PERSONA5 the Animation

While it doesn't quite reach the heights of the game, it is still a great watch in its own right. First of all, the good stuff, the cast performances and respect to the source material make it amazing. Each actor suites their character well and they genuinely make you fall in love with their character. The themes stay intact as well and the story holds surprisingly well. Some of the animation is so-so but not terrible. I think its weakest links are the pacing and Jokers character. It makes sense to have a semi-silent protagonist in the game but in the animation he's just kind of there and feels a bit out of place. Also the character development was a bit more fleshed out in the games but the pacing moves things very fast so if you didn't play the game first, it might be confusing to watch. Overall, it's rough around the edges but an enjoyable and engaging series.

Persona 4 anime was hilarious, full of wink-wink anime gags, and interesting side characters. Persona 5 is heavier on suspense and serious, realistic crime story tone, and it took a while to introduce all the characters, so I didn't feel the group as tight knit as the group in Persona 4.

But the drawings won't disappoint the series fans, and Persona 5 world is bigger, supported by PS4 system.

*Warning* the anime follows the game plot closely, so if you haven't played the game yet, the anime episodes would spoil the plot twists in the game. In my case though, because I enjoyed the anime (episodes 1-26 so far), I don't mind the spoilers. In fact, the spoilers helped me to skip dialogues ahead in the game.

This is a solid series despite setting itself up to fail in a couple of ways.

The first is the flash-back intro. It begins with a character who, without context, appears as a cocky punk you couldn't care less about who gets caught doing crimes. Then, as he is questioned, you get obnoxiously vague exposition that finally leads to the flashback where the actual story is.

I personally benched the show for months because of this intro. I only finally finished the first episode because it is my personal rule to give any show one full episode to prove itself. This being my introduction to the game, which I later played, it also made for a very slow, weak un-engaging start to the game. Clearly, the developers were banking on the built up good will from previous iterations.

Flashbacks/forwards are only ever a cheap, detrimental story device or essential enhancing element with no middle ground. It's obvious which category this falls into and very unfortunate that it continues to punctuate the series.

The second way the anime shoots itself in the foot is content packaging/episode release. The packaged 26 episode anime doesn't actually finish the story. Without the final episodes, which you must know about and then hunt down separately, the putative ending from the first 26 is just a pointless slap in the face.

I never quite know who anime adaptations of games are for.

For those who played the game they are usually judged against game negatively as an update of the olde timey complaint wherein the book was better than the movie instead of judging each according to the genre of which it is actually a part.

If one is taking this apples/oranges approach wouldn't the anime, unsurprisingly and necessarily, be lesser since you are passively watching a truncated version of the game with no new story elements?

Yet, conversely, for anyone who hasn't played the game such adaptations are usually unwatchable exactly because they 1. Are set up such that they depend on you already being familiar with the game and 2. Are too much like a game, making for awkward and clumsy anime.

This adaptation also occasionally trips up from being too much like a game, e.g. Distracting bits of dead-end plot that only exist because they are translations of game elements, the main protagonist being unnaturally mute and un-reactive because that is the de facto for first-person RPGs, etc. But these are comparatively minor and might go unnoticed by many viewers.

So I am marking this pretty high because it actually stands up pretty well on its own with serious and relevant plot elements, flushed out characters, good world building and intriguing neo-noir type mystery.

Persona 5 the animation try's to do what the game does, but horribly, the anime has horrible artwork, and the amazing soundtrack is used horribly, not to say the pacing is just absolutely horrible. I know you can't fit a 100 hour game in a anime, but to be honest it is acceptable, to anime standards I guess it's alright, so you might enjoy it, but I definitely do see some fun to be had, I enjoy all the Easter eggs, all the xtra details, just I hope if they make a persona 5 R the animation anime, I hope they fix all the mistakes.

I'm one of the people who actually had fun with the anime, but even I can recognize it has some flaws. For one, it's length. They are trying to squeeze over 100 hours of story intensive gameplay into a show a tenth of the size, however, they try to remain faithful to the story, which means leaving most everything in. This leads to some episodes, like the first, feeling kind of like a rushed mess. Something I know other people may complain about, and I admit to feeling some frustration with myself, is the fight scenes in the anime: unlike the intensive boss fights characteristic of the game, everything had to be over and done with in 15 minutes or less. And the regular encounters are even worse, ending in two minutes. Again, sometimes thus makes things seem kinda rushed. Overall, it was a good watch, but I would recommend playing the game over this.