Hello and welcome to Project Nitsuj. It’s time for us to continue are look at Persona 4 the animation. We last left our Scooby-Doo ripoff cast with them finding Mitsuo a fish-eyed boy who claims that he’s the murderer, catching him, and turning him over to the police. With Mitsuo captured the group thinks that the case is solved and everything will go back to normal. But like I’ve said before the Shin Megami Tenshi games are never that simple. Let’s see what happens in the second part of Persona 4 the animation.
Opening and Ending Theme
The new opening for the second half is “key plus words” by Shihoko Hirata ft. Yumi Kawamura. Unlike the first opening which starts off slow and speeds up this song just is outright fast-paced and places an emphasis on rock. Right from the very beginning I liked this song way more than I liked the first opening mostly because this song really does sound like a song you would expect appear in a persona game. The song is sung in English and Hirata and Kawamura are both great singers who work off each other nicely. The ending this time is “The Way of Memories – Kizuna no Chikara” by Shihoko Hirata. This song is more slow-paced than the opening and the previous ending and while not a favorite song of mind I will admit I like this ending more than the previous ending. It’s beautiful and gives off the feeling of both happiness and sadness.
Episodes 13-17
Episodes 13 and 14 focus on Nanako and Yu and how they both spent their summer. In episode 13 we focus on Nanako who gives her umbrella to a wild fox who lives at the town shrine to keep it dry from the rain (that was nice of her). Also, FYI, that fox turns out to be the Hermit social link in the game. Probably the oddest social link to this day. In the episode Nanako begins to notice Yu acting stranger than normal (and that’s saying something) so she decides to play detective and find out what he’s been up to. The rest of the group joins her hoping to figure out what Yu is up to but each time they lose track of him (they can figure out how to catch a murderer but they can’t figure out what their friend is up to? I question their detective skills). At the summer festival being held at the shrine Nanako is about to give up but Naoto shows up and cheers her up giving her the inspiration to go throughout the festival searching for Yu. As she’s searching for Yu she begins helping out others throughout the festival some of them being Yu’s friends from school and others being well known side characters from the game. She finally finds Yu just as the fireworks are beginning (and I have to admit these are some very well animated fireworks. I mean it, they look very real) where we see that all the people Nanako saw Yu hanging out with in the summer come to talk to him and thank him for everything he’s done for them (except Bill from accounting for some reason he couldn’t make it, //youtu.be/CavFroD1zGs). Dojima shows up and all 3 of them enjoy the festival as a family and on the last day of summer when everyone is enjoying a watermelon Nanako ask what Yu did throughout the summer.
In episode 14 we see what Yu did throughout the summer. After Yu finds out Nanako lost her umbrella he decides to go out and buy her a new one but he has no money (this is what you get for rushing through all the dungeons and not fighting shadows). He decides to get a job and gets approached by the fox who wants him to help out a boy in town. Rather than be freaked out by the wild fox and call animal control Yu decides to do what the fox tells him to do (well it’s not the first time an animal has told him what to do). Yu soon becomes the tutor of a prick child named Shu who has no friends and gets another job at a daycare center where he takes the blame for breaking a kid’s action figure and has to pay a lot of money to buy a new one. At the daycare center he becomes friends with Ebi the stepmom of a boy named Yuuta. The two don’t get along that well because they have no idea how to interact with each other. He then meets an old lady who gets robbed and has to be rushed to a hospital where he meets a nurse (or as I like to call her the succubus in white) who hits on him and doesn’t really like her job as a nurse. A few days pass and Yu runs into the old lady who we find out lost her husband and decides the best way to live life now is to forget everything about him (yeah try saying that out loud and see if it makes sense). She goes to the town’s riverbank and tosses in a comb her husband gave to him which gets caught by a giant fish (I think it’s a fish. Personally I think it’s a sea monster that time forgot about) and Yu gets it back for her (scene here: //youtu.be/rBtWG-XE9sk, and like that fishing became epic). At the summer festival Yu catches Shu stealing the fireworks because nobody invited him to go see them (it’s because you’re a prick) and Yu gives him the board game Othello to show Shu that he needs to stop looking down on his classmates and interact with them more (in other words: stop being a prick, put the books away, and go out and have fun with friends like a kid is supposed to do). As Yu is returning the fireworks Ebi gets knocked out protecting Yuuta and begins bleeding from the head. He calls the succubus in white who tells him what to do and Ebi regains consciousness. Yu returns the fireworks just in time and gives the comb back to the old lady where she admits that she still loves her husband and doesn’t want to forget the time she shared with him. The festival goes off well and we end the episode with Yu maxing out 5 social links (now what did you do this past summer?). Also, I should mention that the voice actor of Kanji has changed. Kanji is now voiced by Matthew Mercer who is well known in the video game world voicing characters like Alvin from Tales of Xillia, Leon S. Kennedy from RE6, Anarky from Arkham Origins, and Lei Wulong from Tekken 6. Now you’re probably wondering what happened to Troy Barker and why this happened? Well it turns out that around the time the dub for the second half of the anime was about to begin Troy got married and took a 3-week honeymoon vacation to Italy with his wife (nice. Troy’s got good taste). Thus Mercer was called in to fill in the spot and in all honesty I think he does a good job. You don’t really hear a difference in the voices and he still manages to keep Kanji sounding funny.
Episode 15 is probably my favorite episode in the entire anime. We start the episode off with Naoto becoming a 1st year at the high school saying that he believes the case isn’t solved yet (sharp kid). After that the 1st and 2nd year students go on their class trip to Tatsumi Port Island which was the setting for Persona 3 and they pay homage to the third game respectably. Throughout the episode the music is replaced with music from the Persona 3 game and we get to see notable landmarks throughout the island such as the school, the hotel they’re staying at used to be the love hotel where you fought the 3rd boss shadow of the game, and they even go to the night club (just pure nostalgia). Plus there’s plenty of laughs throughout the episode. Teddie hops on a train and joins them (how beary surprising) because Yukiko promised to go on a date with him (was she sober when he asked her) and has to share a room with Yu, Youske, and Kanji. Yu and Chie have a moment (scene here: //youtu.be/T-cfarFnMAg, I hate you so much right now Yukiko) and they go to the night club where they get drunk off the atmosphere and play the King’s game with Naoto (scene here: //youtu.be/NIuVO1SsFYs, man Yu, Rise, and Yukiko are fun drunks). At the end of the trip they all head home with Teddie riding cargo and Naoto trying to get information out of the others but failing.
In episode 16 Naoto figures out that the key to getting thrown into the TV is getting famous on TV. So he uses himself as bait to get kidnapped and gets thrown into the TV where his shadow says he’s going to perform a life-changing surgery which will have him walking down a new path in life (he what’s to be a girl? The creators of this game have some serious, serious sexual issues). They go into the TV but they can’t find him because they know little about him so they exit the TV and start asking people around town about Naoto. During their investigation Yukiko begins to notice a change in town and that change is everyone being afraid of something but doing their best to avoid talking about it (oh yes, there’s powerful darkness at work here). Yu and Kanji find out that Naoto had an argument with a few of the officers about the case, has developed an obsession with the case (I could have told you that), and gets treated like a kid on the force. With this information Rise gets a clear picture on who Naoto is and is able to find him in his dungeon which looks like one of those secret underground bases you see in a James Bond movie (//youtu.be/Ii1tc493bZM, Double O Persona in Dr. Nao means to). A screen pops up showing Naoto talking to his shadow belittling it (so are we saving the shadow now or Naoto?) for acting like a kid but the shadow begins to speak about Naoto’s childhood about how he’s always been looked down by others, never really had friends, and will never be accepted in the world of detectives because he is a girl (//youtu.be/lsedR_6EZmk?t=1m31s, also this has gotta be good news for Kanji). As you would expect Naoto rejects her shadow and it turns into a half human half robot version of Naoto. The shadow attacks the others to end the episode with Youske getting hit with a beam that turns him old.
The battle against Naoto’s shadow continues in episode 17 where the shadow uses the aging beam again on Teddie to make him old and even uses the aging beam on Yu as well (just use arima shower and you’ll be fine). Teddie remembers that his persona can use arima shower and he uses it to revive Yu, Youske and himself back to normal (and Teddie carries the secret to the fountain of youth). Yu uses his personas to fuse Beelzebub (which is the ultimate persona of The Devil arcana and can only be summoned when you reach level 81. Man, Yu must have did some serious level grinding. Talk about being overpowered, I was nowhere near this level when I went into Naoto’s dungeon. I mean, at this level this guy could easily beat the game solo) and unleashes Beelzebub’s ultimate attack which destroys the base and defeats Naoto’s shadow (just like in any action movie). Naoto faces her shadow where she admits that she doesn’t want to be a man (oh thank God. She’s way too cute to be a dude) but instead wants people treat her for who she is, a brilliant detective (no problem, I can do that. Though I be more open to it if you wore a skirt instead of jeans). With this Naoto gains her own persona and they get her out of the TV to rest where they all realize that the case isn’t over and the murderer is still out there. Yu goes back home where’s he greeted by a drunk Adachi (scene here: //youtu.be/bUXFy1Qhc5A, how is Bosch making his voice go high in this scene while still voicing Yu? That’s just good voice acting right there). After about a month of resting Naoto returns to the school still wearing a boy’s uniform deciding she feels the most comfortable in that and officially joins the group where she says they should get a medical exam to make sure nothing is wrong with them after being exposed to the TV world and possibly shed some light on what Teddie is (isn’t it obvious. He’s a horny bear in human flesh. He’s basically the Fez of this anime). They get their checkups where they find out nothing is wrong with them and the medical machines can’t tell what Teddie is because they keep malfunctioning when they examine him (but what about the important things. Like the girls’ measurements? Scene here: //youtu.be/PZSnknNFmDE. So Naoto is stacked? Man she does a good job hiding it. Also, Kanji is wise beyond his years with that comment about girls at the end).
Episodes 18-22
In episode 18 we shift gears and focus on the relationship between Nanako and Dojima who in the game represent the Justice and Hierophant social links. We see that even though Nanako and Dojima are daughter and father and live in the same house the two couldn’t be more distant from each other. Dojima really doesn’t spend a whole lot of time with Nanako, oh he looks out for her and takes care of her but other than that his relationship with her is fairly bad because he engrosses himself in work. The reason for this is because he wants to find the guy who killed his wife Chisato. In the past Chisato was involved in a hit and run accident which caused her to die. Now Dojima is determined to find the guy responsible for killing his wife but the problem is the car was from out of state so the trail has gone cold with no leads. This obsession has completely consumed him to the point where he completely ignores Nanako telling himself that he’s doing all of this for the right reasons but in truth he’s just running away from his responsibilities as a father and forgetting that even though Chisato is dead he still has a family and isn’t alone. Nanako also misses her mother but unlike Dojima she’s able to move on from it knowing that someday she’ll reunite with her mother in Heaven but for now she’ll live her life out with Dojima and Yu. The dilemma she’s facing now however is that she thinks Dojima doesn’t really like her and see her as his daughter. The relationship between the two finally reaches a boiling point in the episode when Nanako’s school is having a class observation and Dojima says he won’t be able to go because of work. Yu tells Dojima to spend more time with Nanako instead of trying to solve Chisato’s murder case and their conversation gets overheard by Nanako who runs away from home when Dojima tells her that the case is none of her concern (uh, yes it is her concern. This is her mother, this whole case concerns her). Yu and Dojima go looking for her where they find her at the flood plains which is where Chisato died (oh well that’s lovely) and we get a touching scene of Dojima and Nanako making up to end the episode (scene here: //youtu.be/hstha0nR09A).
After that serious episode we get a funny episode in episode 19. It’s the school festival and Yu’s class is doing a group date café but that’s not the only fun that’ll be happening. Youske has entered all the girls into the school’s beauty pageant including Chie who let’s Youske know how she feels about this (scene here: //youtu.be/A9Ld7B9qQ9Y, can’t argue with Yu’s point). But the girls get their revenge as well by entering the boys in the drag queen contest (oh that is just mean and wrong). The day of the festival arrives and the class’ group date isn’t going all that well (scene here: //youtu.be/1dLAt7-GM2c, man Bosch knows how to be a good troll. He’s a little too good at it if you ask me). During the school festival he meets Ayane who represents the Sun social link (and looks like an elementary student) which in my honest opinion was the weakest social link in the game. In the game you get the option of choosing between two people as the Sun social link. Ayane whose in the school’s symphony club and Yumi the school’s drama club. They both have different stories and problems but they’re really not all that interesting as characters and I never really got into their stories all that much. Anyway, Ayane is a trombone player (hey me too) who’s stepping in for a 2nd year student who got injured but Ayane isn’t really all that good but she tries her best and practices to improve her skills and playing in time for the concert. When the festival comes and Yu goes to visit her we see that her skills haven’t gotten any better and when the 2nd year student returns from his injuries she decides to step down and give her part to him (oh no she didn’t). Yu speaks up for her but she pulls him away saying that even though she lost her chance to fulfill her dream (no, there’s still time go back in there and demand that they put you in the concert) all that practicing reminded her about her love for music (that’s good and all. But you know a good way to express that love? Go play in a concert). Yu decides to make it up to her by taking her around the festival where he runs into Ai (scene here: //youtu.be/ZNSsWZ6bMiw, Ai asked a very legit question how many girls is Yu dating at the moment? At this point in the game I was dating 5 and working on Naoto. Yes I know I’m a manwhore go ahead and say it. Actually now that I think about it why does she care about Yu’s love life? The anime established that the two just became friends and nothing else. What is she jealous or something?). The next day it’s time for the pageants and first up is the drag queen pageant where Kanji looks like Marilyn Monroe (yep I just destroyed Marilyn Monroe for you guys out there *evil laugh*), Youske looking. . .ridiculous, Yu looking the same except he’s got a wig on and in a girl’s uniform, and our surprise contestant Teddie (yes the bear joined in as well) pulling it off greatly and looking like Alice from Alice in Wonderland (the animated Disney movie not that horrible Tim Burton movie. What were they thinking giving Tim Burton that movie? Can’t he just make a movie out of the game Contrast or Limbo I mean that seems up his ally?). In the end Teddie is declared the winner and named the special judge for the beauty pageant where he adds the stipulation that there’s going to be a swimsuit portion of the contest (//youtu.be/5nZnPoCvBds, so nice right?). The pageant begins where Chie and Yukiko are pretty determined to win because Hanako (the daughter of Jubba the Hut is entering the pageant? Well I guess beauty is the eye of the beholder or in this case the mind of the delusional) and Noriko dissed them. The competition begins with Chie telling the crowd a little bit about herself (scene here: //youtu.be/OWufUK6k63A), Naoto drops out at the last minute (scene here: //youtu.be/5_pygW92wkY), and in a surprising turn of events winds up winning the whole thing (I was rooting for Chie but Naoto’s also great). After the competition Yu goes to talk to Rise who’s a little upset that she lost and she decides that when spring comes she’s going to return to being an idol.
The laughs continue in episode 20 where we start off with Nanako coming to visit Yu and the others where she’s learned a new word to describe Yu (scene here: //youtu.be/mt2ZHp3IaiU, she’s not far from the truth). Dojima says he has to go out of town the next morning so he dumps Nanako on Yu and the others (you and I are gonna have a discussion about your neglectful parenting one of these days Dojima) where Yukiko invites everyone to come spend the night at her family inn. They go to the inn where the guys try to check out the open air bath and this series of events happens (scene here: //youtu.be/-_ONVOTwt0k, tell me about Kanji. I tried to relax in the hotsprings in my system and my AI girls attacked me for no reason. *Isis appears* Excuse me? We attacked you for no reason? We attacked you because you got in around the time we were bathing and instead of getting up and leaving you choose to stay! (Nitsuj): I was team bonding with you guys. (Isis): First off we don’t need that kind of bonding. Second, if you ever pull a stunt like that again I will pull you out of the baths myself and learn 50 new sword techniques using your body as my training dummy *Isis disappears back into the system*. (Nitsuj): Well looks like that social link is in reverse at the moment. I’ll have to fix that up soon). While at the inn a TV program wants to shoot a film regarding Yamano’s death and bad mouths the inn saying how rundown it is (because this is what you would tell people when you want to shoot a film in their place. Your place is crap, can I shoot my film here?). Yukiko tells them to shut the hell up and get out of her family’s inn saying that they’re not welcome here personally or professionally. The TV crew takes their leave and the boys realize that the room they’re staying in is the same room Yamano was in before dying (spending the night in the room of a dead a person. Big deal, I’ve seen three people die in my house and yet I still live here). Scared out of their wits they decide to crash into the girls’ room but go to the wrong room and instead find a horror beyond anything they’ve faced before (scene here: //youtu.be/pxmcoz49V5I?t=2m55s, don’t look into their eyes! They’ll suck your soul out). That’s pretty much all that happens in the episode and after the credits Yu receives an anonymous letter that says “don’t save anymore people”.
In episode 21 Yu gives the letter to Naoto but not even she was able to identify who the sender is (man the police suck in this show. You can’t find a murderer and you can’t figure out who sent a letter to a house. What’s the point of them being in this anime?). Another letter comes for Yu telling him that if he doesn’t stop saving people someone close to him will die. Dojima sees this letter and freaks out wanting answers into what’s going on (oh just your typical murder mystery in a rural town with plenty of laughs here and there). Dojima takes Yu to the police station leaving Nanako alone at home and Yu tells him everything where Dojima doesn’t believe him and keeps him in confinement until he decides to tell the truth. Okay time out, there are a few things wrong with this series of events. First off, why did he leave Nanako at home? Your house just received a threatening letter and you leave the little girl at home alone where it’s possible the guy could return (what’s your occupation again?). Two, why doesn’t Dojima believe his story, does he really think Yu would make up something as far-fetch as this on the fly? I know it sounds ridiculous but come on why would he lie in a situation like this? What could he possibly gain from lying to you? Three, there’s a TV in the interrogation room, why doesn’t Yu just walk up to the TV, stick his hand in, and show Dojima he’s not lying. Finally, why didn’t he take Nanako with him? I know I already said this but it just bugs me. As Yu is stuck in confinement the TV turns on to reveal the midnight channel and on it is everyone’s favorite little sister Nanako (//youtu.be/WEtRoZ5FWNc). Now you’re probably wondering how is this possible, when Nanako hasn’t appeared on TV at all? Well a politician did an interview with her about the state of the town and even though Nanako’s named remained secret she was mention in his interview and a newspaper reporter did a story on the politician’s interview and he used Nanako’s name in the newspaper and since everyone in town knows who she is it’s only normal that she became famous through the story (the advantage and disadvantage of living in a small town. Everybody knows each other but at same time when shit happens everyone knows about it and now your personal business is out in the street for everyone to talk about). Youske, Teddie, and Kanji arrive at the police station and inform Yu, Dojima, and Adachi that Nanako has been kidnapped (oh hell no. It’s on now). Dojima heads out to look for Nanako and the murderer and Adachi locks the boys up stopping them from going to help Dojima look. The girls show up and Naoto explains to everyone that the culprit is someone hauling around a TV in a delivery truck. Everyone begins to remember their kidnappings a little and Adachi says that the culprit is most likely Namatame the retired councilman who had an affair with Yamano. After the affair was made public, Namatame moved back into town and took a job at his family’s company working as a delivery man (and all the pieces are finally coming together). Adachi releases the boys and tells Dojima that the culprit might be Namatame who just passed Dojima on the road (small world). Dojima gives chase until Namatame crashes the car causing a car wreck and goes inside the TV world leaving Dojima injured. The group catches up and finds Namatame’s diary where he talks about discovering the TV world, everyone who’s been put inside the TV world thus far minus King Moron, and how he says he’s using this world to “save” people (oh yeah you’re saving people, saving them from a rich full-filling life ya crazy fruit loop). Dojima begs Yu to save Nanako saying he trusts him (ain’t that a bitch. Where was this trust when he was telling you about the TV world?) and the group heads to Junes to enter the TV world to save Nanako and capture Namatame once and for all.
They enter the TV in episode 22 and head to Nanako’s dungeon which looks like a story-book version of Heaven (wow, this is honestly the most normal dungeon in the game. I mean there’s no sexual undertones or nothing. It’s just a girl really missing her mother and wanting to see her again in Heaven). They find Namatame with Nanako (step up from the little girl sir or I will call the cops) who has pretty much gone off the deep in and is talking nonsense (boy what you on). He accuses them of being the murderers (give me one episode and this will all make sense) and transforms into the messed up peace-loving shadow known as Kunino-sagiri. He uses his powers to take control of Yu and has him attack the others (in the game it was the opposite, it was actually them attacking you). After hearing Nanako’s voice Yu gains the power to break Kunion-sagiri’s control and save Nanako. But Kunino-sagiri takes control of the others (there we are, just like the game) and has them attack Yu but he fuses the four saint beast personas to create Kohryu who is the strongest persona of the Hierophant arcana and looks like the earth dragon from Dragonball Z if he got tired of being summoned by Goku and the others, decided to quit, and painted his whole body gold. With his powers Yu is able to free the others (Kohryu: This job is so more fulfilling than my last job) and they all combine their powers to defeat Kunino-sagiri with Yu and Nanako summoning Sraosha the strongest persona of the Justice arcana (see, aren’t you glad you maxed out these two social links) to purify the area of shadows and bring Namatame back to his human form. After their battle they leave the TV world and get Nanako and Namatame to the hospital for immediate treatment. Nanako gets put into intensive care and can’t have visitors for a while and Namatame gets hospitalized as well where the police are holding him for questioning. A few weeks go by with Nanako and Namatame still in the hospital and the town being covered by a mysterious fog (so this is where Stephen King got his idea for that fog story). They put on their glasses and to their surprise they’re able to see through the dense fog perfectly just like in the TV world (hey look F-D television). They begin to suspect that the fog from the TV world is seeping into their world and Teddie starts to become sad because he feels that he shouldn’t stay in their world anymore now that the murderer has been caught (where did this come from? Dude just stay in our world in fact stay over at Yu’s house for God’s sake the guy’s lonely, it’s like someone died in that house). As the group is shopping in Junes to throw a Christmas party for Nanako, Yu receives a call from Adachi who tells him that Nanako’s condition has worsen. He and the others go to the hospital and we end the episode with Yu seeing Nanako just before she dies in front of him (//youtu.be/WWaLxFIVX1s).
Episodes 23-26
In episode 23 everyone is both sad and pissed about Nanako’s death (she was like a little angel) including Dojima who despite his injuries heads up to Namatame’s room with the intent to kill him. Luckily the police and Adachi are there to stop him but the others go into his room where they see he was trying to escape. The big TV in the room comes on and Namatame’s shadow appears saying he’s going to continue “saving” people and will not stop. After hearing this and wanting to avenge the sweet Nanako, Yu picks up Namatame and is about to throw him into the TV but he remembers Nanako and stops himself. He begins to question all that’s happened so far and says that something isn’t right, that they’re missing a piece of the puzzle. After convincing the others they all agree to think this over and find the piece they’re missing. As the group is discussing the case in the lounging area, they realize that Teddie isn’t with them (that explains the lack of bear puns). They head outside to call him but he doesn’t answer his cellphone and is nowhere to be found. The group decides to head home and leave Yu alone except for Youske who comes back to give us what many consider to be one of the best scenes in the anime (scene here: //youtu.be/3iRWnxqlVkk, Youske you are a true friend). The next day, the group figures out that Namatame didn’t write the warning letters Yu received because in the letters it said to stop saving people or someone close to Yu will die. Namatame’s idea of “saving” is keeping them alive not killing them. They sneak back into the hospital to question him where he says he knows nothing about the warning letters. He tells them his backstory into how he discovered his powers and the midnight channel. He tells them how he tried to warn Saki but the two-face bitch didn’t believe him and thought he was crazy (and look what happened). When Yukiko appeared on the Midnight channel he got the idea in his head that he could throw the potential victim into the TV world for safety and pull them out once things had settled down. So in truth Namatame was trying to save people he just didn’t know that his method was also putting them in danger of being killed. Back on Teddie’s side of the story he somehow winds up in the same realm as the Velvet Room (beware of the Nose) where he figures out who he really is and says he doesn’t belong in the same world as the others. As he apologizes to Nanako for not being able to save her she miraculously comes back to life in the hospital (they kept her in the room? They didn’t move her even though they confirmed she was dead). The rest of the group hears about this and is overjoyed to know that Nanako is still fighting. The next day the group meets up to figure out who the real culprit is where Yu finally has an epiphany on who the culprit is.
In episode 24 after Yu has his epiphany he rushes off to the hospital where he gets stopped by Youske who wants to talk to him (scene here: //youtu.be/2ETz2a4pUx0, truly there bromance is one of the best I’ve ever seen. Am I out of the reverse doghouse Isis? (Isis): Yes *wipes drool from mouth*. (Nitsuj): Damn fangirls). After beating each other up the two head to the hospital where they go to question Adachi where we find out he was Yamano’s bodyguard the night she died and he questioned Saki a few times in the past about Yamano’s death. The others show up to question Adachi as well where he blurts out he knows about the TV world and escapes into a room where he jumps into the TV to escape everyone. While that’s going on Teddie returns to the hospital to visit Nanako where she says she’s happy that Teddie is with her and hasn’t disappeared and Teddie decides he’s through running away from his past and goes to join the others. The next day the group goes into the TV world to look for Adachi but they can’t find him because of the thick fog covering the place. Not knowing what to do Teddie appears before them (bear have you been) where he tells them that he’s really a shadow who somehow developed emotions and evolved into the Teddie they know today (beary interesting). But the others tell Teddie that it doesn’t matter if he’s a shadow he’s just as human as them (and possibly as perverted as some of them). Teddie’s able to sense Adachi and the group goes to him only to find a projected image of him where he tells them that the TV world and our world are fusing together and that soon our world will become the TV world and humans will turn into shadows (again, why is it always our world that gets destroyed and not the other way around). He opens up a portal which leads the group to his dungeon which is a destroyed version of their town (well the last dungeon was a version Heaven so it’s only natural we go to a version of Hell next) where he summons the Reaper (who is probably the second hardest boss in the game) to fight the group. Kanji and Naoto take on the Reaper themselves while the others continue to look for Adachi. As they’re looking Adachi tells them how he did in fact kill Yamano by using the TV. He developed a crush on her and felt that she cheated on him with Namatame (well you just got crazy quick didn’t you) and when he tried to force his way on her he accidently pushed her into the TV world where she died. He summons another Reaper where Chie, Yukiko, and Rise take it on themselves leaving only Yu, Youske, and Teddie to pursue Adachi. We see how he also is responsible for throwing Saki into the TV world and tricked Namatame into kidnapping everyone who appeared on the Midnight Channel (that son of a bitch). He even threw Mitsuo (the crazy bastard) into the TV world just for shits and giggles. He summons another Reaper (I should be complaining about all these reapers popping up but in truth Adachi’s dungeon is a gold mine for finding the Reaper. Seriously, I fought like four of these bastards in one playthrough of the dungeon) and Youske and Teddie take it on while Yu continues the search for Adachi. He finally finds the real Adachi where he says he really had no clear motive for killing anyone other than to kill his boredom because there’s nothing to do in Inaba (well he’s not far from the truth but then again he’s not a teenager).
In episode 25 the gang continues their fights with the reapers and Yu takes on Adachi where we get one of the most epic battles in anime history. Johnny Yong Bosch vs Johnny Yong Bosch (scene here: //youtu.be/_2a5terg5JM, how awkward must this episode have been for Bosch? He’s having a full blown argument with himself. It’s pretty surreal in its own way. I can just imagine the other voice actors watching Bosch and just laughing at him quietly while at the same time being impressed that he’s pulling off this scene). After Yu defeats Adachi, Adachi shoots himself in the head (wrong game Adachi) and he gets taken over by shadows and through him the cousin of the Master Hand and Crazy Hand shows up (scene here: //youtu.be/waGHN_RrG-U?t=42s, man was I tripping on acid or did Yu just summon Lucifer to come in and save the world? Badass! Though this does beg the question how he summoned Lucifer in the first place when Lucifer is the ultimate persona of the Judgment arcana and at this point in the game the Judgment social link hasn’t been maxed out yet. But who cares that was a badass fight). With Amano-Saigiri (or the Almighty Eye as I like to call him) defeated the fog lifts and Inaba returns to normal. Adachi gets taken into custody where he confesses to the murders, Nanako and Dojima get released from the hospital and are all well just in time for Christmas. We then fast forward to spring where the time has come for Yu to go back to Tokyo and leave his friends (couldn’t he just call his parents and just say: “hey, I like it here, can I stay for one more year please?”. I’m pretty sure they be okay with it. Scene here: //youtu.be/wFiHq_MndOA?t=13s). And that’s the end of Persona 4, if you got the normal ending.
Episode 26 is technically an OVA episode but everyone thinks of it as an actual episode in the series. This episode shows the true ending of the game showing us who the real puppeteer is behind all of these events that have played out in the anime. It’s the day before Yu returns to Tokyo and his friends are throwing him a party (so long you silent SOB). However, when the next day comes he finds out it’s still March 20th the day before he returns to Tokyo (Space Dandy did it). To make matters even more confusing he’s the only one who knows he’s stuck in a loop. While he’s trying to figure out what’s going on he receives a letter from Adachi in prison (if this is another death threat I swear I’m gonna hurt him) who tells Yu he feels that there’s someone else behind everything that’s happen to them and that whoever that person is is responsible for spreading rumors about the Midnight Channel. After reliving the same day again and talking to Nanako, Yu remembers that the first person he met when he arrived in Inaba was the gas station attendant who he shook hands with. Yu goes to meet the gas attendant who reveals herself to be the goddess Izanami the wife of Izanagi (Izanami: Izanagi. (Izanagi): Izanami. You’re looking well. How are the kids? (Izanami): They’re doing fine. Although they wish their father was around. I keep telling them to move on since their father is a no-good shallow deadbeat. (Izanagi): Oh here we go again. This is the reason why we got divorced, you couldn’t let things go. (Izanami): We got divorced because you left me in Hell). Izanami reveals that she gave Yu, Adachi, and Namatame the power to enter the TV world by shaking their hands (see, this is why it’s not a good idea to shake a gas attendant’s hand) and tells him that the Midnight Channel is a “window” meant to accommodate people’s desires to both reveal their true selves and uncover the secret lives of others (so basically it’s reading the minds of others and invading their personal privacy). She tells Yu that her plan is to cover the whole world in fog turning people into shadows which will allow them to see and believe what they wish to be true claiming that this is what humanity desires (oh sure living in a world of absolute disillusion is what I desire. If I wanted that I go out every night and get wasted. Isn’t that right girls? (Mira): Sorry master, we’re imagining ourselves on a nice tropical island getting messaged by hot shirtless anime boys who are fighting over us. (Nitsuj): *Puts head down and begins to shake it* God help me). She than reveals to Yu that he and his friends are currently confronting her but she has swallowed all of them up and the reason why Yu keeps repeating the same day over and over (and over and over and over) is because he’s been suppressing what has happened to them choosing to live in absolute ignorance instead of face the truth which is what he said he would do throughout the anime (hypocrite much Yu). So Yu denies the truth that he and his friends are in trouble and continues to repeat the same day over and over again slowly going crazy until finally Margaret smacks him out of it (thank you. I was about to lose my mind there for a second) and fights him to remind him of his journey (by the way Margaret is hands down the strongest boss in the entire game. She is literally stronger than the final boss of the game and she’s only a side boss, a boss you can skip over if you feel like it. Be thankful she’s on your side. Scene here: //youtu.be/ZwxvFoaAGek). After facing Margaret he goes to face Izanami and shows her to never underestimate the potential of man (scene here: //youtu.be/Rq4ZB8Xy5lQ). When I first watched this episode I didn’t really like it because I felt as if they were trying to tell three stories at the same time what with Yu being stuck in a loop, fighting Margaret, and Izanami but now that I sit back down and watch it it’s not as bad as I originally thought it was. It’s a little jumbled with the whole day loop thing, I think in the first half they should have just focused on Yu’s last day and him just sharing one last moment with everyone and then in the second part have him and the group take on Izanami where Yu is about to give up and accept her way of thinking but Margaret comes in to snap him out of it and he gains the power to fight back. The whole day loop thing just felt out of place and unnecessary to me but despite the loop I think the episode is okay, could have been better, and does the show and game justice with showing the True ending.
Final Thoughts
So that was Persona 4 the animation and it’s pretty awesome. The anime does a good job following the events of the game while adding in their own scenes and making their own scenarios that does the game justice. Some of the changes they make are actually better and funnier than the scenes and scenarios used in the game. Although a majority of the anime is quite formulated such as a character gets thrown into the TV, the group goes in to save them, the person they saved joins them, and the formula repeats itself all over again with a side episode here and there to change it up. This whole formula sums up the first half of the anime and a little bit of the second half. I can’t really fault the anime for this as this does happen in the game but what I can fault the anime for is Yu having almost no personality. Yu really doesn’t have a personality in this anime. He only has like three traits. He’s either too bland, too whacky, or too emotionless. I know what the creators of the anime were going for, Yu is supposed to be a representation of you the watcher I get back but still you have to give this character a personality where he’s able to stand on his own. If you don’t the character becomes completely uninteresting and drags the series down. Which is kind of what Yu does, he comes across an in uninteresting character who’s either too wacky or bland. I will give Bosch credit, in the dub he tries to give Yu a personality and make him sound interesting which is more than I can say for the original version of the anime. Bosch succeeds a little bit but Yu still comes across as being too wacky or bland. Luckily the rest of the cast is there to make the anime fun and distract you from Yu’s lack of personality. The interactions among the characters are great, they work off each other so well, and the dialog between them sounds real and not forced at all. You can honestly tell the English cast is having a great time with this anime. Another great feature of the anime is the villain Adachi who has got to be one of the greatest video game villains I’ve seen. Bosch does a great job voicing this guy and he just oozes with evil. Adachi has you played as a fool throughout the show you never suspect him and when you finally do face him he continues to belittle and talk down to you and the world and surprisingly his argument and dialog about the world is very interesting and somewhat truthful as there are a lot of people who think along the lines of Adachi and act like him. Yes, some people do what to live in blissful ignorance ignoring the truth and just go through life worry free.
The animation is good though it can be a little faded and dark in some areas but the character designs, dungeons, and personas are great to look at. Fight scenes are decent with the best one being Yu fighting against Adachi but I don’t like how the characters are always relying on their personas to fight instead of fighting alongside them and just like Persona 3 I wish we saw the group fight more shadows to see more of Yu’s fusion techniques and see how the team fought with each other and the roles they all had on the team. I also wish they took their time and explored the dungeons more, the anime really does speed pass the dungeons which is really a shame because the dungeons are in fact creative, fun to explore, and would have been a good way to show how the team fought together, as well as understand the person who created the dungeon better instead of just rushing it out at us in one scene. The music great as always in the Persona series. A majority of the music is all new tracks created by the series’ composer and is a welcomed addition to the Persona 4 series and music from the game also makes its way into the anime so you won’t be disappointed there. The story is great. It has a good mixture of comedy, drama, action, mystery, life and other dark themes that the Persona series is known for and the theme they present to you in the series is well-done and presented in a way that everyone from children to adults will understand.
Final Score
The final score for Persona 4 the animation is a 7.5/10. This is one of the best video game to anime adaptations I’ve seen. There are a few problems but the anime is still enjoyable and pays homage and respect to the original game. If you haven’t played Persona 4 but like the series this would be a good anime to watch and if you have played Persona 4 and would like to see a good adaptation of it than check this anime out. It’s an anime that’s a good watch for both fans and newcomers to the Persona series and one that should be seen at least once. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.
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