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TemplaerDude

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,204
I'm playing Persona 4 right now and there has been a heap of incredibly questionable content in it so far. Atlus needs to seriously shake itself up and change their attitude and philosophy.
 

Kelira Telian

Member
Nov 22, 2017
141
Yeah getting mad at that article's author over this is like....yeah thats bad but you could already literally fuck your teacher so getting upset at the gay version of it is kinda telling on yourself.
 

Kelira Telian

Member
Nov 22, 2017
141
Oh good I'm not the only one who thinks dating your teacher, who moonlights as a fetishy maid, is incredibly weird.

Oh it is beyond bizarre in so many ways, and the fact it doesn't get more flak than it does is astounding.

I ended up going with her as the romance just to see how far it would go, and it sure goes places.
 

Deleted member 2669

user requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
4,044
It's annoying that you're given no choice but to blackmail Kawakami into working as your maid. I just wanted to give her money and have her sit down for a chat.

Simply playing an aro/ace protagonist is a hurdle on its own.
 

Linkura

Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,943
Yeah getting mad at that article's author over this is like....yeah thats bad but you could already literally fuck your teacher so getting upset at the gay version of it is kinda telling on yourself.
The dating your teacher part of Persona 5 was ultra YIKES for me. Was extremely uncomfortable playing through that.

I'd forgotten about it; thanks again for reminding me. >:(
 

Aja91

Member
Dec 24, 2017
159
To go from making the Canon MC choice being a queer man in P2 IS to this is so frustrating. Get your shit together Atlus. I can't believe they're doing this while there's a civil marriage right lawsuit (I think??) happening right now in japan.
 

Kelira Telian

Member
Nov 22, 2017
141
You make it sound like the game forces you to.

You have to, at the very least, go along with her being blackmailed into being your maid, even if you never advance that S.Link any further (and that S.Link has an EXTREMELY good payoff, gameplay-wise, so you are incentivised to do it).

This goes back to what was said about how P5 does't really give you actual choices in your choices.
 

FluxWaveZ

Persona Central
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
10,890
You have to, at the very least, go along with her being blackmailed into being your maid, even if you never advance that S.Link any further (and that S.Link has an EXTREMELY good payoff, gameplay-wise, so you are incentivised to do it).

This goes back to what was said about how P5 does't really give you actual choices in your choices.
Yeah, that part isn't great. But the thing I keep hearing when it comes to this kind of discussion is: "I don't like how you can date X in the game." Followed by the same person going, "I dated X to see how it would be." Like, that's exactly why they made it an option.

If it were up to me, Persona wouldn't even have dating in it anymore, but hey.
 

Kelira Telian

Member
Nov 22, 2017
141
Yeah, that part isn't great. But the thing I keep hearing when it comes to this kind of discussion is: "I don't like how you can date X in the game." Followed by the same person going, "I dated X to see how it would be." Like, that's exactly why they made it an option.

If it were up to me, Persona wouldn't even have dating in it anymore, but hey.

I didn't like any of the party member girls with Joker (Ann and Makoto are both pretty gay-coded, imo, Sakura is Just No, Haru shows up too late to care) and I wanted to know if they really, really were going to go all the way with it.

And they did! And its bad!
 

Kitsunelaine

Self-requested ban
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,382
it's really telling how many people in this thread can't fuckin' fathom how transphobia can be intentional no matter how blatant
 

Zacmortar

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
7,383
FWIW I'm in the same boat. In Kanji's case Atlus used gay imagery in order to set up a reveal that Kanji wasn't really gay after all, while with Naoto they're the Bokuko who needs to be feminized by the MC's magical penis.

If they leaned in on what they created, that Kanji were gay and Naoto were a trans man, I think the game would be a lot better and more resonant. As it stands I do believe Atlus just stumbled into queer imagery without really understanding what they were saying because P4 as a whole is very much a game about how everyone needs to conform to the status quo.
Honestly I'd think so too if it weren't the shadow versions being extremes of what you're really hiding, and Kanji's boss is nothing but exagerated bara/gay imagery instead of "feminine" themes. His boss alone paints him as imo he originally wanted to be gay or

with this new scandal now showing a pattern

they equate male femininity with homosexuality and the common gross trans/homophobic phrasing of "Youre just a girl in a dude's body" and designed everything about shadow kanji around that

Either way I'd rather revisionist history make him gay to balance out the utter suffering Yosuke puts him and the audience through
 

Deleted member 283

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
3,288
Catching up on what I missed since I was last in here, I understand why people are focusing so much on the Erica stuff, especially since it's what the thread is framed around and it definitely seems to be bad, but it's disappointing that the stuff concerning Rin seems to still be mostly getting ignored since that's easily just as concerning but it just seems to be getting missed mostly. To quote, for those unaware:
I don't know if its stated out right if shes a crossdresser or trans, But she has a penis and Vincent is shocked at first, but they get married in the true ending. However that's only her human form as she is actually an alien/angel.

When Vincent finds out she has a penis she reaches out to him and he slaps her hand away, to which she cries and runs away, Vincent runs after her to apologize but gets stopped by Katherine at the door.
Like, even putting Erica aside (which absolutely shouldn't be, but putting that whole discussion aside regardless) the spoilers regarding Rin sound 100%, unambiguously transphobic regardless. Like, regardless of if Rin can actually be considered transgender, the whole Rin turning out to have a penis and Vincent being shocked 100% embodies transgender "trap" stereotypes, that transgender individuals are trying to hide what they "really" are and trick people into having sex with them unaware, and that's exactly the kind of stuff that gets transgender individuals killed and leads to them killing suicide each and every day, those kind of stereotypes and that kind of imagery. No one who's transgender actually does that stuff, tries to trick people like that. They're more afraid of that possibility than anyone, that someone might feel deceived in any way and fear for what would happen to them in that kind of situation. It's just not a thing.

And that's why it's not just Vincent's reaction to that scene that's a problem: it's the fact that a scene like that is even in the game, because that's not a thing that actually happens, and it only ever comes up in transphobic nonsense and anti-trans propaganda and argument in the first place. So it's not just Vincent reacting that way that's a problem, the fact that there's even a scene like that in the first place is a huge issue and is the embodiment of anti-transgender gibberish.

And for the game to use that kind of imagery for Rin, regardless of if that character can be considered transgender or a crossdresser, it's clearly invoking the imagery of the "trap" and that's not cool at all, 'cause "traps" aren't real and no one would do that, and just perpetuating those kind of images and stereotypes, that that's a thing, can only hurt transgender individuals and even putting Erica aside, to have a moment like that with Rin is completely unacceptable and makes everything that much worse that the game has these issues in regards to both characters. Especially with the twist of Rin apparently being an alien or whatever, how in any way it could be remotely justified for the character to invoke the image of "the trap" to begin with as that would have so, so, so easily been prevented by just having the character explain what's going on to Vincent to begin with the way actual people do. Instead, having Vincent freak out like he apparently does and in fact be surprised by that "revelation", what's the point of all that if not to be transphobic as fuck? Everything about Rin sounds terrible and over the line, even putting this whole discussion of Erica aside.
 

cairngorm

Member
Oct 25, 2017
651
I'm getting harassed by a bunch of anime goons on Twitter and they keep using this one post as proof that "SEE RESESTERA IS OVERREACTING, YOU SJWs!! YOU GUYS ARE BUNCH OF RET***S AND AUTISTIC LOOL!!!""

So I just wanted to say I'm so sorry Tom that a bunch of shitty people are using you a scapegoat

I guess for them the best way to show how apathetic they are about the issue is to browse the site they hate, steal a post that was later edited but never mention that and post it on twitter at someone talking about the issue to own people from the same site the post is from and then...? Eh, alright
 

Zacmortar

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
7,383
Yeah, that part isn't great. But the thing I keep hearing when it comes to this kind of discussion is: "I don't like how you can date X in the game." Followed by the same person going, "I dated X to see how it would be." Like, that's exactly why they made it an option.

If it were up to me, Persona wouldn't even have dating in it anymore, but hey.
I want the dating to stay just out of sheer desperate hope for the POSSIBILITY of homo in a non-hashino Persona 6.

Ive thought about it a lot, and what really pisses me off about the homophobia/transphobia in these games is that if you did put a good gay in or make one of the mcs gay, it'd work because the homophobia is written in such a gross realistic way that a gay confronting that makes it fine, but without that its literally just the most horrific shit to be written.

You could talk to Ryuji after the predator scene, or whatever, and he realizes he's gay(or bi), and there's conclusion with him at the beach being nice to the gays and then you can date him, that'd literally solve so much.

Or Yosuke in P4, put that cut love confession SLink in, and it would both explain and and legitimize his comedically overthetop homophobia. If that cut link was canon, id legitimately really like Yosuke.

Hashino is just a huge piece of shit though so the longer hes around the worse itll be because none of that'll happen
 

Zacmortar

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
7,383
After being virtually obsessed with this news for the last 12 hours or so, I think I need to take my leave.

Persona 3,4 and 5 are/were all games I adore, but after reading this thread and doing research, I'm starting to feel bad for caring about them at all, and seeing just how blatant this stuff is in Fullbody, I am not sure if I can separate Hoshino's bigotry and/or startling, infuriating ignorance from what I love(d) about these games. There's so many themes and moments in Persona games I interpreted charitably. I'm not sure if I still feel that way.

Likewise for Joker in Smash. I don't know how I see his inclusion now, but I'm not as excited as I was before. Unless they show some surprising and unexpected goodwill in Persona 5 R, I probably won't buy that either.

And if I do support any Persona media going forward, I know it's not going to be the most moral thing I could've done. It'd be selfish at best.

I'd like to thank everybody who chimed in in this thread, especially because I can understand that discussing this stuff is taxing for many of you.

I hope the scene in question is just terribly, incompetently executed, but it still doesn't make this right.
If its any consolation, Joker himself doesn't react or say anything homophobic in the game iirc, it's just Ryuji and (someone else???) that are disgusted at points.
 
Oct 25, 2017
4,974
Canada
Catching up on what I missed since I was last in here, I understand why people are focusing so much on the Erica stuff, especially since it's what the thread is framed around and it definitely seems to be bad, but it's disappointing that the stuff concerning Rin seems to still be mostly getting ignored since that's easily just as concerning but it just seems to be getting missed mostly. To quote, for those unaware:

Rin refers themself as a otokonoko. Which is a crossdressing male. So the rin situation wouldn't really be transphobia.
 
OP
OP
HylianSeven

HylianSeven

Shin Megami TC - Community Resetter
Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,069
Rin refers themself as a otokonoko. Which is a crossdressing male. So the rin situation wouldn't really be transphobia.
I think the main issue is a different moment with Rin.

Vincent finds out Rin has a penis when she's in his bedroom and slaps her hand away and she runs off.
 

Deleted member 8861

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
10,564
You could talk to Ryuji after the predator scene, or whatever, and he realizes he's gay(or bi), and there's conclusion with him at the beach being nice to the gays and then you can date him, that'd literally solve so much.
I'd be against this particular solution because at the end of the day those stereotyped guys are still harassing Ryuji and that's not OK. I'd be far more willing to interpret those harassment scenes as a "joke" (as much as harassment can be a joke) that didn't land if we'd actually gotten proper, prominent LGBT portrayal elsewhere in the game.
No idea how to make a non-shit message out of those scenes though, they just suck.
If its any consolation, Joker himself doesn't react or say anything homophobic in the game iirc, it's just Ryuji and (someone else???) that are disgusted at points.
I'm more disturbed by the idea of connotating Joker with Hashino/financially supporting Hashino. Not Joker's character himself. But thank you, regardless.

The character's color pallet is the trans flag. It's a continuation of the game's seeming belief that trans people don't exist.
Holy fuck, it's hard to believe that's unintentional even though I'd love to believe it is.
 

Zeno

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,150
Thank you.
It's shorter than expected.
Generally, it has do with the problematic portion being embedded into pretty much the entire or most of the game. Persona 5 and plenty of other Japanese games often have problematic elements in them, but those elements generally don't define the entire game.
 

dekoboko

Member
Oct 29, 2017
3
i've spent a while reading through this thread and having watched the clip, i have to say that to me the lines in question come off as a nudge-nudge-wink-wink "joke" referencing erica's identity in the rest of the game. it doesn't feel to me like it implies either way that she's 100% 'fine' this way or that she'll still transition here; it just feels like a strange and sudden shitty reinforcement of tired okama stereotypes in the form of some sort of baffling fourth-wall-breaking joke (fwiw i'm a japanese speaker). of course, these things are all up to interpretation as well.

why did they bother to do this... i assume to get in some final poking fun at her...? it's extremely frustrating to see, especially as a trans woman who was hoping against hope that despite the terrible marketing they'd manage to do something transformative with rin's character, which of course they didn't (dissecting 男の娘 identity & stereotyping is well outside the scope of this thread, but i'm not a fan), and now this...
 
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Deleted member 283

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
3,288
Rin refers themself as a otokonoko. Which is a crossdressing male. So the rin situation wouldn't really be transphobia.
I think the main issue is a different moment with Rin.

Vincent finds out Rin has a penis when she's in his bedroom and slaps her hand away and she runs off.
Yeah. My understanding is that there's a scene where Vincent freaks out because Rin has a penis. This naturally implies that Rin never told Vincent that beforehand. That's transphobic regardless of whether Rin is transgender or just a cross-dressing male, and I pretty clearly lay out why that is in the post I quoted. Even if Rin is a crossdressing man, by having Vincent freak out about the character having a penis, that implies it wasn't brought up beforehand and that's clearly falling back on "trap" imagery regardless of whether Rin actually is transgender or not. That's wholly irrelevant. If anything, it makes it even worse to use that kind of imagery, to invoke that harmful stereotype when the character isn't even transgender in the first place, meaning there's just that much less reason to go anywhere near that nonsense and have a scene anywhere close to that.
 

Bradford

terminus est
Member
Aug 12, 2018
5,423
Rin refers themself as a otokonoko. Which is a crossdressing male. So the rin situation wouldn't really be transphobia.

Getting a little deeper into this translation for those who aren't familiar with Japanese:

What makes this worse is that "Otokonoko" is a double entendre. 男の子 means "boy", whereas 男の娘 means "Mandaughter". It's a social term that is used to describe crossplayers, crossdressers, and individuals who identify as male but dress as female, not entirely different from Drag Queen's usage in English, minus the social performative connotations.

This isn't just reading overly into it... It outright erases Rin's potential transgender identity even as Rin's color palette appropriates the trans flag and Rin's narrative is trans-coded. It's pretty fucked up.
 

Mekanos

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 17, 2018
44,176
Yeah getting mad at that article's author over this is like....yeah thats bad but you could already literally fuck your teacher so getting upset at the gay version of it is kinda telling on yourself.

How do you know I or anyone else wasn't critical of that too?

Pedophilia apologia is still just that. I'm not sure what it's telling of me, a bisexual man, to critique it.
 

Zacmortar

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
7,383
I'd be against this particular solution because at the end of the day those stereotyped guys are still harassing Ryuji and that's not OK. I'd be far more willing to interpret those harassment scenes as a "joke" (as much as harassment can be a joke) that didn't land if we'd actually gotten proper, prominent LGBT portrayal elsewhere in the game.
No idea how to make a non-shit message out of those scenes though, they just suck.
Tbh i was exaggerating even that, because yeah theyre still written as overly flamboyant predators and still extremely uncomfortable. Maybe rewritten as just a drunk couple outside a bar being affectionate to eachother and Ryuji reacts at that, but still jesus.

Mishima always came off as "man just change 3 lines and they'd be gay" what with the bullying imo.

I really wish it was set in college instead of highschool next time. Maybe that percieved "maturity" of characters would make them more willing to put gays in, and it'd solve the problem of the adult dates from being as gross. Though, if they did that, you can probably be gauranteed a young school girl romance just to fill that Nasty quota so every direction has a huge "but!"

I'm more disturbed by the idea of connotating Joker with Hashino/financially supporting Hashino. Not Joker's character himself. But thank you, regardless.
Honestly I would be too, but unlike the Sugiyama situation, he's not as overtly profiting and is thankfully not on P6.

Though honestly I'm also trying to rationalize supporting the series further to myself as well lol. I even had to just put P5 away for a few months after those scenes because of how much it depressed me. I like the game a lot and Joker is cool but maaaaaan It'd take a lot to make up for that shit.
 

Gold Arsene

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
30,757
Would making thread specifically about whether or not this will affect your purchasing of future Atlus products be redundant?
 

Zeno

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,150
Though honestly I'm also trying to rationalize supporting the series further to myself as well lol. I even had to just put P5 away for a few months after those scenes because of how much it depressed me. I like the game a lot and Joker is cool but maaaaaan It'd take a lot to make up for that shit.
At the end of the day, you have to decide where your line is on something you won't be willing to support. I still plan on getting Catherine: Full Body, and I recently got Kingdom Come (though I probably would have gotten it sooner if it wasn't for the creator). I also still plan on buying DQ games. My line tends to generally line up with about where ResetEra puts games on its current banlist (though none of those games interested me in the first place).
 

deepFlaw

Knights of Favonius World Tour '21
Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,496
I'll say I'm generally hesitant to actually bring the trans flag colors into this sort of criticism - in that I am not sure if that's used by Japanese LGBTQ groups as well, which I feel is important (and so I would love to know that one way or the other). Because the coloration of the flag was specifically chosen to reflect the stereotypical colors associated with boys and girls, it's not really surprising to me that someone would coincidentally pick more or less the exact same colors when trying to indicate "there's something about gender, here". That being said, it's completely reasonable if people find that it makes something hurt them even more.

And, well, Rin's entire deal sounds like a mess of dealing with gender/sexuality in a way that - most generously, and I don't think that's earned - the writer was unequipped to handle. Not to say that gay crossdressers don't exist or anything, but if you don't understand the real world context of such a person enough to portray specifically that in a clear way, it sure comes across like you don't understand trans people at all. Or gay people, really...
 

Yabberwocky

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,260
giphy.gif


Goddamnit, Atlas.
 

Luminish

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,508
Denver
I feel like gender nonconformity issues are still so invisible that it's generally better for someone to try and get it wrong instead of never trying at all. There just isn't the privilege to be cynical in these cases. I seek out the most generous takes not to save the work as a whole, but to save the rare piece representation. One of the nice things about death of the author is we don't necessarily have to be bound by what might be gross intent.

But it's almost like the writers and directors at Atlus saw those types of takes, and decided with Persona 5 and Catherine Full Body that there'd be absolutely no way around how offensive these portrayals are.
 

Skiptastic

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
3,699
I played Catherine last year and had no idea Erica was trans. She's a great character and knowing that the game treats her like this is fucked up. Jeers to the writer of this game and jeers to Atlus for letting it go through like this.
 
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