Persona 4 Golden can’t seem to choose an angle for LGBT representation
Persona 4 Golden is well known for a few reasons. Yes, it’s a good game, but it was also one of the only good games on the PS Vita, so most people played it there. That version also got rid of some of the most annoying stuff from the original game. No more stupid loot systems. Really though, it was notable because it was an anime game with a bisexual character and a gender questioning character.
To get everyone on the same page:
Kanji Tatsumi is a guy with hella repressed feelings. He bleached his hair and dresses like a biker gang member, but really this is a mask to appear like the person he wants people to see him as. He loves his mother, makes arts and crafts and has a huge crush on his male presenting classmate Naoto Shirogane.
His personal growth is centered around accepting the parts of himself that he hides. A kid discovers that Kanji is great at making dolls and Kanji realizes that being a man was never about being cool, but about helping people and being a good person.
The issue is that Kanji’s gayness is almost entirely ignored after the party initially realizes he likes men and it’s revealed Naoto is a woman. Almost as if Kanji being bi wasn’t a factor at all. This leads us into the other LGBT+ character:
Naoto Shirogane is from a line of detectives and wishes to become one herself. However, she dresses like a man and presents herself as such so she can achieve what she believes to be the ideal image of a detective. Sherlock isn’t a woman, Columbo isn’t a woman, so why should she be?
Well her arc in game consists of her discovering that really the problem was never that she was a woman, but the expectations that society quietly puts on people. She doesn’t have to be a man to be a detective, so she finds that she’s content being a woman. Stereotypes be damned.
In isolation this arc is alright. It’s fine. It makes sense, totally. It works with the theme of society’s expectations being dumb. It’s fine.
Alright it’s not fine. The problem Naoto’s arc is that it doubles down in erasing Kanji’s bisexuality and baits the audience. See, Naoto thinks she might be trans, but realizes that it was actually society that was wrong for tricking her into thinking she couldn’t achieve her goals as a woman.
This take sucks. It’s not unrealistic necessarily, but baiting the audience into thinking it was going to explore the struggles of a trans man then pulling out the rug and saying ‘sike’ sucks. As opposed to her arc merely acting to reinforce an existing theme, it could have explored genuinely new ideas. Anyone who was excited to see Naoto as someone who they could relate to is hit with a hard dose of reality when their hopes are dashed. The game is only interested in being oddly regressive in its counter cultural themes.
Not to mention that the whole deal of the arc is Naoto learning to accept herself, but really the only thing she’s accepting is that. . . she’s a cis woman? I get societal expectations and all but this is a pretty cowardly take.
Since Naoto’s arc is essentially “Naoto thought she was trans but actually wasn’t,” this calls Kanji’s bisexuality into question as well. Kanji hardly mentions his bisexuality in his dialogue and hey, the person he had a crush on turned out to be a woman anyways. He wasn’t actually attracted to men, society just made him think that because he had feminine attributes and was bad at talking to women.
But that’s wrong, in the text Kanji is portrayed as liking men. His shadow, a representation of the feelings that a given character wants to hide from society, shows a Kanji who is utterly blatant about his sexuality. In a negative light, absolutely, but the shadows pervert the thoughts that people hide. Kanji later explains why he likes men and the party genuinely accepts him.
But when Naoto is introduced, Kanji’s narrative is confused. “He’s not really gay because Naoto is a woman,” seems like the new take and later sections of the game write Kanji as if he’s still embarrassed of his sexuality or rejecting it entirely.
The game feels at odds with itself when it tries to confront LGBT+ characters. Hell, there is cut content in the game’s files that features a romantic ending for another male character’s story.
No matter the reason, the way the game dodges around Kanji’s sexuality and botches Naoto’s arc really hurts any sort of positive point the game could have made regarding social issues. Naoto works individually, but she muddles the themes and baits the audience to hope for a more interesting character.
I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed. And a little mad.