adachimoe

[adachimoe]

random junes shower thoughts:

since junes is named after the french word jeunesse (for youth), and yosuke is associated with junes, i guess thats why he has another french word (ressentiment) in his title in arena?

(speaking of which, in ps2 persona 4, there was class room a question where morooka asked you about ressentiment, but in golden it was replaced by another class room question.)

saki's jp voice actor, hina nakase, also sings the jp junes jingle. so like, in-universe, every time yosuke hears the junes jingle, is he reminded of a dead girl he had a crush on...?

[adachimoe]

i was reading the ffxiv 7.2 patch notes and when i saw that door on the left, i thought to myself, "adachi?!"

[adachimoe]

you know how yosuke gives yu a golf club to use for self-defense? i imagine yosuke stole it from his dad. and uh, yu doesn't seem to return it at any point - you can even sell it to daidara lol. do you think his dad noticed it went missing, assumed this was yosuke's fault, and made him pay for it? this seems like something that would happen to yosuke...

[adachimoe]

kaguya's design

one of the details i like about kaguya's design is how her "robe" thing doesn't seem to actually be on her, but rather floats around her, held up by ribbons:

in the tale of princess kaguya, kaguya eventually remembers that she is actually a being from the moon who was sent to earth. then, beings from the moon come down to earth to take her back to the moon. and upon placing the celestial robe on her shoulders, she instantly forgets everything about her time on earth and how she lived amongst humans and grew attachment to them.

with marie's story, she eventually remembers who she is and its her attachment to humans that causes her to try to disappear from their lives. but she also remembers her time with humans, and the robe seems to be placed on the persona without it actually touching her, as if to communicate that her memories didn't get wiped.

(the ears are totally cause of the "bunnies on the moon" thing tho.)

[adachimoe]

the FUCK IS THIS BED FOR

on nov 5th and march 20th, yu gets taken to this room at the police station. the chairs and desks arranged so two people can face each other and whatnot in the room suggests it's an interrogation room. very scientific source for this btw: i've watched/played entirely too many things where someone gets taken into an interrogation room to not know what the jp media stereotypical interrogation room looks like by now (especially that damn lamp). but... ive also not seen something where an interrogation room has a bed? what is this room and why does it have a bed lol

when dojima takes you there in nov, the jp text just describes it as "a room at the inaba pd":

a room that might have beds is the nap room as some stations have those. but in the photos i saw of those, they were tatami floor you could put multiple futons on so that multiple officers could go pass out:

additionally, the poster i can read on the bulletin board says that they are strengthening citizen patrols in the area:

(i can't really read anything besides the large text either so im not rly sure what "strengthening" means here - are they trying to hold citizen patrols more frequently? recruit more citizen volunteers? train them?) ok wait actually i guess the meaning is irrelevant, it's more like... even though i'm under the assumption this is an interrogation room, but im not sure if that's the kinda flyer you'd have on a board in an interrogation room?

we also know that the inaba branch doesn't seem to be very big. like we're shown that adachi was on traffic duty when rise came to town.

so ya idk. perhaps this room at the inaba pd is some kind of "we have no budget" interrogation room that also doubles as a nap room? (and also has a bulletin board with community info on it?)

but also: maybe this is the only room like this and dojima took protag-kun in there on purpose cause it has a bed? he seems to be under the impression he's protecting yu by holding him at the station after all and he even tells him to stay overnight.

btw, in the 2020s era search results, i noticed that some places that had these napping rooms shifted away from the tatami rooms w/futons and started doing individual arrangements (capsule hotel style, small rooms, etc) to prevent the spread of corona. maybe the inaba pd has a bunch of individual rest rooms and it's actually very ahead of its time.

[adachimoe]

tbqh, the idea of p4 being remade is completely off putting to me lol

[adachimoe]

which phone number does adachi give us anyway?

happy "throw away the murder case to get adachi's phone number" day.

that said: i wonder what phone number does adachi give yu in the adachi ending anyway?

on december 3rd, yu gets a phone call from adachi, and he knows it's him before picking up the phone, implying that he got adachi's phone number at some point in the past.

this was the same in ps2 persona 4 too, so it's not like this was something new added in if you did adachi's social link either.

did atlus forget that yu already has adachi's phone number? is the number yu gets in the ending like... adachi's personal phone (or some burner phone?) and he called before on dec 3rd from his work phone or something? (this got me wondering about "do police officers get work phones", and jp google suggests it varies by prefecture. tho i feel like the inaba pd is small. maybe they don't get work phones. hmm.)

[adachimoe]

teddie's other nickname

o yea, teddie has yet another nickname besides kumakichi.

kanji also calls teddie "クマ公", pronounced "kumako".

this is the same "ko" as in hachiko the loyal dog. (well, the dog's name was actually "hachi".) the name we know it by, "hachiko", was an affectionate nickname made up of hachi's name + "ko" tacked on at the end.

when added on to the end of a name like that, "ko" can be affectionate orrrr it be a bit belittling. like, "kumako (complimentary)" versus "kumako (derogatory)". given that teddie is a bit of a nuisance sometimes, i think kanji means it in both ways lol.

btw, when you visit the movie theater in golden, the movie kanji really wants to see is the one that plays in october -- dachiko, a parody of hachiko.

[adachimoe]

absolutely random ass references being made in p4

the legend of seiryu

i posted about chie's dvd being named "seiryu densetsu" with seiryu having a double meaning for jackie chan's name before, but i was unaware that "seiryu densetsu" was also an actual japanese tv drama. in fact, it was about a female martial artist of sorts, so naturally chie would be interested in it. the official english title seems to be "the legend of st dragon".

tanken boku no machi

in japanese, when kanji appears on the midnight channel, his "show" is called "hatten boku no machi". this is named after a children's show called "tanken boku no machi" meaning "exploring my town". kanji's show replaces tanken (explore) with hatten, a japanese slang term for gay sex, usually referring to men.

wizardry

after you destroy shadow mitsuo's hero mecha, it starts rebuilding it by using the skills "whisper, chant, pray". these are all references to wizardry. based on what i was told, this is an incantation you say to revive someone at the temple, so it's like shadow mitsuo is saying it to revive the mecha.

dragon quest

void quest also has references to dragon quest. the "orb of darkness" is named after the "orb of light" from dq. the mecha uses the spell "gigadyne", which is a reference to the similar sounding dragon quest spell, "gigadein". (in english, apparently "gigadein" is known as "kazap".) additionally, when you get the protag's gaia sword, you talk to a corpse on the ground and it references the "theres no response, it's [xxx]" message that appears in dragon quest when you interact with things.

yashichi from mito komon

the single target and aoe wind damage items you can buy from shiroku are called the kazaguruma and the yashichi. kazaguruma just means pinwheel or windmill, so that's a straightforward translation. meanwhile, yashichi is a name, but it being used here is a reference that goes hand in hand w/pinwheels. on the historical drama mito komon, there's a ninja character named "pinwheel yashichi" or "kazaguruma no yashichi", so named because he carries around red pinwheels that he wields as shurikens.

big g

i'm a bad asian ive never actually watched doraemon lol

when the protagonist agrees to help yosuke work at junes over summer break, he calls the protagonist his bestest bro ever. in japanese, this phrase, 心の友, is apparently associated with the character gian / big g from doraemon.

when yosuke hands it to kanji for his inspirational speech after morooka dies, he says talking big despite just being kanji. this is another phrase attributed with gian / big g who says it in both a complimentary and mocking way to nobita.

norimaki senbei

in golden, one of the snacks you can get during the night time shopping district hangouts from yukiko, kanji, naoki, or daisuke is called the seaweed cracker, and the description says something about "penguins". in japanese, this is called the norimaki senbei. norimaki senbei does mean "seaweed cracker", and it also happens to be the name of a character on dr. slump made by akira toriyama (rip) which takes place in "penguin" village.

tankiriman and neclos fortress

during one of the fox quests, you get a sticker from nanako called the tankiriman sticker, and the description talks about 8 heroes defeating the dark lord. the name "[xx]riman" and the bit about the 8 heroes are both references to snacks made by lotte.

"tankiriman" and it being a sticker are references to "bikkuriman", a series of chocolate wafers that comes with bonus stickers. (presumably, nanako gave you the bonus sticker that came w/the snacks.)

then "tankiri" and the "eight heroes" thing is a reference to a boxed candy that came with little figures called "neclos fortress" which took place in the kingdom of tankiri and featured 8 heroes.

[adachimoe]

p4g's tv listing

with golden, atlus added the "tv listing" feature which has 9 channels. channel 5 was removed from the english release, and nowadays, channels 1 and 9 have also been removed as of the steam version:

all 9 of the original tv listing channels are based on 9 of the 12 basic cable channels, which would be what these 12 keys on a remote control are keyed to:

additionally, what plays on each channel in the tv listing is somewhat based on what plays on these channels irl.

channel 1 is "yhk" named after "nhk" (nippon hoso kyokai or the japanese broadcasting corp). so the abbreviation probably stands for "yasoinaba hoso kyokai".

the feature that plays on "yhk" on the tv listing is called "aoshi uta gassen", meaning "blue and purple song battle". this a parody of kohaku ("red and white song battle"), a new years eve music program that airs on nhk.

channel 2 is "yhk educational", named after "nhk educational", and it has edogawa's educational lectures. ez.

channel 3 is "inaba city public tv". in some areas, 3 is another nhk channel, but in other areas, it is a local or prefecture tv station, making it plausible that channel 3 would actually be inaba's local tv station.

the feature that the player unlocks for channel 3 is called the "mayonaka ohdan miracle quiz" in japanese. this is named after a tv show called the "america ohdan ultra quiz", or "trans america ultra quiz" (i think thats the official name). the game show had contestants fly around the world with the goal being to end up in america, specifically new york.

teddie references the japanese game show. he wears a hat similar to the one worn by the contestants. and when he introduces himself, he says he's "'just meet' teddie". one of the hosts of ultra quiz, fukuzawa, had the catch phrase, "'just meet' towards new york!" as the goal of the show was to end up in new york. (i am awful at anything sports, but my understanding is that "just meet" is a term for "hitting a baseball with the middle of a baseball bat." i don't think there's an english term for that. maybe something like, "hitting the sweet spot"?)

the quiz show didn't air on nhk, so it's one of the few cases where the tv listing feature doesn't really "match" with its channel.

channel 4 is "o tv". the program that plays on it is called "daily persaniland" which plays the unlocked animated cutscenes from the game. following the "the program on the tv listing is usually related to the channel", then "daily persaniland" is named after the show "weekly storyland". since "weekly storyland" aired on "nippon tv", then "o tv" must be a reference to "nippon tv". this made no sense to me until i realized what the logo for nippon tv was:

during the development of p4 and p4g, the "ni" character was stylized similarly to an "o". (tbqh i thought it was like, "osaka tv" or smth at first.)

channel 5 is "tv per" (from "per"sona). this was never released in the english version of p4g, but in the jp game, the program on it was called "mariko's room", and it featured was marie (as mariko kusumi) interviewing the main voice actors. each one appeared as the VA's image on a TV on top of their respective character's head lol. and each unlocked after you finished their slinks. (adachi's va's interview is funny - madono says something about wanting to bully the shit out of adachi since he is so dang bullyable, but he knows that would get him thrown in a tv lmao.)

"tv per" is named after "tv asahi", which is also channel 5. "mariko's room" is named after "tetsuko's room", a very famous long running interview show which airs on "tv asahi".

channel 6 is pbs (i assume the p is just short for persona). this is named after tbs, which is also channel 6. tbs is one of the channels that persona 4 the anime aired on. this channel just gets you back into the game or the epilogue.

channel 7 is tv tatsu, named after tv tokyo which is also channel 7. based on the kanji used (辰), the "tatsu" is probably for tatsumi port island (cause iwatodai is like some combo of tokyo and kobe). channel 7 on the tv listing hosts the "giants of p" art gallery. this is named after "giants of beauty" which airs on tv tokyo.

channel 8 is yaso tv, named after fuji tv which is of course also channel 8. yaso tv has the p4g jukebox feature called "hey hey hoo music king". this is named after the show "hey hey hey music champ" which also aired on fuji tv.

lastly, channel 9 is called MOMOM. this is a flipped upside down version of the channel WOWOW, also channel 9. MOMOM has a collection of trailers for the anime and arena. unlike the others, there doesn't seem...? to be a connection between WOWOW and the contents of this channel.

random ass trivia, but in an interview about golden, hashino talks about a dropped idea for the tv listing called, "moya moya inaba~s". this featured mitsuru and aigis walking around inaba going, "wtf theres nothing to do here". it was ultimately dropped because it wasn't fun even tho they sank time into it.

this show was named after "moya moya summer~s 2". the concept of the real show is that 2 comedians from the group called "summers" and a tv announcer go to small, rural areas of japan and interview the locals.

i thiiiink the reason why atlus wanted to do this / tried to make it work lies within the meaning of "moya moya". there are many ways you could render this in english, but notably, one of them is "foggy". like ha ha yes, a feature called "foggy inabas" based on a show about small town locals??? (in english, the show's official title is, apparently, "complicated summers 2" which sadly does not include the word "fog".)

[adachimoe]

adachi's intro for "ying yang" @ the 2022 persona super live

this was left out of the live version of ying yang on spotify. during psl 2022, there was a special intro to the song where adachi had some semi-new lines performed by madono:

"Sheesh, what are you all getting worked up about? Y'know your efforts will go to waste. Why not just give it up already? I swear, kids are so dumb and annoying."

i say "semi-new" because what he says appears to be based on a couple lines he has in episode 25 of persona 4 the animation ("Y'know your efforts will go to waste. Why not just give it up already?" and "Hey, come on. And here I am trying to teach you a lesson. I swear, kids are so dumb and annoying.")

anyway, it was left out of the version on spotify. this is a personal offense to, uh, me.

[adachimoe]

the "amazing khan saga" (and chie's manliness)

One of the book series you can obtain in P4 is called "The Amazing Khan Saga". The five volumes in the series are The Lovely Man, Forever Macho, Man of History, Man God, and Farewell to Man. As you can tell, there is a Manly theme going on here. But why is it called the "Amazing Khan Saga"?

idklol. seeing "khan" makes me think of the Star Trek meme...

In Japanese, the books are part of a series called, "The Manly World Series". Normally, "man" is written 男, which is spoken "otoko". But here, the character used for "man" here is 漢, which is also pronounced "otoko".

漢 originally referred to the Han Chinese. And when referring to Chinese, 漢 is pronounced "kan". But well many years have passed and culture and slang does its thing. For reasons that I'm not even gonna try to explain right now, 漢 can also be pronounced "otoko" and is used in Japanese pop culture in place of 男. But, from my understanding, when 漢 is used instead of 男, it kind of carries the connotation of... hm... "the concept of manliness / being manly" rather than just "man"?

Anyway, I imagine the reason why it ended up as the "Khan Saga" in English is perhaps someone read it as being pronounced "kan" (instead of "otoko"), and tried to localize it into something, and wound up with kan -> Khan? (Or maybe this was intentional? It's really unclear to me...)

On a somewhat unrelated yet related subject of "man" (男) versus "manliness" (漢), I just thought of the ending of Chie's story mode in Persona 4 Arena lol...

Chie insists on calling Akihiko "master" and mentions that part of her wants to say "manly" (漢) stuff. A confused Mitsuru tells her that she isn't a "man" (男). Then Akihiko tells Mitsuru that "manliness" (漢) is beyond gender.

Mitsuru is confused and Aigis zings Akihiko's logic, as they only hear Chie and Akihiko saying "otoko", but the player understands the distinction thanks to the kanji being used hahah. Like come on Mitsuru, read the game script. Actually, the "man" versus "manliness" thing is kinda brought up even when the protagonist reads the first book in the series in P4, titled The Lovely Man. It says something about how the book contains the biographies of both men and women through history who had "manly" (漢) spirits. (Oh, so I just typed this then realized I have no clue what the English localization of The Lovely Man's book text says.)

[adachimoe]

o yea, speaking of "teddie", "references to tv", and "pervert shit", there's also this line:

so the group goes to ask teddie if anyone else has been thrown into the tv. teddie tells them "no", and chie asks him, "really?" then teddie replies, "im not lying. today, my nose is a 'throbbing story'", but i think that's kind of a bad translation...

the words im translating as "throbbing story" was originally "binbin monogatari" in jp. this is a very specific reference to the name of a long running tv series called the "binbin series". the most popular show in the series was called "teacher binbin monogatari". ive never watched any of these, but my understanding is that the shows/dramas themselves were very touching and heart throbbing, hence the name.

HOWEVER, YOU SEE, if someone were to hear the title and not know anything about the series, they might go "wtf", because "binbin" is also like saying, "muh dick is hard". (maybe teddie should be saying, "my nose is hard".)

so teddie's character is a toddler shadow that looks like a retro-future kewpie doll cartoon bear, is voiced by japanese bugs bunny, references the jp version of bugs's "whats up doc?" line, is nicknamed after a perverted bear character from manga/anime, and has lines like "i'm going to [word for girls hitting on guys] the girls" and "my nose is hard". lol.

(btw, this reference was confirmed to be a reference in hashino's pclub p4 interview. hashino also mentions he tried to make the jokes seem really old school, so it's possible he wrote this himself?)

[adachimoe]

Kumakichi

This is regarding Chie's reaction to Teddie asking Nanako if she wants to "Shoot off fireworks of love".

For a little background info: As you probably know by now, Teddie's Japanese name is Kuma, meaning bear.

Early on, Yosuke and Chie call him Kumakichi. In the English version, all of the Kumas, Kumakichis, and Kumadas were all just changed into Teddies. In this scene, added for Golden, the Japanese text makes it more obvious about the meaning of Kumakichi and why Atlus has characters call him Kumakichi.

Kumakichi is a character in Gag Manga Biyori who is also a bear. He appears in short skits called Detective Usami. These skits usually go like this: Another character will go "Oh no Usami something creepy or perverted has happened to me!" and Usami and Kumakichi will be like, "Oh no that's terrible what happened?" And then 5 seconds later, you find out that Kumakichi is the culprit, and then he is shown being arrested and taken away by the police, as shown above.

In this scene during the fireworks part, Chie gets irritated and calls him Kumakichi again, then asks if he wants Dojima to arrest him. So, basically, Chie is referencing Gag Manga Biyori and how the skits with Kumakichi go, and the group goes about their business after.

(Tbh, I very sincerely doubt that Teddie knows what "shoot off fireworks of love mean", hence why he goes "uhhh" when Nanako asks.)

[adachimoe]

I spent some time trying to update my shelf cause I really wanted to put my giant fake cabbage out lol... I don't think I can put out all of my Adachi shit or it would take up my entire Detolf...

You can tell this is the Persona shelf because Persona 4 Dancing character Hatsune Miku is there!

[adachimoe]

old 2013 interview with the head of the p4 english localization team

This is an old, old interview with the head of the P4 eng localizer team, Yu Namba (no, not the Like a Dragon character). Afaik, he has since left Atlus and now works at Spike Chunsoft.

I thought this was pretty interesting to read since I do talk a lot about the changes made on this blog.

Some of the things he mentioned:

Persona 4 was released in America as "Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4". The interviewer asks about why this started, and why it stopped. Basically, they started adding the SMT title to other things after SMT3 was released overseas. The reason why it stopped with Arena and Golden is because they felt that "Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 Arena/Golden" was too long lol...

The JP title of Arena is Persona 4 The Ultimate in Mayonaka Arena, or P4U for short. It was changed to Arena in America because Persona 4 Ultimate would sound like "the ultimate version of Persona 4" while Arena better conveyed that it's a fighting game. The JP title of Golden is Persona 4 The Golden. It was changed to just Persona 4 Golden to make it more grammatical and match how Arena's title was localized.

In JP, the protagonist's Understanding stat ranks up from "Buddha-like" on rank 4 to "Motherly" on rank 5, with the word used for motherly being a kind of affectionate term. In English, these were swapped with Buddha-like being renamed to Saintly so the protag instead advances from Motherly on rank 4 to Saintly on rank 5. He says this is due to America being Christian lol. (Tbqh, I thought they just mixed up the translations of rank 4 and 5, but it was actually intentional.)

Junes is named after the word Jeunesse (the French word for youth?). Hence why the Japanese commercial jingle is "Every Day, Young Life", and the meat combo is called the "Ultra Young Set".

During the King's Game sequence when Naoto explains her family lineage, in the Japanese game Chie references the detective novels and manga Kindaichi. Since Kindaichi isn't big in America, Namba changed this to Chie bringing up the Kuzunoha clan, assuming that people who played the earlier games and Raidou would understand.

Famitsu brings up Kanji's Shadow, saying that it seems to be a topic amongst North American fans on the web. Namba comments that while his Shadow looks and acts over the top, the theme of not being accepted as you are is pretty serious. There was a player who said that the stance the game takes really saved them, and Namba thinks that's cool that the game touched someone like that.

In the past, Persona 1 was localized as Revelations: Persona and everything was American-ized/4Kids-ized, but it was released back when people in America weren't as familiar with JRPGs/Weeb stuff/whatever. Since the interest has gone up due to anime and manga being published in the west, they didn't feel the need to give Persona 3 the same treatment when localizing it. The "M" rating in America (versus Japan's Ages 12 and up rating) is because of the Evokers -- even though it isn't actually a gun, they anticipated how it would be seen.

[adachimoe]

after sitting in a meeting for 2 hours and completely losing my fucking mind, i have come to the conclusion that yosuke has multiple traits that i'm going to say are... uhm... "chud american friendly".

fuck gay people: referring to his behavior towards kanji. it doesn't matter if kanji isn't ~canonically~ gay, what matters is that yosuke acts like that towards him, under the assumption kanji is gay. like, we know that this is a behavior he has when he thinks he's about to get assaulted by a gay guy because yosuke doesn't fucking act the same way towards *straight* guys. (oh yeah, this was censored from the english version, but that scene where yosuke asks if they're "safe" with kanji is him talking about the scenes in h-games etc where a character gets pinned down, sexually assaulted, and then loses their virginity, and he's asking kanji if that's about to happen in their tent.)

his attitude towards women: he is derpy as hell towards the girls and clearly has ideas in his head about them.

perception of meritocracy: he does all of the heavy lifting in the dialogue because he's the stand-in for the silent protag not being able to talk. the result is that, from the player's PoV, you see him do a lot to try and solve the mystery, making his place in the group feel earned and his contributions numerous. this is often brought up to prop up yosuke while bringing down the other characters besides naoto because they don't "contribute" to solving the mystery as much.

he got a job flipping burgers: yosuke is doing what every out of touch boomer parent tells their kid to do: get a minimum wage, part-time job. him technically being a nepotism hire is also lol. (tho as you can see in his situation, nepotism hire means more is expected of him, rather than less. spin this into "pulling himself up the bootstraps" idk lmao)

he's from the good old days: he's from a 2008 video game

japan is more conservative than WOKE!!! america: said video game was made in japan

"yosuke is closeted gay but his romance was removed from the game": yea you see even this part of him lines up because there is also a stereotype in america about "republicans installing grindr"

if you're a lets say a chud who hates WOKE!!! culture or whatever the fuck that means, then yosuke is a character handed to you on a silver platter.

these aspects of yosuke all come together when you see, uh, Yosuke Glazers defend him. the glazers will often complain about chie for stuff she does to yosuke, while conveniently ignoring how yosuke also does shit to her. that many of yosuke's woes are caused by women (hanako on the scooter, chie stealing his money) gives them an excuse to be shitty about fictional women with a splash of fatphobia in the case of hanako.

they'll talk down to lgbtqa+ people who go "wow yosuke made me feel uncomfortable with how he treats kanji" by going "wah wah kanji isn't actually gay and yosuke can't be homophobic b/c he has a removed slink romance". like, ah yes, the assumed sexuality of (fictional) characters outweighs how (real) lgbtqa+ people feel when they experience media. okay cool thanks for that garbage attitude, yosuke glazers.

if there was no deleted yosuke voice line of him saying "bro i like you bro", then surely, i believe these glazers wouldn't ship the protag x yosuke because shipping is Weird and something Girls do. but since it does exist, him being gay is thus apparently canon (even though the line doesn't play in the game, lol, lmao), so Glazers feel secure to say shit like "yosuke best girl" or "protag x yosuke tee hee". because that's not their opinion or their "ship", that's, uh, the game's canon.

what a fascinating way to hide behind a fictional character's sexuality while being shitty to real lgbtqa people. oh how not so interesting that yosuke glazers love to pipe up and go "KANJI -- the taller guy who gets into fights (manly!) and wears rockabilly shoes (cool!) and leather jackets (badass!) and fits stereotypes of western masculinity -- ISN'T GAY" while celebrating and chanting "gay yosuke gay yosuke restore the yosuke romance" about the character who looks more like a twink and has a fucking pink shirt in the epilogue.

and of course, the glazers love to go, "oh well you see 2008 was a different time and japan is more conservative". i dont even know what this means anymore. like, yes, definitely - people were shitty towards lgbtqa in 2008. however, blaming this on "because japan" is insane to me because i was out as a lesbian in college in 2008 and uhh "being shitty towards gay people in 2008" was not exclusive to japan wtf?

also, like, persona 4's english script has random gay shit that wasn't in japanese. however, i don't think it's because the people working at atlus west loved gay people and were huge allies. laughing or finding something funny simply because "it's gay" used to be quite common, and that exact kind of "humor" is what i think about when i see the english localization chose to use "partner" as a translation for yosuke calling the protag his aibou.

furthermore, does anyone ever really think about the implications of "there was a canon gay romance for yosuke then cut out the romance route"? like, let's assume that's true, and that him saying "i like you" to the protag really is this closeted, canon gay romance. it would mean that hashino/kido/whoever wrote all of this, and then, in the final game, removed it, but left in the parts where yosuke is shitty to kanji, but without the resolution where yosuke was to confess to the protag and reveal he's actually gay. so he's just, what. in the final game he's, what. homophobic just to be homophobic?

i, personally, really struggle with the idea that hashino and his old persona team wrote "a canon gay romance in 2008". yes, im aware of tatsuya and jun, but last i recall, that wasn't made under hashino's leadership.

under hashino's leadership, we got the scene in p3 where akihiko notices a transwoman's unshaven beard hair on the beach at yakushima, and then after it's pointed out, the transwoman reveals she's a predator who was hoping to trick some younger high school boys. does this sound like something made by a group of creators who would, 2 years later, go on to make yosuke's social link have a canonically gay romance route? and the same team would, years after p4, go on to write in jokes into persona 5 where ryuji gets whisked away by elderly gay men (also portrayed as predators) in kabukicho?

(on a similar note, does the hypothetical "you" really believe that 2 years later, the same team who wrote this completely random transphobic scene would go on to make naoto canonically transmasc??? like, if naoto is trans, then that storyline must've been fucking written by jk rowling because it portrays shadow naoto undergoing the "body experimentation" and then transforming into an inhuman robot. what kind of fucking message do you think that sends about gender reassignment surgery? on another similar note, do you really believe the same team who wrote the p3 beach scene would want to make kanji canonically gay or bi???)

sigh

and now we have this shit where, years later, kazuhisa wada (i guess? idk who to assign this to) is like, "hey maybe we should remove the uh 'lgbtqa = predator' scenes from persona". we saw it first with persona 5 royal where the scene where ryuji is dragged away by The Gays got toned down in japanese. however, it got *further* toned down in english, perhaps even giving english fans a false impression about atlus.

i think it says a lot about western ideas about masculinity when people see that yosuke has a removed social link line where he tells the protagonist "hey man, i like you. geez dont make me say shit like that", automatically assume that the literal only reason that line would exist to begin with is because he was meant to be canonically gay, that he is actually still canonically gay even tho the line was removed, and this is then used to explain the shit he says towards kanji. oh, and of course, people will further explain yosuke's behavior towards other people (e.g. chie and yukiko) as, "boys will be boys". how about you shut the fuck up.