Post

Had that chance to add the Yosuke romance for their fans and they blew it

He’s pretty relatable to a lot of people.

If you play Persona after 2 you're a cop

Why does the government need to step in? (Also, #FuckTheGovernment)

Medical euthanasia is still illegal in Japan so I'm afraid there's nothing we can do for them.

persona 4 beating 5 for "favorite numbered game" by a grand total of two (2) votes is killing me

There’s a neat video talking about the phenomenon! bsky.app/profile/namc...

The main character isn’t even a character, they’re a blank slate. AB’s Yosuke is about 1% more interesting than that

I can sorta see the argument for the protagonist because you can have him be pretty funny with your option of responses, but like, Yosuke’s entire personality after the first dungeon is just… the most annoying pervy teenager you’ll ever meet

also yosuke is cool

maybe they're just self inserting in a really personally uplifting way

The people just like Charlie Tunoku.

It’s like. Hard for me to understand why The Protagonist is even an option in something like this

"well protagonist is Me and I'm Me and that means I'm the best"

A lot of people have to be voting purely by character design.

You know im not that shocked that the [blank self-insert for you to imagine however you'd like the protagonist to be] wins that much. There are as many p4 protagonists as there are p4 fans.

I honestly wouldn’t even say it’s a Japanese thing, I bet if you managed to poll all the people who played and liked the games, protags would rank near the top among western audiences too, just not like, the more vocal parts of fandom

I actually do think the Persona protagonists all have a fair amount of personality if you really go looking for it, Joker being the most obvious in Royal, but listing them above like 90% of the casts of each game is crazy work.

This is like how Byleth is always crazy popular in character polls for Three Houses. Yeah my favorite character is myself. I like the way they say "Buy", "Sell", and "Goodbye".

Something that I've noticed that's completely baffled me is that the silent protagonist in multiple JRPGs are often quite popular, and even some people's favorite. An attractive design or the desire to self insert can do a lot of heavy lifting unfortunately.

i have o clue how someone can vote makoto (the p3 mc) so high however, the p4 one??? thats ENTIRELY justified

iirc (since i presume this poll is japan-only) the way the protags are read there is as much more of a Character than elsewhere? this is hearsay but considering how Ignored the protags are in western circles it makes some sort of sense to me

This dovetails with one of the reasons I think media literacy FEELS like it's declining; (regardless of whether or not it actually is) folks visibly reaching for the known/comforting in response to precarity rather than exploring alternate perspectives or appreciating/challenging the "other."

Could also be a lot of people are voting off how they’re written in media where they aren’t silent: anime, manga, novelizations, etc. …or just “Ha ha. Yes, me. I am cool.”

No

A lot of people find him to be a relatable character.

Persona 4 has legitimately some of the best characters in the whole series with Kanji/Naoto/Rise but unfortunately persona fans only absorb these games voa memes.

I hope it's not me being bad at catching jokes, but that's actually a dialogue option that appears a lot in the game :D

Am I whooshing? That dialog option has been a meme for years.

Okay wait, I just read through all of these and the Persona 4 "How do you feel about your time" part was so cute. Even if the verbage is different, the heart of it all is adorable and I KNOW they have Never More playing in their hearts while saying "I don't want to leave". King shit, I'm crying.

We all desire someone who will call us partner 8000 times in a single year and also get in trouble for bringing weapons to the fictional version of Walmart.

There’s an entire video talking about why the protags get tops spots in polls. youtu.be/4pju_yPFXMs

Two other fascinating data points: Yosuke is by far the most popular "best friend" character between him, Junpei, and Ryuji. Second (and much funnier), Izanagi-no-Okami is a beloved Persona not just in Persona 4 (ranking 4th), but also in Persona 5 (ranking 5th).

to be fair nearly every p4 party member stops having a character arc in the main story once they get their persona 💀

To be fair, it'd be easier to name who DOES have a character arc in Persona 4.

well it would be true kensuke is pretty awesome c'mon don't talk about my guy like that

Morgana

The divide in opinions on Yosuke between Japanese fans and Western fans continues to fascinate me.