Persona 4 – 12

I can’t watch you play this game, you’re doing it all wrong!  Your controller isn’t even plugged into a console!

Persona is here!!! Did you enjoy your holidays? ENJOY THEM WHILE YOU CAN. The realisation that I have school coming again (with no month long exam break since I’m out of high school) has hit me and now I’m kind of depressed. …..Maybe OC has something more cheerful to say.

Merry (late) Christmas! Did everyone get what they wanted? I’ll be getting a new laptop soon as well as a game I’m going to review, so now I can blog better, harder, faster and stronger for 2012! As for those of you satisfied with peace on earth and joy for Christmas…well, I’m not quite that pure-hearted yet. I’ll work on that.

Velvet Room. After that whole ordeal, the Persona gang all gather inside the TV to try and find Mitsuo, who has been taunting them to try and find him. Rise finds his lair, which is styled after retro video games. As Kuma handles the monsters in the first area, everyone discusses the current situation and how after this, the murders will be over. Yu is depressed that they might stop meeting up after the case is solved, but he quickly refocuses on the matter at hand. Everyone breaks into a sprint once they hear Mitsuo arguing with his shadow, but they don’t get there in time. His shadow starts to take form as a more formidable opponent, but before the battle can get underway, things suddenly cut to after the battle in the real world.

To celebrate the end of their investigation, everyone decides to have a party. However, Yukiko is currently too busy working at the inn, so they have a mini party without her. The real party will involve all of the girls (plus Yu) cooking omurice in a competition to see who can make the least noxious meal for Nanako! For now, all the cooking is left to Yu, who makes a damn good omurice.

“One of the omelettes is covered in Mitsuo’s blood instead of ketchup.” “…..”

A few weeks later, everyone is still too busy to meet up. Things keep escalating as Rise moves without a word, Yu overhears Kanji complaining about trying to be friendly with everyone, and everyone studying together with his other friends. In other words, Yu is abandoned, and starts to dread the fact that he has to leave Inaba in a year. The only one sticking with him through this is Yosuke. After all that rejection, Yu slinks home and eagerly waits for Midnight TV to come on. It doesn’t. Impatient, he tries to reach into his TV to get into the TV world. He panics when he realizes he can’t. Then he panics even MORE when he realizes a giant, floating baby/fetus/Idon’twannaknow is floating in the corner of his room. Yu tries to summon a persona, but all of the cards are now blank, so Yu can’t fight back. Yu gets…that’s right…strangled by a baby.

Moral of the story: don’t trust babies. Babies kill.

Yu hears Yosuke calling him and suddenly regains his confidence. He’s pulled out of the dark space that housed the baby illusion and brought back into the current battle against Mitsuo’s shadow. Everyone stops the shadow from building up its armour while Yu launches towards the weak spot for the final blow. He switches his persona at least 5 times before finally beating the shadow with Izanagi. Mitsuo has lost and the case is now closed. After the shadow vanishes (???!!!) and Mitsuo is taken into custody of the police, everyone is actually free to have a party and cook omurice for Nanako. This…may be more unfortunate than you’d think. Rise’s dish K.O.s Yukiko and the only thing resembling food is Yu’s. Nanako crowns her big brother the winner of the cooking contest, and everyone parties hard now that they can relax. Of course, they still plan to meet up despite having finished the case.

Omurice Party Time!: 

C-chigau yo, Kuma! We’re totally not dating or anything like that! Stop getting ideas!

Come on now, these glorious muscles aren’t going to feel themselves.

What are you talking about? This is a picture perfect scene of girls getting along!

It tasted so bland that Kanji’s eyebrows left his face in disinterest.

End Thoughts:

I will forever remember this as the episode where Yu was grabbed by a giant fetus. Anyways yeah, it was a weird episode. The way it just cut out right when the battle started confused the crap out of me. Halfway through, I had to download a different version, just to see if the cut was intentional or not. However, it alllll made sense after I actually watched the whole thing. So long story short, WATCH THE EPISODE ALL IN ONE GO. I have to say that the random scene change was a pretty interesting move though and if you think more about the story and less about how confusing it is, it actually would make sense. Of course Yu wouldn’t realise that he’s under the influence of a Shadow.

Really, now that I think about it, this episode was pretty decent. The writers finally got creative with the Shadows scenes again. Sure, Yu’s little slice of life bit took half the episode (if not more), but it was interesting to watch it all fall into place. I mean, the entire thing took me completely of guard. I KNEW something was wrong, but it wasn’t until later that I realised WHY it was wrong. Overall, I’m impressed. …Plus I kind of had fun and took it out of context as the Shadow and Yu talking about his lack of personality. It totally fits. Yu was pretty awesome this episode with his Persona being summoned in rapid fire succession. I guess that Shadow saying that he had no personality really pissed him off xD. It would be good to see more of Yu’s awesomeness since he’s become more of a joke than anything in this series.

Moving on, god this anime just loves its bromance. Screw Rise or one of Yu’s many (female) harem members calling out and saving him. It’s alllll Yosuke. (Note that Yosuke was also the last one to ditch Yu in his fetus induced delusions.) Plus I think this is like the 10^th time where they held hands. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that much hand holding between guys before (outside of a few yaoi. But even then there’s not that much). Speaking of gathering harem members, it looks like Nanako gained some this episode as well. That girl must be learning from her Onii-chan~. Next episode looks interesting since it has the old woman. Only if I remember correctly, Yu meets her after he works at the hospital… So does that mean that the sexy nurse is going to show up?

What started off as a very weird episode of Persona turned into an excellent episode of “precious boyfriends holding hands.” I was getting ready to rage at how they handled Mitsuo’s dungeon, as I had assumed they skipped the battle and Yu’s moping took place afterwards. Thank goodness the dungeon wasn’t rushed to that extent. I was breathing a sigh of relief when the giant fetus appeared in Yu’s room. Not usually something you would be contented with, I’m sure, but I recognized it as Mitsuo’s shadow thanks to my prior experience with the games. It’s a nice concept, and I’m glad they’re trying to give Yu more of a personality, but the execution is a bit regrettable. I was too busy being pissed to fully enjoy the elaboration on Yu’s feelings about the entire investigation. He may have made a huge group of friends in a flash, but it doesn’t mean he takes them for granted. Seeing Yu show actual attachment and warmth to his friends made Yu’s character all the more human. At the beginning of the series, I criticized him for being hollow and simply going through the motions of being a good friend without any weight behind his gestures. Now I’m going to retract that statement, as this episode proved he’s more than just the poker-faced punchline in gags.

While my own jumping to conclusions and sulking made the first half of the episode a bit of a letdown, the second half was wonderful. Yu’s failed attempts to summon his persona really hit hard. It meant all the bonds he thought he had formed with his friends were false and that no one ever really cared about him. A terrible thing to realize. Of course, this was a lie and Yosuke was quick to free him by gripping his hand and twirling through the air with him. Normal to anyone else, but monumental to fujoshi. I’m so glad Karakuri agrees. The way they looked into each others eyes, the closeness of their bodies, the strength of their bond…! Yosuke even called Yu by his first name, practically causing the entire party to screech to a stop in shock and awe. The unshakeable bond between Brotag and Brosuke helped to remind Yu that he has friends who genuinely care about him. That’s beautiful, even without the gay undertones (my favourite kind of undertones~).

The lovely companionship between Yosuke and Yu was just the icing on the cake for the second half though. That was an awesome fight. The screen should be absolutely littered with everyone’s persona right now, but they’ve been smart enough to have them attack in small groups. I absolutely loved how Yu rapidly switched his persona like he was some sort of insane, game-hacker. Sure, you could switch Persona during a battle each turn in the game, but not EVERY SINGLE SECOND! It was a great comeback to Yu being unable to summon any of his persona against the fetus before Yosuke saved him. That, and it was just plain cool. The switching was intense, and used in desperation to block attacks instead of overpowering the enemy. It would have been less fun if he just kept switching in order to obliterate the baby even faster. This was more of a strategic “Oh crap, which persona has a physical resistance? I need to switch now!” sort of thing. Excellent buildup on tension and an excellent release at the end with the party. I really loved this episode! It’s funny, my two favourites have to be this one and Kanji’s…and the two couldn’t be any more different. This one is almost entirely serious for a change while Kanji’s is practically a gag anime. It just goes to show that this series is really a chameleon in terms of tone, and it can swing either way. (No, that wasn’t supposed to be a gay pun…but I guess it is now hurr hurr hurrr)

Preview: Time to lay down a chill, social link slow jam. (I’m sorry, I gave up screencapping these. Just wait until I get my laptop, okay?)