#hardcore yosuke defender he's my special little guy

[cyziel]

i'm thinking about yosuke again and it makes me so annoyed because of how hard atlus dropped the ball with him. it's very obvious that they made his character arc with the intention of him being a closeted high schooler in the year 2011 that struggles with internalized homophobia who learns to finally accept himself, but then randomly decided to cut out the payoff to all of the setup so it just makes him extremely homophobic. the whole game is about accepting the part of yourself that you hate, and yosuke coming to terms with his bisexuality throughout the course of the story fits into that theme perfectly.

it's small stuff like this and so many other moments that make much more sense with the context of him originally being planned on having a romance route. he projects his idea of "manliness" and what's "right" onto both others and himself to make up for the social stigma placed onto him by society; he's trying to convince himself that he's "normal" so he can fit in. him feeling ostracized because he's the manager of junes' son is a blatant parallel to this, and the two of them could've easily been intertwined.

"i like you" in japanese is "ore, omae ga suki da" 《俺、 お前 が 好き だ》 -> known as the most common form of a love confession in japan and is almost always used romantically, especially given the context

this is an obviously repressed queer kid who has been struggling to grasp his sexuality and growing feelings for yu; there is so much subtext throughout the game that has all culminated to this moment—or at least, should've culminated to this moment. but it didn't.

funnily enough, i don't think it was atlus projecting their bigotry onto him at first until p4g, but making a genuine attempt at a good character arc that, much like the rest of persona 4, misses the mark in the worst way possible despite being so close to saying something meaningful (cough kanji and naoto). it's like they chickened out at the last second, but "forgot" to take out the parts that just make him a homophobic asshole with the context removed—and then even doubled down on it in p4g lmao. the thing i'm confused about is that hoshino (the former director of the persona series who is extremely disgusting and bigoted) was... already in the company when the lines were recorded??? so i'm baffled as to why they were allowed to come up with it in the first place before deciding against it.

this could've been really great and realistic representation that could've helped other queer people who were going through the same thing yosuke was—especially in the year 2008—and i'm super disappointed that they decided to cut it. persona 4 is about confronting the problematic elements about yourself, and i cannot think of a greater example of this than yosuke and his internalized homophobia.

(bonus: the closet is made out of glass)