It's fandom; they've got to bitch about somethingvoicingJune 4 2010, 16:51:21 UTC
Nice to see your insights, but I cant believe people paint Yosuke as a homophobe just for that scene...especially since Kanji is on his side during the bikini scene later on, and the both of them have a nice interaction so on. Its pretty obvious that Yosuke is just caught complete off guard and has never dealt or interacted with a gay person before and has an understandable small panic.
Some people also accuse the game of not punishing or even calling Yosuke out on his behavior, but I don't think that's even remotely true. The guy is the game's butt monkey for god's sake; it went "HAHAHA LOSER" every opportunity it got. Would we have gotten the cross-dressing pageant if the game wasn't punishing him for signing the girls up? Chie even called him out for bothering Kanji about Naoto when they thought she was still a dude and she was in her dungeon.
EDIT: I should also add the teenage factor to it. For all that we tell stories with teenage heroes, no one ever wants them to act like one. It also grinds my gears that fandom never seems to want to call anyone else out on their bad behavior, but that's a topic for another time.
As for Kanji, i think he's either bisexual or just sensitive and a bit effiminate when it comes to emotions, and has a hard time accepting that part of himself, due to the whole gang/biker persona he created. As for Naoto, its pretty obvious (from her personal quest) that she dresses as a boy because she hates the chauvinism and machismo of the detective/police profession and decided to pretend she was a man in order to be fully able to be judged by her skill and talent.
Which is what their shadows and s-links are about: being accepted for their hobbies and interests despite them being "anomalies" to the social system. It's a theme in the whole game even.
I think a lot of people in the English fandom forget this with Kanji, Naoto and even Yosuke: what is accepted in the east can be outright offensive in the west and vice versa. Homosexuality and feminism issues in Japan are very different from that of America or the UK. If any media (let alone game) has shown me the major dissonance between the east and the west, it's this one.
Its pretty obvious that Yosuke is just caught complete off guard and has never dealt or interacted with a gay person before and has an understandable small panic.
Some people also accuse the game of not punishing or even calling Yosuke out on his behavior, but I don't think that's even remotely true. The guy is the game's butt monkey for god's sake; it went "HAHAHA LOSER" every opportunity it got. Would we have gotten the cross-dressing pageant if the game wasn't punishing him for signing the girls up? Chie even called him out for bothering Kanji about Naoto when they thought she was still a dude and she was in her dungeon.
EDIT: I should also add the teenage factor to it. For all that we tell stories with teenage heroes, no one ever wants them to act like one. It also grinds my gears that fandom never seems to want to call anyone else out on their bad behavior, but that's a topic for another time.
As for Kanji, i think he's either bisexual or just sensitive and a bit effiminate when it comes to emotions, and has a hard time accepting that part of himself, due to the whole gang/biker persona he created.
As for Naoto, its pretty obvious (from her personal quest) that she dresses as a boy because she hates the chauvinism and machismo of the detective/police profession and decided to pretend she was a man in order to be fully able to be judged by her skill and talent.
Which is what their shadows and s-links are about: being accepted for their hobbies and interests despite them being "anomalies" to the social system. It's a theme in the whole game even.
I think a lot of people in the English fandom forget this with Kanji, Naoto and even Yosuke: what is accepted in the east can be outright offensive in the west and vice versa. Homosexuality and feminism issues in Japan are very different from that of America or the UK. If any media (let alone game) has shown me the major dissonance between the east and the west, it's this one.
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