Persona 4 Golden — specifically Golden, as it’s the only version of Persona 4 that I’ve played — is a good game. It was worth me buying a PlayStation TV (-$20) and borrowing my cousin’s PS3 controller(-dignity) for.
But the anime is bad. And I don’t like having to say it. Because I think the world building and character design aspect of Persona is its strength. So why would an anime based off of the game, when it has those two aspects at its disposal be bad? That’s the logic I had going into this show.
Well. Logic doesn’t always prevail.
First, let me talk about the main mechanics and concepts behind the Persona games. The modern Persona games (starting with Persona 3) are dungeon crawler RPGs that ask you to balance regular high school life with dungeon crawler life. That may sound complicated, but it’s really simple. In Persona 4, you’re a 16 year old higher school kid who just transferred to a small town in Japan who does…regular things. You go to school, spend time with friends, go on dates, get a part-time job, and so on.
But there’s something fishy going on in this town. A string of supernatural murders occur, and you and your friends are the only people who seem to have the slightest clue of how they are executed. It turns out, there’s a parallel world of some sort that you and your friends can travel to, and traces of the victims — and potential victims — are found there, meaning that whoever is killing these people is likely using the said parallel world in some way.
This parallel world is called The Midnight Channel. People who enter this world are often forced to face their shadow — their inner self. The Persona games are often based off Jungian psychology, and a really simplified explanation of a shadow is the part of you that you don’t acknowledge or perhaps a part that you keep hidden.
So for example, let’s say there’s a buff guy named Tom. Tom appears to be highly confident, but deep inside, he has a low self esteem and feels like a failure. But Tom doesn’t acknowledge this aspect of himself, so the part that has a low self esteem and feels like a failure is part of Tom’s shadow.
In The Midnight Channel — which materializes your shadow — if you reject your shadow, it then wishes to split away from you and become its own being. This leads to a violent and toxic entity that you usually end up fighting.
This is likely a metaphor for how we should acknowledge aspects of ourselves that we try to avoid thinking about, or that very thing could end up consuming us. This type of psychology is found throughout all of the Persona games and in my opinion, one of the most interesting aspects of the entire series. Quite frankly, I think all of us would be better off if we spent more time exploring ourselves and acknowledging our weaknesses.
Filling in the rest here, The Midnight Channel usually has large dungeons that manifest from the minds of the people who enter it, and you spend time exploring them and fighting rogue shadows to rescue whoever might be trapped in them. You fight said shadows with your personas, which in simple terms, are manifested versions of the personality you present to the world. Even simpler, in these games, think of personas as like your Pokemon. Each character has one and they aid you during combat. The main character has the ability to obtain multiple personas and swap through them during combat.
This ties together with the regular world. As the main character socializes and bonds with different people outside of The Midnight Channel, he can create new personas. So this gives you an incentive to bond with the various characters and meet new people.
So with all of that said, you might be able to imagine that you can create a decent show out of this, considering there’s a lot of fun you could have with dialogue between different characters and what not.
Well.
That’s only in our imaginations.
The Persona 4 anime is bad. I’m sorry. I decided to watch it because I thought about replaying Persona 4 Golden again but didn’t particularly feel like spending 60 hours replaying it. But unfortunately, it lacks a lot of what I loved about the game.
Instead of the time spent developing the characters and getting to know their vulnerabilities, it rushes through each character arc and somehow even left me confused at times. I couldn’t imagine how confused someone who never played the game would be.
I understand you only got about 26 episodes or so to cover a long game, but man, if you aren’t going to properly cover the basics, why even make this show? And if you say it’s just for fans of the game, why not just make an anime that’s a side story of the show since people who played the game already know the story?
Why are the combat scenes awful? While watching the fights, I had no idea what the fuck was going on. Can you even call them fights? The main character yells “Persona!” and the Persona comes out and does some random shit. None of the fights are satisfying at all. Would honestly rather watch someone play the RPG fights on YouTube than watch this shit.
The Persona 4 game had some homophobia issues. One of the characters questions his sexuality a bit, and as a result, another one treats him like he has a virus or some shit. I think you can incorporate something like that into a story if the homophobic character is penalized or made fun of for being a fucking idiot for acting like that, but it’s mostly played for laughs — at gay people’s expense, rather than at the homophobe for being ridiculous. But anyway: somehow, the show managed to be more homophobic than the game by having a part where buff men grab the male characters on the ass. Super cringe.
All of those issues aside, I think the craziest part is that the company that animated this show clearly did not give a fuck. I rarely have gripes with animation quality when I watch anime, especially older ones, but wow.
Look, it’s not the worst anime ever. I enjoyed…some of it. I actually really like how the main character, who is silent most of the game, has a lot of dialogue and has a personality that’s hilariously nonchalant and cool.
But please, if you’ve never played Persona and want to experience the series, don’t it let it be like this. Obtain one of the games down the line or something.
