Hey guys Nitsuj here welcome to another side blog the blogs between the blogs. Well seeing as how I just got done reviewing Persona 4 the animation it only makes sense to take a look at Persona 4 Golden the animation. Produced by A-1 this anime came out in the summer of 2014 and serves as a retelling of the story only in fast motion like a New Game+. Now once again I decided to turn this review into a side blog because there’s really not that much to talk about. But we can take a look at it and give a quick review on it. Persona 4 Golden came out in 2012 for the PS Vita and if you ask anyone (including me) the whole reason they got a Vita in the first place was to play this game. Golden is what FES is to Persona 3, it’s a revamped version of Persona 4 and in my opinion not only does Golden live up to the fame of the original game but it’s honestly better than the original game. The story is still the same but Golden added in all new features such as more personas, weapons, side activities, and more events to make the game more enjoyable. They also added in a winter section of the game, alternate costumes to wear, and you get a scooter which allows you to leave Inaba and go to the city. But the biggest and best addition of all is the addition of a new character and two brand new social links. In Golden you’ll be able to form a social link with Adachi the villain of the game and see his real personality. This can lead you to a new bad ending where instead of turning Adachi in you instead erase all evidence leading to him and become his accomplice. The second social link is with the new character Marie voiced by Kana Hanazawa, a new resident of the Velvet Room who has lost her memories and wants to discover who she really is.
The anime is entirely focused on her and the group trying to help her figure out who she is and where she comes from. After Yu and the others defeat Ameno-sagiri Marie eventually remembers that she’s Kusumi-no-Okami one part of the great power like Ameno-sagiri who’s role was to spy on the real world and absorb the TV world’s fog from the real world should Ameno-Sagiri be defeated. After remembering this Marie leaves the others and goes inside the TV world where she enters the Hollow Forest. Her plan is to seal herself within the forest erasing her existence all together to save the world but in the process everyone will forget about her. Yu the others not accepting this venture into the Hollow Forest find Marie where they defeat Kusumi-no-Okami expelling the fog from her body and allowing her to form a bond with the real world which allows her to exist in our world permanently. Later on when Yu and the others fight against Izanami it gets revealed that Marie is actually the other half of Izanami, Izanami-no-Mikoto. Izanami-no-Okami was the half that granted man’s wishes while Izanami-no-Mikoto was the half that thought of the good of man. Both of these two sides worked in harmony but overtime Izanami-no-Okami’s intentions began to diverge from Izanami-no-Mikoto which resulted in her trying to cover the real world in eternal fog to hide man from the truth believing that this is what they desired. Because of this Izanami-no-Mikoto lost all of her powers and memories which created Marie. After Yu defeats Izanami, Marie vanishes along with her but after Yu returns to Inaba for summer break we see that Marie has become the local weather girl and proclaims her love for Yu on TV for everyone to hear. And that’s pretty much the anime right there.
To this anime’s credit they do a good job keeping the focus on Marie as she is a fun character. She’s cute and I like her tsundere personality towards Yu whenever she’s embarrassed about something, and I find her poem writing to be strange but cute at the same time. Her interactions with the others are also funny, she gives everyone nicknames such as calling Chie Green and Yukiko Red because those are the only colors they wear and she’s one of the few characters who can throw Rise off her game and get her all flustered. You really do come to care and like Marie through the course of the anime and want her to have a happy ending where she’s at peace with herself and with her friends. The anime does a good job mashing up the new events with Marie such as the beach scene and the concert at Junes. In the game she originally wasn’t in these scenes but the anime added her in there which in my opinion made the scenes better. The anime even adds their own events such as having a quiz show where they intentionally let Marie win because she was feeling sad. There’s even an Adachi episode where the anime explores more of Adachi’s past such as showing us how he was always a smart guy but never really associated with anyone which resulted in him getting overlooked by his superiors. They even show us how he became Dojima’s partner and how the two formed somewhat of a bond with each other which Adachi denies but in truth deep down he cares deeply about his bond with Dojima as Dojima is probably the only real friend Adachi has ever had in his life. This episode was a favorite of mind as it added more character to an already great villain and made him even more likable and enjoyable.
This anime does good things but at the same time it does a few bad things. For starters the animation is better, it’s vivid, more colorful, and the action scenes are better and animated better than the first anime. Yu actually has a personality this time around where he’s able to stand on his own and be his own character. He gets mad, shocked, nervous, and experiences all kinds of emotions that an actual human would experience. The jokes are still funny, my favorite is when they make fun of the whole scooter follow-up attack in the TV world which I have to admit is a pretty silly idea but hey Golden was made as extra fun for the fans so why not give them something to make fun of. Lastly, the music is a blast to listen to. The Junes concert where Marie and Rise sing together is like a dream come true for me. Rie Kugimiya and Kana Hanazawa are two of my favorite female VAs who are both excellent singers so actually hearing them sing together at the same time was a blast to listen to. The only major downside to this anime is it rushes past events from the game such as dungeon fights. We never get to see any of the dungeon fights except for Adachi’s dungeon fight which is good but at the same time not really all that long. We also skip a lot of events such as social links and a few school activities. Many fans were disappointed by this and I be lying if I said I wasn’t too but keep in mind the anime’s main focus is on Marie and her story, nothing else. So when you factor that in you can’t really get mad at the anime for skipping over these events. Plus the anime only had 12 episodes while the first one had 24 so things have to be cut out.
Final Score
Persona 4 Golden the Animation earns a 6/10. While it’s not a bad anime it’s really nothing all that great. As I said before the anime plays out like a New Game+ while focusing on the new character Marie. Truth be told I really don’t think there was a need for this anime to have been made. This whole anime is basically an unneeded cash-in on the Persona franchise. I’m not saying making an anime based off the Persona series is a bad idea I’m just saying why waste their time focusing an anime on one character when you could of easily made an anime focusing on the arena games or better yet Persona Q which at the time this anime started airing Persona Q went on sale in Japan. I think they would have been better making an anime on one of these two games instead retelling a fast-paced version of Persona 4. But still this anime is pretty harmless and if you’re fan of the Persona series I say go ahead and watch it. However, if you’re new to the Persona series I recommend watching the first anime before checking out Golden as Golden is under the impression that you have either played the games or watched the first anime as it passes over a lot of important scenes and story points. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj as Persona-mas continues.
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