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.”
She would be “empowered” by her outfit if she really played along with it and not being embarrassed by it. In her social link she talks about liking the female villain in a hero show and here is kind of the reason her inner self outfit is like that. However, they don’t push it enough to really mean it.
fwiw, I’m pretty sure the lady villain she’s talking about is literally Catwoman.
Additionally, I was under the impression that the Thief outfits were at least partially a part of how they themselves are perceived by the Collective Unconscious. If memory serves, characters remain in their regular clothes until they make enough of a fuss to stand out and attract notice within the Palace or Mementos. Which is to say, part of the reason Ann’s is so heavily sexualized is because of how so many people, including fuckboys like Ryuji, perceive her as being overtly sexual just for existing as an attractive woman.
This, combined with the fact that Ann seems singularly alone in complaining about her thief outfit, suggests that it’s not much of an “empowerment” thing. She never really “owns” the look, at most she just seems to put up with it. Being sexualized like that is just something she endures, both in real life and in the CU. And at least to the point I am in the game, she seems reluctant to ever even address how it makes her feel, nevermind draw strength from it.
I don’t think it’s Catwoman, since she says it’s a villain from an anime and i don’t think there have been any Batman related anime series. Not with Catwoman anyway.
In fact, the way she described the villain, she’s probably talking about Doronjo from Yatterman.
As far as I’m aware, there’s no vocabulary distinction in Japan between western animation and anime. They’re both just anime.
Furthermore, I think I remember Ann mentioning that she travelled a lot when she was younger on account of her parents’ work, which just makes it all the more possible that she could have seen a Batman cartoon somewhere else in the world.
There is actually, they specify when talking about American cartoons or comics.
Besides, Ann mentioned that part of the reason she looks up to this villainess was because she never gives up despite losing to the hero all the time. Which does not work for Catwoman, since she usually wins.
Which again, points to Doronjo and her gang. In fact, that’s the very reason why a lot of fans say they like the Doronbo Gang more than the titular Yatterman.
My apologizes about that. Should have used the word disability as apposed to handicapped. Just took a course (focusing on Race, Gender, Citizenship) last semester with a paraplegic man from Pakistan and i’s weird that it did not come up in conversation. Suppose we are trained to not talk about those things for fear of coming across as rude. Anyhow thanks for calling me out on that.
The “some dude” bit wasn’t referring directly to you, I was more directly referring to, like, basically every other dude I’ve talked to about sexist character designs but I did probably assume you were like them, unfairly. I respect that your perspective is coloured by knowing someone with a situation lot like Ann’s and don’t want to dismiss that. So apologies for that.
I’ve never known someone who was Hafu so I can’t pretend to know EXACTLY what it’s like, but as a biracial woman who had a biracial sister (we’re white/Romani, specifically) I feel like I at least understand… An adjacent experience? I’m trans, and have never presented as female so I don’t have direct exposure to the sexualization aspect, but my sister did deal with that a lot and it sucked. My experience was primarily like. The annoyance of passing as white when you aren’t mostly, and dealing with microaggressions when I did tell people about my heritage.
All this is to say that I don’t really… Buy the idea that the best way to overcome your abuse is to buy in fully to the things you’re being abused for. It works for a lot of people, and that’s great. But the solution to my white-passing isn’t to pretend to be white, the solution to sister being sexually harassed wasn’t for her to “own” her sexuality- that’s not what she wanted at all, she just wanted to be left alone. And obviously like, repressing stuff isn’t good but I feel like a lot of onus is put on people who are subject to harassment to become someone they might not want to be and that kinda sucks.
As for assuming intenof the developers I’ve… Just played a lot of Atlus games. They are always gross about women and it fucking sucks and I have no reason to believe Persona 5 was not a similar situation.
I feel like the middle part of this post might be kind of an irrelevant tangent but fuck it I’m leaving it.
It sort of implies it but in a kinda shitty way and then later they play up him ogling Ann like a creep for laughs so it’s kind of a moot point even if it was handled well in the first place
