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I'm preparing to move to Asia later this year and will probably be extremely afk for the time being.
Hi, sorry if this is incredibly out of the blue, but I just wanted to add some more context as to why the whole "I'm not gay, I just happened to fall in love with a guy" thing used to be (and still is to an extent) a popular trope in Japanese BL.
I'm someone who sometimes lurks in Japanese online spaces. From what I've seen from people who like the trope explain, it became popular because of how Japanese women are used to being hit on by men purely because they are women and the men are not interested in any other aspect of them. So tropes where the love interest goes "It's not because of your gender, I just happened to fall in love with YOU" are popular with women. You even see this in straight romance. Ex: Ryoji telling FeMC that he would love her whether she was a guy or girl.
With that said, it's still questionable. Especially since with BL, it's sometimes phrased in a way that implies the character is not gay or attracted to men at all ("I'm not into men, but I still fell in love with you"). While with straight romance, it's usually phrased more as "It's not because you're a woman, I love you as a person." And some people don't see the problematic nature of the former and tend to interpret it in the most optimistic way possible. As in, "it's not that the character is LITERALLY saying they're not gay, they're saying that they were never attracted to men (gay) until they met that one guy, which shows that love can go beyond gender!" Which I think can be interesting in the context of someone finding out they like men later in life. But as a lot of JP queer people point out: it's still odd to see a BL couple deep in a relationship with each other claim to not be attracted to men and it can spread misconceptions about how sexuality works in a country that doesn't know much about queer identities.
Overall, I do think Japan's homophobic aversion to outright calling characters gay has contributed this kind of trope's popularity but it's not the only thing. Things have definitely gotten better in recent years, though. Especially since this trope is less common than it used to be. (Sorry if this is already common knowledge to you. I just wanted to ramble about this since it's an interesting topic to me).
ooh, sorry, ive not been active on tumblr lately. thanks for the comment! i wasn't aware *that's* how it started... lmao... japanese dudes really are just **like that**... i've been to 2chome a couple times before, and the vibes i got from that exp are that jp people think that "gay" is a "sex-only" thing, and not an actual romantic thing. which, uhhhh... (notably, in the context of p4, when the other kanji appears on the midnight channel / mayonaka, his jp show title is "hatten! boku no machi", a parody of a children's exploration show, but combined with a jp slang for GAYSEXHOOKUPS...) one of my friends claims this viewpoint is "because of jp tv variety shows", but like... squints..........
is this why kanji has an adelie penguin for the sea paradise collab.........
(you might assume he has a penguin because of the animal crackers part, but this is a jp collab and in the jp game he is looking for a submarine cracker)
i feel like someone would see this and unironically say, "this is proof that kanji is canonically gay", but uh, given the topic of "japan and an aversion to the very word 'gay' itself", this feels more like "yosuke read this on wikipedia and is teasing kanji again by saying 'you get the adelie penguin' and not telling kanji why and kanji thought the penguin was cute so he made the plush and absolutely no one else on the investigation team is ever going to tell kanji why yosuke picked the penguin for him bc they know he will murder yosuke except this is the kind of thing teddie would go blab about so also no one has told teddie"
is this why kanji has an adelie penguin for the sea paradise collab.........
(you might assume he has a penguin because of the animal crackers part, but this is a jp collab and in the jp game he is looking for a submarine cracker)
from exp in japanese fandom, i have learned there are ppl who dislike using the term "gay", and will actually say shit like, "he's not gay, he just so happened to fall in love with someone of the same gender". as a westerner, obviously, this is fucking insane to me lol. if you see people who ship 2 dudes, you uh just kind of assume that everyone who ships it recognizes that as a gay pairing. but well it turns out some actually don't. for some, "gay" is a negative label that must be avoided at all costs, even if it means winning gold in the mental gymnastics.
...and this is a reaction to "gay!!!" in [current year]. i can only imagine it was even worse in 2008.
tbqh, this uh makes me view kanji's arc and specific words ppl use in that arc very differently. parts of it read like atlus themselves were consciously trying to avoid using the word "gay" completely.
anyway i am aware of how "?" this sounds, its not like i "learned""" that homophobia exists (lol), more like found it Very Enlightening to the extent which ppl will seriously avoid the word "gay" while still supporting what essentially amounts to "gay" as a comically stupid subheader to their homophobia
adachi and model guns
adachi liking model guns was not necessarily retconned for p4 arena ultimax. it is actually hinted at in p4.
when adachi replies to chie about why he became a cop, he says, "because i could possess/own a real gun", and the word used for "real" is like saying "the real thing". this isn't the same thing as adachi saying "golly gee wilikers fam i sure do love collecting model guns", but, he does specify "a real gun", as if to imply that he owned or sought out... non-real gun(s)... in the past
ofc this is also cultural difference in how people are gonna see this line. in america depending on which state you live in you can carry a gun w/o being a cop or having any kind of law enforcement job. in jp i believe you can only have a shotgun...? maybe...? as a regular citizen.
sea paradise mini character merch
the sea paradise merchandise is split into 3 waves: p1-p3 + velvet room (may 8-june 3), p4-p5 (june 4-june 30), and then p1-p5 + velvet room all together (july 1-15). each one is getting sets of merchandise for the mini character illustrations: acrylic stands (random/blind), banners, umbrella charms (random/blind), ticket-style stickers (random/blind), postcards, and clear files with everyone on them.
during the p3r event, you were able to order merchandise online through their site, but it wasn't until some time after the event. i'm, uhm, probably just going to do that because the adachi blind box merch pricing is probably going to be a bloodbath on mercari.
APRIL FOOLS VOLUME 4 IS OUT NOW!
Download it here.
all the persona 30th sea paradise mini character things
ok i don't know shit about sea creatures but i can google japanese words and read the search results. i only left commentary in ( ) when something jumped out at me @ first glance. im sure there was s-some thought? maybe? put into some of these? the ones where the JP name wasn't the same as the english name or wasei-eigo, i did put the romaji for. (for some of them you prob do need the jp meaning to understand why it was picked for that character.)
Persona / MIP
Protag: Aka mongara / Red-toothed trigger fish
Maki: Shiro iruka / Beluga whale
Masao: Zenigata azarashi / Harbor seal
Yukino: Kotsume kawauso / Japanese small clawed otter
Nanjo: Otaria / South American sea lion
Hidehiko: Oguro prarie dog / black tailed prarie dog
Eriko: Angelfish
Yuka: Miyakotenguhagi / Orangespine unicornfish
Reiji: Mitsukurizame / Goblin shark
Persona 2
Tatsuya: Tobiei / Japanese eagle ray
Maya: Takaashigani / Japanese spider crab
Eikichi: Flame Angel(fish)
Lisa: Bora / Mullet or mudfish
Yukino: Kotsume kawauso / Japanese small clawed otter
Jun: Amakusakurage / Amakusa jellyfish
Urara: Cardinal tetra
Katsuya: Tamakai / Giant grouper
Paofu: Kagokakidai / Stripey
Nanjo: Otaria / South American sea lion
Eriko: Angelfish
Persona 3
I think some of these are repeats from the previous P3R sea paradise events
Protags: Bottlenose dolphin
Yukari: Sakuradai / Cherry sea bream
Junpei: Iwatobi / Rockhopper penguin
Aki: Shiowani / Sand tiger shark
Mitsuru: Seiuchi / Walrus
Fuuka: Indonesian sea nettle
Koromaru: Mara / Patagonian hare
Aigis: Call duck
Ken: Capybara
Shinji: Kurou miuma / Black seahorse
Ryoji: Ao umigame / Green sea turtle
Persona 4
Protag: Himeokoze aka Izanagi / Grey stingfish or grey goblinfish, but it's also called Izanagi
Yosuke: Kama iruka / Pacific white-sided dolphin
Chie: Shiira / Mahi-mahi (I assume it was picked for the color, but, I think this is like a fish Chie would actually eat too)
Yukiko: Akagurage / Japanese sea nettle (the Japanese name has "aka" in it, meaning red)
Kanji: Adelie penguin
Rise: Kiirohagi / Yellow tang
Teddie: Fuusenuo / Balloonfish or lumpfish
Naoto: African mimizuku / African spotted eagle owl
Dojima and Nanako: Doku ushibo and otohime ebi / Giant moray eel and cleaner shrimp (There are photos of the shrimp hitching rides on the eels - iirc the shrimp help clean the eel by eating stuff off of it?)
Adachi: Tora ushibo / Dragon moray eel or leopard moral eel (...its called dragon or leopard in english, but the jp name includes "tora" for tiger lol)
Persona 5
Protag: Hige penguin / Chinstrap penguin
Morgana: Nekozame / Japanese bullhead shark (the Japanese name as "neko" in it, meaning "cat")
Ryuji: Kurotogarizame / Silky shark
Ann: Kanagashira / Redwing sea robin (one of the many ways of writing in JP is 火魚, with 火 meaning fire)
Yusuke: Kitsune amadai / Tilefish (Japanese name has "kitsune" in it meaning "fox")
Makoto: Harisenbon / Porcupinefish
Futaba: Chinanago Spotted garden eel (These pop out of the ground, so I'm assuming it's because of her being a shut-in)
Haru: Hime aka hime japonica (It doesn't seem to have an English name and EN Wikipedia also lists Hime Japonica. Hime typically gets translated as princess but its like a woman of noble birth. Milady, etc.)
Akechi: Madako / Octopus (Whenever you order octopus at JP restaurants or something, this is what you're getting. It would also be used in say, takoyaki.)
Kasumi: Ryugu no tsukai / Oarfish (I believe in some parts of the world you would also say ribbon fish, hence it being w/Yoshizawa)
Sae: Minokasago / Zebra lionfish
Sojiro: Harris's hawk
Velvet Room Gang
Igor: Tenguhagi / Bluespine unicorn fish (I would suggest Googling a better photo of this one. it was likely picked because the jp name includes "tengu", which is a jp yokai that has a big nose like igor. The eng name kind of ruins it -- even if it makes more sense for the fish -- because it's unicorn fish, referring to its horn instead of a nose. The real fish does have a horn-looking thing above its eyes, though, so the eng name is more logical lol)
Philemon: Furaichouchou uo / Butterflyfish (I've never played MIP but I get this one!11 the butterfly dream!11)
Elizabeth: Maaji / Japanese horse mackerel
Theodore: Mawashi / Japanese pilchard
Margaret: Masaba / Chub mackerel
Marie: Powder blue tang
Caroline: Sorasuzumedai / Neon damselfish
Justine: Shirikirurisuzumedai / Blue damselfish
(I assume liz/theo/marg all have fish that start with "ma-" because sibling stuff? Don't think it's meant to be the ma-prefix on AoE spells because that is actually "maha-" in Japanese.)
btw, even tho the place is called "sea" paradise, it does have many other animals and critters. i remember seeing a capybara and red pandas and whatnot when i went for the p3 reload event. you can also go fish on the docks and take your catch inside to the restaurant to get it grilled.
ADACHI'S SHITTY EEL PUN
FUCKIN' MANU JUST REMINDED ME OF THIS SDL;FGKKL;W34KLL3K;4
The root of this shitty pun comes from a Japanese idiom, "unagi nobori", unagi being eel and nobori being ascending/climbing. Pretty straight forward: Look at the shape of an eel, imagine it sticking its head up, being held upright, etc. It's just an idiom for something going up, increasing, etc.
JP one is like... Adachi says that Dojima's stock as a father has "gone up" in Nanako's eyes because Dojima brought home eel. And the word used for "gone up" happens to involve "eel".
In English, you can feel that someone's soul left their body while they tried to rewrite this. (I don't blame them.)
sea paradise adachi reveal...!
its beautiful ...
he seems to have a dragon moray eel and is afraid it will murder him
list of fish (and owls):
protag-kun's fish is a grey stingfish, but the fish is also called izanagi
yosuke: pacific white-sided dolphin
chie: mahimahi
yukiko: japanese sea nettle / chrysaora pacifica (the japanese name has aka in it, meaning red)
kanji: adelie penguin
rise: yellow tang
teddie: lumpfish
naoto: spotted eagle owl
dojima and nanako: giant moray eel & cleaner shrimp (there are photos of the shrimp hitching rides on the eels - iirc the shrimp help clean the eel by eating stuff off of it?)
adachi: dragon moray eel
sea paradise has more critters besides just fish, so naoto gets an owl i guess!
not only is jyb complete dogshit at voicing adachi, but he also likes funko pops
Kumakichi
This is regarding Chie's reaction to Teddie asking Nanako if she wants to "Shoot off fireworks of love".
For a little background info: As you probably know by now, Teddie's Japanese name is Kuma, meaning bear.
Early on, Yosuke and Chie call him Kumakichi. In the English version, all of the Kumas, Kumakichis, and Kumadas were all just changed into Teddies. In this scene, added for Golden, the Japanese text makes it more obvious about the meaning of Kumakichi and why Atlus has characters call him Kumakichi.
Kumakichi is a character in Gag Manga Biyori who is also a bear. He appears in short skits called Detective Usami. These skits usually go like this: Another character will go "Oh no Usami something creepy or perverted has happened to me!" and Usami and Kumakichi will be like, "Oh no that's terrible what happened?" And then 5 seconds later, you find out that Kumakichi is the culprit, and then he is shown being arrested and taken away by the police, as shown above.
In this scene during the fireworks part, Chie gets irritated and calls him Kumakichi again, then asks if he wants Dojima to arrest him. So, basically, Chie is referencing Gag Manga Biyori and how the skits with Kumakichi go, and the group goes about their business after.
(Tbh, I very sincerely doubt that Teddie knows what "shoot off fireworks of love mean", hence why he goes "uhhh" when Nanako asks.)
off topic but furyu announced a "kumakichi getting arrested" bag lol and it was recently released in japan:
there was even a bit at the recent jump festa where kumakichi got arrested by psychic police officer chojo:
maybe teddie will get arrested as part of p4 revival's marketing
omg when I went to y mall in taipei, one of the very first things I saw was.........
atre akihabara artwork
chara pop store has revealed the p30th anniversary artwork for the collaboration with atre in akihabara.
for a little context: atre is a shopping facility right outside of the jr akihabara station, and chara pop store is a store run by bandai-namco on the 2nd floor that hosts pop up stores that change out every couple months or so. per their announcement tweet, they'll be selling merch with the collab artwork on it. ive seen atre with a line of nerds on the staircase + out the door, lined up for one of these pop up stores before, so i imagine that's what the persona store will be like lol.
it also mentions "mini games"... i've been to these stores for gundam stuff, and the "mini game" was always a prize lottery thing where you buy like a few plays and there'll be 5 icons on a monitor then tap a few based on how many plays you bought and reveal which prizes you got.
sea paradise persona 30th
sea paradise has released teasers of SD / mini character artwork for the upcoming collab event at their park, and it includes a silhouette of adachi...! they'll be revealing the artwork over the next 6 days.
they also have a bunch of info about the upcoming event on their webpage. there's a stamp rally, collab hotel rooms, special merchandise w/the sea paradise protagonist artwork, merchandise w/the mini characters that has yet to be revealed, a p4 themed dolphin show where teddie leads the show (can he be trusted w/dolphins?), and the live show stadium has some kind of midnight channel themed light show on weekend evenings.
im no longer living in japan so i wont be going to this... unless i fly back for it... o god 12 hr plane ride for teddie's dolphin show....
teddie not helping the jp kr relations
in the epilogue to teddie's story mode, he says that, as labrys's senpai figure, he demands apology & compensation, using his name (kuma) as his copula at the end of the sentence:
シャザイとバイショーをヨーキューするクマ shazai to baisho- o yo-kyu- suru kuma
this is a katakana'ized version of a phrase used by right wing-y type jp people to mock koreans who want apologies and compensation due to war crimes committed by the japanese empire.
謝罪と賠償を要求するニダ shazai to baishou o youkyuu suru nida
sometimes the verb conjugation on suru might be different, but that's it. you know it's targeted at koreans because it includes the katakana rendering of the korean copula, ニダ, at the end.
i think the point of it being written in katakana is to portray that teddie is just repeating something that he heard or read. like there's that on-going gag in p4 where he keeps saying "gyakunan" (the girls hitting on guys word) to *the girls* and he learned it by repeating from yukiko's shadow and he doesn't figure this out for a long time. idk, i guess this means teddie was been browsing 2ch between stocking the shelves at junes.
in my opinion, as it's *teddie* saying it, i think it says less about him and more about the people writing the game lol... like whether they were being edgy when they wrote it or whether they really hate korea, in either scenario, i assume they wanted teddie to say it on purpose precisely because he's teddie. like, "yeah we know what this is referring to but it's teddie saying it, so hurr da durr".
anyway, when arena ultimax got translated into korean, arena's story mode was also included later, and womp womp it seems some korean players discovered the line being included, and also recognized what it was referencing. gj atlus.
Persona popup shop at Daimaru
Think this is the last 30th anniversary thing I'll be in Japan for!
Daimaru department store in Tokyo station is holding a pop up store in their event space. There's also one in Osaka that started a couple days before but I'm in Tokyo.
They previously announced they would start handing out numbered tickets at 9:30am so uhh I had planned to wake up and go get one but I totally overslept and went there around lunch time woops lmao.
On the train ride over I was reading Twitter and tldr it was some kind of shit show in the morning where so many people lined up they started giving out numbered tickets in advance and there were something like 160+ tickets given out. By the time I got there, the line had died down completely and there was free entry, but they had sold out of the complete sets of can badges. (After 5 months of this, I can probably make a long detailed post about Oshikatsu stuff...)
I thought the shirts looked cooler in person than in the photos, they've got a faded look to them. The p4g reed diffuser I didn't buy cause the scent wasn't that great lol. I ended up trading my p3 and p5 bonus items for more P4 protagonist cards and managed to get 3 total to share with friends. 💖
It seems they started selling out of other stuff besides the can badges on the first day too. People here go really hard for the merch.
