Recently, I sat down for a playthrough of Persona 5, and ran down the list of romance options. There’s Makoto, Haru, Ann, Hifumi, and Futaba, for starters. Futaba is Joker’s socially stunted younger sister figure, so she feels weird to date, but it gets a lot weirder.
There’s Chihaya, the fortune teller. She looks to be in her mid-twenties. There’s Ohya, the reporter, also probably mid-twenties. Then there’s Tae Takemi, the goth doctor who lives across the street, who’s been through med school, so she might even be in her thirties. The protagonist is 16, so that’s cool (just about), but nearly half of these options are stomach-turning when looked at through any kind of real-world lens.
In Japan, the age of consent varies from precinct to precinct, but it’s generally lower than what we in the west are used to. On October 24, 2022, Japan’s Ministry of Justice proposed raising the country’s official age of consent to 16—from 13.
It’s common in some areas of Japan for teenagers to date older men or women. In fact, high school girls are often paid to go on these dates, or otherwise to staff maid cafes, peep shows, and so on. This practice is referred to as “joshi kosei” or “the JK business” (“joshi koshi” literally means “high school girl”). It’s been going on at least since the mid-2010s, with the Japanese government either unable or unwilling to stop it. Suffice to say, Japan has a very different outlook on sex, sexualization, and at what age it’s appropriate, and many Japanese people don’t see these types of relationships as inherently problematic. This cultural difference between Japan and America does a lot to explain Persona 5’s weird dating options, but given that these games are thriving and making big bucks in the US, should there maybe be some discussion around how much problematic sexualization we’re willing to chalk off as ‘Japanese games just being Japanese’?
Persona 5 is a great RPG, but a terrible dating sim. I level this criticism not only at the adult dating options, but at the entire game. Dating and romance only blossom at the ninth and tenth levels of each Social Link—the very final levels. That means you only get two romantic scenes for each character, not counting things like the Hawaii beach walk.
At no point does the romance feel earned, or even particularly well-thought-out. The characters go through a normal story arc with little to no romantic tension or build-up. At the end, the other character suddenly asks the protagonist if they want to date. Say yes, and you get one scene where the characters make googly eyes at each other, with the rest left to your imagination.
Obviously, dating isn’t the main focus of Persona, nor does it need to be, but it could at least be thought-provoking. In Stardew Valley, for instance, the breadth and scope of dialogue only gets deeper as you get further into a relationship. Then there are games like Tokimeki Memorial, which explore the romance genre via various charmingly innocent interpretations of youthful love. Even in the comedic Dream Daddy, the characters are well-written and feel like real people, many of whom I’d happily hang out with.
The lack of depth in the dating system makes the game’s more problematic aspects even worse. It would be nice to have some insight into what’s going on in Ohya’s head when she asks Joker if he likes her. It would be nice to know if Takemi or Chihaya have any reservations about dating a teenage boy. It would be interesting to see Joker get into trouble with Sojiro, or to be whispered about at school, for dating someone so much older than him. These things are mostly glossed over.
This isn’t to say that Persona 5 lacks a moral compass, but that compass is a bit malfunctional. The game’s villains are defined by the fact that they manipulate high school kids. The second main antagonist, Kaneshiro, tricks high schoolers into delivering drugs, then blackmails them. He even threatens that one of the main characters, Makoto, will have to “sell her body” to appease him. This business model, where adults take advantage of high schoolers, is not entirely unlike Japan’s real-life the JK business, yet the game portrays it as unabashedly evil.
On the one hand, Persona 5 says that manipulative villains like Kaneshiro, Kamoshida, and Madarame are evil for abusing and manipulating teenagers. On the other, it says 16 year-olds can date people in their mid-twenties, no problem, despite the manipulative possibilities that can arise in such an age gap at such an age. Put it this way: a nine-year age gap is a whole lot pronounced more between the age of 16 and 25 than it is between 26-35, 36-45, and so on, because of the relative emotional maturity of the two people in question.
It doesn’t end there. The game is overflowing with awkward, weirdly sexual moments. There’s Kawakami’s maid subplot. There’s Morgana creeping on Ann, Yusuke creeping on Ann, and predatory gay men creeping on Ryuji (who, by the way, are the only confirmed gay men in Persona 5, reducing gay representation to an ugly stereotype).
“It’s not a big deal,” I hear you say. “They can tell a story about whatever they want, as long as it’s not hurting anyone”. It’s true that an author can write a story about whatever they want, but they can also harm their story in doing so. They can lessen its impact, and limit its potential to portray something meaningful. Persona is about friendship, growth, and overcoming trauma. Romance is prime ground for that, yet the romance feels stagnant and boring at the best of times, and deeply troubling at the worst.
So, what can be done? In my opinion, Atlus should retool their romantic writing. They should focus on developing characters through romance, rather than making romance itself feel like an item on a checklist. More importantly, they should just make get you, as a high-schooler, date other high schoolers. In Persona 3 & 4, you play as a high schooler who dates high schoolers, and everything is… well, it’s still weird, but a bit less so. Unless there’s some pressing reason to include age gaps in the relationships, or unless you’re going to explore the implications of these age gaps in good faith, why include them?
