Localization can’t make Persona 5 Royal inclusive
Persona 5 is a progressive game with regressive views, and no scene better encapsulated that than a scene involving two gay men and party member Ryuji Sakamoto.
In the original game, you and Ryuji are walking through Shinjuku when these two men, called “Scruffy Romantic” and “Beefy Trendsetter,” swoop upon your friend with sexual intent, and it ends with this teenage boy being kidnapped by these gross caricatures while the protagonist does nothing but point and laugh.
Nothing specific happens on-screen, but the clear implication is that these men intend to assault Ryuji, and it’s all played up as a joke.
As Atlus said last month, this scene is heavily altered in the western release of Persona 5 Royal, the enhanced edition of the RPG. Now, these two have names: Angel and Julian. They approach Ryuji after having noticed him looking inside Crossroads, the local drag bar. Thinking they’ve got a new potential drag star in their proximity, Angel and Julian take Ryuji away to show him the ropes.
Is it better? Unequivocally, yes. Ryuji is merely inconvenienced here rather than being the victim of sexual harassment and possibly more, as the original game implies. There’s an actual attempt at making the scene funny, and even if I didn’t laugh outright I at least saw the humor in the situation rather than wondering at what point sexual assault and caricaturizing an entire community of people was supposed to merit even a chuckle.
The scene as it was written in the localization didn’t make me feel uncomfortable or pushed away by Persona 5, a game that prides itself on championing the underrepresented and those without a voice, but still went out of its way to design unique character models for a homophobic joke. Perhaps by making this change to this scene, one that is otherwise meaningless beyond being the sole representation of gay men in the entire game, more people can feel like they’re included in Persona 5 Royal’s rebellious narrative. As if the Phantom Thieves of Heart are fighting for them just as much as they are anyone else.
But even so, having played the original game, as well as having seen these two characters appear in Persona 5: The Animation where they actually do appear to assault Ryuji on screen, it feels like a cover up of a game’s awful values.
This isn’t to say I don’t commend Atlus West for doing this. The scene doesn’t feel as tasteless as it did before, and the thought of seeing it again a few years down the line when I eventually pick up Persona 5 Royal again doesn’t fill me with the same sense of dread it did when I thought of replaying the original game. But unlike Catherine: Full Body, another P-Studio game with regressive views on queer identity, Persona 5 Royal doesn’t use its remake to examine its own archaic views. Full Body wasn’t perfect, but an attempt was certainly made, as clumsy as it was at times. That game now has entire scenes dedicated to the cast talking about same-sex relationships and disavowing gender roles and stereotypes, and the new “true” ending results in the main character coming to grips with being pansexual.
Persona 5 Royal has no such introspection about how it’s portrayed certain people. Instead, it doubled down on it to the point where Atlus West had to intervene and make the game palatable for western audiences.
Despite nearly every relationship in Persona 5 Royal between protagonist Joker and his male friends having a noticeable emotionally intimate undertone, none of these friendships become more. Despite being a story about representing the underrepresented, no other gay men beyond Angel and Julian appear.
Persona 5 Royal’s western localization might no longer actively push gay men out of its narrative, but there’s nothing it can do to bring them in. That onus was on P-Studio, and no such attempt was made. Kudos to Atlus West for seeing a segment of the game it could address and taking the proper steps to make Persona 5, if not more inclusive, at least less exclusive than it once was. But despite being a story of rising up against oppression and tearing down the systems in place that allow those on top to walk over those beneath them, Persona 5 Royal’s story doesn’t extend a hand to queer people, Beefy Trendsetter or not.
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