How exactly do you turn a video game into an anime? It helps if the game you are adapting is practically an anime already and also one of the best games in years. This is the case for Persona 5: The Animation, an anime about a group of students who live a secret life battling the darkness that is invading their city.
I am thou, thou art I
Ren Amamiya is not having the best time of his life. Arriving in Tokyo after a misunderstanding has led to him being put on probation, he finds his school different and some of the teachers very hostile to him. Things couldn’t be worse, until he finds himself in a nightmare where he and his new friend Ryuji Sakamoto are in danger of being trapped by a shadow version of a particular nasty physical education teacher. Confronted with this, Ren awakens his persona, Arsene. These events are being told as a flashback to a police investigator who says that Ren is the leader of a group called the Phantom Thieves. How Ren got from here to there is the story of the anime.
Persona is one of those games where if you love it, you deeply love it. The type of RPG and the story keep people playing for hours. It is a combination of everyday school life and a fantasy in which you can change a bad person simply by removing the thing that is making them evil. Persona has always been strongest by showing the fantastic world that is just around the corner, if you are able to get past the Velvet Room.
Let’s take back what’s dear to you
The major change from the game is that the protagonist has a name. In the video game, the player is never named. This of course is because the player is the main character. This could not work in an anime, and Ren is a good stand in for the viewer. There will be some people who don’t think Ren is how they imagined the protagonist, but his character is how the hero of such an anime should be.
The animation is gorgeous. The cut scenes in the game look like they were the basis for the animation style of the series. The monsters and the more fantastic areas strike the right balance of scary and beautiful. The main question is how closely the show will follow the game. While I think that a straight adaption would be possible, there still might be some surprises that the writers will thrown in. When it comes to video game adaptions, some change is okay as long as it stays true to the story.
A beautiful rose has thorns
The series just started this month and is only about three episodes into it’s run. This is the perfect time to catch up on the adventures of Ren and his group of Phantom Thieves. You can catch the show on Crunchyroll. If you have never experienced the world of Persona , this show is a perfect introduction. If you are a fan of the game, see how close it followed the plot.