The "Shin Megami Tensei: Persona" game series has technically been around since 1996, but has been popular enough to be relevant to gamers right up to 2016 and beyond through polished sequels. It was originally a niche series that seemed dead in the water until the release of "Persona 3" for the PS2, which captured the attention of brooding otaku thanks to its revitalized art design, modern rap music soundtrack, and a striking image of a teenager shooting himself in the head to play the game. "Persona 4" was released shortly after on the PS2, reusing the same engine and mechanics, but using a new country-side town setting and a more upbeat cast of characters. While not initially as striking as the blue and red color palette of the previous game, it was generally seen as a more refined adventure in every aspect by its fans. The enivitable "Persona 5" would not come until nearly a decade later, so developer Atlus made the most of its dedicated fanbase by adapting specifically "Persona 4" and "Persona 3" into a series of spinoffs, including remakes with additional conetnt, games in completely different non-RPG genres, manga, and anime.Trying to adapt a video game into an anime is fraught with challenges, whether it be a short mini-game collection or a 100+ hour RPG. You can try to condense the game's original story into a quicker format, or try to make room to portray the full experience at the expense of a longer runtime. You can try to keep or remove game-specific elements that might not otherwise make sense in a film or tv show. You could try to go so far as writing a completely new story in hopes that fans would appreciate the new details while new viewers wouldn't feel alone if confused with the plot. By the time of this writing, "Persona 3," "Persona 4" and "Persona 5" would all receive anime adaptations in some manner. "Persona 3" chose to make a four-part series of feature-length films to try to bring out as much of the original story as possible: after having seen it, a summary of my review is that it was far too long and could have been reduced much fruther without losing anything meaningful. "Persona 4 - The Animation" actually fares much better in this regard, partly due to a much more entertaining cast of characters, and a serial television format that splits up the story better, despite being roughly the same total length of the "Persona 3" adaptation. Indeed, the cast of "Persona 4" is played with an constant sense of humor, a stark contrast to the brooding teenage angst that plauged everyone in "Persona 3." Like the rest of the "Persona" series, the story is rooted in dark themes, but features a group of teenagers coming together to resolve the troubling events. In "Persona 4," the protagonist Yu moves to the small town of Inaba for a year to live with his uncle and temporarily go to a new school. When a serious of grisly murders occur each night in the town, rumors spread that it has something to do with the mysterious "Midnight Channel" that shows up on antennae television at night. Yu discovers that the Midnight Channel is real, and that it hints at the next victim. It is also possible to ENTER the television, revealing an alternate world and manipulating the inner anxieties of victims there (with real issues, like depression, social pressure, sexuality, etc., the kind of things that rarely get covered in games or television). So Yu teams up with his new spunky friends at school to uncover the mystery. Scooby Doo a la Japan. To help make the comparison complete, "Persona 4" features an adorable and slightly perverted talking mascot named "Teddy" from the television world.If you ignore that people are dying in this show, the concept does sound silly on paper, and one could imagine how a group of high school students might react to being able to jump into a tv. The show's long length of 26 episodes can be separated into three acts: the first trying to solve the mystery, the second with the mystery solved, culprit caught, and nothing left to do but hang out and enjoy school life, and the third coming to a realization that the real culprit is still out there and bringing them to true justice. The second act in particular is filled with opportunities for mischief and slice-of-life fare that make for good situational comedy. Perhaps this act is drawn out a bit more, given that it is really just filler, but with a genuinely likeable cast, I didn't mind spending time with them goofing off. Yu's dialogue helps a lot with the show's humor: the protagonist in the game is named by the player and doesn't speak out loud, allowing the player to pick some of his dialogue choices and project themselves onto him. In Yu (voiced in English by the iconic Johnny Young Bosch), the show has him speak by picking seemingly random branch choices, ranging from sarcastic quips to cluesless remarks, which in the moment caused me to fall out of my chair and laugh on the floor. If you enjoyed the English cast from the game, you'll appreciate that they were tapped again to dub the anime.
Keep in mind I never actually played "Persona 4" myself, so I am only guessing that the show is likely authentic to the game's events. I admit the ending was a little bit of a letdown after all the build-up, but the adventure leading up to it was fun while it lasted. Adapting the game's story is mixed, but generally positive and at least easy enough to follow for newcomers. The visuals take good inspiration from the hyper-stlyized world of the game, and it's yellow color palette makes it one of the more eye-popping anime you can find. Generally, the show looks good and utilizes the game's style and transitions well, although the characters themselves don't have too much animation, and their faces are a little more round then they ought to be for such a dynamic world. Their color-shading also uses gradients, something that was popular at the time by high-quality studios like Ufotable, but it doesn't necessarily mesh well in this case. The game's music (and the music for the series as a whole) is pretty great, and that carries over in reused and new tunes for the anime.Keep in mind that this review only covers the broadcast of the original "The Animation" series: there was also technically a feature length version of this series (not released outside of Japan) and a new series called "Persona 4 - The Golden" that added the additional material from the game remake, effectively adding a brand new character in certain scenes, but without the full context provided by the original show (you were expected to replace "The Golden"'s scenes over specific scenes from "The Animation" in your mind, and not seeing the original series would leave a viewer completely lost). The American release of "Persona 4 - The Animation" was a bit of a trainwreck: Sentai Filmworks originally released it on separate DVD and Bluray releases with the English dub (two parts for the full series), but the Bluray notably lacked the original Japanese dub entirely due to licensing restrictions. After fan complaints, the Bluray was re-released as a single limited edition set at a higher cost, while the DVD was released a single set at an impressively affordable price. It wouldn't be until a few years after the original release (2017. compared to the original English Bluray release in 2013) that the Bluray would be released normally like the DVD set was. In this case, the Bluray is worth the purchase to overcome some compression issues with the detailed backgrounds. "Persona 4 - The Golden Animation" was also released in America, but by Aniplex of America reather than Sentai FIlmworks, and Aniplex would carry on controling most of the "Persona" anime adaptations from that point on. That means no dub, despite the popularity of the game's English cast, and a superficially high price multiple times more expensive than what Sentai had offered, to more closely compare to the outrageous fees commonly seen in Japan's market. Compared to the other adaptations of the "Persona" franchise, "Persona 4 - The Animation" is one of the best places for viewers to jump in, thanks to the show's availability compared to the others, and the fun cast of characters and their sense of humor. It isn't easy to design characters to feel like your best friends, and while anime generally does this better than other media from the rest of the world, "Persona 4" is an example for others to compare themselves against. Include its cool style and soundtrack, and even viewers who have never played the games can understand the franchise's mass appeal through this show.