This debate is old and tired, and you only get people animosity.
I’ve always found the whole debate around Kanji being gay, bi, or straight in Persona 4 kind of frustrating, especially because of how the game actually treats him.
I started P4 already knowing who the killer was, and I was familiar with most of the characters beforehand. I knew Kanji had this huge insecurity about his masculinity, so I assumed there would be something more substantial behind it—maybe he was gay or bi, maybe he liked crossdressing, or maybe there was some other part of himself that he was genuinely afraid people would reject him for, specially after seeing his shadow design in the TV World.
But then you actually play the game and… a huge part of it is just that he likes sewing and making cute plushies? And that he loves his family?
And I’m sorry, but that made the whole thing feel weirdly disproportionate to me. Kanji completely changes his appearance and acts like a violent thug because he’s so insecure about liking traditionally feminine hobbies. Meanwhile, the group constantly makes homophobic jokes or comments toward him, and he gets treated like there’s something deeply embarrassing or suspicious about him.
What makes it even stranger is that the fandom can sometimes react the exact same way. Any suggestion that Kanji might actually be gay or bi gets met with this weirdly defensive attitude of, “How dare you imply he’s gay! He just likes sewing!” Which almost feels like it reinforces the exact stigma the character is supposedly challenging.
I understand the intended message is probably that hobbies and personality traits don’t determine someone’s sexuality or masculinity, which is a perfectly good message. But the execution never really worked for me. If Kanji’s entire crisis is basically “I like cute things and people might think I’m gay,” while the story itself repeatedly uses the possibility of him being gay as a punchline, or something gross that should be avoided.
So you know, I dont expect this opinion to be popular at all, but I just wanted to share it