Persona 4 the animation

So, yeah, I just saw the first episode of the Persona 4 anime, and I had goosebumps from beginning to end. It was simply splendid beyond expectation! I don't care if I'm just fangirling like crazy, I love this!

It's made by AIC ASTA, who haven't really made anything too noteworthy before.
It's directed by Kishi Seiji, who directed Angel Beats.
The music is mostly songs from the game, as far as I noticed, and Shoji Meguro is credited as composer.
The OP is "Pursuing My True Self", and the ED, "The Sky's the Limit", is sung by Shihoko Hirata, who sung the songs from the game.
The voice cast is as follows:

MC - Namikawa Daisuke (Rock from Black Lagoon, Ulqiorra, Van Hohenheim)
Teddy - Yamaguchi Kappei (L, Tororo (Keroro Gunsou), Ranma Saotome)
Chie - Horie Yui (Hanekawa Tsubasa, Akane from Kämpfer, Naru from Love Hina, the sexy redhead from Penguindrum)
Yosuke - Morikubo Shotaro (Kadaj, Robert from Hare+Guu, Shikamaru from Naruto)
Yukiko - Koshimizu Ami (Kallen Stadtfeld, Holo from Spice and Wolf, Charlotte Yeager from Strike Witches)
Kanji - Tomokazu Seki (Toujou from Beelzebub, Gilgamesh, the MC from FMP, Rob Lucci, Viewtiful Joe)
Naoto - Romi Park (Hitsugaya Toshiro, Edward Elric, Temari)
Rise - Kugimiya Rie (Astarotte Ygvar, Nemu from Bleach, Alphonse Elric, Kagura from Gintama, Iori from Idolm@ster)
Margaret - Ohara Sayaka (Alicia from Aria, Kimura's wife in Azumanga, Milly Ashford, Beatrice in the Umineko anime)
Adachi - Mitsuaki Madono (Kon from Bleach, Soldat J in GaoGaiGar, Clive from Hare+Guu)
Nanako - Akemi Kanda (Czeslaw Meyer, some girl from Clannad, Nanami Kiri from Maria Holic)
Dojima - (Jet Black, Mr. Satan, Van Hohenheim, Zabuza from Naruto, Professor Oak, Krauss form Sora no Woto)

It's a miracle they can animate anything with such a voice cast. It has way too low production values, but if that's what it takes to get these voices, I'm fine with it. It was simply incredible to watch, and all who have played the game should watch it immediately.
Baal, if you don't like it, grow a vagina and don't bitch about it.

Persona 4 is already pretty anime so it would figure that it's a better anime than it is a game. But I haven't watched the episode yet even though the trailers looked pretty good, so I'll take a look at it at some point.

They managed to take what was a 3-hour long introduction to the game and reduce it to 24 minutes, I like the anime better already. It has its problems like overreferencing the game, Igor, Saki and Teddie's voices are awful and they're still sticking with the dumb "-Kuma" shtick for Teddie but that's all underminded by the fact you managed to make the fucking introduction of the game shorter and make it somewhat entertaining.

Kuma is the only way they could make it clear he has a speech quirk. After watching Squid Girl, I'm just so used to it I barely mention it.
Did you like how they copy-pasted the game's English dialogue?

Honestly, it's better than them actually translating it themselves.

Episode 2 was pretty damn great! I got goosebumps every other half-minute, and when I heard "I'll Face Myself" and "Traumerei" I gasped, despite having promised myself to calm down. It made me feel really sorry for Yosuke again, and it showed a lot of love for Chie. I also really, really like the voice actors. They're stellar.

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Episode 3 was just as fantastic, but now with added Chie, which is always good! I have to say, they have done a great job of shortening this down. With Yukiko done next episode, they'll have shortened 8-10 hourse (bugger if I remmeber) down to one and a half hour, which is pretty great when compared to most other adaptations. Shame Kou didn't make any references to balls, though.
If I remember correctly, Kanji will be appearing soon, right? Just before the summer with all its non-Shadow related hijinks. I can't wait to hear what he sounds like!

I like how Episode 2 handled the Shadow battle, it was a really nice way to show off the shadow being a threat and not exploiting the weakness until the critical moment. More Chie always helps too and I loved her forcing Yosuke to buy her 10 steaks, FFFFsteaks.

Finally caught up to Episode 5 and I have complaints here and there. The scenes don't really last long enough to develop on their own, it's more like something happens then they cut to something else happening, there's no real pacing between it all. However, since I've actually played the game and know what "pacing" could imply, I'd rather the scenes be more or less, shit actually happening in succession. It's kind of dumb how they used "Traumerei" for Teddie in any scenes that try to make him out as somewhat sad because it's a fucking colorful bear... that's pretty hard to accomplish.

Episode 4 seemed a lot better with how it focused mostly on Yukiko but it did the same dumb thing the games did and sacrificed a good looking story for the sake of its dumb symbolism. Episode 5 was just weird, I like how they tried to handle Ai and Kou's stories in one but it seemed like a mishmash of stuff that was either kind of funny or kind of dumb, I have to admit I did chuckle when the game over song from Catherine was Yu's ringtone for Ai.

Anyways, I'm enjoying the beginning stuff much more than I did with the game so I guess this is a success so far.

Okay so yeah, I'm done watching this after the awful chase scene with the girl giving Chie ramen while riding on a moped. I know P4 was already a very anime JRPG, but the fact that the directors of the anime felt the need to add stupid shit on top of that is not helping me keep interest.

I haven't watched anything past the end of the naughty bathhouse, to be honest. I'm more interested in watching Madoka, for chrissakes, and that's not even good. You should watch Bakemonogatari instead, Baal.

I don't really care to watch any additional anime that don't interest me. All that interests me right now is Fate/Zero, Tiger and Bunny and Heroman. I'm sort of waiting for a dub of Tiger and Bunny though.

Hahahaha, Heroman. But Stan Lee is only in the first episode. Why would you watch further than that?

It was still decent after that.

Chie looks better in the anime IMO. I like Naoto the most though.

MC is now Yu Narukami. That's an interesting name

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuL1vGVEC7g

Holy shit, the anime is really funny. Why did I stop watching so soon?

I've just started watching this, and so far I've really enjoyed it. There's plenty of fan service moments that raised a smile; the use of in-game soundtrack, the way you get the close up of the face in the cut-out at the bottom of the screen just prior to a finishing blow and the pacing is far superior to the game itself, even to the point where perhaps they're racing through the dungeons a little too quickly. After all, there's a new filler character being given screen time including a rather stupid bit on a moped.

Still, it's far better than I'd have though it would be.

SimianWonder wrote:

There's plenty of fan service moments that raised a smile;

Spoiler:

Oh Simian, I never thought you'd be into this kind of stuff.

Finally finished watching and for the most part I really enjoyed it. The earlier episodes seemed to have been given special treatment in some regards - the animation is much more fluid, the direction and artwork somehow more striking - but even to the last episode I found myself smiling at various points of each episode. It may be wasted on anyone who hasn't played the game, but as a companion piece to P4 it's certainly well worth watching.

...Now with added Golden

http://link.brightcove.co.jp/services/player/bcpid816288394002?bckey=AQ~~,AAAAAl9h5hE~,gYxuw1liySHCXoc_oMKfmZuPITJNcMsG&bctid=821179180002
Trailer, though its slow...


http://www.siliconera.com/2014/05/02/persona-4-golden-anime-air-japan-july/
http://www.polygon.com/2014/5/2/5675356/persona-4-golden-anime-coming-to-japan-this-july

I doubt they'll redo the animation in its entirety. I suspect they'll add scenes into the existing material to include the additional Golden material.

Yeah, everyone else seems to think that too myself included.
Im assuming this is all that this going to be added
*ahem*
Marie at the beginning
Marie in the velvet room
Maire's Dungeon
Maire at the end

And that new adachi end perhaps or extracts of P4A?

Thats all ....i uh think.
or somwhat involve it?