Persona 4 the Animation

"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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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 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.

Review up to episode 5. Will edit as I watch more.

Game adaptations were never successful in capturing the mood of the original. They were always messing something up, like making the characters feel like robots, presenting events as dull as possible, or just stopping in the middle of nowhere. No matter how many times I tried to enjoy them, they felt like an Eternal Punishment.

“That’s sad-kuma.”

Yes Teddie, I agree, BEAR with it. But guess what, so far Persona 4 appears to have broken the circle of bad karma and as an exception it looks GORGEOUS!

“Hooray!”

The thing is, there have been lots of bad rumours considering ... the production of the show; something about someone stealing the original copy of an episode before it airs, the staff being unpaid for months, and many being ready to drop the project. All that made me have even lower expectations than normal, since an adaptation is by default bad and with such nasty things being said behind the scenes it should be completely horrible.

“Grizzly!”

And yet so far those rumours are BEARily true! Maybe this is a conspiracy by some villain who spreads rumours as means to alter reality if enough people believe in them. Who knows, maybe by tomorrow the show will magically be horrible and Hitler will be alive and have ruled the world with robotic knights.

“Don’t say that-kuma! It’s an unBEARable thought.”

Ok Teddie, I stop. Until that happens (IF it happens) I consider this anime to be the most faithful adaptation ever made. And by faithful I mean it LITERALLY! It’s like I am watching the cut scenes from the game with more variety in motions, camera angles, and the protagonist having a voice. They even use the same visual effects to depict emotions, which is a great treat for those who played the game. Heck, this is also the first time the soundtrack was left the same from the game instead of making a new one for the anime version. Which is both cool AND saves the makers time and money.

“You make it sound BEARy good so far-kuma.”

Indeed I do. But it’s not like I haven’t seen other anime where they tried to keep the cut scenes identical. The result was terrible as it felt like they were jumping from one scene to another without showing the in-between battles and the game engine generated dialogues. It felt very boring and dried up. But in this case, they are doing a fine job so far and I feel how the characters feel. They are so lively and I really like how they made them act so natural, without those stiff motions from the game. I mean do you remember how cold and distant they were in Trinity Soul where…

“I TOLD YOU NEVER TO MENTION THAT NAME AGAIN!”

Woops, I forgot. Can I call it an Innocent Sin and be spared the “ Dark Hour on a floor with Death” punishment?

“There is no Persona 3 anime-kuma.”

Right, and no Tsukihime one either. So let’s leave those BEARied and forgotten and go back to what I was talking about. The characters become easily likable and both visuals and soundtrack are extremely faithful to the original source. Of course there are those who complain the story is moving too fast or the characters feel a bit different but, come on, there were bound to be differences and you can’t possibly expect to have included EVERY SINGLE LINE OF DIALOGUE from the game.

“Well that makes sense-kuma. Does that have any significant BEARing on the series though?”

To be honest, up to episode 4 it does try to cram in as much plot as possible just so it will have a major battle with a Shadow boss in the last minutes and a character accepting his hidden personality. That makes it feel like a monster of the week type of show, which tends to feel repetitive and predictable. Rather TEDDIEus if you get what I mean.

“The story is not predictable! I will beat you up with my BEAR hands if you say that again.

Yes, I know, it is very complicating and has a very good concept around the feelings we hide inside and the role we are supposed to play in front of everybody else. I am just saying up to 4 it follows a pattern so far when all the juice of the story is the interactions amongst the various secondary characters. And in episode 5 we indeed got exactly that by presenting the people the protagonist forms Social Links in the game. No Shadow battles and just nice character colourization all the way.

“Yes, it was a polar BEAR opposite to the rest of them.”

That is enough to make most change their minds about the show being simple. Just wait to see their reactions when the truth about your real identity comes up. You know, the part where you are BEAR naked and…

“Hey, no spoilers! My BEARutiful self will be revealed in its proper time.”

Oh right, and I sure hope by then those rumours will not be as grave as they sound and we will get to enjoy you in your full TrEDDIE glory. Maybe they are just the voices of a few haters after all.

“VOICES VOICES!”

Oh you are such a JOKER Teddie. So, let’s celeBEARate, have a toast on a good start, and make cheers to keep up the great work.

“Sure thing, wait a second to bring my BEARy juice.”

Oh lol, such a joker. And such a good anime too.

“Close to BEARfect so far!”

*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.

*This is a review Persona 4 The Animation and its conclusion special Persona 4 The Animation: No One is Alone. I’ve also never played the PlayStation 2 classic Persona 4, and this review will be solely based on my experiences with the anime.

Persona 4 The Animation was an anime I was on the fence about for a while. It was based off of a video game series that I had never even heard of, and I didn’t want to go into the series and be completely confused. After doing some more research on the series I discovered that I had received pretty good reviews all ... around, some people even call it things like, “The greatest video game to anime adaptation ever.” After I finding out that this game was so close to the source material that I’d be able to understand it without having to even play the game I decided that I would check this series out. Persona 4 The Animation not only exceeded my expectations, but it managed to keep me thoroughly entertained from beginning to end.

Story:

Persona 4 The Animation’s story takes place in the small country town of Inaba, where there have been a series of mysterious murders taking place. These murders seem to be connected to a mysterious phenomenon known as the Midnight Channel, and while the main characters are investigating, they discover a world hidden on the other side of the TV screen. In this newfound world, the characters not only uncover information about the mysteries in Inaba, but also discover new things about themselves. While it might seem like it, the story isn’t just some cliché’ story about the power of friendship and self-discovery, even though they happen to be prominent themes in the story. The mystery narrative was very interesting, and was explained really well. It kept me invested in the story, and I was always interested in what would happen next. The show is paced well, for the most part, and the story comes to a decently satisfying conclusion within the series’ original 25 episodes, but the series’ “True Ending” is told in the conclusion special Persona 4 The Animation: No One is Alone. The ending does clear up a few things left out from the original, but it definitely feels rushed. While there are a lot of things crammed into the 30-minute conclusion, it does provide us with decent conclusion to the story. That being said, there things that Persona 4 The Animation just doesn’t explain at all, an example being the existence of “The Velvet Room” and the characters that seem to live there. We really aren’t given any information about either of them, which is disappointing considering that they appear quite often in the series.

Animation:

The animation in Persona 4 The Animation was good at times, and very average at others. There are several moments in the series where the characters’ faces lack detail and look pretty plain. There also is a weird tint that shows up throughout the series that affects the skin color of the characters. But, the backgrounds used in the series are usually done pretty well. The fights scenes aren’t anything special, but they decently animated and fun to watch.

Sound:

The sound is this series is excellent and boast a variety of different types of music that fit really well into the scenes and moments that they are used in. All of the openings and endings for this series are very well done, and extremely enjoyable to listen to. Even if you tend to just skip over an anime’s opening and ending themes, you might find yourself watching, and listening to, them several times over.

Characters:

There are several main characters in the series, and we get a good amount of development and backstory on most of the characters. The series stars several students from Yasogami High School, including: Yukiko Amagi, Yosuke Hanamura, Rise Kujikawa, Chie Satonaka , Naoto Shirogane, Kanji Tatsumi, and Yuu Narukami, as well as their friend from the alternate TV world, Teddie (Kuma). Throughout the series we are given background information about a majority of the characters. Each character goes through pretty good amount of development during the series as well. While some of supporting characters are given a fair amount of development and backstory, there are others that we learn little about. My main issue with the characters is that we really aren’t given much information about our main protagonist, Yuu Narukami. He does go have some development, but we don’t really know anything about his backstory other than the fact that he came from Tokyo. Teddie is another character that doesn’t get a lot of backstory or development.

Enjoyment:

Despite all of the flaws that this anime has, I found it very enjoyable. The mystery of the story pulled me in from the beginning, and kept me interested throughout the series. I really liked all of the characters, and enjoyed their interactions among one another. I also really enjoyed the music in this anime, and don’t mind listening to it by itself.

Verdict & Breakdown:

Story: 3.4/5

Animation: 3.2/5

Sound: 4.4/5

Characters: 4.2/5

Enjoyment: 4.3/5

Verdict: 3.9/5

Persona 4 The Animation has its problems, but it’s still a very enjoyable series to watch.

Story - 7/10 - While I personally enjoyed the story of Persona 4 The Animation, there were a few hiccups that I would imagine that others would be less forgiving of. I enjoyed the symbolism and character development throughout the series and the comedy scenes nearly had me in tears but there were a few instances where the slice-of-life episodes were a little too drawn out, slowing down the pace of the show. Another thing that might bother other viewers is the fact that this anime follows the story of the game a little too closely. People who have beaten Persona 4 ... will already know the major twists and turns which might spoil some of the fun along the way. On the other hand, people who haven't played the game might not understand some of the ins and outs that veterans of the series already understand (I had to have a friend clue me in on a few things that didn't make sense to me). But other than these minor complaints, I can't think of any other criticisms I have for the story.

Art - 8/10 - I really enjoyed the art and animation used in P4 The Animation. The liberal use of yellow really fits the mood that the series is going for and the bright and well animated Openings are some of the best I've seen in an anime. The animation is well done and looks fine but isn't anything worth writing home about. The only issue I have with the art style is the use of orange on character's faces to imitate shadows. Oftentimes, this either makes the characters look like they all have 5 o'clock shadows or (if viewed from farther away) very painful-looking sunburns over their mouths and cheeks.

Sound - 9/10 - Persona 4 The Animation has some of the best music in an anime that I've ever heard. Each of the songs is either lifted from Persona 4 (the game) or has been written specifically for the animation. Also, fans of Persona 3's music will be in for a treat during an episode where the characters visit a certain Gekkoukan High School. The only part of the sound design that I have to criticize is the voice of Teddie. They could not have picked a more obnoxious voice for this mascot character...

Character - 10/10 - The characters are the real meat of the anime. Almost every character manages to be interesting and believable no matter the circumstances. After all, this show is all about the characters coming to grip with parts of their personalities that they don't wish to recognize. The main character is especially entertaining due to the fact that he doesn't fall into the same trap that many of the common stereotypical protagonists do in many animes.

Enjoyment - 10/10 - I absolutely LOVED this show. I am now officially obsessed with the Persona series after watching this show.

Overall - 8/10 - While there are a few minor issues that bug the show, this is definitely a must-see in my opinion. The good bits FAR outweigh the bad parts so you should definitely drop what you're doing right now and watch this. YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT.

Persona 4 the animation is based off the PS2 Role-playing game, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4, the 4th installment in the Persona series. Every Persona game follows a separate story.

The Anime (and game) revolve around a Highschool student, Yuu Narukami, whose parents both have to travel for work, send him to a town in the countryside, to live with his uncle. As he settles in, a bizarre string of murders begin to occur where bodies are found hanging from television reception antenna.

A huge chunk of the game was made up of Visual Novel elements though, precisely the 'Social Linking' parts, where the players character ... gets stronger from hanging out and meeting with people around his community, widening his social circle, and whats best about this feature is that the player (for the most part) kind of chooses how to reply/what to say and/or do with the characters, making the dialogue and story really flexible.

Due to Yuus dialogue being completely controlled by the player, that made it quite hard to make fitting dialogue from scratch, even in the game there were only simple choices and the talking was mostly done by the other characters which made him seem to be really silent, which I really didn't care for, considering he was the protagonist.

The remaining cast of characters, on the other hand, were great. They were all different from each other, all having their own issues which the protagonist helps them with, and these issues were all, in one way or another, connected to the main plot, were all very diverse in general, making some of them quite easy to relate to, except Rise Kujikawa, who I found to be quite cliched, but the anime does a great job in developing all of them, the characters were all well done overall, the were different, lovable, and most of all, human.

I found the main plot being quite predictable at times, but that didn't really affect it, as the story was built upon the characters, and made a great ride to see them all progress through the mystery of the murders.


To make up for all the parts in the game where characters developed, they made a few episodes that don't focus on the story much, but rather on character development, these episodes were fun, and really helped the characters grow, and helped the anime live out the theme where "Bonds of friendship make you stronger". And don't worry, it doesn't have any shounen-style friendship asspulls. Here, its all serves for character development.

It's ending got dragged a bit too much, making it a bit anti-climactic, and it really lacked in the side characters who were only in "Social linking" part of the game, and it didn't do well to explain parts like the 'Velvet Room' as untranslated game mechanics. They were interesting but never explained. Which really wasnt cool.

It's good as an anime, but not as an adaptation. I don't think you would get the same depth as you would in the game, but as an anime, it definitley stands great on its own.

Not too special, but worth a watch.

Persona 4: Anime adaptation from Video games..

Once day, my friend told me about this anime. I was kinda "meh, nope", but i give a try to watching it.. The result is wow, this is not bad.. The story itself about bunch of people go to another dimension, fight a monsters, and save people. Is it good? Let's see...

Story: 7 / 10

As you can see from synopsis, Persona 4 take place in a rural town. There have been mysterious murders in that town. The main plot of this anime is to solve that mysterious murders. As the story progresses, the main character also discover that they ... can go to another dimension (they called TV World), and discover clue about that mysterious murders. The story itself not always about mysterious murders. There's also school-day section, holiday section, and the other things because the Main Character also highschool student.

Art: 7 / 10

In my opinion, the art style is well made.. but it less colorful.. Either background or people, their art style is consistent. Most of character art style is pretty much same.. So, nothing special about it. The art style is just average.

Sound: 10/10

The sound is outstanding. Persona 4 probably one of the best anime that has best sound i ever know. The opening and ending song is good and a lot. The background music is also fitting for the story and atmosphere. Their seiyuu/character voice is fit every character personality

Character: 8/10

What we got here is a "Investigation Team", leaded by dependable person.. Every character is pretty much detailed. Not only the main character, but also the supporting character. "Bonds of people is the true power" is main quote of the series. So, there's will a lot of supporting character, and it's also pretty much detailed.

Enjoyment: 9/10

I really enjoy this anime. As fan of slice-of-life anime, i like the way they put a gags in this series. The battle scene is intresting, and also fun.

Overall: 8 / 10

Overall, it's very good. I never played Persona 4 game before first time i watch the Animation. After i watching this, it made me want to play the game. And soon, i became Persona fan. Either if you already playing the game before, or not, i recommend this anime to you, who like some mystery genre, with also has superpower to beat the enemy..

The purpose of an adaptation is to adapt an original piece of work into another medium. These adaptations are supposed to satisfy fans of the series already while being able to introduce newcomers on a positive note.

Persona 4 the Animation is the anime adaptation of the 2008 PS2 JRPG Persona 4 and it does a well job adapting it into anime. With this anime adaptation being my first exposure to the Persona series, I think it does a good job doing so. This adaptation of Persona 4 convinced to try out the series, which I am having a lot fun playing.

Story: 8/10

The story ... is probably the weakest part of this series. It starts of slow and only picks up after episode 10. These beginning episodes usually consist of two episode arcs of trying to find out the next victim and saving them. Once that section is over; we reach the middle section, which consists mostly of character interaction and enjoyable slice of life moments. Although the main murder mystery plot does not develop during this part, this part is still fun to watch. The end section of the show is when the murder mystery plot picks up again and we reach the climax of the show. The emotions you get from watching the final section is heart-wrenching and feels satisfying the murder mystery is solved. Although it starts of slow, Persona definitely picks up about halfway.

Characters: 10/10

The characters are what makes this series great and makes up for the story, which can be slow at times. The character interactions are also funny and awesome to watch, even if it involves minor characters. Each character is unique and has their own troubles, desires and struggles the must overcome; even the minor characters get development. This is what makes this series great. Most show usually sideline the minor characters, but what Persona knows well is that minor character have unique lives as well, even if they are not focused on as much as the main characters. The main characters are all unique and have to overcome their struggles to use the powers of Persona. Although some of the main cast isn't that interesting, watching them accept who they are is inspiring in accepting yourself. Through these characters, we learn that even though we have faults, they make up who we are regardless. And this is what gives these characters depth. The main cast is not is defined by their struggles, but rather it is part of them. Yu Narukami, who was original a silent protagonist in his game is given more of a personality and it fits him. The sarcastic but helpful personality fits his character well and in the anime, he has to go over his struggles as well, which was enjoyable to watch.

Art: 9/10

The animation of the series is crisp and fluid. The characters designs are also faithful to the original source material, while having its only unique flair. My only complaint on the art is the lower half of the characters' faces get progressive darker, making them look more tanned as you go down. It looks kind of unnatural and sometimes off-putting. This unique design choice by the studio is my only gripe in concerns with the art.

Sound: 10/10

Music can be used in a show to help convey the emotions and create a tone for the scene. Persona 4 does this to near perfection with amazing tracks like "Reach out to the Truth" and "I'll face myself". Tracks like these can get you pumped for a fight scene, feeling teary-eyed during an emotional scene, feel for a character's struggle and many more. The music is super addictive and can be listened to on its own (I'm actually listening to one of the songs while writing this review). The openings and endings are great in their right and convey the feelings for the series well. I especially enjoy the first opening. The Japanese and English cast for this show was done on both ends. Each voice fits well for the characters and the writing for the series was enjoyable and easy to understand. The actors delivered there lines well, with fitting emotions for the scene they were doing.

Enjoyment: 9/10

I enjoyed myself a lot while watching this. Although the slow and repetitive beginning kind of ruined my enjoyment, the characters and their interactions really made this series enjoyable. The music and voice are also fun to listen to as well. It was a feels trip through the end that had me hooked into the plot, character and setting. This was a truly enjoyable show, that has a few issues, but it does not hamper its ability to entertain the audience.

Overall: 9/10

Persona 4 is one of the best video game adaptations I have seen and got me interested into the Persona series. A few issues here and there may impede it from being a masterpiece, but it is still a great anime to watch. Overall, I give Persona 4 the animation a rating of 9.2/10