Now this is a criticism I think is actually fair, especially for P5. But like, even as a teenager playing P4 it struck me as really awkward and problematic that both Kanji and Naoto have extremely queer coded dungeons and storylines that both cap off in the "They aren't gay/trans, they just chafe against some societal gender roles" and like it's good to point out how those gender roles can be bullshit, but wrapping that up in queer coding and then completely abandoning that and treating it as irrelevant not once, but twice definitely felt bad
There are key differences
Oh yeah, even as someone who loves P5 it's full of problematic elements and has a problem where I feel like it's trying to have it's cake and eat it too with regards to it's social commentary, all while kind of being empty and vague about what the actual solutions or a better society looks like. It's also why I think the Royal specific storyline feels much better since I feel like they were better at tackling the more personal storyline there than the general society commentary they had for the main game. But it's also kind of worth noting that none of these problems would be even remotely helped if we removed the "power of friendship" type speeches and elements, because they come from a more fundamental thematic place than the surface level writing and presentation
The people at Atlus seemed especially worried about the transcoded nature of Naoto's story, to the point where they made a whole ass sequel manga just for her where she grows up and is super hot and is solving crimes with her hot boyfriend who's also a motorcycle.
I mean I actually largely agree with you on this as seen by my previous post. I still liked the story of Persona 5, but that's more because I generally enjoyed the characters and their personal interactions and the moment to moment stuff (even if there are definitely a number of huge missteps there as well) then how it handled it's greater thematic points most of the time
I assume because Japanese media constitutes the bulk of their media consumption...
It's also shackled to the urban fantasy curse, where it can't dramatically change the status quo because it's supposed to be set in a close approximation of the Real World, and any drastic changes to the world would push any sequels further away from "easily relatable teenage life with light New Weird trappings".
Kanji didn't like you or anyone at the start, same with Naoto and Rise ironically. Dojima also gave you a lot of shit through most of the game and then there is the time when your party tried to bully you into committing murder.
Obviously why Saruman has long white hair and returns as the true final boss.
The fact that the MC in Persona isn't an actual character or true avatar plays into this a lot I think. JRPGs never adopted the actual role playing element so many cRPGs are built around, so you never get lots of dialogue options that let you actively shape and define your character. But because they're not an actual character either but a stand in for the player they don't ever actual say or do anything on their own. So they're just kind of stuck in this weird middle ground so SLs just kind of talk at you and do all the work. You can't get a Rex like moment where he's like losing his shit with a character about how they need to live and how he cares for them, overwrought or not as it may be. They're just assumed to be a great and cool person that somehow everyone wants to confide in. Which plays into the common complaint people have with Persona MCs being treated as the hottest shit that ever lived.
Yeah this would help a lot. I think Mishima right now is the one that stands out the most for me, like this kid has serious problems and we're just like "yeah bro go off with your creepy phansite power trip shit." Ann's as well is all sorts of yikes, but that's basically Ann in a nutshell in this whole game.
