Persona 25: Nikon called…
SPOILERS THROUGHOUT.
Are the methodical sequences in this episode effective? You get the beholder thing saying something while the shot focuses on Yuu, then Yuu rejects the statement, and his Persona charges forth. Next you get the beholder talking again while we’re looking at Yosuke, and then Yosuke’s Persona smashes into the beholder. Etc etc. Later Yosuke yells “Yuu” and his Persona powers up. Then Yukiko yells “Yuu” and her Persona powers up. Then Chie yells “Yuu” and so forth. (OK, I lied. Later on Rise says “Yuu-sempai” and the tomboy detective says “Sempai” and Care Bear says “Sensei”, so there is some variation hooray). Geez, I get that you’re trying to build an epic moment by this ritual-like repetition, but I’ve think you’ve overdone it.
It’s not clear to me if the Shadow people, as they wander aimlessly in their brave new world, would actually dream that they were having the time of their lives? Is that what the fog god said? Because if it is, well, darn, that’s not bad now is it. This “truth” is better than “dreams” bit is so old in anime. It seems to me like every anime I look there’s a kid shouting “life sucks sometimes, but that’s what makes it cool, man!” Look, life beats fiction, duh, but we’re speaking about the good life here. The question is: if you have a choice between a rotten life and fiction which do you pick? And that’s not as cut and dried as these kids seem to think. Kids will be kids I guess.
Last ranty bit: what’s with anime these days having horrible “warm fuzzy feeling but terribly incompetent” vocals when the final battle erupts?! The Eva movie gave us a horrible sample of that (and no, I’m not talking about Hikki’s song how dare you even think that, I speak of the other one!!), do we look up to Eva so much that we have to imitate even the horrible mistakes it does?
My disappointment on the shipping front is titanic. Poor Chie, poor everyone really. I didn’t realize we were playing by K-On! rules here.
That last one was too short to be a rant. Anyway, other than all of these things I really enjoyed this episode. Adachi’s talk in the first third was very pleasing to the ear (good voice acting) and the fog lens thing was definitely cool.
Good job.
Kritik der Animationskraft 
well, in this case, the “truth” is the hwole point of perosna 4… and oyu havent even reached it yet with defeating this big eyeball. but true, the powerup of the perosnas was poorly handled in the anime. int he game, the “powerup” of the perosnas would occur exactly at the time when you finish teir social links, meaning they come to terms witht heir whole personality and the issues they rejected before (they only partway came ot terms with it when firts requiring it) oh and sometimes have implied sex with the mainchar, if that helps. makes for afar better reasoning of powerign up their personas, while the anime pretty mch turned it into a “shounen-like cheesy powerup moment”. i believe they coudlve handled that otherwise, r at leats coudlve had the perosna powering up over the whole secodn half of the serie sinsteaad of all at once in the last battle… geh.
well, as for the truth and pckng thing, i guess these kids are more angry at soemone else deciding what they want and whats good for them instea dof them choosing it themselves. is how i interpret it at least..
(oh and regardign EVA, thats asoemthign different as it was intended to get soem certain feeligns over to the watcher. uhm which of the two songs in the eva movie do youmean btw, the one during the dummy plug scene or the oen during te end-scene?)
I was talking about the 2nd Remake of Eva film, I think. Not End of Evangelion. I forget who sang it…
Re: Persona, I totally did Chie in the game, and that’s canon.
Just checked an old post. Apparently I’m complaining about Hayashibara’s singing in Rebuild 2.0.
i know you meant the 2nd remake film, btu that one had two songs: 1. during the scene with eva 03, a famous japanese children’s song/nursery rhyme about friendshipm which is most likely supposed to be disturbing and also go into the relationship of of shinji and asuka.
. the song during the thrid impact scene which kinda dunno, i guess it was meant to give the scene a kind of strange/ironic feelign as it and the hwole scene puts the end of the world/the triggering of the third impact in avery very positive light?
oh and i also did chie in my first playthrough though i personnaly prefer nagato XD i cant really stand yukiko though.
The first song, the children’s son. I pulled all of my hair out, had to go out and buy a chia pet and wear that.
Naoto, huh. Very nice.
ah, taht one. well, that song is apparently a famous children song/lullaby in japan; i guess the intended effect wa sot ebe creepy due to that, and philosophical due to the whole “child soldiers” and “return to innocence—in the “wombs” of their “mothers” (considerign what the Evas are, after all9 yet beeign very brutal… did oyu notice that shinji’s dialogue during the dummy-plugging was very reminiscent of rape-victim dialogue?)
it didnt bother me as much and i guess i dnderstand what they emant to say after lookign ti up, btu certainly, sicne we, beeign non-japanese, didnt hear that very soong a lot as children as an innocent lullaby, its harder to get the intended effect for us…
and eah, naoto is just so.. great. no match for aigis, but still.
No, no, no. I have no problem with children’s songs or the song’s use in that situation. It’s the quality of the singing that drained my soul of all its joy.
well it IS a lullaby. singing it more, dunno, professionally or pop-songey-like would probably jus be even more weird in that situation… considerign the whole “lost innocence” theme that particular scene ha sgoing on, i think it fits quite well, contrasting a gruesome loss of control scene with a children chorus of a lullaby..
Well, I’m glad my mom was a better lullaby singer than that, otherwise my first words would have been “Please kill me now” instead of “Mommy”.
lol i see i seeee…. weeelll that wouldve been kind of awaste i guess. good thing she was better.
Hehe 🙂
” if you have a choice between a rotten life and fiction which do you pick? And that’s not as cut and dried as these kids seem to think. Kids will be kids I guess.”
The old Matrix question of the blue pill or the red pill I guess. And to be honest, I’m not so sure it is so cut and dry even in that film. A lot of people, myself included, say they would always go for the harsh truth, but at the same time I don’t know that it would be so easy nor so tempting to leave behind a grand delusion for a bleak reality. Its an old dichotomy not just in anime so I can forgive the cliché since its been done in every which medium. Overall though, I enjoyed the P4 ride, as a fan of the game, my nostalgia goggles were in overdrive.
Yes, the Matrix question. It was a very good show, and I look forward to more tensei stuff getting animated..
the aniem was obviosuly going for fans with nostalgia goggles on, considerign they put much stuff from the game in there that doesnt really make sense for na aniem adaption, and much stuff oyu woudltn know what to make of withotu game knowledge (liek the stats or other thigns 1/1 taken over from the game).
The ending we received was Normal End, like Igor and Margie told us after the credits (which is also in the video game). We ARE going to get True End on BD/DVD in Japan August 22nd along with a Director Cut version of Episode 25.
Normal End and True End are WAY different, but hopefully True End isn’t going to be rushed to hell. I guess they’re releasing that DVD/BD in August because that’s when the new games are out? Episode 25 DID have a Preview for True End but apparently The Anime Network didn’t include it. 😦
Yup, I heard about this. True is opposite to False. Does this mean the Normal is False? I honestly am very sick of this DVD selling tactic thing. Yuck.
but its in this case a very interesitng case; only those who go “to the root of the problem” and spend much extra time and extra work in the game get the true end; only thsoe willing to wait (spend extra time) an dbuy the DVD (do extra work) get the true ned in th enaime. its na itneresitng analogy…
i just hope they animte P3 and P2 though, they are great. story-wise way better than P4.then again, the main focus in P4 lay on the characters anyways, not the story.
Let’s hope~
And regarding Megumi Hayashibara’s singing in 2.0, it’s strange because all her other songs either as Rei or songs in general are perfectly fine. (Just listen to Tengoku no Kioku from the Evangelion: Decade album and tell me that isn’t soothing!) It is annoying she was straining her voice so much for Kyou no Hi wa Sayonara and Tsubasa wo Kudasai, yes, but I love the songs regardless.
She was definitely trying to go for some effect of some kind, but it really ruined it for me. It was as bad as that seiyuu singing John Lennon the other day. Come to think of it, I don’t like my seiyuus singing, they should stick to talking 😉
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