Persona 4: The Animation Volume 2

Episodes 10-17

Can Yu and friends save teen idol Rise from herself as she is the next one to be pushed into the TV screen and appear on the sinister Midnight Channel? Naoto Shiragane (Romi Park/Mary Elizabeth McGlynn) the ‘boy detective,’ reveals himself at last – and his role in pursuing the serial killer – but what are his true motives? We discover an astonishing secret about Teddie/Kuma, the gang’s rotund guide in the world beyond the screen. A third murder takes place – and this time it’s the gang’s homeroom teacher. The sinister deranged teenager with the dead eyes confronts Yu’s cousin, little Nanako in the supermarket. Is he the murderer?

One of the problems with Persona 4 (as with Tiger & Bunny) is that the number of episodes per release seems to be dictated by the overall capacity of the Blu-ray disc (this being a dual DVD/BD release) rather than the flow of the plot. So we end up with the conclusion of one minor story arc, a couple of mildly diverting filler episodes about Yu’s summer break, and a rather sluggish return to the main storyline as boy detective joins Naoto High School and becomes another member of the Scooby Gang (overtones more of Scooby Doo, I fear, rather than Buffy the Vampire Slayer.)

I make no secret of the fact that I haven’t played the game – and I’m aware that lots of the little details are meaningful to those who have.

Certain visual tics begin to annoy this time around: the money-saving practice of showing a still image while a character carries on a conversation is common to all anime series, but in Persona 4, there is a puzzling tendency to show feet. It’s not always immediately obvious whose feet they are and what the relevance of the feet is to the purpose of the scene, if any. It’s nice that they’re saving money to provide some dazzling fight scenes against the Shadows in the world of the Midnight Channel but… feet? Another feature that’s beginning to bug me is the tan shading of all the characters’ faces which starts at the chin and fades out at about nose-level. It’s meant, I suppose, to add a suggestion of contour and depth but it just looks odd. My last quibble is to do with the US dub script (by ADR Director  Kristi Reed.) On this Kaze release (as with many others these days) it’s not possible to run the English subs with the English dub to compare and contrast; it’s Japanese plus English subs or English dub. (I haven’t forgotten that we’re lucky to have the original Japanese on R2 as the first US Blu-ray release didn’t include it.) Compared with the English versions of Bleach or Naruto, this dub script seems remarkably unsubtle and repetitious. Maybe it was a rushed job. Maybe it accurately reflects the original. ‘Bad’ boy Kanji utters ‘shit’ every sentence to show us he’s hard (or trying to come across as hard.) Teddie is just plain irritating (although that’s also down to the falsetto shrieks of both actors, one of whom is the usually reliable Sam Regal.) 

There are new Opening Songs: “key plus words” by Shihoko Hirata ft. Yumi Kawamura (ep 13 +) and “Burn My Dread” by Yumi Kawamura and Ending Songs: “Koi Suru Meitantei” (“A Great Detective in Love”) by Yui Horie (ep 13) and “The Way of Memories – Kizuna no Chikara” (“The Way of Memories – The Power of Bonds”) by Shihoko Hirata (eps 14-17.)

Persona 4 wants to be cool and hangin’ with the kids. It still has potential as a drama, even though its gaming origins are hard to disguise or escape (that, I realize, might be enough to sell it to anyone who’s enjoyed playing the Persona games.) But it can’t make up its mind whether it’s a light-hearted slice-of-life high school yarn, a murder mystery, or an RPG. Don’t get me wrong; it’s a mildly diverting watch, ideal if you have the odd half hour to while away. But there’s no real sense of danger – and no real attempt to develop the characters beyond certain familiar stereotypes. I’d hoped for more. Maybe in the third and final release it will all come together.