Hoy lads, I was quite excited to see my first review make it front page so thanks for that but now that the anime is done I guess I have to write this again. Most of my opinions haven't really changed so bits and pieces will remain the same. No amount of additional content helped to save this anime and it only slightly picked itself up towards later episodes. Sega/Atlus should not be tolerating this kind of quality and I do sincerely hope they get out of whatever sort of contract they're in, if there is one, before they decide to ruin another property in anime form.
Let's begin, no spoilers unless I explicitly say they're about to come.
P5 is a good game with a lot of good things to take away from it. Its overall story however, is a bit of a rollercoaster going from great to average. Lots of things they could work on, but nevertheless it's a solid entry with a solid cast, art, music, etc.. If you're wondering whether or not the *game* is worth your time, then sure. It probably is. Please don't go looking at this anime for your answers because chances are that you won't find them here.
-- ANIMATION:
Let's start with the big one. The animation is hilariously poor and is a stark contrast to the game's visual presentation. Persona 3, 4 (not Golden) and to an extent Devil Survivor 2 properties have been treated quite nicely with solid animation, and I certainly never cringed at any 1 frame. P5A however is so laughably bad to the point where it's sometimes even unbelievable.
From the awkward running cycles shown in the first couple of minutes of the first episode to the new, overly lazy All-Out Attack meme scene of the second episode and out of place CGI characters that roam the corridors and street to episode 12's (~9:30) scene where they tried to zoom out on a character but the character layer and the background layer were done to two different levels of zoom so basically the kind of nonsense you might accidentally do in your 2011 YouTube videos. This is NOT stuff that you just accidentally miss. My favourite part was when they brought out a low quality P5 model of Makoto in episode 11.
To say that this is an attempt to capitalise on P5's success would be an understatement. Ironic considering the story's themes.
-- SOUND:
Shoji Meguro is still amazing with music. Whatever he creates makes me the very happy. The first opening song is brilliant, the second opening song is brilliant, the ending song is brilliant; Lyn's voice is great and Shoji knows how to create music. Actually using his music at the right moments however is a different story. I'm primarily thinking of the Ryuji awakening scene at the moment, the song choice and awkward sync was noticeable and took away from what should have been a very powerful moment for the character, like it was in game. This is frequent.
Episode 12 (I believe it was) had begun using P5D music, in particular the Jazztronik remix of game's main theme and Konishi's Blooming Villain. Considering P5D was released like a week ago from this episode's release, their inclusions here all of a sudden made me think that this episode had only been completed fairly recently. Had they gotten the rights to such music beforehand, would they not have used more remixes in earlier episodes? And even if this idea of it being rushed was false, that sort of thought process shouldn't have existed in the first place.
The sound design in terms of effects and ambiance is quite poor as well. I made a note of episode 16 having used stock sound effects, or what sounded as such, but either way it sounded very unprofessional and cheap.
-- STORY:
The pacing feels awfully fast and unnatural, with them cutting out a bunch of stuff that ultimately added to the game's story and development of its characters. They cut out the part where Kamoshida asks Ren if he wants a ride where he says "Nah" and that... man I was sitting there, anticipating the "nah" but they didn't do it and I was just blue balled. I may have cried a little even. With 24 episodes just like Persona 4 the Animation (which structurally was similar), you would assume they wouldn't need to rush but alas we got a 2 longer episode extension. Tips for next time: focus on filtering out the long and drawn out shots of the rain. I personally do not believe they added to the plot!
Also as a quick note, watched the show on Crunchyroll where they awkwardly linked Kamoshida to being in a train accident in the first episode or something and then relate that accident indirectly to the phantom thieves... which never happened in the game nor really happens in the anime. It was just worded really poorly. Someone with more time can tell you if the show was poorly translated.
A positive though, I do like how they ended the show with an ambiguous ending, did we get the "good ending" or the "bad ending" thing; obviously leading to their OVA but it was nifty none-the-less. However, always with the howevers, they did say they were going to sway away from the original ending with the OVA so when I they left on a note of ambiguity I got very excited...
The ending was not different.
-- CHARACTERS:
In my personal opinion, Persona typically does its characters really well -- formulating them in such a way that makes them more human than just characters playing their part in a story. However in P5A, they're... well gee, they not done very well lads.
The protagonist (Ren) comes off initially as this angsty, edgy and depressed teen, and with such dialogue options from the game as "Please look after me" and "Hell yeah I'm into older women", I was expecting a lot more of that silly aspect of the character. Of course, Ren as a character is up to interpretation so I can't really say it's "wrong". The other characters though, well yes I can.
Sojiro feels so monotone and boring. The first couple of moments in the actual game set him up as a character who doesn't want to bother with you, effectively helping to establish one of the best character development arcs in the story where he starts to take on a more open and fatherly personality. He just sort of feels 'there' in the anime, to progress the story when we need him to. Ryuji was fine until his rushed awakening and overreaction to Ren's story. There's something about him but I cannot put my finger on it just yet. Morgana is there, Igor looks dumb, Mishima didn't get hit by a ball, and I can finally understand why Shiho wanted to jump.
Ann is definitely the worst change though. Ann's whole arc was supposed to be about her feelings towards objectification and slowly acknowledging herself as an attractive individual, using that fact for good. But what happens the episode after she goes on her whole "don't objectify me" spiel? They simply objectify her. Constant fanservicey shots, close ups of the icky unmentionables, you name it, they did it.
-- OVERALL:
This show has been making me very sad and I'm not entirely hopeful for Dark Sun. There's nothing much more to say except that I hope Sega/Atlus start giving their properties back to competent studios. Tune in next time for when I show you how to hack into the Pentagon using only Futaba's social link.
