her, misgendering her, etc but they're clearly meant to be the evil bad guys and while he obviously doesnt have any dialogue vivian's reactions to his headbobs and jumping in place imply that she helps him and joins the party because he resepcts her gender identity. its paper mario so it kinda ends there but 'vivian wants to be a girl, her mean sisters make fun of her and call her a guy, mario accepts her as a girl, they save the world, her sisters apologize and treat her as a girl' is a pretty basic but good moral for kids. the only real misstep with it is the tattle convo where goombella goes 'she's a cute guy... i mean, he's a cute girl...?' but one minor dumb joke is fairly easily forgivable when the rest of the game is fairly firm in its stance, and the tattle convos were probably a separate writer from the main story. star ocean 2 had that one gay date scene didnt it corpse party is from 2006 and the entire ending hinges on a lesbian girl's affections being pure and noble despite all the horror since, horror game. she dies like 8 hours in and its a post-mortem save but still, its a sweet little moment. there's a bunch of japanese-only games that touch on this stuff too, and touching on this stuff is probably part of the reason they're japan-only. like persona 2 had an okay gay romance option, literally in the same series, but p2 was two games and the one with that is the one that didnt get localized until the psp remake. bahamut lagoon had the old man party member hit on the protag with an option to go 'yeah sure im down' and while that, isnt exactly great representation, it existed and the fact it did is probably one of the many reasons bahamut lagoon didnt get localized. there's a bunch of indie jp games from waaay before p4 that have that stuff.
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Jan 18, 2021 09:39
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dmboogie posted:
This is the series where your first big bad boss is a dude that rapes high school girls and then have every adult female confidant fine with boning and getting in a relationship with a high school boy. Ann's entire existence is a walking paradox.
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Jan 18, 2021 10:51
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RareAcumen posted:What's up crying buddy? Hell yeah, I'm not even sorry, the emotional beats hit me like a truck and I'm extremely here for it. I also named my protagonist Sab without knowing that there was a character named Rab, and now it's just hella awkward.
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Jan 18, 2021 11:17
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honestly i dont have a problem with ann being somewhat sexualized cause like, 'girl takes control of her own sexuality,' she admires sexy female villains from old cartoons, it all makes sense. like im sure they thought 'sexy girl' first and backfilled later but it could be an interesting character thing to explore. the issue is her relationship with her own sexuality is all over the place. in one cutscene shes lightly teasing ryuji for staring and seems in complete control of herself, in another shes embarrassed to be seen by him. and these scenes are like, 15 minutes apart then again 'contradictory scenes 15 minutes apart' sure describes a lot of persona 5
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Jan 18, 2021 11:18
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Shoutout to Wild Arms 2, who had an explicitly gay character but you'd never know it because of how badly the translation was butchered. e: "girl shoved into extremely revealing and titillating costume and is shown to be extremely uncomfortable about it, and that's something she just needs to Get Over" is one of my least favorite jrpg tropes, goddamn
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Jan 18, 2021 12:48
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Ann is just worse Rise.
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Jan 18, 2021 15:11
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They seem like way the heck different characters, OP. I mean, if you said Yosuke was a worse Ryuji then I’d understand but it seems like apples and oranges.
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Jan 18, 2021 15:14
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Skwirl posted:What pre persona 4 jrpgs dealt with gay people better? Not trying to call you out, I haven't played Persona 4, just genuinely looking for recommendations for games of that era because it's one I don't know a lot about. black/matrix is a 1998 saturn srpg where the first thing you do is select your love interest for the game's entire plot, who the bulk of the game is about you trying to reunite with. one of the options is locked behind a cheat code and it's literally just an entire gay route. on one hand it's kinda weird that it's locked behind a cheat code but on the other hand, all the love interest scenes got expanded a lot in the dreamcast and ps1 ports, including the gay dude's, so it wasn't really an after thought or anything. really the most incredible thing about it being activated by a cheat code is that it meant strategy guides included info on a cheat code for becoming gay phantasy star 1 has the pianist who can teach any party member how to play the piano, but notably gives a discount to male party members because he thinks they're cute. the us localization changed this to him giving a discount because they "look smart". it's not really deep or detailed rep but it doesn't really come off as insulting either from what i can tell, it's just kinda there aoi umi no tristia kinda leans more vn, but the reason given behind why its main character arrives in town in the plot is because the daughter of a local billionaire who's around the same age as her has a crush on her, and both the game and the side media like the ova pretty much wholly run with the idea that she genuinely has romantic feelings for her. it's pretty cute and from what i've seen at least doesn't really go anywhere especially weird with it, and while it's kinda unrequited the protag still likes and actively hangs out with her. hell these days the studio that made tristia literally makes yuri vns lunatic fantasy is much more vn but i'm gonna mention it anyway because it's literally just a half hour long all-ages lesbian fantasy story where the writer put an immense amount of detail and effort into crafting extremely goofy metaphors, for the main character describing the transformative experience of kissing women. Endorph posted:the only real misstep with it is the tattle convo where goombella goes 'she's a cute guy... i mean, he's a cute girl...?' but one minor dumb joke is fairly easily forgivable when the rest of the game is fairly firm in its stance, and the tattle convos were probably a separate writer from the main story. i remember hearing that there's actually a bit of dialog that can happen where she apologizes for it and says she only said it because she was jealous about vivian being cuter than her, but i never got that in my playthrough with the hack that re-adds that stuff so idk The Colonel fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Jan 18, 2021 |
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Jan 18, 2021 15:17
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More games need party members like Sylvando.
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Jan 18, 2021 15:45
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