Like I've watched a lot of anime cos I'm a DWEEB and yet nothing I have seen comes close to the constant bullshit attacks of lgbt that persona does.
Persona not be bigoted shit challenge IMPOSSIBLE.
How tf am I supposed to play these games? Persona 4 golden is just plain shit beginning to end Kanji and Nauto arcs are just insults front to back.
Anyway I'm enjoying persona 1 and 3 until the game enforces I don't cos Atlas couldn't make a fucking worthwhile game if they tried. Why do i do this to myself?
Oh and don't look up generic G*mer thoughts on the series unless you want to be expose to some weapons grade brainworms
Honest question how do you get around the problematic elements? In P4G i could barely defend Kanji (best boy) as the dead eyed wank stain that is the MC
Gonna be honest ive only played p5r and im almost done with p5s.
I have p4 in my library so ill get back to you in like 6 months
Fair enuff. Not saying you can't enjoy the games but i started with P4G on vita and that game killed any and all enjoyment of the series for me. Giving P3R and P1/P2 a fair shake atm but this is like 2 maybe more years later
Persona 4 hit me at a very specific time in both my life and the world that I think led me to some very generous readings of the character storylines. I played it shortly out of high school in like 2009 and was dealing with a lot of orientation and gender questions of my own. At that time in the US (midwest at least) portrayals and expectations of homosexual men were not much better than the bathhouse stuff in Kanji's dungeon. As an AMAB person in that time period who was firmly denying and rejecting my attraction to men, I related really closely to how Kanji felt and what he was going thru. Mentally struggling thru the culturally ingrained homophobia growing up in that time (I remember distinctively thinking as a younger teen "I can't be Gay, I don't speak with a lisp, love the color pink, or have a limp wrist") felt fairly similar to the more japanese example of muscly bathouse guys that Kanji's unconscious projects into his dungeon.
From that viewpoint and processing the dungeons as manifestations of the character's own perceptions instilled by the large cultural collective unconscious ( a big persona theme with its shadow worlds) I think its possible to not read that dungeon as malicious. This also takes into account that Shadows selves are not bad, just something the person wants to reject (No one could really argue that Yukiko feeling trapped is portrayed as evil / bad and I think that is one of the main themes of the game)
Even with generous readings - I do think Naoto's dungeon being mad scientist themed was a fumble that the writers didn't consider the implication of. The vibe I think (hope) they were going with would have worked better with a magic / wizard theme. My own gender thoughts at the time would often turn to "I wish I could cast some spell or push a button and be able look how I want and have everyone treat me as if I've always been that way" - I can see a CIS person taking that mindset they may heard of and clumsily applying Naoto's more analytical mind to make the mad scientist surgery theme.
Even so, both characters facing parts of them they didn't want to acknowledge and embracing them as part of who they are did help me to finally break past my own denial that I feel like was much more common in the era it was released.
THAT BEING SAID, I am aware this is the most generous reading possible and later Atlus properties like P5's portrayal of "real world" (not metaverse zietgiest construct) LGBTQ characters have informed me these readings are almost certainly incorrect but I hope it at least answers the question of how some people can have fond memories or even felt like the game helped them come to terms with their own orientation and gender identity.
My issue with Kanji was less his dungeon and more how the other characters treat him. He gets treated like shit constantly the whole game and only ever really seems to be a friend of the MC and it upset me in general cos he never did anything wrong. His treatment by the rest of the group really rubbed me the wrong way and I feel he never got a proper completion to his arc.
Its been a while since i played so i can't remember exact details but its the feeling the game left me with when I did play it
Oh yeah, it absolutely sucks that you can't tell Yosuke to shut the fuck up. While that shitty treatment is fairly accurate to how my high school was at the time towards the one out kid, it doesn't at all excuse the party, who are all growing into better people by the game's logic, being consistently terrible towards him.