WARNING: The below story contains potential spoilers for Persona 3 and Persona 3: Reload.
The Persona series has always had issues with gay and transphobia, but Persona 3: Reloaded at least removes the transphobia from one scene in particular.
Personality 3 The scene in question It has the party trying to hit on women on the beach, with Akihiko, Junpei and the hero approaching a character referred to as the “Pretty Lady”. After some swaying back and forth, Akihiko pointed to a bit of facial hair on her chin, and the pretty lady replied, “I missed it somewhere?!” Junpei then shouted “It's him?!”
Dialogue is very It was changed slightly in Persona 3 Portable (the character is named “Pretty Lady” instead of “Beautiful Lady”), but still includes the same mutant scare.
As I mentioned for the first time before Kotaku Verified by IGN, however, Persona 3: Reload changes the dialogue slightly. The end result is the same – the party running away from the woman – but instead of it being because she's trans, it's actually a conspiracy theorist trying to sell them sunscreen.
In the new scene, the conversation starts to go awry after Pretty Lady tells them, “You know the sun in the sky isn't real, right? It's an artificial sun that was sent into space in the 1980s.”
Her character's name then changes to “Delusional Lady” as she tells them that “regular sunscreen doesn't 'work' against that fake sun”, and tries to sell them the “special” sunscreen for 300,000 yen. The gang discovers that this character is still a bit strange. , but the transphobic aspect, at least, is gone in this new version.
This isn't the first time Altus has made a change based on homophobic or transphobic content in the Persona series. In 2020, Altus changed certain scenes in Persona 5 that fans considered offensive and homophobic for the Western release of Persona 5 Royal.
For more on Persona 3: Reload, check out our review, where Michael Higham gave the remake a 9/10. “With an excellent visual overhaul and countless small but impactful changes, Persona 3 Reload tells a timeless story of tragedy and hope with searing emotional honesty,” Higham wrote.
Alex Stedman is a senior news editor at IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she's not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
