Romances in Persona are odd. On the one hand, they are some of the most well developed and in-depth romances seen in video games. No simple approval rating or gift giving is required; much like real life, if you want to win someone's heart, you need to spend time with them, learn their interests, open up to them, and be responsive as they do the same to you. Each interaction comes with its own specific cutscene, and each romance includes several interactions, so the love stories become a major part of the overall narrative.
On the other hand, several of the romances in Persona 5, for example, are extremely problematic. Many involve player-character Joker, a minor, dating full-grown adults, including his homeroom teacher. This is a game where the first villain is a teacher who has been grooming and abusing his students. It also has a frequent problem with giving female characters agency and while each individual character gets respect, Joker's ability to play the field diminishes this. Oh, and one of them is kind of your step-sister? I mean, not really – you meet her for the first time in the game, and you aren't related by blood, nor marriage or adoption – but the game presents a big brother-little sister dynamic only to then have it turn romantic, and that's just a bit odd.
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All of these issues have fairly straightforward fixes. If the protagonist of Persona 6 is underage, all the love interests should be too. Likewise, no one that you're kinda sorta maybe related to should be in the mix. With Persona 5 kicking the game into another stratosphere in the West, it's likely that these issues will be ironed out. And by 'likely', I mean I really, really hope they are. Less likely is Persona 6 getting a queer love interest, but after Persona 5 had some electric queer chemistry without the follow through, the next game is crying out for some representation.
Persona 5 gave us Joker and Ryuji, but speculating about their queerness has always been a little uncomfortable. In some ways, making Joker and Ryuji gay in fanfiction is relatively harmless – people write all kinds of ships in fanfiction, and shipping two characters who are clearly extremely close to each other makes sense. You can also use Joker's responses to flirt with Ryuji, even if just for a joke, and the pair do have an undeniable chemistry and physical closeness. Then again, boys are allowed to be close friends without being gay. If one of the societal symptoms of toxic masculinity is men bottling their feelings up, another is the labelling of men and boys who don't conform to these toxic standards as feminine or gay.
Joker has a multitude of romantic pursuits in Persona 5, and while some have shades of "OMG stepbro!" or feature concerning age gaps, all of them are straight. There isn't much point in speculating about Joker's sexuality – the game tells us pretty clearly that Joker likes chicks. Sure, it's less obvious with Ryuji, and there was room in Persona 5 Strikers for, if nothing else, some acknowledgement of their chemistry, but Joker is straight. And, as many an angry white man on the internet has told you, there's nothing wrong with being straight.
Persona 6 however won't be all about Joker, it'll be about an entirely new character. Given the ways Personas 4 and 5 focus on media consumption, an influencer seems like a suitable candidate for the next game, but we have no clue what it will be about, what its metaverse will look like, nor who the protagonist will be. Surely there's room though for at least one queer romance? I know playersexual protagonists have their own issues, but a) most players would prefer playersexual to straight only if those are the only options, and b) the character could be canonically bisexual rather than having their sexuality dictated by your choices.
There's an understandable desire for Persona 6 to give us a queer option too. I've criticised Persona 5's romances previously – it will never not be weird that a game where the first villain is a teacher who molests his students then allows you to date your own teacher – but if you look at the ones that don't have this ick factor attached to them, they're brilliant. Haru is shy and withdrawn, but can be coaxed out of her shell the more you get to know her in these sweet, private moments. Makoto lets her guard down the longer you spend time with her, while Ann, one of the victims of the grooming teacher, lets herself be more vulnerable around you, shedding her preppy, defensive front. Arguably, we should see this depth of Ann's character away from the romance – hence why she's the more fitting protagonist – but having it locked behind a romance shows the level of thought and storytelling we see in Persona's romances. In Persona 6, whenever it arrives, a queer romance deserves the chance to flourish too.
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