Again, this misses the point somewhat. Shadows in the game are meant to be gross exaggerations of the mental anguish the characters are going through(Rise is not and has no desire to be a stripper, as an example). To reiterate the toxic masculinity thing, Kanji feels he has to act like a thug and keep his hobbies secret, or else he would be called a homosexual(again, it is also important to remember that even 10 years ago this was a common thing "Oh you like sewing what are ya gay?"). He had no positive male role models in his life anymore, so his emotions kind of spiraled out of his control. It's no wonder his shadow, to get at him, would then become a gross representation like that.



The manga also has more scenes that do a slightly better job of this, as he was made fun of by fixing a girl classmates' bag that had ripped. It also flat out sucks that Yosuke, as a character, would have had a lot of his flaws looked at in a different light if they didn't last minute cut the male romance option(it was dubbed and the scene is in the files, just not accessible). Wonder if it being cut was Hashino's doing at this point. The games are great, a small part of a +100 hour rpg doesn't flat out ruin the entirety of them, but holy hell I'm growing tired of scenes like that being in that run counter to the point of the story they're trying to tell.