Kotaku: Persona 3 Reload Does Away With The Original’s Transphobia

[Me Gusta]

• Persona 3 Reload is a recreation of the 2006 RPG, featuring updates like new social sim elements and quality-of-life changes. A significant change is the exclusion of a transphobic exchange from the original game's beach trip scene.
• In the original Persona 3, the scene included a transphobic joke, but in Persona 3 Reload, the character is portrayed as a conspiracy theorist, avoiding the transphobic humor. This alteration is consistent in both the English and Japanese versions.

In the original Persona 3, there’s a scene where the party goes on a beach trip. Egged on by the class clown/horndog Junpei, the main character gets pulled into a scheme to pick up girls on the beach. After a few unsuccessful attempts, the boys meet a woman who propositions the group, and just as she’s about to leave with one of them, teammate Akihiko Sanada takes note of some stubble on her chin. The woman turns away and remarks that she “missed a spot,” and the game’s text window then puts a question mark at the end of her name “Beautiful lady?” in the English localization. Junpei then exclaims, “She’s a he,” and the boys run away in a trans panic.

• The Persona series has faced critique for its portrayal of queer identity. Recent entries, such as Persona 5 Tactica, introduce options for romantic interest in men. Persona 3 Reload's adjustment of a scene previously deemed controversial is a notable aspect, irrespective of one's perspective. The question remains about the handling of similar themes in future Persona games.

Thoughts?

 

[Lord of Cringe]

So obviously the problem is that these boys are straight, not that a man pretending to be a woman wants to sleep with teenagers.
Yeah. Nice position, Kotaku.

 

[Saitama]

Well, I don't think it was a problem at all and trans people paid a lot of attention to the joke.

 

[Colossus]

Who even reads Kotaku? I think it's the worst gaming magazine ever.