Is Final Fantasy VII Remake an SJW game?

I recently purchased the Final Fantasy VII Remake (even though I previously thought I wouldn't). It's actually better than I thought it would be (I'm still not very fond of the battle system, but it's nevertheless passable).

There's one section of the game that's rather... flamboyant.

I have previously written about other games where quite obviously modern social justice ideology has been shoved in, as a form of political activism. (Perhaps the most egregious and obvious example is Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus.) But how about this one?

1. Why it could ostensibly be

This is not really any sort of major spoiler (unless you really are a purist who doesn't want to know anything about a game before playing it (I empathize because I myself am largely like that)) so it shouldn't be very spoilerific for me to describe this in detail.

There's one section of the game where you need to infiltrate the mansion of an organized crime boss in order to rescue another non-playable (female) character. In order to do this, the playable character (Cloud) needs to dress up as a woman, because else they won't let him enter.

This is not an uncommon trope in classical JRPGs (and other forms of Japanese entertainment). What makes this peculiar is that they have cranked up this trope to eleven, and beyond.

You see, not only does Cloud need to be dressed up as a woman, but he also needs the recommendation of another high-ranking boss in town, who operates a cabaret-like establishment full of scantily-clad women. However, it so happens that this man is quite flamboyantly gay (or, at a very minimum, extremely "metrosexual", it's never explicitly disambiguated), in a "manly gay" manner, and he will grant Cloud the recommendation, and have his staff dress Cloud up, only if Cloud participates in a Broadway-style stage show where Cloud dances as his partner. The dance is extremely and unambiguously homoerotic. (It even ends up with the typical end-pose of a pair dance, with him holding Cloud in an arced pose, with his face so close to Cloud's that it hints a kiss coming. It doesn't go that far, though. He kind of like just teases it.)

The cabaret boss isn't depicted as an exaggerated caricature of a "handsome manly flamboyant gay/metrosexual" man (as is common eg. in many anime series), but in a relatively serious manner.

After you succeed in the dance, Cloud is dressed up as a sexy woman and makeup is put onto him, after he proceeds with a female companion (who's also sexily dressed) to the mansion of the mafia boss.

Who is depicted as greasy sleezy overweight womanizer pig, an extreme caricature of such a character both in looks and behavior, who is constantly seeking for beautiful women to... take advantage of them. He examines all three of them (Cloud and his two female companions, one of which is the one they were trying to rescue) and in a rather archetypal animesque way ends up choosing Cloud because he deems him to be the "sexiest" of the three (without realizing he's actually a man dressed up as a woman, even though it's relatively clear).

While the game doesn't depict any explicit advances and abuse, it strongly hints at it. Anyway, in the end all three of the protagonists end up kicking his ass. (It doesn't end there, but I won't spoil any more because it's not really relevant here.)

2. But is it?

I might be slightly naive when I say this, but I would say that the answer is no.

This is a Japanese game made by a Japanese company in Japan, primarily for a Japanese audience. Modern western social justice ideology isn't really a thing in Japan. It's unlikely that Square Enix had a social justice agenda when they scripted and developed this section.

Exaggerated flamboyant gay/metrosexual characters and caricatures (both the "manly gay" and the "flamboyant gay" variants) are relatively common in Japanese media, especially anime, and have been so for several decades. I don't know for certain whether these characters exist in Japanese media because they are culturally normal and accepted, or whether it's a form of social engineering, but it is my understanding that it is pretty much exclusively the former. (Also, I don't know how widely accepted homosexuality is in Japan, but I have never heard of overtly anti-homosexual sentiments there.)

Likewise, as mentioned, cross-dressing (especially when it's a male character dressing as a woman) is also a relatively common trope in Japanese entertainment, and most usually no deeper meaning is attached to it (ie. the cross-dressing is not usually depicted as the character being an actual cross-dresser, effeminate or "transsexual", but most usually it's done simply as a gag, as funny comedy.)

The trope has been ramped up to absolute extremes in this section of the game, but I don't think there's any sort of "social justice social engineering" agenda behind it. It's just extreme exaggeration of a relatively common trope in Japanese media that has no agenda behind it. I may be completely wrong on this, of course, but that's the impression I get.