Retrospective on Persona 4: The Animation
The following post will contain spoilers for the entirety of Persona 4. It is also quite a long read so grab a drink.
There’s no question that it was an odd experience watching this for a second time. When I first watched it with all my friends, it was a real blast and I loved every minute of it but now, I’m not so sure. Let me take a step back here.
My first exposure to this show was post me playing my first Persona game which was Persona 5. I happened upon those infamous “funny moments” montage of Persona 4 and I thought it was so bright and refreshing compared to the fifth instalment so I had to watch it and investigate. I already knew who the killer was but beyond that, I literally knew nothing about Persona 4 and I had zero thought on playing the SMT game. This would later change. But me and two other friends sat and watched it all for the first time 3 years ago. It was the first animé that I had properly watched all the way through.
It’s fair to say, that through one or two episodes that I didn’t like, I still absolutely loved this. So I decided to rewatch the show to take a break from Re:ZERO and writing about games to treat myself basically. In fact, before I sat down to do this, I remember saying that it would be difficult to choose my favourite episode because they were all so good.
What a moron.
What I had a growing aversion for throughout the course of this were the non-essential episodes and obviously I understand why they are there and why they exist, I could just feel my growing impatience whenever I was watching them because honestly, a lot of the jokes were kind of repetitive and not all that funny. I might’ve liked them more if they had more wit going into them or maybe, I’ve simply exhausted it with age. I should note that when I say non-essential, I mean it’s non-essential to the main plot. The main plot being catching the killer, the kidnapper and what’s behind the TV world.
I grew to love and appreciate the more serious plot lines in the foreground a lot more than I once did - with a few exceptions obviously. The way they treated Kanji Tatsumi’s character in this was just obnoxious and juvenile to the point where I physically winced at points throughout his introductory episodes and especially, the school camping trip - an episode that I onced loved that I now find downright infuriating to sit through. This isn’t to say that the game isn’t guilty of it as well. I just feel that they got so distracted by the potential of Kanji being a homosexual that they forgot to focus on anything else and it just makes his character look shallow and one-dimensional for most of the show.
All of that being said, my favourite TV world-oriented episode would have to Episode #12 (It’s Not Empty At All).
I think this episode is the best at getting across the gravity of the situation for both the town and the characters with it going through a hypothetical situation created by Yu’s paranoia of losing his friends. It shows that Yu Narukami’s character in this adaptation isn’t a perfect character and yes, it may stray away from the game by writing over the self-insert character but it doesn’t come off like the writers had ideas above their station with this particular episode. It’s a fantastic flash-foward episode that shows how emotionally derelict the town of Inaba would be if this wasn’t all happening. Rise Kujikawa moves away, Kanji starts hanging out with Naoki Konishi again and everyone at Yasogami is focused on the real world rather than the TV world. I love the internal and external conflict and how they explored it here.
Full disclosure: I used to hate the whole Nanako side of the story. It always came off like they were using a child for cheap sympathy points but actually I was completely wrong. I found the story between Nanako and Ryotaro Dojima to be great sideplot that is thematically resonant and directly consequential to the lead story. Specifically, Episode #18 (Anniversary to Become a Family) has to be my favourite episode overall because of how good the direction was. The Dojimas are really fleshed out and you grow massively empathetic of both father and daughter and the difficulty their life has had. The music here is a bit more unique which makes the episode feel more special. As a sidenote, I also grew to like Episode 13 and 14 (A Stormy Summer Vacation) a whole lot more because of Nanako and I felt like she completely deserved an episode of her own.
I know I wrote a paragraph about how she should’ve remained killed off when she died in the ICU. Don’t make me look stupid.
My least favourite episode is a close tie between Episode 19 and 20 (It’s School Festival Day. Time to Have Fun! and We’ll All Meet at The AMAGIYA Hotel) but I think the festival just about takes the firm bottom place for me just because it has absolutely nothing for me. A worthy mention is Episode 8 (We’ve Lost Something Important Again!) for largely a lot of the same reasons. The wacky editing is lost on me, I’m afraid. Yosuke is infuriating in all of these episodes which might have something to do with it.
A lot of the criticisms of this show comes two-fold. One part is that they aren’t faithful to the game and the other part is that the animation is a bit shit.
Now something that I’ve said before and I’ll say it again until I’m blue in the face is that you have to take a lot of games adapted into animé on the chin. I feel like animé viewers who complain about this sort of thing don’t realize that adaptations are never 100% faithful to the source material in all avenues of media and the goal for the adaptation isn’t necessarily to be faithful but to tell the story in a consumable way for it’s own medium. What I will agree with is that I think they got a little too distracted by the whole velvet room thing by feeling obliged to insert it into almost every episode in a really forced and un-necessary way and there are some random changes which I can’t get my head around.
The apparent change of Izanami’s gender from a woman to a man (but the God form appears to still be a woman anyway?) is still confusing to me. Ultimately though, the changes they made were either completely necessary or that they were fifty-fifty choices. I would say their decision to make Yu Narukami an entirely new animal was a decision that paid off and I think many would agree with that.
As for the animation...
It goes without saying that the animation is wonky, inconsistant with an outrageously slow frame rate at times but I find it very difficult to be critical of animation because it is often for budgetary reasons that animation is of a certain quality and it is passable. It is obvious that they cut corners here and there but to rag on it feels unproductive to me. It’s nowhere near as egregious as the dreaded Persona 5: The Animation that tried to follow in it’s footsteps and failed but admittedly, they are big shoes to fill. That’s not to say that, if I was giving this is a score at the end, I wouldn’t be letting the product away for it’s choppy animation because it’s still not all that great. I would be more inclined to chop points off for awkward writing and translating.
One problem that this animé suffers with right from the get-go is that the material in the game is very animé-esque already as the main theme is literally the television. So when you see a lot of animé clichés being presented in an animé, it comes off as being weak and short on material. A lot of my time rewatching this, I felt like my time was being wasted with constant beach episodes and off-shoots into the social links from the game. Some of them still held their charm but some hit me like week-old bread.
If there are any other criticisms of this that I haven’t mentioned, it is because they are concurrent criticisms of the game and I’ll arrive at them when I come to talk about the game.
To conclude, I think I still like this product but it’s nowhere near as much as I used to. The only reason that it still holds up for me is that I still love Persona 4′s story and the messages it has. That is the only thing that saves it. They present the base story in a very good way that you can’t look away from. Whoever made this clearly loved Persona 4 despite what dorks on MyAnimeList might have to say about it. The way everything is directed is splendid and with greater animation and less faff, it could be a fantastic animé adaptation. Unfortunately, Persona 4 is it’s own worst enemy. You couldn’t leave the “beach episodes” out, could you? The animé would be incomplete without that and the vague character development it brings to the table. Maybe I’m just grumpier in my advanced age and that I’ve soured on the concept of having fun but I still gazed at the corny fight scenes with drool dribbling down my chin and chocolate in my eyes.
I would like to thank everyone who read, liked, commented and reblogged any of my posts about the Persona 4 animé. It’s been a difficult process but it’s been a lot of fun to revisit one of my old favourites and write about it. It’s been a long journey and I’m glad it’s over but don’t worry, it won’t be the last you hear about me and Persona. Trust me.
Next up though, I’m going to be revisiting a modern classic of Japanese cinema so stay tuned for that x
