Moments of Truth YOSUKE; Persona 4 social links explained
Facing your true self, warts and all, is a central theme of Persona 4. So it’s fitting that many of the game’s most compelling moments are based on moments of pure and unvarnished truth.
I recently wrote on how Persona 4 deftly balances a warm coming-of-age story with themes of unearthing painful baggage. If you haven’t played Persona 4, you probably want to stop reading this piece immediately and check out that essay instead, which makes a case for it being a great RPG everyone should try.
If you have played Persona 4 and are ready for some heavy spoilers, by all means continue…
A cool side effect of researching my previous essay is it gave me fresh insight on how social links are structured in Persona 4. I was aware that friends and family become more forthcoming as you get to know them better.
But I never before noticed that every social link has at least one moment where the link drops all pretense and is completely honest about things. It got to the point where I started looking for it, and I appreciated the thought and effort that went into creating this satisfying dynamic that’s so subtle and well done players might not even notice the larger pattern.
The following is a brief summary of Yosuke’s moments of truth, along with some perspective on his circumstances and behavior:
Yosuke Hanamura
Arcana: Magician
First Impression: Class Clown
Hidden Truth: desperately craves affirmation
Cringe. It’s a term that usually surfaces when Yosuke is being discussed, and for good reason. While friendly enough, he often makes lame passes at Chie and Yukiko and drops homophobic comments. The first impressions are…not great.
This essay is not here to defend that behavior, but it is fair to evaluate how it fits within the rest of Yosuke’s character and compare it to other story arcs in the game.
The larger context is that Persona 4 is a character-driven game that is deeply concerned with what’s beneath the surface. It has several characters that make bad first impressions but become more sympathetic as the story unfolds. Yosuke embodies this dynamic as well as anyone in Persona 4, and is arguably one of the best written characters in the game.
Like the main character, Yosuke is new in town. His father runs the new Junes superstore, and Yosuke works there as a middle manager. Junes is an existential threat to most of the downtown businesses, and because of that Yosuke is widely disliked.
Yosuke is one of the first people the main character meets, and it soon becomes apparent he doesn’t have any real friends. He is outgoing, but doesn’t really connect with people.
A key to understanding Yosuke is that, beneath the class clown act, he desperately wants people to like him. Initially, his behavior is more showoff than sincere, and this leads to cringe. Whether its awkwardly surprising the girls with bikinis during the camping trip or the many ill-advised attempts at humor, Yosuke often tries too hard to impress others.
This dynamic plays out a bit differently at work, where Yosuke strives to be ‘the cool boss’ while supervising several schoolmates. He is friendly toward coworker and classmate Saki Konishi, who is polite, if not exactly friendly.
Saki is the second victim of mysterious killer, and this has a major impact on Yosuke’s story. More on that later.
Yosuke also bends over backwards to accommodate a pair of classmates who are big on workplace demands and short on gratitude. He strives to appease both them and the company, but eventually takes a firmer line. They respond by getting nasty, voicing vicious rumors about Saki and how she secretly hated Yosuke. This leads to his first moment of truth.
This is a turning point for Yosuke. Up until this point, he often attempts to use humor to deflect confrontation or uncomfortable moments. Going forward, he becomes more direct and honest.
Grief over Saki’s passing is a major theme in Yosuke’s story. When he was new in town, she was one of the only people who didn’t hold the Junes connection again him (at least outwardly). The grief Yosuke feels is real, but there were several factors in play with his actions after Saki died.
Consider: Yosuke was the driving force behind formation of the Investigation Team when Saki disappeared.
Though his shadow points out he wasn’t completely honest about the motivation.
In fairness to Yosuke, moving and getting a new job are two of the most disruptive and stressful experiences in normal life. He is dealing with both when we meet him.
These dynamics are also intertwined with a larger issue: Yosuke’s inability to form meaningful connections with others. Early in the social link, Yosuke gets a spam phone call and notes he never changed his number after moving. But he doesn’t expect calls from old friends, because none were close.
Moving was a hassle but it’s not the real reason Yosuke feels isolated and lacking purpose.
In a brilliant moment of truth with Yu, Yosuke admits that the murder investigation was an opportunity to set aside those worries for a more straightforward problem, something he could solve with others. He also confesses to fear the experience will leave him unchanged.
Yosuke’s social link comes to a satisfying conclusion with a third moment of truth, where he comes clean about what he really wants, telling Yu that building friendships through the Investigation Team is what helped make Inaba a home.
The tension between our true selves and the masks we show the world is a central theme of Persona 4. The masks that Yosuke wears early on — inept class clown and wannabe cool boss — do not serve him particularly well.
Over the course of the game Yosuke grows and comes to recognize he can handle things without putting on a show. This is good, because Yosuke is a pretty decent guy once he puts down the mask and just plays it straight.
Nathan Lamb is a former reporter and news editor, who occasionally writes about video games for fun. His passions include the Persona series and history. He previously wrote about on the overarching themes of death and mortality in Persona 3 and the themes that made Persona 4 a classic.
