Fafnir's Den

If you take the game at its word for what each of the character arcs are supposed to be about, then the game has a whole character who is forced to take on a more masculine persona (pun not intended) to be taken seriously because of sexism but this is all in a game that continuously does sexist pervy comedy routines. Including to Naoto! If you're trying to make a point about how sexism is bad, maybe don't force the character in question into a swimsuit beauty pageant where she feels humiliated and uncomfortable as a joke?

Maybe Kanji isn't attracted to men and people shouldn't make assumptions about his sexuality because of his interests. Okay. Good point, you shouldn't do that. But what's the implication here when you look at moments like the camping trip tent scene where Yosuke treats him like a sexual predator for just being in the same tent (while Yosuke himself actually creeps on the girls during the same trip, which is just taken as funny despite being actual sexual harassment. Amazing stuff.)? There's multiple scenes like this, it happens during the pick up contest too where it's part of the comedy of uncomfortable situations that happen to Yosuke that Kanji starts blushing from being pressed up to him on the scooter. Like this is all still homophobic even if Kanji is straight and "hey don't assume people are gay based on stereotypes they might not be and then it would be bad if you put them in a box like that" is a good point in theory but not when you're also kinda implying that gay men are a danger to other men or that treating them as such is just an understandable funny reaction.

As much of a deal as people make about the cut Yosuke romance, him being closeted wouldn't fix how vile he is to his friends without consequences. It maybe explains it a little but that still means you're left with a game that constantly disregards sexual harassment as just a goofy thing your silly fun guy friends do.

If it wasn't clear I'm ultimately more sympathetic to people critical of p4's writing about gender and sexuality (and I didn't even talk about the fat girl. christ.) but I also don't think it's helpful to superimpose a more progressive version of the game where every character is actually queer and then critique the game for not delivering on that version. You can headcanon whatever you want ofc (Naoto's canon gender is such a mess you could tell me anything about what you think their gender is and I'd probably nod along) but I think it muddies the water on discussing the actual text when you loose track of the distinction here. And like. I get it p4 has a lot of stuff to like. I'm still fond of p4 in spite of all of this. But how depressing for actual queer media to see how much time people spend on inventing a gayer version of p4.

It's really the best kind of grinding, you're working towards skills, not number increases and can make decisions about what to work towards. Finishing with hunting moves and seeing the bar shoot up is so satisfying and because every character has their own mantra bar and they fill at different rates you're always close to unlocking something. Managing your mana and refilling it with hunt skills to avoid paying for heals makes mp management a lot more interesting then a time limit that forces you to rest. The whole feedback loop of the dungeon crawling is great