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Now i don't normally watch suspense mysteries in general and if I can remember correctly, the last one I watched was Psycho Pass (just season 1). I was in for quite a pleasant surprise though when I watched Rokka No Yussha. Short version, go watch it. It's a very good series that I would probably call a hidden gem this season.

Story: 8
The main story was nothing new. You have a group of heroes selected to take on the Demon King and save the world yada yada yada. The story itself adds nothing original to what most of us have probably already seen in a fantasy ... anime or read in any fantasy fiction in one form or another. What makes Rokka shine though is that it actually used it's story as a background to introduce what made this show so great, human intrigue or to put it more clearly, suspicions between one another. I admit, I'm not one that normally enjoys the mystery genre but Rokka was presented in such a way that it made it very interesting to watch the plots and theories fly around all the while keeping it suspenseful with fights going on. I know this really isn't the best way to describe the story but to say anymore than this would probably venture into spoiler territory so i'm going to avoid doing that.

Art: 7
The art in general feels very distinct in a sense. The way characters were outlined clearly against their background and the background scenery itself seemed very standard for an action anime. Nothing really stood out in the art for me... well maybe except for Fremy but that's because she reminded me of Snake from Metal Gear Solid but apart from that, the art of the anime overall felt very standard.

Sound: 7
The soundtrack in this anime is quite good. It added effect where it was required and overall helped to set the tone of the scene quite well. The OP and the ED were nothing special but I do appreciate what they chose to do with them. Watch to find out more cause I'm not going to say anything more about this.

Characters: 8
Now, Rokka probably shines quite well here. The protagonist is first portrayed as one of those generic characters you find in nearly anime of this sort. Brave, kind and believes in his friends. He even brags about being the "strongest man in the world." What makes the protagonist in the anime so good though is that when he's put in an especially trying situation, he doesn't play the whole HERO card but rather becomes a lot more human. I was impressed at how well the character was portrayed and fleshed out throughout the series. The side characters though pretty much act the way they were portrayed from the get-go. I do admit, they was quite a bit of character progression for some of the characters but unfortunately, not all the characters were treated the same though I get a feeling their time would come later.

Enjoyment:9
When I first started Rokka, I was just randomly browsing myanimelist to see what new anime came out and decided to give this show a try. By the 8th episode, I was hooked real bad and remembered screaming at my computer for more episodes as I had caught up. Now that I've finished it, it leaves quite a bitter sweet taste in my mouth. It's a cliff-hangar ending in short. I thought I should've added this in for those of you that do not enjoy such endings. I do admit the anime does take quite a while to get-going but I would suggest for that part anyway, just treat it as another adventure anime and you'll be fine.

Overall: 8
Well Rokka was definitely good don't get me wrong. It's just that it doesn't end and with no announcement for season 2 yet, I find it a bit hard to give this a higher rating that the one above. I do recommend you try this anime though as it's quite good in my amateur experience with mystery and I've to understand a bit why people enjoy the genre so much.

This would be the second anime I'll be reviewing so I do apologise if I make any mistakes in my review that either spoils your enjoyment or breach myanimelists' rules. Now to the actual review.

Story (8). The story itself I admit had a K-On-esque feel for the first few episodes with everything being very chilled and relaxed. Towards the later episodes though or maybe towards the 3rd with hintings in the other two, the plot introduced a very interesting plot element, namely politics or more aptly put, group politics into the mix. We're not talking about 2 people bickering over something here but rather factions ... of groups that normally consists of 5 to 6 people getting into arguments with one another because of a problem. The addition of the element itself did not feel out of place and one can very well imagine such things occurring in real life as well.I found it very interesting to see how these issues developed over time and I did not at any time remember having to stretch my imagination to make what had occurred seem believable (apart from maybe all there issues happening within just one school club). Overall, the story was paced very well but the one issue I had with the anime though would be that the much of the drama felt very isolated and contained. In short, the problems in one area did come to haunt the story later on. This makes the anime feel like it solves a problem and moves on when in reality, a problem never really goes away especially when you're dealing with groups of people given different people have different opinions on what they'd consider the "best" way to resolve a matter. Overall though, this problem didn't interrupt my enjoyment of the anime but I suppose was an element of realism that would have been nice if it had been there.

Art(7). The art was done by Kyoto Animation or at least I'm pretty sure the characters were anyway and if you've seen the Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi, Hyouka or K-On, the character designs are pretty much the same. I don't quite remember anything jarring about the backgrounds either although I do have to take my hat off to the animation of the musical instruments given that it seemed very detailed and there were a lot of them and a few scenes in the anime that sent chills up my spine when i was watching them due to the sheer quality of the animation.

Sound (7). Now I'm pretty much a sucker for classical or instrument only music and given that the entire show was about one school band, I have to say I enjoyed the music quite a bit. I hadn't exactly listened to marching band music before and the anime didn't awaken the need to either but I still enjoyed the music while it played anyway.

Enjoyment (8). I started watching this anime because a friend and I were trying to decide what we could simu-watch together and I heard that this anime was suppose to be good. I have to admit that once I started, I kind of marathoned the whole thing, leaving my friend in the dust. The anime was a pleasant surprise to what I had originally expected (more relaxed slice of life feel) and would probably re-watch the anime again at some time.

Overall (8). This anime was not what I had expected to be honest. What could have easily been another slice of life anime turned out to be something completely different altogether.

This is my first time writing a review so I do apologise if I get some things wrong or forget some things.

Now for the actual review. I'll just write this at the start. Unless you've played the game, this movie is not worth it. My reasons are below.

To be honest, I'm probably a big persona fan. Persona 3 was the first game i played in the series and i liked it so much i played it and then directly after that I played it again just because I liked it so much. You can thus imagine my excitement and glee when i found out that ... Persona 3 had a movie as well. I decided to watch this movie with a friend in hopes of getting him to play the game as well. Boy was I wrong. I'll go through the good bits first.

Art (8). The animation and character design was very well done. The fight scenes were fluid and the characters movement didn't jar with the background at all or feel unnatural. The backgrounds were just as good as it helped create the ambiance that the world wanted to created very well. Apart from that, there's not much else to be said apart from that everything looks very pretty.

Music (8). I've always been a fan of pop and the way Persona 3 mixed jazz and pop was interesting and it's one of the things i find most unique about Persona. The music gave a very cool and chilled feeling that I've come to know and love while the battle music was very upbeat and suave. I'm sure my decision on this was clouded by the fact that I enjoyed the game music as well and given that the music used in the game and the movie was about the same, I would naturally not have a problem with the music here.

Characters (5). Right off the bat, the main character (MC) was very emotionless. I know that it's never easy when there's a transition between a playable game character and any animation they're in but Persona 4 the Animation did a much better job at this by making the MC then much more relate-able from his sense of humour to his weaknesses. It wouldn't be an exaggeration here to say that the MC in the movie feels like a dead fish or more like a puppet with a very bad puppeteer.He barely says anything giving him a very blank persona (pun intended) and even the decisions he makes remind me more of what a machine would say than an actual person.

Enjoyment (3). If I had watched this alone going into the movie as a persona fan, I would have enjoyed it much more. However I went into this movie with a clean slate and my friend and i sat there for what felt like a 3 hour movie when it was only an hour forty. My friend kept yawning and I struggled to keep my eyes open. At the end of it, both my friend and I felt a sense of relief when the credits started rolling.

Overall (4). I'm normally a person that would be more unwilling to give a high score but would think twice before rating an anime below (5). This movie is no way to get introduced into the world of Persona 3. The most you'll get out of it is that this game is boring and the guys that like are just avid fan-boys of the franchise. If you do want to watch the movie, I cannot recommend enough that you play the game on psp (it has an english release) before you watch the movie.

If I were to rate this from a person that has played the game though, I'd probably give it a solid 8 but from a new persons point of view, it would have to be 4. There were many other ways that this movie could have been improved giving the MC more personality to maybe focusing a bit more on the social links and how they actually come into play. Overall, not a good way to enter the Persona 3 universe and since i can't add it in anywhere (MITSURU-SENPAI FTW!!!)