Fall of Anime 2011 - The Threadening

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

Originally Posted by Liz

Everything about how the show framed "accepting Kanji" and "Kanji accepting himself" was done in a way to diminish and quite possibly erase his identity as a gay person. They weren't accepting "gay Kanji." They were accepting "Kanji who likes cute things." They were accepting "Kanji who fears rejection." They were accepting "Kanji who isn't 'manly.'" At no point in the episode was it ever portrayed as them accepting a gay person. Their reactions to homosexuality were violence, anger, and fear, from every single fucking one of them.

Lets be clear really quick: If the cast wasn't accepting Kanji as a homosexual in the seventh episode, if as you say they diminished the idea that he was homosexual and made it so the entirety of the thing was that they are accepting he's a straight guy who likes cute things... why is Yosuke being homophobic?

Either they are, or are not aware and accepting of the fact that Kanji is homosexual. They cannot both be ignorant of it and accepting only that he likes cute things but simultaneously display homophobic behavior. It doesn't make sense.

Yosuke doesn't say he's uncomfortable sleeping with Kanji because he likes cute things, he's uncomfortable sleeping in the same area as Kanji for a very explicit and specific reason. Which is that Yosuke believes Kanji is homosexual. But that the day leading up to the incident and the day after the incident he, Kanji, Narukami, Chie and Yukiko are all being very friendly sorta suggests that Yosuke doesn't actually hate Kanji at all.

[Kim]

It is a combination of them thinking he's not actually gay and that was just his persona running wild, WHILE ALSO being fearful about what if he is question mark exclamation point. ALSO making offensive jokes about their sexuality is still homophobic even if they're actually not gay!

In short: Using someone's confusion over their sexual identity as a basis for gay jokes at their expense is homophobic either way.

[stefan]

Originally Posted by Karesh

What with telling Kanji that there's no problem with who he is, to accept his shadow and be himself.

except when they happen to be sharing the same tent!

[phil_]

Oh, I didn't see you there. Let me put away my bongos and straighten my little black beret.

Originally Posted by Ryong

Do you want me to actually talk about Katanagatari?

Not really. I'm not out to, like, prove that it's a good show or something. I just think you're looking at it the wrong way. Take this, for example:

Originally Posted by Ryong

For the first three episodes, you are shown that there's a really strong swordsman. The fight against him happens entirely offscreen.

Now, think about what you got to see instead. It took the whole episode except for the last few minutes. Do you remember? Little sister murdering three ninja like bugs? I'd say that's a bit more interesting than following the standard plot progression and showing the fight with the world's best swordsman.

That's what the show does. It's not really about wandering around collecting swords and getting into flashy fights, or that's not the point, anyway. The show is about literature, both the process of creating it and the importance of considering what traditions are appropriate for a given piece. That would be why the show is so words-words-words-words. That one can watch it as a series of neat fight scenes is a bonus.

[Solid Snake]

*bursts into the scene like The Kool-Aid man in that Family Guy episode, you know, back when Family Guy was actually good*

I'm not technically 'back' or anything, but when I see people earnestly defend the absolute shitstorm that was Persona 4's godawful seventh and eighth episodes, I have to briefly make an exception to my leave of absence to articulate exactly why I think the P4 Anime took a severe turn downhill.

Mind you, let me be blunt here: I fucking LOVE Persona 4. So much I commissioned our very own Matt Speroni to draw me high-quality P4 fanart. So much that Chie Satonaka is basically my soulmate. So much that I've played the game through three times; once playing the main character as if he was myself, then going for a 'perfect' playthrough, then playing the game a third freaking time because I enjoyed it so much that I HAD to play it again. Even achieving perfection already was insufficient to persuade me.

I love Persona 4 and I'm getting that out of the way in advance because you don't need to accuse me of hating P4 just because I hated the last two episodes. The fact that I love Persona 4 so damn much is basically the reason why these last episodes hurt so hard. It was like getting sucker-punched by your best friend, learning that your father betrayed you or getting dumped by the love of your life. P4's like my favorite roleplaying game of the last five or six years, if not the last decade. Getting curb-stomped like this was unexpected.

I even liked the first six episodes of the P4 anime. No, really! They were good!

So let's establish why I personally hated recent P4 Anime developments:

* I kind of expected, and in fact would have encouraged, Yosuke to be a homophobic jerk because, let's face it, he's a homophobic jerk. He's a lovable character, but in the game the fact that he is a homophobic jerk is clearly portrayed as a character flaw. The reactions of other characters to Yosuke's behavior throughout the game clearly establishes that Yosuke is a tad immature and he blurts out stupid things and he often receives a legitimate comeuppance for his bursts of douchebaggery.

That's kind of the point with Yosuke: he's a decent human being who nonetheless is a bit of an ass. And while the Protag basically scores with every woman in the city because he's a nice, compassionate guy who cares about his friends and acts respectfully, Yosuke deliberately contrasts with the Protag and shows just how and why the Protag just might be so 'successful' in his dating life and why he and not Yosuke is the leader of the Investigation Team. With men like Yosuke as 'competition,' all Protag has to do is not be a chauvinistic, homophobic douche with the maturity of a third grader!

So, the way I thought Episode Seven should have gone was the way my game's playthrough essentially went: Yosuke says stupid homophobic shit, the Main Character and the girls scold Yosuke for being so self-centered when Kanji's life is at risk, the Protag acts like the supportive, all-around awesome person he is (and the awesome person that the game and the anime portray him as and that the other characters believe him to be; that is important), Kanji accepts his shadow, everyone wins!

So it was exceptionally disappointing when the Protag decided to join the Homophobia Train. And not just with one or two "You feel mild trepidation entering this dungeon with the wacky sauna theme..." messages that the game gave. Merely feeling fear upon entering a dungeon with shadows trying to kill you, even if that fear is exacerbated somewhat by some irrational and brazenly idiotic "What if the shadows are gay and try to rape me?" thought is one thing, but it's what the Protag actually says when he opens his mouth that differentiates the game's Protagonist from the anime's douche.

Game Protag hesitates but he never once indicates that he's willing to abandon the mission outright (and effectively allow Kanji to quite possibly die due to his non-intervention) because he's afraid of gay people. And while I don't have the script of Episode Seven in front of me, some of the lines from Protag's mouth were just disgustingly homophobic. It wasn't 'snarky,' it was homophobic. There is a difference.

But that pales in comparison to Protag's single worst line (said in Episode Eight, we'll get there,) and it also pales in comparison to...

* The Protag and Yosuke expressing willingness, at a moment's notice, to attack and attempt to kill Kanji's shadow just because Kanji's Shadow makes them feel uncomfortable because Kanji's Shadow is totally gay and hitting on them.

Let's get a few things straight:
At this stage of the storyline, Protag and Yosuke have seen and fought other shadow versions of characters before. They know that shadow versions of characters are absolutely harmless in their original state and remain harmless until the person in question denies them, at which point the shadows transform into a violent version that does in fact start to destroy things.

...So, Yosuke and Protag know that the shadow must be 'defeated' by Kanji accepting Shadow Kanji as himself. Given that the shadows have never been permanently 'defeated' by the cast by any other means, attacking the pre-transformation form of Kanji's shadow is counter-productive at best and could well end up in an outcome of Kanji's death at worst.

Remember, the strategy employed by the P4 characters at this point of the game was to attempt to convince the affected character to accept their shadow before the denial happened, therefore avoiding a fight outright. I'm reasonably certain that at no point in the game did the P4 cast attack the pre-transformation version of a Shadow, particularly when this version of the shadow did nothing to merit their anger except be gay.

And let's not forget that the only fault or foible of pre-transformation Shadow Kanji was that he was too gay for Yosuke and Protag to apparently handle. Shadow Kanji did not constitute a physical threat to the Persona 4 cast at this juncture. He did not physically attack them. He did not threaten to hurt or kill them.

...He just was gay.
And being gay, in and of itself, was totally enough to send Yosuke and Protag into a primordial rage.

But even if we could stop there, I might have been okay with the episode. I mean, sure, lots of (heterosexual, privileged) high school guys who are otherwise decent people have no idea whatsoever how to handle the thought that another guy might think they're smexy. Back in high school, I was one of those guys myself! And maybe there's a message here that the P4 Anime would attempt to convey, like perhaps the Protag who was a perfectly compassionate, likable dude in the game would be portrayed very differently, as a flawed boy with significant moral shortcomings, in the anime.

But then...

* Chie and Yukiko join in and attack a pre-transformation version of Shadow Kanji who represents no physical threat to them just because he's gay.

I guess Chie sort of attempted an excuse of "It's not because he's gay, it's because I'm impulsive and really annoyed at his monologue and I want to freeze things!" But it was particularly surprising (and disappointing) to see Yukiko Amagi, who is basically presented as a sweet, likable girl who's thoughtful and considerate and not excessively prone to initiate violence suddenly decide that she too has had enough of Shadow Kanji.

...because Shadow Kanji is 'acting gay.'

Shadow Chie was acting pretty sinister; why didn't Yosuke and Protag beat the crap out of her when she talked her trash, before Chie's denial and Shadow Chie's transformation into Dominatrix Banana-Chick? Actually, that's just the thing; Shadow Chie's pre-transformation dialogue was arguably far more threatening and antagonistic than Shadow Kanji's, because really, all Shadow Kanji does is flirt shamelessly and talk about how much he enjoys what constitutes his definition of a 'good time.'

The answer that the Anime posits to us is quite simple: Shadow Kanji was gay, and open about being gay, and willing to flirt openly and present his sexuality in a forthcoming manner around others, and that alone merited wanton violence against him. From everyone, male or female, 'jerks' and 'compassionate heroes' alike. The Protag is the chosen one, a symbol of tolerance, progression, heroism, the greatest hope the town of Inaba has, beloved by every woman, respected by man, and he totally wants you to know you better not flirt with him if you have a penis or he will fuck your shit. Chie and Yukiko weren't even a position to feel personally threatened by Shadow Kanji's idle flirtations and they still were so riled by Kanji's **gayness** that physical violence was the preferred solution! Their only justification was one of brazen homophobia, unless you want to argue that they were 'afraid' they'd otherwise be subjected to something so torturous as 'watching this guy talk about how much he enjoys hot saunas with other guys.'

* Did I mention that all of this is occurring in the context of a moment when Kanji's life is personally threatened? The kids don't have the slightest clue of the intricate nature of the TV world they're exploring; all they know is that they have a strict timetable to save Kanji in or he dies, and he needs to accept his Shadow or he's at risk.
...Oooh, I know! Let's antagonize Kanji's Shadow before it transforms and give Kanji more reasons to want to deny his affiliation with said Shadow because we literally care more about not having to listen to gay people flirt with us or our guy friends, than we value Kanji's life!

* Oh, it's okay, because we all know that deep down inside Protag's a really, truly nice guy who cares about Kanji and respects their friendship, he just likes to be 'snarky' (manifesting his snark in the form of wanton attacks in this particular instance, I suppose) to his buddies, right?

Well, Episode Eight puts rest to any thought of that notion!
Episode Eight takes place after the Protag and his buddies have presumably 'accepted' Kanji.
...Only they've only accepted Kanji at day. At night, it's another matter entirely!

Protag's line here is absolutely ludicrous to defend precisely because Yosuke acts far worse around women and the Protag does not call Yosuke out on it. Hell, in the very same episode, Yosuke brazenly advocates that Chie and Yukiko sleep in an integrated manner with he and Protag -- he is advocating a sexually predatory outcome in a tent in the exact same manner that he and Protag accused Kanji of doing! And yet the Protag and the women will tolerate this, because it's typical heterosexual male chauvinistic bullshittery.

...And that's probably actually the biggest problem about all of this. It isn't just the homophobia, although the homophobia is very overt and very despicable and it very openly refutes the P4 game's flawed yet positive approach of encouraging tolerance and diversity in friendships.

...It's that the characters respond so harshly to actions taken by 'homosexual' characters while tolerating and in fact encouraging the very same behavior from their heterosexual counterparts!
Yosuke forcing Yukiko and Chie to wear swimsuits despite their discomfort at the notion is funny and typical guy hijinks, and Yosuke can be excused of that! Even Chie and Yukiko don't aggressively call Yosuke out for being creepy. When Yosuke says "Hey Yukiko and Chie, why not sleep alongside us tonight?" The girls do not respond by badgering Yosuke for threatening to take their 'chastity.

So the message here is plain: Girls just have to tolerate this from heterosexual guys! Heterosexual guys can and will act like perverts who want to steal your sexual purity against your will and force you to dress up in scanty swimsuits, but you should just swallow your criticism and choose to remain his friend and accept the behavior as 'typical.' Even the Protag, by refusing to aggressively scold Yosuke when Yosuke acts legitimately creepy as fuck in drooling over Chie or Yukiko, is passively enabling Yosuke as his 'friend' to engage in this skeevy shit.

...But when Kanji barely acts half as predatory as Yosuke and is just sitting silently in the middle of the guy's tent, both Yosuke and Protag feel that their chastity is in serious danger! Not even because Kanji is gay and because Kanji, like Yosuke to the girls, has expressed a serious sexual interest in the Protag or Yosuke. The 'real' (non-Shadow) Kanji hasn't flirted with Protag or Yosuke at all! They don't even really definitively know whether Kanji is actually gay! And there's far less evidence that Kanji is remotely interested in pursuing a relationship, and he's certainly not forcing the Protag or Yosuke to waltz around in swimsuits for his personal enjoyment.

...The anime says this: The mere possibility that your guy friend might be gay, even if he is utterly disinterested in you, is more threatening than a heterosexual guy's overt and depraved sexual interest in women. There's only reason why this could be: Because mere gayness in and of itself is a 'threat!'

* And the game sort of was imperfect too, but the crucial difference was, the game at least gave you incentives to roleplay the Protag as a decent human being who did not in fact support this worldview. Yosuke may have been condemned to his childish immaturity, but the Protag received rewards in the form of boosts to his social links with Chie and Yukiko by treating them respectfully during the swimsuit scene, and the Protag received rewards in the form of boosts to his social link with Kanji by treating Kanji compassionately, like a true friend, supporting Kanji's presence in the tent, refuting privilege and refusing to indulge in homophobia. Even if you could choose to roleplay the Protag as a jerk, doing so felt out of character (how could the Protag acquire the sincere respect of Kanji and the women he interacts with regularly if he was a chauvinistic homophobe?)

Choosing the 'I-am-a-decent-human-being' options subsequently flow naturally. Yukiko and Chie and Naoto and Kanji and Nanako and Dojima repeatedly reinforce the notion that Protag is a great guy; and more often than not, choosing the 'snarky' options results in penalties to your P4 gameplay experience in the form of stalling social links. An ideal playthrough requires you to consider your friends' feelings and act respectfully and not be intolerant.

But P4: The Anime is tying to have its cake and eat it, too; it's simultaneously attempting to give you a snarky Protag who repeatedly chooses the "hysterical" (note that I don't think they're often very funny) dialogue options, yet also gives you a Protag who, by the Anime's own admission, has above-average Stats in all fields of personal growth by Episode Eight and who's Maxing social links with relative ease. The dynamic of P4 that once punished a homophobic, chauvinistic, asshole of a player is gone, and instead there's a huge fundamental disconnect: The anime characters are still acting like Protag is the sweetest, coolest, most benevolent, likable, tolerant human being they know, utterly demanding their fealty and accruing their affections, but the Protag is increasingly acting just as big a jerk as Yosuke is.

The plentiful evidence that the game provided you that the Protag was a decent person in watching his social links gradually accrue over extended periods of time and effort is gone; what's left is a homophobic jokester who tolerates Yosuke's chauvinism and who's petty and insecure and yet still beloved. At this point, the Protag is in desperate need of the same kind of abuse given to Yosuke on a regular basis. But even when Yukiko and Chie dared toss the Protag into the river with Yosuke, it's still heavily implied that they're totally crushing on him, just as it's still heavily implied that Kanji thinks the Protag is an incredible friend (except, well, not at night, lest his chastity be threatened) and just as Naoki can apparently be swayed from hating the Protag and Yosuke to totally being good bros in the course of a single goddamn conversation.

...So it's not just the homophobia that bothers me, although it's bothersome enough. It's that the homophobia is in plain contradiction of the halo the P4 anime team is still painting around the Protag, and that in painting that angelic halo around the Protag, the animators are saying this: The Protag is an ideal high school student; all you high school students watching the P4 Anime should want to be just like him, because he's going to get all the girls and earn the respect of all the guys and he's a role model. Oh, and by the way, he totally hates gay people, and you should, too. They make him feel awkward and uncomfortable and fearful for his chastity just in the mere act of being themselves. And, it is totally acceptable for heterosexual men to treat their gay friends with this degree of innate suspicion. (By the way, despite the fact that gay people can't do this to you, it's totally cool for you or your heterosexual friends to go even further then this when pursuing women. They just have to accept your inherent lustful state.)

Holy shit, that was long. Even by my standards!
But given that I wanted to stay away from NPF throughout all of December anyway it's totally cool if I'm temp-banned or something over this, I just felt like expressing how the P4 anime's made me feel lately, and the answer is "Not very good!"

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by Solid Snake

it's totally cool if I'm temp-banned or something over this

Bro, if you buried anything banworthy in that unabridged copy of War and Peace you posted up there, I ain't gonna go looking for it.

[Ramary]

That godawful wall of text, among other things, kinda helps me declare that the "homophobic P4A" train track should be blown up. Now. We are way off topic now and it just feels like we are throwing bile at each other at only one small part of the overall problem. Japan is a BIG mono-culture and they are generally crappy portraying, well, EVERYONE not a straight Japanese male. So let us go back to keeping this a much less shitstormy thread and just talk about animays.

[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by Ramary

That godawful wall of text,

Hey now =/
People are allowed to objectively criticize things you like, you know
I mean it's not like I was like "I hate all things Persona 4 because Persona 4 has always been and will always be terrible, and the mere fact that I hate P4 means you should hate it too," that'd be godawful.

And I don't see why criticism of an anime is so inappropriate in a thread about talking about anime
(I'm finding that P4 is too sacred for too many people, too many people staunchly refuse to accept any imperfection with the anime simply because it's P4, and suggesting the anime messed things up is akin to attacking a sacred object)

But if you want to talk about good anime...

[Kim]

Actually, the reason it should be dropped by everyone involved is that this conversation is going to go nowhere.

What you'll see more of if we continue this discussion:

1. Ramary complaining about thread derailing (Even though it is in no way derailing) as though this whole clusterfuck wasn't the result of his incredibly douchey post.

2. People telling me that I need to be nicer when telling people the posts they made were douchey and in the ensuing arguments as well.

3. People basically saying that the substantial amount of evidence that shows P4A is a homophobic anime isn't enough for me to say it's homophobic, followed by a bunch of arguments I won't take seriously because I've already heard those arguments several times now.


The discussion is on-topic, but it's a waste of fucking time and will be shut down by a mod for being too angry if we try to have it anyway, so talk about other shit, like how Mawaru is still the best show of the season, if not the year.

[stefan]

Originally Posted by Ramary

That godawful wall of text, among other things, kinda helps me declare that the "homophobic P4A" train track should be blown up. Now. We are way off topic now and it just feels like we are throwing bile at each other at only one small part of the overall problem. Japan is a BIG mono-culture and they are generally crappy portraying, well, EVERYONE not a straight Japanese male. So let us go back to keeping this a much less shitstormy thread and just talk about animays.

allow me to be the one to take the modhit here before nonsy does, because kidgloves and civility are failing to have any effect.

you, in the most literal sense, have no idea what the fuck you are talking about, and despite being pointed in a different direction by someone who does, you continue to act like a shit. you are falling into what I call, in lack of a snappier name, the "only white heterosexual males are allowed to bitch about bigotry, racism, and sexism on the internet" effect. you have never been on the wrong end of the stick, where you are considered an inherently lesser being because of something you never had a choice about, and so it is disgustingly easy for you to look at a contextually legitimate grievance and say, in the manner of internet fuckheads everywhere, "lol guys why you so mad?"

you have no grounds, right, or standing to say this is not a problem, because you lack the context of why it is a problem, but instead of excusing yourself to begin with like a rational being, you choose to shit all over the opinions of other, more informed, people simply because their problems inconvenience you.

you, sir, are a terrible human being, and I hope someone more in your personal vicinity takes it upon themselves to punch you in the dick until you get the point of why you're an ass, and/or are rendered sterile.

I'm out.