These Persona Characters Should NOT be Romanced!
40The Persona games always give you the option to date almost whoever you like. My romance choice on Persona 4 and 5 are rather complicated, but I am a definitive Fuuka simp on Persona 3.
"Not all female characters in Persona games need to be romantic routes." Uhm, not all of them are. The nurse and "Maya" are not romantic routes at all. The romance is only hinted at, not an official one.
As for the other two, yes people can date Futaba, but I'm more on the "Futaba is my autistic little sister" camp. Some are into that. I'm not, but I'm not going to stop those people.
What about Kawakami? The one who initiated the romance is Ren, the protagonist, AKA you. You have the choice not to initiate it and go for someone else.
The OP recognized the two non-romance options and said that she would've replaced them with Takemi and Ohya. They are both adults, and again, you're the one who initiates the romance with them. It's entirely on you who you want to romance. Also, they are fictional characters. It does not matter at all.
"Characters like Maya and Sayoko perform behaviors that are, to say the least, embarrassing towards the protagonist, who we remember being a teenager."
Bro, Maya doesn't even know that she was interacting with a teenager on the other side of the game. Sayoko was flirting towards Yu and that was weird and creepy but pointing out that it's weird and creepy is like pointing out that the buck-toothed teacher is creepy. Well, thank you, Captain Obvious, for this insightful "critique."
Oh no! The protagonist is a teenager! Amazing insight. What else are you going to tell me? The protagonist is stuck on a quest to save the world, and that's no way to treat a teenager? Pointing out at something inappropriate and going, "Oh no, that's inappropriate" is not criticism. Pointing out the obvious is not criticism. If that's the strength of your "criticism," you might as well just leave the media and never come back.
I'm telling you people once again. Criticism is an art form in and of itself, and a lot of people on the internet are really bad critics.