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What happens when you take one of the best JRPGs to date and try and make a 26 episode anime out of it? You get a rushed and highly watered down disappointment.

If you've never played Persona 5 for the PS3/PS4, you might find yourself intrigued, and then totally lost in the first few minutes of the first episode. With only 20-something minutes in each episode to tell the same story that a 100+ hour game did, the plot-points and scene transitions are thrown at you so fast you'll probably get whiplash. The ever-lurking and ultimately important plot points that involve the Velvet Room (where the ... protagonist learns more about the supernatural aspects of his predicaments) usually receive less than a minute total screen time, if it appears at all in any given episode. There's no time to grow attached to most of the characters, including the (now-"fully"-voiced) protagonist, because there's so many. Apparently the writers/director decided you have to touch on all of them in some way or another as a nod to fans, even though there'd be more time to understand the main plot if the time related to side characters was spent on making sure the main story/characters are decently written. Sure, there are some moments where you get more info about the characters that weren't present in the game (hello, swimsuit Ka- erm, sorry), but again, that time would have been better spent extending the parts of the story that actually matter. The anime currently ends on a cliffhanger, of sorts. If this were the game, it'd be considered either a bad ending (because you couldn't read between the lines and pick the right choices) or you know it's a cliffhanger (because surely, I didn't just go through this game to get this bull?!) One can only hope the upcoming OVA/second season (god-forbid) paces itself a bit better than what's been given so far.

I couldn't name another A-1 Studios anime if I wanted to, but by god, if the quality of the art in Persona 5 the Animation is any indication of their usual standards, then I never want to see another A-1 anime in my life. The best animation/art in this show can be found in the opening and ending credits, which, while sometimes uninspired or even unrelated to the story, seems to have been where the majority of the art/animation budget has gone. The fight scenes are laughably, depressingly boring, almost as if each one (aside from the boss fights) was completely forgotten about until the studios were ready to greenlight that week's episode to air. The stylish All-Out attacks from the game are poorly replicated in terms of both animation and excitement, being used as a cheap cop-out for actually putting some action in the fights. As with many modern anime, there are plenty of stills/shots where characters barely resemble themselves, and you'd be laughed at for watching this stuff if you pause at the wrong moment.

Perhaps the only saving grace for P5A is the music. And only then is it because most of the music is straight up taken from the game soundtrack. Shoji Meguro and the rest of the ATLUS sound team did a fantastic job with it, and it's nice to hear it brought back in the anime. Lyn Inaizumi and Benjamin Franklin also return for each ending and opening song, and while they may not be as hype as their tracks from the game, they're definitely not hard on the ears.

Overall, Persona 5 the Animation just kinda sucks. Though it's based upon an award winning video game, the similarities are only superficial. There's a lot missing, in terms of story, character development, pacing, art, and animation. As someone who's played the game and watched several others play it as well, I'm not wholly ungrateful for it's existence, but I sincerely hope no one pays to own this anime. I would have preferred another side-story be expanded upon via OVA, like Persona 5 The Day Breakers did, instead of watching A-1 Studios cobble this mess together and call it a television show. I would have preferred to just play the game for a second time on the hardest difficulty. I would have preferred every episode show off a certain teacher in lingerie, or even just being a teacher. But unfortunately, we got none of those things, and instead, were given a lackluster adaptation that relies on the success of it's source material.