Persona 4: The Animation Volume 3

In the quiet little provincial backwater of Inaba, it seems that the murderer may still be still at large. And even as Yu and his Scooby Gang friends experience the rites of passage that every manga/anime high schooler must endure: the School Festival and the obligatory stay at a ryokan, with all the shenanigans involved in hot springs bathing (Boys only? Girls only? Whoops, we got the times mixed up!) something is far from right. And as a mysterious fog settles over the town, Yu experiences the the disturbing suspicion that it’s drifting from the world of shadows. Something is very wrong indeed – but it’s not until his little cousin Nanako goes missing that Yu realizes that he – they – must have missed a crucial clue.

Yu and his friends are drawn into a desperate battle to save not just their town but the whole world – yet not before the real murderer has callously deceived and led them astray, endangering the lives of Yu’s adorable little cousin and her father, the embittered policeman Doujima, who is still hurting after the death of his wife.

I had hopes that Persona 4 would break the curse of the game-into-anime series and deliver an involving, well-constructed piece of storytelling. To be fair, the writers and developers have managed to create a likable team of young people – and the hunt-the-murderer theme has considerable potential. However, this doesn’t sit all that easily alongside the alternative reality setting where the main protagonists are forced to battle shadows using their Persona avatars within the world of The Midnight Channel beyond the television. The series feels too much like a mash-up of different genres, each one struggling for dominance. If you add in a clunky ‘What Just Happened?’ piece of plotting, the ‘big’ ending doesn’t pack the punch that it should, in spite of the snazzy animation and effects.

There’s also the confusing fact that although the series ‘ends’ with Episode 25, the OVA Episode 26 seems to be the real – and more convincing – ending. Yes, you read it correctly, there’s an Episode 26 in the Extras, which gives us a Groundhog Day-style set-up as Yu realizes that a certain moment in his life is looping – and leads to a rather more satisfying conclusion.

There’s still much to be enjoyed, though, especially if you’ve grown to like earnest Yu, feisty Chie, easy-going Yosuke and the rest of the gang. But it would have been nice to see more resolved in the terms of relationships between the friends; with so many episodes devoted to establishing the characters and their backgrounds, it seems a little safe and unimaginative to not take matters any further than the traditional shounen ‘stick up for your friends’ theme. It’s all very decorous but these young people are supposed to be in high school, not grade school, after all! I’m guessing that this lack of development is down to the show’s game origins and that the script writers were obliged to leave all possible options open, so as not to ‘spoil’ it. A pity. Especially as there are some genuinely moving moments in these final episodes, which are all to do with the feelings that are stirred up in Yu (who so often looks blank, due to the character design.)

Disturbing Moment no. 1: Johnny Yong Bosch’s oddly beguiling ‘female’ voice as Yu at the Group Date Café.

Disturbing Moment no 2: The boys are tricked into appearing in drag for a beauty contest at the School Festival.

Musical Curiosity: the diabolus in musica (the ‘devil in music’) interval of a diminished fifth, so beloved by nineteenth century western composers  – who used it to depict supernatural and unsettling phenomena –  appears frequently in Shoji Meguro’s soundtrack. Extras include: Clean Second Opening Title Sequence; Kikken-kun (Drama 4) Ending Arcane Complete Version and OVA Episode 26.

In Summary

If you’ve followed Persona 4: The Animation this far, you’ll probably be invested enough in the characters to want to see it through to the end. There are battles galore in the final episodes – but a curious sense of ‘where did that come from?’ in the plotting leads to a rather less than satisfying conclusion.