Times In Persona 4 the Animation (A.I.C. ASTA) where Yosuke Hanamura is framed the way a love interest traditionally would be

an incredibly long and image-heavy list

I originally wrote this as a 144-tweet thread over on twitter. I had to upload this to Pillowfort first then Tumblr because tumblr made getting it here a trial and a half. It will also eventually be on Ao3 and Dreamwidth.

Episode 01 You’re myself, I’m yourself

3:06+ Indistinct, panicked voices overlap in a vision of a staticky TV that Yuu has while on the train to Inaba. The only clear voice is a male voice, right at the end, shouting the protagonist's name. That voice is Yosuke's.

does this """fanservice""" shot in 21:10 count LMAO

24:37 - 26:35 Yosuke is the one whose PoV is shown while Yuu unlocks his powers. He's the one in awe & admiration of the protagonist. Usually this role is reserved for a female love interest, whose reaction is used to bolster the protag's coolness ("he's attractive to women")

Episode 02 The Contractor’s key

16:13-16:45 He protecc. Usually "best friend" characters and male teammates are left to take their own hits. Also Yuu's hand stays there for this whole 30 second segment. Yuu is /not/ a very touchy-feely person, in general and certainly not at this stage in the anime.

16:55-17:03 This one's easy to miss at full speed - when Yosuke recklessly runs forward to attack Jiraiya, Yuu steps up to catch him after he's knocked back.

He deliberately grabs him, then he hugs him to his chest to make certain his fall is broken.

21:58+ "You know... for some reason, with you around, I feel like we might just be able to catch this guy."

Yosuke is allowed to be emotionally dependent on Yuu in a way that's usually not permitted for male characters, since it's not ""cool enough"".

E04 “Somewhere not here”

SIDE BAR: check out this mega swerve at 19:11+ lmao. this is set up like a kiss and then they're just like oh wait nope. hugs only.

E05 “Would you love me?”

this one needs explaining. In this episode, we see Yuu get swept up into a toxic relationship with Ai Ebihara, who has unaddressed mental health problems. For SOME REASON (cough parental neglect cough), he is primed to tolerate her out-of-hand behaviour to an absurd degree.

Chie shows rightful concern for Yuu. He is behaving out-of-character and is not hanging out with his friends any more. He doesn't seem to be enjoying his relationship at all; if anything he seems scared of Ebihara. It's concerning and she's concerned.

And Yosuke's take on this is... Chie must be attracted to Yuu, and therefore jealous! So I'll help her get with Yuu. Due to reasons.

Chie shows no signs of attraction & tells Yosuke outright, repeatedly, that this is not the case, and she's just worried for her friend.

He spends SO MUCH EFFORT trying to position Chie to be ""in with a shot"" at ""beating Ebihara"" for Yuu's affections when neither Chie nor Yuu has shown any interest in this.

Yall. It is pure projection. That is my take here.

Yosuke is attracted to Yuu, but he isn't mentally prepared to recognise that. It's not even on his list of possibilities. So instead he displaces it onto Chie.

He even says he understands "why she's attracted to him" - "he's a super cool guy who can use a bunch of Personas" - when the only person who's repeatedly and explicitly admired that about Yuu is... Yosuke. And now he's saying he thinks that's a solid reason to be romantically attracted to the guy.

(the whole thing is played for laughs and I find this episode difficult to watch sometimes because it's so NOT funny to me. I don't think it's headcanon to say Ai Ebihara has an eating disorder. You see Yuu get forced into a kiss he blatantly does not want, by her. You see Yuu react in ways to Ebi's behaviour that no regular teenager who hadn't been abused before wld react. The subject matter is complicated and intricate... and it's addressed with all the subtelty of a full-sized wrecking ball to a model railway. UGH. anyway.)

E07 Suspicious Tropical Paradise

2:43+ Yuu asks, deadpan, if Yosuke wants a copy of Kanji's midnight broadcast. This isn't love interest behaviour but like... that isn't something you say to your heterosexual friend? right?? right???

I want to highlight throughout this that Yosuke isn't the only one having a negative reaction to Kanji's dungeon. This is repeated in the camping episode but Yuu also has severe hesitations about Kanji's sexuality. It's not like Yosuke is allocated "the homophobic one".

My personal take is that neither Yuu nor Yosuke are at terms with their own sexualities yet, which causes them to act out in this way. In fact, Yuu in particular seems to struggle with identifying and expressing his own emotions at all, let alone in romance.

Everyone, including Yuu, assumes Yuu isn't hiding from himself because he never had to face his Shadow. A major theme for this anime is that it couldn't be further from the truth. In my opinion & among other things, his behaviour towards Kanji in this episode demonstrate this.

E08 “We’ve lost something important again”

5:58+ Again with Yuu taking care of Yosuke in ways that male "best friend" characters usually aren't cared for. Compare/contrast the way the protagonist in the Persona 3 movies interacts with Junpei and it becomes incredibly stark.

9:10+ Normally this whole thing would have been played off for comic relief, but they let Yosuke show ""weakness"" and rely on Yuu for support.

I want to emphasise that if Yosuke was a female character being treated this way this frequently, they would be considered canon.

Now...

I can't really make this thread without talking about the infamous camping scene.

15:17-16:17 What I want to highlight is, yet again, the fact Yosuke is in no way uniquely homophobic. Yuu is just as uncomfortable with Kanji's presence, and emboldens Yosuke's rude questions.

In fact, if anything, not only does Yuu escalate things, it's Yuu's involvement that enrages Kanji. He's used to it from Yosuke - I feel like anyone with eyes and a braincell could tell that Yosuke’s pretty interested in Yuu, and Kanji probably puts up with it because he knows it’s coming from a place of insecurity.

But Yuu? Kanji thought he was more mature

I really want to dispell the myth that this scene makes Yosuke an irredeemable homophobe. It really struck me that Yuu's comments were both a lot colder and struck a lot closer to home - Yosuke's were more hot-blooded and curious by comparison.

Also: I turned on subs for this meaning to include them in the caps, but the subs for the JPN version of this scene were... they made Yuu seem even worse. Yosuke was abt the same. In other words, they expect the player avatar to be more homophobic than Yosuke is.

CONSIDER, ALSO, the effect that seeing Yuu behave like this would have on Yosuke's own self-acceptance. Yet again the core theme of Persona 4: self-acceptance leads you to be a better friend, and self-denial leads you to be a worse one.

Yuu was a bad friend here.

(but yet again it was played for laughs because hee hee so funny. full sized wrecking balls and model train sets. #ATLUSpulledAnATLUS )

ANYWAY,

17:09-17:45 This is shipbaiting for the het ships that are hinted at but that are never actually capitalised on. Yosuke's had a few moments where he defends Chie - just like Yuu defends Yosuke, actually. But what struck me was the fact the boys aren't flustered at ALL.

There are lots of things in this anime that made me shift my headcanon for Yuu from pansexual to gay, but that could be its whole own thread. This moment is one of them but it's also one that helps emphasise how Yosuke is being set up like a love interest would.

E11 “Real Me Doesn’t Exist”

03:25-03:39 This is their first disagreement on anything major, and the first time Yuu sticks up for himself contra to the Investigation Team (yet again: whole other essay about Yuu's persistent lack of backbone even as he levels his Courage and Expression).

Yosuke is shown to have the patience and insight not to steamroll over Yuu the way Ai and even the IT girls tend to, while also not letting him rest on his laurels. He questions Yuu without bullying him (and he is so incredibly easy to bully).

Usually the male "best friend/comic relief" character propels the protagonist forward via rivalry of some variety - pushing and pulling. Yosuke is unusual in the way he stands by the protagonist's side, matching his pace.

E12 “It’s Not Empty At All”

WATCH THIS EPISODE.

WATCH IT. WATCH IT.

If you only watch one episode, make it the E26 OVA, but if you only watch two make this the second one.

5:25+ I strongly believe that this is the infliction of the Despair status effect (familiar to us from Persona 5) on Yuu. Three turns of action ban followed by unavoidable KO if the status is not removed. One of Shadow Mitsuo's moves (Ghastly Wail) inflicts this status in Persona 5.

Shadow Mitsuo's speech to the plenary Mitsuo resonates with Yuu in ways Yuu is loathe to admit. At 5:59, he says, "You won't accept me, will you? I am a Shadow. Come to me. I'll put an end to your emptiness."

Yosuke is also talking - "Why does this have to happen?!" - but from Yuu's perspective this is muffled. He can barely hear Yosuke at all over the deafening sound of Shadow Mitsuo's words--

And we're at the food court? The case is concluded.

For the next 10 minutes, we see a vision of the future fuelled by Yuu's Despair. In it, Yuu's friends drift away and stop talking to him, one by one. He is generally very good at predicting how they will behave, except he tends to underestimate how much they care for him...

...with one notable exception. Yosuke is the only one who behaves noticeably out of character during the illusion. We know Yuu knows Yosuke very well. So that's not it. Something else about Yosuke is different. Namely, Yuu cannot realistically imagine him in this scenario, where all of his friends are abandoning him.

In Yuu's vision, Yosuke is given cutting, flippant dialogue more suited to a Shadow than to his everyday self. He suggests Rise was never "really" friends with them, and that they should forget about her. Hearing it alarms Yuu even in the context of the vision. Yosuke’s warm, everyday self doesn’t fit, so the vision concocts something new.

EVEN THEN Yosuke is still the only person who asks Yuu if he's okay.

He's also the very last person to hang out with Yuu; he encourages Yuu to stop thinking about the TV and start thinking about college.

Even in Yuu's most depressing predictions... Yosuke is still reliable.

15:00-15:45 And then... Mitsuo's Shadow moves in for the kill.

It appears in the vision, telling Yuu that he is empty and that friendship is an illusion. Yuu finds himself powerless to fight against it--

Until he hears someone shouting his name in a panic. Yosuke.

He reaches for the voice, but he's too weak to grasp Yosuke's hand. So Yosuke grasps his wrist and hauls him to safety.

This is "cute healer girlfriend" stuff yall. If you described this scene to me out of context I would expect it to be a girl in white robes.

Jiraiya catches them and takes them to safety.

Yuu is openly relieved to functionally be in Yosuke's arms (because remember, Jiraiya is Yosuke and Yosuke is Jiraiya, and it's well established in this anime that you feel what your Persona does).

Yosuke is then placed at Yuu's right hand for the turnabout shot, where a romantic partner would go. The girls besides Rise aren't even in the same frame, and Rise is blatantly further away. She's supporting from behind; Yosuke is with him.

While bolstering Yuu's confidence, most of the Investigation Team are part of the group shot. Yosuke gets his own, more detailed closeup. These shots are in order of appearance:

Yuu's battlecry is, "I am far... from empty!"

E15 “The Long-Awaited School Trip”

05:48-06:06 He just... hangs off him like this. For the whole segment. He isn't this touchy with anyone else. When Rise tries to do this kind of thing to Yuu, Yuu's body language is much stiffer and more uncomfortable. By contrast, he seems content with Yosuke doing it

E16 “Although the Case was Closed”

22:35+ Yosuke is struck with an enervation effect which makes him an old man. Without hesitation, Yuu carries Yosuke to safety.

Compare/contrast the way Teddie (comic relief) is treated after suffering the same enervation effect in E17 - he has to get to safety on his own.

E19 “It’s School Festival Day! Time to Have Fun!”

08:59-11:44 There... is no heterosexual explanation for this scene.

Yuu: 🗿

Yosuke: (already blushing to be sat on a ''date'' with Yuu even though no one has even said anything)

Seriously. Someone explain this to me in a way where Yosuke is heterosexual. IT CANNOT BE DONE.

Yuu: 🗿 (LITERALLY SAYING AND DOING NOTHING, 0 THINGS, I WANT TO EMPHASISE THAT)

Yosuke:

Yosuke: HELL NO!

Yukiko: Something wrong, Yosuke?

Yosuke: Very wrong! I don't know what happened! I think I just went somewhere that I can never come back from...

Yuu: (falsetto) Is it my voice?

Yosuke: KNOCK IT OFF!!

Yosuke: I need something to drink!! Something cold!! I gotta clear my head!! There has to be something here...!

Kanji: What the hell has gotten into you, dude...?

And, of course...

Yuu: (falsetto) This steam has me all flushed...

Yall... Yuu was just SITTING THERE.

Find me a heterosexual explanation for Yosuke, with NO prompting save the context of "being on a date", imagining himself and Yuu leaning in for a kiss.

And getting so flustered by it that he, uh, needs a cold drink. (cough)

19:02+ This is more of a general "Yosuke is gay for Yuu" moment, but...

Yosuke's established supposed crush, Yukiko, is on stage in a swimsuit - more revealing than the one he picked for her in the camping episode. ( #atluspulledanatlus)

But where's Yosuke looking?

E21 “DON’T SAVE ANYONE ANYMORE”

It’s plot all the way down from here. (thank god. i don’t think i can take any more ~fanservice~ from this writing team.)

09:48-11:01 I almost missed this over the sound of how heartbreaking this whole sequence is re: Yuu, but Yosuke is the first one to notice Yuu is missing after he's detained by his uncle.

He phones the Dojima house phone to show Teddie how to do so after Yuu doesn’t pick up his mobile; Nanako answers, and tells him Yuu was taken to the station by Dojima.

After the phonecall ends, he immediately redials and phones someone else, meaning he's alerting the Investigation Team of the situation.

"Some weird letter? No, it can't be..."

Yosuke notices. Yosuke acts. Yosuke protecc.

12:30-13:04 After Nanako is shown on the Midnight Channel, Yuu is panicking, trying to escape the interrogation cell.

He hears his friends coming up the corridor and is shocked that they're here. As far as we know, midnight has JUST passed. But everyone was already ready to go.

Yosuke got the gang together...

“It’s Nanako.”

“She’s gone missing!”

There's something about the positioning here... Yosuke as the one who fought here to tell Yuu the unfortunate truth, putting himself between Yuu and Dojima - who hours ago rejected Yuu for telling him the unbelievable truth.

(important sidebar. thank u kanji)

22:00+ I know I'm extrapolating here but it really seems like they sent Yosuke to fetch Yuu because they knew he's closest to him.

"Yuu. ...It's your uncle."

E23 “In Order to Find the Truth”

Here we see an interesting role reversal. So far, Yosuke has been the one positioned in the way we typically see a female character, but in this scene we see him take on the opposite role - the one usually occupied by an aggressive male hero.

For background I need to establish a couple things. 1st, you might want to take a look at this other thread I wrote about Yuu's relationship to Dojima and how conditional it ends up being: (link coming soon, already available on twitter)

2nd is about gender roles and Yuu Narukami. Ultra TL;DR: There's a whole other essay in me about how, despite Izanagi being designed as the epitome of masculinity, Yuu often gets pushed into stereotypically feminine roles by his family and friends: nurturing roles like carer, cook, and mediator. This contrast makes him interesting.

3rd: right before the scene I'm talking about, a few things happen. Nanako fucking dies.

Dojima accidentally rejects Yuu from the family, leaving him even MORE emotionally vulnerable.

And Adachi incredibly unsubtly drops an "if I could, I would kill that bastard myself!" in front of him.

So like... Yuu is absolutely PRIMED to do something really fucking stupid.

They go into the room. Namatame is trying to escape out of the window. The group quickly splits in two: the girls, who want to leave him be; and the boys (+ Naoto), who want to throw him into the TV.

This is fairly expected. Usually in media we see the active, aggressive, "does the right thing even if it feels wrong" actions posited as masculine, and the passive, nurturing, "does the routine thing even if it's wrong" actions posited as feminine. This is borne out here.

Yosuke leads the charge on wanting Namatame dead.

He feels robbed of closure on his traumatic bereavement, and he's projecting his feelings onto Yuu and the bereavement Yuu has just experienced.

Naoto and Kanji back him up, and the Midnight Channel echoes their views.

Without saying another word, Yuu grabs Namatame and drags him to the TV.

He's doing what he's been primed by Adachi and pressured by his friends to do. He's being decisive, tough, masculine. He's ""doing what needs to be done"", ""what no one else can do"".

Here comes the twist, though.

As he does so, the red light of a reversed Izanagi dances in his eyes. He's acting as he's been pushed to - decisive, tough, masculine... "level-headed", "head over heart", because caring is conflated with heart.

But at the last minute, his emotions - his moral compass, his Justice arcana - win him over and he drops Namatame.

Because in this case, that conflation is absolutely incorrect. The right thing is the "passive", "feminine" thing - the patient, thoughtful thing. The right thing is also the DIFFICULT thing - he physically struggles to cope with the emotions wracking him.

Yosuke is not pleased.

"What the hell, [partner]! You're just gonna let him go?! This bastard has to pay! We won't get another chance like this! The police barely have enough to keep him! If he walks out of here he's gonna keep on[...]!”

“If we don't stop this guy right here no one else will!"

"And if we do then we're no better than he is!"

Yosuke is shocked that Yuu argues back this time. But Yuu's found his resolve.

"We can't lose sight of what's right. That's why we started doing this in the first place. To find out the truth."

"We already have the truth! Open your eyes; it's sitting right over there! We found the truth, and it's in this room!"

"It's not. Something doesn't sit right."

"Yeah?! Like what?!"

"...I'm not sure yet; it just feels like we've got something wrong."

Unlike back at Aiya's, though, Yuu's uncertainty doesn't snap Yosuke out of his anger.

"Bullshit! Look, the only thing that's wrong here is you! Finish him!"

"...Yosuke. Calm down."

Pointing out, out loud, that in this case, the "active", "decisive" course isn't the level-headed or correct one snaps the others out of it. Naoto backs Yuu up, and then Kanji. Yosuke reluctantly backs down as well.

He sulks for the rest of the night. I don’t think we ever again see him this darkly furious, either before or after this scene.

But...

Outside the hospital, Yosuke notices subtle tells in Yuu's demeanour.

"I'm gonna be fine, I promise," Yuu lies.

"Yosuke; let me know when you find Teddie."

"...okay, will do. Well, see ya."

He sets people off heading home. Even after their social roles were reversed - upheaving their status quo, and it never does quite settle back to how it was before - and they had their worst fight to date, one thing is constant.

As soon as everyone else is gone, Yosuke loops back.

The constant is this: Yosuke notices Yuu when no one else does, and Yosuke cares for Yuu when no one else notices.

[choked up] "Please tell me... when I put a stop to things in [Namatame's] room... did I make the right call...?"

Here is the uncertainty Yosuke is used to. But he doesn't say anything. This scene is full of... tentativeness, and uncertainty. Long muted silences.

But Yosuke is constant, reliable, and he loves Yuu Narukami.

Even in this uncertain space where their status quo has been thrown into question and neither of them knows where they stand any more... even when Yosuke doesn't know what to say... he still comforts Yuu.

The next day, everyone is in their casual outfits except for Yuu.

I can't interpret this any other way than that Yuu spent the night at Yosuke's house.

Which makes sense. Who in their loving mind would send Yuu back to the empty Dojima house after Nanako just died...?

23:05+ yosuke standing way too close to yuu. naoto included as a litmus for what is a normal distance to stand from your friend

"Oh holy hard nipples it's cold!"

"Then why don't you just go back in where it's warm?"

"'Cos I was feeling like I needed to clear my head too."

E24 “The World is Full of Shit”

So for all Yosuke's been being cuddly with Yuu - which makes sense, Yuu just went through an incredible rollercoaster of a situation and needs support... now things are settling, the fact that they never actually made up after their fight is surfacing in Yosuke's mind again.

"I think it's time the two of us had a talk."

afaik this is the only time the... fringe over eyes hiding the upset person's face gimmick is used in this anime. Which is kind of... like, it sets this instance apart from other expressions of angst?

"You're a true hero, dude, and people are drawn to that. There's a part of me that totally loves that about you. And I'm glad we're friends..."

"What are you trying to say?"

"Well... there's another part of me that I'm not proud of. And if I don't say this stuff now... I won't be able to look you in the eye any more. Listen, [partner]... I need you to do this.”

“I need you to deck me! Hard!"

"--Huh? What for?"

"I think out of everyone, I'm the one (voice breaking) who needed your approval the most!"

"..."

"So give me one good solid hit! And knock this /crap/ outta me!”

“I don't wanna be on uneven ground with you! I know it's hard but--"

Seeing the place the punch landed made me think of this BBC Sherlock quote. (Listen, it's a bad show, because it's a self-important series of witty one-liners strung together with shiny cinematography. But the thing about that is that there are lots of witty one-liners.)

Yuu calmly points out that he's now punched Yosuke twice.

"This is so embarrassing! I'm like an annoying yippy dog chasing his tail!"

"Yosuke."

"Huh!?"

(very tenderly) "If we hit each other, we'd be equal."

(less surprised than before) "Huh...? ...We would."

"Okay! You ready?! Bring it!"

I mean... lots of people have gone over this scene but to recap, "hey bro let's physically exert ourselves to make each other feel something, then lay on the floor together talking in dazed, out-of-breath voices for a while" is uh. extremely heterosexual! totally

if i'm making a thread of every time yosuke is posed as a romance interest then i can't ignore this one, even if it's one of the most famous scenes for the ship.

"But hey... thanks a lot, dude. I'm feeling a whole lot better now."

i ALSO wanna mention something else, which is that throughout the entire anime, there is a visual motif they use to indicate that someone is perceiving, speaking, or otherwise engaging with some deep, meaningful truth.

Whenever a character - usually Yuu - has an extreme closeup on their eyes, it's usually for this reason. Extreme closeups on mouths, OTOH, tend to indicate deception or misdirection, either purposeful or subconscious. (Example here is Dojima fobbing Yuu off about the hit and run.)

Look where the camera lingers while Yosuke is saying, respectively,

"Well, there's another part of me I'm not proud of. And if I don't say this stuff to you now..."

"Listen, [partner]."

"I need you to do this."

"I don't wanna be on uneven ground with you."

And...

"So gimme one good solid hit and knock this crap outta me!"

...It's not really what he needs.

He needs Yuu, but not in that way.

He's scared. He needs Yuu to listen to him. He needs Yuu to help him. He needs to address the way the power dynamic is changing between them in ways neither of them really realises or understands.

A punch-up isn't what he really needs, whether he realises that or not. But it's what he can bring himself to say. So it's what he asks for, and he gets it, for better or worse.

The punchup unlodges Yuu's brain somewhat as well. He needed it too, but he wasn't able to so much as recognise that. Arguably, Yosuke is - yet again, as I mentioned earlier in the thread - further along in his journey of self-awareness and acceptance.

"But if [Kubou] didn't enter the TV on his own, then..."

"...the real murderer threw him in."

Back to back shot posing them as a pair. No other pair in the anime except for maybe Chie and Yukiko spend this percentage of their screentime, together, as a partnership.

E25 “We Can Change The World”

HAD to whip out OBS for this one because I could NOT accurately capture it in screenshots with captions. This is THE SCENE. The one that inspired me to make this thread. I've mentioned it before.

Watch it. Watch this shit!!

Watch on YouTube

[under 4% of runtime, fair use: criticism]

So the story here is that amenosagiri has been reclaiming its Izanagi fragments. Because the fragments have been implemented to Adachi and Yuu's psyches as their Personas, the only way it can do this is by absorbing them entirely. It already took Adachi; now it's taking Yuu.

Just before it hit Yuu with the ｃｏｎｔｒｏｌｏｒｂ, it weakened him significantly and KO'd the rest of the party with an Almighty attack.

Yosuke wakes up from stone cold KO'd by the sheer force of his AIBOU IN DANGER sense.

And just...

You guys.

The framing. The timing. Rise says "I love you" later on this scene but it is Yosuke who did THIS.

Immediately after the segment I cropped, the others all wake up, express concern for Yuu ("Narukami", "senpai", "sensei"), and awaken to their Ultimate personas too.

But no one else calls him Yuu.

No one else's Persona CUDDLES YUU'S UNCONSCIOUS FORM FOR OVER A MINUTE OF RUNTIME while everyone else attacks the boss.

It's Yosuke. Only Yosuke. Always Yosuke.

This is magical girl shit!!

This is healer girlfriend shit!!

This is shit they give to a moeblob with a white robe and a cute hairdo who's been set up as a love interest since episode 1!

EXCEPT THE ONE WHO WAS SET UP SINCE EPISODE 1 HERE... WAS YOSUKE.

I wanna take another set of stills from the section I recorded too.

Remember how I said that closeups of eyes tend to mean the person is realising some deep, vital truth? Not just trivial things - this is always MAJOR revelations.

"!! --"

"Yuu--!!!"

I mean... You look at these faces and tell me what you think he's feeling, but I think these are the faces of a man who's just realised EXACTLY what his feelings towards Yuu Narukami really are.

Right as he's watching him dissolve before his very eyes. Brutal.

No one else's reaction is this strong. They go in the order: Chie, Yukiko, Kanji, Rise, Naoto, Teddie.

Everyone awakens to their evolved Persona, but no one else is focussed on like Yosuke. Certainly, no one else reacted as strongly to Yuu being in peril as Yosuke.

While everyone's Personas push ASG back, Susano-o holds Yuu safe.

Ironically, in the middle of the rundown of everyone's support for Yuu, the order is: Teddie, Naoto, Rise, Kanji, Yukiko, Chie, Yosuke. Rise says "I love you! Now get 'im!" but it's... totally glossed over LOL

At the end of the rundown, again, Yosuke gets special focus and attention paid on his shot. Everyone else got a relatively static, single-pose shot.

"Make us all proud! Okay, [partner]?!"

Yuu prepares to perform a complex summoning. Susano-o guards him through the whole procedure.

See how he's positioned with Yuu while everyone else, even the girls, are to the side? If this was a female character EVERYONE would agree it was canon. Everyone.

Presumably they hand Adachi in at the station, but the next time we see them, Yuu and Yosuke are together as a pair again. This repetition of the opening to their social link is focussed on.

There's a bit of a pic montage for the rest of the year so let me pick out some cute parts...

Chie again serving as litmus for a Normal Distance To Sit From Your Friend

Group Parents

During the Good End farewell sequence at the station, Nanako says a fairly typical thing for kids that age to say to a relative they trust/like: "Someday, when I grow up, I'm gonna marry you!" Because little kids that age just think of marriage as "spending all your time with a person you like", & don't realise the romantic connotations. Pretty common for 6 year olds to naïvely state they want to marry their parents.

I thought Yosuke's "oh hell no you aren't" face was pretty funny. Him and Rise are the only ones not to react with simple raised eyebrows.

E26 “No One is Alone”

Watch this episode.

If you're a game-only fan, and you only watch one episode of the animation, make it this one. Make it this one.

Seriously. You won't regret it.

Anyway, I'll try and diligently focus in on the Yosuke-as-a-love-interest parts and not get distracted. lol

Yuu spends the first 12 minutes of the episode contained in an illusion where he repeats the last day he remembers where everyone is safe and everything is fine. As he loops, he progressively realises that he is inside an illusion. At his behest, Izanami dispells it.

He is inside the TV world with his friends and they are all being dragged directly to the Sea of Souls by the Thousand Curses move. This is: slam-dunking your soul straight into the afterlife, do not pass go, do not experience biological death first.

Yuu is grabbed by it.

"This is the voice of the whole human race," Izanami tells him.

And then... who else...

Who else could it possibly be? Who else WOULD it possibly be?

Who else?

I'M HAVING EMOTIONS, YOU GUYS.

This is one of the few times we see genuine, unstifled fear on Yuu's face. And it's Yosuke who's fighting to save him.

"Yosuke--!!"

"Hey [partner]! You okay?"

"Y-Yeah--"

...but...

“YOSUKE!!”

"FIGHT IT!"

"Sorry [partner]--! But I can't do it--!

"COME ON! FIGHT IT!"

"Guess this is the end for me--!"

"YOSUKE!!"

Cinematic parallels.

"Stop; don't do this! That's enough! Lemme go!"

He doesn't call out to anyone else by name. He's paralysed not only by the hands gripping him, but by fear and grief. He bargains rather than summon a Persona.

"Save us, Narukami!!"

"Don't do this... please, stop...!! I don't wanna see this!!"

With Yosuke gone, he can have all the Personas in the world... but all he feels he can do is beg.

Yosuke was the one he always relied on to prop him up when he faultered.

He just watched him die in the most direct way it's possible to die. And it prevented him doing anything to try and stop the deaths of his other friends.

"Wouldn't you prefer to spend eternity in a world fashioned by your own desires? Wouldn't that bring you far greater happiness...?"

("persona 4 is a goofy scooby do adventure" they said "it'll be lighthearted" they said)

After Yuu defeats Izanami, he wakes up in the purified TV world. He talks to himself. Through the trial he faced, he realised he may need to face life without his friends, and accepted it.

The Velvet Room congratulate him on completing his journey at last, and informally designate his contract as fulfilled. (They officially state it in the next scene.)

Generally speaking... when you fulfil a contract, you get paid, right?

Well, uh, it's just my theory, but... the fact they told him he was free to go, and then we see...

"Huh...?”

“What the-- hey, wasn't I...?"

They were not there a moment ago. But now they are.

And yet again, it's Yosuke who is focussed on uniquely. No one else gets a solo shot like that and certainly not one surrounded by beautiful meadow grass and with flowers positioned as though they're in his hair.

"--! You're all here...!"

(more shots/dialogue in between)

"Hey, [partner]!"

(more Velvet Room shots/dialogue in between)

"Behold... how wonderous the future is in the world you fought so hard for, and ultimately won for yourself."

The true ending train station departure.

"Distance won't change a thing! No matter where you go, we'll always be [partners]!!"

He's the last one to offer his farewell. Again, Rise confessed her love - it wasn't glossed over to the same extent as it was in E25, but it's also not focussed on particularly either...

"Well, that's it. He's gone."

And Yosuke couldn't resist one last opportunity to cuddle up to Yuu in the E26 post-credits scene. It's the final shot of the series.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed it, consider dropping me a couple £! Thank you!

ko-fi.com/ottermck

twitter.com/ottermck

archiveofourown.org/users/p_3a

pillowfort.social/kilieit

otter-mckilbourne.tumblr.com

Times where Yosuke Hanamura is framed like a love interest