Ho Yay / Persona 3

Ho Yay involving Male MC

The Player Character (Makoto Yuki) is pretty much the game's Launcher of a Thousand Ships.

• Pharos is so obviously crushing on Makoto, it gets vaguely squicky. Think about it: the only times they talk are when Makoto is in bed, and Pharos is sitting on the end of the bed in what looks like pajamas...which is visibly reminiscent of the other times the Social Link is sitting on the bed.
• Tanaka and The Hero, played for Squick.
  • His threat to post a picture of you on a dating site for convicts also suggests they'd find Makoto pretty cute.
  • During his encounter with the Protagonist in the movie adaptation, Tanaka calls the Protagonist handsome and offers him a job as a model.
• The Main Character and Akinari, the Dying Young Man. One of the fanbooks has relationship charts for each social link, and Akinari's depicts his and the MC's relationship with a heart around the bench they sit on.
• And don't forget Makoto and Ryoji, which is the most popular Ho Yay ship in P3 for Japan.
  • Episode Luck Seems to be hinting Makoto/Ryoji
  • In the female path of the game, Ryoji reveals that he would like you even if you were a boy.
  • The New/Full Moon drama CD series spells it out that the main reason Pharos became Ryoji, instead of going to fulfill his duty as Death, was because he wanted to continue spending more time staying by the MC's side.
  • The manga includes some intimate moments between the two of them, like when they go shopping for headphones together◊. And when The Reveal of Ryoji being Death occurs, Ryoji collapses and Makoto catches him◊ in what looks like an embrace.
  • Ryoji's Link Episodes in Reload has him joke about how it sounds like he's confessing his love for Makoto. The Link Episodes in general including the scene on December 31st also imply that Ryoji may have feelings for him.
    Ryoji: I know I said I wanted us to be friends but... I actually want to be something more.
• Speaking of social links, French exchange student Bebe (Temperance) is quite affectionate toward the main character, to the point of waiting outside his classroom in the higher levels of the link. Not to mention that his plot, which revolves around him trying to find a way to convince his uncle that he belongs in Japan, can be read as a metaphor for coming out.
  • Not to mention him and the protagonist having a "delectable time" when they went to the candy shop after their first Fashion Club meeting together.
  • The Lets Play plays this for laughs, with the Main Character having a very blatant guy-crush on Bebe.
• Kenji Tomochika (the Magician/Classmate Social Link) giving the protagonist a handmade choker at the end of his Social Link because 'he doesn't look fashionable enough'.
• Surprisingly, there's some between Shinjiro and the Main Character. The former often expresses his concern for the latter's health, especially after the MC recovers from his cold in September. In one of the Drama CDs, Shinji even makes food for him while the MC's sick.
• Talk to Junpei on 4/29 and answer "No, we're going.":
  Junpei: Listen to me, man. We shouldn't go tonight. Besides, it would be just you and me there. You know, like, Brokeback Tartarus.

Les Yay involving Female MC

• Mitsuru asks the female protagonist to hold her hand while watching a scary movie.
  • She even asks the FeMC to live with her during her Rank 9 event, after asking her to run away with her during rank 8.
  • During the encounter with her fiancé, she also starts referring to you by your first name, like she does with a romanced male MC, or Yukari (who also has a great deal of Les Yay with her).
• Way back, in the beginning of the game, right after you fight the first Shadow, you'll meet with Yukari again before going to school. If you've acted nice to her up until that point, she'll blush as she says your given name for the first time. It's worth noting that while she uses -kun on the male protagonist, she uses yobisute on the female protagonist, which, combined with her overall friendlier attitude^note Her Social Link becomes available earlier, lacks the Charm requirement and there is no option that will result in you reversing it, suggests that she has a closer relationship with the female protagonist.
  • When Yukari has to wear a maid outfit for her club's school festival cafe the FeMC can tell her "I'm looking forward to it!"
  • Like with the male MC, Yukari admits that "going out with" the female MC helped her understand how her mother felt after Eiichiro Takeba died, a possible hint that Yukari sees the female MC in a similar light as the male one.
• That doesn't even begin to cover it. A lot of the links for the FeMC are subtext-riffic. Her Hermit Link, Saori, could easily be read as having a crush on her, and there is a lot of hand-holding involved in the last few ranks.
• A lot of the holdover 'romantic' links have... interesting vibes too, like with FeMC/Fuuka- the Max event has the two of you baking a cake, taking it to Fuuka's room, talking about how you're going to be bonded forever (or in Fuuka's case, wanting the FeMC ALL TO HERSELF), and then you get the fadeout screen with the 'You spent a long time with Fuuka'- the exact same message you get when you max out romantically with a guy. For a game without an explicit lesbian option, they sure do cram in as many non-explicit ones as humanly possible. Also, the player can tell Fuuka to be glad to have met her specifically - to which Fuuka gets a Luminescent Blush like never before.
• There's even a moment of Lampshade Hanging when Aigis meets the Female Main Character for the first time. Since it features the same hug and declaration as her one with the male MC, Junpei and Akihiko will comment that it's no wonder Aigis wasn't interested in them.

Ho Yay involving other characters

• Yukari and Mitsuru have a lot of Les Yay.
  • For starters, in the Male MC route during the fight in the Love Hotel, the team gets separated, and when you meet Mitsuru and Akihiko or Junpei again, Mitsuru will frantically insist that nothing happened. When you play the Female MC route, you can potentially meet up with Mitsuru and Yukari, and she'll insist the exact same thing.
  • Mitsuru's resolution.
  • Something of note about Mitsuru's resolution: from that point on, Mitsuru decides to start calling Yukari by her first name. The only other people worthy of this privilege? Akihiko (a close friend from years back) and the MC... at rank nine, long after the S-link has gone romantic. If that doesn't say something about how Mitsuru views Yukari after her resolution scene, nothing does.
  • Plus during December when everyone is deciding whether to kill Ryoji or not, Mitsuru comes into Yukari's room and they discuss things. They come to the same conclusion pretty quickly and they both sit on Yukari's bed ... but nothing ever becomes of it.
  • Yukari crying into Misturu, and what looks like Mitsuru holding her to her chest during The Answer.
  • "Well, that's settled, let's go have a bath!"
  • Volume 4 of the Drama CD series ends with Mitsuru offering Yukari to use her private shower and Yukari accepting her offer.
  • The New/Full Moon Drama CD series focuses more on their relationship and much of their dialogue can be interpreted as romantic.
  • In the second movie, during the beach sequence, Yukari (along with Fuuka) gushes over how pretty Mitsuru is, prompting Mitsuru to visibly blush.
• Persona 3 suggests such a connection between Fuuka Yamagishi and Natsuki Moriyama, in the way that Natsuki gets really stressed out when she thinks her bullying may have hurt Fuuka a little too much. SEES has to keep Natsuki under constant watch because they think she might have some... issues.
• Mitsuru also has a particular fangirl that hangs around the main classroom and dreams up elaborate fantasies about her.
  • Said fangirl is also Yandere and Ax-Crazy, to the point of blackmailing over people for pictures of Mitsuru and items related to her. The female MC can even click the option to sell her pictures of Mitsuru in a swimsuit for 1000 Yen each (no, that doesn't actually happen). The girl's reaction to THAT would fit right into Hell Girl. *shudder*
• And then there's one of the 'bonus' videos added for FES. You know... the one where Yukari drags Fuuka into her bedroom and starts pulling her clothes off so they can pose in maid outfits together? Sadly, the video cuts off there...
• Akihiko and Shinjiro's relationship in particular seems rather complex.
  • Aki/Shinji is the most complex relationship, since while they're not on the best of terms, they still care a lot for each other. All their scenes together, that Akihiko confronts Shinjiro about taking the Persona suppressants, and that Akihiko holds Shinjiro during his death. It's far more than just random shipping.
  • More humorously, in the manga's rendition of the Lovers' full moon battle, Akihiko and Junpei end up in a similar situation as Makoto and Yukari, and it ends with Akihiko punching Junpei in the face.
  • Not to mention that, in his MAX Rank on the lover's path, before he'll do anything, he asks FeMC to call him "Aki" - as in, the nickname only Shinjiro called him.
  • And poor "Aki" feels quite awkward around girls, and even chatting them up.
• Jin and Takaya. They hold hands. They go everywhere together. They scheme to kill all of humanity together. They run a hitsite together. And Takaya's last line of the game is "Jin." Ho Yay? For sure.
  • Not to mention Jin's bottomless devotion to Takaya is his main motivation for following the plan to bring about the Fall, therefore "fulfill[ing] Takaya's wish". It just makes one wonder what else Takaya could convince Jin to do for him...
  • Jin holds Takaya's hand twice, to stop him from "being reckless". If that's not enough to go on, when they jump off the bridge, it looks a lot like lovers suicide and the second time, he's practically begging "Don't Go!" when he looks up at Takaya.
  • This might be a stretch, but Takaya and Jin are always referred to as partners, which doesn't go without a double meaning; Akihiko in particular sounds scathing when he asks "Where's your partner?"^note "The other guy" in the localization of the manga, but Jin doesn't care. Hmm...And while they're part of a trio, but they don't seem to care much for Chidori, since she ultimately chooses Junpei over them, giving her life to save him.
  • Also, this is probably just a coincidence, but Takaya and Jin's names are similar to Tatsuya and Jun, the canon gay pairing from the former half of the Persona 2 duology.
• Junpei and Ryoji have no shortage of Ho Yay, oddly despite the fact that they're both ladies' men. Only a few weeks after Ryoji first shows up, he and Junpei are practically inseparable, to the point of being out on the town together the night Junpei's girlfriend is kidnapped.