HeartAngel's Corner

I'll be honest: going into Persona 3, I thought I was going to hate Yukari. She seemed to come off as the stereotypical woman in anime that gets angry and violent for reasons, and I did not want to deal with that.

However, while she has her moments, she's not entirely what I originally had in mind.

While not my favorite, she is a character that I can sympathize with and tolerate to most degrees. A big conflict of hers involves her being unusually distant with Mitsuru, and for the first few hours, we don't know why. But, it's then revealed during the island summer trip that her father died during the whole 'Thanatos breaking out' event, and blames the Kirijos for what happened, including Mitsuru.

In that same scene, she even points out an issue that I'm surprised isn't addressed enough in this game: the S.E.E.S. members being treated as child soldiers, and how the Hell do none of them see anything wrong with that? Aside from this scene, as well as Strega's existence, it's never really touched on as much, and that has always bothered me, nor was there a resolution to it, in my opinion. Yukari was preaching to the choir so hard, I would've assumed I was watching the anime adaptation to Sister Act.

In short, Yukari felt like the most sensible person in the main cast, aside from maybe the dog, 'cause Koromaru is The Good-est Boy

She also yells at and beats Ryoji for being a womanizing creep twice, and it's so satisfying, because I hate Ryoji, and it's so frustrating being one of the few who does. Yukari gets me, which is why I picked her as my endgame girlfriend.

Aside from all that, she's just fine. She's basically Persona 3's Girl™️ party member, in the same vain as Rise from P4 and Ann from P5. Every modern Persona game has to have The Girl™️ in the main group and they MUST be of The Lovers' Arcana. ALWAYS.

I bet you 50 bucks that Persona 6 will follow this trend. In fact, I'll use that money to buy myself a Junpei figure out of shame otherwise. JUST YOU WAIT!

Oh, and Yukari becomes a knockoff Pink Power Ranger in Arena Ultimax. I thought that was funny.

I stopped laughing when Teddie groped her when they first meet as a joke the writers thought was funny.........

Before getting into P3's main protagonist, I'm gonna have to admit something that might be highly controversial:

I don't like P3.

Okay, I don't hate P3; there are elements and moments to it that I do enjoy. I like the music, the presentation is pretty good...in Reload - I'm a bit iffy on the original's very blotchy and muted art style. There are also some funny moments here or there....Tanaka. Just. Tanaka-

With all of that aside, there's a lot of cons for me that outweigh those pros, and it sort of ruined the overall experience for me.

One of these cons are the characters, and that a lot of them ranged from 'pretty good', to 'eh', to, 'why did you do that, Chidori? Balance was restored the moment Takaya pulled that trigger! Just leave him for dead, he ain't worth it-'

So, a lot of this is to preemptively say, a lot of my opinions on S.E.E.S. isn't gonna be very positive, for they're arguably my least favorite main group in the Persona series, and I don't know why people like them.

With ALL of that said, Makoto Yuuki...is kind of boring to me.

A lot of his dialogue options range from, 'sure', to 'maybe', to 'who cares?', and in comparison to P4 and P5's protagonists, he seems the least entertaining when reading into thwir personalities through said dialogue options. While I do get the whole aspect of the 'Silent Protagonist' character, at the same time, I do want my main character to have some form of personality that makes me want to follow them throughout, like the aforementioned two Persona protagonists. I mean, he's not Itsuki Aoi levels of boring, but I feel there could've been more to him.

To some degree, I do get why he acts the way he does, but it feels to contradict a lot of other things he does throughout the game. For a depressed, introverted guy, he seems rather social going up to multiple people PER day. AS a resident depressed introvert, I don't like socializing with people, mainly in-person. The only reason I'd be the one striking a conversation with someone is mainly because I was brave that day.

While I get that socializing is a big part of the game's gameplay, it just doesn't seem to fit Makoto's character. From what I hear, Kotone seems more like the type to, since she's stated to have an opposing personality to that of Makoto, while still being a character with depression. I don't think I can speak any more about Kotone, since I haven't played portable, so I'll just leave her for now.

The only impact Makoto seems to have on me is that he's one of the only main characters in the series to die in the end, supposedly to fit with the game's main themes. But even that seemed a bit anti-climactic to me and I didn't really feel much when it happened. In fact, it left me a bit confused. I hear they expand it more in The Answer, but that means spending 35 extra buckeroos on a game that already costs so much, so I'll get back to it when Steam does its usual sale.

I could also maybe get into his character more in the PQ games, but the fact that I have to go to a separate source to find a character interesting instead of their main one says a lot to how poorly Makoto seems to be written to me.

I'm sorry, but Makoto just does nothing for me. Not even his stupid emo haircut.