Persona 4 The Animation

[Thrawn]

Watched, and not you too!

Originally Posted by Funkgun

Aaaannnd sadly I never played the game, or arena's, But I can see the bones of what came before it.

I enjoyed the first couple episodes, but was not wowed by it as of yet. The character designs seem pretty fresh, with somewhat of a small cast so far I would hope that is the case.

The whole midnight waiting for some odd channel reminded me of hell Girl, yet the show does not. Actually, and I hate to even bring this up, Personas remind me of Ichigo from Bleach and his

alter ego -powered whatever dimensional character. (been a while since I saw Bleach, so bear with me) but having a nice puppet to fight for you-go after you-whatever makes for an interesting premise.

Things I find funky,
That :thing" does not look like a bear.
Chie is kinda cute (even in that jump suit)
and I have no clue what I am getting myself into. It's you fault Thrawn!
anyhooo

Fuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnnnnk! Why didn't you play P4 yet?! Why didn't you go out and buy a PS2, memory card and two copies of P4?

The beginning's slow but some of the ingame events are to die for. You players know what I mean

Spoiled for Funk and others:

That fucking sexy ass pageant. Hope they give Narukami the gung-ho choices.

And the investigation team is the main cast, so roughly 8 characters will dominate the screen.

Ichigo ain't got shit on Narukami. Narukami don't need no ass pulling power-ups to beat foes. He's Narukami!
He so does! Those ears, they scream bear! And those puns! No non-bear would make such beary puns!
I do agree with you on Chie though
You are most welcome and I hope you enjoy your stay at Inaba

[Thrawn]

And I'm expecting loads from this. Loved P4 to bits and the Social Links is one of the best features of it. Don't know how they'll pull them all off but thinking that they might have to cut out a few to fit them all in; most likely the non-school ones (Thinking Tower, Temp., Death; night time, after school jobs and holiday/Sunday respectively). Hope they don't, but also hope they do them justice. I know they wouldn't skimp on the ingame events and I'm sure they'll do the game justice. As well as keeping the boss themes. The Almighty had better come up as that song fucking kicks ass.

[greektornado]

Somehow the first two episodes gave me a Digimon feeling. It's been a while since i watched something like that.
So far there is not much to comment... A little rushed beginning and the characters, save for Peepants, are not that interesting (of course there is still time). Also i really hate it that it has a "Pokerface" main character. It's probably me least favorite character archetype.

Did you guys notice that the bottom half of every character's face is painted a different shade? (unless there is something wrong with my monitor)

PS.: I have also not played the game. I started Pesona 3 FES sometime ago but i never got far

[Thrawn]

Peepants got the most development so far and there's loads of time left, you're in this for the long haul.
Narukami's like that as well, he doesn't get a whole lot of dialogue in game and you can play him as the cool cat. Might be that route they're taking for him in the anime.

Didn't notice and now I'll have to watch out for it. Thanks for making me pay more attention to the shadowing.

How many of you even played the game?! How many of you heathens never cleansed your filthy souls with the holy divinity and sacred holiness of Persona 4?
But Persona3 FES, got to October but stalled for a replay of P4.

Originally Posted by Itoukaiji01

Episodes 1 and 2:

I found these episodes to be a pretty mixed bag. The things I like are the art style, especially the style of the other world. I also like that these battles have an element of psychological to them, at least the one in the second episode did. It's also pretty cool that the whole thing is tied to a murder mystery.

Things I didn't like: bear puns that got old after the first episode. The bear thing is a bit silly to be a guide character, not that it looks much like a bear. Also while the character designs are pretty fresh the characters themselves aren't that interesting and even a bit flat which leads to my main problem with the second episode.

Hanamura should have been the one to defeat his own shadow. I know he didn't have a Persona yet but it takes some of the punch out of his personal issues when he can do little more than whimper and shout at the shadow while Narukami's Persona does the actual fighting. The other problem with this battle is that we don't know the characters very well at this point and they didn't do a very good job of hinting at Hanamura's issues before hand so when the shadow shows up and starts taunting him, it felt a bit random. The fight and design still looked cool but the whole thing struck me as a little off, especially be Narukami got his persona without a fight. Does that mean that he doesn't have any hang ups? I really doubt it or he is the most boring lead ever. I would guess that like usual in these types of shows there is something special about him. Hopefully in the future these battles will be built up a little better because this really is a cool concept even if it's not terribly unique.

Other notes. I thought these were some huge sweat bubbles that they used here. It's pretty common for anime to use those exaggerated sweat bubbles for some reason these struck me as almost comically huge. Also, what the hell is the deal with the teacher? Not only does he look freaky but he acts like a freak too. Then there is Narukami's sister, she struck me as all wrong. I really hate when they have little kids that seem way too precocious and her dialogue is all wrong for a little girl. She talks like a little adult. I doubt she's actually going to be significant but I point it out because it's a little thing that annoys me.

I should also note that I've never played the games so I have little idea where this is going. I'm guess these initial episodes are introducing the characters and getting them their personas before the actual plot starts to unfold.

Overall it was an okay start to the series. I'm left feeling a bit ambivalent towards it because there are definite points I like but also points that I dislike. Hopefully it'll grow from here and I can get a more firm fix on the series.

True that for the likes, it gets even more into the mystery as it progresses and it's all about psychological when the boss battle comes.

Then you better start liking puns since hes' a pungeon master

For the spoiler:

The problem is that I don't know how much would be a spoiler, so I'll be a bit vague.

Their shadow is a representation of their inner self, a dark truth they never wish to believe in. To be hit by that, there's not much one can do and denying their inner self, the most reasonable course of action in that current state of mind, gives the shadow a form manifest (Damn that's cool). The issues aren't always out front but what happens to the character in question (For Hanamura, meeting up with Konishi in the Junes Food Court) is usually related to their issue somehow but is never a complete given. We aren't given enough time to learn about his problem beforehand but their problem is inside themselves and they take care to not show it, to never let it see light.

Yup, that's all I got. And more people = better battles.

Narukami, I got nothing. He's a cool cat, and the Fool Arcana. As the MC, he can have whatever persona he wishes in the game, as long as he can fuse it. Here's hoping for Pale Rider!

That's King Moron for ya, widely despised by the student body. Nanako has her own social link so I'm not touching this one. She'll get some development later on as to leave her S.L. out would make people riot on the streets.

[Itoukaiji01]

Episodes 3 and 4:

I know we're only watch two episodes a day but I might be able to watch tomorrow so I went ahead and watched now.

The last three episodes have followed the same pattern with more of the cast gaining their personas. This time around they made it a bit more clear that these are the characters darkest feeling that they try to hide even from themselves. During the fights they have to accept that part of themselves to weaken the shadows so they others (mostly Nurakami) can defeat them.

The concept is solid enough but they treatment of these characters coming to terms with their secrets is pretty shallow in execution. It always follows the same pattern; meet the shadow which taunts with the problem, the secret is shown through flash back, a lot of yelling from the character and then acceptance. It makes it all seem to easy. There is a reason these are deep dark secrets, and they wouldn't be that way if you could come to terms with them after wrestling with them for five minutes. I know this isn't a psychological series so they can't go in depth with this concept, but the flow of episodes still makes everything seem too easy. Episode 4 changed it up a bit because Yukiko needed support to overcome her inner secret, but it still followed the same pattern.

On the one hand this is a clever way to introduce and develop the characters but on the other hand giving each character five or ten minutes of fight to introduce themselves and gain their Persona makes these characters pretty shallow and one dimensional. So far everything has followed a very predictable route and the characters still lack depth for me. Everyone of the characters can be summed up pretty easily. Now that's pretty good for a video game but for an anime, it doesn't make these guys the most compelling to watch.

The other thing is the main guy needs to step back and let everyone else do some stuff because when it comes to the main fight he does almost all of the heavy lifting. Again he's the main in the video game so I can see why he gets the special power and everything, after all the game wants to give the player a sense of power. I just don't want to see the other characters shoved to the background every time or have them only be useful when fighting the chump enemies. As has been mentioned before the main guy has very little personality. I know they want to be faithful to the game but it wouldn't have hurt to make him less of a blank slate. For a game it's fine because you're shaping the character for an anime it's kind of boring.

I have to say that the action scenes aren't really to my liking either. They are okay but I feel that they cut around too much. The animation is nice because I can find the action getting a bit distracting sometimes because it can't hold onto any one thing for too long. I guess it does give these battles a sense of chaos though.

Overall, I think the show is easy to watch but there isn't much to it either. It's got some nice animation and the concept is cool, but the characters are shallow and this first part of it is pretty repetitive. I'm sure that will change when the cast is fully introduced though. So I guess for now it's entertaining enough even if it doesn't really impress me.

[Funkgun]

Thrawn, you crazy son. PS2! Actually I have one of those somewhere in a dusty closet...

Greek, I agree, it almost did have a Digi flavor. Especially dimensional inside world feeling, and something that is linked to you for fighting.

Itou, yes the sweat marks were excessive to the point of being ginormous.

(omg ginormous is actually a word, I laugh heartily about this)

[gos100]

Episode 1

It's good so far. 'A guy moves into a small town right when weird things start happening' is pretty standard. When they went to the other dimension, and met the bear, I thought it was a bad sign that this was going to be kinda dumb, but fortunately, it doesn't seem to be the case. I like how they don't really explain anything right away, although I guess they assumed you played the game, or have some background on the story already.

Episode 2

Still okay. Everything's still moving at a pretty good pace. I thought hearing about Konishi getting killed would've made more of an impact, but I like what they did with it. And, it tells a little more about the other dimension-- how the monsters have something to do with facing your inner demons, or something.

Narukami accidentally hitting Yosuke in the face was kinda funny and it changed the mood before it got cheesy. I like the Psychological side of it, though. It's better than 'A group of students get transported to goofyland to fight the evil whozitz to save the world, or the big boob princess', or whatever is normally the case in these situations.

I haven't played the game either. I don't really know anything about the story. I just had this laying around for a while, but never got around to watching it. I figured this was as good a time as any.

[Thrawn]

Nothing beats saving a big boobed princess And it's pretty good on the psychological.

At this point I'm hoping at least one other person played the game.

The opener spoils so much... I mean, the game did too, but to a lesser extent, you know?
Wait... crap.

Episode 3
Sun Social Link cameo

Guess it can't have all the scenes from the game, (Meeting with Yukiko in her kimono near the riverbed comes to mind, and it's one I remember) but it did add a few. I'll try not to be a purist but it was noticeable.
Pyro Jack already? Narukami doesn't waste no time. I do hope he gets Jack Frost to complete it.

Liked how after meeting up with Chie they went back out before the closer instead of staying in and continuing towards Yukiko. Does take a lot outta ya, and they still need some weapons after getting arrested. And don't see why they should include Narukami getting new persona through fusion or battles; battles against generics might bog down the pace and there's a lot to cover in it's 26 episode or so run time. But they had better get some of the more badass Persona some screentime.

And Mara.

I wish I taped it.

Originally Posted by Funkgun

Thrawn, you crazy son. PS2! Actually I have one of those somewhere in a dusty closet...

You have a PS2 and you never played one of the greatest PS2 games? You are the crazy one Le Funk! P4 will clear up the dust in it's organs.

[stingreis]

love the intro 90s theme with slight clips of the show here and then.

plus for first two eps its obvious its an aniplex anime. mainly because its very good quality (refined and exact)

story so far is quite intriguing but expected considering persona series though I haven't seen game persona 4 I say I'm excited what is coming

[Funkgun]

Originally Posted by stingreis

story so far is quite intriguing but expected considering persona series though I haven't seen game persona 4 I say I'm excited what is coming

^ this is me as well. I am as blind as you are about the history of the series.

Ep 3/4
So now the girls have

their Powered fighters. The voices are interesting for the Persona's. Like a high pitched voice in water.
They tied the history of the two girls together nice enough. I do like how easy going they are about the whole situation. Ok, let;s do some TV diving!

It is great that their super glasses are very stylish, and somewhat hipster. I actually want Chie;s trendy rainbow stemmed specs.

H ot