You wanted it, so here's the Kawakami video

Hey, I fully recognise that the relationship is wrong and shouldn't occur, and Kawakami's actions aren't justified just because Ren came onto her and she didn't actively groom him. I just find the claim that she's just as bad as Kamoshida dumb given just how much worse of a person he is. And I also hate how it's always Kawakami brought up, but there's radio silence when it comes to Takemi, Chihaya and Ohya, who are in the same situation.

Everyone already knows this relationship is wrong. it’s a fantasy and people only defend it so atlus will continue to make more of it. It’s taboo content and I think 99% of people know that and enjoy it without it being a problem.

I dont care what you say, I'm trying to be a victim (Cool video tho and I completely understand what you're saying)

Thank you so much for this video! It's sad to see this video getting so little and especially unsupportive engagement, but with the most vocal part of the fanbase being on the male side and having grown up with romanticized views on such relationships, I'm not really surprised. The adult romances always creeped me out and made me lose some respect for the characters themselves who are done such a disservice by the devs who ignored compelling character writing for the sake of wish-fufillment. I really hope that Persona 6 will be the first to break away from this formula, at least Strikers' entirely platonically portrayed adult cast is giving me hope.

Imagine comparing Kamoshida to Kawakami L take

In my brain I always justified it as “It’s just Japanese media things” Like the amount of popular manga, anime and games that have underage boys romancing their teachers is just astronomical, to the point I’ve been completely desensitized to it whenever I see the trope in Japanese media, just complete apathy toward it. Doesn’t make it ok, but I think that’s a good explanation as to why the character didn’t raise much controversy, even with the blatant double-standard, due to the fact that very same double standard is prominent in so much media. Due note, I don’t particularly believe that Videogames or media in general incite or normalize peoples behaviors, more so they’re the reflections of normalized behaviors within the society. Instead of being a sort of propaganda that lets you be desensitized to it for the sake of it, it’s more so the mirror as to what current society is. Look at how violence is normalized in most of society, it isn’t just action movies or games, but more so the fact we live in a militarized world that has gone through two world wars that are heavily documented, we live in an incredibly violent world with violent history and with the rise of new media we simply have more ways to contextualice the violence to the masses.

"That's the best part."

Why is nobody talking about yusuke? He literally tried to paint Takamaki nude. She’s a minor btw, so it’s literally child porn. Takamaki being okay with this was already insane to me.(to be fair, she didn’t like it however she risked it) Her being okay with yusuke fighting with them is beyond my comprehension. In fact I hated the story so much I stopped playing after 15 hours. Yusuke is not the only thing tho: the plot starts with the main character helping a woman getting molested and probably almost raped. This leads to him being punished in court and being treated like a criminal. Sure, I haven’t played the whole game, so maybe I’ve missed a big reveal, that explains the man that molested the woman has influenced judge. But that’s not how you write a story.

God I wish that was me

I agree that legality is far from a decent measure of morality - but I offer up this. I don't consider *18 year olds* to be adults. Medically speaking, their bodies aren't fully developed and their brains still have another 6-ish years before they finish growing, and as a demographic they're not exactly known for maturity. If you're not going to use law as a measure of what makes someone okay to date, then what *would* you use? What age do you draw the line at? If you say 18, then you've fallen back on the same argument, just for the laws of a different country. If you say that there's some arbitrary number that makes the specific gap unhealthy, then you'll be over-reducing the issue to semantics. The argument about the legal age in japan iis one that deserves to be contested properly, because it's that *exact* law that influences how people view persons above and below that age. Here in the US, college students who, by all definitions, are just months away from high school students and are still notably far from being fully matured both physically and mentally, get sexualized and nobody bats an eye. They get treated as adults within sexual spaces despite not really being adults by any measure other than the legal one. Would it be so bad if Joker was 18 and a day, or 17 and 364 days? How far back are you willing to stretch that line? Likewise, Kawakami recognizes the inherent taboo and imbalance involved with a teacher dating her student - but the specific circumstances surrounding this relationship, as well as the society that both of them grew up in and live in, provide context that changes how abusive this kind of relationship is. You also have to consider the supernatural side of this - there's a power imbalance in this student/teacher relationship, and Joker has almost all of it. We have to consider the very real possibility that he's not a normal individual - he possesses the ability to literally change his core personality at will, signed a binding deal with the devil (implying at least in this universe, that he has the ability to consent) and has several super powers, as well as Kawakami's Mementos questline that he resolves for her places him in an insane position of power over here (especially since she has no idea how it's done or if it can be reversed.)

It's... sad that 99% of the comments here are not only echoing the exact same arguments you listed, but are doing so with their whole chest. That said, when I clicked on this and saw "Persona 5 has a grooming problem", I was wondering if you were going to touch on a very strangely ignored adult confidant when talking about grooming: Maruki. He does not have an explicitly romantic confidant with Joker, but it is weirdly intimate and disturbing upon a second run when you know the entire time that Maruki knows what Joker/the PT are, and is angling to get what he wants from them. In 3rd sem, that week you spend at the beginning just watching your friends in the "perfect" reality comes at the tail end of Maruki insisting you "see the real world" and it's very isolating. All you can do is watch your friends be happy and then go to bed, basically. That reeks of a depressive spiral for Joker to me, similar to how you can't do anything when Morgana is gone in the Okumura arc, and when you get to the end and if you pick the perfect reality... suddenly your friends have time for you again. That tells me the isolation was on purpose, and that's... like, manipulation, isolation, lovebombing, every single time Maruki calls you "mature", overly friendly interactions outside of school... as you said, grooming doesn't have to include intimacy.

Glad to see a level-headed take on how weird it is that a game who's first arc centered around an antagonist abusing and conversing his students into physical and sexual acts, would also feature an romance route where a teacher can date you, a student, it's hypocrisy at its finest. And while I don't agree with some of the more extreme takes that this optional confidant scenario makes Kawakami *just* as bad as Kamoshida given everything he's done and the sheer list of people he's hurt especially given the context of Kawakami's sympathetic circumstances, at the most crucial, innate part of it, both situations are grooming, full stop. I'm glad you are able to do boldly say that too. Never understood why people would unironically say they're envious of boys getting hit on by their teachers, that shits just creepy and it's even more ironic given the let's just say, huge amount of manufacturer outrage of what these type of people would be saying against these type of unfortunate abuses of power to, _other_ demographics of people. But hey, what's a Persona game without a little bit of completely contradicting themes and messenges;)

My take on that is: she is not real lol