#dakotadeadmanwalking

Let me tell you a story.

Back in 2014, I went to Japan on a 1 year exchange stay for my Bachelor’s degree. I took classes at Shuto-Dai - Tokyo Metropolitan University. One of the more progressive universities in the country. 

In one of the Japanese classes meant specifically for exchange students, one of my male course-mates dropped a mention of how he had made Bento boxes for himself before during a discussion. Our female, Japanese teacher? She made a wide-eyed face and stepped back in surprise, laughing awkwardly for a bit before finally responding. “Yeaaah… men here don’t usually do that.”

That experience really stuck with me. It’s a topic that comes up again and again in my studies: Men in Japan are conditioned to not acquire any domestic skills whatsoever, since it’s seen as “embarrassing”, which leaves many of them effectively unable to fend for themselves without the support of a girlfriend or wife. A lot of men (especially Hikikomori) apparently live off Junkfood for that reason; even if they ordered the ingredients per online-order, they still wouldn’t be able to cook. Society didn’t allow them to learn how.

Persona 4, as a game, seems to take special pleasure in subverting and deconstructing gender expectations, pointing out the absurdity of them in the process. 

Yu was specifically designed to suit a masculine father archetype, as mentioned in the artbook, yet he cooks, cleans, takes a mother role for Nanako and perfectly slots himself into the spot in Yosuke’s life previously taken by Saki Konishi, something his Social Link even points out.

Kanji is a tall, intimidating boy, but he’s a talented artist who loves textile works and arts and crafts, something that’s shown to be his biggest strength in-game, yet the game also makes no secret of how this strength of his was turned against him by society, and how society doing so makes absolutely no sense, because there’s no logical reason his talents should devalue his masculinity.

Chie loves her tomboyish skills and interests, yet has a strong inferiority complex thanks to them, because society conditioned her to believe that being herself makes her less of a “real girl” (something that comes out even stronger in the Japanese version than in English.)

For Naoto, the lack of positive female role models in the media she loved and grew up with in her childhood caused her serious issues with her gender identity, which, combined with the extremely patriarchal structures in Japanese law enforcement, caused her to hide everything about her that society had taught her could be perceived as a “weakness”, living in fear of one day being “found out”. 

Rise’s sexualization caused her to temporarily lose sight of what she loved  about her job in the first place.

Yukiko’s sexualization caused her to not realize that taking charge of the inn actually meant *taking charge* of it, not being controlled by it.

A lot of Yosuke’s teenage awkwardness stems from how society told him guys are supposed to act around each other and around girls, which leads to him putting a foot into his mouth much more often than necessary. This is never played as him “acting rational”, but always played for comedy. 

The only team member almost entirely exempt from this is Teddie, who didn’t grow up in Japanese society, yet even he picks up some ridiculous things from how the teenagers around him act and exaggerates these behaviors, pointing out how silly they really are. 

The girls can’t cook because society made them think all girls must have the innate ability to be master chefs, and so they see taste-testing and following recipes as something only “inferior women” do, hence why it takes Naoto (post-character development) joining them for them to finally and actually produce something actually edible and even delicious. 

Heck, this even extents into P4D, where it’s shown that Kanami, a girl who never had any problems with her gender identity whatsoever (mostly because she had a dozen of other traumata keeping her busy) actually CAN cook really well. 

Dakota didn’t expect to see Mimi on his way home from the market. It was even more surprising to see a dog next to her. He whistled to get her attention and when he got closer realized she looked a little…beat up. He couldn’t help but grin a little

“Having trouble with the dog?”

Mizuki laughed sheepishly and nodded. ‘Mhm, she saw a... um, what is it, the tree mouse with the fluffy tail, anyway, she saw it and tried to chase it, and she pulled me along.’

She scratched behind Rina’s ears, which she seemed to appreciate. ‘She’s a good girl, but she’s also a big girl and gets overexcited sometimes.’ As if on cue, Rina broke from Mizuki’s side and tried to jump up on Dakota. ‘Rina-chan! ふせ!’ She said, pointing to the ground.

Leon didn’t have a good track record with libraries. He’d often been kicked out of school ones, too rowdy and prone to trouble for the teachers’ liking, and he didn’t often go to public ones either due to lack of interest.

With nothing else to do however (couldn’t bother his friends because Van told the staff not to let him into the office, rip), he’d decide to take another shot at reading the namesake of his ability. The last time he tried... Well, he’d picked up spoken English well enough, learned all the slang even though his accent remained, but Leon never really stopped struggling with reading English. Still, he was older now, and had lived in America for a few years. That had to count for something, right?

Except Leon didn’t actually know how to navigate his way through a library. He’d wandered for a bit, but soon accepted that he had no idea how to find what he was looking for. He wasn’t too prideful to ask for directions (unlike a certain someone he knows), and so he sauntered up to another man and asked, “Hey, do you know where the series A Song of Ice and Fire would be?”

Exactly! What I am talking about, is the effects of the Japanese Asset Price Bubble and the so-called “Lost Decade” that resulted of it. 

The details are very complex, so I can’t go in very deeply right now, but basically, during the 80s, thanks to some fortunate alignments in international currency trends, Japan’s economy was booming and asset speculation became extremely popular with the country’s population as a ways of accumulating a lot of money very quickly. People would buy assets as their life ensurance, companies would base their finances entirely on them, etc.

This gave rise to/stabilized a culture, where “lifetime employment” was seen as the norm, unemployment was very low and it was believed that as long as you just graduate a good college you’re *determined* to have a comfortable living for the rest of your life. This mindset, again, gave rise to a nation of soccer moms (and dads) who conditioned their kids to do nothing but focus on studying, studying, studying all day, because, hey, once you got a job, you never have to worry about anything in your life and can chill anyway, kid!

Of course, as things tend to do, this eventually escalated past the point of no return. The bubble popped, and Japan’s economy dipped tremendously.

As a result of that, all these kids who’d been hounded about with the promise of eternal job security were now left standing on the shambles of a world view built on broken promises. Not only did many adults who had invested their entire fortunes in assets commit suicide, young high school and college graduates were barely off any better. These kids had to spend the 90s slowly but surely realizing their were raised to live a pipe dream and, well, yeah. It mentally destroyed many of them.

Adachi is one of these kids. As his social link makes clear, his mother’s upbringing of him not only lead into him having an existential crisis after losing his position at the metropolitan police force and being demoted, it also left his emotional growth severely stunted and had him fail to develop any social skills whatsoever, in a world that now required such skills more than ever.

dakotadeadmanwalking:

Dakota didn’t stop to take notice of other people when he came into the cafe. Solitude was hard to come by so he was forced to make do by not meeting the eyes of anyone else while he stood in line for coffee.

This cafe did have one big advantage though: you could sit by yourself for a long stretch and no one would bother you. Which was good because he wanted to start reading the book in his back pocket. It had been a bitch and a half to acquire and he was eager to get into it.

He went through the song and dance of getting the damn coffee and headed to his usual spot by the window…to find a young woman sitting in it already.

Dakota blinked, more bewildered then angry. He turned to find another spot but there were more people filling the cafe for the morning rush.

He turned back and cleared his throat. “Excuse me. Could I sit next to you?”

She looked up to see a man standing there, looking... Well, Mizuki couldn’t really read his face, which honestly scared her a little. Still, he seemed to be polite, but she still kept her guard up. ‘Sure,’ she said, ‘I don’t mind.’

She set down her cup onto her saucer and smiled. ‘I won’t bother you if you need, sir.’ She pulled out her phone and checked the time quickly; she still had lots of time, so if the man wanted to, she could talk for a little while.

14. Would you have George teach you guitar or Ringo teach you drums?

Oh this is an evil question. Undoubtedly George though, for sure. Then again...I'd be worried about messing up with him, and Ringo seems like he'd be more chill about it. But...George, yeah.

🥺tyyy