May 11 2012 10:06 PM Persona 4...ever since the disastrous "original" Persona anime we received in 2008 as well as the "horrifying" Shin Megami Tensei anime series between 2001 and 2003, you'd think that anime staff would learn their lesson. Luckily for Persona 4, this was indeed a step in the right direction (4th time a charm?)
Story wise, the anime managed to capture the important plot points of the game's story as well as achieved the "major" social links of the game. The upgrade to the ultimate Personas in the final episode felt really cheesy to me but overall, the show really did do what it could in a measly 25 episodes for a 120 hour game, especially going down the "completion" route. There were a few episodes that felt overly dragged out but it wasn't to the point that I felt like hating the series to death. The Persona 3 field trip/cameo was probably my favorite episode in the series though. I really would have enjoyed it to the fullest had they brought in the characters from Persona 3. I guess what really hit me hard though was how Yu just managed to pull out random Personas but that's probably being overly nitpicky.
Animation wise, the show is certainly better than the game, but then again, this was a PS2 game, albeit late in the console's lifetime. I'm not impressed with the quality having seen that AIC A.S.T.A has done better in previous works such as Bamboo Blade and Gun x Sword. Heck, even the 2004 Godannar!! season 2 looked better than some of the quality here. The character designs were great but the fight scenes were often too blurry and masked with cheap animation effects. Granted that the animation effects fit the retro feel of the original game and the setting of the story, the blurriness and overly "flashy" animation that obscured the actual action is not a valid excuse. In essence, I'd say this is the real drag of the show.
Music was overall solid for this show and retained the feel of the original Persona 4 game. Voice actors are the same from the game and I'm glad they kept that. The bonus Persona 3 music from the from Persona 3 episode only helped this score even further and a huge plus for me.
Enjoyment? Ah yes, the most subjective grade of all...as someone who has played the game, it was fairly enjoyable, but certainly not to the extent that I craved an episode weekly, which is mostly why this show has taken me so long to finish...
Like I said, the show did a fairly reasonable job at adapting the game's content, but there was room for improvement. It's not a show that I would really recommend unless someone was asking me for anime titles adapted from video games (not light novels). In which case, Persona 4 is arguably the best video game adaptation to date or at least in recent memory. Overall, it was a fairly fun watch but if you had time to choose between the game and this, I'd play the game. The anime gives you a nice summary, but the lack of "work" to achieve certain levels that are within the game is what makes these kind of things boring (or at least in my view that is).
As for the True End coming in August, there's quite a bit of content so I'm curious to see how fast they plan to move through it in presumably one episode's length. I'm sure some people will be shocked by what it encompasses but that's only if you recall events from the series as a whole.
Preliminary Score: 7/10
Final Score: 7/10 
