Persona 4 – 18

Feeling sufficiently happy and fluffy? That’s nice. By the way, ONE OF THEM IS DEEAAADDD.

Everything is 10x cuter when it is suffering. Nanako suffers this episode, so I now think she’s incredibly adorable (moreso than before). Kanji’s still more moe though! No one will ever take that crown from him.

Persona time! Yeah, I don’t really have much to say, but I’m considering buying the Persona remake for the vita if it ever comes here. Why? Because taking down Shadows with a scooter seems pretty legit.

VR. Another person dies on Persona today, but this time it’s more natural causes. If you can call getting hit by a car and then having the jerk just drive away leaving the body in the middle of the street a natural death. As for Yu, Dojima makes coffee for the family and almost spends quality time with Nanako until work calls him away. Full of tact as ever, Adachi reminds Dojima that his wife was murdered in a car accident. After Yu cuts his finger and goes for a bandage, he notices a picture of Dojima’s wife in the first aid kit and Nanako says that he put all of the pictures of her away shortly after she died. Also, Nanako mentions how she loves her dad and onii-san. DA’WWWWWWW.

So Yu goes to study for exams with his friends while Kuma and Nanako go on a date. There, Kuma talks about how he doesn’t know about himself, but he thinks that he was someone special. Nanako doesn’t quite understand what Kuma means by saying that he’s from another world, but she wishes him luck. After they get home, Nanako gets ill and Dojima is worried, but he gets a call from work and leaves Yu to deal with it. Nanako wonders if he’s her real father since he seems to like bad guys more than her. Also, she has a sheet from school for parents to observe the class for a day, but Dojima ignored it.

After Yu drops off clothes and Nanako’s school observation sheet, Yu learns from Adachi that Dojima’s wife died in a car accident. Later, Dojima explains that his wife was hit by a foreign car (which they somehow figured out despite the fact that no one was around to help her), but the culprit was never found. The reason he’s been out so often lately since a similar thing happened last week. The reason Dojima never told Nanako this was because Chisato (his wife) was on her way to pick up Nanako when she died.Yu tells Dojima that he should look after Nanako instead, but Dojima tells him to stay out of it. Nanako is extremely happy when she hears that her father might come to her school.  Yu shows Nanako the picture of her famiy that he framed and out of nowhere, she asks Yu where people go when they die. He tells her people go to heaven. Nanako wonders if she’ll go there too and if she’ll meet her mother there. The next day at school, Yu asks Naoto to look into Chisato’s case.

However, when Dojima gets home that night, he completely ignores Nanako and tells her that he won’t make it to her school observation. Nanako gets upset, Dojima gets upset back and the two have a yelling competition until Nanako runs off crying. Yu says that Doijima should tell Nanako about the hit and run, but Nanako overhears, causing Nanako to run away saying that Dojima isn’t her real father because he doesn’t care about her. The two split up to find her with no luck and Yu mentions that Nanako wanted to go to heaven to see her mother. Luckily though, Nanako is found by the river and Dojima tells Yu to go since Nanako trusts him the most at the moment. However, Yu says that she needs a father and when Dojima goes to her, she starts crying about how she misses her mother.

Montage of Nanako crying because it’s cute

After that, Nanako is feeling a lot better and Dojima is acting more like a father. He even says that he can go to Nanako’s school for the observation and brings home a cake because cake makes everything better to celebrate the day that they became a family for real. Dojima has stopped chasing after the culprit so desperately and from then on, Yu is allowed to use the waifu coffee cup since Dojima says that it would make Chisato happy.

Yu, don’t be creeped out or anything BUT….you are now replacing my dead wife.

Hidden Photographs:

Dojima, are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? WHOA, STOP THE CAR, CABBAGE SALE!

Maybe if you didn’t choose a big, noisy cafeteria filled with food and people you’d be able to focus more

…Hmm, so Nanako’s route DOES have a bad ending

Sorry Nanako, I need to find the criminal who killed your mom in that accident I’m not supposed to talk about I mean what.

End Thoughts:

YOOOOOOOO THAT SHIT WAS DEPRESSING. Oh, oops, forgot to switch out of gangsta mode. That’s a bit embarrassing. Getting back on track, this was the most touching episodes of Persona 4 to date. It came as a surprise since this episode follows Nanako’s and Dojima’s route from the game very closely, and I never really felt moved while playing them. I got mad at Dojima, and that was pretty much the extent of my emotional involvement in those routes. In fact, I think I left Nanako’s social link at level 9 and never finished it because I was too busy studying and hanging out with Yosuke even after maxing him out. DATES WITH YOSUKE, ALL DAY, EVERY DAY. Hmm, that probably explains a lot of my shortcomings in the game…

The anime version somehow managed to make everything feel ten times more depressing as well as ten times more heart-warming. It might be that Nanako and Dojima have better japanese voice actors and did a better job conveying their emotions (side note: for the most part I love the P4 dub…but some of the casting is just a bit off) , but it made me actually consider crying. Of course, I said ‘no’ to myself and didn’t cry (because that’s how it works). Still, something about the slow build-up of the drama day after day with Nanako slowly becoming hopeful then being let down was really satisfying. In the game, I did those social links over a long period of time, so it was a lot different to see it all strung together in a neat line. It was much more powerful. All in all, this is going in the “favourite P4 episodes list.”

So after rolling up all that great, dramatic momentum like an oversized katamari, they decided to make the next episode another gag episode. I love the gag episodes, and I deeply regret that I won’t be in the country to watch it when it’s released, but…why…why would you ruin that? If you’ve played the game, you know that Show ▼

Okay, I absolutely loved this episode, so I’ll complain about the stuff I didn’t like first before I ramble on about how good this was. What was with Yu’s face this episode? Some times his eyes were slanted, sometimes they weren’t and sometimes they were extremely tiny (and don’t even get me started on how the investigation team looked the one time they were in here). Where’s the consistency, people? Persona has had some derpy animation before, but when it starts to bug me, you know it’s bad. You’d think that they’d pay more attention/care more in an episode filled with close ups. Oh well, as long as the money they saved here went to something better. Like the fight scenes.

It’s official. Yu is the greatest onii-san ever. His support of Nanako and ability to help the family mend itself impressed me in the game and it impressed me here. While the episode kind of made it seem like he’s replaced Chisato (I blame the picture and waifu cup), but I like to think that he’s like more of a son to Dojima. And while this anime has made it seem like Dojima was a jerk, I think the episode did rather well at explaining his motives and why he gets frustrated with Nanako sometimes. While his resolution to give up on the criminal seemed extremely sudden and out of the blue, at least he’s past that now.

This was probably the best slice of life episode that this show has had. That last part with Nanako, I didn’t even realize that I was tearing up until the episode ended (though I largely attribute my state of mind to the fact that I had seen The Woman in Black before watching this; especially with Nanako at the river. People who have seen it know what I’m talking about). Though it was rushed, overall these Social Links (I’m pretty sure they covered Nanako and Dojima’s) were still touching and nice to see. As much as I didn’t like watching Nanako get ignored by Dojima in the game (she had to put up with a lot more in the game), I just wish they could have completely gone through the Links completely so that the ending was THAT much more satisfying. Oh well, time restrictions. Personally, I’m just ecstatic that they’re putting the cultural festival in this.

Preview: Awww yeah! The cultural festival! Prepare to see cosplaying crossdressing like you’ve never seen it before.

Just you wait until you see the UN-BLURRY version of this foxy mama.

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.