Persona 4 the Animation

As a fan of the games, the Persona 4 adaptation is a real shame. It exemplifies everything that can go wrong with video game adaptations. Not only is it poorly done in respect to anime as a whole, but it is poorly done even compared to some other video game adaptations. I fully expect I'll get a lot of hate for this, so please let me explain first.

The story is pretty typical for what you would find in most JRPGs these days, but one of the unique things about the Persona franchise has been the blend between the dating-sim styled day-to-day activities and the ... RPG combat. Most of the action takes place in a world hidden by all but a few lucky people granted the power of a Persona, the manifestation of the person's psyche which is used to fight shadows inside of the TV world. While it's fairly generic and comes with its fair share of clichés, it works well because the story is self-aware and does not try to take itself too seriously. It's a fairly light-hearted story even in the midst of all the murders, kidnappings, and crazy things going on.

There isn't any inherent problem with the story here because it's simply being taken from an already well-written series. The story was fine in the game, and for the most part it's fine here too. What there IS a problem with, however, is the pacing.

The pacing can be likened to teleportation. It's a disorganized mess of scenes abruptly changing from one to another with a calendar flashing for a few moments. No, the people behind the adaptation don't care about pacing-- instead they use the calendar as a lazy excuse to not deal with coherent pacing. You might have the main character sitting at a table talking with the group for all of around 30 seconds and then the calendar will simply flash on screen, skipping past several days and taking you into a completely different scene with almost no link or correlation with what just happened. Sometimes the days flash by so fast that you don't even know what the hell is happening any more. Sometimes you will have a dungeon given three entire episodes dedicated to it, and another dungeon will have less than half an episode. It makes no sense.

The calendar system and the day-to-day activities worked fine in the game, but this is not the game. It does not work here and it does not fit. This is an anime, not a video game, and the people behind the anime should at least try and make sure it translates properly into a condensed, strictly visual form. You can't simply take the game and then slap it into an anime. You need to make adjustments, you need to make changes, and you need to make sure it fits the medium that you are adapting it to. The staff behind the Persona 4 adaptation don't understand this important philosophy. It instead feels like they're awkwardly trying to recreate the feel of the game, but failing pretty miserably at it. I felt like I was getting a headache at times trying to follow the constant warping of the characters.

So, if you haven't played the games, don't expect to understand much of what is going on. You will probably be lost and confused amidst the pacing, especially when important plot points and characterization is skipped upon and barely explained. There really needed to be two seasons of anime here because it's clear as day how rushed it is.

Unfortunately, that's not the only problem here. Both the animation and the art style are also poorly done. There is a strange lack of color throughout the entire show, which is odd given how colorful and vibrant the game was. Each character is drawn poorly and colored in with ugly looking gradients, something that you would expect from a high school computer animation class, not a commercial product created for thousands of people. It's all very bland and amateurish. There's also a startling lack of animation here. One character will have their mouth flap while everybody else in the background is static and motionless, often complete with disproportional faces and odd expressions, looking stupefied. For a lack of a better term, it's very 'derp'. Even when there is a decent amount of animation happening on screen it's usually done poorly with glaring mistakes in between movements, usually body parts morphing into strange shapes. Either they were lacking budget or something went horribly wrong in the production of the anime... either way, it has some of the worst art and animation I've seen in a mainstream anime. For all the years it took for the series to get a 'proper' anime adaptation, when it looks as poorly as this, well... was it really worth it?

On the plus side, the music is very nice and the remixed and new tracks are greatly appreciated. It helps to spice things up a little bit from the game, though there are problems even here since the background songs will abruptly switch from one to another with complete dissonance and shifts in tone. The music itself is good, but the application of the music is not. Instead of awkwardly switching between music all the time, the staff could have opted to just use silence or ambient noise from time to time instead, and save the music only for the scenes where it truly fits in. It should feel natural, and here it just stands out in a really unpleasant way.

Sadly, there just isn't much good I can say for the anime. There's a few brief moments of hilarity scattered here and there, and while it's nice to see all the characters fully animated, the entire time I was watching it just made me want to go replay the game instead. A good adaptation wouldn't make you want to do that. The anime is nothing more than fanservice for people who have played and enjoyed the games, and even as fanservice it fails in some pretty major areas.

Maybe other people will enjoy it more than me, but Persona 4 deserved so much more than this.

"Bonds of people is the true power"

Persona 4 is one of the best video games that I have had the chance to play. Despite being highly acclaimed by critics both in Japan and in the West, Persona 4 remains somewhat of a niche title and this more or less transfers to the anime adaptation too. As a result, those who have played the game are the ones best-placed to be able to fully appreciate the anime series, but new fans will also find a very good anime thanks to Aniplex doing a commendable job with the existing game material.

The opening episodes set the story up ... quite well with mysterious deaths, the TV world, shadows and personas. The main character, along with another high school student, get involved through various circumstances and then strive to solve the murder cases, meanwhile gaining new friends and abilities. However, it does take a while before huge plot developments start to occur, and these are spread out unevenly over the course of the series. As a result, the pacing is off throughout certain episodes and some important revelations are only lightly touched upon. Social links are a crucial feature in Persona 4; these are several side stories which detail the interactions and bonds that form between the main character and supporting characters. Certain social links are arguably more enjoyable to watch in the anime rather than play in the game, as there's original material which fleshes them out better. Others, however, feel rather rushed.

The game features several short anime-styled cut scenes, and the anime series is similar in terms of artwork and animation. Character designs, which have been copied from the game, are simple and sharp. This means it's decent, but compared to certain other anime it's probably not as visually striking. In some episodes the animation is quite inconsistent; for example, facial expressions are usually good but sometimes become lifeless. Nevertheless, the battle scenes featuring personas and shadows are mostly excellent and full of action, appropriate BGM and variation. It's also amusing that the anime retains the look and feel of a video game; the main character's stats appearing halfway through each episode, as well as the calendar being displayed when each day passes are just a couple of examples.

The sound, in my opinion, is the best aspect of this anime. Poor music alone can't make-or-break a series, but that is irrelevant anyway when it comes to Persona 4 The Animation. The background music is composed by Shoji Meguro, who also composed the music for the game, and it doesn't disappoint, especially during battle scenes. A lot of the music has been recycled from the game and rightly so; why change something that's already superb? The OP and ED themes are new, but they're done in the same style as the OP: sung in English but still sounding incredible. The Japanese VAs have done a good job (which is expected as they also voiced the characters in the game, and therefore have previous experience), and more often than not they suit the roles well.

There are several characters in P4, and most seem to have made the transition from game to anime. The main character, Yu Narukami, was previously a silent protagonist but now has a voice and his own personality. The latter is initially quite bland but develops as his stats and social links develop; after a few episodes he becomes central to a fair few hilarious quips and situations. The rest of the main cast are a varied but likeable bunch, and each viewer will probably have their own favourites. This anime series has an interesting method of introducing the main characters and molding their personalities, by which I mean that it's incorporated into the Midnight Channel, one of the major plot points. Aside from Yu Narukami, some members of the main cast start out as plain high school students, but their backgrounds and insecurities are revealed as the anime progresses. As mentioned, the battles are entertaining but rather than just having persona-users as mere spectators, they feel pain when their personas are attacked, which raises the stakes and makes them more involved. Finally, the appearance of two mysterious characters (Igor and Margaret) at the beginning of each episode help to summarize which social links or bonds of friendship were developed by Yu in the previous episode.

Now, I'll assume that the majority of Persona 4 veterans will agree that it was a brilliant, or at the very least good, game for the Playstation 2. Therefore, it has two important challenges: to satisfy those who've played the game, and to appeal to those who haven't but are looking to watch a good anime series. The anime is a faithful adaptation, so anyone who liked the game can now enjoy watching it as a TV series. It's vastly entertaining and contains mystery, action and adventure in a high school/small town setting. Admittedly, the story does take a while to get going for those unfamiliar to P4, due to questionable pacing and an initial monster-of-the-week feeling to episodes. However, get past this and you'll find a decent series that's slightly different to others in its genre.

If the quality found in P4 The Animation becomes the usual standard for anime adapted from games, I'd definitely watch more of them. It complements the game adequately and while it remains quite faithful the anime also includes a lot of new stuff, as well as a heavier use of comedy. These changes allow Persona 4 The Animation to be watched as a standalone series, but at the end of the day existing P4 fans should enjoy the anime more because seeing how it handles the familiar characters and story from the game is great fun; newcomers will probably score the series a bit lower. Video gamers can look forward to more of Persona 4 in future: an updated port of the original game on Playstation Vita, and a spin-off fighting game on PS3/Xbox360.

Note: An unaired episode that adapts the video game's True Ending is scheduled to be released in August 2012.

The majority of people seem to praise Persona 4: The Animation for its faithfulness to the source material, calling it “the best game-to-anime adaption ever made.” As someone who finished their first playthrough of the game while the series was almost halfway through syndication, I’ll agree, the series is certainly faithful. And game-to-cinema adaptions don’t really have a high standard anyways, so this is probably the best adaption also. However, this is ultimately one of the main reasons why The Animation fails to be as good as the original game. (And since the original game’s story was merely “good” in my eyes, this causes The ... Animation to sink down into mediocre.)

There seems to be misconception that if an adaption is faithful enough to the source material, than it’s garanteed to be good-so long as the source material was good in the first place. This is incorrect because when a story is written for certain medium, it tends to work best in that medium because that’s what the story was designed for. Persona 4 fundamentally works best as a video-game, because that’s what it was written for. You could still make a good television series out of it, but in order for that to happen you have to actually change stuff and play around with it.

The first of these problems is the pacing. Persona 4 is a game where you live out the player-protagonist’s highschool life day by day, with trips to the TV world every few weeks. It takes about 60-80 hours to beat, and features a very slow pacing. For a 25 episode television series, they of course would need to compress the overall story.

For example, it’s not until a whole hour into the game until the player-protagonist actually gets to fight some Shadows. Since fighting Shadows is apart of the show’s premise, you of course need to include that in the pilot. Therefor, the writers had to rush through the first hour of the game and compress into a 20-minute episode, which results in an overtly fast pacing.

Secondly is the formulaic structure that comprises the majority of the plot. It roughly goes something like this: “Episode A: The heroes find out who’s on the Midnight Channel, and try to gather information on them so that they can save them from the TV world –> Episode B: The heroes go into the TV world, and rescues the victim. The victim then joins their party and helps out in the next story arc–> Episode C: Filler episode –> Repeat.”

The formula was no problem in the game, since the slow pacing made it so you barely even noticed the formula in the first place. However, since the formula goes through a mere three episodes of the anime, the quicker pacing makes it seem more repetitive.

Lastly, there’s Yu’s ability to summon multiple Persona’s, and acquire ”Social Links.” In the video-game, these are only briefly explained, but it’s no problem because it makes sense in the context of a video-game. But with The Animation, they still don’t bother to give an in-depth explanation, and it no longer makes any sense because it doesn’t have the context of a game to back it up. In the game it makes complete sense from a game play mechanic, but in The Animation it serves absolutely no purpose other than to occasionally show off some of the obtainable demons.



This is one of those shows where it starts out rather nicely; even though the first few episodes suffered from such overtly-fast pacing, they were otherwise rather enjoyable and of decent quality. After episode 4 however, the series started to steep deeper and deeper into mediocracry, and it wasn’t until episode 21 (near the end of the series) that it finally started to be of exceptional quality. This is partially due to how the series quickly starts to focus less on the mystery aspects of the plot, and more on the formulaic nature of rescuing people from the TV world and forming Social Links. In other words, barely anything interesting actually happened for a large part of the series.

When each character is introduced in their respective story-arcs, they are indeed compelling characters with a good amount of depth to them. However, as soon as they face their inner selves and are rescued from the TV world, they quickly degrade into flat one-dimensional characters. They’re all still likable to a certain extent, but not enough to make slice-of-life episodes (i.e. the filler episodes) worth watching.

The fight scenes were also underwhelming, usually feeling rushed. They barely have any tension to them, and usually ended far sooner than you would have liked them to. A few times they tried to mix up the fights by adding in some zany element, such as the male characters turning into old men, or the a hot liquid appearing on the floor that impaired the characters movements. Sometimes it worked, but other times it was just added a bit of stupid and unnecessary comedy.

If there’s anything that saves this show from being terribly mediocre, it’s the final four episodes that manage to pull a few plot twists and make the whole mystery plot actually interesting.

Overall Rating: 6/10.

For the most part this is a mediocre series, but it had enough saving qualities for me to rate this as “above average.” For a short while each character was compelling and complex, and the last four episodes were of exceptional quality.

But even so, I highly recommend you avoid this series, and just play the original video-game. I wouldn't call the game a masterpiece or anything, but it's certainly better than The Animation is virtually every way.

Can any of you actually say there was a good video game based anime series? Seriously, the majority of them are... er, bland, and that's just saying the least about them. Regarding the Shin Megami Tensei Persona 3 based anime, I think I speak for every fan of the persona series when I say that it was nothing that we were expecting in the worst way possible. Yet, not all of them get a rare second chance at redemption like the Persona series, and the Persona 4 anime could very well be the best video game based anime we'll ever see to date, but of ... course it has it's share of problems.

STORY: In the backwater town of Inaba, mysterious events from strange murder cases to midnight showings of people in ways they have never been seen before begin to arise. But fortunately a transfer student with strange powers is on the case with his slowly growing group of friends.
With my dose of sarcasm out of the way, Persona 4 The Animation is based off of the popular (Not in sales numbers but in fandom) Playstation 2 game, Persona 4 (The name gives it's self away). As video game based anime go, this could honestly be the best in very many aspects.

For starters, the anime is very true to the source material. Character models are close to original as they will ever be, the adaption doesn't take very many liberties with the story so fans shouldn't be disappointed, and it even goes beyond and takes many elements from the game to add oh so many charms and lovable quirks like the critical hits animations. It's all great, but, this anime may be just too faithful to the game it's based on.
And then there's elements that any the fans of the game will understand, like the main character's ability to swap Personas when the rest of the cast can not, the best explanation that non fans can think of is that he's the main character and he is special.

As for the characters, the main character, Yu Narukami (Which isn't his real name, but Protagonist isn't an actual name so anything would've worked, even Fluffy Puppy would work because you can name him whatever you want, and yes that's what I named him in my game), is the biggest blank slate of a main character I've ever seen. And, unfortunately, it's understandable, a main character who acts according to your commands in the game, will never be a deep and interesting character with your commands now stripped away, but at least the dialogue that comes from him is hilarious at times. But it feels like you're watching him on cruise control, that is if you played the game. Okay, he isn't a complete blank slate, at the very least he has a stoic personality and emotes well when the occasion calls for it, especially in the later episode where you'd start to think he's making up for lost time, but he's using what he has left very well.
But the rest of the cast is so much more animated and filled with with more life than the game, which is to be excepted. If they weren't, they wouldn't be animated. Bad pun... but it's also about as funny as the humor is, which is an abused amount of overreactions from each other and an out of no where and dragged out cartoony chase scene that is uncomfortably shoe horned in.

Then we have the pacing, the pacing is very questionable at times, though I myself agree with the sped up beginning (Which in the game, what took the anime one episode to do, took the game literally four hours to accomplish before any actual gameplay would begin), several episodes tries way to hard to cram back story of characters into them and to conclude what took many hours for any player of the game to finish one dungeon and rescue one character, all done in a single episode or two. The pacing often feels awkward and rushed, but strangely enough these episodes actually add on to characters, that the game itself neglected to do, in a small amount of crammed time in single episodes.
For example, the characters Chie and Yukiko are friends as soon you see them, but the anime goes into how they met, in a very limited amount of time, however.

But, the way the story progresses is understandable if you think about it like this: The whole let's go to a dungeon to save someone and have them join up rinse and repeat is not the anime's fault, but the game itself. That's because, even though the story is very anime appropriate, there's the challenge of turning (As a fan of the persona series I'll admit) repetitive dungeon crawling into a cohesive ongoing story. It's easy to do short term by filling those moments with heavy action sequences and forced comedy, but it's going to be repetitive in the long run because of how faithful the anime is inspiring to be.
But there is one more thing that still transferred over from video to anime extremely well, the mystery that grabs the anime initially. It's take some sharp turns without cutting the corners, and the twists are awe inspiring and never makes you feel it was pulled out of no where, and the end result reveals to you something that, unless you played the game to the very end, someone was never who they appeared to be.

ANIMATION: Action scenes are spectacular and well animated, and the personas look great (And not ghost-like, like in that other persona anime). Character designs are diverse, and creatures and personas are very creative looking. There are animation quirks and even a lot of times where characters go off model, but it's not enough to fully shit talk about (And apparent rumors are apparently half right about the animation quality). The last episode however, makes me think they blew the entire animation budget, in a good way, and it's a huge upgrade to previous episodes.

SOUND: I love Shoji Meguro's stuff, and as a fan of both the game and his music, I'm ecstatic to hear that the original soundtrack is being used in full force. But it is probably the laziest thing about the anime on a whole. Unlike that other persona anime where it had it's own soundtrack to work with, it's clear laziness that the animation company used the original soundtrack from the game itself in order to be faithful. But it really helps that the soundtrack is great and incredibly catchy, and the opening and ending theme music (Which is the only original music made for the anime) are of that quality.
The Japanese voice acting is good, but as an anime fan that prefers to listen to an audio in my own language, nothing more than the original cast from the game can satisfy me. Thankfully sentai went above and beyond for the english dub, gathering the majority of the original cast like Johnny Yong Bosch, Yuri Lowenthal, Troy Baker, and Laura Bailey. However, there two noticeable absentees, like the original voice for Chie, Tracey Rooney, is replaced by Erin Fitzgerald, who doesn't just do a replica of the old performance, but instead makes the character her own and does an arguably better job as the character than Tracey. The other replacement is Teddie's voice actor, Dave Writtenburg, whom is now being voiced by Sam Riegal, however unlike Chie's new voice actor, he is simply trying his best to mimic the original performance. Fortunately he to does a reasonable job with the role making the english cast feel complete despite the replacements.

OVERALL:
The Good:
+ Decent animation with faithful character designs to the original.
+ Mystery from the game transferred over very well, keeping one hooked as it's pulls a unexpected surprising twist to those who never played the game or finished playing it.
+ English voice cast from the original game it's based off of mostly returned with the new additions doing well enough for those who couldn't make it back.

Mixed:
+/- Faithful to the original source material / Faithful to a fault.
+/- Added character development that the game neglected / Too short of time to work with development, main character isn't interesting.
+/- Great music / Recycled music from the game is abused.
+/- Persona designs look cool. / Watching Yu switch from Persona to Persona on the fly will confuse those who are not familiar with the game it's based on.

As a fan of the game, I'm satisfied with the results, and I'm glad I'm not anal and nit picky like most stubborn fans. The Persona 4 anime is as good as it gets as game based anime is concerned. I'm personally happy how faithful it is to the game, but newer viewers are going to need to brush up on the game to fully enjoy the anime as a fan like myself has.

I am a fan of the Persona video games. Persona fans this is a must watch if you love the game. When I heard they are making Persona 4 Anime version- I jumped for joy. Persona 4 video game was my favorite game. The anime follows the story exactly to the game. They even used the same music and Voice actors!!!!! Igor still creeps me out to this day : 0 I give this anime 10/10.

so here goes my first review. I felt like I had to get this off my chest because I loved Persona 4 (and 3) and I was really looking forward to this anime since I heard of its existence a while back. I will say this: this will be my honest and brutal as-can-be opinion. I haven't really decided yet what scores I'll give in each category as of writing this sentence, but I have a feeling it's going to be pretty low in some of them. however, I still enjoy the show merely because I enjoyed the game so much. I'm even watching it ... with friends who haven't played it (one of them played 3) and I like being the "expert" telling them facts and trivia about it. I'd also like to apologies for my writing, if it actually bothers you because of its length or its awkward wording. anywho, on to the actual review.

Story: this is one of the times I wish I /hadn't/ played the game. I don't know if it's because of that, but the show seems to really rush through things. as mentioned in other reviews and even something I was expecting before I even watched the thing, quite a few scenes from the show is either omitted or switched about. I would say that the scenes they omitted were trivial if it weren't for the fact that there are one or two trivial additions. when I watched the pilot, I was surprised when I saw that I was already half way done. if I remember right, they were only going to do 26 episodes or so(?) so I guess they have a lot to squeeze in. I don't remember where I heard that number from and I can't find any good sources to an exact number either, so don't trust me on that. some scenes seemed a little over-exaggerated from how they originally were, also. for example, I don't remember Kubo being as aggressive and creepy as he did in the anime. nervous and creepy, yes, but not this. aside from that, it's pretty faithful to the game. I was somewhat shocked with how faithful it was in some aspects. I wasn't so sure they would include the Wild Card system because I wasn't sure how they would implement it, but it looks like they're gonna have a go at it. I also enjoyed how they kept the weather system and the player status and even how they made up for some scenes that would otherwise be awkward to convey out-of-game. not bad.

Art: this is the main thing that bugs me and I can explain it very simply. just by looking at Yosuke's hair, you can tell the difference in art. one style has Yosuke's hair a bit wavy, while the other has it... er... a bit too spikey, even for Yosuke. we could say "well, they might've done the scenes out of order and later they got too lazy to put so much effort into his hair." however, you can also tell the difference from other things like the body build, facial structure, etc. and then there is the third that actually looks like the original artwork. so there is a good, middle and bad, original-artwork-looking-one being the good and horribly-spikey-yosuke being bad. as for the coloring, well that's the easiest to explain. I didn't really care for it in the game and I don't in the show either. It's really, uh, mushy? the actual animation also shifts a bit. it goes from being a decent modern day animation to a decent early 90s animation. some movements seems well done while others seem to cut corners and make the characters look stiff. all in all, I'm a big fan of Shigenori's artwork, so I'm a bit disappointed how this turned out.

Sound: this is another instance where I sometimes wish I hadn't played the game, but this one isn't much of a big deal. most of the music comes from the original. yes, this means the silly engrish songs too. there's a few new songs, I believe. either that or I've never picked them up, in-game. the songs are put where they need to be, so good on them. the reason I regret my playthrough is because every now and then you can tell where the music has been edited, which will throw you off. but, again, it's not a big deal. the voice acting is done with the original cast from the game (if you hadn't already heard for the millionth time). I played the game dubbed and only played the undubbed for maybe an hour or two, so I can't really say much. the voice acting by itself is obviously very good. with the animation, though, I would honestly have to say it's wasted effort. I had wondered from the beginning if this would mean that the english cast would dub the anime, if they decided to bring it overseas.

Character: Main character first, seeing as how this is what I was the most curious about. humorously enough, it was just as I expected if not a little more. he's bland and unfazed, just like how I made myself in 3&4. it also makes it comedic. I also see hints that he will be quite brotherly to Nanako so yaaaay! the other characters on the other hand... is just another thing that seems really rushed in the sake of development. I also think quite a few important qualities are missing from the characters. Yosuke doesn't seem nearly as annoyed about the world as he did in the game, Chie seems a bit too feminine, and Yukiko... is she even in this show? sometimes I forget she even is and I can't help but gasp an "oh" when I see her. they all seem just like regular ol', generic anime high school students. maybe it'd help if I didn't already know the characters in depth. the main reason I fell in love with the game was that I was attracted to the characters and their personalities. as lame as it sounds, they really did feel like my friends. it's only two episodes in so I'll cross my fingers.

Enjoyment: well, of course I enjoy it. despite all its flaws, I'll still watch this through to the end. the way I see it, the fans will be split between those who will and won't continue to watch this. they each will have their own reasons as to why whether it be obscure or dot-the-i's specific. over-fanatic, over-disappointed, over-whatever. mine is pretty obscure; I just want to watch this thing. and I am, in fact, enjoying it.

Overall: well, there's my review. I really do hate rating animes as a whole, and that especially goes for unfinished ones. I'll just go with the average. As much as I looked forward to it, I guess you can say I realistically expected it to not be all that great. The Persona series are great games, but they're not the best or most popular. And let's be serious. This is AIC ASTA we're talking about.

Story: 8/10

Since this is Persona 4 The Animation, it's understandable that they made everything like that of the game. No fault in that, really. It's about some Tokyo kid named Narukami Yu (Or Seta Souji. Or whatever you named the MC when you played) who transfers to the province because of his parents work. He stays there for a year with his uncle who is, if I remember correctly, is the chief of the police force. Conveniently, weird shit started happening as soon as he moves to the place. People who are being featured on Mayonaka TV are being kidnapped and being the MC, he ... has to save each and everyone of them with his band of buddies. That's basically it. There are twists in the end. Some pretty good emotional points every now and then.

Art: 7/10

I've always thought there was something weird with the lower portion of the characters faces being darker than their upper portion. It only bothered me a bit while playing the game because you weren't really constantly seeing the 2D animu versions of the characters. That aside, the backgrounds and everything else are really great.

Sound: 6/10

I love how they used the original BGM but there are some moments where the BGM felt awkward due to excessive use. There's no issue with using BGM every single second in a video game, the characters don't speak all the time and you have to fill in the silence somehow. But that doesn't really work with anime.

Character: 7/10

It's not the same without interaction. The characters lost a bit of themselves in the anime.

Enjoyment: 7/10

I'm giving this a seven out of ten because, you know, I already know what's going to happen and that's not really fun when you're watching a murder-mystery. ): But if you're a new timer, I'm telling you it gets pretty tight near the end. ;)

Overall: 8/10

Story: The story will probably be about the same as the video game seeing how it is playing a long, so I don't think I will really have any issues with it. However the scenes seem to be a bit choppy. They chopped it up to quickly and it goes to the next part before you are able to capture the emotion. Like when his hand first gets sucked into the TV, it was not anything close to suspenseful, and I am not saying this just because I already knew what would happen.

Art: Oh my... I am very upset with ... the Art. The characters faces are blended strangely. The coloring just doesn't look right. The pattern on their uniforms is an eye sore and the character art does not compare to the art from the game. It is not as solid, and the expressions are not solid. this was one thing I thought I wouldn't have to encounter with this Anime. The Art for the Persona at the end of episode 1 was much better than the art through out the episode.

Sound: The sound seems to be okay, Yosukes voice does not quite fit his character. Some of the less important characters voices are not that great. When it comes to music they used the exact same music from the game which isn't shocking but they could of mixed it up a little bit. I feel like at this point that they were just trying to play it safe.

Character: The characters are okay. Except it seems to clip from one emotion to the other too quickly in some parts. Character display can go by too quickly at times. Once again the character off is a little off. I don't really like the changes.

Enjoyment/Overall: Unfortunately I am pretty disappointed with this so far. I expected something at least a little better than this. It would make a huge difference in the other categories if the art was better. The music is enjoyable because I am so attuned to it. I wish the main character stood out more. I will probably watch the rest of it though to see what becomes of it. If I had not played the video game I would probably of tossed this one to the curb and looked for something better to watch. I wish I didn't feel like I had to give this such a terrible review.

Note: This is just from watching the first episode so I will re evaluate my opinion when I am done watching it.

Personally, i'm a Megami Tensei hardcore fan so yeah....

story wise, its nothing new really. if you played the game you know whats coming in general, they just moved a bit of stuff around to pace the story in 24 minute cuts. still it IS refreshing to be able to see the stuff, remember what drew you into the game in the first place WITHOUT having to play 70 hours before you see a scene you wanted to see if you know what i mean.
P.S They cut out 'CRITICAL HIT TO THE NADS!' T^T fans will of course know what i'm saying.

art, nothing to write home ... about really

sound, ah, here we get to here the nostalgic music we all got used to while slogging 200 hours through the game with a hint of freshness and at least more variable tracks plus it does stay true to the fans that truly enjoyed the game.

character, one reviewer wrote something about characters being flat and jazz, DUde, its just been one episode. and this is PERSONA 4, its main theme is character development, so there is like, guaranteed to be some. although if there isnt, go apeshit flaming the series i dont mind.

enjoyment? like hell i enjoy watching persona 4 without having to spam my ps controller.

First of all this is the first episode so nothing is certain yet.

Anyway, let's start wasting my time on a review.

First, this is based from Persona 4, a PS2 videogame and a sequel to Persona 3 (Makes me wonder why there is no P3 anime). Takes place in the same universe, just no big creepy towers this time. As mentioned earlier it's the first episode, so I can't speak much yet, but..

Story:
Some things are omitted from the game. Mostly trivial stuff, things that do not make a significant difference. The story didn't develop much.. yet.
Everyone who played the game now should know how the story ... goes. And unless you're one of these New Game++++++++++ people, omitted stuff should not or annoy you very little.

Art:
Crap. I've got to the graphics part. Damn, this is not a videogame but hell it seems it invaded everywhere. Well, some people say looks don't matter, but people who know what marketing is would disagree. I'd also like to comment on them: Go protest for gay rights. (I do hope that offends.) It'll be great if they feel trolled, because those self-righteous bastards always find it justified to call me shallow.
Anyway as other reviewers noted, the art is not the best. But damnit, what were you expecting? 3D characters? Tactics menu? Personally I think the art is heartly enough, but that's perhaps because I watched it 720p on a 32' HDTV..

I bet the art will get 100/10 once we get to Rise's part.

Sound:
It's based on the game, so naturally the BGM from the game will be played. Because it is the game, just an anime version, tracks play accordingly.

Characters:
The only notable character is the MC, because in the game he doesn't speak (He does, you're just given usually three choices but there's no voice) and he does now. Feels the same for me.
Other than that, Yusuke still sexually harasses Chie and they get into occasional fights. Your normal animeistic fighting characters. Kind of disappointing.

Enjoyment:
Enjoyment.. it's pretty subjective. Actually, every damn word I type here is subjective. I enjoy it. Pretty sure some other people enjoyed it. Others maybe less.
I think that people who played the game will have a different type of enjoyment than people who did not. Different type is not less or more, don't get confused.
There's also some elements taken from the games. The day progression and the character development.

Overall:
Overalls suck! Oh, this isn't a fashion debate.. damn fashion disasters always have to ruin my day.
Overalls... this is the first episode. You know, magical stuff happens. Creepy people inviting you into their limo, with their assistant and who knows what happens there. There's still much to see.

Anime adapted from video games most likely won't live up to the fan's expectations. Sometimes they're way too rushed, sometimes they just don't work as an anime, sometimes they're not even faithful to its source material. The problem with video game adaptations is that, most of the time, it just feels like it's jumping from cutscenes to cutscenes without proper transition and characters weren't really... say... in-character.
Adapted by AIC A.S.T.A, Persona 4 : The Animation is the perfect example of a video game adaptation done the right way. Almost everything is perfect, the story isn't rushed, the characters don't feel like puppets and it's VERY ... faithful to its source material!

The story is about a series of mysterious murders occuring in the tranquil town Inaba. Whenever there's fog after heavy rain, someone dies. Also, rumors about a certain channel on television only airing at midnight named "Mayonaka TV", where one can see his other self on TV. After hearing about the recent murders, the brotagonist (yes-- you heard me. Brotagonist.) and his friends are determined to find the culprit behind the murders... and solve the mystery of the TV Channel. They later realize that the person appearing on TV at midnight is the next to die, and the brotagonist also discovers that TVs are gateway to another world infested of monsters called "shadows". Who is the culprit? What is "Mayonaka TV"?

The premise, albeit a little out of this world, has lived completely to my expectations. The only thing is that sometimes there are "filler" episodes (which are not really fillers and are a VERY important part of the story) where the brotagonist and his friends do random everyday shit. These episodes help developping characters and colorizing them. The mystery itself is executed perfectly and everything is foreshadowed subtly.

Here comes the main flaw of the execution : the pacing. Every video game adaptation suffers from pacing issues, and Persona 4 : The Animation isn't an exception. The scenes are well transitioned; but jumping from, say, March 12 to March 15 in two scenes is a bit too fast. It can't be helped, though; the skipped days are gameplay-only and don't really bring anything new to the story or characters. In a way, it's good that they've skipped these parts, but it comes with a price, and that is pacing.

Let's speak about characters. Persona 4 has a very wide and colorful cast of characters. Every single of them have issues in their lifes, secrets they wouldn't share with anyone, or simply problems they are unable to face. The brotagonist reaches out to them, and makes them face their "true self", which means, accepting who they are despite their flaws, and moving forward in life. The brotagonist also goes through the same process; at the beginning, he is known to be emotionless and not very sociable, but as the story goes on, he opens up to his friends and isn't afraid to show his true colors. The intermission in every episode also shows his "stats" reflecting his character development, quite an interesting way to show character development! In the end, the cast may seem very corny and stereotypical, but as the story goes on, they break their formulatic personalities and build their own.

Oh, and, I fucking hate the brotagonist's sense of fashion. Popped up collar is for douchebags, not for bros, man.

Now that we're over with the story and characters, we'll go into the cosmetic aspect of the anime. The art and animation.

...Horrible. It is completely horrible. Rumours are that the animators are not even getting paid. Is it because their work is so bad? Persona 4 is poorly animated. Backgrounds characters are drawn very sloppily and their faces don't seem... human. The movements are very stiff and robotic and there are a lot of stillframes... Closeups are not as bad, but the heads are rarely shaped the same way, LOL!
The art, though, is very faithful to the original source. It gives a perfect Atlus-ish feeling, and I love it! The only thing is that sometimes their skin are a little too orange-ish, and that's pretty weird. They look like douchebags wearing too much fake tan. That might just be 'cause of the retarded animators, but whatever.

BGM and sound wise... I don't have much to say. It's the same soundtrack as Persona 4, composed by Shoji Meguro. The songs are pretty catchy but get repetitive really fast-- nothing of value to see here. The openings, both by Shihoko Hirata and are in engrish. They're pretty good, but "I will strip search if I have to" is a pretty damn funny lyric if you tell me. I can't take it seriously.

Overall :

Pros :
+ Story is solid and executed perfectly
+ Characters are colorful and aren't afraid to break out of their stereotypic personalities
+ The brotagonist is fucking awesome
+ Lots of character development

Cons :
- The animation is horrible
- The BGMs are forgettable
- The pacing is a bit messed up
- The brotagonist's sense of fashion... seriously kids, don't look up to him!

In the end, Persona 4 is the best video game adaptation I've seen, and it'll probably stay that way unless another studio decides to stop being retarded and do shit correctly.

Before I start, please keep in mind this is MY OWN PERSONAL OPINION and that this is my review on the anime, NOT the video game.

I'm a huge fan of the Persona 4 video game, so I was excited when I found out there was an animation. I was expecting the anime to be a total bust judging from other (poorly) done video game adaptions I've watched or heard about, and I was pleasantly surprised when I began watching as it far exceeded my expectations.

Story: 9/10
The plot is pretty straight forward - the protagonist moves to Inaba with his uncle as his parents are stuck ... on a business trip and a series of murders begin occurring. It's original, enjoyable, and most importantly, well done. There are many plot twists throughout the entirety of the series that will make you keep on watching to the very end. The one thing that seemed to bother me was that it seemed to leave out some minor, and very rarely major information that may leave someone who has never played the game for themselves very confused at times.

Art: 10/10
I, personally, loved the art style used in this, especially since the creators stayed loyal to the video game style which made me very, VERY happy. The art particularly shines the brightest during the battle scenes. There's always so much going on during them, and they managed to pull it off with a great deal of success.

Sound: 10/10
When I began playing the game, the first thing I noticed was the great soundtrack, so seeing all the songs from the track being put to use was amazing, especially "Castle" and "Reach Out To The Truth".

Characters: 10/10
The characters are what makes the show what it is. The characters are extremely lovable, each one taking on their own unique personality. By the end of the series, you're 100% going to favor a certain character. I guarantee it.

Enjoyment: 10/10
This may be an inaccurate score as I watched the entire series with a close friend of mine, though I firmly believe that even if I had watched it alone, I would have enjoyed it just as much. We started it, watching constantly and before we knew it, we had finished the series. I haven't had this much fun watching anything in a long, long while.

Overall: 10/10
Don't assume that I don't believe the series doesn't have its flaws, because of course it does, along with any other anime, or any show for that matter, but there doesn't seem to be any crucial faults that necessarily need to be pointed out. This series made me laugh, cry, and maybe even do both at the same time, which is why I give this series a 10. I enjoyed it a lot and I think that's really all that matters.

Persona 4's anime adaptation came as a huge, but welcome surprise. Any fan of the highly-acclaimed video game would be curious as to how such an endeavor would turn out. After the initial announcement, there had been six months of waiting for previous and further announcements; it was six months of building hype until the airing of the first episode.

Did it live up to the hype? A difficult, opinionated question, but as for myself, it managed to live up to expectations, and more.

Persona 4 the Animation adapts one of the most critically-acclaimed JRPGs ever to grace the PS2. Just knowing this, it would either turn ... out to be a huge success or a huge failure depending on how it's handled. Thankfully, director Seiji Kishi manages to handle the difficult parts of adapting the game and manages to present not only a watchable, but an enjoyable adaptation.

The biggest challenge to adapting a video game into an anime is making the anime enjoyable for both newcomers and old fans alike. Persona 4 the Animation manages to do so by keeping the game's atmosphere intact. I can't help but think that Seiji Kishi's brand of direction -- which one may be familiar with through Angel Beats! -- is well-suited for this particular anime; his balance of comedy and drama works for Persona 4 as it is the most light-hearted video game in a series known for its dark, dramatic and post-apocalyptic plots. The infamous comedic aspects of the game -- the camp-out, the school trip, and the school festival -- remain no less hilarious when animated, and the anime even manages to add to the hilarity with original content.

Another nice touch is how the staff intersperse many game mechanics into the anime. Fans of the video game would notice many subtle (and not-so-subtle) shout-outs to the game, such as the eye-catch for the Social Link stats, the passing of time, the various skills and abilities in the dungeon-crawling segments, and the Velvet Room segments at the start of each episode. They even managed to sneak in all of the Social Links, though the results of doing so are varied.

The drama doesn't lag behind from the comedy; the final story arcs in the anime manage to handle the most serious and dramatic parts of the game with great care, especially the episodes dedicated to a certain character's plot-related death, as well as the parts dedicated to the Investigation Team's decision to search for the truth. The episodes focusing on the Investigation Team characters -- particularly Rise's arc, which manages to integrate her Social Link development -- are particularly well-directed in terms of drama.

The biggest draw to this anime comes from the sound direction, especially the music. Shoji Meguro returns as the composer for the anime, rehashing many of the great tracks found in the original video game. The anime's music is a mix of rock, J-pop, jazz, and piano music, providing a large variety of tracks to use for atmosphere. The opening themes -- "sky's the limit" and "key plus words" -- set the anime's tone similar to the game's with the familiar stilted English that fans of the Persona series have come to love. Episode 1 even rehashes the game's opening theme, Pursuing My True Self. The ending themes are fitting to end an episode with, showing the arcana that the main character has obtained through the course of the plot.

The anime's voice acting is spectacular; of particular note are Rie Kugimiya, who manages to break out of her tsundere pigeonholing -- especially with Rise's brooding, depressed attitude during episodes 9 and 10; Yui Horie, who manages to make Chie Satonaka an energetic, lively character; Romi Park, who is particularly well-suited for the role given to her; and most especially Daisuke Namikawa, whose performance as Yu Narukami is impressive in both the deadpan and more expressive aspects.

Unfortunately, while Persona 4 excels in many aspects, it also has its flaws.

The animation and the art is, while not particularly terrible, less-than-stellar at times. This is no longer much of a problem in the later episodes, but there are times where you might wonder if the artists and animators were half-asleep while working on the characters. Fortunately, this doesn't bleed into the action scenes, but it's still jarring to see the characters full of life in one scene then seem so lifeless in another.

Certain plot events may also come across as cheesy, clichéd or contrived, a problem which was also present in the game. However, one can argue that these events are part of the game's themes -- that the bonds of people are the true power, that no one can live without facing themselves and other people, and that we must pursue the truth which lies behind the fog of lies.

Now, the all-important question -- will you enjoy this anime? If you were a fan of the game, then yes, you will enjoy this anime for how well it adapts the original. If you're a first-time watcher, you'll enjoy this anime for the same reasons people enjoyed the game -- the comedy, the themes and the mystery.

Due to time constraints, the last episode and the "True Ending" will be on DVD and Blu-ray on August 2012. The ending is deliberately cut short with the game's "Normal Ending", a clever piece of direction which manages to keep to the game's theme of "seeking out the answers" while advertising for the DVD and Blu-rays. Reach out to the truth, indeed.

Many video game-based anime titles I've come across haven't wowed me too well considering such titles are used mostly to promote their hit game source material and these don't always transition too well in creating a quality plot for an anime series. Persona 4 is another title I add to this growing list considering it's Playstation 2/ PSP video game source material was a huge hit with both American and Japanese fans thus this anime adaptation coming about. From what I gather, the video game is notable for its mix of RPG and social simulation elements through its Social Link system where your regular interactions ... with your teammates and other characters allowed you to gain and strengthen the abilities of powerful beings called Personas that are used to fight monsters called Shadows within a mysterious world that can be traveled into through televisions as the bonds you establish with the game's characters deepen.

This anime adaptation of Persona 4 takes on a mix of mystery/ action and slice-of-life comedy elements as the series mixes up episodes featuring Yu and his friends trying to figure out who is responsible for the mysterious murders and disappearances involving the TV world where they often battle enemy Shadows and gain a new ally in helping them solve the mystery like the former genre; and going about everyday activities like you would find in the latter genre. Rather than the series being prominently focused on the growing bonds that Yu establishes with different characters though, this anime adaptation appears to focus on how Yu's character becomes more open to others as he becomes more involved with the townsfolk, his friends and the relatives he stays with. This is clearly seen through the show's more mundane episodes as we see signs of Yu becoming more active, less withdrawn and willing to toss in the occasional witty line. This, and some of the show's mundane episodes, were highlights for me since there was clear development with Yu and some of the silly predicaments that he and his friends get themselves into. The show also sports some good quality visuals as they have bright colors and a good amount of visual detail with vast settings and the character designs very closely resembling how they looked from the video games.

Beyond these praises though, Persona 4: The Animation does suffer from the fact it seems to be trying too hard to be as faithful to its video game source material as possible. The opening sequences seen at the start of many of the show's episodes with Igor and Margaret are actually quite pointless in this anime adaptation as the two don't contribute anything and seem to be added on just to please fans of the video game. The Persona/ Shadow battles aren't too engaging at many points as either they seem to try too hard in adding elements from the game like gaining new cards, summon animations in the style of the video game and Yu conveniently being the only character capable of summoning different Personas; or adapting elements from shounen action titles with characters either getting up after being heavily damaged in battle and suddenly getting power boosts or upgrades to beat their seemingly unstoppable foe. While the show's various mundane episodes are usually fun to see, they add nothing new to Persona 4's main plot with the TV world and actually make that plot slow to a halt when they come along. Plus while Yu does get some reasonable character development throughout the series, the same can't be said for many of the title's other characters, especially those among Yu's group who are tacked on with differing archetypes and don't develop any further once they come to terms with their Shadows when they are rescued.

The Persona 4 video game seems like a fun little premise I'd be willing to play on my PS2 whenever I work up the interest to buy the game. But as an anime, it tries too hard to incorporate as many of its elements into the animated adaptation as possible, even if those elements aren't exactly relevant or hinder things such as plot progression, engaging action scenes and character depth. This is yet another addition to my list of mediocre and horrible anime adaptations of popular video games I had to sit through.

When I first heard about this, I had my doubts. I was worried that trying to fit everything from the game into a small-ish animated series was going to end up with it being butchered.

I was wrong.

Persona 4 : The Animation captures the essence of the game perfectly. None of the feelings and emotions are lost in the transfer; the characters and story are kept fully in-tact, for the most part.

To start with the negatives;

- It's a relatively short series.

As a result of the number of episodes being limited, a lot of stuff outside of the story doesn't make the cut. This puts ... a little damper on things for fans of the series going in. Certain events are covered too quickly, if they even make it in at all. It's completely understandable, but a little disappointing. Apart from a few instances later on, this point isn't really relevant to those who haven't played the game.

- The story, again.

Persona 4 is a monster of a game. People sink at least 40-60 hours into one play through. The problem arises when trying to fit all of this into 25 episodes (and an OVA). This isn't a humongous problem, as the characters are the driving force of the series, but it does mean that certain details are left out. Certainly towards the end of the series, this lack of detail could lead to a lot of confusion; it doesn't really do the best job of explaining itself.

You could bypass these by arguing that the animated series gives watchers the incentive to go and play the original material. This is true, but it still doesn't excuse the confusion that's present. They could've taken out some of the rushed parts that are irrelevant to the story and used that time to delve into the finer points of the story.

Now, onto the positives!

- The Story.

Although it's somewhat rushed and unexplained, the concept behind P4: The Animation is an extremely interesting one. It pulls you in and has a few intense moments. It explores the idea of one's self and the importance of acceptance. It's really heavy stuff, but it portrays it in a way that anyone could understand.

- The Art.

The animation is simply beautiful. I didn't notice any inconsistencies or hiccups, and the series really brings Inaba to life in a way that the original material couldn't. It's a nice, fresh look at small country town and a much welcomed one.

- The Sound

A lot of the tracks were taken directly from the game, but this does nothing but play to its strengths. The Persona series in general has fantastic OSTs, and this is no exception. A nice mix of Pop and Rock, and the prominence of violins in the majority of the tracks really helps to capture the atmosphere of the series.

- The Characters

I'd argue that this is the series' strongest asset. Watching through, I couldn't believe how well they'd done with them. The way they introduce the characters and eventually reveal their struggles is amazing. Even with the rushed pace of the series, it doesn't falter for a second in this regard. The high school setting also helps with this; the characters are put in all different sorts of situations, be it a class trip or group work, which leads to a lot of development. The seemingly mundane tasks and instances in some episodes make the series a lot more realistic, allowing the viewer to easily grow attached to the main group.

In short : The characters are amazing!

Enjoyment - I really enjoyed the series, if you couldn't tell. The consistent presence of humour throughout the series had me laughing, and the contrast of that with the dark story led to a really interesting experience.

Overall : This is a series that anyone could pick up, no matter what genre you're a fan of. (Although, there aren't any Mechs. Personas are just as good, though!) It tackles very serious subject matter, but mixes it all with humour and happiness. Truly a unique experience, and one that you should have as soon as possible if you haven't already!

Persona 4 and the Inevitable Tolls of Adaptation

When it comes to all the mediums that could potentially be turn into an anime, such as a manga, light novel, visual novel or even a movie, few are trickier than a video game. While adaptations from other forms tend to turn one non-interactive media into another, video games rely far more on interaction and players getting as much time out of them as they put in, based on the speed they can get through its challenges or how much side content players go for, which won’t be the same for everyone.

This inherent difficulty is why so ... many video game based anime either are original stories that have game elements present, such as Kirby Right Back at Ya, Sonic X, and most notably the long running Pokémon anime, original stories that directly tie into the game canon like the Professor Layton/FFXV movies, anime that remove the game elements entirely like God Eater or Tales of Zestiria The Cross, or in general glorified advertisements to the game without closure to anything brought up, not wanting to flesh anything out more than the video game could.

Even those times you get full adaptations of games like Danganronpa The Animation, BlazBlue Alter Memory, and the Ace Attorney anime, they tend to be seen as rushed, sterile retellings that ruin the plot experience for newcomers and offer almost nothing of new worth to established fans. But years before those deflating series, there was Persona 4 The Animation.

Attempting to adapt Persona 4, a nearly 80 hour RPG, into a 10 hour TV series would be a herculean task to any staff, but the great thing about Persona 4 The Animation is how it manages to think creatively and pull together, even if there are notable problems in dealing with the interactive to non-interactive pitfalls. This is less a “review” in the traditional sense and moreso an analysis on the creative choices involved in Persona 4 The Animation’s development to their effect on presenting the game to a wider audience.

1. The Storytelling

So in terms of basic storytelling, Persona 4 stars your player character, entering high school in the town of Inaba when suddenly, murders start happening, you find out you can enter a world inside of TVs, you link the two subjects together, and try to prevent any more from happening while slowly learning more through investigating. For JRPG standards, it’s an appreciably digestible, simple plot that focuses on the chemistry and characterization of its protagonists over convoluted plot beats, with a unique overarching theme of societal conformity and acceptance that echoes through all of the game’s major characters. The game alternates between fun bonding scenes between you and your friend group, serious scenes involving the murders and kidnappings, fantastical dungeon crawling, and heavy character exploration through these dungeons as well as “Social Links” which help you better connect to Inaba as a community.

The anime, to great credit, covers the entire main plot of the game, minus the hours spent dungeon crawling against enemies. It, plus the additional OVA for the True Ending, complete the entire story in a fairly cohesive way without adding any anime-exclusive plotholes. Additionally, it well retains the balance between the serious plot and bouncy character moments just like the game, letting each character be themselves yet still contribute in a meaningful way even after their character conflicts.

The character conflicts themselves are often the type that fly incredibly close to the sun. Topics such as repression via gender norms, excess overcompensation, and image in place of identity are represented by one or more characters and just like the game they’re bold topics for the YA audience. One could argue the intentionally over exaggerated presentation of these elements creates certain unfortunate implications but from my point of view, the nature of what these problems piled up as is presented in a deliberate incomplete, inhuman way to still properly supplement the conflicts. Greater expression of anime shows these off than they were before for better or worse, but it’s genuinely well meaning and what the characters learn from these experiences is reflected in future moments as well as the core theme. In general this aspect was a win for the anime, with certain conflicts like Yukiko’s and Naoto’s having some more anime original backing to them, perhaps to account for the missing Social Link info.

It’s also very nice how P4’s anime is able to maintain the sense that “filler-ish” scenes really ARE a great course of character building and camaraderie in conjunction with the main plot and characters. They help to structure the repeating pattern of the plot and add further to the characters even after their main conflicts conclude. Several of these, such as the camping scene, night party scene and school festival scene are genuinely fun moments that bring out a lot in the cast as a group, helped a lot by how much fun you can tell the voice actors are having. Regrettably though, the anime does nothing to fix the worst of these scenes: the infamous Amagi Inn incident (a scene where gender roles are divided to where it’s practically torture porn for the guys when it’s meant to be funny). It's even somewhat made it worse with an entire episode to further build each part of it, only mildly mitigated by a rather rushed Social Link integration that feels more out of place compared to the one there in the game.

Thankfully though, once the plot does get on track in the final fifth of the TV series, it really stays on track. The mystery’s conclusion makes sense and the last handful of battles, while not amazingly animated, are well put together for animation and there’s clear spirit to it, despite how much it wanted to rush the falling action to hold off on the true ending. And the way the separate true ending OVA was handled was........................................not very elegant.

Regardless, the storytelling itself is properly maintained, with the mystery, character moments and message for the sense of community still coming across.

2. Spacing and Flow

Despite the proven competence of the story, this is, unsurprisingly, where the series has the most problems, having to do with of the amount of content it feels like it has to show in an attempt to downplay the “gameplay for gameplay’s sake” aspects of the game. That being said, the handling is very much a mixed bag.

I mentioned above how it felt like the anime maintained that character building comedy in between conflict, but for a good dramatic example, at one point in the plot, a major character is kidnapped, forcing you to enter a dungeon filled with high leveled enemies and a boss if you want to rescue them. It’s an incredibly desperate situation, but in the game you can massively reduce that by holding off the rescue for days of grinding, or progressing Social Links within that timeframe. In the anime, the rescue and confrontation happen immediately after so the sense of urgency is fully maintained, with the battle following being one of the best moments adaptation wise for how it adds onto the drama of the battle.

Similarly, there are a number of Social Links in the game relating to side characters that do not impact the plot in any way, and a couple of them were presented in ways that make sense for being non-interactive. Some of them, while not as delved into as the game ones, are shown in a really fun comedy episode that practically mocks the game player‘s daily activities. Four more Links (in pairs of two) get their own episodes to help break up the plot (Episode 5) and in Episode 18's case, neatly combine two stories together rather than force them to be separate like the game. This helps create a stronger emotional punch with the anime’s expressiveness.

That’s not to say all of them are well adapted though and you can really tell sometimes. Naoki Konishi has his entire character spat out in less than five minutes only for the anime to consider it a done deal. Margaret’s Link doesn’t exist in any capacity. One Link, for a little girl named Ayane, gets the worst of this. Rather than feeling like an actual struggle to work through like in the game, it just comes off as a short bit of emotional manipulation, before said character disappears completely.

Other moments as well greatly suffer from a lack of clarifying these in-between parts, especially for viewers who haven’t experienced the game. For instance, every episode begins with a brief segment in the “Velvet Room”, which game players would know is the place where you can fuse Personas together and gain ones for your party by using the Compendium. The anime, however, makes no attempt to explain the Velvet Room despite having scenes featuring it at the beginning of every episode. In the anime, Yu fuses Personas inside of dungeons several times instead of using the room, and neither does it clarify where he actually gets his Personas, which seems to downplay its purpose even further despite how much they show it, and the pleasantness of Margaret’s voice.

Individual episode pacing wise, Episode 10 is definitely the low point. It attempts to cover entering a dungeon, a character’s confrontation, and two boss fights in the space of a measly 21 minutes, which was just not enough to cover so many events, let alone events that even in the game itself were explained poorly. On top of that, the boss fights themselves aren’t conveyed in nearly as fun or interesting a way as the boss fights before and after this, likely because of how much they had to cram in.

However, that’s just a matter of time constraints. What’s truly jarring is a brief bit of editing in Episode 12. Most of the time the show’s editing is perfectly functional, aside from little things like not showing a double punch or a sliding fall animated, but this episode had an odd segment. There’s a scene in which the team confronts the dungeon boss, and then mid-villain monologue, it hard cuts to Teddie doing a silly comedy bit with the team outside, completely taking you out of the scene with no transition to showing the battle as a foregone conclusion. They later bring you back into the scene, mid-fight, about 9 minutes later, in what’s conceptually a pretty epic scene. This could’ve been one of the best moments in the series, but with no proper transition, or attempt to show what happened in the meantime, it felt jarring and disconnected. Almost as if the director had a good idea for a scene, but didn’t know how to properly implement it, so he just hard cut and thought people wouldn’t notice because of what it leads to. But people will. Thankfully the rest of the series avoids this incredibly jarring editing..................until the True Ending episode which continuously cuts between three plots at once in half an hour, which is disappointing but not irredeemable.

These issues aside though, the editing never precludes the game experience and despite this rushed pacing, the bulk of what the game aimed for is still there and does come across despite occasional rushing, condensing or slotting in events elsewhere.

3. Comedy and Characterization

This is where the series shines. While the game had notable moments of comedy, they often had to rely exclusively on line delivery and the small portraits since the models were not very expressive or animated. Completely the opposite here, where models move to the beat of every joke to add to the punchlines. Many of the comedic scenes from the game are retained or added to, sometimes with more expressiveness and other times thanks to cute new character Aika Nakamura and her tendency to always be around for food deliveries. The fact that there’s more jokes may result in some of them not landing (some may find Teddie’s jokes to be unBEARable), but the only parts of the anime to me that weren’t funny were scenes that weren’t funny in the game.

A new element that adds to the comedy is the anime’s portrayal of the game’s silent protagonist, now named Yu Narukami, into non-interactive animation. As a character he works for the most part. He’s reactionless enough to still project some, but also witty and funny enough to feel distinctive character wise as the collective straight man, combining aspects of every choice path the player could make into an engaging character. It’s his comedy moments, many of which were original to the anime, that got a lot of the laughs out of me from the series. Some of his louder emotional moments do feel a bit “on cue” because of this, but Daisuke Namikawa and Johnny Young Bosch still put in the effort all the way to sell it.

I’ve already brought up the side characters in terms of spacing, but as for the rest of the main cast, thankfully Yosuke, Chie, Yukiko, Kanji, Rise, Teddie and Naoto all maintain their strong personalities from the game and in the chemistry from their voice actors old and new continues to shine just as well in the more expressive medium. Everyone gets their due, and something I really appreciate about Persona 4’s characters is that even with their initial arcs, they maintain a sense of relevancy to the core theme, add further to the team investigation, and each play off of each other in a way that goes beyond being token party members into genuine friends. The anime adds some strengths and weaknesses to adapting them. On the plus side, the anime adds more scenes to foreshadow their conflicts prior to their climaxes, which help to make them seem like built up, real problems seen in the present, rather than simply having sad backstories expositioned out for quick feels with no buildup. The downside is that, with the inability to get all of their Social Links, the most you get for aftermath is one scene from each character’s link placed at random points in the narrative. These don’t have the same depth, but most of them do help to an extent that is better than nothing. Teddie’s the only one majorly hurt from this, because his Link is story mandatory but several pertinent scenes are cut short or cut out.

The real-world supporting community aspect of Persona games is something that’s present, particularly in Episodes 13 and 14, even if the whole thing couldn’t be fleshed to nearly the same extent in this TV series. It’s at least better than the Persona 3 movies which don’t have any time for it at all, but there is that sense that many conflicts have further places they could go, and the anime just didn’t have time. But for the sake of preventing disjointedness, I get some of it. The player making the decision each day to pursue Social Links or dungeon crawling works because it’s an interactive medium. In an anime though, hopping continuously between over 20 different characters would not only stall plot momentum but be bland to watch on its own from a passive point of view. So while not the most substantive, it’s a choice I can buy.


4. Presentation/Animation

While faaaaaar from the best-looking show around, especially in a season where Fate/Zero and Guilty Crown aired alongside it, Persona 4 The Animation nonetheless properly uses the perks of an anime in comparison to the videogame presentation wise, in at least consistently getting the job done. Shigenori Soejima’s character designs still maintain their distinctiveness and as of the latest release there aren’t any “off” looking scenes, but conversation scenes themselves are mostly average. The one odd differing detail is Adachi’s hair. I have no idea why they decide to make it more of an auburn compared to the blackish grey from the game, but it’s the type of odd choice that newcomers won’t really care about.

The Persona themselves were all rendered cleanly and distinctly in 2D animation to capture their unique designs and abilities, in a way that thankfully did not use CGI as a shortcut. At worst CGI was on a few objects and certain places in the one area where computerized designs fit. On the downside, few of the action scenes themselves leave much of an impression or engaging choreography. They are certainly commendable when it comes to how the directing creates an increased sense of space and scale for say, the first two major battles, and the penultimate boss battle of the TV series, but the fight choreography itself isn’t particularly standout, often using fast cuts that reduce visceral impact. To their credit though, they are at least animated loosely rather than stiffly, which fit for the nature of Personas themselves.

Backgrounds look great when trying to replicate the game’s dungeon and at least average anywhere else. The one place the art faltered was inside the Junes supermarket. While the backgrounds had generally been believable enough otherwise, in the market, it looks as though the background was taken directly from a REAL store, so the 2D characters create an unintentional Roger Rabbit effect that makes the market look extremely off in every scene that takes place there. It’s just odd compared to everything else. It has a look that could be better, but it could look FAR worse.

5. Audio

The great thing about being adapted from a game with such a large number of music tracks is that the anime doesn’t need to change many of them or make a whole new soundtrack from scratch And the game has a GREAT set of fitting tracks. But even still there are a number of anime exclusive tracks, whether for tense scenes or for comedy moments. Along with these include the first OP, which sounds great, the first ED which has a great melody change in conjunction with the visuals, the second OP which isn’t as good as the first but still has some slick visuals, and the second ED, which is a decent track, but pales compared to the three preceding. The only real negative I could say score wise is that certain tracks could occasionally be either cut too short or misplayed. The song that precedes boss fights being used around comedy moments doesn’t work nearly as well, a brief playing of Your Affection in Episode 20 felt similarly out of place, and some of the unique boss music near the end of the game would often get cut short for a mixing of tracks to varied effect. As for the dub, nearly every voice actor from the game returns, and those who don’t get replacements who are either better or just as good as the original voices. They do their best to bring out all the fun they can in the script, even if one may find Teddie’s bearly contained pun catalog a bit grating. Adachi’s voice was the only partial sacrifice, because Johnny Young Bosch uses the tone he used in the game for Adachi for the now talkative Yu, so Adachi now has a slight helium to his voice. It still works well enough when it needs to but to some it could make the voice more grating; I got used to it enough.

6. The Little Touches

Ultimately this section is what led me to want to write this review, because it feels like that even with the series’ pacing issues and average animation, the team at AIC ASTA made sure to add a load of great, appreciated small elements that while not much on their own, add up to show that it’s clear those involved cared about its game origins. Though anyone who doesn’t want to know about some of these can just skip to the last part.

•The eyecatches, often used in most shows to simply say the title, only occasionally showing cool pictures, feature a stats screen for Yu's progress at the moment.

•Yu pulls out Pyro Jack, a Persona can learn the ability to absorb Fire, to counter a boss that primarily uses Fire attacks as a distraction

•The first ED not only is a great song that changes song styles exactly when the animation does, but it displays the current Arcana Yu gained in the episode, as well as falling cards that show every previously obtained one. It’s a great example of an evolving ED because of it.

•The show is more than willing to change the OP song every once in a while. While the original songs are great, they’re able to change up the songs for episode-specific events just enough for the changing to not become a dull trend by itself

•One episode ups the Persona 3 fanservice even FURTHER than the game did, as if they had the entire soundtrack on speed dial. It’s really nice appreciation for those fans over a year and a half before it got its own anime

•The clop clop clop of Teddie’s footsteps is maintained while walking through the dungeons.

•Analysis screens not only display Persona weaknesses like the game did, but also some additional comments without actually needing to say them.

•Ayane on her trumpet is playing a version of I’ll Face Myself, the game’s boss battle theme used in the game and remixed in the anime.

•The main villain uses the Reaper as a potent distraction, which Persona 3 fans will understand given the sheer wrath it has in the game without cheesing.

7. Conclusion

In a world where Disney can get away with re-releasing their animated classics such as Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King as soulless, shot for shot remakes that bloat with nothing necessary, there’s a great deal to appreciate about the genuine effort of this series to do the opposite. In becoming a series, Persona 4 adds much more expressive characters, expressive comedy, expressive direction choices (even if some don’t work) and expressive new scenes to allow the whole thing to function as a good series, if not a great one. However, it is still inferior to the game, as the anime can’t compete with the density, playability, measured endgame and more intimate connection with events that the game provides. Despite these downgraded elements in the transfer, I believe the anime understands the game’s core and has enough heart put into it to be on its own, a solid anime series either way with action, laughs, intrigue, character and a relevant overarching message. True Ending aside, it’s cohesive enough for newcomers while providing enough differences to keep interest for longtime fans. While watching this as a game player, I wasn’t thinking “man, I really wish I was playing the game, but rather “I can’t wait to see what they present next” and when it comes to video game adaptations, that’s something really admirable.

Persona 4 I really enjoyed this series

Just a little bit of a break down
You have a male protagonist move to a small town.
the town has a legend call "the midnight channel" its rumoured that on rainy night at 12 o'clock the TV will turn on the show a person your destined to be with (well at first anyway)
Then the male protagonist and his friend fall into a TV and through into a parallel world full of mist.
There they gain what is called there "persona" a fighting sprit that reflect who they are.
After gaining a few friends they all team up to find out who’s ... casing all these murders

its the first series that had a really great and easy timeline to follow.... heh heh - school scene end 10th may -> 14th may good guys fight boss "err what happened b4 they got to the boss" 14th may -> 3rd may "are so here’s the pre story"- sometimes it was easy to get lost.
When starting up a new ep sometimes it felt that they had cut bits off.

Now all the negatives are out of the way
The story was well in depth
The charters are all different you have the main charter- he's cool calm collected and a comedian right up to the tough tattooed bikie guy who enjoys making cute stuffed animals lol.
Some of the scene were hilarious while other where able to become quite dark and serious.

I have never played the game for this series but and the end of this series my friend and I were on eBay buying a copy.

Overall I would give it an 8/10 only because it felt as if they had to cut bits and pieces off that would have helped the story flow

I went into this anime with low expectations, but i was overall pleased with what they pulled off. I am a long running fan of the Persona series so getting to watch one of my favorite games in anime form was a blast, however there were definitely pacing issues which i will get too later.

Before i go over the story im going to quickly mention the one problem i had with the anime. This of course is the pacing of the show, I say this because it is an adaptation of a game that takes most people 50+ hours to complete and they tried to ... jam the whole thing into 25 episodes. This of course causes alot of problems as things feel really rushed, for example in the game there is alot of introductions to the town and a few characters before the main character gains the ability to summon his persona this can take anywhere between 1-2 hours and they basically crammed all that into the first episode. It also feels like the story jumps around alot and because it is so short you dont get a full interaction with each social link from the game, instead Yu is shown with each of them for a short time during the series. This makes the viewer miss out on alot of the back-story's of every character (unless they have played the game)

Story:
The story to Persona 4 the animation follows the story of the original game but of course it is much more compressed then the game. The story is captivating a provides many mystery's for the watcher to get lost in.

Sound:
The music comes straight from the game, giving the anime a great soundtrack. I loved all the songs in the game so hearing them playing during the anime was awesome. There were some parts of the anime where the music could have been toned down a bit as it sometimes plays when characters are constantly talking, apart from this point the music fits every
situation that it is placed in perfectly.

Art:
I always found something kinda strange about the art style but i never really could put my finger on it, i guess their faces look kinda weird. I always imagined an anime of Persona for would constantly look like the anime cutscenes from the game. At times the animation looks better then those cutscenes but at other times i like the art style in the cutscenes better. While both these styles are very similar and the anime art style is really nice i still prefer the cutscenes from the game.

Characters:
While not being able to see the full back-story of each character and not getting to know them more personally like you can in the game, the characters are still an amazing part of the show. Every character feels diverse giving each character their own personality. The shadow versions of each character are amazing as well just because it shows how different each of them are and how they are truly feeling. The character are one thing that may keep you hooked on the anime as they help keep it interesting throughout.

Enjoyment:
I did enjoy watching this anime and i would say it is a much better experience for someone who hasnt played the game as this is a quick way of understanding what Persona 4 is really about instead of playing the game which is very long. For people who have played the game though i think you will have a much better time just replaying the game again (Ive played through it way too many times haha). But overall i never stopped enjoying the anime, from start to finish it kept me watching.

Persona 4 is LA's first foray into the Persona franchise and by all means Persona 4 was a good entrance into this game series.

For such an anime adaptation of a JRPG, LA really had some high expectations for this anime and the "video game anime adaptation curse" couldn't touch this for alot of reasons, but it still Persona 4 had some minor problems here and there nonetheless LA's high expectations were met and then some.

Let's start with the plot of Persona 4. Persona 4's plot follows a typical murder mystery anime mixed in with supernatural RPG elements. The plot follows a group of highschool students ... trying to find the culprit of the bizarre murders involving the Midnight Channel, Persona 4 follows the typical high school life of Yu Narukami voiced by Daisuke Namikawa as well as trying to solve this bizarre murder case.

In terms of character and development, the Midnight Channel and the main cast develops their character quite well, with the main focus of "trying to resolve things with yourself" with some great resolutions from Yukiko Amagi voiced by Ami Koshimizu the resident ojou, Naoto Shirogane voiced by Romi Park the highschool detective, Kanji Tatsumi voiced by Tomokazu Seki's the delinquent with the heart of gold, Rise Kujikawa voiced by Rie Kugimiya the idol and Kuma voiced by Kappei Yamaguchi a mysterious resident of the Midnight Channel. Now LA will say that there was a bit of a problem to Yu, that being he's too OP and rather generic though he gains something of a minor personality outside from the Persona battles, the minor personality is "ok", that being something of a over-exaggeration of the situation given to him which is mainly for comedic moments at best. Nonetheless, Yu as a character does develop the best with his family members of Nanako voiced by Akemi Kanda and Ryoutarou Doujima voiced by Unshou Ishizuka as well as his friends and later down the line, his personality does get greatly better by the final episodes giving him something of a "hero" persona which melds well with both his power and beliefs as a character. LA's favourite character however goes to Chie Satonaka a friend of Yu, LA doesn't know, the reasoning for this was probably because of Yui Horie's tsundere vocals, but due to Chie's development as a character, her boisterous personality and something about her manzai acts with Yosuke Hanamura voiced by Showtaro Morikubo (another friend of Yu) helped alot, she just kinda stuck with LA once she got her Persona. Overall, due to the nature and mechanics of Persona 4, the characters especially the Persona 4 gang naturally gets the character development they deserve even outside their personal Persona arcs which makes all of them quite easy to get invested by, the mystery murder case involvement is a great bonus especially to Yu as he needed it otherwise he would have quite easily been the generic main male OP protagonist.

For the minor characters in Persona 4, even they gets some "development" in the form of one or two episodic arcs and appear later as something like a cameo like Ai Ebihara voiced by Kanae Ito or the ever-busy part timer Aika Nakamura voiced by Aoi Yuuki though some of the huge cast of Persona 4 are just there for comedic relief, such examples of that being Noriko Kashiwagi voiced by Hitomi Nabatame and Hanako Ootani voiced by Ryou Agawa. The only two characters LA always questioned every time were the two characters of the Velvet Room of Margaret voiced by Sayaka Ohara and Igor voiced by Isamu Tanonaka, like their meta-characters who keep tabs on Yu's progress, but really...WHO ARE THEY, they never specifically tell us who they were.

Now as great as both the mystery element of Persona 4 is AND IT IS, trying to figure out who the culprit is along with the main Persona cast and the Persona battles were decently done slightly-RPG styled battles scenes were and is the main focus of Persona 4, Persona 4 sometimes goes into sort of "break episodes" from time to time and really, LA didn't mind them, as it helped to "take a break" from the mystery and just have fun. It really brings home the message of "youth is freedom so do whatever you want before life catches up with you", but from a "filler" perspective it helped grow the Persona group as a group and as to why they are friends (and slightly vague romantic tensions here and there), so even the "filler" episodes does develop or move the plot forward in some ways and LA was grateful for that as the mystery/Persona elements does get rather intense come the finale.

In terms of animation, done by AIC A.S.T.A, the overall animation was decent with little to nothing of animation errors. What realy stood out from the animation was the character designs of nearly every character beings well defined and LA knew who they were (be it due to their eclectic costumes or their appearance in general) as well as the rather detailed backgrounds though of a typical "counties" scenery but from the Midnight Channel scenery had those bright and darker tones to contrast the counties scenery. The battle scenes were decent as well, being rather flashy and tense even with Yu being the OP, but thankfully the other Persona cast members do their time to shine during the battles which kept the tension during the battles, nonetheless the animation was a standout.

Another thing LA would like to note is how the anime feels like a visual novel with the additions of weather calendar which is essential in the plot to the commercial break eye catches of Yu's stats to the tutorial guide-like Velvet Room to heck even the filler episodes feels more like a character route at times. It's those kind of aesthetics to Persona 4 that made feel like an actual anime RPG visual novel of sorts.

In terms of voice cast, the main voice cast was pretty well known, from Ami Koshimizu to Yui Horie to Romi Park to Rie Kugimiya to heck even the minor voice cast like Kanae Ito and Hitome Nabatame and really Persona 4 had an excellent voice cast overall that brought their all when vociing their respective characters. The only problem and this was most probably a personal opinon was Kuma's voice actor of Kappei Yamaguchi, YES, LA knows that was his style of speech of adding bear puns to nearly everything he said, but the biggest problem was that Kappei's "screechiness" trumps even Rie Kugimiya's typical vocals and that kinda irritated LA when Kuma spoke (for the most part...that as LA said, it's a personal complaint and a rather minor one at that). As much as LA doesn't talk about the soundtrack, Persona 4's was utterly amazing, making use of it's rather electro-sync pop rock and calming vocals in many of tracks makes the atmosphere from soothing to awesome in an instant. The first and second OP also gets an mention as to what Persona 4 is as well. The soundtrack overall fits very well into the Persona 4 anime.

The ending finally brings us the actual true villain of Persona 4 with all the information given to us like a mystery solving game, and really the first praise to this ending would be the true villain and his motives as not only does it add up but it puts in a stark contrast to Yu as character. Best of all, the ending resolves everything including who the mysterious Kuma is and the rather dramatic turn Persona 4 took to get to this ending as well as why and how the true villain did everything. In terms of the final battle with the true villain it comes off as a battle of beliefs which later on in the spirit of JRPG's comes a final boss that makes both the battle of beliefs and the awesome battle with this final battle as both meaningful and an amazing battle. Really the ending was great due to the investment in both the mystery murder case as well as the great character development to the main persona cast that the ending had the impact that it did and for anything was satisfying.

Persona 4 overall exceeded LA's expectations and thrashed the video game anime adaptation curse quite easily and for a person who has no prior experiences to the Persona franchise or played the game, LA still got what Persona 4 was about from both it's characters and overall plot as it became something of coming of age story laced with supernatural murder mystery plot. Persona 4 had it's problems of filler school life episodes (though that can easily be forgiven with it's well done minor character development and messages it brings) and the main protagonist being generic and OP (which can be defended as the main Persona cast does help to further brings in the message of friendship that Persona 4 has), but for what it was worth and LA's experience in watching Persona 4, it's strengths with it's well-developed main and minor characters, an intriguing mystery plot and great Persona battles overwhelmingly outweighed it's small minor weaknesses of this rather great anime adaptation.

*I've never played the video game this anime was based on. I wasn't even aware there was one. Also I'm not going to summarize the story because I'm kind of lazy. I just want to get my opinion of the show, purely as an anime, out there.

The story is pretty interesting, but it's definitely not the most captivating or interesting one I've seen. But the characters meld together nicely and provide some nice comedic relief. The story is pretty easy-going, and is similar to Samurai Champloo in that it's more of a "take it as it is" animation. Not everything is explained, and they ... very effectively use sound to convey mood instead of pure dialogue. But I do sometimes wish they could be more clear. I've never been lost, but I do think that certain parts could be conveyed more clearly. Even though I've only seen about 12 episodes, each one has been pretty predictable. I'm sure down the road there will be more plot twists, but for now it's a pretty easy-going show. Most of the episodes have followed the same archetype, like Pokemon, where we know how the conflict will end. So far, it may not have been very challenging, but it's still enjoyable. I give the story an 7.

I really know nothing about animation. But I do like the art in this show. It's clean and colorful and you can tell they spent some money on the animation, especially in episode 9. I would give it a 9, but compared to say Samurai Champloo, the characters aren't as individualized, which is a really big thing for me. If I change the hairstyle of one character, I want to be able to still tell who that character is. I give the art an 8.

The characters are nice as well. Using the same story archetype for each character is a pretty easy yet effective form of characterization. But it kind of irks me how easily definable each character is. The characters aren't cliched, per se, but they are quite predictable. They lack mystery, and it feels as though there isn't much left to their pasts. But that's a really nit-picky thing to say. Probably the most interesting character for me is Narukami, but that's because his character hasn't been defined as clearly as the others. I know I complain a lot, but one thing I do enjoy is that even though the characters may be a bit predictable, they are consistent. Through the dialogue, the characters help more firmly define each others personalities, and help provide for this consistency. Overall, the characters get an 7.

I've personally enjoyed this anime so far. It's not even close to being one of my favorites, but it is pretty funny at times. I like how laid-back the show feels. Even if there is a murderer out on the loose, the show doesn't feel to urgent. This also has to do with the pace of the show, which was done very well. Enjoyment gets an 8.

Overall I would have to say this show gets a 7. I say this because while it was enjoyable, and the majority of my scores were 8's, it's just not as good as others I've seen. So far at least, it hasn't drawn me in as some other shows that may not have been ranked so highly. I know that this entire show is a mystery, but I don't stay up at night wondering who the killer might be. Maybe that is due to its laid-back nature, but this show in general was pretty basic. It was in general, good. And a 7 is good, but not a "stay up all night and watch this show because it's life-changing" kind of good.