… just get on with it already!
Seriously, the pacing of this series is terrible. We’re already struggling to put a 80-hour game into just 26 episodes, and here this episode decides to go and waste time on nothing but teenaged antics and even throws the girls into swimsuits. I mean heck: if you’re going to waste time, at least do it in an interesting way. Why does everything have to be teenaged antics that we’ve seen hundreds of times before? Seriously people, jokes about how girls are bad cooks have been done countless of times before. It’s not funny anymore.
One of the two sole salvations of this episode was that finally Seiji Kishi put his act together and at least delivered a bunch of jokes that actually made me laugh. About three times near the end of the episode. That in no way makes up for the obnoxious rest of this episode. So in the end, the only thing that I again can praise is the camera guy here. This show looks unique and the camera angles show it.
Look, for my preview of the upcoming winter season, I complained relatively little about how there’s nothing but teenagers there. This is because there have been plenty of series about teenagers that were really good. The thing however, is that these series are great for a reason. Just stuffing in random teenaged antics and just hoping that it’ll work somehow… that just doesn’t work.
Because this show won the contest, I’m stuck with it at least until the end of the year, but this has been the worst show that you ever forced me to blog. Even including Kimi ni Todoke. At least that show was well acted.
Rating: – (Disappointing)]]>
Persona 4 The Animation – 08
I don’t think anyone will hold it against you if you drop it. If you don’t like it, then you don’t like it. You can drop it if you want. So what if people voted for it? Everyone has their likes and dislikes, and we should respect them. I mean, I wouldn’t like having to watch something I don’t like.
Did you see how Yu has become as homophobic as Yosuke, he basically recounted his promise to accept Kanji by kicking him out of the tent, and it’s played for laughs! I knew this episode would be unfortunate, though I was not expecting the part between Kanji and Hanako. I do not see how there could be a character like Yosuke, he forces the girls to get naked, basically. Can you imagine anoybody trying to do that here in the US? He’d be expelled! Is this male privelege? Is this normal behavior for Japanese boys? Cause if it is, then it’s little wonder why Japan’s gender gap is twice below the world average!
I only said “Normal” cause I heard something about Yosuke being a “typical teenage boy” but none of the other teenage boys in this series acts like this! It can’t just be a problem of Japanese sexism, it’s just that Yosuke’s character is fundamentally stupid. why does he have to be a main character?
No, it’s just that Yosuke is a fundamentally bad character. None of the other teenage boys in this series acts like he does (forcing the girls into skimpy clothing),etc. Why is a guy with such male privilege a main character?
If the girls are such bad cooks, then why didn’t Yu do it instead? Did the boys just expect the girls to do all the cooking and serve them? Cause that really rubs me the wrong way! I though the group was supposed to make dinner! Is this the 1950s?
This is exactly what happened in the game. Seriously, it’s almost copy/pasted. Never though I’d ever see something that stick to the source too much.
Good lord, this all was in the game? How hard must it have been to sit through all this?
While this episode was practically copy-pasted from the game, the huge difference between the two is that the game actually uses a large amount of time focusing on the murder-mystery aspects to the story.
The anime… well, as you can tell, it loves to focus on exclusively the comedy. The mystery is practically an afterthought.
Actually, not all of this was in the game. The episode have added some scenes.As exemple, the entire middle part was anime original.
In a way,I think it’s funny how many people seems to dislike this episode or the anime on this blog. And on some other blog people actually enjoy it. I guess either people love it or hate it.
the game has better pacing, VA and acting. Besides the character development from the game wasn’t as “here’s your chapter, it ended? oh dissapear or become flat again”, it interwinded with gameplay and short arcs of rest from the crime (never tought they would give a complete chapter to this, in the game was some sort of skit).
For example, the Main characters even if they got their persona issues resolved where still haunted by their weakness and you had to keep using time to help them (like the Ai chapter). These things had requeriments in the “stats” of the eye-catch and was divided in 10 short “chapters”.
For the ones complaining about Yosuke male privileges, the girls will get revenge, trust me.
You should think about dropping it. You’re just forcing yourself and you wouldn’t be able to write anything but frustration.
wow… just wow. delete this entry already.
this is widely considered the best episode in the anime so far.
you have no idea of what you’re talking about.
One problem that I consistently feel about game adaptations is how over-the-top they make characters that were previously relatively down to earth in the original games. Valkyria Chronicles is a HUGE example of this. They managed to turn the interesting and subtle acting of the game into horrible anime cliches, by making the character’s defining traits a lot stronger than normal. Sure, Welkin was naive in the game, but the anime turned him into a complete moron. The same goes for Alicia, Selvaria etc. P4 is doing exactly the same. Even the Tales of Symphonia OVA, a pretty decent adaptation, does the same.
I love this episode, to me it was fun to watch.
But, I do agree that you should drop it if you hate it that much.
The game was exactly like this. If it’s not clear at this point, the game was more cheesy than serious(though it’s guaranteed to be serious by the end). Just warning you ahead of time, we’re getting a cultural festival episode, a field trip episode, etc. It’s a school life game, so you should kinda expect that. Also, our investigation crew aren’t exactly the brightest bulbs, so the mystery will take a while.
The reason the anime skips weeks? It’s because in the game, you would normally spend the month trying to save the person before the next rainy day, while the anime saves the person within the first day. The month itself was just dungeon crawling, or hanging out with people(social linking). Just felt like clarifying since you seem to be approaching this from the wrong angle.
When Yu and Yosuke were kicked off the cliff, and Yu’s face was completely blank, I burst out laughing. Best joke so far in this show. Honestly, I think this thing is for fans only, because there’s no way anyone who wasn’t played/watched the game will understand what made it so awesome. It’s just one of those stories that have to be told a certain way, or they don’t sound good.
I think the best part of the Persona 4 series is the solving of the mysteries, and the anime mainly makes it look like an afterthought. The middle part was completely anime original and combined Naoki’s Social Link and an investigation meeting with the school camping trip for some reason.
What I really hate about this adaptation is that they made Yuu into a bit of a jerk. He’s supposed to be the calm and understanding leader who accepts everyone for who they are. In the game, he’s neutral in the tent and Yosuke is the one who is mainly uncomfortable with Kanji (and they cut out the animal cracker conversation, which is NOT COOL). In the anime, he’s a homophobe like Yosuke (who is a little more obnoxious here as well) who completely kicks Kanji out of the tent. That is not cool, and Seiji Kishi just lost points from me for that. That’s not the protagonist I wanted to see.
Also, am I the only one who thinks that the anime effects (like anger veins and sweatdrops) look really out of place here? It’s weird, since this is an actual anime, but the game made it look natural somehow.
I’m glad you’re still blogging this, though. To quote Scamp, “IT GETS BETTER LATER, I SWEAR!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsOIo50MBZc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOtVNdfYYuE
wow this blog is pretty gay
Well I wouldn’t think that they really put the mystery as an afterthought but as the game went, it was like:
April – October = Little plot, Social link, Events blah blah blah blah blah
November onwards = PLOT PLOT PLOT PLOT PLOT
It’s almost the same for Persona 3 as well anyway.
I guess you’ll have to adapt to such a mentality that you can expect less at the start and more at the end.
Well to each his own, if you are still interested in this series then go on blogging. Otherwise just drop it since you’ll just be constantly bashing it to no end.
I agree with Firechick; this is YOUR blog so you should do really what you choose to do! The whole point of the voting system (I personally felt) was for everyone to mutually agree on what they liked; obviously you’re not enjoying it, and it’s your reviews we’re looking forward to, and as we all know, bias is part of a review and it can sometimes be unpleasant and inhibit the pleasure of reading the review in the first place; you shouldn’t review something you don’t like psgels! If you hate it, go ahead and drop it- I am pretty darn sure that the majority of us won’t hold anything against you (hell, I dropped it five episodes ago). The problem with this show is that it’s audience is only intended at the people who have played the game- it is literally a scene by scene adaptation of the game. It’s because of this that it actually lacks a coherent well paced plot. That’s all. Persona 4’s story is actually not bad, but the execution of this show is horrible. 🙁
i feel really bad for voting for persona 4 now T.T
seriously though, you should drop it if you really want. ^^
Psgels, regardless of what people voted if you are not enjoying this show then you should drop it. You are approaching this show from the wrong POV; you’re expecting a dramatic mystery-heavy series when the game and this very faithful adaptation are not until near the end. You have to keep in mind that most of that 80 hours of game is spent on grinding in dungeons, not plot. Most of the actual storyline between the murders at the beginning and the events beginning in November is light-hearted humor.
I’ll just jump on the ‘drop it’ bandwagon. Maybe in the future you should do a poll after the first episode already aired?
When this happened in the game, we had already spent some 30 (or more?) hours with the characters. That’s a lot of time to grow familiar and fond of them, and a lot of the charm of this depended on what you observed in Ao no Exorcist – just wanting to watch the cast do random stuff. What’s more, it’s one of the light-hearted points of a serious plot.
The game was awesome. It could have been awesome as an anime too, because the plot is straightforward and the events are already anime-esque. The ‘feel’ of the Persona games is like Trinity Soul. Yet something went wrong in the production process and this… mess resulted.
You just wait, because we still have a school festival, a normal festival (with kimonos et all), a field trip and an onsen scene waiting – that they’ll also probably devote far too much time to.
I’d be happier if you dropped it as well. You should take a poll asking if it’s okay for you to drop it if you don’t just want to drop it out of nowhere…
Could you imagine if you or your friend was kicked out like Kanji was? That tent scene was one of the most hurtful scenes. It also seriously cheapens Kanji’s emotional recovery. Yu breaks an important promise just for the sake of a joke?
Well you already dropped it, and I think you did the right thing the only reason I’m still watching it is because I played the game and liked it, but I agree that as stand alone entertainment it sucks.
Anyways, seriously Mark, you will be talking about the tent thing how many times, are you a guy? Because really that tent thing is exactly how guys interact, you don’t need to say I love you and I’m sorry each time you make fun of one of your friends, because oh well they are your friends not your girlfriends so just stop with these pathetic comments and get over it. And don’t get me started on the bikini things and sexist stuff, by chris sake.
If you don’t have the heart to continue to blog a show you don’t like, drop it. It just as much hard for people to read a blog that is so forceful -.-
I’m sorry to hear that you don’t like the anime. The story will be focus more once they manage to introduce every main characters (which there is only one left) but the things you complains will continue in the anime. So don’t force yourself on it any more. We know you’ve suffered enough ^-^’
Hehe, i think it’s funny to read your blogs about persona. I’ve played it and i enjoy the anime quite a lot but i can guess now how it is if you’re completely new to the story.
I miss the mistery as well. But i didn’t finish the game and coudn’t sit through hours of grinding just to see the end so this is the perfect chance for me to see how it turns out.
This ain’t mine, but I found some guy’s opinion on a forum, it’s a good read:
“Mind you, let me be blunt here: I fucking LOVE Persona 4. So much I commissioned our very own Matt Speroni to draw me high-quality P4 fanart. So much that Chie Satonaka is basically my soulmate. So much that I’ve played the game through three times; once playing the main character as if he was myself, then going for a ‘perfect’ playthrough, then playing the game a third freaking time because I enjoyed it so much that I HAD to play it again. Even achieving perfection already was insufficient to persuade me.
I love Persona 4 and I’m getting that out of the way in advance because you don’t need to accuse me of hating P4 just because I hated the last two episodes. The fact that I love Persona 4 so damn much is basically the reason why these last episodes hurt so hard. It was like getting sucker-punched by your best friend, learning that your father betrayed you or getting dumped by the love of your life. P4′s like my favorite roleplaying game of the last five or six years, if not the last decade. Getting curb-stomped like this was unexpected.
I even liked the first six episodes of the P4 anime. No, really! They were good!
So let’s establish why I personally hated recent P4 Anime developments:
* I kind of expected, and in fact would have encouraged, Yosuke to be a homophobic jerk because, let’s face it, he’s a homophobic jerk. He’s a lovable character, but in the game the fact that he is a homophobic jerk is clearly portrayed as a character flaw. The reactions of other characters to Yosuke’s behavior throughout the game clearly establishes that Yosuke is a tad immature and he blurts out stupid things and he often receives a legitimate comeuppance for his bursts of douchebaggery.
That’s kind of the point with Yosuke: he’s a decent human being who nonetheless is a bit of an ass. And while the Protag basically scores with every woman in the city because he’s a nice, compassionate guy who cares about his friends and acts respectfully, Yosuke deliberately contrasts with the Protag and shows just how and why the Protag just might be so ‘successful’ in his dating life and why he and not Yosuke is the leader of the Investigation Team. With men like Yosuke as ‘competition,’ all Protag has to do is not be a chauvinistic, homophobic douche with the maturity of a third grader!
So, the way I thought Episode Seven should have gone was the way my game’s playthrough essentially went: Yosuke says stupid homophobic shit, the Main Character and the girls scold Yosuke for being so self-centered when Kanji’s life is at risk, the Protag acts like the supportive, all-around awesome person he is (and the awesome person that the game and the anime portray him as and that the other characters believe him to be; that is important), Kanji accepts his shadow, everyone wins!
So it was exceptionally disappointing when the Protag decided to join the Homophobia Train. And not just with one or two “You feel mild trepidation entering this dungeon with the wacky sauna theme…” messages that the game gave. Merely feeling fear upon entering a dungeon with shadows trying to kill you, even if that fear is exacerbated somewhat by some irrational and brazenly idiotic “What if the shadows are gay and try to rape me?” thought is one thing, but it’s what the Protag actually says when he opens his mouth that differentiates the game’s Protagonist from the anime’s douche.
Game Protag hesitates but he never once indicates that he’s willing to abandon the mission outright (and effectively allow Kanji to quite possibly die due to his non-intervention) because he’s afraid of gay people. And while I don’t have the script of Episode Seven in front of me, some of the lines from Protag’s mouth were just disgustingly homophobic. It wasn’t ‘snarky,’ it was homophobic. There is a difference.
But that pales in comparison to Protag’s single worst line (said in Episode Eight, we’ll get there,) and it also pales in comparison to…
* The Protag and Yosuke expressing willingness, at a moment’s notice, to attack and attempt to kill Kanji’s shadow just because Kanji’s Shadow makes them feel uncomfortable because Kanji’s Shadow is totally gay and hitting on them.
Let’s get a few things straight:
At this stage of the storyline, Protag and Yosuke have seen and fought other shadow versions of characters before. They know that shadow versions of characters are absolutely harmless in their original state and remain harmless until the person in question denies them, at which point the shadows transform into a violent version that does in fact start to destroy things.
…So, Yosuke and Protag know that the shadow must be ‘defeated’ by Kanji accepting Shadow Kanji as himself. Given that the shadows have never been permanently ‘defeated’ by the cast by any other means, attacking the pre-transformation form of Kanji’s shadow is counter-productive at best and could well end up in an outcome of Kanji’s death at worst.
Remember, the strategy employed by the P4 characters at this point of the game was to attempt to convince the affected character to accept their shadow before the denial happened, therefore avoiding a fight outright. I’m reasonably certain that at no point in the game did the P4 cast attack the pre-transformation version of a Shadow, particularly when this version of the shadow did nothing to merit their anger except be gay.
And let’s not forget that the only fault or foible of pre-transformation Shadow Kanji was that he was too gay for Yosuke and Protag to apparently handle. Shadow Kanji did not constitute a physical threat to the Persona 4 cast at this juncture. He did not physically attack them. He did not threaten to hurt or kill them.
…He just was gay.
And being gay, in and of itself, was totally enough to send Yosuke and Protag into a primordial rage.
But even if we could stop there, I might have been okay with the episode. I mean, sure, lots of (heterosexual, privileged) high school guys who are otherwise decent people have no idea whatsoever how to handle the thought that another guy might think they’re smexy. Back in high school, I was one of those guys myself! And maybe there’s a message here that the P4 Anime would attempt to convey, like perhaps the Protag who was a perfectly compassionate, likable dude in the game would be portrayed very differently, as a flawed boy with significant moral shortcomings, in the anime.
But then…
* Chie and Yukiko join in and attack a pre-transformation version of Shadow Kanji who represents no physical threat to them just because he’s gay.
I guess Chie sort of attempted an excuse of “It’s not because he’s gay, it’s because I’m impulsive and really annoyed at his monologue and I want to freeze things!” But it was particularly surprising (and disappointing) to see Yukiko Amagi, who is basically presented as a sweet, likable girl who’s thoughtful and considerate and not excessively prone to initiate violence suddenly decide that she too has had enough of Shadow Kanji.
…because Shadow Kanji is ‘acting gay.’
Shadow Chie was acting pretty sinister; why didn’t Yosuke and Protag beat the crap out of her when she talked her trash, before Chie’s denial and Shadow Chie’s transformation into Dominatrix Banana-Chick? Actually, that’s just the thing; Shadow Chie’s pre-transformation dialogue was arguably far more threatening and antagonistic than Shadow Kanji’s, because really, all Shadow Kanji does is flirt shamelessly and talk about how much he enjoys what constitutes his definition of a ‘good time.’
The answer that the Anime posits to us is quite simple: Shadow Kanji was gay, and open about being gay, and willing to flirt openly and present his sexuality in a forthcoming manner around others, and that alone merited wanton violence against him. From everyone, male or female, ‘jerks’ and ‘compassionate heroes’ alike. The Protag is the chosen one, a symbol of tolerance, progression, heroism, the greatest hope the town of Inaba has, beloved by every woman, respected by man, and he totally wants you to know you better not flirt with him if you have a penis or he will fuck your shit. Chie and Yukiko weren’t even a position to feel personally threatened by Shadow Kanji’s idle flirtations and they still were so riled by Kanji’s **gayness** that physical violence was the preferred solution! Their only justification was one of brazen homophobia, unless you want to argue that they were ‘afraid’ they’d otherwise be subjected to something so torturous as ‘watching this guy talk about how much he enjoys hot saunas with other guys.’
* Did I mention that all of this is occurring in the context of a moment when Kanji’s life is personally threatened? The kids don’t have the slightest clue of the intricate nature of the TV world they’re exploring; all they know is that they have a strict timetable to save Kanji in or he dies, and he needs to accept his Shadow or he’s at risk.
…Oooh, I know! Let’s antagonize Kanji’s Shadow before it transforms and give Kanji more reasons to want to deny his affiliation with said Shadow because we literally care more about not having to listen to gay people flirt with us or our guy friends, than we value Kanji’s life!
* Oh, it’s okay, because we all know that deep down inside Protag’s a really, truly nice guy who cares about Kanji and respects their friendship, he just likes to be ‘snarky’ (manifesting his snark in the form of wanton attacks in this particular instance, I suppose) to his buddies, right?
Well, Episode Eight puts rest to any thought of that notion!
Episode Eight takes place after the Protag and his buddies have presumably ‘accepted’ Kanji.
…Only they’ve only accepted Kanji at day. At night, it’s another matter entirely!
Protag’s line here is absolutely ludicrous to defend precisely because Yosuke acts far worse around women and the Protag does not call Yosuke out on it. Hell, in the very same episode, Yosuke brazenly advocates that Chie and Yukiko sleep in an integrated manner with he and Protag — he is advocating a sexually predatory outcome in a tent in the exact same manner that he and Protag accused Kanji of doing! And yet the Protag and the women will tolerate this, because it’s typical heterosexual male chauvinistic bullshittery.
…And that’s probably actually the biggest problem about all of this. It isn’t just the homophobia, although the homophobia is very overt and very despicable and it very openly refutes the P4 game’s flawed yet positive approach of encouraging tolerance and diversity in friendships.
…It’s that the characters respond so harshly to actions taken by ‘homosexual’ characters while tolerating and in fact encouraging the very same behavior from their heterosexual counterparts!
Yosuke forcing Yukiko and Chie to wear swimsuits despite their discomfort at the notion is funny and typical guy hijinks, and Yosuke can be excused of that! Even Chie and Yukiko don’t aggressively call Yosuke out for being creepy. When Yosuke says “Hey Yukiko and Chie, why not sleep alongside us tonight?” The girls do not respond by badgering Yosuke for threatening to take their ‘chastity.
So the message here is plain: Girls just have to tolerate this from heterosexual guys! Heterosexual guys can and will act like perverts who want to steal your sexual purity against your will and force you to dress up in scanty swimsuits, but you should just swallow your criticism and choose to remain his friend and accept the behavior as ‘typical.’ Even the Protag, by refusing to aggressively scold Yosuke when Yosuke acts legitimately creepy as fuck in drooling over Chie or Yukiko, is passively enabling Yosuke as his ‘friend’ to engage in this skeevy shit.
…But when Kanji barely acts half as predatory as Yosuke and is just sitting silently in the middle of the guy’s tent, both Yosuke and Protag feel that their chastity is in serious danger! Not even because Kanji is gay and because Kanji, like Yosuke to the girls, has expressed a serious sexual interest in the Protag or Yosuke. The ‘real’ (non-Shadow) Kanji hasn’t flirted with Protag or Yosuke at all! They don’t even really definitively know whether Kanji is actually gay! And there’s far less evidence that Kanji is remotely interested in pursuing a relationship, and he’s certainly not forcing the Protag or Yosuke to waltz around in swimsuits for his personal enjoyment.
…The anime says this: The mere possibility that your guy friend might be gay, even if he is utterly disinterested in you, is more threatening than a heterosexual guy’s overt and depraved sexual interest in women. There’s only reason why this could be: Because mere gayness in and of itself is a ‘threat!’
* And the game sort of was imperfect too, but the crucial difference was, the game at least gave you incentives to roleplay the Protag as a decent human being who did not in fact support this worldview. Yosuke may have been condemned to his childish immaturity, but the Protag received rewards in the form of boosts to his social links with Chie and Yukiko by treating them respectfully during the swimsuit scene, and the Protag received rewards in the form of boosts to his social link with Kanji by treating Kanji compassionately, like a true friend, supporting Kanji’s presence in the tent, refuting privilege and refusing to indulge in homophobia. Even if you could choose to roleplay the Protag as a jerk, doing so felt out of character (how could the Protag acquire the sincere respect of Kanji and the women he interacts with regularly if he was a chauvinistic homophobe?)
Choosing the ‘I-am-a-decent-human-being’ options subsequently flow naturally. Yukiko and Chie and Naoto and Kanji and Nanako and Dojima repeatedly reinforce the notion that Protag is a great guy; and more often than not, choosing the ‘snarky’ options results in penalties to your P4 gameplay experience in the form of stalling social links. An ideal playthrough requires you to consider your friends’ feelings and act respectfully and not be intolerant.
But P4: The Anime is tying to have its cake and eat it, too; it’s simultaneously attempting to give you a snarky Protag who repeatedly chooses the “hysterical” (note that I don’t think they’re often very funny) dialogue options, yet also gives you a Protag who, by the Anime’s own admission, has above-average Stats in all fields of personal growth by Episode Eight and who’s Maxing social links with relative ease. The dynamic of P4 that once punished a homophobic, chauvinistic, asshole of a player is gone, and instead there’s a huge fundamental disconnect: The anime characters are still acting like Protag is the sweetest, coolest, most benevolent, likable, tolerant human being they know, utterly demanding their fealty and accruing their affections, but the Protag is increasingly acting just as big a jerk as Yosuke is.
The plentiful evidence that the game provided you that the Protag was a decent person in watching his social links gradually accrue over extended periods of time and effort is gone; what’s left is a homophobic jokester who tolerates Yosuke’s chauvinism and who’s petty and insecure and yet still beloved. At this point, the Protag is in desperate need of the same kind of abuse given to Yosuke on a regular basis. But even when Yukiko and Chie dared toss the Protag into the river with Yosuke, it’s still heavily implied that they’re totally crushing on him, just as it’s still heavily implied that Kanji thinks the Protag is an incredible friend (except, well, not at night, lest his chastity be threatened) and just as Naoki can apparently be swayed from hating the Protag and Yosuke to totally being good bros in the course of a single goddamn conversation.
…So it’s not just the homophobia that bothers me, although it’s bothersome enough. It’s that the homophobia is in plain contradiction of the halo the P4 anime team is still painting around the Protag, and that in painting that angelic halo around the Protag, the animators are saying this: The Protag is an ideal high school student; all you high school students watching the P4 Anime should want to be just like him, because he’s going to get all the girls and earn the respect of all the guys and he’s a role model. Oh, and by the way, he totally hates gay people, and you should, too. They make him feel awkward and uncomfortable and fearful for his chastity just in the mere act of being themselves. And, it is totally acceptable for heterosexual men to treat their gay friends with this degree of innate suspicion. (By the way, despite the fact that gay people can’t do this to you, it’s totally cool for you or your heterosexual friends to go even further then this when pursuing women. They just have to accept your inherent lustful state.)”
@Lord Genome
Kudos to the one of that opinion.
I see where you would dislike this if you weren’t a fan of P4. I still personally believe that P4 is best left as a game, and I do like the game much better so far, even though the anime isn’t as bad as I thought it would be – because trust me, I thought the anime version was going to be reall bad. I just couldn’t see the vast plot, side plots, characters, character interactions, battles, mechanics,….basically everything of the game translating smoothly into an anime…