Forum - View topicGAME: Persona 5
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John Thacker
Posts: 1009 |
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Sounds like somebody is upset that Persona 4's characters didn't live up to their own repressive expectations. Once you are "coded" for a particular stereotype, apparently it's disheartening if you don't live up to the societal expectations. Apparently it's not allowed to be interested in stereotypically masculine things and have a solid female heterosexual gender and sexual identity, and vice versa. People have to be put in safe little boxes and labels that they're coded for. |
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DRWii
 Posts: 642 |
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I think this is a pretty fair summary. It's such a great game, and yet there's just little things that cause a small part of you to go "But it could be better..." Admittedly I played an import copy despite not really knowing much Japanese outside of what I've picked up from anime and other games, but it was disappointing that the theme could so easily be summed up as "stand up to authority figures that are abusing their power." I wasn't really considering the Japanese perspective, though (this is probably a more subversive theme there). Another thing that probably contributed to my vague disappointment was that glorious gameplay debut trailer. It's very recognizably building on "P3" and "P4," but still manages to feel fresh and different...yet when I finally got my hands on the actual game, it felt much more iterative than I thought/hoped. I mean, look at "P2" vs "P3," "Soul Hackers" vs "Soulless Army," "SMT II" vs "Nocturne," or even "Nocturne" vs "SMT IV"; regardless of which I played first, regardless of which I liked more, they all felt pretty different to me. In contrast, "P5" felt like "Did you play 'P4'? Then you've got a good handle on things." Though to be fair, most of those examples had major changes in creative staff, while the exact same team worked on the last 3 "Personas." And this is probably blasphemous, but judging by how badly I wanted to keep going back to it...I think I liked the battle system from "Tokyo Mirage Sessions" more. *ducks behind cover* |
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Guile
Posts: 595 |
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Anyone who thinks Kanji is legitimately gay or Naoto is transgendered didn't pay attention to the story, or are simply projecting. Maybe it's an American thing? |
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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They're projecting: It's explained--in detail--that Naoto is a "boy" because she desperately desires to be taken seriously as an "important" Genius Detective, and can't face her "childish" shadow of being dismissed by the adults. Once she does, the joke is that she's still too humorless and repressed to lighten up around the rest of the girls, ie. Chie and Yukiko--Which explains why Naoto ducks out the back exit and escapes the ridiculous school-festival beauty pageant at the last minute. Kanji is confused because Naoto (who Kanji still thinks is a boy, albeit an unusually "attractive" one) follows him to say she's "deeply interested" in him as a next possible victim/clue...."Whoa, a boy's 'interested' in me? Awkward.  "
Which only adds to Kanji's embarrassing public-overcompensation gag about growing up in his family's textile business as The Toughest Delinquent Who Sews Toy Bunnies. IOW, neither one is legitimately gay, and that tends to disappoint some fans who thought they were seeing "themselves", and felt let down that those characters turned out to be just Other People. 
So, in answer to my earlier question, um, yeah--Guess we ARE going to get into the Whole Kanji Thing all over again. |
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mglittlerobin
 Posts: 1071 |
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people who care about social justice love to Shonen Jump Weekly LGBT whenever they can, and Yaoi fangirls always look at everything with gaydar on, even if the cast is straight! |
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Shenl742
Posts: 1525 |
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Or maybe it's a thing where you're a gay guy like me who sees a little bit of himself in Kanji. Where some of the experiences, imagery, and dialogue resonate with your own.
Even if it wasn't intended to be felt that way by creators. Even if you can argue that how the whole thing was handled may have ended up being less than ideal. Even if you walk away from the whole thing feeling very, VERY complicated about it all, but don't really regret having those feelings in the end. Even if some other person tells you that all your feelings are totally invalid. Because that's just kind of how the human brain works. |
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Kougeru
 Posts: 5577 |
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 . Gameplay in PErsona games is usually subpar for me so this sounds like a "borrow from a friend" to me[/quote]
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Animeking1108
Posts: 1244 |
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I'm good as long as we get the following improvements over "Persona 4:"
-The mascot character not being annoying as sin. -The characters don't make stupid decisions left and right. -The comedy filler scenes don't drag out for 40 minutes. -The characters potentially being not-so-nice-people is one thing I don't mind. Unlike the cast of P4, who were supposed to be straight up heroes that act like tools to each other, the cast of P5 clearly consists of anti-heroes, so you can justify it better. -It's not an automatic game over if the Protagonist dies. |
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doctordoom85
 Posts: 2093 |
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I understand, but at the same time I find it slightly offensive that people automatically jumped to the conclusion that Kanji was gay when he easily could have also been bisexual or straight. Naoto is the only one Kanji shows serious attraction towards (IIRC he made a "you look nice in that" comment to either Chie or Yukiko but it was only once) and given that situation with Naoto one can't really determine his sexual orientation from that. As someone who has yet to date a girl due to confidence issues and who also does enjoy a few "cute" things (I own two Hello Kitty plushes for example) I have had people begin to suspect I was gay including my parents. I'm not too upset about it, especially since I can at least appreciate my parents would be accepting of it if I were gay (given they're Christians I'm lucky that they're open-minded like that) but when fans started immediately declaring that Kanji had to be gay based on the events of the game I felt slightly offended, as if they were saying the people in my life were in the right to make that assumption. There's obviously nothing wrong with being gay or bi (or transgender, but I'm even more baffled by people assuming that's what Naoto was about. They make the sexism of lots of people in the career she's trying to enter very clear so why people instantly assumed her actions had nothing to do with getting around that sexism baffled me) but it's also not right to assume one's sexual orientation because of issues with dating or liking certain types of toys, dolls, etc. Also, Yosuke is the one of the team who virtually all the time expresses discomfort towards gay people or the concept of crossdressing (now some students during the crossdressing part do say stuff like "this is so wrong" but remember, this is HIGH SCHOOL, it would be unrealistic to expect all the students to be open-minded about it. A lot of teenagers are kind of immature), the rest of the team rarely acts that way (in the game that is; the anime could have handled it more sensitively for sure). Given the fact that Yosuke is usually portrayed in the wrong (I mean, he's the one who pushes the hardest to spoiler[kill Namatama]) I don't think his attitude is meant to reflect the attitude of the writers. |
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DRWii
Posts: 642 |
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Nope, still present. |
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Nitsugalego
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It's called Social Justice and it's a disease that has been slowly spreading in the West. Anime related sites have been particularly affected by it, so I suggest you tread these places with care. |
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The Count
 Posts: 303 Location: Milwaukee,WI |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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Man, y'all are so melodramatic about this stuff it makes me laugh. Gay folks who want to see themselves reflected honestly in their entertainment are absolutely no different from you. One day maybe you'll see that. |
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harminia
 Posts: 2045 Location: australia |
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While I have no plans to play this (Persona 3 was kind of meh and Persona 4 was dead boring to me), I'm happy to hear demon negotiation is sort of back.
It's great they took the best parts of 3&4 (social links) and included the demon negotiations (in some form?). Also good to hear the OST is different. P3 & P4's soundtracks were kinda samey, so if there's an expansion that's great too (I'd have to listen to see if it can beat P2's OST though). Sounds like they're actually looking back beyond P3 & P4 for inspiration, so that's great. (And yes, before you ask, I'm someone who is bitter about everyone seemingly forgetting P1 & P2 exist) |
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jtiskool305
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Why is this conversation on a forum about Persona 5?
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