Persona 5 tries to be deep, but it fails

KingWillance · Feb 27, 2020

Putting aside the weird call for 'both sides' from the OP, the thing that kinda bums me out about everything else is that these supposed avatars for the downtrodden, less so Joker and Ann, are people with a ton of privilege. Because that's never really addressed it makes the conflict feel like "it's our turn to enjoy hegemony" instead of "we need to tear the system down." I get that teenagers are fairly myopic but a more satisfying story would have pushed back about that impulse more.

Derachi · Feb 27, 2020

You think the Kamoshida stuff was handled poorly? Wait until any amount of morality regarding girls and the agency they have over themselves is just thrown into the garbage when you (the player) are given no choice but to coerce Ann into a situation that makes her extremely uncomfortable.

Yeah, sorry to Persona 5 and its many fans, but it's not a well-written game. It's absurdly inconsistent, bloated (not every character needs to say something for the sake of saying something) and I couldn't even bring myself to finish it, even though I was over halfway done the game.

also being able to date your high school homeroom teacher is outright gross

Zacmortar · Feb 27, 2020

Uh, giving sympathetic writing to a sexual predator and abuser isnt good writing. There doesn't need to be some dramatic plot twist on how Kamoshida became a piece of shit, he just is one.

It sounds like you want even MORE centrism in a game that already patronizes the player with childish morals while fighting actual real world monsters.

Most of the villains deserved to be off'd instead of basically brainwashed.

neon_dream · Feb 27, 2020

The story seemed really trite and shallow while banking heavily on the emotional value of emotionally/sexually abusive antagonists.

It didn't delve very deeply into some very dark subject matter. That's one of the reasons I dropped it. Not sure if it gets better after the first two dungeon/scenarios.

Common Knowledge · Feb 27, 2020

Nothing about the game is "deep". I don't think even the big fans of the game would call it that. It's very surface level writing with a decent social activism message that unfortunately gets contradicted and diminished at several points in the game.

LocoRoco · Feb 27, 2020

BoJack said:
I was expecting to see Kamoshida's (the pervert teacher) side of the story, to see his past and what he has been into that made him this kind of a pesron, but the game just destroys him. In the end he's an giant piece of shit and we're the good guys. And the way that they handle his ending was a huge turn off for me tbh. I can't even continue playing this game anymore, unfortunately. And I really like this game.

Are you looking for something to excuse his behavior against students and girls? there is nothing to justify his behavior , so the game dosent even try to do it, at the end of the day he is a bad person regardless of anything

TheMrPliskin · Feb 27, 2020

There's plenty to criticise when it comes to the writing in Persona 5. Portraying an abuser as a piece of shit isn't really one of them though.

zMiiChy- · Feb 27, 2020

Silvergun-Blue said:
The best example of this is the fact that the first part of the game centers around an adult male teacher sexually abusing an underage girl, then later on one of the dateable waifu characters is the male MC's female teacher. This is so tone deaf it's unbelievable.

It's like they wrote a story with generally compelling themes then afterwards it was given another pass to add in all the backwards tropes fans of jrpg's expect.

Not even just tone-deaf, but outright comical that you can date a teacher.

Persona 5's story was just bad.
Gamepkay was stylish and fun to play though.

PAFenix · Feb 27, 2020

Came into this thread thinking it'd be about how Ann's treated after the Kamoshida arc. (Again)

.......Not for a "both sides" argument for Kamoshida.

Cordy · Feb 27, 2020

Man...

There's no way I'd wanna see why Kamoshida became who he became so I could feel bad for him. Sometimes stories aren't all about that.

Chorazin · Feb 27, 2020

Kain said:
The game can be summed up to "adults are bad" so I don't know what to tell you

I always think this is a funny hot take when the game literally gives you adults that are not bad through the Social Links. Airsoft dude is a good dude, politician really wants to make amends and make things better, the card reader wasn't to expose the shitty cult, the Doctor just wanted to help that kid and was drummed out of the practice for it, the list goes on.

I think it's more of a "people in powerful positions get away with too much and need justice outside the law" story.

BoJack · Feb 27, 2020

To all of you that saying "yeah he's shit, you meant to hate that guy. you don't need to see his side of story"

I needed to see his side of story. Yes I hate him, but It would be way better if they didn't try to just shit on this character. Why? Because probably once he was a normal human being and seeing things that made him this way would be "educational" for me.

Making an overly exaggerated bad character is not that hard and we have tons of those in movies, games, books, etc. I like to see his side of story. Everybody deserves that. Yeah put that pervert ass hole in jail, but let me see his past. I can learn from that. You can learn from that. It's helpful if we do that for bad guys in real world too. Just knocking them out and ignoring their side of stories is not what I'm a huge fan of. Sorry.

FluxWaveZ · Feb 27, 2020

BoJack said:
To all of you that saying "yeah he's shit, you meant to hate that guy. you don't need to see his side of story"

I needed to see his side of story. Yes I hate him, but It would be way better if they didn't try to just shit on this character. Why? Because probably once he was a normal human being and seeing things that made him this way would be "educational" for me.

Making an overly exaggerated bad character is not that hard and we have tons of those in movies, games, books, etc. I like to see his side of story. Everybody deserves that. Yeah put that pervert ass hole in jail, but let me see his past. I can learn from that. You can learn from that. It's helpful if we do that for bad guys in real world too. Just knocking them out and ignoring their side of stories is not what I'm a huge fan of. Sorry.

Oh man. This is definitely a Boogie-like take.

KernelC · Feb 27, 2020

I sometimes feel like a lot of people in this forum simply dont understand or refuse to understand the charm of Persona 5. Or why its the best one in the series

ItIsOkBro · Feb 27, 2020

lol why can't a shit person just be a shit person

KernelC · Feb 27, 2020

BoJack said:
To all of you that saying "yeah he's shit, you meant to hate that guy. you don't need to see his side of story"

I needed to see his side of story. Yes I hate him, but It would be way better if they didn't try to just shit on this character. Why? Because probably once he was a normal human being and seeing things that made him this way would be "educational" for me.

Making an overly exaggerated bad character is not that hard and we have tons of those in movies, games, books, etc. I like to see his side of story. Everybody deserves that. Yeah put that pervert ass hole in jail, but let me see his past. I can learn from that. You can learn from that. It's helpful if we do that for bad guys in real world too. Just knocking them out and ignoring their side of stories is not what I'm a huge fan of. Sorry.

The idea of being able to change the hearts of people is why P5 is so charming, a teenagers view on a problenatic life and how we wish we could do that too. You are looking for things that arent there, and its not like you are looking for depth but there is none, you bought a pizza and you wanted a hamburger in your pizza. And then you complained about it

The theme is especially stronger now than ever with politics and you just wonder "why are these people just so vile and evil? Why burn the amazon? Why censor winnie the pooh, plague inc, reddit, free speech? Why deny your country is burning as its literally burning down and the sky is apocalyptic levels of orange? Why be an anti vaxxer racist sexist homophobe president? Why do people FOLLOW these leaders?

Its not like shit people cant be shit, because there are plenty examples in the real world now more than ever.

Billfisto · Feb 27, 2020

Chorazin said:
I always think this is a funny hot take when the game literally gives you adults that are not bad through the Social Links. Airsoft dude is a good dude, politician really wants to make amends and make things better, the card reader wasn't to expose the shitty cult, the Doctor just wanted to help that kid and was drummed out of the practice for it, the list goes on.

I think it's more of a "people in powerful positions get away with too much and need justice outside the law" story.

Yeah, plus the most prominently-featured adult in the game (Sojiro) turns out to be pretty cool and supportive.

The game's not entirely down on adults, it goes out of its way to show that some have just lost their way because it's easier, not through any malice. It shows that you can change hearts through your actions in the real world, too, and not just with magical powers.

Chorazin · Feb 27, 2020

BoJack said:
To all of you that saying "yeah he's shit, you meant to hate that guy. you don't need to see his side of story"

I needed to see his side of story. Yes I hate him, but It would be way better if they didn't try to just shit on this character. Why? Because probably once he was a normal human being and seeing things that made him this way would be "educational" for me.

Making an overly exaggerated bad character is not that hard and we have tons of those in movies, games, books, etc. I like to see his side of story. Everybody deserves that. Yeah put that pervert ass hole in jail, but let me see his past. I can learn from that. You can learn from that. It's helpful if we do that for bad guys in real world too. Just knocking them out and ignoring their side of stories is not what I'm a huge fan of. Sorry.

What were you going to learn from his past? Like.....he's a rapist. Don't be like him.

That's the lesson. There was no seminal moment in his past that could have put him on a different path because he chose to be a fucking rapist.

Gold Arsene · Feb 27, 2020

The villains in Persona 5 are all colossal pieces of human garbage. It's supposed to be a cathartic power fantasy of taking down some of the worst kinds of people. Now whether this succeeded depends on the person but that's a different story.

You'll be happy to know that the targets in Persona 5 Scramble are more sympathetic but at the same time non of them are as bad as the the assholes in vanilla P5.

The new final boss in Royal is also extremely sympathetic and you do get his full backstory.

At the same time sometimes you just need a horrible person for the hero to wail on without guilt.

Mazuve1234 · Feb 27, 2020

BoJack said:
To all of you that saying "yeah he's shit, you meant to hate that guy. you don't need to see his side of story"

I needed to see his side of story. Yes I hate him, but It would be way better if they didn't try to just shit on this character. Why? Because probably once he was a normal human being and seeing things that made him this way would be "educational" for me.

Making an overly exaggerated bad character is not that hard and we have tons of those in movies, games, books, etc. I like to see his side of story. Everybody deserves that. Yeah put that pervert ass hole in jail, but let me see his past. I can learn from that. You can learn from that. It's helpful if we do that for bad guys in real world too. Just knocking them out and ignoring their side of stories is not what I'm a huge fan of. Sorry.

He said it when you fight him. He was successful and because of that he thought that he deserved to fulfill his sexual desires with women who had no intention of sleeping with him. He was being selfish and self centered without thinking about the integrity his students.

Bavera__ · Feb 27, 2020

Leaving the whole homophobic and harem related garbage that it always has, the message it tries to give you while going against every single one of them is incredibly infuriating because you KNOW how good this game could have been but then it literally goes downwards every chapter after chapter

also fuck anne costume

Giga Man · Feb 27, 2020

BoJack said:
To all of you that saying "yeah he's shit, you meant to hate that guy. you don't need to see his side of story"

I needed to see his side of story. Yes I hate him, but It would be way better if they didn't try to just shit on this character. Why? Because probably once he was a normal human being and seeing things that made him this way would be "educational" for me.

Making an overly exaggerated bad character is not that hard and we have tons of those in movies, games, books, etc. I like to see his side of story. Everybody deserves that. Yeah put that pervert ass hole in jail, but let me see his past. I can learn from that. You can learn from that. It's helpful if we do that for bad guys in real world too. Just knocking them out and ignoring their side of stories is not what I'm a huge fan of. Sorry.

What can we learn from Kamoshida?

Don't be a perverted, manipulative, child-abusing, sexual predator. Acts of crime. What does one's past matter in this case? Everyone comes from different backgrounds. Those backgrounds don't always correlate to the path one follows. That should be common sense.

ZeroX · Feb 27, 2020

to be fair, OP is using weird ways to describe it, but showing a character's backstory isn't the same as redeeming them. There's definitely an angle showing how sexual abusers tend to be past victims themselves and the cyclical nature of abuse. Although this is also not the series that could successfully do that

FrostweaveBandage · Feb 27, 2020

I strongly suggest you continue. Kamoshida's actions are horrific, and possibly the most inexcusable up until very late in the game. Let's face it: it's hard to forgive predators even if they were preyed on, and the game shows him no mercy. With others, though, you do hear about the motivations and things that drove others to their actions (which, as you'll find aren't all inherently evil).

Persona games are pretty much all about youth overcoming the bad things adults do. I don't think it was intended, but it's very topical about the ineffectiveness of societies to punish the corruption of the powerful and basically is a reminder that the youth in our world are almost always agents of change if they set their minds to it. It also has an interesting statement about what cancel culture can do to those who get "cancelled" and what happens when people fall into despair.

Deleted member 60096 · Feb 27, 2020

BoJack said:
To all of you that saying "yeah he's shit, you meant to hate that guy. you don't need to see his side of story"

I needed to see his side of story. Yes I hate him, but It would be way better if they didn't try to just shit on this character. Why? Because probably once he was a normal human being and seeing things that made him this way would be "educational" for me.

Making an overly exaggerated bad character is not that hard and we have tons of those in movies, games, books, etc. I like to see his side of story. Everybody deserves that. Yeah put that pervert ass hole in jail, but let me see his past. I can learn from that. You can learn from that. It's helpful if we do that for bad guys in real world too. Just knocking them out and ignoring their side of stories is not what I'm a huge fan of. Sorry.

I mean its not a very deep back story but we know why he turned out the way he did, he won the olympics and let the fame get to his head. He has a superiority complex and his treatment of women/girls can be explained easily, just like everywhere in the world Japan still has a long way to go in regards to how its society treats and portrays women

BoJack · Feb 27, 2020

Chorazin said:
What were you going to learn from his past? Like.....he's a rapist. Don't be like him.

You see it in a very dumb way buddy. That was not my point! And you probably thinking I'm on the edge of being a rapist and I want to learn how not to be. Jesus.

waugh · Feb 27, 2020

Am I the only one who sees the teacher social link as a male teenage fantasy instead of an endorsement of teacher and student relationships? Its hard to call it gross when its just as much of a fantasy as the other relationships.

Terra · Feb 27, 2020

OP: persona often isn't as deep or resonant with its themes as it pretends to be

Me: oh hell yes

OP: I for one am going to base this argument on the fact that I wish the sexual predator was more sympathetic!

Me: Uh oh

Billfisto · Feb 27, 2020

ZeroX said:
to be fair, OP is using weird ways to describe it, but showing a character's backstory isn't the same as redeeming them. There's definitely an angle showing how sexual abusers tend to be past victims themselves and the cyclical nature of abuse. Although this is also not the series that could successfully do that

Sure, but that wasn't what happened here - Kamoshida got power and abused it. That's his backstory, and the game explains it. I'm not sure how showing a scene of him clutching an Olympic medal, glancing between it and a student, and then smiling cruelly or whatever would really improve the story.

Comic Obsessed · Feb 27, 2020

P5 doesn't even try to be that deep but it still fails.

That being said, while the game has many faults, the most prominent being how the attempts at "humour" contradict its themes, Kamoshida's treatment is definitely not one of them, that story is the best part of the game and sadly the rest don't reach such highs.

Chorazin · Feb 27, 2020

waugh said:
Am I the only one who sees the teacher social link as a male teenage fantasy instead of an endorsement of teacher and student relationships? Its hard to call it gross when its just as much of a fantasy as the other relationships.

I definitely agree with this. Just as much as them taking down the bad guys with magic abilities is a power fantasy, so are the MC's relationships with Teacher and Doctor.

KernelC · Feb 27, 2020

ZeroX said:
to be fair, OP is using weird ways to describe it, but showing a character's backstory isn't the same as redeeming them. There's definitely an angle showing how sexual abusers tend to be past victims themselves and the cyclical nature of abuse. Although this is also not the series that could successfully do that

Its not that it couldnt succesfully do that, it is simply not the angle P5 goes for. Its an amazing fantasy, we all wish we could take down and change the hearts of human piles of shit just like that

Grouch Douglass · Feb 27, 2020

I absolutely love Persona 5, but the Phantom Thieves overall storyline is probably the worst part of the game. Kinda juvenile IMO. I know its about high school kids, but previous games in this series felt like they were more palatable for non YA players.

FrostweaveBandage · Feb 27, 2020

Giga Man said:
What can we learn from Kamoshida?

Don't be a perverted, manipulative, child-abusing, sexual predator. Acts of crime. What does one's past matter in this case? Everyone comes from different backgrounds. Those backgrounds don't always correlate to the path one follows. That should be common sense.

God, can you imagine if they did try to show his side of the story? Atlus gets plenty of flame for their homophobic representations and the sexualization of Ann. It would totally be "Atlus tries to humanize pederast Kamoshida character in Persona 5!" I think people would just assume Atlus is run by a pedo ring at that point.

KernelC · Feb 27, 2020

Comic Obsessed said:
P5 doesn't even try to be that deep but it still fails.

That being said, while the game has many faults, the most prominent being how the attempts at "humour" contradict its themes, Kamoshida's treatment is definitely not one of them, that story is the best part of the game and sadly the rest don't reach such highs.

Edit: i am sleepy and bored at work, my bad

Dice · Feb 27, 2020

Kyoufu said:
Were you expecting a Joker origin story for the pervert teacher?

I laughed xD

Comic Obsessed · Feb 27, 2020

KernelC said:
haha what? Persona 5 is my game of the generation but even I admit the story is the weakest part. Its not even close to P4's, its literally the only thing holding it from a 10/10

That's... pretty much what I said.

Ravenwraith · Feb 27, 2020

Terra said:
OP: persona often isn't as deep or resonant with its themes as it pretends to be

Me: oh hell yes

OP: I for one am going to base this argument on the fact that I wish the sexual predator was more sympathetic!

Me: Uh oh

Yeah I was ready to tear into this game again but OP fucked UP holy shit

BoJack · Feb 27, 2020

Giga Man said:
What can we learn from Kamoshida?

That sometimes we can avoid making an unhealthy environment for people around us that could lead them in the path of being an abusive teacher? That maybe he had the chance to be stopped if he received help from others? That maybe one day we can stop someone from being a monster by our actions?

Mazuve1234 · Feb 27, 2020

The point of the game is fighting against the injustice of society made possible by the powerful and the people who ignore it or can´t do anything about it. You need to defeat the shadow versions of the antagonists because that's the reason personified of why the became the way they are. You don't to learn their past because their actions are damaging other people just at that moment.

Also the only ones who say "shitty adults" are Ryuji and Akechi, and they both had their own reasons for saying it.

I prefer the story of Persona 5 than other Atlus games because its about social activism, I didn't care much for accepting mortality (P3) or accepting yourself (P4).

Novel Mike · Feb 27, 2020

Mauricio_Magus said:
The first arc is fantastic but then everything else fails miserably, it sucks because there was so much potential.

Kamoshida is a fantastic villain imo, I don't think we had to see his side or things.

I agree for the most part although I'd say that he's a fantastic beginning villian, if he was the true villain or pen-ultimate or something like that then yeah not so much.

Derachi said:
You think the Kamoshida stuff was handled poorly? Wait until any amount of morality regarding girls and the agency they have over themselves is just thrown into the garbage when you (the player) are given no choice but to coerce Ann into a situation that makes her extremely uncomfortable.

Yeah, sorry to Persona 5 and its many fans, but it's not a well-written game. It's absurdly inconsistent, bloated (not every character needs to say something for the sake of saying something) and I couldn't even bring myself to finish it, even though I was over halfway done the game.

also being able to date your high school homeroom teacher is outright gross

I can safely tell you that the second half of the game doesn't get any better be glad you dropped it when you did.

Deleted member 60096 · Feb 27, 2020

waugh said:
Am I the only one who sees the teacher social link as a male teenage fantasy instead of an endorsement of teacher and student relationships? Its hard to call it gross when its just as much of a fantasy as the other relationships.

I mean, it is absolutely still gross, its just also sexist alongside its hypocrisy. Since the whole teacher student thing is seen as okay and a fantasy when between a male student and female teacher Atlus likely didn't even comprehend the fact that its actually hypocritical and creepy asf but that isn't an excuse

apathetic · Feb 27, 2020

BoJack said:
Making an overly exaggerated bad character is not that hard and we have tons of those in movies, games, books, etc.

I'm with you, especially on this, and it's why I tend to avoid this kind of stories. No I don't need to feel "sympathy" for shitty people but can you at least do a better job at writing badguys? Something better than "yeah just make him a nazi/rapist and then we don't gotta explain shit".

Mazuve1234 · Feb 27, 2020

apathetic said:
I'm with you, especially on this, and it's why I tend to avoid this kind of stories. No I don't need to feel "sympathy" for shitty people but can you at least do a better job at writing badguys? Something better than "yeah just make him a nazi/rapist and then we don't gotta explain shit".

How would you explain a type of Trump villain that is common in the real world?

MrWindUpBird · Feb 27, 2020

ZeroX said:
to be fair, OP is using weird ways to describe it, but showing a character's backstory isn't the same as redeeming them. There's definitely an angle showing how sexual abusers tend to be past victims themselves and the cyclical nature of abuse. Although this is also not the series that could successfully do that

Did you play the game? You get Kamoshida's backstory during or after his boss battle. He wasn't abused or anything like that. Dude was a successful college sports star and he used that to coerce people to sleep with him. There's no sympathy to be had here. He was a piece of shit.

Imitatio · Feb 27, 2020

I mean, Kamoshida's arc already is the highpoint of the game, none of the ones after that ever had the same impact on me. Looking at your additional gripes, I definitely wouldn't continue if I were you. Rest of the game probably would be a horrible slog through and through.

Mazuve1234 · Feb 27, 2020

SoZetaSlow said:
I mean, it is absolutely still gross, its just also sexist alongside its hypocrisy. Since the whole teacher student thing is seen as okay and a fantasy when between a male student and female teacher Atlus likely didn't even comprehend the fact that its actually hypocritical and creepy asf but that isn't an excuse

What do you think of the relationship of Macron and his HS teacher? The point the game it trying to make is about the difference of consensuality and abuse.

ZeroX · Feb 27, 2020

Kafkaa said:
Did you play the game? You get Kamoshida's backstory during or after his boss battle. He wasn't abused or anything like that. Dude was a successful college sports star and he used that to coerce people to sleep with him. There's no sympathy to be had here. He was a piece of shit.

Yes I played the game. I said there's an angle,
I said there was an opportunity for depth that they didn't take, not that I was looking for explanation. Again I specifically said it didn't need to engender sympathy/redemption which is something people seem incapable of processing.

BoJack · Feb 27, 2020

Kafkaa said:
Did you play the game? You get Kamoshida's backstory during or after his boss battle. He wasn't abused or anything like that. Dude was a successful college sports star and he used that to coerce people to sleep with him. There's no sympathy to be had here. He was a piece of shit.

If that was the only reason that he turned into this monster, then my friend, this game has shitty writing.

KernelC · Feb 27, 2020

Comic Obsessed said:
That's... pretty much what I said.

My bad, misread!

Persona 5 tries to be deep, but it fails

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