That’s a very valid point. The issues they did tackle in the game are issue that are significant to Japanese society. Agree with a lot from the article, but i can’t agree with calling our protagonist privileged.
Ann’s portrayal specifically has a ton of issues honestly. I understand what you’re saying and yeah, that sounds really awful for her and the real people who have to struggle with that. They try to have it both ways in the game though. They want to portray her as a victim of the sexual fantasies of men(which they effectively do) while also having multiple cutscenes and moments in the game where they very aggressively sexualize her as a cheap joke as well as for the audience’s pleasure. That’s just poor writing and only serves to cheapen the solid foundation they built for her character. It also makes me questions how much they really believe in the message they’re putting forth. If you can make a game with the subject matter of P5 and not see these very clear contradictions in your own story…how much do you really understand what’s unacceptable about the way these people are treated?
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You (general you) shouldn’t conflate Atlus with Japan.
Atlus is fucking bad with women, sexuality and especially trans issues. Undeniably so.
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that’s, well, not entirely accurate, shall we say. laws against explicit workplace discrimination have been on the books since the 80s (Still a struggle for working women - The Japan Times) and not insignificant progress has been made on the enforcement front considering the difficulties of japan’s legal system (https://www.wcl.american.edu/hrbrief/11/2barrett.pdf). treating japan and the states as incomparable in this matter is disingenuous. what is true however is that gender gaps across the board in japan are dire (housework division of labor still one of the worst in the world, for example), but this issue is a matter of great social and political activity. but this is also for largely economics reasons, as conservatives believe the integration of women into the economy is a way to preserve japanese labor power, so its a complex matter.
THIS JUST IN: Japanese developers aren’t babies, they’re grown ass adults who are responsible for the things they put in their products - refusing to criticize their failings because they speak a different language than you isn’t just disingenuous, it’s also grossly condescending to the developers/writers own agency as human beings. If you as a creator need the mainstream culture of your country to “accept” a group of people before you’re willing to treat them equally and with fair measure, that’s a personal failing of empathy. Queer people have always been human beings, not just since Target started acknowledging us in their summer sales, and the absence of capitalist/cultural systems to support that acceptance doesn’t make the lack of it on a personal level any less thick headed.
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I personally didn’t feel that the Phantom Thieves are “privileged”. It’s not like this is a contest for who is most oppressed. I think that slant in the article that the Thieves’ own issues are trivial takes away from a legitimate concern, which is that the Thieves are subject to injustice – and these are very real, legitimate issues in East Asia, like the level of xenophobia impacting biracial (or multiracial) kids is on a completely different level and hundreds of teenagers kill themselves every year because they won’t get into a good college and they didn’t live up to their parents’ expectations, etc. etc. (this is improving, but still. Every fucking year) – but they’re also ignorant about how they themselves perpetrate injustice on others. I’m not an expert on Japan, but as a queer Korean, I related to many issues brought up in P5, so I understood where Atlus is coming from with regards to what it DID try to say. What they purposefully excluded is not quite the same issue, but I thought the article conflated the two. (Of course, the dumb homophobic jokes and “fan service” elements are just, well. Dumb. I’ve no interest in defending that.)
Would P5 have been a better game if it included queerness as a marginalized identity? Yeah. Should the status quo in East Asia be an excuse for globalized East Asian companies not to improve? No. Does this article still seem weirdly West-centric? Kind of, yeah.
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i agree that while looking to those games for actual improvement is kinda depressing, i don’t get how you can look at defined patterns of behaviour and not want to draw a conclusion on them. like P2-4 and Catherine all had big moments in them where the writers at Atlus made clear their stance on trans women. regardless of culture, you have to look at that and recognise it as a pattern and a consistent thought process.
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Thank you for the reply! The exchange of ideas which are not your own is always a welcome and productive bit of personal growth.
I can completely understand someone taking umbrage with cheap objectification being imposed on any character, and I especially understand being dissatisfied when you feel like you’re being fed poor writing. Even more so do I understand the incredible frustration felt when what you see before you is something that you’d call a cheapening of a character’s foundation.
It’s just that I don’t see the cut scenes as cheapening her character. If anything, I think it’s more interesting to see a female character who fights against a sexist society while still embracing her femininity and confidently flaunting her sexual appeal. Ann is quite traditionally feminine (in a Japanese sense of the ideal), and reveling in one’s sexual appeal is a very real part of that. I do believe that her outfit and means of presenting herself in a sexual manner is her own choice, as well, considering her complaints in Mementos about how she wishes people would be more accepting of clothes like that in a public place. I’d even say that the fact her outfit emphasizes her feminine form is a very deliberate means of inverting the type of stereotypes she faces as a Hafu - by making her empowerment something which can draw on the objectification which she faces as a Hafu, she takes that which had held her down, and makes it her weapon on her climb up.
Besides - and this is likely just a matter of personal interpretation - but the only cut scenes in where Ann is rather heavily sexualized which I can recall are her awakening scene, a cut scene from the desert palace, and her bikini reveal in Hawaii. In her awakening scene, Ann is most certainly being objectified, but this objectification is coming from the most detestable villain in the whole story - Kamoshida. This objectification is most certainly not portrayed as anything less than evil. I even recall her directly yelling “Love? What would you possibly know about love? To you all women are just objects to be toyed with.” As her awakening scene, this is the scene in which her outfit plays the most significant symbolic role in the story, and so the fact that she was empowered in a means which flaunts her sexual appeal while she takes down the man who has most objectified her is a very clear inversion of what her sexual appeal can mean for her.
As previously stated, the other cut scene which I can recall placing Ann into a situation where she was negatively sexualized is one from the desert palace. The scene is, I’d agree, just plain old lazy writing for a cheap joke: they’re in a hot place, since it’s hot Ann lowers her top a bit, this results in Ryuji ogling her now more exposed chest, and so she pulls hard on the brakes to punish him with a comedic sound effect accompanying it. It’s a dumb gag which we’ve all probably seen and grown tired of many times before, but what I will say of it is that the setup does at least make sense. When it’s hot, it makes sense for Ann to let her top down a bit to let her body breathe. When Ryuji’s been established as an asinine teenage boy, it makes sense that he’d continue to be an ass. Does this justify the scene’s placement in the story? No, no it doesn’t - I 100% agree that Persona 5 would have been stronger without that scene, and in fact I’d say that the resources and time spent on that cutscene should have been put to animating a more pivotal plot moment.
The last cut scene which I remember heavily sexualizing Ann was when she first walked out in her bikini during their days in Hawaii. This, however, is an example of a time when her sexualization is completely in her control and embraced. She tilts her hips as she walks out, then responds to Ryuji’s perverse motions by placing her arm around him and mocking him for it. This is a positive example of a woman owning her sexuality in an empowering way. Though this is arguably another example of a scene for which the resources should have probably been spent on a more pivotal plot moment, the scene still reinforces Ann’s character in a constructive way by showing her owning her sexual appeal.
Also - and this is just pure conjecture on my part - but I don’t get the sense that Atlus made the animated cut scenes themselves. They felt so tonally divorced from the rest of the game to me that I’d guess they were made by a dedicated animation studio outside of Atlus. In fact, my experience within the games industry has informed me of a common pattern across publisher-developer dichotomies: that publishers will often allow passion projects between “moneymaker” games, but that for the “moneymakers”, the publisher will often incorporate some fail-safes in help guarantee financial safety, such as sex appeal or the latest marketing buzzwords. For Atlus, Persona is their clear moneymaker. As such, I almost wonder if the cut scenes which feel as if they might have been outsourced may have, perhaps, included ample sex appeal at the behest of SEGA, rather than Atlus. That’s just pure conjecture on my part though, so take it for what it is.
A more important point which I feel should not be glossed over, though, is that sexualization of Ann does not undermine “Persona 5”'s central themes. Most precisely, it does not undermine it because “Persona 5”'s core theme was not the idea that women should not be sexual. Though I’d personally say that the story’s theme was “justice can be found in rebellion”, I am well aware that director Katsura Hashino has a different opinion, saying that “Persona 5”'s theme is “Mankind’s tendency to each view the world through their own individually distorted sense of reality - and its consequences on society and relationships”. This is not a theme which is at odds with any character being sexualized.
Though that is where I’d like to leave off my wall of text for now, there’s one last part of your post which I feel almost honor-bound to respond to:
how much do you really understand what’s unacceptable about the way these people are treated?
Since this statement followed a sentence which was discussing an imperative “you” but was separated from that sentence by an ellipses, I cannot tell whether the “you” here was meant to refer to me or not. If it was, then I don’t think it was necessary to accuse me of being detached from another’s suffering. In fact, the game’s dealings with the treatment of Hafu hit me harder than much of the rest of the game did, on account of the fact that I’m married to a Hafu woman. If, on the other hand, this was just a case of unintentionally unclear punctuation, then I’d apologize for any ill conclusions drawn, but reiterate my need to be cautious first.
Ignoring all of that, though, I’d like to, above all else, repeat that I thank you for taking the time to reply, and once more state that I am grateful for all free, open dialogues of ideas.
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You are exactly correct that Atlus isn’t Japan, nor do I believe that Atlus is Japan. I do, however, know that Atlus is a deeply Japanese company which produces some of the most intrinsically culturally Japanese games on the market. In fact, I’ve heard compelling arguments that the only series more inherently Japanese than Persona is the Yakuza series.
I also believe that there is a moral imperative to respect other cultures, no matter how much you may disagree with their ideas. However, the sole exception might be if a tangible, physical threat is being posed to you personally - I wouldn’t blame a 1918 Armenian having little respect for Turkish culture, for instance.
Japanese video games just don’t pose a threat to Western LGBT+ individuals, though.
Just as I believe it is my moral duty to respect cultures with ideas I find alien, I also feel it is equally important to defend a sense of respect for these other cultures.
And, if you feel differently then that’s just as great - I’d always defend your right to disagree with me just as much as I’d defend my right to speak in favor of my own ideas.
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You’re absolutely right that it’s a complex matter which has many more layers to it than what I presented in my initial post - at first I was simply somewhat hesitant to build the wall of text, but clearly my newer posts have flown that right out the window.
I’m aware that on an official level, there technically are laws against it in Japan, but at the end of the day, none of them will change the fact that my Japanese wife is afraid to work in her own home country. To quote her, women suffer less sexism in the most Conservative America than in the most Liberal Japan.
I really like Persona 5 and I believe it does well with it themes, the times hanging out with interesting and complex characters, and finishing a game with something to think about. However, the problems it has with it treatment of some of the female characters, negative stereotyping of queer characters, and lack of both queer and minority group characters keeps it from having a stronger impact. It is worth discussing since it’ll help figure out what it can do better and if Atlus is reading these articles it allow them to better understand where they can improve. Ignoring it will be the worst as it’ll keep them and us in the dark with the status quo being continuing misunderstanding and harm.
Also for the people who think that not what the community wants or isn’t ready, there been too many Yuri and Yaoi fan-art all over twitter so yeah the community does want it and is ready for queer characters.
With regards to western criticism of Japan, it’s actually quite a bit murkier than those bringing up cultural differences tend to believe, since unless you do actual research, it can be hard to tell where those cultural differences end and western influences begin. A lot of people do not get that a surprising amount of what Japan sometimes gets criticized for is due to the latter.
Just as an example, you know how Japan is infamous for its work culture being so bad it actually kills people? Guess where they got that from. Spoiler: It was the U.S. after the war.
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I think I see where you’re coming. If you want Japan to improve, we should also improve. There been a lot more dark skin characters in Japanese game and anime probably cause there been getting better in our media.
Lulu was treated fairly well though. She’s certainly one of my favorite side characters.
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Hey so I tried typing in Persona 5 Lulu into google and did not get the results I was hoping for. Are they the bartender at the bar where you enhance your devil social link?
Yeah it the bartender who is super nice to you, respects you personal space by not forcing you to cross-dress, and encourage you to interact with people. It the character we need more of and in the main cast, not just a nice NPC.
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Lulu definitely complimented the Devil Social Link very well. They were often the voice of reason for Ohya. Definitely wouldn’t have minded having her as a social link in the actual game. Definitely would have preferred them over the Tower social link (the arcade savant). Plus felt like they could have added on to the outsider theme the development team was going for.
If we’re being honest I think there are other marginalized groups that could have been represented in Persona 5 as well. While having some LGBTQ representation in games is always appreciated, maybe having a party member who is handicapped or is Korean would have added to the themes of being an outsider as well. The Japanese are infamous for their reluctance to increase immigration rates even though they are facing a shortage of medical professionals that can take care of their aging population. In addition Korean’s have a history of being discriminated against in Japan even though many were forced to move to Japan to work in forced Labor camps during World War II. Think this could resonate with Western audiences as well since immigration has become a hot button issue in many Western countries. Having to defy those stereotypes and not let your disability/disease define you would have been welcomed themes and I hope it is something that Atlus pursues in future SMT games. Even if it’s not perfect I would rather they try than do nothing at all.
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While I agree with your point, where I’m from the term handicapped is frowned upon. Not sure where you are, so yeah, just a head’s up.
I find the argument that Ann’s sexualization is okay because it’s “her choice” extremely disingenuous. Ignoring the fact that it’s an argument used nearly every time some dude wants to defend sexist character design in games, it’s also just not true? She didn’t choose to do any of those things. She didn’t choose to do anything. She’s not a real person. The writers, character designers, and artists decided they wanted a sexy teenage girl in a revealing outfit and flimsily tried to justify it like they always do.
It’s not “empowering” to draw a teenage girl in extremely revealing outfits and say “oh no it’s cool because she’s choosing to wear them.”
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