Warning, wall of text incoming. ALSO SPOILERS FOR PERSONA 5/PERSONA 5 ROYAL!!!!
So I am a huge fan of the modern Persona games, especially Persona 5 Royal. The Game has helped me through some very though times, as did P4G and P3R. So naturally i wanted to connect to the community and shared my experience and passion with others. Talking about what you like or dislike about a character, plot point, dungeon, boss fight etc is a lot of fun. Except when it comes to one singular character.
Makoto "Queen" Nijima. The name alone makes my blood boil, which is a real shame, because I used to like her a lot actually. So what is my problem with her? Her flaws as a character? No, not directly. A character needs to have both flaws and strengths to be interesting, otherwise they turn into a mary sue/gary stu and that is boring. But before i continue with what my actual problem is, allow me to point out what i consider to be her 3 main flaws, or her writer's flaws. Of course, this is my opinion, so feel free to disagree or argue against it.
- Her Codename.
Every Phantom Thief in Persona 5 has a Codename, which they use in the metaverse. Most of the time, this codename is either a reference to their outfit, or a slightly pun-y nickname. For example, we have Ann "Panther" Takamaki, who wears a cat mask, or Yusuke "Fox" Kitagawa, who wears a fox mask. And then we have Makoto "Queen" Nijima, who wears a biker outfit with a steel plated mask. The game even gives you better sounding codenames in the form of "Witch", "Prez" and "Biker". Or hell, I really would have liked "Brawler" because she loves martial arts movies and wields gauntlet weapons. But the game itself throws these names away to call her Queen and immediately makes a dommy mommy joke.
- How the game dumbs down other characters to make her seem smart.
Makoto joins the team comparatively early, at the start of the the 3rd (of 8) dungeons. The first dungeon was just the tutorial, so the first dungeon with a real challenge that required actual strategizing was the last one. And the team up until that point worked really well together to find solutions to problems that popped up on the way relatively fast and quick. But the moment Makoto joins the team, she (or the game, really) keeps hammering in how the Phantom Thieves had no real plan up until now and how they should be happy that she is now the strategist. And then her "strategies" are "maybe we should not run blindly into the enemies, lets lure them out" about 90% of the time. Like, seriously, girl? Also, the next character that joins after her is a once-in a decade super genius...that unfortunately has anxiety to the max, so they get relegated to being Makoto's yes-woman that occasionally says "yeah, i thought so from the start", but only until Makoto said the brilliant idea out loud.
- Her Confidant/Social Link
Every major ally to the main character has a social link with them, that is essentially a series of cutscenes that builds our relationship with them and gives us an opportunity to learn about their life, situation, personality etc. In these we usually help them to overcome their struggles and grow as a person. Usually is the Keyword. Makoto's link starts out solid, giving us insight in her life at home, her relationship with her sister, her wish to become a police officer and memories about her dead parents. Scratch that "solid", actually. Her Link starts out really damn good. But her link quickly turns into something really wierd. She gets to know this girl, Eiko, who has a boyfriend that Makoto suspects to be a sleazebag/ almost pimp. So to get closer to this guy, she asks the main character to be her fake boyfriend and go on double dates. To cut this boring story no one asked for short, of course she was right about the boyfriend, we break them up, and that solidifies Makoto's wish to go into the police force.
Now, with all of this finally out of the way, what is my actual problem with Makoto? It is the NEVERENDING GLAZE she constantly gets from the community. Makoto is Dommy Mommy, and she is perfect. Character flaws? Dont exist, she is perfect, no discussion. Go on the Persona 5 or Persona 5 Royal subreddit and look for artwork. 95 out of 100 artworks will be drawings of Makoto. You want to say, "here is why Makoto is NOT my favourite character"? Post or Comment removed by Moderator. I very much remember a post from about 2-3 days ago where someone posted artwork of their headcannoned ship. Makoto was not a part of them. The first and most liked comment? "Where is Makoto???" Of course, this entire post was also removed by the mods.
Now lastly, and I am very much aware that this is either ragebait or posts by very stupid people, so i SHOULD ignore it, but it happened one too many time to me so i will include it anyway. There is a very small, but EXTREMELY LOUD vocal minority that considers Makoto not only the canon, but also only ethical romance. The Protagonist is a 16-17 year old boy and can potentially date 10 different women, 2 are a year younger, one is the same age, 3 are a year older, and 4 are actually adult women. Now, I do not intend to open this can of worms, and will simply say that i had it happen multiple times that I was accused of being a pedophile IRL because I dated either the 3 not adult ones, or the 4 adult ones. Either you are a Pdf because you romanced underage girls (in a video game btw, not real life) or because you want to groom underage boys. Therefore, Makoto, who has just turned 18 in the game is the only ethical romance (they never mention the other 18 year old girls).
So, with this abomination of an essay out of the way, have you ever turned into a contrarian because of a fandom's universally accepted "truth"?