Persona 4's Issues with Queerness

Alright. I think it’s time I finally did something on this. These sorts of issues have been near and dear to my heart ever since I figured out more of who I am, and I would be remiss to never bring these issues up. That is to say, I care a great bit about queer issues in media, and it’s why I really do mean it when I say: Persona 4 handles LGBT+ issues in a bad, phobic way. I want to talk about why.

Persona has never been a series that’s historically very good with queer representation. The games I have the most experience with, Persona 3 and 5, basically don’t have any LGBT+ representation. Persona 3 has one off colour joke and one sort of maybe implied relationship, and Persona 5 has one horribly offensive gay couple and one maybe trans woman. So, generally, the Persona series has been pretty, how shall I say, overt, with its issues in these categories. Refusal to acknowledge our existence and bad jokes at our expense is par for the course, and sadly expected.

Persona 4 is a bit different. Ostensibly, Persona 4 has LGBT+ representation, and main party members at that! Kanji’s entire dungeon is basically shouting at you “HE’S GAY”, and Naoto presents as a man and is implied to be transgender at many points. So, uh, yeah, actual, positive representation? Yay?

...Everything I just said is a lie. Kanji is not gay, Naoto is not trans, and Persona 4 is not LGBT+ friendly. At all. Persona 4’s phobic tendencies are more insidious and not obvious on the surface at all, and what seems like positive representation gives way to tone deaf writing and very uncomfortable implications and statements.

So, to start, let’s talk about what Kanji and Naoto’s character arcs actually are. Kanji and Naoto are actually stories about societal roles, and the struggle to fit in and carve out a sense of self and place where others will accept you. Kanji struggles with his need to be a “real man” and be tough, at odds with his love of socially feminine activities like handicraft. Naoto wishes to be a great detective, but feels she cannot be taken seriously as a woman in such a position, and so presents as male to achieve her goals. Both of these characters go through understanding who they want to be, how they limited and misunderstood themselves, and how adhering to these societal expectations will only make them miserable.

Alright. Let’s look at Kanji. A large part of this disconnect between his idea of a “real man” and his interests manifests in insecurity in his sexuality. It’s pretty clear from his dungeon alone, it being a bathhouse, with his shadow being every stereotype of a gay man imaginable.

But, the thing is, he’s not… really… gay. For much of the story, Kanji has a crush on Naoto, who is, mostly, presenting male. But he still holds attraction to her after that is dropped, which, while you could maybe interpret to mean he is bisexual, absolutely reeks of the writers trying to rewrite him as straight, and trying to cast all that implication of him being gay under the rug. Kanji’s sexuality is a tool for the writers. Not a serious idea to explore, not a central character theme, his sexuality is a means to make him confused, and that is all. The fact that the game ever refuses to say the word “gay” is pretty telling. Persona 4 does not actually care about gay issues one bit. Persona 4 cares about making Kanji weird, confused, and othered.

There’s a lot of issues with this idea of just using being gay as a way to be confused. It calls up the ugly phrase many folks have heard from people: “Oh, you’re just confused”. It casts exploring one’s sexuality as an ugly, odd thing that you should ideally never do. Kanji gets more integrated into the group as he “grows out” of this phase thing, which is just, well. I hope I don’t have to explain why that’s a bit of an issue.

There’s the other half of this issue, which is that this is a dirty, dirty tease, and to just say “no he’s not actually gay” is honestly kind of insulting. The writers couldn’t have been blind, c’mon. This is a tease, whether they intend it or not, and to walk back on this is deeply troubling. And in the spirit of “a tease”... Naoto.

Naoto’s whole shtick is that she feels forced into presenting male due to what she wants to do in life. Which would be fine, except, pardon my language, holy shit, what a dirty tease this is. You have gotta know what you’re implying when you write lines about “body modification surgery”, seriously. Everything about her pretty much implies she’s being written as transgender than then, just… no. It’s this ridiculous thing that’s honestly pretty insulting.

To get to the overall point, all this leads up to one central idea: in Persona 4, being LGBT+ makes you the “other”. It makes you the weird social outcast, it makes you unstable inside, it makes you unaccepted. Characters find themselves in this game, but finding yourself means shedding that stuff, because that’s “weird” and “confusing”. Queerness is built up as this plot point, and a negative plot point at that.

Oh, Kanji’s not gay, he just likes feminine activities.

Oh, Naoto isn’t trans, she just looks up to male role models.

I’m sure you’ve probably heard those arguments before if you’re queer, or even if you’re not, you almost certainly know of them. They’re these destabilizing attacks on one’s identity, constantly doubting them. And this is basically exactly what Persona 4 says. To the game, you can have a story about defying society's expectations and being yourself, but for god’s sake, don’t put a gay person in there. That’d be weird.

I hope we can do better than this.

The Drums of Persona Shopping

This is going to be the most ridiculously specific thing I have ever written about.

I write way too much about Persona already. If you couldn’t tell, I do have a certain fondness for the series. A lot of what I love is the small stuff, where you can clearly tell effort and care was placed into even the tiniest of things. So, in the spirit of that, I’m gonna talk about the drum track to one song in Persona 5, specifically, Butterfly Kiss.

So, some background quick; if you haven’t played Persona 5 (how dare you), this is the song that plays when you visit Tae Takemi, the resident doctor and medicine shop of the game. It’s background music for your shopping, basically. So keep that idea of what it’s meant for in mind, and let’s dive right in…

...Into some drum terminology! Hehe. I promise, this’ll be quick and painless.

Hi Hat: The cymbal you see drummers tapping on all the time. I’ll be talking about two kinds of hits here, taps and crashes. Taps are quick and quiet, crashes are longer and louder.

Snare: You know that sharp snap of a drum beat you hear during songs? That’s the snare. You’ll pick up on it quick.

Beats: Count “1 2 3 4” over and over to yourself to the beat of the song. Congrats, you now have the skeleton of how drum beats are counted.

And that’s about it! Here’s the song, and let’s get going:

So, to establish the beat of the song that lasts until about 40 seconds in, let’s get our bearings. This beat can be quite chaotic at first, so to steady yourself, focus on the loud snare hit every few seconds. That snare hits on the “4” of the “1 2 3 4” beat mentioned above. To make it simpler: the beat loops after every snare hit. Now, in that timeframe is where we’re gonna focus.

The progression of beats (this isn’t tied to the 1 2 3 4, just fits in the time from 1-4) overall goes:

Crash - Tap Tap Tap - Crash - Snare - Crash - Tap Tap Tap - Crash - Snare

This beat almost breaths as it goes. It goes from the quiet taps, to the louder crash, to the loud BANG on the snare, then back to the crash, then the taps, and on and on it goes. It’s got this up and down rhythm to it that makes the song feel like it’s never standing still, even at the lowest, most calm moments. It’s really good beat variance, and most importantly, it never feels like it’s jumping around or being sudden, as a more casual, shopping theme should. It’s just good work all around.

Of course, the song can’t stay like this forever, and when shifting to the next bit (0:40), we’re going into steady triplets on the hi-hat. You’ll hear the snare every 6 taps, and 2 hits on the bass drum in between. Basically, the point of this part is meant to be a climax to the song of sorts, going smooth, steady, and high intensity, while keeping it not overwhelming by never throwing in any odd, off beat hits.

As the song comes off this height, it doesn’t quite go back into the beat from before right away. A variation of the earlier beat plays right after the high point (1:10). This version has the hi hat constantly going in the background at a much louder volume. As well, the snare hits much earlier and much more suddenly in this section compared to the first one. This is a sort of cool down period, taking a half step from the more intense part so it doesn’t jump up and down, keeping the smooth feeling of the song going.

And that’s basically all the differences in the drum beat throughout the song! These beats aim to create interesting, constantly changing beats while also trying to keep it from jumping around. To achieve this, the song keeps the individual, low energy beats breathing up and down smoothly, while relying on the high energy segments to carry it by themselves. In between these beats, it takes careful pains to make the transitions as smooth as possible. It’s a beat and song that never feels like it’s standing still, always feeling like it’s moving in a unique and interesting way. It’s just another feather in Persona 5’s impressive musical cap.

Blooming Villain: A Top Tier Boss Theme

I am a complete and utter drum nerd. I love drums. I listen to the drum track of songs far, FAR too much. And because of that, I was kinda flipping out when I heard Persona 5’s boss theme, Blooming Villain, which is a heavily drum based track. There’s plenty of other cool parts to this song, but the drums are what carry it through and make the song so heavy and so gosh dang good. 

We begin with 4 heavy thuds on the drum, going immediately into hi-hat hits at the same pace. This pattern is what makes up the first 25 seconds or so of the song, and it sets the stage for what is really a song driven by the drums. Every time the drums beat, they overtake the melody in the background, which is actually fairly unusual for a standard beat. The cymbals clicking away keep the beat constantly going, and to make sure when the drums do hit it’s a lot more impactful.

The other half of this opening segment is the deep, almost ghastly wail going on. While it provides some nice instrumentation, i guess, the real value in this comes from the tone it sets. It comes across as dark and deeply menacing, while also building things up, like you’re gearing up to fight some evil force. Very appropriate for a boss theme.

Ok, so for the song proper, the drums get kind of complex but also super interesting so we’re gonna have to break it down a little bit. To start, you can tell that the hi hat is now being slammed down upon on every quarter note (starts at 0:25). After 2 loops, the main quarter note beat then swaps from a hi hat to the ride cymbal (at 0:38), making the beat ring rather than crash. The ride cymbal is moreso used for continuing beats, so it’s smart to switch to this halfway through the verse to give the song more of a steady feel and lay back on the intensity for a bit. Another thing you’ll notice is that the snare drum is hitting all over the place, but typically in between the main 4 “beats”, adding some chaos to the song.

The next 20 or so seconds (starting at 0:50) are purely a bass riff with hi hat hits going at the same time. The most interesting bit here is the snare hits: again, they’re off the main 4 beats, but when you combine that with how normally understated this segment is, it catches you off guard and makes a much bigger impact than the offbeat hits earlier. Besides that, this lull in the song really adds weight to the next bit. Most of the song is running at high intensity, so in order to make the “climax” of sorts in the song sound more impactful, they added a very low key segment before it to build it up by being quiet, ironically enough.

When transitioning to the final part, a quick pause with 2 guitar chords kicks it off, which is fitting for the only part of the song where the drums take a backseat (being in the background with your standard rock beat). I don’t honestly have much to say on this part, just that it’s an excellent release of tension and really explodes into the grand feel these boss fights give.

And that’s Blooming Villain, surprisingly only a minute and a half long before it loops. The rest of the song has some minor differences, but overall I’ve covered the meat of the song here. It’s rather impressive how a 90 second loop can sustain up to 20 minute encounters, but that’s the beauty of variance and pacing a song properly. Truly one of Persona 5’s best tracks.

Persona in the information age

I am so glad to see a game that tackles the information age in such a head on way. Besides Persona 5, the only game in recent memory that uses this a lot is Watch Dogs 2, and even then that’s mainly just a way to call your experience points a “follower count”.

Spoiler warning

Persona 5 doesn’t do much with it to influence the gameplay, but when I realized it was gonna impact the story, I almost squealed. A very long RPG is the perfect medium to see how information spreads day by day, and how public opinion changes. And to see how your actions influence what the public is saying, and how your group reacts to that, is simply one of the best parts of the game’s story.

It is absolutely drenched in public opinion. You walk down the street and you hear public chatter about whatever news is on their minds. Gossip and rumors abound when you’re in school. Sometimes at the end or start of the day the game will cut to more public whispers. And finally, you’ve always got the Phantom Thieves popularity bar down in the right corner, with messages from users on their opinion of you.

Before I go any further, this is excellent worldbuilding by itself! I honestly wouldn’t care if this was all there was. It makes the world feel alive and breathing, it tells you what others think, it gives even a basic walk down the street to buy some medicine a worldbuilding experience. Simply going about your day is how the game builds character for the city, and it’s brilliant. There’s no need for exposition on the world when you get it every few seconds naturally.

However, there’s more to it than that. Besides just being good worldbuilding, it’s also integrated into the story quite well. The slow climb at the start making your fights seem important yet unknown. Your skyrocketing popularity that almost proves to be your group’s undoing. We see a fantastic showing of how public opinions swings almost overnight after you’re framed for murder.

People react realistically to it too. It ends up being a great source of character development and understanding. Ryuji, for example, lets a lot of it go to his head. He wants to be a source of hope for people, and have their exploits be shown and appreciated by all. But through that, he understands that this sort of world is very volatile, and public opinion swings like mad.

This is all, well, very realistic? It’s one of the main reasons why Persona 5 is so grounded, because we live that world of information every day. It’s refreshing to see a game not strictly about communication tackle it so head on, because this is a part of life nowadays that affects everything. It leads to one of the most realized worlds I’ve experienced in a game, and I really do hope that it leads to more games set in a more modern world. It’s a brilliant tool for storytelling.