#i almost wanna say Hifumi's mom counts since her dad is only mentioned
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arcplaysgames · 2 years ago
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OH WOW THANK GOD I LEFT THIS NOTE TO MYSELF BECAUSE I TOTALLY FORGOT I WAS THINKING ABOUT THIS LAST NIGHT
so I finished the Hanged Man and while I like Iwai a lot, I did NOT see why he's the Hanged Man at all? I.... literally could not tell you what qualities of the Hanged Man he has, even in a cursory sense. I am baffled.
But i liked him, though as I finished his arc and maxed him out, I was struck by how Persona feels about single parents in Japanese society.
Because in both P3P and P5R, multiple characters are raised by single parents, which I understand is more contentious in Japan than it is in the US. (Which is remarked on by Iwai himself actually, how adamant he is about ensuring his son Kaoru is not stained by Iwai being his father, as Iwai has that trauma from his parents.)
But off the dome, we have
Yukari's mother, negative portrayal and she's never depicted on screen
Junpei's father, negative portrayal, never on screen
Nanako and Dojima, a positive portrayal and very much on screen
Kanji's mother, kind of on screen but only briefly, positive
Ryuji's mother, positive, off screen
Futaba's mother, very positive, but off screen bc she's dead at time of game
Futaba's father, very positive, very on screen
Akechi's mother, negative (if sympathetic), off screen
Iwai and his son, very positive, fully on screen
I might be missing one or two, but my point that I began to notice is that Persona as a series seems to be very sympathetic to single parents, which is good
but at the same time, it just LOOOOOOOVES single dads and doesn't really care for single moms. Almost every mom is a point of exposition. We don't have a social link hanging with a single mom to my knowledge, but we have three with dads. (wait does Temperance in P4 count? she's..... not actually a single mom she's a stepmom..... i dunno if that counts)
With one in the last game and two in this game, I'm just kinda getting sick of how great single dads are and want to see some portrayal of single moms, because they definitely exist in the Persona universe, but the game never asks the player to get to know them and help them, and that gap sucks.
Anyway. /pops gum
Going to sleep but note to self, persona's sympathy for single parents vs only dudes get portrayed on screen
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