*Inside Nitsuj’s house the AI girls and the Aniplex representatives have their guns/weapons pointed at each other*
(Shizuku): Boss, just say the word and we’ll take these guys down.
(CloverWorks representative): I like to see you try missy.
(Nitsuj): Everybody be cool. Let’s talk this out, who’s in charge here?
(Well-dressed man): That would be me. Nitsuj I assume?
(Nitsuj): Yes.
(Well-dressed man): I’m special agent Mike Lorenzo of Aniplex. I’ve read about you in Chase Miller’s report. You’ll find me not to be as easy as him.
(Nitsuj): I doubt it. You came charging into my house, and the last time you guys did that it didn’t end well.
(Mike): I respect you Nitsuj and what you do. However, you are shining a negative light on Aniplex.
(Nitsuj): Don’t you guys see all the harm you did with this anime and what a terrible representation of the game it is?
(Mike): No. As far as I’m concerned the anime was great. I go as far as saying we surpassed the game.
(Seras): Nitsuj, I won’t violate my laws but if I get my hands on him I’ll come very close.
(Nitsuj): Seras, no! I’m handling this. You really think this anime surpassed the game? We’ll if you’re so confident why don’t we have a sit down and continue the review. Unless, you doubt the work of your bosses.
(Mike): Very well. Stand down guys. Let’s see what he has to say.
(Nitsuj): This is the second part of Persona 5 the animation.
Opening and Ending Theme
The second opening is “Dark Sun” by Lyn. A good song but not as good as the first one in my opinion. It seems like the song is trying too hard to be like Persona 3 instead of Persona 5. While I love Persona 3, I want to hear a song that fits more with Persona 5. Also, hi budget, so this is where you went. No seriously, the animation for this opening has a bigger budget and more thought put into it than the actual anime. Think about that for a minute.
The second ending is “Autonomy” by Lyn. This song was a banger. There’s a chill and positive vibe to this song that matches up perfectly with Persona 5. While the song is a lot slower than the first ending, I think it works out great here as the atmosphere this song creates just puts you at ease.
Episodes 14-18
Episode 14 focuses on Makoto who I hate to say it, has probably one of the weakest confidants in the game (I love her but let’s be honest, her social link was weak). Usually, these confidants gives us insight into a character and allows us to explore them more. We get a little bit of that such as Makoto wondering what it is she wants to do. Throughout her life everything she’s done has been to get the approval of her sister and the adults around her (not a healthy way to live) but now she’s starting to question what it is she wants to do with her life (this had the potential to be a great story). Unfortunately, the story gets sidelined and we focus on a girl named Eiko, another student at Shujin who’s in the same grade as Makoto but unlike Makoto who works hard, Eiko prefers to just coast through life having fun (scene here: https://youtu.be/uqfZi8E9SHY). The two develop a friendship with each other and she invites Makoto and Akira on a double date because she’s convinced that they’re dating (you and a lot of other people, sweetheart). Eiko’s boyfriend Tsukasa happens to be a host at a club and Makoto is worried that Tsukasa might be playing her for money (which unfortunately is quite common with hosts. Scene here: https://youtu.be/IcLi7F8dyCA). Makoto does some investigating with Akira where they find out he’s infamous for tricking young girls into debt and might be connected to a gang. Eiko of course doesn’t believe them until Makoto exposes the jackass in front her by revealing he doesn’t remember Eiko’s name at all (oh shit, that’s a paddlin’). At first Eiko turns on Makoto telling her to stay out her business since Tsukasa is the only one who looks at her but Makoto smacks her and forces her to face the truth (scene here: https://youtu.be/a117Fq9Bylk. The sky is blue, the grass is green, Tsukasa’s an asshole who uses young girls to get money). The only real change the anime adds in this confidant is a fight in Mementos between the Phantom Thieves and Tsukasa’s shadow which is a welcomed addition to the story and something I wish they added in the game (scene here: https://youtu.be/LpW9K7tZcso). They defeat the shadow which makes Tsukasa have a change of heart and confesses his wrong doings. Eiko soon breaks up with the guy and apologizes to Makoto who has decided that when she gets older she’s going to become a police officer like her dad and rid the world of corruption.
In episode 15 the thieves are called out by Medjed a hacktivist group who says their justice is false and threaten to attack Japan if the thieves don’t come out and reveal their identities by July 31st. While the group is dealing with that, Akira begins receiving text messages from a hacker named Alibaba who offers to take care of Medjed for them but in return they must steal the heart of someone named Futaba Sakura (scene here: https://youtu.be/Zn2dHeFOCSk). This raises suspicion within the group as Sakura is Sojiro’s last name so they think that Futaba might have some relation to him but he hasn’t talked about her and Akira is afraid to ask him directly as he’s afraid to upset Sojiro (he is a scary man when he’s angry). Having no other option and with the threat made by Medjed, the group decides to ask Sojiro about Futaba directly but he’s not at the café. They go to his house where the lights are on but Sojiro isn’t there. The lights get knocked out by a storm and fear starts to take hold as Makoto is scared and we get a quick shot of Futaba (scene here: https://youtu.be/GIK8pVP8Ov0).
In episode 16 Sojiro comes home and sees everyone inside (and he has legal rights to shoot you for trespassing on his property). After everyone calms down Sojiro tells them about Futaba and his relationship with her (have the police on standby). It turns out Futaba voiced by Aoi Yūki (Tanya from Youjo Senki) isn’t Sojiro’s child but instead the child of his good friend Wakaba, a scientist who specialized in cognitive psience (aka cognitive science which is the study of the mind and its processes. It’s complicated stuff). The father was unknown, so Wakaba raised Futaba on her own until one day she committed suicide by jumping into traffic right in front of Futaba (oh God the trauma). Sojiro took custody of Futaba who locked herself in her room closing herself off from the world and everyone in it (scene here: https://youtu.be/Cf70QdBhw6Y). After hearing the story, the thieves are now determined more than ever to help Futaba but they can’t do much if she doesn’t have a palace. Thankfully (and unfortunately), she does, and after talking to her again they get a hit in the metaverse where they’re taken to her palace which is a pyramid in the dessert (which is honestly the saddest palace in the game but also one of the more creative dungeons. It looks like a normal pyramid outside but inside it’s high-tech with hieroglyphs being binary codes, https://youtu.be/_4TPlwwHM8Q?t=4s. There’s also holographic paintings and platforms as well as air conditioning. It’s basically ancient civilization meets high tech and I love it). They enter the pyramid where they come face to face with Futaba’s shadow (or Queen Futaba as I like to call her. Scene here: https://youtu.be/Lvogcmnae3k) where we get insight into Futaba’s situation such as finding out that she believes the death of her mother was her fault and it didn’t help that everyone around her pinned the blame on her and even forged a suicide note where Wakaba blamed her for all the hardships in her life (that is low). The shadow even tricks them into traps which reflects Futaba’s real life state of not knowing what she wants to do. A part of her wants them to save her but another part of her believes all that BS and thinks she deserves to die. In the days to come the group traverses the palace in order to reach the treasure all while avoiding traps, shadows, and seeing the state of Futaba’s mind. They finally make it to the pharaoh’s room but in order to get inside they must get the real Futaba to let them into her room (scene here: https://youtu.be/Gr9ZStYY7fI). So, they go to Futaba and manage to get her to let them into their room and they even meet her face to face.
Episode 17 gives us the end of Futaba’s palace. The Phantom Thieves give her a calling card and enter her palace where they manage to reach the treasure room and wind up on top of the pyramid where they fight Futaba’s cognition of Wakaba in the form of the Sphinx (answer the Sphinx’s riddle correctly or die). They try to shoot it down but it’s out of their reach which means they’re at the mercy of it. Back in the real-world, Futaba gets the metaverse app and enters her own palace (this takes Inception up to a whole new level) where she faces all the dark emotions in her heart to discover the truth about her relationship with her mom. What she discovers is that Wakaba truly did love and care for her and that she was tricked by adults who played off Wakaba’s murder as suicide caused by her (scene here: https://youtu.be/Gr9ZStYY7fI). Now that Futaba knows the truth, she awakens her persona, Necronomicon in the form of a UFO (scene here: https://youtu.be/iuUAIQ-oMa8. H.P. Lovecraft’s work is now a part of the Persona universe. I welcome this). With the help of Futaba, the thieves are able to shoot down Wakaba and unleash their attacks which ultimately destroy it (scene here: https://youtu.be/bz3qM4Vt_cA. Now here’s a riddle, can a Sphinx survive a bullet to the head?). After the Sphinx is defeated the real Wakaba shows up and has some final heartfelt words with Futaba before disappearing. Futaba takes her leave (ladies and gentlemen, Futaba has left the pyramid) and the place collapses on them (scene here: https://youtu.be/Lfx4HewU0yY. As far as the treasure goes, Futaba was the treasure). Once they return to the real world, Futaba falls into a deep sleep from overexerting herself but wakes up a few days later just in time for Medjed’s attack where she shuts down their site with just the push of a button. With Medjed defeated, our thieves’ rebel in their victory and we find out that Futaba is the real Medjed. She started off as a hacker of justice but because she was anonymous other hackers took her name and started using it to commit cybercrimes. It would have been a hassle exposing them all so she just let them be and took on the name Alibaba. With Futaba all healed up and going outside, Sojiro decides to celebrate by taking Akira and Futaba out for sushi where Futaba officially joins the phantom thieves as their tech girl, Oracle.
In episode 18 we get quite a number of scenarios of the game. The first one is the thieves improving Futaba’s social skills. They have her work at Leblanc, take her outside, and even take her to the beach (scene here: https://youtu.be/VOA90AaN2OU and https://youtu.be/A9xtWZDoX6M). There’s a cute moment where she goes to Akihabara by herself only to get scared and panic and get saved by Akira and Ryuji where she finds she’s most comfortable being around Akira (scene here: https://youtu.be/Go7zb7suviU, once again establishing that brother and sisterly bond they have in the game). We get started on Ann’s social link (took them long enough. Seriously, at this point in the game I had maxed out her social link and made her my first girlfriend) where we see she works part-time as a model but doesn’t go on rigorous training or dieting that a lot of models do to stay in shape and look good (she’s a natural beauty) which pisses off another model and she uses her acting skills and charm to get Ann off a shoot (bitch). We also see that after the Medjed incident the popularity of the Phantom Thieves has skyrocketed as everyone is talking about them (they even have their own merchandise) and with their popularity comes the expansion of Mementos (both a good thing and a bad thing). The final story in the episode focuses on Morgana who feels like his place on the team is becoming nonexistent. Everyone has grown over the course of time while Morgana has remained the same, plus Makoto and Futaba seem to be able to understand Mementos more than Morgana ever could (at this point Morgana might as well just be the mascot for the thieves which ironically he is the mascot for the game). He starts to wonder if he really is human (you’re not. You’re a cat) and Akira assures him he is which cheers him up a little bit (scene here: https://youtu.be/ujWWDQsVNWg).
Episodes 19-22
Episode 19 gives us the Hawaiian trip for the school where our thieves (minus Futaba and Morgana) go to Hawaii and have a good time where we see their fame has gone international (first, we will steal Japan, then the world). We also see Yusuke is there after his school’s trip to LA got cancelled due to a storm. We also get to see Hifumi again as Akira saves her from a group of locals wanting to learn more about the Phantom Thieves from her (scene here: https://youtu.be/5Va9p6q7m2c). While this is all going on Futaba analyzes the data Makoto stole from Sae’s laptop about the mental shutdowns in the hopes of finding a lead into who’s causing them which could lead back to her mother’s killer. We also see principal Kingpin have a mental shutdown and get run over in the streets (scene here: https://youtu.be/vS-222oKmjM, well that was an over the top way to die) and a few people start to think the Phantom Thieves are responsible for this murder. Once Futaba gets done analyzing the data, they find a lead which leads them to Kunikuzu Okumura the CEO of Okumura Foods which owns and operates popular burger joints in Japan. His company’s profits have skyrocketed incredibly from the mental shutdown incidents as the incidents involved his competitors plus there are rumors about him mistreating his employees. Futaba confirms that he has a palace and for the first time the group is torn on what to do. Ryuji and Morgana want to move in and change his heart while the others are hesitating because of all the media attention they’ve been getting (you’re becoming famous way too quickly. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from fame is that the bigger the fame the harder the fall and it only takes one mistake to make you fall). Morgana has enough of their hesitation and along with his frustrations about his past he enters the palace himself (scene here: https://youtu.be/cVQpqbgSXyY).
In episode 20 the thieves enter Kunikuzu’s palace to look for Morgana. We see that his palace takes on a space theme (specifically Death Star from Star Wars) where he sees his employees as robots whose sole purpose is to work and follow orders (and once they can’t produce results no more, dispose of them. Are you sure this isn’t Trump’s palace?). They come to their first wall where they need authentication to enter a door but don’t have it. They then get approached by Morgana who is with a new Phantom Thief a girl calling herself Beauty Thief (who needs to work on her lines). She’s able to bypass the secured doors but has to retreat as a horde of robots attack her and the others (scene here: https://youtu.be/ox8yHpqSky0). The group quickly figures out that Beauty Thief is actually Haru a 3rd year student who is part of the Gardening club at school and is the heiress to Okumura Foods (the rich girl). She’s voiced by Haruka Tomatsu (Asuna from SAO). Now, out of all the characters from the game, Haru is probably the weakest of the bunch and I don’t mean that from a fighting perspective but from a character perspective. That’s not to say she’s a bad character, I like her, I just think that out of all the characters in the game she’s the least developed of the group and that’s mostly due to the fact that comes so late in the game. Her character is basically a fusion of Fuuka from Persona 3 and Yukiko from Persona 4. She’s a sweet girl who may look weak and fragile on the surface but she’s mentally strong and uses a smile to hide her worries. Anyway, the group approaches her at school where she doesn’t hide that she’s Beauty Thief. She tells them that she came across Morgana by chance and followed him into Kunikuzu’s palace where she saved him and donned the name Beauty Thief to investigate the rumors of her father (which ones? The one about him being a slave driver to his employees or that he’s Trump’s alter ego?). The thieves try to get her to join up with them seeing as how their goals align with each other but Haru says no as they can’t even help Morgana so how they can help her (because your problems are simple. The sky is blue, your father is an asshole. Let’s change his heart. Morgana is a cat but at the same time he’s not a cat. More details at a later date. Scene here: https://youtu.be/UhBXbPPt9qc)? Haru returns home from school where we see her home life sucks. Kunikuzu doesn’t consider her feelings or opinions on stuff and instead just sees her as a tool to use just like his employees. He’s set up in arranged marriage for her to marry this complete asshole who treats her like his personal slave just so he can get into politics with the other family’s help (are we sure he’s not Trump? This is getting too real). Morgana and Haru begin changing the hearts of people in Mementos in order to train where the thieves catch them and talk where I have to admit this scene was slightly better in here than in the game. The main focus of their conversation is on Ryuji and Morgana as Ryuji was the one who called Morgana useless while Morgana said Ryuji was only concerned about fame and nothing else. In the game Ryuji kind of came across as a jerk not really apologizing for what he said, but here, it actually does seem like he’s thought about what Morgana said, feels bad about what he said, and was genuinely worried about Morgana. Just when it seems like Morgana was going to come back Ryuji messes up and upsets Morgana that he runs away with Haru. Once back in the real world, Haru gets grabbed by her fiancé who’s been tracking her every movement via phone (what the hell man, that’s like stalker level creepy). Morgana tries to save her but gets thrown into a wall and injured. The others hear all of the commotion and save Haru from her fiancé (scene here: https://youtu.be/S5CexVR-k2E, you messing with Haru is one thing but if you hurt our cat you’re a dead man). They tend to Morgana in Akira’s room where they all finally make-up with each other, Ryuji apologizes properly to Morgana, and agree to join forces to take down Kunikuzu and hopefully soon because he’s set up a date to wed Haru off to that asshole of a fiancé.
If you thought the anime was rushing through palaces before, take discomfort in the fact that they do Kunikuzu (or Darth Kunikuzu as I like to call him because he’s dressed as a bad cosplay version of Darth Vader) in one episode (hell, it’s not even a full episode it’s more like 16 minutes). They start by doing their initial infiltration where they run into Darth Kunikuzu and a cognition of the asshole fiancé where Kunikuzu reveals that he only views Haru (now calling herself Noir) as just a stepping stone for him to use in order to achieve his goals (seriously, are you really sure this isn’t Trump?). The fiancé turns into a giant robot and attacks Haru where she awakens her persona Milady from the Three Musketeers (fitting, seeing as how her outfit is based off of them and she herself is a milady. Scene here: https://youtu.be/eSTAVt-ApCY). After this they just breeze through the dungeon (I will give them some credit and say that at this point in the game you should be able to breeze through the palaces with no problem). So, they find the treasure room, send Kunikuzu the call card, and go to face Darth Kunikuzu and his army of robots where they win, change his heart, get his treasure and leave. Little did they know that someone else was there and actually kills Darth Kunikuzu (well this won’t end well). On the day that Kunikuzu goes to confess his crimes, he has a mental shutdown and dies at a live televised conference (https://youtu.be/CpDWH1XgPa0 or put up a nice boat).
In episode 22, after the death of Kunikuzu, the public turns against the Phantom Thieves (the bigger the fame the bigger the fall). They slowly piece together that they were set up by someone powerful and are now being investigated by the police as well as Japan’s Special Investigation Unit (SIU). The investigation is being headed up by Sae who has become obsessed with the case and wants to bring the thieves to justice in order to get that promotion (it’s not about justice prevailing, it’s about getting that promotion and getting the power and money that go along with it). This episode surprisingly focuses on more of the social links in the game. We have Mishima who refuses to let things end on a bad note and tries to get the thieves to change the heart of this idol he’s obviously jealous of, Akira plays shogi against Hifumi in a chapel where she talks about the stress of her mom trying to make her a shogi star in the world of shogi (only in Japan folks) and just being unbearable, and we get a cool new added scene where Shiho makes a return with Ann and says her goodbye to her and Akira which motivates Ann to start taking her modeling career more seriously as to not bring shame to Shiho (that was cool. I really do wish they would have used Shiho more in the game). In a later part of the episode, Mishima tries to post a murderous message against those who don’t support the Phantom Thieves (he snapped). Futaba intercepted the message before it could be posted, and they go to Mementos to confront Mishima’s shadow. The confrontation is very similar to the game’s confrontation where Mishima honestly believes that he’s the one who’s changing the hearts of people. In the past he was a zero, an NPC (which is true), but once he started the Phan-Site he found a purpose for his life. He wanted to be a hero like the others but didn’t have the power to be one, so he did the only thing he knew how to support them (only to have it fail and backfire on them). Mishima knows that what he did was wrong and begs the thieves to change his heart but they say no and tell him to face what’s in front of him just like they intend to do (sorry Mishima, but you don’t get the easy way out). The next day after midterms (second midterms, they’re entering the winter season now) we see Mishima managed to change his own heart himself and has started writing a documentary about the Phantom Thieves as a way to show his support.
Episodes 23-26 and Specials
In episode 23 Akira’s school is having their cultural festival and the guest speaker is Akechi. During his panel the students want to hear his thoughts on the Phantom Thieves where he actually sides with them not believing that they’re responsible for the murder of Haru’s dad given the character of the thieves. His cellphone goes off and he invites Makoto and the others to talk to him in private where he reveals that he knows they’re the Phantom Thieves (took you long enough) and he too can go into the metaverse. It was in the metaverse that he saw the black masked killer kill Haru’s dad and even tried to kill Akechi but he awakened to his persona and escaped in the nick of time. He now wants to work out a deal with the thieves to clear their name and find the real culprit. His plan, changing the heart of Sae. Sae goes off the deep end and issues a warrant for the arrest of the Phantom Thieves with a 30 million yen reward. Akechi wants to change Sae’s heart to show the world not to mess with the Phantom Thieves and with Sae on their side that’ll be enough to get the heat off of the thieves and allow Akechi to find the real criminal. The only downside to this plan is that the Phantom Thieves must disband once they change Sae’s heart and they agree to his terms.
At the start of episode 24 our Phantom Thieves enter Sae’s palace which is a casino. To Sae, the courthouse is basically a casino where she has to win no matter what or lose everything (that actually does describe a court room setting perfectly). Trials are just gambles that the prosecutor sets in their favor, losing is unacceptable (https://youtu.be/07So_lJQyqw), and win even if it means bringing up false charges. Once they enter the casino we get to see Akechi’s outfit which is all white (suspicion levels rising) and meet Sae’s shadow who tells them that the treasure is on the top floor and if they want it they’ll have to show their gambling skills and make it up to high-rollers area. She takes her leave and the group gets attacked by a shadow where Akechi shows off his persona, Robin Hood. They decide to retreat for the time being and from there the story focuses on Sojiro’s confidant. He’s found Futaba’s calling card in her room and tries to get answers out of her but she locks herself in her room. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Futaba’s uncle comes by to exploit Sojiro for child support money. You see originally Futaba was passed around from relative to relative until she wound up with her uncle who treated her like garbage (you harmed my sweet Futaba? You must die). Once Sojiro saw this, he paid the bastard in order to have custody of Futaba but the bastard keeps coming back for money since he himself is in financial debt due to bad investments and threatens to go to court in order to get custody of Futaba. Akira wants to help and even gets Akechi to help him out (you know CloverWorks, why don’t you just come out and say you want to suck him off. (Mike): That’s not it at all. (Yin-Yang): Than care to explain why the wallpaper on your cellphone is a shirtless Akechi? (Will): What!? How’d you get my phone? (Yume): You blinked. (Yin-Yang): And that’s all the time I need). Futaba’s uncle comes by again the next day and threatens to go to court but Akechi says if he did he would lose due to his bad investments. Angered by this, Futaba’s uncle tries to hit Sojiro but Akira shields him (the surrogate son protects his surrogate father. Wonderful). Futaba’s uncle holds back his punch and instead falls down claiming that Akira assaulted him and sues. The next day domestic affairs comes in where Sojiro and Akira are backed into a wall (we have Akira on probation who has a history of violence and Sojiro who lets Futaba stay home from school and said girl is holed up in her room. From an outsider perspective this is bad parenting on Sojiro’s part). Morgana goes to get Futaba who rushes over and says she’s happy living with Sojiro and even goes as far as calling him her dad (that’s sweet. Hell, it even brings tears to Sojiro’s eyes). With hearing Futaba’s testimony and looking over Akira’s school records, they can find nothing wrong here and take their leave (scene here: https://youtu.be/yXLVSvhEROQ). After all that’s settled, Akira and Futaba are forced to tell Sojiro about their part-time jobs as Phantom Thieves (there’s no pay but the benefits are good) and he’s surprisingly okay with this as he had his suspicions in earlier episodes (there was the painting from Yusuke and Futaba’s drastic change. You had to be a fool not to realize something was up). He agrees to keep their secret safe and promises to protect them as long as they’re under his roof.
In episode 25 our thieves continue to venture and gamble their way through Sae’s palace. They reach the second level where Joker does the Colosseum and beats all the shadows including Thor (Joker: Yesssssss~! We know each other! He’s a friend from the Velvet Room). They finally get 100,000 chips which is the requirement in order to reach the high-rollers area but Sae decides to change the rules and make it 1 million chips (hey, that wasn’t part of the deal, https://youtu.be/jsW9MlYu31g). But the joke’s on her as Akechi used their spare card and has been secretly earning chips as well. His chips combined with the chips they already have equals 1 million chips and they finally gain access to the high-rollers area which is also the treasure room. They send the calling card and go to face Sae where aside from the weird CGI doll that is Sae’s shadow, we get a decent fight where everybody participates to bring her down. With Sae defeated they get her treasure but an unknown group has entered the palace. Joker decides to be a distraction while the others escape.
Episode 26 gives us the bad ending of the game. Akira gets captured by the police and we return to the present time where Akira is being interrogated by Sae about all the events that led to where he is (this has been one long interrogation). Sae gives Akira a chance to lighten his sentence by naming his associates but Akira’s no snitch and he refuses to talk sticking to what he believes justice is and seeing it to the very end. After Sae’s interrogation is over, Akechi shows up and reveals that he’s the traitor (well duh, you were the only one wearing all white. The game made it obvious he was the traitor from the get go which is kind of shame because Akechi being the traitor could have been more shocking and better if he joined the group earlier in the game sort of like Adachi from Persona 4. What made Adachi’s reveal as the killer in the game so great was that he had you fooled into believing he was just a bumbling detective. Plus, he was a character we got to know and spend time with. Akechi joined the group too late in the game so it made it all the more obvious that he was the traitor). Akechi shoots the officer on standby and then shoots Akira killing him and putting the gun in his hand to make it look like he committed suicide before walking out with a creepy smile on his face (and that’s the bad ending from the game. Akechi wins just like CloverWorks wanted).
A short while after the anime officially ended, a special was aired called Dark Sun which picked up the story where it left off from the anime. The special starts with the news reporting Akira’s death saying it was suicide (in an interrogation room?). Naturally, everyone is shocked by this news but little do they know that Akira is still alive and kickin’ and was taken back to Leblanc by Sae to hide. A few days go by and everyone meets up at Leblanc with Sae and we find out how they pulled off Akira’s fake death in what I have to say was a very clever use of the metaverse. It’s kind of hard to explain in detail but basically they tricked Sae and Akechi into the metaverse where Akechi killed the cognitive version of Akira and not the real one. Papers were forged to falsify Akira’s supposed death, Sae made sure nobody checked the morgue for Akira’s body, and Sae managed to get Akira out safely and bought him to Leblanc where he could rest. As for how the thieves knew Akechi was the traitor, the answer was Morgana. Remember that pancake talk in episode 10? How he could he hear Morgana if he’s never been in a palace? The answer, Akechi knew about the metaverse long before them and has been using it for his own personal goals. It finally gets revealed that he’s working for a guy named Shido a man running for Prime Minister and is a favorite to win. He’s the one who’s been pulling the strings on all these mental shutdown cases and is the one who got Akira on probation (and things just got personal). The thieves’ next target is Shido and they go to his palace which is a large luxury cruise that sails all throughout a sunken Japan with him as the captain and only those he deems worthy and loyal to him on board (alright, this is Trump’s palace). So, they make their way through his palace (at this point you should be able to one day this palace. Scene here: https://youtu.be/5pJMRGRDKOY) where we discover that he was friends with Wakaba in the past and stole her research for his own purposes. The Medjed scandal during the summer was all formulated by him to boost the fame of the Phantom Thieves and then have them fall from grace in order to boost his public approval (he truly is a politician). Akechi catches on to their trick and goes to face them in the palace where he reveals that he was the one behind the mental shutdowns and that he’s really Shido’s illegitimate son (he takes after his father so well). Joker and Akechi fight where we get to see Akechi’s real persona is Loki (I’m not sure if he has the same power as Joker and can use multiple personas or if Loki just shapeshifted in order to trick the others). Joker manages to beat Akechi and tries to get Akechi to join their group for real this time, but before he can give an answer the Akechi of Shido’s palace arrives to shoot him along with other shadows (killed by a cognitive version of yourself. How ironic). The real Akechi shoots first and takes on the horde of shadows all by himself in a closed off area where it’s hinted he died (yay, now CloverWorks can stop adding him in to random scenes). After the fight with Akechi, they finally reach the treasure room and send their calling card where they hijack the radiowaves and let everyone know that they’re alive, Joker is alive (and cooler than ever), and they are coming to steal his treasure (scene here: https://youtu.be/WRmc0o6njtM). They go the palace and fight the shadow Shido (who’s got this M. Bison/Shredder attire going on) which really isn’t all that impressive as you would have hoped (well at least they played Rivers in the Dessert). They manage to defeat the shadow but the real Shido takes some pill which sends him into a catatonic state which starts to destroy his palace. The group manages to escape thanks to Ryuji and return to the real world safely. After the credits, we see Shido won the election and confesses his crimes to everyone (scene here: https://youtu.be/Sts3sxfYbIA).
In the special titled Stars and Ours we see that despite Shido confessing his crimes and having a change a heart something is wrong with society. The people still cling to Shido and the Phantom Thieves are being treated as an urban legend (really? Then how do you explain all the crap that went down this past year? Not to sound racist Japan but I thought you guys would be smarter and more tolerant than this). The world has become distorted and the only way to change it is to go into the depths of Mementos and steal the treasure of society’s unconsciousness. This of course means destroying the metaverse which means that the Phantom Thieves will be no more once Mementos is gone. They all agree to steal Mementos’ treasure and journey down into the depths of Mementos (which is looking more like Hell the deeper they go. Welcome to the SMT universe folks) where they see their past targets locked up in cells with the rest of society and wonder who the ruler of this palace is. They come across Shido who explains that the ruler of this palace is the masses but at the same time not the masses. Nobody forced them into the cells, they went in themselves to achieve freedom (or in this cased controlled freedom). By going into the cells and allowing themselves to be locked up they achieve the freedom to not make any more decisions and think for themselves (in other words, ignorant bliss. Dear God, it’s a Tumblr page). As they continue down into Mementos they come across a quarantined cell where Morgana says this is where he was born (you come from a disturbing neighborhood). They finally reach the lowest part of Mementos and come face to face with the manifestation of human desires, the Holy Grail (https://youtu.be/m3dZl3yfGpc?t=9) and it talks (getting it to refill itself is the trick). The Holy Grail talks about how society wants to be locked up, not be reformed, and instead live a life free of choices and thinking (again, a Tumblr page). The Holy Grail will now fuse with reality in order to fulfill the desire of man. It kicks them out of Mementos (kicked out by an inanimate object. What is life?) and back in the real world where it begins to rain red rain and Mementos fuses with the real world with nobody batting an eye at this because in their distorted minds this is normal. As for our thieves, they begin to disappear because the distorted world doesn’t acknowledge their existence and if the world doesn’t acknowledge them then they have no place in this new world. They all disappear from reality (https://youtu.be/tyMxaIaJCug) with Akira waking up in the Velvet Room and Igor (legs! I’m sorry I’m just not used to seeing him standing up) saying he shall be executed for failing to rehabilitate society. His execution will be carried out by Caroline and Justine but Akira’s rebellious spirit refuses to go down without a fight. As the twins prepare to fight Akira they remember their true purpose isn’t to kill him but instead help him. They remember how they were originally one being before being torn apart by a powerful force. They tell Akira to fuse them together (using the guillotine? Well this got dark or darker in this case) and he fuses them which gives birth to their original form, Lavenza (Minato gets a sexy elevator attendant, Yu gets a mature beauty, Minako gets a charming guy, and Akira gets a cute loli. I think Minato won but I’m sure the masses will say Akira won in the end). Lavenza reveals that the Igor we’ve been seeing this whole time isn’t a real Igor (of course! The real Igor would never stand) but instead the Holy Grail in disguise. The Holy Grail was using Akira to see if humanity was worth saving by seeing a righteous hero vanquish the evils of the world but instead humanity decided to be stupid (like always) and completely ignore his heroic feats. This made the Holy Grail see that humanity isn’t worth saving and would be better off left in ruin. He offers Joker a chance to return to the world where the Phantom Thieves will be praised as heroes but he refuses and the Holy Grail takes its leave. This allows the real Igor to return and Akira frees the others who were also in the Velvet Room. When they all gather Morgana reappears and reveals that he was created by Igor (in other words, he’s the Velvet Room’s pet cat). When the Holy Grail was taking over, Igor gathered the last traces of humanity’s hope and created Morgana whose job was to find Akira and help him through his journey (as well as force him to go to bed when he didn’t want to in order to progress the story). They also reveal that the Holy Grail is actually a god who was scared of Akira’s potential to change the world so it rigged the world against Akira but he still managed to pull through and overcame everything the Holy Grail put against him (at this point the Holy Grail is just being a sore loser). They return to reality and go to face the Holy Grail’s true form where despite their best shots it’s not enough to bring it down. But the masses begin to wake up and cheer on the thieves where they’re existence gets 100% approval from the masses and this allows Akira to summon his ultimate persona Satanael (big daddy rebel in the house). Satanael pops a bullet in the head of the Holy Grail (and jackpot) to defeat and return it to its original form where Morgana touches it and he vanishes along with the treasure. The thieves return back to reality where the hearts of man have changed, Shido is being prosecuted for his crimes, and Mementos is no more. Yep, everything seems right with the world except for one thing. In order to put Shido away for good Akira must give his testimony which means he’ll be exposed as a Phantom Thief and sent to juvy but the others will be safe and the government can hide their blunder that a group of vigilantes saved the country instead of them. Akira agrees and he goes to juvy where thanks to the help of everyone (which honestly made me tear up in the game a bit) they manage to track down the woman who testified against him, confess the truth, thus lifting his probation and being allowed to go free. He gets picked up by Sojiro and returns to Leblanc where Morgana is there in cat form deciding he’s going to stay by Akira’s side in the hopes he can find some way to become human. After that, we get our ending just like in the game where Akira thanks everyone for helping him out, he decides to return home to face his parents, and the others give him a ride to end the series.
(Mike): See, like I said a great series. As shown by the Blu-Ray sales.
*Mike pulls up Blu-Ray sales to see that the numbers are low*
(Mike): Oh my God! The numbers are low! How is that possible?
(Nitsuj): Because the Persona fandom is smart and you gave them nothing worth watching.
Final Thoughts
While granted the anime isn’t complete garbage as there are some add-ins and changes that do make the scenes better and the incorporation of music from the game with new added pieces is good, this anime fails to capture the heart and soul of what made Persona 5 such a big hit. The characters fall flat as we don’t get as much chance to explore them as we would like, Akira really has no personality, it rushes through palaces so we never get a chance to see the team dynamic between the Phantom Thieves or watch them grow as a team. They also rush past the confidants as well as we never get a chance to explore them. I get that trying to fit the game into 26 episodes was a hard task but look at Persona 4. Despite all the faults of the anime, it did give us a chance to explore the characters and managed to tell the complete story in a manner that was acceptable while adding in some new content and expanding on its characters.
Along with the rushed story, this anime feels lazy as there’s a lot of animation mistakes in the background that are laughable and there doesn’t seem to be any passion for this project as you would have hoped. They simplified the story and just saw this anime as making a quick buck so that they could focus on their other projects they had going on. What could have been a great anime that both fans and new fans could enjoy becomes a wasted opportunity and time.
Final Score
The final score for Persona 5 the animation is a disappointing 4/10. A poor representation of a great game. What made Persona 5 so great was that it challenged you, made you think, and gave you something to come back to that every time you played the game you walked away with a new perspective of the characters and themes. This anime doesn’t give us any of that which is why everyone will easily choose the game over the anime and keep returning to it. Yes, the game may be longer but those hours are totally worth it not because it’s worth playing but because there’s a passion and energy from everyone who worked on it so much that you can’t help but fall in love with the game just like them. This is why everyone is so excited for Royal to come out, because they know that they’re in for a different experience that will present a new side to the characters that we didn’t get a chance to see in the original.
(Mike): You know Nitsuj. . .you’re absolutely right. Which is why I can’t allow you to post this blog. Men!
*Nitsuj just sits back in his chair as the Aniplex representatives prepare to fire their rifles only to realize they have no clips*
(Yin-Yang): Looking for these?
*Yin-Yang holds up a bag filled with gun clips*
(Mike): What! How did-
(Seras): You blinked.
(Yin-Yang): And it’s all the time I need.
(Nitsuj): You made the same mistake as Chase. All-out attack guys!
*Nitsuj and the AI girls charge at Mike and the others for an all-out attack where once their attack is finished they strike a pose*
(Chibi Isis): The end.
*A few minutes later, Nitsuj and the others get done loading Mike and the others into the black vans with the drivers not even attempting to fight back*
(Nitsuj): Alright, that’s all of them. Tell Aniplex to stay out of my business and I might stay out of theirs.
*The driver nods*
(Nitsuj): Good. Now, get off my property.
*The drivers of the black vans take off one by one*
(Nitsuj): Thanks for reading and happy holidays. I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.
*All videos, clips, and music are not owned by me and belong to their respective owners. All rights reserved*
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