There are a whole host of characters Joker can romance in Persona 5 Royal. Essentially, Joker can date any woman in the game who is, wisely, not the prosecutor Sae Niijima. This does include options like Joker's homeroom teacher, Sadayo Kawakami, and Ichiko Ohya, who is also not a teenager. But for all the romance options Joker has, one of the most adorable is completely looked over: Yusuke Kitagawa.
Yusuke is one of Joker's fellow Phantom Thieves, as well as a painter suffering from artist's block after his master, Madarame, turns out to be guilty for the death of his mother, among other sins. Following his Confidant story involves Yusuke dragging Joker around Tokyo in search of methods to awaken him out of his artistic slump. In one of these first forays, Yusuke has Joker captain a two-person rowboat in an idyllic park, as Yusuke tries to draw the "love" between the "couple" next to them. This thwarted romantic scene naturally encourages a question in the player's mind: Can Joker date Yusuke?
Tragically, the answer is no. Although, as Joker gets closer with Yusuke, many of his possible dialogue lines are just as flirtatious as dialogue possibilities with Persona 5 Royal's dateable women. At one point, Joker and Yusuke even talk about going to Paris together. Despite this very palpable romantic flair, Persona 5 Royal doesn't allow Joker to date Yusuke - or have any same-sex relationships, for that matter.
As Polygon points out, Persona 5 does contain some harmful depictions of LGBTQ+ people. In one infamous scene, for example, two gay men are depicted with harmful stereotypes and uncomfortably place pressure on Ryuji. Coupled with the absence of same-sex relationships, there was a lot of room for Persona 5 Royal to improve its depiction of LGBTQ+ people. Because Atlus added same-sex relationships as an option for the 2019 revamped version of Catherine: Full Body, Persona 5 fans were disappointed when Royal didn't follow suit by adding in options for Joker.
The reason all of this stands out is because Persona 5 Royal is such a phenomenal game in all other respects. It stings when a favorite doesn't embrace its full potential. And one small, but meaningful, step toward that would have been allowing Joker and Yusuke - or Joker and Akechi, or Joker and Ryuji - to go on a date just like Joker can with Kasumi. Hopefully, Atlus won't make the same mistake when Persona 6 releases.
Source: Polygon
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