For me, it's the disdain for the voice actor because Yuri Lowenthal has an iconic voice that he appears too often in games, like Troy Baker. Not hating them as people, but I think game devs voice directors have a bias of using the same actors over and over.
@@sincalo Im not against them getting work. It does get annoying that most games I happen to like have specific actors who over saturate some games and mediums. At least other actors are able to pitch their voices to sound differently. All Yuri does is sound excited or generic young anime character. Eventually it makes various characters blur together to the point Yuri is playing himself instead of characters.
I always thought that Yosuke was a great character, but one thing I don't see people mention is that Yosuke steps up big time towards the Endgame of P4 sorta becoming a de facto leader of the investigation team, and honestly I think that even though a lot of people show parallels between Yu and Adachi, I think on a base level the dichotomy between Yosuke and Adachi works even better because they both started the same way but took completely different paths and to a large extent have the same insecurities. Both are treated like buttmonkeys, both hate living in a small town, both feel like their workplace defines them more than they define themselves (Junes and The Police Station), both are completely average and resent that, and both also get constant rejection from women. While people usually make the connection that "Adachi is what Yu would be without friends", I think the reality is that Adachi is what Yosuke would be without friends to keep him level and without facing himself and that's why I think aside from all of Yosuke's personal growth in the Social Link he makes a TRUE perfect foil to the games' villain, and sort of proves his cynicism wrong.
I never thought about it this way but you're totally right. Yosuke and Adachi really do start out with almost identical feelings towards the boring place they're stuck in and resenting the shitty cards "life" dealt them, and you can really notice this with early Yosuke being genuinely excited about the murders because "finally something interesting!" Yosuke having guilt about these feelings and working towards bettering himself as a person is really what separates him from Adachi, who indulges in the resentment. Really good analysis!
Old Maid fun fact Yosuke is the main character in the manga, not Yu. He gets the social link with his crush brother instead of Yu. Yu is actually in the dungeon while Yosuke is talking to him. I really say you should read the manga cause Yosuke is the real protagonist of P4, they make Yosuke the true protagonist in P4 arena 1 since he has the closest relationship with Labrys
This!!! I always think that Yosuke and Adachi are so similar with each other, thank you for pointing that out! I think that Yosuke/Adachi parallel is stronger compared to Yu/Adachi parallel
Ah yes, Brosuke. He's the best "Best Friend" character in the Persona series imo. Junpei has pretty great character arc in the course of his involvement in the games he's been in and Ryuji is pretty good too. But Yosuke just is a genuinely nice funny guy, it's unfortunate that most people just disregard him as the comic relief.
Yeah I feel the same way, I thought not enough focus was put on moments like the one I higglighted. His moments of gentleness, introspection. He's really a sold friend and good guy
Everytime someone calls Yosuke annoying or perverted or something, I just kinda laugh inside, because Yosuke is so much more than that and they have NO idea.
It's something I see with a lot of characters from parts of the persona fanbase unfortunately. There are just these particular characters groups decide to hate in games thry otherwise love and act as if there's nothing redeemable when in all actuality they are normally still great peopld with plenty of things to connect to and learn from. Ryuji gets similar treatment imo
@@HidinginPublic I persona-lly think that they did Ryuji really wrong in p5. He lost what made him a good character and is just used as comic relief. He's amazing, but he's just incorrectly used in the story and unlike Yosuke, he doesn't get better at the end of the game.
Ive never liked the “bro” persona characters. Ryuji, Junpei, and Yosuke were all my least favorite cast members in their respective games, not because theyre bad people, they just annoy me. Ryuji is my favorite of the three though.
I've always loved Yosuke. He's the event planner of the group (getting motorcycle licenses, going to the beach, etc), lets Teddie live at his house, buys people food, and really does quite a bit of strategizing in the TV world but people brush him off or just laugh at him. It makes me sad but I love that he still pulls through and is still a nice and lovable guy. Anyway, great video on a great character!!
XavetheDay 25 Yeah that is the initial reason why I had liked him too, then I look a little more into his character to see that he is amazing in a lot of other ways as well
Atlus really went HARD in making Yosuke a relatable character. He's like someone each and every one of us knows, has known or could know, as well as someone many (me included) can see themselves in. This is a good one, this video. Thanks for appreciating they boy.
I'm glad you like him and thanks for supporting the video. Still I think people give yosuke an unfair shot despite me agreeing with your comment. People just like to rag on him it seems
I always saw Yosuke as the "Sokka" of P4. He's not the most important character in the room most of the time, he's used for comic relief and goofy antics, and he's pretty average compared to the others, something he gets self-conscious about and tries to change. But he's also one of the guys who makes connections in the investigation more than others. He tries to make plans and can lead the others in your absence.
When I play Persona 4 I always have more the feeling that Yu and Yosuke are the leaders of the investigation team, sure Yu helps to keep the group together and leads them during fights but outside of that Yosuke is really the one who plans stuff like meet ups etc (Also counting the trips they all take)
Realized after upload that I say Yu Namakura instead of Yu Narukami. I hope it doesn't go too far in the way of ruining your enjoyment. I hope everyone overall enjoys this more personal video. If you want to Shoot me a message in the DMs, help me spread this video or anything else here's my twitter: twitter.com/Hiding_n_Public Hope everyone has a good day, and I hope to see you all again soon!
I work with a guy like Yosuke, especially when it comes to wanting respect. He's not obnoxious, but it's clear he struggles with feeling inferior at times and tries to be the guy people listen to and rely on. Even slight miscommunication can make him feel insulted. One time a customer was flirting with his girl at the cash register and instead of allowing her to tell him she's taken and not interested he honestly considered attacking the guy. When I finally talked to him about his behavior, he slowly admitted he was always worried about maintaining his masculinity. He doesn't want to appear weak or vulnerable so he acts out instead, kinda like Kanji too. He complained that he was never taken seriously which is why he tries so hard to command respect with the others. He's getting better now though.
Persona 4 Arena comic. I’m gonna say only this to you, Yosuke is actually the canon winner there and it’s an amazing comic that makes you appreciate him so much. Really hated Ultimax for not having the balls to continue that one.
@@nightwish1453 I dunno about the P4 adaptation, but P4A stories have those three be really generic and Yosuke's one being really deep and well written. Also, ngl, those three gets way too much focus usually.
@@CrowMercury fair however in the p4 manga they just do some of them dirty like having naoto not being in the heaven dungeon for some reason or Rise's social link kind of butchered
He was the brains of the entire investigation team until Naoto showed up and everyone was like "Wow Naoto you are so smart and cool" even though she pretty much just made the same deductions that Yosuke would.
I don't know why, but P4 is way more personal and relatable, than P5. Sure P5 story is more interesting and all, but it just doesn't carry the same "bonding with your virtual characters" feeling to it, which in my opinion makes these Persona's so special.
@@HidinginPublic I think the setting plays into how these characters portray themselves to you as a player. In P4 small town it feels like everyone knows about everyone at all times, that's why when the characters introduce themselves they feel kind of familiar and home like, plus in your case you were literally born and raised in a small town. In P5 big city metropolis setting kind of alienates a lot of characters from you. It's more like a reflection of a city struggles rather than the characters. But I guess same could be said about other game too. So all in all, setting captures or maybe presents how the characters will act even before you start interacting with them. That's why, I think, small town people from Persona 4 seemed more relatable and sociable. In simple terms they're just way friendlier.
P3 is even better in this regard, at least as far as the main characters go. Some of the minor Social Links aren't done quite as well as ones in later games, but the main characters' Social Links are phenomenal in P3, especially toward the endgame.
Yosuke has always been an intriguing character to me. When I first started P4, I actually didn't understand his conflict at all, differently from Chie and Yukiko, which I instantly related to and became my favorite characters in the game, but even though I didn't liked his conflict that much, his personality and everything else about him was just so good that I ended up liking him. Now that I actually understand what was his conflict, I feel like he is even better than I ever could imagine, thanks for the video dude!
I actually think my feelings are the same. I instantly saw much more clearly Yukiko and Chie's conflict, but yeah i'm glad my video on yosuke could maybe open up a nice perspective
I will be real here and hate me if you want to but we really were robbed of the Yosuke love route. Out of all the characters, and they're great I will not hold you, Yosuke is the one that resonated with me the most and he seems to be the closest person in a fictional game that I could call a "friend". The guy really doesn't deserve to be shit on because in a lot of ways we can see part of ourselves in Yosuke one way or another. That's what made his appeal so worth for me. I just thought I'd share because I love this young man so much.
I started off not liking Yosuke, but he really grew on me with his incredible character development, and ended up being one of my favorite fictional characters.
I love yosuke, he was always my favorite character in persona 4 because he was so relatable and real. He was so well written in his social link and he felt like an actual person to me. Sure, he had his moments of annoyance once or twice but hey, we all are. He is supposed to be human, he makes mistakes, and that's why I love him. He seems like a real friend.
Yosuke is such an incredible character and people see him as comic relief. He is funny, relatable, and a good character. Very underrated and it makes me sad honestly. Great video, man. Has good points :)
Thank you so much for this video, Yosuke is my favourite Persona character. There's so much more to him than being the comic relief, he's such an amazing friend to the protagonist and he cares for the people close to him.
I didn't play P4 myself (because no PS2 and when I found out about the Persona series I didn't live with my parents anymore who have our PS3), but I did watch a playthrough of P4 and watched the anime version. As soon as Yosuke's Shadow appeared I realized that I was almost exactly like it. It really helped me ground myself and look at how to improve myself as a person. I'm not quite there yet, but it has definitely helped me becoming a better version of myself.
yosuke is easily one of the best characters in all of persona (atleast counting 3 and 4 since i only played those 2 xd) why? to me, he feels the most real of all characters in persona 3 and 4, because of his emotions and how he show them. let me give you an example *SPOILER ALERT* YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED (later i will stop spoiling, if you want to keep reading) at the end of the game, when everyone in the investigation team face adachi, while all the team keeps his character well difined and act like you would expect, yosuke just say fuck it and explodes, he yells and curses, something REALLY unexpected seeing how his character is. *SPOILER ENDS* while yosuke can be a really cool dude, that you see that he is happy and doesn't care that much about that stuff, seeing him really exploding like that is really unexpected. the same when he's in the headquarters discussing about the murder cases, in one second can go from comic relief, to a really serius and smart character. what do i want to get with all of this? HE IS LIKE SOMEONE REAL, no real person has 1 personality and stick with that in his whole life, you can be completely different depending the situation, and that's what make yosuke really feel alive for me (sorry for the bad writing and misspels, i'm still learning english so yeah... sorry if it's too hard to read xd)
Yosuke is one of my favorite characters in the persona series, the right hand man. He acts all cool but you can tell he cares and just needs people he can trust and rely on (｡>﹏
This is a great video. Yosuke appreciation squad up in these comments. Unfortunately I still do not know how to express why I love this man so much. He's just amazing and one of the big reasons why P4 is my favorite installment in the series.
I always nice to see someone who gives Yosuke the proper respect and appreciation. He will always be my favorite because of who he is. Even some of the little things in his SC are something I can relate to. He has such a good Personality and Social link- even if he is a Romance Cut- Good job on the video dude keep it up!
I am 2 yrs late to this but I only JUST played P4G. I love Yosuke. He pretty much leads the team in terms of theories and makes them focus on the murders. But he also knows that having fun is important too. After Teddie starts to stay with him, he transitions into the "mom/dad" friend. (At least in my eyes). I love that his story is learning to accept his resentment, but instead of letting it rule him, he uses it to move forward.
So I'm gay. I swear that's important here. The Persona Q games are real fun games, but something I hate about them is, because they're about the heroes being dragged into these crossover situations before their big finale, our friends don't have the development and growth we saw in the original games. This coupled by the fact that they have to write them all a bit shallowly because it's just so many characters (although I personally don't see that as a reason to make Akihiko a protein freak and nothing else?) means that they're very shallow depictions of our heroes. Yosuke in Persona Q is very grating (I have not played PQ2 yet, I hope it's not as bad in that game). His gay jokes on Kanji are made so often that I lost the humor about partway through the game and just felt like he was straight up picking on the guy for his shadow (as if he and all his friends don't also have terrible hidden traumas and negative emotions). I'm not against gay jokes because when they're done just enough they're pretty damned funny. Kanji acting as bait for the FOE in the festival area was great. But Yosuke in Persona Q is just Yosuke during the camping trip, where he makes a big deal about a junior classmate sleeping in the same tent as he and Yu because "are you gonna touch us in bed?" (You can see why I was frazzled more and more as Kanji jokes just continued on and on in that game. It's Yosuke from the camping trip, slowly normalizing the teasing of his junior classmate and no one talks about it or says anything.) As if that's not the rudest thing you can tell someone, let alone your JUNIOR who you clearly saw has a lot of societal pressure against him and struggles with striking a balance between being gentle and being strong (in other words, holding both and being a real man). It's easy, of course. Kanji is tall, he's very buff, his voice is deeper than other people in his grade, so Yosuke at that point of his maturity growth would not see him as the junior he really was. Which is BS, no matter how 'big' someone may look, age isn't just a number. Kanji's social link shows him achieving his sought-after balance at the end, becoming openly proud of his crafts, pushing the image that the police department had been unconsciously/consciously throwing on him away, and gaining new-found balance in his life, being able to be the man that society, his friends, his darling mother, and he himself had always needed. Yosuke's social link was rumored to end up with him confessing his love for the protagonist, but they scrapped that so I'm also going to say that that doesn't matter. Yosuke is *straight as an arrow* and he loved and mourned for his dead friend/one-sided-love-interest. But in his social link he ends up growing from the bratty kid who's from the city and is bored because the backwater town of Inaba is boring, and he becomes a mature, fun young man who can appreciate the world around him, whatever it's state of 'sophistication'. Kanji gains the eyes needed to look at the nuances inside himself and appreciate them. Yosuke gains the eyes needed to look at the nuances of the world and appreciate it. And I see Yosuke's immaturity as what drives a LOT of his early interactions with big ol' Kanji. 'Tough guy, who's scary but we're clearly seeing him doing something gentle?' "Weirdo." 'His TV World is a bathhouse with TONS of heavy homoerotic shadows?' "Lol ewww I'm not even going to attempt to figure out what the deal with that is unless everyone else is trying to, I guess. " 'After overcoming his shadow and showing that no matter his sexuality, Kanji is deeply afraid of rejection and social isolation, and he's placed with us in the camping trip?' "Uh, yo man I don't swing that way don't touch me" (even though Kanji has never expressed interest in you, you big dolt). You'll notice that by the end of Persona 4 and P4Golden, Yosuke doesn't make jokes that tap or straight up slap around the topic of Kanji's sexuality. He teases him because he teases everyone, but you can tell they've both gotten over their personal hang-ups and are able to relate to each other as more mature people. Yosuke Hanamura is a "rich" city boy who fell in love with a store employee, was shocked at her murder, had to listen to the echoes of her distaste for him (in a world that ensures he's hearing the truth), and began an adventure to avenge her killer, all while learning to get over the change in scenery and setting caused by his father moving him to Inaba. He's basically a ticking time bomb of "I'm going to say something stupid to somebody", but he's not a jerk, or at least he grows from that. He's a kind enough boy that he would try to find justice for a dead girl who not only never showed him real affection when she was alive, but who also secretly wished she could smack him around with a spiked bat for running her parents out of business. There was almost nothing to stop Yosuke from trying to make himself feel better about his 'crummy' situation by picking on Kanji, but because everyone keeps growing up in Persona 4, he quickly realizes that there are more important things than whether or not Kanji will end up with a man or a woman when he's older. Yosuke, like everyone else, pushes past any preconceived notions about all his teammates and works together with them as a team, echoing the sentiment that they really see everyone as more than their shadows (it's just that we see his struggles with preconceived notions about Kanji the most, in fact everyone except maybe Yu has preconceived notions about Kanji that he dispels like the champ he is). And in the end, because of this willingness to bring each other up, spurred on by Yu helping everyone to overcome some of their personal issues (because he's the Protagonist come on), they get a well-deserved victory and a commendation from Japan's own Mother Goddess. Now, I'm obviously not saying anything Yosuke said about Kanji being weird is justified. It was always Yosuke acting like a fool and, no matter what the situation, it was stupid. But unlike Persona Q, which has the characters' personal growth stunted until the final act (and thus we get so many "ewww kanji"s that Yosuke is no longer sympathetic and Kanji looks like a punching bag), P4 and P4Golden have Yosuke Hanamura overcome his stupidity. They have Yosuke act like his silly self, but with more and more character to back that up. He's no longer just the dummy who rolled into a trashcan. He's the guy who will roll into a trash can and support all his friends no matter what. Yosuke Hanamura grew up in P4 and P4G. And that is *such a wonderful thing.* Seeing emotionally stunted people, seeing emotionally-compromised young men overcome their inner worries and difficulties to gain the confidence needed to walk through life, is all *such a wonderful thing.* And that's what I love about the Persona Series. All the characters start out imperfect in some way, but they do indeed grow up. And you grow up too, as you realize the importance of righting the wrongs they face, and protecting the people they love.
Lesbian here (although I prefer to dress masculine and refer to myself as gay) I feel pretty much the exact same way. I loved Yosuke pretty much from the start, mainly cause I related to him too. Whilst he not my favourite, he's definitely a character I have fond memories of. I also *really* relate to Kanji. Whilst I've been out for a long time now, I really struggled with the idea of love in general. I cried when Kanji said he was just scared of being rejected, cause that's how I felt too. I'm scared shitless of it. It was because of him saying that that it clicked for me. It's cause of that reason that Yosuke's jokes at the beginning really hurt. Every time he said something like that (especially the camping trip) I felt sick. I completely understand where people come from when they point out that aspect of him, but I've never really seen anyone say how he did grow out of it, and matured by the end. Sure there were still a couple of jokes slipped in, but still he learns to understand that that's not the way to go about it. It made me happy at the very least. PQ really crushed that for me. I should probably mention that PQ was actually the game that got me into the series after I heard the music and pretty much jumped down the rabbit hole. It just made all the characters really 1-dimensional until the end. I haven't finished PQ2 yet (in the last labyrinth) but fortunately so far those jokes have definitely been toned down. Couple of poking fun at Kanjis shadow etc but definitely not as much as PQ :)
I just really stop reading when it comes to complaining about gay jokes and etc. Mostly because sexually holds no true significance to the game at anytime
I love Yosuke so much and I feel the need to share that if you don't focus on Yosuke at all and during the dungeon segments where you meet your party members, he struggles to cope with his inner feelings about the town and Saki. And it's very heartbreaking to see how much you neglected him and how he's still trying his best to move forward and save the town with you.
Yosuke gets major respect because spoiler he is the main protagonist in the Persona arena manga and his route through that story is the canon route which is amazing and I’m glad he was giving a strong part.
Yosuke actually really tightened the theme of epistemology in Persona 4. He, like Yu, questions if any relationship is real at the beginning having lost contact with his friends from the city and having people talk behind his back. This is part of why he's so desperate to be liked. Yu's ability to see things from Namatame's perspective (i.e. get past his own truth to understand Namatame's) is what leads him to the ultimate truth of the true end. As a player, it's hard to see this without Yosuke's shadow acting as a foil.
Yousuke is the butt of the jokes and because of that not many appreciate him, I personally like his character, not somebody who I feel connected with on a personal level but what he did for the games message was something very strong.
I came upon this video literally right after I realized that Yosuke was the most smartly written character in the game, and you just reinforced that. Thanks, my guy.
My favorite social link in my favorite persona game (besides maybe Adachi), thanks for your insight you always manage describe the things you love with such authenticity and it gives me a new perspective and things I might know nothing or know a lot about already.
Yosuke always felt like the real protagonist to me. Partly because I don't care about blank slate, silent protagonists, but more importantly it feels like he was always the leader. He was often the one who initiated many scenarios in the game, he was involved in the mystery of the game since the very beginning, and even his moveset in battle feels like the protagonist of a jrpg. In jrpg's, the protagonist usually can do everything so the player can use them for every role and this fits Yosuke because he uses both magic and physical attacks and can buff the party's speed.
Honestly Yosuke is more than just a comic relief character. Prior to Naoto joining the team he was the brains of the group. He was the one coming up with the plans and was one of the founders of said investigation team
People just convinced themselves that he was supposed to be romance option purely based on that voice file in the game As far as I could tell there was no other context to it so people just decided that their suspicion of a romance option was fact
I'm not going to lie; Yosuke was a little bit of a pain in my ass due to his perverted side. But, I can't help but love him a lot. His social link made his character so much likeable; You can see his struggles and those struggles are incredibly relatable to me. I respect the heck outta him for never forgetting and hating Saki Konishi, especially when she left clear that she didn't like Yosuke that much, that's LOYALTY in the purest meaning of the word. I rushed to complete his SL and I loved it a lot, and I find it a little bit unfair watching the way the game treated him like he's always a joke. There's a special line from his social link that made me love Yosuke even more, I think it went something like...: "Just being born, living your life... Before you know it, you're already special to someone." Call me sensitive or weak but that line made me cry, cry a lot, cry like I never cried before. And I'm sorry for putting a little bit of my life here but that line hit me like a punch because I've been struggling with anxiety and all that stuff. I really love Yosuke Hanamura. I really do. And I'm glad I'm seeing people like OP appreciating his character too. :")
Yosuke is Yu's truest friend. When Yu is sad about Nanako's death, Yosuke comes back after everyone leaves to give Yu a shoulder to cry on. Yosuke is the best party member in P4.
This popped up in my recommended, and so far I’m 20 hours my persona 4 Golden play through. I love your anime vids and It’s crazy that you made one of these and I missed it.
Yosuke is consistently o e of the best written characters in Persona imo. Especially throughout the canon spinoffs where he continues to grow, while other characters are just flanderized caricatures of their original character. Yosuke has a lot of nuance to him that I find people tend to miss a lot, which is a shame.
That's what make these games great, the cast are likable and relatable. It's good to have these kind of things to relate to sometimes the people we know aren't always enough to feel the same way we do.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the entire reason Yosuke accepted and let go of the hurt from Saki's "true feelings" about him being a pain in her ass because of the fact they weren't actually her true feelings? I could swear they touched on that in-game, that what they were hearing in Konishi Liquors was Saki's shadow and not the real Saki, since she was dead, her shadow had won. I mean, even if it wasn't talked about in-game, wouldn't that stand to reason anyway? Like, the shadows all talked about the negative aspects of what people were thinking and feeling, and didn't take into account how largely those feelings played into the whole of the person- they were only parts of the big picture. I guess what I'm saying is that Saki's whole thing was probably that her shadow was saying those things about her feelings in general, maybe not just the Yosuke part, and even though she knew deep down she felt that way, she also did genuinely like Yosuke, at least as a person, maybe not a love interest, and her rejection of those feelings were what drove her shadow berserk. Idk, maybe I'm wrong, but that was always how I looked at that situation.
The Shadow selves also tend to exaggerate those dark feelings, so they can't even really be considered the "truth" anymore. Whether or not Saki hated Yosuke is completely up in the air, because we never heard from Saki herself how she felt about him - just her Shadow, and Shadows are unreliable narrators.
A little late to this but I believe in rank 7 of Yosukes SL, the girls get mad at him for favoring Saki and say that Saki hated him. Obviously that isn’t definitive proof but I feel there was some sort of dislike there for those girls to say that to him. Furthermore I don’t necessarily believe that the voice was her shadow, since in Yukiko’s castle, we have a similar thing with her voice talking about her name and how Chie is always strong to protect her and whatnot. In both instances we don’t see the shadow nor do they seem happy to reveal those thoughts. Recall that the shadows were always laughing, and laid back. Both Saki and Yukikos voices weren’t, which I believe could be implying that they were actual thoughts without the shadows influence. But I could be completely wrong.
I haven’t played Persona 5 yet but Yosuke is a bro through and though. Junpei is awesome but I can’t call him a best friend like I can call Yosuke a best friend. Besides when it came down to the investigation team it was really Yu, Naoto, and Yosuke that was doing any real critical thinking when trying to figure out who the culprit was. People don’t give Brosuke enough credit just like the girls in Persona 4 don’t give him enough credit
I love his charater, i first played p4 in 2015 and i had allot of mental issues, depression, soxial anxiety, suicidal tougths and playing persona made me happy,the persona series gave my life meaning and becasue i had no friends i got emotionally atached to All the charaters, but Yousuke was special, he reminded me of an ex friend who i usted to play allot of videogames with, to this day i still respect p4. As of today i still have no friends and i still have troubles with my past and depression but from time to time i still go back to P3 , P4 and P5, these games gave me an escape, and friends.
honestly, I am really mad they removed him as a romance route, I really liked him out of the main cast, maybe besides Kanji or Naoto, but he was still by far my favorite out of all of them and TBH, the unused lines are really adorable
Thank you for this video!! Some of the comments I find regarding Yosuke are just slanderous to his character. It's like people don't understand or overlooked his nature. Personally, I believe his character is sort of complex which is why people tend to regard him as a bad character sometimes. Yosuke is not just a simple joke character, he has flaws, he messes up, blithely unmindful on some occasions, but they are what made him so real and likeable, he develops as a character, seeing his arc grows and matures throughout the story. Besides, he has done more goods to make up for the bads. Yosuke is such a brother of a character as well, he has always been there for Narukami in bad situations, and so has Narukami. Moreover, other than being a funny comic relief, he is really smart, not academically, and was one of the brains in solving the murder cases. I could write for hours why Yosuke is such a exceptionally well written character, Brosuke forever.
I am about 6 months late. Lol. I actually just played the game recently (then watched the anime lol). I really love Yosuke. For some reason he's the only character I always have in my party. Well at first it was because I think the way he summons his persona looks cool lol. But then I kinda grew attached to him. He is a nice guy and a good friend. I always thought that while Yu is the leader, he is the one who organizes things from behind the scenes making sure everything goes smoothly. He lets teddie stay at his home and gave him a cellphone. Whenever Yu and the rest needs something wih just one call he provides it when he can (e.g. that bday party in the Tower Social link). Basically without him the group wouldn't function at all. So I was surprised when some people dismisses him as a mere comic relief of a character. Also, I actually like Persona 4 animation's take on his friendship with Yu. In the episode where nanako died, the anime didn't revive her immediately. Yu bid the group farewell after confronting Nametame. Yosuke felt something was weird as Yu assures everyone he'll be okay and he'll see them tomorrow. So yosuke urged everyone to go home. When everyone left, the reality of nanako's death caught up to Yu and he started tearing up under the snow (he and nanako promised to build a snowman in winter). Yosuke returned and Yu seeing him started to tell him his feelings of uneasiness and doubt if what he did was the correct thing to do (pertaining to the choice of letting nametame live and listen to his story). Then he broke down while leaning on yosuke's shoulder. Which is paralleled to what you can do in the game in yosuke's social link when he finally broke down because of saki's death. If you pick the option to hug him he cries full out. Aside from this moment, the anime also took great lengths to actually show that Yu and Yosuke got along because of the same humor that they have making their friendship more believable. Not to mention in the final boss fight in the anime, yosuke's persona was the first one to experience metamorphosis and was the one who saved Yu from being consumed by that Fog God Eyeball boss lol. Anyway, I just like him as a character. Though I kinda wished he had more interaction with naoki konishi (hanged man social link), that would be very interesting to see. In the game there was only one scene I think they interacted and I was like "I want more." Lol.
Stellar video on one of my favorite games and favorite characters, I'm at work or else id leave a better comment but thank you for your content as always my dood. Take care
Just recently found your channel and I gotta sincerely say,thank you so much for the content you make, I find it so interesting and full of substance how you ramble on about all kinds of topics in entertainment media, and some of your more personal parts have made me really question myself,my purpose and other things in life to see a change.
Coming to this after your analysis of persona 5’s musical motifs you can see at roughly 9:40 the same note group from swear to my bones and our beginning
I know one day you’ll grow so big that you won’t be able to reply or read all the comments, or you may lose passion for TH-cam. I just want to tell you that what you do is very unique, special, and many people love it and will grow to love it. You do have an impact on this community and it’s really nice you read most comments. So thank you, even if one day you may not, you’re very in touch with the community.
Well that means a lot, I'm happy you think so much of me, but please have some more faith in me that I won't lose my passion. I don't plan to anytime soon. :) I know in the future if I got bigger and people started saying "wow hiding is a shill" or something that would kill me inside. I'll always make stuff on things I love, popular and not.
I legit stopped watching a streamers first playthrough of P4G just because he shitted on Yosuke so much when his grating sides show up in the main story, and refuses to do his SL. It's still rank 2 at October! I get that Yosuke has sides to him that is distasteful, but y'know what? He's a teen and teens are dumb, but by the end he bettered himself and I'm just more feeling disappointed that his story will forever be unknown to the streamer as he bluntly states 'any attempt at convincing regarding Yosuke will be ignored'. Good to see not everyone hates him, and can agree that he has flaws. Like any other human being.
What I think people forget about Persona 4, and what you capture so well here is that these characters are meant to be actual friends and people. Sometimes your friend will do some dumb shit or say some dumb shit, but at the end of the day you stick with them because they're your friend. Yosuke,, in my opinion, was not only one of the most relatable characters in P4, but also the most realistic and well written. I personally also related to him a shit ton, especially with his outlook on the mundanity of everyday life in a small town. Really great video though man, I could rant on and on about this game haha.
Yosuke was such a great improvement on the best friend character that Ryuji is diet Yosuke and Yosuke is coke while Junpei is pepsi, both are good but one is clearly much better.
Yosuke is my favorite Persona character, period. He goes through so much personal growth throughout the canon. The anime makes it clear he's Narukami's rock. He's stuck trying to win the Arena tournament in the Manga despite his crippling self doubt after seeing Akihiko, Kanji, Narukami, and Aigis defeated. Teddie in Q and Q2 paints Yosuke as a caring older brother and says he's happy with the Hanamura family. Yosuke also single handedly holds off an FOE in Persona Q2 to protect someone. In both Q and Q2 he says surprisingly insightful things about the Investigation Team. It's too bad first impressions of him are so awful. Even in vanilla P4 there's dialogue where he's more supportive of Kanji, but its only accessible if you explore old dungeons with both Yosuke and Kanji out of the party. Also cutting his romance option is bullshit that Atlas should have put back in at least on the Steam release of Golden.
![[3DS] Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth [Persona 4] - Wedding: Yosuke](/img/n.gif)
Finally someone who appreciates Yosuke, my poor boy has been shittd on too much all these years
Yeah I think people tend to neglect a lot of the good he does. I still love him
chie is overrated
For me, it's the disdain for the voice actor because Yuri Lowenthal has an iconic voice that he appears too often in games, like Troy Baker. Not hating them as people, but I think game devs voice directors have a bias of using the same actors over and over.
@@wh3nderson95 what's wrong with having a game with same voice actors? they still need money.. they get offered a job so obv they're gonna pick it up
@@sincalo Im not against them getting work. It does get annoying that most games I happen to like have specific actors who over saturate some games and mediums. At least other actors are able to pitch their voices to sound differently. All Yuri does is sound excited or generic young anime character. Eventually it makes various characters blur together to the point Yuri is playing himself instead of characters.
I always thought that Yosuke was a great character, but one thing I don't see people mention is that Yosuke steps up big time towards the Endgame of P4 sorta becoming a de facto leader of the investigation team, and honestly I think that even though a lot of people show parallels between Yu and Adachi, I think on a base level the dichotomy between Yosuke and Adachi works even better because they both started the same way but took completely different paths and to a large extent have the same insecurities. Both are treated like buttmonkeys, both hate living in a small town, both feel like their workplace defines them more than they define themselves (Junes and The Police Station), both are completely average and resent that, and both also get constant rejection from women. While people usually make the connection that "Adachi is what Yu would be without friends", I think the reality is that Adachi is what Yosuke would be without friends to keep him level and without facing himself and that's why I think aside from all of Yosuke's personal growth in the Social Link he makes a TRUE perfect foil to the games' villain, and sort of proves his cynicism wrong.
I never thought about it this way but you're totally right. Yosuke and Adachi really do start out with almost identical feelings towards the boring place they're stuck in and resenting the shitty cards "life" dealt them, and you can really notice this with early Yosuke being genuinely excited about the murders because "finally something interesting!"
Yosuke having guilt about these feelings and working towards bettering himself as a person is really what separates him from Adachi, who indulges in the resentment.
Really good analysis!
Old Maid fun fact Yosuke is the main character in the manga, not Yu. He gets the social link with his crush brother instead of Yu. Yu is actually in the dungeon while Yosuke is talking to him. I really say you should read the manga cause Yosuke is the real protagonist of P4, they make Yosuke the true protagonist in P4 arena 1 since he has the closest relationship with Labrys
I'm glad I'm not the only one to make this connection.
This!!! I always think that Yosuke and Adachi are so similar with each other, thank you for pointing that out! I think that Yosuke/Adachi parallel is stronger compared to Yu/Adachi parallel
Yosuke is Yu's partner so he is the co leader
imo, Yosuke feels like the most real character in the game
He's pretty up there
Adachi too.
He’s my favourite. I see so much of myself in him, I’ve been through a lot of the same struggles as he has
Him, Dojima, and Nanako fit that category.
Ah yes, Brosuke. He's the best "Best Friend" character in the Persona series imo. Junpei has pretty great character arc in the course of his involvement in the games he's been in and Ryuji is pretty good too. But Yosuke just is a genuinely nice funny guy, it's unfortunate that most people just disregard him as the comic relief.
Yeah I feel the same way, I thought not enough focus was put on moments like the one I higglighted. His moments of gentleness, introspection. He's really a sold friend and good guy
Im so glad someone feels the same about him!
@Happy thoughts Eikichi is best boy.
thoughts uhhhh lets see. So deadass. On god. Based. 100.
You calls those deuteragonist or secondary protagonist
Everytime someone calls Yosuke annoying or perverted or something, I just kinda laugh inside, because Yosuke is so much more than that and they have NO idea.
It's something I see with a lot of characters from parts of the persona fanbase unfortunately. There are just these particular characters groups decide to hate in games thry otherwise love and act as if there's nothing redeemable when in all actuality they are normally still great peopld with plenty of things to connect to and learn from. Ryuji gets similar treatment imo
@@HidinginPublic I persona-lly think that they did Ryuji really wrong in p5. He lost what made him a good character and is just used as comic relief. He's amazing, but he's just incorrectly used in the story and unlike Yosuke, he doesn't get better at the end of the game.
Ive never liked the “bro” persona characters. Ryuji, Junpei, and Yosuke were all my least favorite cast members in their respective games, not because theyre bad people, they just annoy me.
Ryuji is my favorite of the three though.
How?
I've always loved Yosuke. He's the event planner of the group (getting motorcycle licenses, going to the beach, etc), lets Teddie live at his house, buys people food, and really does quite a bit of strategizing in the TV world but people brush him off or just laugh at him. It makes me sad but I love that he still pulls through and is still a nice and lovable guy.
Anyway, great video on a great character!!
I agree, and thanks i'm glad you enjoyed it
He’s honestly one of the smarter ones in the group at least in my opinion
Aside from Kanji, Yosuke initially that bro character you started with which make me like him.
XavetheDay 25 Yeah that is the initial reason why I had liked him too, then I look a little more into his character to see that he is amazing in a lot of other ways as well
Person8789 Yosuke is the actually the 3rd smartest member of the team. If anything, I think Chie and Teddie are not the brightest members of the team.
Atlus really went HARD in making Yosuke a relatable character. He's like someone each and every one of us knows, has known or could know, as well as someone many (me included) can see themselves in. This is a good one, this video. Thanks for appreciating they boy.
I'm glad you like him and thanks for supporting the video. Still I think people give yosuke an unfair shot despite me agreeing with your comment. People just like to rag on him it seems
Its wierd cuz my ex friend was exactly like yosuke i really miss him but life go one
I always saw Yosuke as the "Sokka" of P4. He's not the most important character in the room most of the time, he's used for comic relief and goofy antics, and he's pretty average compared to the others, something he gets self-conscious about and tries to change.
But he's also one of the guys who makes connections in the investigation more than others. He tries to make plans and can lead the others in your absence.
I think that's a funny and pretty solid comparison actually
When I play Persona 4 I always have more the feeling that Yu and Yosuke are the leaders of the investigation team, sure Yu helps to keep the group together and leads them during fights but outside of that Yosuke is really the one who plans stuff like meet ups etc (Also counting the trips they all take)
I agree. Yosuke is good with organizing and planning, and Yu is a leader who keeps everybody having a calm head
Realized after upload that I say Yu Namakura instead of Yu Narukami. I hope it doesn't go too far in the way of ruining your enjoyment. I hope everyone overall enjoys this more personal video.
If you want to Shoot me a message in the DMs, help me spread this video or anything else here's my twitter:
twitter.com/Hiding_n_Public
Hope everyone has a good day, and I hope to see you all again soon!
Yu let us down. Yu let us all down./s
When watching i was like wtf
Nakamura
Its hurting me that you also fucked it up HERE too!
I thought that was just a mess up of the captions lol
Yosuke best boy.
Not even joking. He is by far one of the best written characters I've ever seen, thanks for shedding light on him
Sure thing, thanks for watching man
Yu is a very weird way of pronouncing CHAD NARUKAMI
Most OP protag
@@HidinginPublic Nakamura is a weird way of pronouncing Narukami
It’s official, Yu is actually not a Chad or a Chad Narukami, He’s Yu Nakamura
Yosuke appreciation squad where you at?
Gamer
Gamer
MashRep gamer
Here
Yo let's goooo
I work with a guy like Yosuke, especially when it comes to wanting respect.
He's not obnoxious, but it's clear he struggles with feeling inferior at times and tries to be the guy people listen to and rely on.
Even slight miscommunication can make him feel insulted. One time a customer was flirting with his girl at the cash register and instead of allowing her to tell him she's taken and not interested he honestly considered attacking the guy.
When I finally talked to him about his behavior, he slowly admitted he was always worried about maintaining his masculinity. He doesn't want to appear weak or vulnerable so he acts out instead, kinda like Kanji too. He complained that he was never taken seriously which is why he tries so hard to command respect with the others. He's getting better now though.
Persona 4 Arena comic. I’m gonna say only this to you, Yosuke is actually the canon winner there and it’s an amazing comic that makes you appreciate him so much.
Really hated Ultimax for not having the balls to continue that one.
Someone else mentioned that too. I'll definitely check it out!
Kinda leans into a joke of Yuri getting along with Anti-Shadow fembots
though tbf the manga adaptations of P4 are kind of biased on Yosuke and some characters like Yu, Naoto and Rise are pushed aside at it's expense
@@nightwish1453 I dunno about the P4 adaptation, but P4A stories have those three be really generic and Yosuke's one being really deep and well written.
Also, ngl, those three gets way too much focus usually.
@@CrowMercury fair however in the p4 manga they just do some of them dirty like having naoto not being in the heaven dungeon for some reason or Rise's social link kind of butchered
He's probably The Best "Bro"Character in Persona ( my favorite still Ekichi though ), people don't give enough credit to how intelligent he is
Yeah people definitely downplay yosuke's inteligence
He was the brains of the entire investigation team until Naoto showed up and everyone was like "Wow Naoto you are so smart and cool" even though she pretty much just made the same deductions that Yosuke would.
@@Moonswine Yeah, She Literally Just Took His Job
I don't know why, but P4 is way more personal and relatable, than P5. Sure P5 story is more interesting and all, but it just doesn't carry the same "bonding with your virtual characters" feeling to it, which in my opinion makes these Persona's so special.
for me it has to do with the setting, even if it's set in Japan it feels more like home
@@HidinginPublic I think the setting plays into how these characters portray themselves to you as a player. In P4 small town it feels like everyone knows about everyone at all times, that's why when the characters introduce themselves they feel kind of familiar and home like, plus in your case you were literally born and raised in a small town. In P5 big city metropolis setting kind of alienates a lot of characters from you. It's more like a reflection of a city struggles rather than the characters. But I guess same could be said about other game too. So all in all, setting captures or maybe presents how the characters will act even before you start interacting with them. That's why, I think, small town people from Persona 4 seemed more relatable and sociable. In simple terms they're just way friendlier.
P3 is even better in this regard, at least as far as the main characters go. Some of the minor Social Links aren't done quite as well as ones in later games, but the main characters' Social Links are phenomenal in P3, especially toward the endgame.
@@absoutezeo2126 Sucks that you can't S.Link all the main characters though. I WANNA PAL AROUND WITH JUNPEI DARNIT!
I feel like it was more targeted towards to the at teenagers at the time
Yosuke has always been an intriguing character to me. When I first started P4, I actually didn't understand his conflict at all, differently from Chie and Yukiko, which I instantly related to and became my favorite characters in the game, but even though I didn't liked his conflict that much, his personality and everything else about him was just so good that I ended up liking him. Now that I actually understand what was his conflict, I feel like he is even better than I ever could imagine, thanks for the video dude!
I actually think my feelings are the same. I instantly saw much more clearly Yukiko and Chie's conflict, but yeah i'm glad my video on yosuke could maybe open up a nice perspective
I will be real here and hate me if you want to but we really were robbed of the Yosuke love route. Out of all the characters, and they're great I will not hold you, Yosuke is the one that resonated with me the most and he seems to be the closest person in a fictional game that I could call a "friend". The guy really doesn't deserve to be shit on because in a lot of ways we can see part of ourselves in Yosuke one way or another. That's what made his appeal so worth for me. I just thought I'd share because I love this young man so much.
Finally some appreciation for my guy Yosuke. I related to him and his insecurities quite significantly.
I'm glad you stopped by to watch. He's a good guy
I appreciate this video significantly.
I'm glad, thank you
I started off not liking Yosuke, but he really grew on me with his incredible character development, and ended up being one of my favorite fictional characters.
Glad to hear that. Thanks for sharing, and for dropping by to watch the video
@@HidinginPublic yeah, no problem dude.
you covered a lot of important things, and you should make more videos.
I love yosuke, he was always my favorite character in persona 4 because he was so relatable and real. He was so well written in his social link and he felt like an actual person to me. Sure, he had his moments of annoyance once or twice but hey, we all are. He is supposed to be human, he makes mistakes, and that's why I love him. He seems like a real friend.
Yosuke is such an incredible character and people see him as comic relief. He is funny, relatable, and a good character. Very underrated and it makes me sad honestly. Great video, man. Has good points :)
I SEE PERSONA 4???
yes, please sir.
Hope you enjoy
Thank you so much for this video, Yosuke is my favourite Persona character. There's so much more to him than being the comic relief, he's such an amazing friend to the protagonist and he cares for the people close to him.
I agree, thanks for supporting my video on him
@@HidinginPublic No problem :)
Fact
I didn't play P4 myself (because no PS2 and when I found out about the Persona series I didn't live with my parents anymore who have our PS3), but I did watch a playthrough of P4 and watched the anime version. As soon as Yosuke's Shadow appeared I realized that I was almost exactly like it. It really helped me ground myself and look at how to improve myself as a person. I'm not quite there yet, but it has definitely helped me becoming a better version of myself.
Glad you could face yourself then. :) here's to always striving to be better!
yosuke has been sort of an emotional support character to me for about 10 years now. thank u for this video
Thank you, happy you found and enjoyed it
He's my favorite character in all of Persona, im glad someone is saying good things about him
yosuke is easily one of the best characters in all of persona (atleast counting 3 and 4 since i only played those 2 xd) why?
to me, he feels the most real of all characters in persona 3 and 4, because of his emotions and how he show them.
let me give you an example
*SPOILER ALERT* YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED (later i will stop spoiling, if you want to keep reading)
at the end of the game, when everyone in the investigation team face adachi, while all the team keeps his character well difined and act like you would expect, yosuke just say fuck it and explodes, he yells and curses, something REALLY unexpected seeing how his character is.
*SPOILER ENDS*
while yosuke can be a really cool dude, that you see that he is happy and doesn't care that much about that stuff, seeing him really exploding like that is really unexpected.
the same when he's in the headquarters discussing about the murder cases, in one second can go from comic relief, to a really serius and smart character.
what do i want to get with all of this? HE IS LIKE SOMEONE REAL, no real person has 1 personality and stick with that in his whole life, you can be completely different depending the situation, and that's what make yosuke really feel alive for me
(sorry for the bad writing and misspels, i'm still learning english so yeah... sorry if it's too hard to read xd)
And THIS is why he’s my favorite character in the entire Persona SERIES.
Yosuke is one of my favorite characters in the persona series, the right hand man. He acts all cool but you can tell he cares and just needs people he can trust and rely on (｡>﹏
He's definitely a reliable caring person. A true dude, man. Surprisingly gentle and insecure which makes his actions a lot more interrsting
This is a great video. Yosuke appreciation squad up in these comments.
Unfortunately I still do not know how to express why I love this man so much. He's just amazing and one of the big reasons why P4 is my favorite installment in the series.
I always nice to see someone who gives Yosuke the proper respect and appreciation. He will always be my favorite because of who he is. Even some of the little things in his SC are something I can relate to.
He has such a good Personality and Social link- even if he is a Romance Cut-
Good job on the video dude keep it up!
Thanks man, and ditto i'm glad there are people who can appreciate him with me.
I am 2 yrs late to this but I only JUST played P4G. I love Yosuke. He pretty much leads the team in terms of theories and makes them focus on the murders. But he also knows that having fun is important too. After Teddie starts to stay with him, he transitions into the "mom/dad" friend. (At least in my eyes). I love that his story is learning to accept his resentment, but instead of letting it rule him, he uses it to move forward.
Someone who understands Brosuke. This warms my heart.
Yosuke is a great guy! He deserves more love!
Agreed. All the bro characters do imo. They get too much hate
So I'm gay. I swear that's important here.
The Persona Q games are real fun games, but something I hate about them is, because they're about the heroes being dragged into these crossover situations before their big finale, our friends don't have the development and growth we saw in the original games. This coupled by the fact that they have to write them all a bit shallowly because it's just so many characters (although I personally don't see that as a reason to make Akihiko a protein freak and nothing else?) means that they're very shallow depictions of our heroes.
Yosuke in Persona Q is very grating (I have not played PQ2 yet, I hope it's not as bad in that game). His gay jokes on Kanji are made so often that I lost the humor about partway through the game and just felt like he was straight up picking on the guy for his shadow (as if he and all his friends don't also have terrible hidden traumas and negative emotions). I'm not against gay jokes because when they're done just enough they're pretty damned funny. Kanji acting as bait for the FOE in the festival area was great. But Yosuke in Persona Q is just Yosuke during the camping trip, where he makes a big deal about a junior classmate sleeping in the same tent as he and Yu because "are you gonna touch us in bed?"
(You can see why I was frazzled more and more as Kanji jokes just continued on and on in that game. It's Yosuke from the camping trip, slowly normalizing the teasing of his junior classmate and no one talks about it or says anything.)
As if that's not the rudest thing you can tell someone, let alone your JUNIOR who you clearly saw has a lot of societal pressure against him and struggles with striking a balance between being gentle and being strong (in other words, holding both and being a real man). It's easy, of course. Kanji is tall, he's very buff, his voice is deeper than other people in his grade, so Yosuke at that point of his maturity growth would not see him as the junior he really was. Which is BS, no matter how 'big' someone may look, age isn't just a number.
Kanji's social link shows him achieving his sought-after balance at the end, becoming openly proud of his crafts, pushing the image that the police department had been unconsciously/consciously throwing on him away, and gaining new-found balance in his life, being able to be the man that society, his friends, his darling mother, and he himself had always needed.
Yosuke's social link was rumored to end up with him confessing his love for the protagonist, but they scrapped that so I'm also going to say that that doesn't matter. Yosuke is *straight as an arrow* and he loved and mourned for his dead friend/one-sided-love-interest. But in his social link he ends up growing from the bratty kid who's from the city and is bored because the backwater town of Inaba is boring, and he becomes a mature, fun young man who can appreciate the world around him, whatever it's state of 'sophistication'.
Kanji gains the eyes needed to look at the nuances inside himself and appreciate them. Yosuke gains the eyes needed to look at the nuances of the world and appreciate it.
And I see Yosuke's immaturity as what drives a LOT of his early interactions with big ol' Kanji. 'Tough guy, who's scary but we're clearly seeing him doing something gentle?' "Weirdo."
'His TV World is a bathhouse with TONS of heavy homoerotic shadows?' "Lol ewww I'm not even going to attempt to figure out what the deal with that is unless everyone else is trying to, I guess. "
'After overcoming his shadow and showing that no matter his sexuality, Kanji is deeply afraid of rejection and social isolation, and he's placed with us in the camping trip?' "Uh, yo man I don't swing that way don't touch me" (even though Kanji has never expressed interest in you, you big dolt).
You'll notice that by the end of Persona 4 and P4Golden, Yosuke doesn't make jokes that tap or straight up slap around the topic of Kanji's sexuality. He teases him because he teases everyone, but you can tell they've both gotten over their personal hang-ups and are able to relate to each other as more mature people.
Yosuke Hanamura is a "rich" city boy who fell in love with a store employee, was shocked at her murder, had to listen to the echoes of her distaste for him (in a world that ensures he's hearing the truth), and began an adventure to avenge her killer, all while learning to get over the change in scenery and setting caused by his father moving him to Inaba. He's basically a ticking time bomb of "I'm going to say something stupid to somebody", but he's not a jerk, or at least he grows from that. He's a kind enough boy that he would try to find justice for a dead girl who not only never showed him real affection when she was alive, but who also secretly wished she could smack him around with a spiked bat for running her parents out of business.
There was almost nothing to stop Yosuke from trying to make himself feel better about his 'crummy' situation by picking on Kanji, but because everyone keeps growing up in Persona 4, he quickly realizes that there are more important things than whether or not Kanji will end up with a man or a woman when he's older. Yosuke, like everyone else, pushes past any preconceived notions about all his teammates and works together with them as a team, echoing the sentiment that they really see everyone as more than their shadows (it's just that we see his struggles with preconceived notions about Kanji the most, in fact everyone except maybe Yu has preconceived notions about Kanji that he dispels like the champ he is). And in the end, because of this willingness to bring each other up, spurred on by Yu helping everyone to overcome some of their personal issues (because he's the Protagonist come on), they get a well-deserved victory and a commendation from Japan's own Mother Goddess.
Now, I'm obviously not saying anything Yosuke said about Kanji being weird is justified. It was always Yosuke acting like a fool and, no matter what the situation, it was stupid. But unlike Persona Q, which has the characters' personal growth stunted until the final act (and thus we get so many "ewww kanji"s that Yosuke is no longer sympathetic and Kanji looks like a punching bag), P4 and P4Golden have Yosuke Hanamura overcome his stupidity. They have Yosuke act like his silly self, but with more and more character to back that up. He's no longer just the dummy who rolled into a trashcan. He's the guy who will roll into a trash can and support all his friends no matter what.
Yosuke Hanamura grew up in P4 and P4G. And that is *such a wonderful thing.* Seeing emotionally stunted people, seeing emotionally-compromised young men overcome their inner worries and difficulties to gain the confidence needed to walk through life, is all *such a wonderful thing.* And that's what I love about the Persona Series. All the characters start out imperfect in some way, but they do indeed grow up. And you grow up too, as you realize the importance of righting the wrongs they face, and protecting the people they love.
Lesbian here (although I prefer to dress masculine and refer to myself as gay)
I feel pretty much the exact same way.
I loved Yosuke pretty much from the start, mainly cause I related to him too. Whilst he not my favourite, he's definitely a character I have fond memories of.
I also *really* relate to Kanji. Whilst I've been out for a long time now, I really struggled with the idea of love in general. I cried when Kanji said he was just scared of being rejected, cause that's how I felt too. I'm scared shitless of it. It was because of him saying that that it clicked for me.
It's cause of that reason that Yosuke's jokes at the beginning really hurt. Every time he said something like that (especially the camping trip) I felt sick.
I completely understand where people come from when they point out that aspect of him, but I've never really seen anyone say how he did grow out of it, and matured by the end. Sure there were still a couple of jokes slipped in, but still he learns to understand that that's not the way to go about it. It made me happy at the very least.
PQ really crushed that for me. I should probably mention that PQ was actually the game that got me into the series after I heard the music and pretty much jumped down the rabbit hole. It just made all the characters really 1-dimensional until the end.
I haven't finished PQ2 yet (in the last labyrinth) but fortunately so far those jokes have definitely been toned down. Couple of poking fun at Kanjis shadow etc but definitely not as much as PQ :)
@@skulllatte3352 thank goodness. I think ATLUS realized that the angle of harping on Kanji's sexual ambiguity is only funny in small doses.
This perfectly sums up why I love Persona so much ❤️
(and also tells me why I should never play PQ)
@@Crazybanana-gw7in it's still a fun game but it had me rolling my eyes. Ignore yusuke and kanji's interactions and it's not bad
I just really stop reading when it comes to complaining about gay jokes and etc.
Mostly because sexually holds no true significance to the game at anytime
The light is shining bright for Yosuke in you video. Great video by the way keep up the GREAT work paper bag man
Sure i'll do what I can! Thanks for watching and dropping by to comment
I could write a fucking essay on how much I love Yosuke as a character
I appreciate the people who stand and fight for the less loved Persona characters.
Brosuke pretty much cemented himself as one of the best first party members I’ve had in an RPG
Brosuke is a king
I love Yosuke so much and I feel the need to share that if you don't focus on Yosuke at all and during the dungeon segments where you meet your party members, he struggles to cope with his inner feelings about the town and Saki. And it's very heartbreaking to see how much you neglected him and how he's still trying his best to move forward and save the town with you.
yosuke has always been best boy
He's got those headphones. Style
Yosuke gets major respect because spoiler he is the main protagonist in the Persona arena manga and his route through that story is the canon route which is amazing and I’m glad he was giving a strong part.
I needa check out the manga
Yosuke is the character I saw in myself, he’s one of my favorites because he’s so similar to me. He’s the butt of the joke in the group just like me.
Someone has to fill the role, I couldn't do it but respect for you being the joke man
Yosuke actually really tightened the theme of epistemology in Persona 4. He, like Yu, questions if any relationship is real at the beginning having lost contact with his friends from the city and having people talk behind his back. This is part of why he's so desperate to be liked. Yu's ability to see things from Namatame's perspective (i.e. get past his own truth to understand Namatame's) is what leads him to the ultimate truth of the true end. As a player, it's hard to see this without Yosuke's shadow acting as a foil.
That’s a really cool observation
I love Yosuke and he’s my favorite persona character ever
Yousuke is the butt of the jokes and because of that not many appreciate him, I personally like his character, not somebody who I feel connected with on a personal level but what he did for the games message was something very strong.
I'm glad you also could connect with him. Thanks for watching my video :)
I came upon this video literally right after I realized that Yosuke was the most smartly written character in the game, and you just reinforced that. Thanks, my guy.
No one:
Hiding in Place: Yu Nakumora
nownownow, I clearly said Yu nakamura
@@HidinginPublic ...But not Yu Narukami.
I never played a persona game before but from your description alone i now think that i would really apreciate this character.
I'm glad to hear that. Thanks for dropping in and watching even though you weren't familiar with persona
My favorite social link in my favorite persona game (besides maybe Adachi), thanks for your insight you always manage describe the things you love with such authenticity and it gives me a new perspective and things I might know nothing or know a lot about already.
3:26 "YU, YU NAKAMURA"
well... that's kinda close... i guess
Yosuke! A master class in manliness and how to be a best friend.
A true gamer
Yosuke is just really awesome and this video shows why he is one of my favorites, he is really relatable in my eyes
Glad you like him and my video. Thanks for watching
Yosuke should have been Persona 4 protagonist.
-you can't change my mind
He is no self insert, but he is closer to the player than any self insert will ever be
Yosuke always felt like the real protagonist to me. Partly because I don't care about blank slate, silent protagonists, but more importantly it feels like he was always the leader. He was often the one who initiated many scenarios in the game, he was involved in the mystery of the game since the very beginning, and even his moveset in battle feels like the protagonist of a jrpg. In jrpg's, the protagonist usually can do everything so the player can use them for every role and this fits Yosuke because he uses both magic and physical attacks and can buff the party's speed.
Honestly Yosuke is more than just a comic relief character. Prior to Naoto joining the team he was the brains of the group. He was the one coming up with the plans and was one of the founders of said investigation team
Yosuke best boy uwu
also i love the consistent uploads lately
Thanks, I've been working a lot harder trying to increase my output.
@@HidinginPublic Dont work too hard and rest often, we all care about your physical and mental health
Wasnt Yosuke supposed to be a romance link at one point?
Yosuke is my romance link
Yes, but it was scrapped.
He will always be a romance link in our minds.
He will always be a romance link in our hearts
People just convinced themselves that he was supposed to be romance option purely based on that voice file in the game
As far as I could tell there was no other context to it so people just decided that their suspicion of a romance option was fact
I'm not going to lie; Yosuke was a little bit of a pain in my ass due to his perverted side. But, I can't help but love him a lot. His social link made his character so much likeable; You can see his struggles and those struggles are incredibly relatable to me. I respect the heck outta him for never forgetting and hating Saki Konishi, especially when she left clear that she didn't like Yosuke that much, that's LOYALTY in the purest meaning of the word. I rushed to complete his SL and I loved it a lot, and I find it a little bit unfair watching the way the game treated him like he's always a joke.
There's a special line from his social link that made me love Yosuke even more, I think it went something like...:
"Just being born, living your life... Before you know it, you're already special to someone."
Call me sensitive or weak but that line made me cry, cry a lot, cry like I never cried before. And I'm sorry for putting a little bit of my life here but that line hit me like a punch because I've been struggling with anxiety and all that stuff.
I really love Yosuke Hanamura. I really do. And I'm glad I'm seeing people like OP appreciating his character too. :")
4:17 "I want you to hit me!"
Instantly cuts to both characters lying on the ground.
I don't care if that was intended or not, that's funny.
Yosuke is Yu's truest friend. When Yu is sad about Nanako's death, Yosuke comes back after everyone leaves to give Yu a shoulder to cry on. Yosuke is the best party member in P4.
I've been waiting for a Persona 4 video ever since you mentioned liking it in your Hollow Knight video
Well I hooe this was enjoyable
Love the Persona 4 content!
I'm glad, happy to make it
More the merrier
This popped up in my recommended, and so far I’m 20 hours my persona 4 Golden play through. I love your anime vids and It’s crazy that you made one of these and I missed it.
This was a really sweet video about a great character :,)
Never played the game yet I enjoyed the video- the character also seems relatable as you said.
I'm glad. Tbanks for watching even when being unfamiliar
Yosuke is consistently o e of the best written characters in Persona imo. Especially throughout the canon spinoffs where he continues to grow, while other characters are just flanderized caricatures of their original character. Yosuke has a lot of nuance to him that I find people tend to miss a lot, which is a shame.
That's what make these games great, the cast are likable and relatable. It's good to have these kind of things to relate to sometimes the people we know aren't always enough to feel the same way we do.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the entire reason Yosuke accepted and let go of the hurt from Saki's "true feelings" about him being a pain in her ass because of the fact they weren't actually her true feelings? I could swear they touched on that in-game, that what they were hearing in Konishi Liquors was Saki's shadow and not the real Saki, since she was dead, her shadow had won. I mean, even if it wasn't talked about in-game, wouldn't that stand to reason anyway? Like, the shadows all talked about the negative aspects of what people were thinking and feeling, and didn't take into account how largely those feelings played into the whole of the person- they were only parts of the big picture. I guess what I'm saying is that Saki's whole thing was probably that her shadow was saying those things about her feelings in general, maybe not just the Yosuke part, and even though she knew deep down she felt that way, she also did genuinely like Yosuke, at least as a person, maybe not a love interest, and her rejection of those feelings were what drove her shadow berserk. Idk, maybe I'm wrong, but that was always how I looked at that situation.
The shadows also kill you if the fog disappears from that world so we honestly don’t know if she tried to argue with her shadow or not
The Shadow selves also tend to exaggerate those dark feelings, so they can't even really be considered the "truth" anymore. Whether or not Saki hated Yosuke is completely up in the air, because we never heard from Saki herself how she felt about him - just her Shadow, and Shadows are unreliable narrators.
A little late to this but I believe in rank 7 of Yosukes SL, the girls get mad at him for favoring Saki and say that Saki hated him. Obviously that isn’t definitive proof but I feel there was some sort of dislike there for those girls to say that to him. Furthermore I don’t necessarily believe that the voice was her shadow, since in Yukiko’s castle, we have a similar thing with her voice talking about her name and how Chie is always strong to protect her and whatnot. In both instances we don’t see the shadow nor do they seem happy to reveal those thoughts. Recall that the shadows were always laughing, and laid back. Both Saki and Yukikos voices weren’t, which I believe could be implying that they were actual thoughts without the shadows influence. But I could be completely wrong.
I haven’t played Persona 5 yet but Yosuke is a bro through and though. Junpei is awesome but I can’t call him a best friend like I can call Yosuke a best friend. Besides when it came down to the investigation team it was really Yu, Naoto, and Yosuke that was doing any real critical thinking when trying to figure out who the culprit was. People don’t give Brosuke enough credit just like the girls in Persona 4 don’t give him enough credit
I love his charater, i first played p4 in 2015 and i had allot of mental issues, depression, soxial anxiety, suicidal tougths and playing persona made me happy,the persona series gave my life meaning and becasue i had no friends i got emotionally atached to All the charaters, but Yousuke was special, he reminded me of an ex friend who i usted to play allot of videogames with, to this day i still respect p4.
As of today i still have no friends and i still have troubles with my past and depression but from time to time i still go back to P3 , P4 and P5, these games gave me an escape, and friends.
honestly, I am really mad they removed him as a romance route, I really liked him out of the main cast, maybe besides Kanji or Naoto, but he was still by far my favorite out of all of them
and TBH, the unused lines are really adorable
I'm so happy i found this video
Thank you for this video!! Some of the comments I find regarding Yosuke are just slanderous to his character. It's like people don't understand or overlooked his nature. Personally, I believe his character is sort of complex which is why people tend to regard him as a bad character sometimes. Yosuke is not just a simple joke character, he has flaws, he messes up, blithely unmindful on some occasions, but they are what made him so real and likeable, he develops as a character, seeing his arc grows and matures throughout the story. Besides, he has done more goods to make up for the bads. Yosuke is such a brother of a character as well, he has always been there for Narukami in bad situations, and so has Narukami. Moreover, other than being a funny comic relief, he is really smart, not academically, and was one of the brains in solving the murder cases. I could write for hours why Yosuke is such a exceptionally well written character, Brosuke forever.
I am about 6 months late. Lol.
I actually just played the game recently (then watched the anime lol). I really love Yosuke. For some reason he's the only character I always have in my party. Well at first it was because I think the way he summons his persona looks cool lol. But then I kinda grew attached to him. He is a nice guy and a good friend. I always thought that while Yu is the leader, he is the one who organizes things from behind the scenes making sure everything goes smoothly. He lets teddie stay at his home and gave him a cellphone. Whenever Yu and the rest needs something wih just one call he provides it when he can (e.g. that bday party in the Tower Social link). Basically without him the group wouldn't function at all. So I was surprised when some people dismisses him as a mere comic relief of a character.
Also, I actually like Persona 4 animation's take on his friendship with Yu. In the episode where nanako died, the anime didn't revive her immediately. Yu bid the group farewell after confronting Nametame. Yosuke felt something was weird as Yu assures everyone he'll be okay and he'll see them tomorrow. So yosuke urged everyone to go home. When everyone left, the reality of nanako's death caught up to Yu and he started tearing up under the snow (he and nanako promised to build a snowman in winter). Yosuke returned and Yu seeing him started to tell him his feelings of uneasiness and doubt if what he did was the correct thing to do (pertaining to the choice of letting nametame live and listen to his story). Then he broke down while leaning on yosuke's shoulder. Which is paralleled to what you can do in the game in yosuke's social link when he finally broke down because of saki's death. If you pick the option to hug him he cries full out.
Aside from this moment, the anime also took great lengths to actually show that Yu and Yosuke got along because of the same humor that they have making their friendship more believable. Not to mention in the final boss fight in the anime, yosuke's persona was the first one to experience metamorphosis and was the one who saved Yu from being consumed by that Fog God Eyeball boss lol.
Anyway, I just like him as a character. Though I kinda wished he had more interaction with naoki konishi (hanged man social link), that would be very interesting to see. In the game there was only one scene I think they interacted and I was like "I want more." Lol.
Even though I don't like the Persona 4 cast as much as the other Persona games after watching this I have a new appreciation for Yosuke.
That's great to hear
I’m just happy to see some good Persona content around here.
I'm happy you think that about my video. Thanks man
"let me date yosuke you COWARDS" ~ Brian David Gilbert.
Stellar video on one of my favorite games and favorite characters, I'm at work or else id leave a better comment but thank you for your content as always my dood. Take care
Hey any comment at all is heavily appreciated. Thanks a lot, i'm happy you enjoyed. It's always nice seeing you pop in so frequently in videos
@@HidinginPublic as long as the content is good I'm keep coming back, no matter the subject. Today just happened to be one of my favorites lol
Just recently found your channel and I gotta sincerely say,thank you so much for the content you make, I find it so interesting and full of substance how you ramble on about all kinds of topics in entertainment media, and some of your more personal parts have made me really question myself,my purpose and other things in life to see a change.
I'm happy to hear that. Glad you connect hopefully for the better
i swear everytime i come back to this video i remember why persona 4 is my favorite persona game
Yosuke is the most relatable character to me in any work of fiction.
People like you are the reason Persona 4 isn’t dieing.
Keep up the good work.
Thanks man, happy you think so. I plan to put out a few more persona videos atleast
Coming to this after your analysis of persona 5’s musical motifs you can see at roughly 9:40 the same note group from swear to my bones and our beginning
I know one day you’ll grow so big that you won’t be able to reply or read all the comments, or you may lose passion for TH-cam. I just want to tell you that what you do is very unique, special, and many people love it and will grow to love it. You do have an impact on this community and it’s really nice you read most comments. So thank you, even if one day you may not, you’re very in touch with the community.
Well that means a lot, I'm happy you think so much of me, but please have some more faith in me that I won't lose my passion. I don't plan to anytime soon. :) I know in the future if I got bigger and people started saying "wow hiding is a shill" or something that would kill me inside. I'll always make stuff on things I love, popular and not.
Props to all the people who related more to the second fiddle
Go Team Junpei/Yosuke/Ryuji!
I legit stopped watching a streamers first playthrough of P4G just because he shitted on Yosuke so much when his grating sides show up in the main story, and refuses to do his SL. It's still rank 2 at October!
I get that Yosuke has sides to him that is distasteful, but y'know what? He's a teen and teens are dumb, but by the end he bettered himself and I'm just more feeling disappointed that his story will forever be unknown to the streamer as he bluntly states 'any attempt at convincing regarding Yosuke will be ignored'.
Good to see not everyone hates him, and can agree that he has flaws. Like any other human being.
yosuke is one of my fave characters from p4 lol
they're all one of my favorites. every one of them
@@HidinginPublic Understandable ^^
What I think people forget about Persona 4, and what you capture so well here is that these characters are meant to be actual friends and people. Sometimes your friend will do some dumb shit or say some dumb shit, but at the end of the day you stick with them because they're your friend. Yosuke,, in my opinion, was not only one of the most relatable characters in P4, but also the most realistic and well written. I personally also related to him a shit ton, especially with his outlook on the mundanity of everyday life in a small town. Really great video though man, I could rant on and on about this game haha.
Nice thumbnail!
Thank you 🙇
...Because of Yosuke i became straight again.
he got the headphones
Yosuke is best boy.
Yosuke should have been romanceble he honestly had the best chemistry with the protag.
Yosuke was such a great improvement on the best friend character that Ryuji is diet Yosuke and Yosuke is coke while Junpei is pepsi, both are good but one is clearly much better.
Yosuke is my favorite Persona character, period. He goes through so much personal growth throughout the canon.
The anime makes it clear he's Narukami's rock. He's stuck trying to win the Arena tournament in the Manga despite his crippling self doubt after seeing Akihiko, Kanji, Narukami, and Aigis defeated.
Teddie in Q and Q2 paints Yosuke as a caring older brother and says he's happy with the Hanamura family. Yosuke also single handedly holds off an FOE in Persona Q2 to protect someone. In both Q and Q2 he says surprisingly insightful things about the Investigation Team.
It's too bad first impressions of him are so awful. Even in vanilla P4 there's dialogue where he's more supportive of Kanji, but its only accessible if you explore old dungeons with both Yosuke and Kanji out of the party. Also cutting his romance option is bullshit that Atlas should have put back in at least on the Steam release of Golden.
I really like Yosuke, theres receptors in my brain that are Yosuke shaped and now im pondering him like an orb.
YU NARUKAMI