Persona 5 the Animation

Ren Amamiya, a new transfer student at Shujin Academy, is sent to Tokyo to live with his family friend Sojiro Sakura after wrongly being put on probation for defending a woman from sexual assault. While on the way to attend his first day at his new school, Ren notices a strange app has appeared on his phone, transferring him to a world known as the Metaverse, which contains people's "shadows": distorted depictions of their true selves. In the Metaverse, he awakens his Persona, a power from deep within that gives him the strength to fight the shadows. With the help of similarly troubled students, he forms the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, attempting to save people from their sinful desires by "taking their heart," making evildoers regret their actions and turn over a new leaf. The group's reputation continues to grow explosively, bringing along fame both positive and negative.

However, during the peak of their popularity, Ren gets captured and taken into custody. Here, he wakes up to a harsh interrogation, but this is cut short by the arrival of Sae Niijima—a prosecutor seeking answers. Just how will she react to his story, and what will become of the Phantom Thieves?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Amamiya, Ren Main

Fukuyama, Jun Japanese

Niijima, Makoto Main

Satou, Rina Japanese

Sakamoto, Ryuuji Main

Miyano, Mamoru Japanese

Kitagawa, Yuusuke Main

Sugita, Tomokazu Japanese

Takamaki, Ann Main

Mizuki, Nana Japanese

Morgana Main

Ootani, Ikue Japanese

Akechi, Gorou Supporting

Hoshi, Souichirou Japanese

Sakura, Futaba Supporting

Yuuki, Aoi Japanese

Okumura, Haru Supporting

Tomatsu, Haruka Japanese

Kawakami, Sadayo Supporting

Fuchigami, Mai Japanese

Kananiwa, Kozue Producer

Adachi, Kazuki Producer

Tsuji, Toshikazu Producer

Ishihama, Masashi Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Sep 29, 2018

dotta

Recommended

Unfortunately for game anime adaptations, they have a steep hill to climb to recapture the magic you get from playing through them.

Persona 5, another addition to the long time SMT/Persona series was a huge success in both the west and in Japan. It won 2017 Game Awards “RPG of the Year” And was ranked at was of the top games of the year by many gaming outlets. Even with that, the anime was considered a disappointment from the start. With its cheap animation, off-pacing at times, and generally its lack of what made the game special.

However, my expectations played a part in the viewing experience. ... It was clear from the start that this wasn’t going to be like the game at all, as most game adaptations never are. Persona 5’s stand alone story is not what made the game special, rather just one factor. I wasn’t coming into this expecting what I got from the game, and neither should you. As I do see where most the criticism comes from, the root of it is from people who compare to the game, this probably isn’t a fair way to look at it. The game was made by thousands of more people, have had years to develop, and is generally taken more serious. This was a direct result of poor animation, bad pacing, and cutting out parts of the game. The anime should be given some slack in that regard.

With all that being said, I am not trying to defend the bad parts of the P5 anime. They are noticeably apparent, and part of why it led to widespread hate of the P5 anime. The animation is sometimes shit. The CG usage was often bad, especially in the background characters walking around. The faraway faces are sometimes laughable. And although the pacing is considerably better in the second half of the show, the beginning is way too fast. Usually I wouldn’t give these issues a pass, but like I said since it was mainly being compared to the game I do. People who haven’t played the game probably won’t see that much of an issue in these.

In many cases however, what likely appealed to you in the game should transition into the anime. If you like the characters, they will translate nicely. And of course, the music does as well. Chances are you didn’t complete everything in the game unless you played it through multiple times, so some of what you will be seeing from the characters could be a new experience. The character development was taken from the ‘confidant’ system so if you didn’t complete everyone’s confidant or maybe just were not paying attention you could be seeing new content. That along with the actual anime exclusive scenes, like seeing some of the characters in new situations, or seeing them given more backstory like showing them as children, gives the anime merit to watch even if you have played the game, a common criticism.

There isn’t always something to say about P5TA. Largely because it is just doing what it was supposed to. There are both good and bad parts. If you want to experience the game but don’t want the time investment of playing through all of it, (and trust me, the game is huge) than this might be for you. If you are a fan of the game, than this might be for you. It doesn’t necessarily show everything the game has to offer, but doesn’t do anything too bad to diminish it either.

You shouldn’t think too hard about this one.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Sep 29, 2018

LegendAqua

Mixed Feelings

Funny

For a game that's about "stealing your heart", Persona 5: The Animation on the other hand was nowhere close to capture LA's heart...

LA only recently gotten into Persona 4: The Animation LA was hyped about Persona 5 as LA didn't play the game, so the anime was a good look into Persona 5, however...

Persona 5: The Animation on the basis tries to relive the events of the game, truncating any of the minor events, and with that LA will at least say that trying to cram in a 90 to 120 hour game into a 26 episode anime IS gonna have these kind of limitations, ... but for what it's worth, Persona 5 did ok if a bit rushed in some of it's arcs. Persona 5: The Animation is inflicted with the video game curse in some sense but not in the way you'd think.

Persona 5's plot revolves around the "Phantom Thieves" a group who is able to change the hearts of people and is led by Akira Kur- Ren Amamiya voiced by Jun Fukuyama, the "Joker", but as they continue to gather more members, a bigger plot is brewing that leads Ren to being captured by the police and where the narrative structure of Ren retelling his adventures of changing people's hearts comes into play. Now the narrative structure is fine in some ways, a sorta in media res of Ren retelling his events to Sae Nijima, the detective questioning Ren all throughout the anime and the framing of how Ren got to where he is now is intriguing as well how he built up the Phantom Thieves and the members as well.

Persona 5's characters are also immensely interesting to say the least, Ren has some personality to back him up though not the same as Yu from Persona 4 but nonetheless that and Persona 5 compared to Persona 4 have different levels of seriousness and playfulness in store. Due to Persona 5 going through many of the character arcs of the main cast (mainly the Phantom Thieves of course) we do get to see the Phantom Thieves develop through their issues or dilemma mostly through defeating the person or entity that troubles them in the "villains palaces" as a result. With that being said, LA was massively torn between two characters as LA's favorite character...either Makoto Nijima voiced by Rina Satou, the student council president and her views on "justice" tested during her arc (AND she's a badass) and Futaba Sakura voiced by Aoi Yuuki, a hikkimori who has a rather tragic backstory involving her mother and LA could relate to her in some sense due to this. LA's runner up was Ann Takamaki voiced by Nana Mizuki but nonetheless with the anime focusing alot on it's characters and their growth and arcs, made the main cast of the Phantom Thieves likable and memorable in a ways.

Persona 5: The Animation's plot as LA aforementioned is was rushed and this was from a person who didn't play the games, each of the character arcs and "palaces" did have some decent screentime, but not alot of downtime much like Persona 4 and how they dealt with their dungeons, we at best get montages of the Phantom thieves traversing through the palaces, but in terms of battles, it's mostly one mob or monster then goes straight into the boss in question one or two episodes later. All LA means by "no downtime", is that the Phantom thieves doesn't have some breathing room in between palaces, though in some defence to this, Yuusuke Kitagawa voiced by Tomokazu Sugita and Makoto Nijima got "some" breathing room in between but still, it was rushed to say the least and this was even with a 26 episode timeframe!

So if the characters were done well and the plot's structure had some rushed pacing, what really crippled it?, yeah...the animation is a bit subpar alot of the time. The animation studio CloverWorks round the halfway point, you could easily tell the derpy faces as well as cutting corners ALOT and it just gradually keeps showing up in the later episodes, sure the animation had some sense of detail in it's palaces and it's character designs being visually striking but for the animation to dip and not fully recover by the end of it was disappointing to say the least. The animation was subpar and was probably the biggest detriment to the anime overall.

With that Persona 5: The Animation had a major problems but it's small little details that ruined Persona 5: The Animation from being in the same league as something like Persona 4 and LA loved that adaptation. Look, to most of the detractors of Persona 5: The Animation, you just can't cram a 120 hour game into a 26 episode runtime, there is BOUND to be some truncations, BUT for first timers who haven't played the game, it's actually a decent look into the game, with the story being structurally sound besides some pacing issues, characters who are memorable and develop them as the anime goes along BUT where Persona 5: The Animation falls flat is it's animation and that is just something LA can't ignore.

Persona 5: The Animation you got some problems but your fine as an adaptation, being by the book in adapting the plot of the game well, but where the video game curse comes in is not having a convoluted stories and superfluous characters and the such but for what a simple thing as not having the drive in making the animation as great as could be as well as occasional rushed pacing, LA WANTED to love ya but by the end of watching it all, all LA felt was a dull thud in what could had been a great adaptation rivaling Persona 4: The Animation, yes LA was disappointed by this adaptation but not outright hate it as it had some strengths to it but nonetheless...

Persona 5: The Animation your not misguided just mismanaged...

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Sep 29, 2018

Karhu

Not Recommended

Persona 5 is the newest addition to the Shin Megami Tensei franchise. Its source material had around 5 hours worth of actual content like is implied in its name, yet playing the whole thing takes around 140 hours because it's a classic J-RPG game that relies on repeating the same thing 18500 times.

Unfortunate for the fans of the game, the anime end up being 26 episodes long when it should have been 500, and unfortunate for anime fans, the anime end up being 26 episodes long when it should have been 13.

As far as fillers go, filler is canon content I mean, Persona 5 ... is full of slice of life nonsense that has nothing to do with anything. People fighting over pieces of bread and talking about their dreams just to make sure the pacing will become harder to comprehend than the popularity of the franchise itself.

What is directorship? is what I found myself often asking when seeing how Persona 5 is build to be nothing but a collection of random scenes that were edited together without any consistency or flow that makes the next scene related to the former one. Screen transitions seem to be some sort of "worst animated cabbage" meme when the focus goes from pan fights in the middle of the day to a scene where we drink coffee in the evening to a bully scene and finally returns to a scene where the actual pan is being eaten in a time that seems to be the very next day. The shots mainly remind me of Resident Evil The Final Chapter (movie) where the camera angle could change 45 times a minute over the same scene except here it changes from scene to another in ludicrous tempo. Visual storytelling at its finest. Bravo.

Our main characters are incredibly random. They mainly remind me of Suicide Squad. By Suicide Squad, I mean every superhero movie ever because that thing was exactly as good as they all are. The real mc is some sort of mixture of Robin Hood and Jesus. The female lead appears very mysterious, but the real mystery is why would anyone care. She is pretty hot, tho. The blonde dude is like spiderman but sassy. All the other girls were just swag, but gladfully there was like 7 beach episodes so they really had time showing off their naked bodies as it's not like they had anything else to show. None of the side characters feel like genuine persons, they are more like NPC's who only exist for the main characters... oh wait.

What is this series all about even, you ask. And that's what I am still wondering. Teenagers with stand powers are participating inside some sort of fighting tournament shonen storyline that mainly reminds me of Katekyou Hitman Reborn (we even have the same mascot here) except the comedy was replaced with some type of combination of angst and edgy, the villains are evil adults, the actual events are Robin Hood with superpowers and most of it is slice of life. As epic as it might sound, what it really sounded like was a wet fart.

The only good thing about the game itself was the OST. Unfortunately, voice acting is always at louder volume than the OST, and SFX above all else. Boy don't we love it when explosions cover the music. It really fits the definition of a background music because instead of trying to make the series better by using the songs to their full potential, they are just there hanging in the background. It's pretty much a stupid decision.

Our art is at least pretty fun if not otherwise impressive. Villains wearing strings and cloaks made of fur offer the most original content in the entire series. Some of the leather suits were also pretty sexy. Especially the art room looked cool as fudge. Too bad its overall screen time totaled 3 seconds. Like literally. Not that even these things would be worth of praising in a series that had some other merits. Pretty much all side characters follow the "spot the main character" tier filler/design.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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