Persona 5 the Animation

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...

{Spoilers}
I had higher hopes. I played the game so I know the storyline already, but when I watched the anime it was boring and messy. If you want a better story, you should just watch the gameplay.

{Story 8/10}
I gave story 8/10 not because of the anime but because of the idea. Sadly the anime didn't portray it well and had many scenes were I just got bored and stopped.

{Art 4/10}
Horrible art, messy and bad, and in each episode there are probably 20 pictures were the characters look stupid and deformed. I hoped they would use the anime scenes from the game and use them ... for the same events in the anime but they decided to redraw them instead and make it look 20x worse. (I know there are probably copyright issues)

{Sound 8/10}
The voice actors are fine, they sound similar enough to the game, and had e same amazing music that I love in persona.

{Character 9/10}
I love the characters! Amazing Amazing Amazing characters, except for the art. I love futaba and Ann, and Main Protagonist, but It's not really related to the anime seeing that its just characters from the game.

{Enjoyment 5/10}
Like I said before, there are many times I got bored and watched a different anime. There are scenes that just go on and on and they go through palaces way to quickly.

{Overall 6/10}
The anime had cute scenes but overall it sucked. Watch/play the game, don't watch the anime unless you want to make an AMV. :3

(Please note this review is from someone who played the RPG before so it might be a little bit biased)

This anime is good...

Well, it should've been.

But no, they had to just to ruin a wonderful piece of work into an average adaptation
Let me tell you why, all of the cons cover up all the pros!

Let us start with the plot, if you compare it with 280+ hours of gameplay to this anime, the thing they did is actually good, but it still confuses anime-only viewers, such as why Joker get the other personas without even us seeing him getting that persona. The problem is that ... the anime doesn't get too much of a battle development, and the only scenes we see them battle is when they battle a boss or something! And hoo boy, they're even OVERPOWERED on those scenes, without us even seeing them train!
But anyways, let's expand on the plot, to be honest, even IF they did skip the battle scenes, they handled the main story pretty good. My only complaint is that they shouldn't have forced confidant scenes and Akechi scenes into the anime, as it is unnecessary and it takes up minutes of precious main story time.
However, towards the end of the anime, they rushed through the story, causing the anime-only viewers get too confused, that is the result of including a long battle scene, therefore, they should've planned the anime first before announcing it as 26 episode, because 26 episodes can't handle all of that.

Now let's discuss about the animation and sound,
The animation? Hoo boy, we don't talk about that here, it was disgustingly horrible. You could obviously tell they didn't have a lot of budget for this anime. Lack of frames, unfinished sprites, name them all. But, the animation improves as the episodes goes by, although only a bit. But, trust me the animation was unbearable to look at in the first few episodes.
The soundtrack in this anime was good, nice opening, nice ending, but in the first few episodes (AGAIN), they forced in background music from the game, making the atmosphere awkward.

What can I say for this anime?
5/10, Hoo boy. This was like a test anime for cloverworks, it improved each episode, even by a bit.

tl;dr improving things each episode, shitty first few episodes and a forced conclusion.

Thanks for reading and goodbye.

"I am thou... Thou art I ... From the sea of thy soul I come ... Call upon my name, and release thy rage! Show the strength of thy will to ascertain all on thine own, though thou be chained to Hell itself! I am the pillager of twilight, Arséne!"

So I recently got into the Megami Tensei multiverse. I knew it existed for a couple years, heck I even played Persona 2 (Innocent Sin) for the original Playstation. Back then I really had no idea wtf half the demons and spells were, how to pronounce character names, or why Hitler was in the fucking game, ... but I remember it being one of my favorite games. However I wasn't able to play 3 due to stupid laws not letting me buy the game due to my age. Gee thanks a lot America. I got into the whole multiverse more recently with some YouTubers I watch streaming Persona 5. I loved watching them play, and recently I was able to convince my Mom to buy the game for me. But until then, I kinda had nothing to do. I wanted to play the game myself and it just so happened that an anime would be produced. My naïve mind was ecstatic. I thought it was good, until I got my own copy and relived watching videos, but in my own hands. Looking back now, this anime adaptation is a complete trainwreck.

Story: The story here is a watered down version of the game. A lot of the nuance is taken out and some of the plotlines are straightout censored for TV. Apparently we can't say pedophile gym teacher is a pedophile, so we cut out half of his fucking character. Well anyways here is the plot of the game. Your character is a student on probation due to an assault case from some asshole rapist, and he moves to coffe-dad's café , and he's a regular student by day, and a heart stealing phantom thief by night. No this is not a shitty porno despite how cheesy that last part sounds. Basically the protag makes accomplices and recruits other thieves, and a talking cat who screams at him to go to bed. The thieves steal the evil will from the hearts of the corrupt and reform society. That's what the anime basically portrays the plot as. A lot of the nuance from the game is gone. A lot of the dicking around that you and your friends go through in town during the day is gone. The school life is also gone. Its pretty much just an action story now. For cutting out important elements and nuance it gets a 7/10, at least it tries to tell the game's story.

Art: "I would like your honest opinion if you would..."-Kitagawa Yusuke
Lets talk about the production a bit first. The game's animated cutscenes were produced by Production I.G. a high end studio, while the anime is A-1 Pictures. The A-1 version looks cheap and neutered compared to the beauty of the game's cutscenes. Yusuke does not approve. The CGI also looks like dog shit. Look up A-1 pictures animation and you'll get some pretty bad results. 5/10 Madarame did it.

Sound: The sound in the anime is actually pretty good. Most of the actors and actresses from the Japanese game have returned. Sadly some of the cast has recently passed away, so they will not be heard in the anime. A lot of the music is lifted straight from the game. You will start singing along to some catchy tunes such as "Beneath the Mask", "Last Surprise", and "Life Will Change". Its pretty good! 9/10 some songs are missing.

The characters are from the game, but slightly watered down. As an elitist I give this a 7/10 due to me loving the nuance in the game.

This anime gets a 6/10 as it tried to adapt the game well, but failed miserably due to time constraintants. Don't watch it.

If you have only seen the Anime, then you are definitely missing out in what was, originally, an excellent narrative in the original game. In order to properly adapt the massive game that is Persona 5, they would need a minimum of 50 episodes, as this series skipped over quite a bit of content. A longer run, along with taking an approach that mixed slice of life with the stylistic action of the main story of the game would probably have made this a more faithful experience, as my main issue is the fact that you dont really see the charm Persona 5 hold ... outside of the main Palaces and the Metaverse.

If you played the game, you may enjoy seeing the characters and specific scenes animated and elaborated on, though this Anime can't hold a candle to the masterpiece that is the game.

I love Persona franchise so much as I have both of my main waifu and my main husbando in this franchise. And now I really don't know where should I point my disappointment to. Yes. In short, I am very much disappointed by how Persona 5 : The Animation turns out. Rushy execution, very bad animation, destroyed a story that is already awesome, and made itself a huge disappointment for the fan that is already there. The only thing that holding this anime is the great soundtrack. That's it! That's the only thing that made me stay and giving this anime a chance.

Maybe the worst ... disgrace is how they giving us a very beautiful promotional art in the very beginning only to continue with horrible and downright bad animation. The animation feels empty and lazy with so many in between frames are missing from its place. In the very end of this anime, I feel betrayed by the promises they gave us before they released the anime. Well, I know A-1 Pictures have a history of bad action sequences and very minimal animation which usually they will fix them in their Blu-Ray or DVD releases but I think that is not an excuse to make a good potential wasted.

About the story, I felt sad since the game of Persona 5 itself already has a very great story but at the end of the day they executed the story with an unsteady yet rushed pace. It really broke the story as whole because many key points and character relationship were threw away. And worse, they decided to cut-off the anime like it was nothing and just told us that there would be a continuation. WHAT? I know that the studio really wants to milk this franchise but I think it was not the wisest decision as it left the audience screaming that this anime is unfinished and downright bad.

The only thing that makes this anime outstanding is of course, their soundtrack. Still retaining the beautifully composed music from the game, they kept the soundtrack and added with other equally beautiful soundtracks. I always love the work of Shoji Meguro and that endings are worth to note.

Overall, I was almost this close to drop this anime but my generosity keeps me from dropping this one. Episode after episode, I was putting hope that they will fix this hell of a mess. But no. To the very end they did not fix it. So, I think it is better for you to watch the playthrough of the game instead of watching this anime if you are curious about Persona 5.

Incredible game for any who haven't played it. I'd give it a 9.5/10 at the bare minimum.

The anime adaptation? Not so much... (Though it did get my to buy the game and I am grateful for that)

I did enjoy this anime for what it was worth, but compacting 100+ hours of gameplay and story into a 26 episode block is far from easy. Personally I noticed a lot of the story was skimmed or summarized. For someone who has played the game several times, I didn't really struggle to keep up, but people who have only seen the anime must be completely baffled sometimes as ... to what is happening on the screen.

The art and animation were no doubt amazing. Several of the Castles were especially well done...but only visually. They cut out so much of what made the castles so interesting, but I suppose I can understand due to time constraints.

The music was completely on point though, and I was very thankful for that. Persona 5's soundtrack is sheer brilliance at its finest, and I'm glad much of it was incorporated into the show as well. The intro/ending themes the anime introduced were also amazing, I loved watching them every week when a new episode dropped.

I found a lot of the fight scenes in the anime rather boring compared to how I experienced them in-game. Once again, time restraints, I know. But fights ended in a matter of seconds and grazed over several of the in-game features that made Persona 5's fight system so incredibly fun.

Persona (and the entire Shin Megami Tensai series) is known for having a huge variety of creatures, but I feel like I saw very few in the Anime adaptation. Plus, the anime barely touches on why the Protagonist's persona changes every so often. For anyone who has never played the game before, this had to be really confusing.

Finally, character development suffered too due to time constraints. The game features very developed, multi-step interactions with many main and side characters that left you feeling like you were almost a part of the group. The anime touches on these, but has to summarize them far quicker. Seeing a character conflict/story introduced, discussed, and resolved within about 6 minutes doesn't do the character development justice. The patient and detailed stories featured in-game really tug more on the heartstrings, make you laugh, and allow you to invest into even the more minor characters. Anyone who has not played the full game is probably finding the anime's attempts to cover the side-stories as pointless filler, when it is completely the opposite.

Overall, a red-hot masterpiece of a game turned into a lukewarm animated adaptation. However, I do still think it is worth a watch, especially for any fans of JRPG games or anyone interested in buying the Persona 5 game. For anyone who doesn't want to play the game and just wants to enjoy the anime, I'd recommend some supplemental wiki pages or youtube videos to fill in some of the gaps. The show will make a lot more sense that way.

I can describe my feelings about this anime in one word: why?

This anime is an anime adaptation of the award winning game Persona 5 (which is also one of my favourite games of all time). While Persona 5 is an amazing game, it’s also a very long game and the fact that this show is only 25 episodes long is the first thing that made me feel skeptical about this show before I watched it. After I watched it, it was a hell of a lot worse than I could’ve imagined. This anime is so damn ugly like Jesus Christ! Why do the characters look ... so damn stupid?! Why is the all out attack screen so empty and hideous! Jesus Christ this is bad. The one positive of this show is the music because it uses music from persona 5 along with some decent songs made just for this show, the best of which is the first ending: to infinity.

The only reason I have some of the stuff 10s and stuff is because it’s Persona 5, not because this show is actually good at it.

But the main sin (pun not intended) is that WHY ISNT FUTABA CONSIDERED A MAIN CHARACTER WHY ARE THEY A SUPPORTING CHARACTER?!

Just play the game. The reason:

1. Not using true ending (but the ending still different from game)
I think they didn't choose true ending because of limitation of airing this anime. I mean, Persona 5 have a long story and a little bit complexity. It can't be made to anime with 26 episode? Still need more episode fore true ending.
2. Animation is suck (compared to the game)
If you like action, well I can say they try. But animation compared to the game, I prefer from the game, you can say it.
3. You can get more feeling from game (trust me)

But if you prefer watch the anime, ... it's fine. Still can follow the story till the end. But don't be upset with ending.

Aside from the Game,

The Characters lacked a lot of backstory, there were characters missing out, and overall, it was average. I'm a big fan of Persona series but, comparing this to Persona 4, I'd choose the latter. this fight scenes and drama scenes weren't as good. Although the character depiction of Ren was pretty good, The Social Status, Abilities and the Calendar scene wasn't implemented as it was on the other Persona series. I just hope that they release an OVA to chain up the last episode.

It's not bad. it's just... lackluster. The Beginning episodes took too long. and then rushed somewhere in the middle. ... to sum it up. its worth watching if you're a big fan of persona series.

6.5/10

Now, I'll open this with the fact that I played the game and was also a big fan of Goro Akechi.
If you're going into the anime adaptation expecting to be able to watch it instead of playing the game, you're not going to enjoy this. The pacing is abysmal, spending way too much time on the early story and not leaving enough time for the conclusion. If you HAVE played the game, it's just fine. Akechi has more screen time in the anime than in the game, so if you're a fan of him then your enjoyment will definitely be higher. If you don't ... like him, well, you'll probably hate the anime and feel like he took away from whoever your favorite is.
The anime is good as supplementary material to the game, but doesn't hold up very well on its own.

If I'm brutally honest, CloverWorks did a pretty fucking terrible job of producing P5A. Now by fucking terrible, I mean it was a mediocre anime at best. If you're thinking of watching this because you know that Persona 5(and soon in the West Persona 5 Royal, as of writing this review) is a really really long game, around 90+ hours on a standard first playthrough and possibly another 45+ hours if you do New Game+, I'm telling you just play the god damn game. Persona 5, being the first Persona game I played, left a huge impact on me due to its phenomenal gameplay and ... intense ass story. So much so that its become my favourite game(Though i will not lie didn't know who joker was until he was added to Smash Ultimate and i saw gameplay of him on Alpharads Youtube channel, But i did know the twin wardens for some reason. I know, im clearly the person to listen to). The anime did a horrible job with the pacing of the games story. Like the first boss was beaten in a matter of three episodes. This is approximately 10ish hours of the game. And this Boss, whose name is Kamoshida, left an impact in the game that only atlus was able to do. (ok there will be some spoilers from this point on so....... if you don't want any....... go play the fucking game) Like the scene where Ann's presumably best friend, Shiho, jumped off the rooftop of Shujin Academy. The game made it a presence that the abuse and sexual harassment(and technically pedophilia if you live in the west cuz shiho is only 17, same goes for basically all of shujin) done by Kamoshida to the sports team, which is glorified by the volleyball team, was fucking hard. This set the tone for the rest of the game that this game is going to deal with topics that most gamers will not deal with on a everyday basis. Examples of these cases could be of course Kamoshida's sexual harassment, Kaneshiro's pyramid scheme and the death of Futaba's Mom, Wakaba Isshiki, due to authorities(I'm gonna call them the Japanese FBI) exploiting the research teams for psience, who could assumably been hired by Masayoshi Shido. Nothing in the anime felt like it had a meaning. The characters were more flat than they usually are. Hell, some of the confidants weren't even there like Master of Gun About Shinya. Thus making my point that this anime to be honest, it was decent show but ,being a now huge Persona fan, was a huge disappointment. They honestly should have left this to AIC A.S.T.A cause they made P4A, which from the general view of Persona community was pretty solid. That is why my short ass review, cause i could have gone on for day but you weebs need more anime, of this anime gave it a good 5/10.

tl;dr Play Persona 5 the Royal don't watch this.

Short summation of my thoughts, Overall section has a longer tl;dr for Persona fans of various types

Story and Characters 4, 8 - vanilla Persona 5's story is a mixed bag and condensing 100 hours of game into 30ish episodes counting the specials causes it to suffer. The most common complaint with all Persona adaptations is that the pacing is bad, and the length of the game story does not adapt well. Persona 4 and the Persona 3 movies are like Steins;Gate compared to whatever this is supposed to be. (Steins;Gate is widely regarded as a great adaptation ... of a visual novel) Events and main story beats that shouldn't be rushed are and slice of life and confidant events that should not have episodes dedicated to them have episodes dedicated to them for some reason. At this point I would suggest watching a lets paly without commentary over the show. There is one saving grace to this show, the mc speaks. You also get some extra voice lines for other characters. The fact this show got a dub is the only reason I watched it and hearing Xander Mobus speak like 40 lines wasn't really worth it in the end.

Art 4 - there is cg and it looks terrible. Art is often shoddy, mis-proportioned, and choppy. Ironic considering Persona 5 is known for its style but the show is just watered down and sad.

Sound 7 - At the very least Persona 5 still has its music to its name. Some great songs are in the track, not that the fit with the scenes well at all. If anything, the game tracks are jarring and don't flow well with the show, almost as if they were made in mind for a completely different medium. They are catchy though, so it balances out slightly.

Enjoyment 5 - my enjoyment is tied to hearing the dub and seeing a few original scenes here and there. Score would be higher if the rest of the show didn't exist.

Overall 4 - If you want to larp as a Persona 5 fan online then put a YouTube let's play on 2x speed. If you want to actually experience Persona 5 play the Royal. Royal fixes many gameplay annoyances with Persona 5 and adds the best story arc in the game and debatably the series (IS and EP are mid fight me). If you have beaten the Royal and want to watch the show for the sake of watching, go on YouTube and watch a highlight reel. There are probably many good ones, and it will save you several hours. If you're a loser and want to watch the first-person Valentine's episode, then play an eroge or get an actual girlfriend instead.

I start this review by saying that I love the original Persona 5. It's one of the greatest games I have ever played and one of the best of the decade.

The animation does some great parts in the slice of life segments of Ren Amamiya. Some of these scenes are well done and very funny. But the scenes on palaces and the fights...oh God...

The fights are incredibly underwhelming and the animation in the palaces are terrible. It's such a shame that some of the best moments in the game (like the boss fights) were short or full of badly drawn characters. Even the All-Out Attacks ... suffered with missing frames.

It's such a shame that a great game had a cash-grab adaptation with no heart in it. I would only recommend this if you don't have any possibility to play the original or if you're having a deadly curiosity about it.

P5 The Animation is such a disappointment for me quite a bit following the p3 movies and P4's animation series. Hell I think P4's anime beats the game in many aspects. But this...
It has no personality, and shows nothing that isn't mandatory for the story to work. It doesn't show what makes the game so great nor does it do a great job of emulating the style of it either. It makes a weak attempt to do so but fails on multiple levels.
What else is there to say? The story is the same and good, but without the filler and character development from the main ... game it comes off a little cut and dry.
I hope if they end up making another entry like they did with p4 golden, with royal coming out, they try and put some effort into it. The blocks are here to make an interesting story with better characters but they need to actually try.
Do yourself a favor and go buy the game if you can.

I love Persona 5. This anime is great for me to relive the game I played 4 years ago and reignite those memories. If anything, the 2D art style of some of the 3D moments improve those moments so much.

However, objectively, this anime just tries to fit so much into too little time and is subsequently so rushed. I don't know the time of the cutscenes of the game alone, but I'm willing to bet it is far more than the total time of the anime. Furthermore, the inclusion of the Confidant storylines can feel like weird diversions from the main story instead of the ... more organic way they developed in the game itself.

I cannot imagine that someone who is new to the franchise will fall in love with it and that a large portion of the Persona 5 fanbase will just be disappointed (even if somewhat understanding why it doesn't fit). But if you are looking to remember the fun you had playing the game, give it a chance.

yeah i definitely didn't think this thru. i played the game and have seen clips of the animation on youtube and was like why not? yeah those clips on youtube are only the best parts and doesn't show how bad narratively the animation version is. like yeah it might be bad to compare to the original game but like you can't help not to because the pacing is just too fast. the animation cuts out parts and rearranges how certain scenes were like morgana came in day 1 not day 2. that's a little example of what was changed but like there was obviously more ... which in term affects how the audience interprets and perceives the character development of certain characters. like we all didn't know ryuji's full name until episode 2 but pretty sure it should've happened earlier.

animation was whatever too. i didn't really watch for animation because i already knew (from other people's reviews and hopefully you too) was that the animation isn't the best. like it's not even comparable to the original game cutscenes. obviously because it's from different animation studios but still there wasn't really an attempt to try to copy the original and if there was, it looked very wonky (i.e. the all out attack animation sequence).

only really good thing to stay watching really was ryuji for me but that's cuz he's my favorite. i think both the japanese and english voice actor for ryuji does a really good job and portraying his character with the lines they are respectively given in their different mediums. the little "renren" from ryuji to joker was really cute and gave him more personality but that was really it. other than that, i would really just play the game. they made a port version to most systems now so you should go play that instead of watching this to get a more in depth knowledge of the plot and characterizations of the different phantom thieves. (though i will say for persona5 royal, i did not like yoshizawa who really was just badly inserted into the original base persona 5 plot. her character would've done a lot better had they not did what they did in royal. should've let her entirely help out for the royal exclusive stuff and not inserted into the base persona5 game portion.) well i guess that would technically be considered a good point for the animation, yoshizawa isn't in it to ruin how the story goes (i still think she's a cute character just very badly executed and included)

This one I watched more as background noise than an attentive, active content consumption™. Therefore, this is not a full blown analysis more than it is a impression that may help you decide to watch it or not (no spoilers)

I never played the Persona 5 game, and it's obvious that the history, world, combat and characters are better suited for a videogame rather than an anime, but the story holds up pretty well still and it's a fun watch. The character's are fun, if not very deep, and the way it utilizes many aspects of japanese society into villains and character arcs are pretty cool.

The ... main history gets bigger and bigger in scope in a way that feels natural, and the ending is pretty interesting, made me cry a little, although that is not too hard to do.

I recommend for anyone meaning to watch this anime the video "Why you always kill gods in JRPG" from Moon Chanel. It was this video that made me interested in watching persona, and it gives a cultural background of the themes of the anime. This probably made its faults be less damaging for me.

Overall, an enjoyable experience, if not very deep or very well executed. If you love the game, I don't recommend it, but if you don't want to play it, it manages to tell the history well enough.