#I hope one day Atlus lets you out of the closet

[rukibur]

Happy day of birth Yosuke Hanamura ,,,, truly one of the boys of all time

[notcorrect-persona5]

Can’t have one without the other! How about Teddie?

yesss you’re so right. the hanamura bros gotta stick together!

favorite thing about him

his absolute sunshine of a personality! he’s so energetic, sweet and fun. atlus and his va called him pure of heart, and like, that’s adorable.

least favorite thing about them

teddie can be really insecure, and he’s terrified of his friends hating him. he asks more than once if his friends dislike him and the investigation team just..ignores him? his shadow was also really concerning, and nobody thought to say anything to him?? maybe check up on him??

favorite line

“i’m busier than most of you, so i can’t come every morning...i mean, i have to eat breakfast, go back to bed, eat lunch, watch some tv...and that’s not even including time for snacks! you might not think so, but coming here is pretty tough to fit into my schedule.”

and

“chie-chan! yuki-chan! let’s be mermaids!”

brOTP

hanamura bros and nana-chan! nanako and teddie are besties, and i love that so much. nanako was the reason teddie believed in himself again like- and their promise 🥺

OTP

none

nOTP

hanamura bros...they’re brothers.

random headcanon

boy do i have a lot. i won’t say them all, but i’ll list a few.

1. yosuke’s third year the hanamuras adopt teddie :)

2. teddie gets nightmares, so he’ll wake yosuke up in the middle of the night sometimes.when that happens, yosuke lets him sleep with him as long as he promises not to tell anyone lol

3. yosuke’s house (shown in the magician) is big enough to have 4-6 bedrooms, yet teddie sleeps in yosuke’s closet. that was definitely teddie’s request. probably because of his fear of being alone.

4. you can’t tell me the random noises you hear every day wouldn’t freak him out when he first came to our world. like the first time he heard a blender? that would be so scary, he’s never heard anything like that before.

5. teddie and yosuke’s mom have a tv show they watch together every week.

6. teddie gets so excited when he learns new things about this world, so he likes to tell yosuke when he learns something like a new word or phrase.

unpopular opinion

he isn’t obsessed with girls in a sexual way. in persona q he says he wants to get married because it means he’ll never be alone. he seeks love, validation, and companionship. many of his influences - yukiko’s and kanji’s shadows, yosuke’s parents, likely tv and yosuke himself - give off the idea that a romantic relationship is the best way to get that. being alone makes him extremely sad, so he flirts with girls (and occasionally boys) in hopes of finding a companion who will always be with him.

song that reminds me of them

april by beach bunny

cloud 9 by beach bunny

hard times by paramore

let’s face it i’m cute from acorn lane

invisible from beetlejuice the musical (after the prologue)

creep by radiohead

favorite picture of him

my profile picture :-)

but seriously, teddie is officially the cutest.

[doktorpeace]

coffee emoji + Persona

I’m a big fan of Persona as an overall series, I actually just started Innocent Sin the other day so I can finally get P2 under my belt. As a whole the mainline franchise does a great job writing meaningful stories full of great character interactions which all serve to accent each entry’s core themes. Persona 3 has some of the strongest and most consistent writing of any RPG I've ever played with regards to quality and execution on its themes, which is a big part of why it's my favorite one. All of the members of SEES change meaningfully as characters by the end of just the base game, not to mention additional content like The Answer, or the Persona 4 Arena Duology (which, funnily, are way better through the lenses of the P3 cast than the P4 cast), and especially more niche but still canon content like the Drama CDs which do a great job of filling the listener in on what the other members do while Minato is away or sick or asleep. Spoilers: They're really gay and not in a queerbaiting way either. Did you ever think it's out of nowhere that Yukari and Mitsuru are dating at the end of Persona 4 Arena Ultimax? These explain how they started dating and also talk about Akihiko and Shinjiro's relationship in romantic terms, comparing it directly to Junpei and Chidori's. Basically, Junpei is canonically the Token Straight of SEES and I think that's wonderful.That said the franchise really botches it at times. Persona 4 especially fucks up by directly undermining its own core theme of ‘Be true to yourself’ with its treatment of almost every playable character. Like, seriously: Yukiko decides to abandon her dreams to do what she's told when that's what her whole social link is about not doing. Kanji is openly bisexual now but his sexuality still treated as a joke by Yosuke and Teddie. Rise decides to abandon her beliefs and just keep working in the idol industry because other people want her to. Yosuke was written as a closeted gay teenager but had all of his gay content locked away from access despite being finished and on the disc. And most especially Naoto, who they build up as a very good representation of a trans man with a strong personal narrative arc but the INSTANT he joins your party everyone's like "But you're really a girl, right?" and then in order to get him to date you you have to CONSTANTLY undermine his gender identity and what he's comfortable with. It's shitty content and really inexcusable regardless of what game it were to be in but ESPECIALLY because of this game's core themes.And that all is genuinely really sad and infuriating because 4′s plot and all of its NPC social links are REALLY good! There’s still a lot to enjoy there but like, damn if it isn’t disheartening how they got so scared to letting characters meaningfully change and/or be gay that they were actively willing to ruin the main theme of the game. The franchise after 3 really kind of has an issue with letting playable characters meaningfully grow and change and also with LGBT content in general, with some minor examples being good like Lala Escargot, but otherwise just removing it altogether unless it's for Jokes™ which aren't funny and are based on annoying stereotypes. Not even 3 is perfect about this but at least almost every adult member of SEES is canonically LGBT and good representation so I can kind of excuse how bad that one scene is. I've heard 2 is actually quite progressive even by today's standards and from what I know about it it is, so I'm excited to see how it handles this kind of content.Honestly, Atlus used to be really cutting edge and daring with the kinds of themes and content they were willing to put into Persona but ever since 4 hit it big and the franchise got mainstream attention they've been kind of cowardly about it. P5 is a big step up from P4 in terms of overall writing quality, the party members are more interesting and are allowed to change at least a little bit by the game's end but it still fucks up more than I'd like. Its representation of mental illness and people on the spectrum are quite nice in my opinion but it still won't let you be gay even though Yusuke has the most unique dates of any character in the game! Come on, AT LEAST let us date Yusuke who already reads VERY MUCH as more than friends. Also make Ryuji a romance option and don't make Akechi a romance option because I don't want that shit. I want good characters to be romanceable.The spinoffs are all kinda just there to me. Like, they're a decent enough distraction but they absolutely do not have the love and quality put into the writing for me to really have much fun with them. Characters who were already kind of flat like Chie become really annoying and characters who WERE really well developed and three dimensional like Akihiko still get reduced to just 'Musclehead Protein Man' which is fucking stupid. Only P4A and P4AU really do any of the characters justice in terms of writing quality but even then only really the P3 Cast and Naoto get good and interesting story content. Everyone else just get schlock. So whatever. P4A and P4AU are super fun to play though, mechanically they did an excellent job realizing each character in a way that feels authentic to their personality, if not their gameplay niche, in their home games. I can only hope P5A doesn't have some bullshit timeline thing to get the P4 characters out of aging and advancing as people. They NEED the treatment P4A gave SEES. Show me out of shape middle manager at Junes 24 year old Yosuke, Atlus you fucking cowards. There's so much room for advancement and growth with these characters but at the same time I know they either won't do it by introducing some dumb timeline bullshit OR they'll fuck it up and like, make Naoto a big tiddie ultra femme looking person to REALLY try and tell us "NO REALLY NAOTO IS CIS IGNORE HIS ENTIRE CHARACTER ARC AND ALL OF HIS WRITING IN PERSONA 4 AND ALSO HOW IN PERSONA 4 GOLDEN WE LEANED EVEN HARDER INTO THE TRANS NARRATIVE WITH HIS ADDITIONAL CONTENT"You can always count on the gameplay to advance and get better at least, so that's nice. I'm not really gonna discuss that though other than to say P3 not letting you directly control party members serves its themes and writing well and isn't even hard to play around if you just use the Command Wheel to issue orders to your party members, the AI is pretty smart. Not Xenoblade Chronicles 1 smart, but still pretty fuckin' smart.Anyway, basically, I like Persona a lot as a franchise. It's a flawed franchise that I want and expect better out of than what it delivers in some aspects but on the whole it's hard to deny the quality of the overall products. I just hope that Atlus listens to the kind of feedback they've been getting in the last few years and really start becoming more daring again with the kind of content they put into the games again. Go harder on those themes and really challenge people's mindsets, this franchise has so much potential for that and it just scratches the surface really.Oh, also, Persona fans on the whole are some of the absolute dumbest motherfuckers I've ever seen on the internet. They'll really ignore blatant shit that's extremely clear just because it wasn't said in such plain wording a child would understand it while jumping through 70 mental rings to try and explain how Kanji isn't REALLY gay or how Naoto is ACTUALLY cis or how Akechi is actually the deepest most amazing character in the franchise, or whatever. That and/or they're just straight men who use the term 'waifu' and just reduce all of the female characters to 'which one do I want to fuck most' while ignoring everything else about the games because all they value these for are as dating simulators to try and fill the sad, gaping hole that is their social life. Some of them will actually get mad at people for discussing the psychological or political aspects of the series as if that's not what this IP is founded on because they're too stupid to think of anything other than which fictional underaged girl they want to fuck. Persona fans are fucking stupid and really make it embarrassing to like this franchise at times.This basically turned into me yelling about LGBT content in Persona but honestly that’s like, the aspect that needs the most constructive criticism. The psychological, theological, and political themes are generally really well handled. Worth discussion for sure but not what I want to talk about right now.

[maguneedsalife]

Review time: ArtFX J Protagonist (Phantom Thief Ver.)!

(please excuse me while i scREAM!!!!!! REAL LOUD!!!!)

as usual, picture-heavy review under the cut!

Persona as a franchise means a lot to me, so I was of course extremely excited when Persona 5 finally came out overseas. My boyfriend and I marathoned the game together and beat it in just about a month (our roommate also bought the game and we had to race each other to avoid spoilers haha). What I didn't expect was for the game to completely, utterly charm me--the protagonist especially. I am the most weak for boys who can be equally sexy and cute, and Protag here hits that sweet spot dead on. So, ordering a figure of my best boy was inevitable. (technically, since my bf offered to go halfsies with me, he belongs to both of us--but he'll be living on my desk for now). When the release date was revealed to be my birthday I almost cried, haha... Anyway, let's get on to what you came here for, which is pictures of hot anime boytoys. (For the purposes of the review, I'm going to refer to him by his thief name, Joker, from here on.)

Here he is from the side! Those legs of his are really something....!!!!

You can see that he takes up quite a bit of space horizontally. Personally this is less than ideal, as I'm a little strapped for space at the moment--but the pose is so fun, I'm willing to make whatever room I can!

Here's how he looks from the back!

Lookin' cool, Joker!!

The way his coat billows out behind him is definitely one of the highlights of this figure. I can almost hear the sound of his footsteps amid Life Will Change now... The details on his coat are also very faithfully reproduced. Come to think of it, this is going to make great drawing reference in the future--it's hard to pick out details on a lot of the official art.

From a lower angle... the base's secret mask becomes visible! A very creative touch. It's hard to tell in this picture, but his butt is also... very nicely sculpted...

From the other side; possibly the least interesting angle.

Another side view. This figure has so much movement; its fun just to turn it around....

A closeup shot of his face... have you ever SEEN a man so beautiful??? It took me forever to get through the shoot for this review because I spent so much time just lying on the floor and admiring him..... His lower lip is a little too prominent for my taste, but it does follow the character designer's style. It's not too bad in certain lighting.

The paintwork on the mask is a little sloppy... but for the most part I'll be seeing it from a distance, so it doesn't bother me that much. I bought Joker from Amiami because I wasn't swayed by the Kotobukiya-exclusive parts (and I already had a September order going), but in hindsight I do kind of wish I had a calling card for him.

I can't remember why I took this picture actually.... but it's a good angle for him.

Close in, you can see that the details on his vest (vest?) were also very faithfully reproduced. I think it's meant to be a shirt, judging by the grey coloring on his wrists, but I usually draw it as a vest....

Akira "Legs for Days" Kurusu has some really very impressive legs.... He probably has the nicest legs of anyone in my collection.....

Closer in on those boots...! The paintwork on them really shines; they look just like polished leather. And those heels...!!! i almost want him to step on me...... In the above picture you can also see a couple of bits of leftover plastic; here's a detail shot so you can see what I mean:

They're only noticeable from some angles, and are probably easy to sand or snip off, but I felt it was important to point them out. Joker isn't my first Kotobukiya figure, but I've only had one other one to go on...

A closer look at his handgun. I noticed that he's been sculpted with his finger off the trigger; a+ gun safety there, Koto! Joker has a number of iconic accessories: the mask, calling card, gun, and dagger are probably the four that come to mind the fastest. I'm satisfied with the two they chose for the standard release, but I wouldn't mind having the calling card part too. though, considering I broke my P4 Protagonist's tarot card part not that long ago, maybe it's for the better that I got the regular version....

A closeup of his back! The seams of his coat are raised in relief as decorative piping. I also really like the strap in the back; very stylish.

Another detail I hadn't quite noticed in the game or the official art: the buttons on the far side of his coat! I don't know why I never noticed them before...

Here's a closer look at the base! The Phantom Thieves logo is faithfully reproduced, and the shattered-glass effect brings to mind the All-Out Attack animation. Plus, the stars in the background are meant to evoke the game's menus. I don't usually care much about bases, but this one is appropriately stylish for a game and character that ooze style.

Here's how the base looks from the back, with the hidden mask visible. The eyes are even hollow, just like the real thing! Like with May, Joker is also firmly anchored to the base with a screw. Is this something Koto does on a regular basis? It's going to make moving with him kind of a pain... While the base is certainly a highlight of the figure, it definitely has a downside. I don't know if this is a common problem on this figure, but my base doesn't quite sit flat on hard surfaces (or even carpet, like the one I was shooting on). It wobbles back and forth, which makes me a liiiittle nervous, since Joker is already putting a lot of weight forward. I might see if I can warm up the plastic a little and warp it back into shape.

Another close-up shot.... I just can't get enough of him, honestly! I was worried the final product would look too baby-faced, but he looks very handsome in person. Higher angles seem to be more flattering for him.

Alongside Shinjiro and Souji, we have The Holy Persona Boyfriend Trinity! I feel extremely blessed that figures exist for my main Persona crushes... now we just need Akechi Souji was my first scale figure, and at the time I thought he was impressively tall. He's since been dwarfed by every single scale I've bought since, and now he's even been out-legged by Joker. BUT! Souji still wins for looking like a Shigenori Soejima drawing walked off the page. (If I remember correctly, Soejima was the one who supervised GEM Souji in the first place....). Soejima's unique style is difficult to reproduce (see: every other Persona figure), so Joker here gets points for coming close. He's still very handsome!!

Maybe one day we'll get a nice scale Akechi to go with Joker, but for now I'll have to make due by balancing fan merch on him like a loser... (by the way, the cute Akechi charm is by K; here's her shop!)

This is actually kind of adorable..... maybe I'll hang more merch on Joker in the future....

AU where everything is the same except the Personas are the size of Pikachu

(By the way... I would kill for some Arsene merch right around now!!! I know a plastic model Arsene was just announced, and it looks amazing so far, but I want to decorate my purse with cute Arsene straps.... I have such a bad crush on him too haha. I'd also love to see cute little charms like the Izanagi one, but for the P5 crew... ah, I can dream.)

Anyway, that's enough delusions of grandeur.

Here's where I'm keeping him on my desk! Right within easy view of both me and my boyfriend, whose desk is kitty corner to mine. With a heavy heart, I had to relocate my Ren and Masato scales to storage to make room for Joker. ;-; Maybe someday soon I'll get a proper display case... Also--I didn't get pictures of it so you're going to have to take my word for it, but his box is probably the most stylish figure box I've ever seen. The box insert has the Phantom Thieves logo, along with the stars from the game's menu--and I would have used it as a backdrop for the review, except it's extremely (appropriately) busy. Not only that, the top of the box has a mask design like Joker's--and one eye is cut open to reveal a picture of the figure on the flap below it. This box is so neat that I actually didn't fold it up; I put the blister packaging back in and stuck it in my closet--so that's a testament to how cool that box is.

If my rambly fangirling wasn't enough to get the point across, Joker was worth every penny I spent on him. He adds a really dynamic presence to my collection, which I love (if you've read my reviews before, you know I never miss an opportunity to compare the sort of boring poses a lot of male figures get to the fun, interesting ones female figures get...). Joker has also brought to light the monkey's paw end of this scenario, which is that in exchange for a dynamic pose, he takes up way more space on my desk... whoops. Anyway, I definitely recommend this figure to fans of Persona 5--and I'm hoping that if this boy does well, we'll get more Persona 5 figures! Pls.... Atlus.... give us Akechi...... I'll take the most boring Akechi in the world if i have to.... I'll be looking forward to seeing more merch, especially with the anime coming next year... In particular I'm excited for figma Joker, who will be joining my collection in the spring. I'll have to try to pose him in the same pose as Koto's Joker just to compare. I'm also curious about Phat Company’s P5 protag announced at this year's summer WonFes. I wonder if they'll come up with a unique pose for him, or just go with the default... we'll have to see! Anyway, I think that just about wraps it up for this review. Tomorrow I'll likely (hopefully) be back with another review for the other item in my September AmiAmi order, figma Gwendolyn.  Oh, and to my Jewish followers: Shana Tova and G'mar Tov! And have an easy fast, if that's something you're participating in. (I'm not fasting, but I did go to services today...) The summer (summer?) of unending anime purchases continues...