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It's a shame this games story aged so poorly because the gameplay is fun and the style is cool.
But holy shit I cannot sit through the transphobia against Naoto. If the main character dates him, the "good" ending is making him "accept she's a female." He basically starts conforming to his assigned gender to gain societal approval.
There's some bullshit sexism against Chie too.
And the whole message of the story is basically accepting the role given to you in imperial society.
Naoto is very complicated to me, I'm at the point where I don't think they meant to write a trans story. it's been explained that the story is about specific issues in Japanese culture (at the time?) of women not being accepted in professional roles like that and feeling the need to reject womanhood outright to be accepted. if the intention was what they said, imo it's a pretty good concept. the problem is they (intentionally or not) stumbled into a trans narrative and now it's so much more messy and difficult to view any other way. I think there was a way to tell the story they wanted to, but through either not knowing how to tell nuanced stories about women or just being way too heavy handed, we have Naoto. what was meant to be a payoff at the end of the story (leaning into femininity some) feels at odds with the story leading up to it
sexism against chie is fucked up for sure. again, l blame so much on Hashino being an awkward weirdo about anything other than stories about guys
l blame so much on Hashino being an awkward weirdo
The guy who didn't know a man and a woman could be friend before it hit him around his forties? You don't say š
reading that part of the interview made me understand why certain things were so poorly written lol
for anyone who hasn't seen it (link):
HASHINO: Iāve never successfully forged a true friendship with a girl in real life.
SOEJIMA: Neither have I.
HASHINO: I guess that means we couldnāt implement it into the game because we donāt know what itās like. (laughs)
SOEJIMA: Now that Iām on my thirties, Iām more open to the notion that it is possible, though. Back in high school, I admit I couldnāt look at girls that way.
I thought Kanji was gonna be gay but nope. That was a bit disappointing. They made him attracted to Naoko when they dress and behave like a boy. There is some terrible logic underlying it which I won't bother explaining but it really sucked they did that instead of just being normal.
Japanese media does do this often where the AFAB character adopts a masculine personality not because they like it but because they were coerced by patriarchal circumstamces. But deep down they yearn to be a woman and express their womanhood like by putting on a pretty dress. Biological determinism runs deep. I don't know how it is now a days.
they fumbled Kanji's sexuality so badly. he could have been gay, could have even been bi after the reveal about Naoto, but instead they leave things vague in the most annoying way. yeah, his story has a lot of to with accepting that things seem as traditionally feminine as fine for guys to do too, but they have him very clearly attracted to Naoto as a guy. so, much like abandoning what they were working to wit Yosuke, we're left with this awkward end to his story and never get the payoff we deserve
My interpretation was that Kanji is straight but has feminine hobbies. His attraction to Naoto is their way of foreshadowing the discovery that Naoto is actually a girl. Kanji has some sort of a transvestigator radar that is able to see through Naoto's masculine attire.
Yeah the Ace Attorney series did this a lot too
There's a horrible transphobic scene in 3 too. Honestly, a lot of Japanese media seems to be bad about LGBT and gender issues.