First Impression – Persona 4

We are living our lives~

Hearing the announcement of a Persona anime was enough to spur me on to play both Persona 3 and Persona 4 over the summer so I’d be ready. I don’t regret a single moment of it because the games were amazing and I can only hope the anime will be just as good. After all the hype, it’d better…

Usually I don’t even dare to touch anime adaptations of games, (all the ones I’ve seen up until now have made me want to punch children) but for persona I’m going to make an exception. It’s reputation has me optimistic for the series and I’m willing to give it a go!

Ohohoho, so Persona 4 finally airs! While I’m still trying hard to get my hands on the game (despite my siblings denying my requests), I guess I’ll settle for the cheaper choice of watching the anime. Nothing beats free anime, am I right?

Persona has to be my favourite series of games ever, so even before watching this, I am convinced that this is going to be the greatest anime of the season. Yay for bias! I’m warning you all now, there is going to be a ton fangirling from me, so if I start coughing up blood or something (because just a nosebleed isn’t enough), you know why.

“Welcome to the Velvet Room.” Similar to how the game opens, Persona 4 starts off with a man with an abnormally long nose sitting in a limo with a blonde woman. He introduces himself as Igor and the woman, Margaret. After talking about what sounds like a bunch of cryptic nonsense for a bit about destiny, the two bid farewell.

It’s around this time that Narukami Yuu wakes up after falling asleep on the train. He arrives at his destination and is soon greeted by two people. The man is Dojima Ryotaro /Yuu’s uncle and the loli is his cousin/Dojima’s daughter Nanako. Introductions are to be had and we learn that Yuu is moving in with his uncle. On the way to his new home, Yuu and his family stop at a gas station. There, an attendant (who either has the lowest voice for a woman EVER, or they switched genders when they localized the game here (because I swear the attendant was a woman when I played the game)) welcomes him to town and shakes his hand. Dojima comes back and suddenly Yuu starts feeling dizzy.

After Yuu unpacks, he finds his old uniform and flashes back to when he left his old school. It turns out that his parents are working abroad (just like every other set of parents in anime this season), so he had to move elsewhere. Exhausted, Yuu falls asleep. When he does, he has a dream about a distorted voice/shadowy figure asking if he wants to find out the truth.

“Do you care about finding the tru-hey! Listen to me! Stop ignoring me, it hurts my feelings ;_;”

The next day, Yuu transfers into his new school, where his teacher (who needs to see a dentist VERY BADLY) starts bitching him out just because he can. Yuu eventually gets to sit down thanks to a girl wearing a green sweater. Yuu notices that it’s foggy outside.  Around that time, a girl wearing a uniform from the same school Yuu goes to is walking outside and notices a dead body hanging from an antenna.

I still can’t decide which one is scarier

After class, there are rumours flying around about the Midnight Channel, but Yuu ignores them and an announcement comes on asking all students to head home immediately. The girl who sits next to him and her friend introduce themselves as Satonaka Chie and Amagi Yukiko respectively. Hanamura Yosuke, another guy from their class, gives Chie back a kung fu movie he borrowed, but Chie trips him and notices that he broke the DVD inside. Chie walks off mad with Yukiko and Yuu just decides to ignore him. Meanwhile, wt the place of the dead body, Dojima inspects the scene (he’s a policeman). However, his partner Adachi throws up after seeing the dead body.

The next day, Yuu helps Yosuke out of a trashcan and so Yosuke decides to treat him to food. However, Chie tags along to make Yosuke pay her back for the broken DVD, so they go to the local department store Junes. As Chie and Yosuke argue because Yosuke was too poor to afford two steaks, Yuu watches the TV in the food court. It turns out that the body found yesterday was identified as Yamano Mayumi, a television announcer.

This episode is brought to you by Yosuke’s ass

Chie eventually starts talking about the Midnight Channel. According to rumour, if you look at a turned off television at midnight while it’s raining, you’ll see your soul mate. Chie suggests trying it since it’s supposed to rain that night. Around then, the girl who found the dead body walks nearby and Yosuke calls her Konishi-senpai. After talking for a bit, she leaves. That night, Yuu tries the Midnight Channel rumour, not thinking that it will actually work. However, when the clock strikes midnight, something DOES appear on the screen and Yuu hears voices in his head. In the confusion, Yuu touches the TV screen and it tries to eat his hand.

When Yuu tries to tell his friends about it, they don’t believe him and laugh saying that he should try a bigger TV. …So they go to Junes (minus Yukiko because she’s busy). There, Yuu proves them right and they all accidentally fall into the TV. Inside, they find themselves in a yellow foggy world. Before they can do much though, they see a shadowy figure and run away. They end up in a creepy room with a bunch of posters with the face torn off and a noose. However, it’s not long before the shadowy figure catches up to them. It’s a bear thing.

The bear thing gives Yuu a pair of glasses and tells them to leave because of Shadows (while making bear puns), but they have no idea what he’s talking about.  When Yuu puts on the glasses, things get significantly less foggy. It’s around then that Shadows appear and the bear runs off. The three try to run away, but soon the Shadows surround them.

Chie’s “act like a deranged squirrel” technique was not found to be very effective

Just before they attack, Yuu hears voices in his head again. A blue card floats down from above, and Yuu shatters it while saying “Persona”. Suddenly, a black cloaked figure appears and begins to fight the Shadows.  The battle ends with an awesome cut in and Yuu saying that Persona is his new power. As for what a Persona actually is, that explanation will have to wait until next week.

OC’s screencaps of awesome:

Some high old man starts telling you about your future in a fancy limo. Feels good to be gangsta.

Yep, dat bitch be dead.

Every now and then I just cover him up so I don’t have to look at him. Even when he’s awake.

I can’t tell if his bear-oriented verbal tic is more annoying in english or japanese…

That was just an amazing love letter written to all the rabid fans of the game. The music is the same, the script is almost the same and there are a hell of a lot of nods to game mechanics. I made a noise that halfway resembled a screeching possum and an airbag suddenly inflating in excitement when the calendar showing the weather for each day popped up. Similarly, the battle scene showed a close-up of Yu’s face when he used his lightning skill to land a critical hit. I actually did not expect them to follow the game so closely, as I immediately assumed having a lot of the same mechanics would be horribly tedious. It’s wonderfully integrated however so that game fans will squeal and non-game fans will just see it as a cool part of the anime.

It follows the events so closely that I was squirming around on the couch. I was anticipating everything, and the story just couldn’t move fast enough for me. The pacing is fine, but when you know everything that is going to happen, you start getting antsy. The anime is does follow a good pace and moves faster than the game, which likes to blatantly point out the suspects and victims in your face with GLOWING RED, BOLD FONT. The mystery element will be a lot harder to guess for the newbies to the series if it keeps this up, which is good. Less talking and more showing is how it’s going to have to be, because Persona 4 probably has a script the size of the Bible.

The one thing I wish they hadn’t kept from the game are Yu’s responses. He pretty much only speaks during parts in the game where you’re given a dialogue option or when he’s having inner thoughts. Which is like never. The main character of role playing games are usually blank slates so the player can easily slip into the role, but that doesn’t work for an anime where you’re watching everyone in the third person and expecting them to be autonomous. He has no personality, and if they stick to the script this closely, he’s never really gonna get one…We’ll see how they deal with him as the anime progresses and if more diversions from the real storyline arise. Other than totally sick battles, which are, if I didn’t already mention, TOTALLY SICK. If you couldn’t tell, I’m coming back next week to blog this sexy beast to death alongside my fellow Persona fan, Karakuri. It’s a match made in heaven, so come back next week for our masterpiece! *pose*

Right off the bat I think I should mention I’m one of those people that’s jumping on the Person 4wagon by watching the anime without having played the actual game (my brothers are console-hogs all right?). Honestly, I couldn’t take the first 15 minutes of this seriously. I guess it’s because I came into watching this thinking it would have a more serious mood, but instead there was this casual, comedic tone. It didn’t even feel mysterious to me. Of course, not that I mind; it was quite entertaining anyway. The fast pacing also added on to me not taking this seriously. It was transfer in, meet new people, no time for real bonding so just end up going along with the crowd, go to some new dimension together randomly at the store, get this cool Persona power or whatever, and BAM, end of first episode. To me it just felt really ridiculous.

I must give some good points for the animation~. While not the most GLORIOUS looking animation (with the exception of that last scene where the Persona (?) comes out and there’s that tiny battle sequence), it was still nice with very fluid movements. THE EYES FREAK ME OUT THOUGH, MAN. I don’t know what it is about them; the beady pupils, the full color eyes, the fact it looks like they don’t blink, just SOMETHING about them makes me feel really weird. I don’t know if I can get used to it. Anyway, this first episode overall had that typical-new-student-comes-and-a-murder-happens-at-the-same-time, typical mystery story vibe that makes me quite iffy still. I’m willing to give this a try though because doubt I could really judge Persona 4 on its first episode, based on what I’ve heard from the players of the game. As of right now, I am incredibly confused, find this very weird, and yet intrigued enough to continue this series.  So let’s go Persona 4, show me what you got~.

Don’t you just hate it when the TV tries to swallow you? Oh God, I laughed so hard when Narukami told his classmates about it the next day. Luckily they all had something weird happen to them too otherwise his first impressions would have been terrible! They would all think he was a loony. I really love their uniform designs, they are pretty slick and, you know…not ridiculous. I thought the Opening song was nice, though having it over what was actually happening felt a bit cluttered. The ED is equally as good (one of the favorite things about new seasons is new OPs and EDs).

I’ll admit that I’m not familiar with the story exactly, but is it supposed to be so…thrown together? There didn’t seem much established, or built up. Granted the pay-off was awesome, but the majority of the epiosde had me bored. I do know Adachi, though! Wasn’t exactly thrilled to hear him throw up several times…but, still! Narukami is also awesome. Well, he wasn’t at first, he was pretty dull, but the fight at the end gave him a sorely needed personality injection (he’s also a megane now, hnng!)

On the other hand, I really hate Hana. And I mean really. He is so fucking irritating that I just hope he dies real soon, probably won’t but I have my fingers crossed. The “shadows” are awesomely designed too. I’m tempted to make a “in Soviet Russia…” reference but….aw, why not, I will; “In Persona4… gumballs lick YOU!” The animation was fairly derp until the end when Narukami summoned his whatsit and things got awesome (he also started randomly undressing, which was cool) and that last scene alone is what sold me on continuing this. But, really, it’s repuation does the selling for you, despite the fact that this episode was fairly standard until the end. It’s Persona! You are at least going to give it a few episodes!

This much blood loss can’t be healthy. For the sake of all that is GAR and BAMF, Yuu’s awesomeness knows no bounds. That fight scene was too short in my highly biased opinion. Ugh, this was difficult to summarize. Knowing the entire game plot, I don’t want to leave out anything important, but at the same time, I don’t want to give anything away. In the end, some minor things were sacrificed, but I didn’t want to leave you all with a wall of text. Overall, the pacing seemed okay. I’m not sure how someone who’s never played the games before will react, but I found it highly enjoyable even without my bias. What they covered here in 30 minutes took me an hour game-wise to complete (with distractions), so I’m glad they sped things up.

I had to fangirl a bit every time they incorporated one of the game mechanics into there. Like the calendar change and the cut in when Yuu used his Persona. Or the character stat chart shown during the eyecatch. Those were AMAZING and I hope they do the cut ins EVERY EPISODE EVER. Also, THE MUSIC. The music had to be arguably one of my favourite things about the game AND THEY KEPT IT IN HERE. THEY KEPT THE GAME OPENING. THAT MEANS STRIPTEASE IS GOING TO BE IN HERE. I WISH THIS FONT COULD GO BIGGER TO SHOW MY ENTHUSIAM. I also liked the ending as well. Also, differences from the game: I don’t find Teddy (the bear thing) annoying anymore. Same goes for Chie (or maybe that’s just my love for Horie Yui speaking). It’s amazing how one seiyuu can change my opinion on a character completely.

Speaking of seiyuu, if you’re going to hire Namikawa Daisuke, THEN USE HIM. Just because Yuu never talks in the game doesn’t mean he doesn’t have to remain silent in the anime. Though I had to laugh at his reactions to things though like ignoring Yosuke. I’m pretty sure the things he did were all options you could pick in the game. Anyways, this was AMAZING and tagging this weekly with OC is going to be the greatest thing EVER.

Preview: One Yosuke and one awesome Yosuke. That’s all I’m saying.

All those ass shots were trying to warn us of something!

About Tag Team

We live, laugh, enjoy and strictly believe on "more the merrier". When together, we usually come up with very chatty, conversation-based episodics and interesting posts.