User:Gakon5/Kanji Tatsumi

Kanji Tatsumi (巽 完二) is a fictional character in the universe of the role-playing video game Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4. He is known for being one of the few explicitly gay characters in video games.

Character design
Kanji is a first-year student at Yasogami High School. He is characterized as a delinquent who rarely attends school, only coming due to the school's "Mandatory Attendance Policy." Script editor Nich Maragos called him "abrasive, short-tempered, and violent". He is popularly rumored to be a member of a biker gang at school. However, Kanji himself says that this isn't true, and rather, he "beat the shit out of those leathered-up pansies." Kanji's parents run a textile shop in Inaba, which created in him an interest in sewing. His hobbies caused him to become ostracized by society; fearing rejection, he describes himself as "a total pansy who tries to make everyone hate me." Kanji is the fourth character to join the player's party. In combat, he can summon the Persona Take-Mikazuchi, a large, mechanical humanoid with a skeletal pattern covering its body. Its appearance has been compared to that of Skullomania from the Street Fighter EX series. Kanji specializes in physical attacks and electricity-based magic.

In Persona 4, an unknown serial killer is kidnapping people and throwing them inside television screens, transporting them to an alternate reality called the Midnight Channel. Kanji is the fourth victim to be trapped inside the TV, and the second to be rescued by the Investigation Team, a band of high-schoolers who know of this other world and are rescuing those who are kidnapped in an attempt to find the killer. Victims in the TV world encounter "Shadow" versions of themselves, which expose hidden sides of their personality. Kanji's Shadow is a near-nude version of himself living inside a sauna, the game's second dungeon. It reveals to the game's characters that Kanji fears girls and has a preference for men. When Kanji rejects what his Shadow says, it goes into a rage, requiring the other characters to defeat it in battle. After the fight, Kanji accepts his Shadow as himself, causing it to transform into the Persona Take-Mikazuchi. He later joins the Investigation team as a fighter and to help the group catch the killer.

Developer Yu Namba has said that Kanji's sexual orientation was left ambiguous, allowing the player to decide if he is or is not gay. "What matters is that Kanji's other self cries out, 'Accept me for who I am!' I think it's a powerful message which many, if not all of us can relate to." Kanji's Shadow self was designed as a parody of gay stereotypes. Its "flamboyant" personality stems from the idea that every character's Shadow self is acting as a television personality. Nich Maragos suspects that this aspect of the character may offend some players, but considers the real Kanji "anything but stereotypical" in contrast. Kanji's dialogue was "toned down" after its initial writing. His lines include most of the game's profanity, but the English localization team removed instances of the word "fuck" from the script. Maragos said that the inclusion "felt wrong for the Persona series".

Appearances
The player first encounters Kanji when he is the subject of a news team's coverage of biker gangs in Inaba. An image of him then appears on the Midnight Channel, indicating he is the next to be kidnapped. The Investigation Team begins to spy on him, finding him meeting with a boy his age named Naoto. Depite the team's efforts, Kanji is reported missing days latter. After he is rescued from the TV world, he joins the Investigation Team as a fighter. The player later discovers that Naoto, who was investigating the murders, is actually female, disguising herself as a male to work as a detective. Other characters occasionally taunt Kanji about his sexuality or his attraction to Naoto.

Within the social simulation elements of Persona 4, the player's character is able to spend time with Kanji by advancing his Social Link, which is represented by the Emperor Arcanum. The player hears rumors that Kanji is leading a gang of bullies within Yasogami High. When the Protagonist confronts Kanji on this, he insists the rumors aren't true.

Reception
Samantha Xu wrote in an editorial for Gamasutra that Kanji is one of the first game characters "to confront his sexual identity in an engaging and meaningful manner." Brenda Brathwaite, author of Sex in Video Games, said it would have been "amazing" if the game had made a definite statement on his sexuality, and that the opportunity to control a gay character in a video game would have been "a big deal." Nonetheless, she was "thrilled" at his inclusion in Persona 4. In her editorial, Xu speculates if more characters "as complex and socially relevant" as Kanji would appear in games. She believes that "ESRB ratings, a risk-averse market, and lack of diversity in the developer pool" can be attributed to the "slow social evolution of games."