Persona 4 The Animation

[Miles vi Britannia]

You must be registered for see links

Just finished watching through Persona 4. Got through it much slower than I would've liked, but ah well. Pretty fun watch, though it took a while to build up.

So basically, a guy named Yu Narukami moves to live with his uncle because his parents are out working elsewhere and whatnot. Yu then meets some friends at his school and eventually they learn about some murders taking place within the city. They discover the "Midnight Channel," which only airs on rainy nights and depicts a certain individual. Said channel ends up relating quite closely to the murders and it's up to Yu and his buddies to investigate this and have epic battles and mystery solving.

The story, while a bit slow, is quite entertaining. It takes a while for things to get going since there's a lot of establishing the setting, what with the whole gang taking quite a while to join up, as well as the more school-related stuff that the friends do with their daily lives. But the sense of mystery is always very relevant to the story and keeps things interesting for the entirety of the show. In particular, the last five or so episodes, where the secrets are finally starting to be answered, the story gets a lot more intense and things really get badass with the revelations and how things turn out. Considering this is an adaptation of a video game (which sadly I still have not played), it seems they did a very good job with portraying the story without making things boring since the anime doesn't have gameplay on its side.

The main cast has many quirky characters so it's easily to find at least a few you like. The main character doesn't show all that much personality, at least early on, but that's particularly because he essentially represents (as far as I'm aware) the player of the game more than as his own character so obviously it'd be hard to slam a character type onto him while keeping with how the story flows to begin with. He does have some awesome moments though, especially in the latter half of the anime. The rest of the cast gets pretty good development, especially because all of the main group barring the protagonist has to face their own fears and insecurities directly so you learn more about their thoughts and how they connect to their personalities. The cast also allows for lots of great humor, Persona 4 has so many hilarious moments in its comedy-oriented episodes because of their personalities and there's lots of amusement to be experienced with the anime. All the same, the emotional moments still hit really hard and it can be very dramatic when it needs to be.

Interestingly enough, P4 kinda reminds me of JoJo (particularly part 3). In reality the two stories are very very different, but there are some similar elements. Personas and Stands are almost identical, tarot cards are a major theme connected to the characters' abilities, the main group picks up some former enemies (well, kinda, it's best explained by actually watching), etc. Both JoJo and Persona also have arcade-esque fighting games with similar gameplay style as well so that helps too.

 

[SonictheHedgehog]

I dropped Persona pretty quickly to be honest. Lol

 

[Jonordo]

too much words jus to say all that

 

[Miles vi Britannia]

I dropped Persona pretty quickly to be honest. Lol

I'd say it's worth it in the end. It starts off pretty slow but it gets a lot better and the whole mystery element is pretty well thought out. It's interesting to see the hints that the series drops about the actual culprit early on, apparently the games do that more but I wouldn't know.

too much words jus to say all that

It's not really that long, if you think that's bad then you wouldn't be able to handle my reviews. Er, review, but I will make more one day. Those are actually pretty lengthy though.

 

[SonictheHedgehog]

I'd say it's worth it in the end. It starts off pretty slow but it gets a lot better and the whole mystery element is pretty well thought out. It's interesting to see the hints that the series drops about the actual culprit early on, apparently the games do that more but I wouldn't know.



It's not really that long, if you think that's bad then you wouldn't be able to handle my reviews. Er, review, but I will make more one day. Those are actually pretty lengthy though.

It wasn't that it was a bad show- it's just I was getting behind and I was watching multiple anime I thought were more worth finishing at the time. Sometime I plan to go back and try to finish anime I dropped. (i.e. Persona 4, Horizon, Nyaruko, etc)

 

[Miles vi Britannia]

It wasn't that it was a bad show- it's just I was getting behind and I was watching multiple anime I thought were more worth finishing at the time. Sometime I plan to go back and try to finish anime I dropped. (i.e. Persona 4, Horizon, Nyaruko, etc)

Ah I see, yeah sometimes there are too many other things to keep up with at a time. I would definitely recommend you get back to Persona 4 eventually though. I wouldn't say it's a top tier anime but it's still pretty good fun and has some really awesome episodes near the end. The plot twists are pretty intense and things play out quite well.

 

[Alternative]

Needless to say, I believe P4 Animation has a reputation to sticking true to it's game counterpart.

 

[Miles vi Britannia]

Needless to say, I believe P4 Animation has a reputation to sticking true to it's game counterpart.

I've heard this about the anime many times as well. I haven't played the game, so I'm not all too sure how it compares to it, but I'd say it did a pretty good job making an engaging anime adaptation in spite of the fact that the gameplay was probably a big component of the enjoyment for the original. On another note, I thought it was interesting how the intermission between the two parts of each episode showed character stats and how they grew as the story went on, definitely a nod to the video game.