• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Persona Community Thread |OT3| Your thread title sucks, Yukiko.

Status
Not open for further replies.
M

Meia

Member
Watanabe Kazuma said:
I was having a discussion about Persona before, and it just reminded how wildly different a lot of us perceive certain characters. I guess that it's only fitting, seeing as this is a series that very much concerns itself with identity and how that permeates itself in the wider world. Still, it made me spend a little more time pondering a character, who, truth be told, has never really endeared herself all that much to me - Naoto.

The statement that her story was just "that she accepts being a woman" irritate me somewhat, because I think that's extremely reductive, and a little dismissive of her actual role within the narrative. It’s not so much that Naoto has to accept that, but being comfortable with how society treats traditional gender roles. Part of my annoyance with the character of Naoto is frankly, not in how she’s portrayed, but how others perceive her. Ostensibly, at odds with how she views herself, and by extension, how society views her, she is at constant cross-roads - either submit or rebel. Unfortunately she feels stifled by the system and negates this in the only way she knows how; invert it by becoming what they accept - a man.

The folly of her character is that she’ extremely logical in an illogical world. Her desired occupations, down to her interests, are all traditionally male-dominated pursuits. Her age, along with her gender all but prevent her from fulfilling her dreams - handicapped by nothing other than inherently flawed social conventions. Her role as the “ace detective” is indicative of this, being an amalgamation of the heroes she came to idolize in media - powerful, assured, males.

It’s almost as if the fanbase forgets this core aspect of the character, and instead what we are left with is comments about how “oh, she’s so sexy.” A lot of people (though not all) always refer to after the fact of her 'transformation', almost as if one (very important) facet of the character doesn't even exist. It completely belays the fact, and people instead are implicit to the grand irony at work.
Click to expand...


You can go one further in that it makes a lot of sense how in vanilla most of her skill set was instant kill light or dark abilities, since she probably views the world itself in black/white(even ignoring the literal colors of these abilities, they're also all or nothing). She's so stuck on that, she just figures that the best way to get what she wants is to disguise herself as a man, since she'd have no chance at all as being a woman. I looked at her journey in 4 as her discovering that yes, grey in fact does exist.



Of course, the irony of this as all is as a detective, she's purposely looking away from the truth by being as rigid as she is, unless she honestly thought that she could disguise herself as a man forever, which I doubt. As you said, she had two options, and instead of picking she chose an option that delayed her having to make a choice. Being alone and having a very minimal support structure(family rarely counts in this), it's easy to see why she's become this way, and why she's able to change just by being around the others.
 
S

Squire

Banned
Watanabe Kazuma said:
I was having a discussion about Persona before, and it just reminded how wildly different a lot of us perceive certain characters. I guess that it's only fitting, seeing as this is a series that very much concerns itself with identity and how that permeates itself in the wider world. Still, it made me spend a little more time pondering a character, who, truth be told, has never really endeared herself all that much to me - Naoto.

The statement that her story was just "that she accepts being a woman" irritate me somewhat, because I think that's extremely reductive, and a little dismissive of her actual role within the narrative. It’s not so much that Naoto has to accept that, but being comfortable with how society treats traditional gender roles. Part of my annoyance with the character of Naoto is frankly, not in how she’s portrayed, but how others perceive her. Ostensibly, at odds with how she views herself, and by extension, how society views her, she is at constant cross-roads - either submit or rebel. Unfortunately she feels stifled by the system and negates this in the only way she knows how; invert it by becoming what they accept - a man.

The folly of her character is that she’ extremely logical in an illogical world. Her desired occupations, down to her interests, are all traditionally male-dominated pursuits. Her age, along with her gender all but prevent her from fulfilling her dreams - handicapped by nothing other than inherently flawed social conventions. Her role as the “Detective Prince” is indicative of this, being an amalgamation of the heroes she came to idolize in media - powerful, assured, males.

It’s almost as if the fanbase forgets this core aspect of the character, and instead what we are left with is comments about how “oh, she’s so sexy.” A lot of people (though not all) always refer to after the fact of her 'transformation', almost as if one (very important) facet of the character doesn't even exist. It completely belays the fact, and people instead are implicit to the grand irony at work.
Click to expand...

y6RwdQ4.jpg
 
L

Lunar15

Member
Look, as much as we love talking about the finer points of Persona's themes and values, a lot of P4's character arcs come down to the after school special moral of "be yourself". I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, but I think sometimes if you look too deep, you'll just exhaust yourself.

My interpretation of Naoto's arc is that the defining point wasn't necessarily that she wanted to be a man, but rather that she wanted to be taken seriously.

If it was just about accepting society's views of women or rebelling against them, the dungeon probably would have a different theme. But instead they went with a theme centered on her feeling like a child. Both her desire to be an adult and her desire to be a man were byproducts of the fact that she just wanted to be accepted by her "peers", which, up until P4 were all adult men.

If you'll notice, most people in P4 don't actually resolve their internal issues inside of their own arc. Most of them resolve them during their social link. All that happens at the end of each character arc is that they find acceptance from a group that also has issues. They don't transform at the end of their arcs at all. It's moreso like the first part of an intervention: they admit that they have a problem.
 
D

Dantis

Member
Lunar15 said:
Look, as much as we love talking about the finer points of Persona's themes and values, a lot of P4's character arcs come down to the after school special moral of "be yourself". I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, but I think sometimes if you look too deep, you'll just exhaust yourself.

My interpretation of Naoto's arc is that the defining point wasn't necessarily that she wanted to be a man, but rather that she wanted to be taken seriously.

If it was just about accepting society's views of women or rebelling against them, the dungeon probably would have a different theme. But instead they went with a theme centered on her feeling like a child. Both her desire to be an adult and her desire to be a man were byproducts of the fact that she just wanted to be accepted by her "peers", which, up until P4 were all adult men.

If you'll notice, most people in P4 don't actually resolve their internal issues inside of their own arc. Most of them resolve them during their social link. All that happens at the end of each character arc is that they find acceptance from a group that also has issues. They don't transform at the end of their arcs at all. It's moreso like the first part of an intervention: they admit that they have a problem.
Click to expand...

Wonderfully put. Completely agree.

To me, Naoto is a character who had a lonely childhood where she was surrounded by adults and spent her time (Like most solitary children) indulging in various works of fiction. I think it made her want to skip childhood and be a part of the adult world because it's what she knows and where she feels comfortable. I guess, when you think about it, Naoto wants to be like Makoto from P3? He's this cold, isolated guy who is seemingly without flaw and is admired by everyone around him, but only from a distance, even if they barely know him. And then at the same time, nobody really does know him. Which is all made funnier by Naoto's design similarities.

Her dressing as a man feels to me like a means to an end, rather than a statement on gender confusion.

I also think her Midnight Channel throws people off. They extrapolate certain things and conveniently forget that the shadow portrayals are corruptions of the truth, not direct representations. You don't see anyone thinking that Yukiko is desperate for sex, for example.

If there's anything to be pulled from Naoto's story, it's that it can be said (Perhaps wrongly) that the media's representation of a 'cool' character is predominantly male.

Inorigo said:
Ronisterrible
Click to expand...

Wait, are you saying that image doesn't accurately portray Naoto's inner conflict?

Get out of town.
 
E

EMT0

Banned
buddha0991 said:
That is because there is a sizable chunk of the Persona 3-4 fanbase that really only care about the waifus, that is not an insult or a derivative, that is just how it is.
Click to expand...

Scary thing: the ones that do show up here, the most enthusiast of fans, seem to be the ones that don't care for waifus(vocally).
 
D

Dantis

Member
EMT0 said:
Scary thing: the ones that do show up here, the most enthusiast of fans, seem to be the ones that don't care for waifus(vocally).
Click to expand...

I think it's an age thing. Most of us here are in our early to mid 20s. I think the people who really, actually care about that kind of thing are the younger fans.
 
K

kiriin

Member
Thats funny because p3/4 does such a poor with it romance arcs that you would better off playing an actual ren'ai game if you into that kind of thing. I dont know how some people still call it a dating sim when it not. But I don't think most people play it for the "mai waifu", it just a term for loud fandom.
 
E

EMT0

Banned
Dantis said:
I think it's an age thing. Most of us hear are in our early to mid 20s. I think the people who really, actually care about that kind of thing are the younger fans.
Click to expand...

Does 19 count as younger? Because that's about how old I am, and we've got a decent number of people here that are in their late teens or early 20s that don't seem to follow that idea either. I don't actually think a majority of Persona fans are in it for the waifus though. I actually wonder who's more the vocal minority, the hardcore fans of the characters as characters and the writing/concepts/presentation the games hold, or the hardcore waifu fans.
 
K

Kazzy

Member
Dantis said:
I think it's an age thing. Most of us hear are in our early to mid 20s. I think the people who really, actually care about that kind of thing are the younger fans.
Click to expand...

a lot of them tend to be older, if anything. I don't think that really has much to do with it, though.
 
S

sackboy2197

Member
Watanabe Kazuma said:
a lot of them tend to be older, if anything. I don't think that really has much to do with it, though.
Click to expand...
Well, I'm 16 and that's not what got me interested in the game. I actually didn't like that much how it was handled. In my first playthrough I was going for Chie only, but then romanced someone else by error, ruining everything.
But that may just be me, don't know any other "younger" fans
 
T

Tabby

Member
Dantis said:
I think it's an age thing. Most of us here are in our early to mid 20s. I think the people who really, actually care about that kind of thing are the younger fans.
Click to expand...
18 here.
It's not the relationships and waifus. (It's a bonus to be honest)
It's the characters themselves that I like, I find them kind of relatable (minus the killing monsters and summoning personas, can't say I relate to that).
They're interesting.
 
G

Gazoinks

Member
Dantis said:
I think it's an age thing. Most of us here are in our early to mid 20s. I think the people who really, actually care about that kind of thing are the younger fans.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm 18. I think it's more just a case of the internet enabling crazy vocal minorities. Happens with most fandoms.

Anyway, I think Lunar is pretty much spot-on about Naoto.
 
M

MysticDistance

Banned
sackboy2197 said:
Well, I'm 16 and that's not what got me interested in the game. I actually didn't like that much how it was handled. In my first playthrough I was going for Chie only, but then romanced someone else by error, ruining everything.
But that may just be me, don't know any other "younger" fans
Click to expand...

I may not be younger now. But I'm 16. Been playing the franchise since P3 in 2007. I was a weird kid...
 
L

Lord Scrambles

Member
buddha0991 said:
That is because there is a sizable chunk of the Persona 3-4 fanbase that really only care about the waifus, that is not an insult or a derivative, that is just how it is.




You guys will never let him live that one down will you
Click to expand...
Honestly I'll never understand why anyone would play a game for that reason, especially with The Persona series, where LITERALLY everything in the game is incredibly well thought out, detailed, and thematically interesting except for the romance. I may joke around alot about waifus, but really that's all it is, jokes.

P.S. I'm also 18, if that matters any
 
L

Levito

Banned
Naoto is fetishized it seems far more than any other character in the franchise. It's kind of weird, wonder how much of that comes from the whole argument about the character's gender.


buddha0991 said:
That is because there is a sizable chunk of the Persona 3-4 fanbase that really only care about the waifus, that is not an insult or a derivative, that is just how it is.
Click to expand...


Literally every fandom under the sun has fans like this. Rule 34 mang.

Those games lend themselves too that type of person though, for sure.
 
L

Levito

Banned
FluxWaveZ said:
"Sizable chunk" is the term he used. It's relative depending on fanbases.
Click to expand...

Of course, though the sizeable chuck is generally just indicative of how popular said game/movie/franchise is.


Take FF VI vs. FF VII. Neither game has "dating" elements--yet VII is waifuized far more than VI because it's the more popular game.
 
L

Lunar15

Member
There's an irony in the actual concept of the Personas that I don't think too many people comment on. Gaining a Persona isn't indicative of being true to yourself, its indicative that you've now formed the identity you want. They're still based in stereotypes formed from society, like shadows, but they're created by the self, not society. All the personas are designs of what each character defines as "cool", not how they actually are. The core concept of personas, which was more explored in P2, is that they're masks: literal defenses against the complex social world of adults.

In Jung's works, the Persona was not necessarily a positive thing. It's a crutch used to protect one's self. In fact, he argued that one needs to dissolve the persona in order to actually overcome their internal issues and become individualized. I'm massively generalizing here (there's technically a thing where you want to reform your persona but make it more in-line with your true self), but yeah personas are an interesting concept.

(P4 Spoilers below)

A fun one to speculate on is Mitsuo, who never gains a persona. Jung defined someone who chooses to live with out a persona as:

"the man with no persona... is blind to the reality of the world, which for him has merely the value of an amusing or fantastic playground. Inevitably, the result of "the streaming in of the unconscious into the conscious realm, simultaneously with the dissolution of the 'persona' and the reduction of the directive force of consciousness, is a state of disturbed psychic equilibrium."
Click to expand...

Sounds a lot like Mitsuo to me.
 
A

Acid08

Banned
Levito said:
Naoto is fetishized it seems far more than any other character in the franchise. It's kind of weird, wonder how much of that comes from the whole argument about the character's gender.
Click to expand...
Soejima did say that he knew she'd be very popular with the players :p
 
C

cjkeats

Member
Levito said:
Of course, though the sizeable chuck is generally just indicative of how popular said game/movie/franchise is.


Take FF VI vs. FF VII. Neither game has "dating" elements--yet VII is waifuized far more than VI because it's the more popular game.
Click to expand...
"Waifuized".

I love this modern world we live in.
 
M

Meia

Member
cjkeats said:
"Waifuized".

I love this modern world we live in.
Click to expand...



It's truly a brave new world.

/salutes



And how do the modern persona games put it? A façade to overcome life's hardships? It's kind of funny I guess that they use something like that to fight shadows, repressed parts of humanity. Fitting though.


In terms of the characters themselves though, isn't it why their own personas look the way they do too, in terms of 4's cast? I think the design for almost all of them have something to do with their character, though I don't really get what Naoto's is supposed to signify.
 
B

buddha0991

Member
Levito said:
Naoto is fetishized it seems far more than any other character in the franchise. It's kind of weird, wonder how much of that comes from the whole argument about the character's gender.
Click to expand...

I think thats is why it is so popular with her

Levito said:
Literally every fandom under the sun has fans like this. Rule 34 mang.

Those games lend themselves too that type of person though, for sure.
Click to expand...

Yea no argument there, but the key here, is that Persona 3/4 seems to have manage reach out to a much wider audience than most of these rpgs usually do.

Lord Scrambles said:
Honestly I'll never understand why anyone would play a game for that reason, especially with The Persona series, where LITERALLY everything in the game is incredibly well thought out, detailed, and thematically interesting except for the romance. I may joke around alot about waifus, but really that's all it is, jokes.

P.S. I'm also 18, if that matters any
Click to expand...

Well for one, its not an exactly unheard of thing for people to say they wish they included an option that lets you skip the combat, or that the combat is boring and the real fun is the slinks. Funnily enough, you also hear the exact opposite thing, where people either want a way to just skip slinks, and that slinks are boring and combat is the fun part. It shows how broad the audience for P3/4 is, P5 will be interesting for sure.
 
G

Gazoinks

Member
Meia said:
It's truly a brave new world.

/salutes



And how do the modern persona games put it? A façade to overcome life's hardships? It's kind of funny I guess that they use something like that to fight shadows, repressed parts of humanity. Fitting though.


In terms of the characters themselves though, isn't it why their own personas look the way they do too, in terms of 4's cast? I think the design for almost all of them have something to do with their character, though I don't really get what Naoto's is supposed to signify.
Click to expand...

It's a combination of an action figure and a school boy.
 
D

Dantis

Member
Levito said:
Naoto is fetishized it seems far more than any other character in the franchise. It's kind of weird, wonder how much of that comes from the whole argument about the character's gender.
Click to expand...

She's far and away the most sexualised character by Atlus, for sure, but I'm not sure I'd agree that she is by the fanbase as a whole. If anything, it just seems that way because it's so far away from the actual character that it makes it more noticeable.
 
B

buddha0991

Member
Dantis said:
She's far and away the most sexualised character by Atlus, for sure, but I'm not sure I'd agree that she is by the fanbase as a whole. If anything, it just seems that way because it's so far away from the actual character that it makes it more noticeable.
Click to expand...

Weird when they make characters like Catherine
 
B

BLACK AMERICAN PSYCHO

Junior Member
Acid08 said:
Doubt Sony is going to put new releases on their subscription service right away. Will probably have to wait at least a year for P5 to be available on PS Now.
Click to expand...

TLoU is going to be on the service despite being new and being rumored to be getting a re-release on PS4.. I=The service will have a subscription version and you'll be able to buy games separately(I'm assuming most digital games will be available). P5 might not be available on the subscription but I can guarantee you it'll be available to purchase and stream. If P5 releases digitally for PS3, you'll be able to stream it, I'd bet money on it.
 
A

Acid08

Banned
FluxWaveZ said:
The very first game they mentioned being available for the service was The Last of Us.
Click to expand...
Which is going to be more than a year old by the time this fully rolls out. And it's a first party game.

9thwonder said:
TLoU is going to be on the service despite being new and being rumored to be getting a re-release on PS4.. I=The service will have a subscription version and you'll be able to buy games separately(I'm assuming most digital games will be available). P5 might not be available on the subscription but I can guarantee you it'll be available to purchase and stream. If P5 releases digitally for PS3, you'll be able to stream it, I'd bet money on it.
Click to expand...

Sure, but I literally said "subscription service" in my post and was not talking about buying it digitally.
 
F

FluxWaveZ

Member
Acid08 said:
Recent, sure, but a brand new release? Nah. And that was what I was talking about in the first place.
Click to expand...

Yeah, for the subscription service; I missed that that's specifically what you were talking about.

I was mainly referring to 9thwonder's point that it's very possible, depending on how the service works, that one will be able to play Persona 5 on a PS4 or a Vita close to the game's release.
 
M

Meia

Member
I'm still hoping for some kind of cross buy thing with Gaikai, where if Sony knows you own the game permanently(as in, buy digitally), you can then stream it over Gaikai for free on a PS4. Kind of a way to actually do backwards compatibility without requiring the actual internal hardware to do so.


Because without any joking, I'd have easily paid $100 more for a PS4 if it had BC, blah.


Acid08 said:
I'm too obsessed with having physical copies of my Persona games :p I have every physical copy of 3 and 4 released so far and I'll be buying whatever LE they end up releasing of P5. My PS3 will be waiting.
Click to expand...


I have the Solid Gold edition for 4 Golden, and had no problems about buying the game digitally after. I like double dipping on Atlus stuffs. ^_^
 
A

Acid08

Banned
I'm too obsessed with having physical copies of my Persona games :p I have every physical copy of 3 and 4 released so far and I'll be buying whatever LE they end up releasing of P5. My PS3 will be waiting.
 
D

Dantis

Member
Meia said:
I'm still hoping for some kind of cross buy thing with Gaikai, where if Sony knows you own the game permanently(as in, buy digitally), you can then stream it over Gaikai for free on a PS4. Kind of a way to actually do backwards compatibility without requiring the actual internal hardware to do so.


Because without any joking, I'd have easily paid $100 more for a PS4 if it had BC, blah.
Click to expand...

This will never happen, but it would be very, very cool.
 
S

Spectrasonic

Member
Tough decision on what format to buy P5 in,
assuming it's available on Playstation Now.

On one hand, PS3 is a last gen system, and who knows when I'll get rid of it. P5 has a good chance of being the PS3's last exclusive release, which further complicates things. It would suck to get an urge to play P5 but have no way to.

On the other hand, I'm betting Playstation Now is a subscription service, and, personally, it'd be hard to justify paying for it. Also, look what happened to OnLive. Playing P5 on a smartphone would be cool though.
 
C

CorvoSol

Member
Almost done with SMT4 guys. Almost. And I gotta say
maybe I'm just biased, but so far God and the Angels don't seem that bad. I mean they're pretty damn extreme, but it isn't like they don't have a good reason. Tokyo is literally full to bursting with demons. Mikado was no paradise, but compared to Tokyo it was a relatively safe place to live. The Heavens are still extremists and possibly Lawful-Evil or Knight Templar, but compared to Walter's "Might Makes Right" and Tayama's "Lemme just raise humans as crops to preserve the peace." Mikado ruled by the Angels doesn't seem THAT bad. That said, it was a little sad to see what had become of Jonathon.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Persona 3 Reload | Review Thread
Analysis Review Hype 2 3
107
10K
Grildon Tundy replied
Persona 3 Reload Fans Slam Expansion Pass as a 'Cash Grab'
News Drama 2
94
7K
SEGAvangelist replied
Pre-release version of Persona 5 reportedly leaks from private auction, seemingly showing different music and character models
10
2K
cash_longfellow replied
Persona 3 Reload won't get a "Royal" version, confirms Producer
Game Dev 2
60
5K
Gp1 replied
[Grain of Salt] Persona 3: Reload may come to the Nintendo Switch in the future | Currently not in development, but 'the idea is there'
Rumor
10
2K
Happosai replied
Top Bottom