madimpossibledreamer: Izanagi|Souji in full costume holding out a hand (izanagi|souji)
madimpossibledreamer ([personal profile] madimpossibledreamer) wrote2022-05-11 11:59 pm

idle thought #362

sneaking this in because recent events
actually, thinking about it, yakuza 5 has some big pro-choice theming which is nice to see right now
it starts with park.  now i've made no bones about the fact that i don't like her.  and i love majima.  but the way her abortion is framed is perfect.  she made the choice that was right for her--and yes, she regrets not being able to be a mother (not that having an abortion prevents you from later doing so, but she also didn't get remarried or anything and didn't adopt or have a kid later in life, so), and regrets that it didn't work out the way she intended, but if you think for one second she regrets choosing a career you don't know the lady. 
majima's action in the moment, to slap her, is 1100% portrayed as the wrong decision, and he almost instantly regrets it and steps back because he supports her as a person and supports her career.  also of note: majima does tend to err on the side of women want to be mothers (see makimura) but supports their decisions and gets that some of them want careers and are great at it.  getting to know a bunch of women with individual goals and dreams, like saki wanting to get into medical school, was a good thing for him i think. 
anyway, we've already grown to love majima, and he has questionable judgment SOMETIMES, but when he gets serious he sees better than most of the people with 20/20.  (tbf, there are a lot of...weird...people in the yakuza, so that might not seem the accomplishment it is, but still.)
then park goes and takes away a little girl's choice in the autonomy of her own life, which is what bugs me so much about her.  and it's not even--like, legit, you didn't get enthusiastic consent.  you didn't even get verbal consent. 
haruka seems like she's giving this her all but her heart's not fully in it--in some of the side stories she seems like she's questioning it, she feels lonely, and kiryu kazuma's little kid can spot a threat worthy of the yakuza.  (the threat to destroy the orphanage is probably just that much more terrifying after y3.  poor kids probably have ptsd.)
but they all fight, all the male protags, just so that haruka can decide her own dream and make her own choices, and that fact just makes the parts i actually hated in the y5 storyline make sense and be worth it.
(also, the theming is either entirely a beautiful accident or tightly plotted, despite some people complaining of how long the game is. i like y5.  despite its issues *cough still not quite there with your trans characters[?] cough*)

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