DESCRIPTION

CAST

MOVIE ActionPERSONA 3 THE MOVIE: #1 Spring of Birth
ANIME ActionPersona 4 the Animation
ANIME ActionPERSONA5 the Animation
NOVEL ActionPersona: Trinity Soul - Novel

REVIEWS

• 

  Mockbone

  55/100
  It's lacking a lot of what I expect from Persona

  //may contain some spoilers//

  After watching the first episode and reading some comments I realized it's kind of a sequel to Persona 3, but kind of not. I imagine that if you have played or watched Persona 3 there is some fan service(?). I decided to watch it because of the upcoming Persona 3 Portable - switch release, but I didn't want to spoil the plot much by watching the actual anime for P3.

  I like that the MC isn't a "wild card". But he and the other characters feel lifeless, they lack the charisma of characters that I would find in-game. Characters act very abnormally. You could say "Well, there is a lot more time and opportunity to deepen a bond in-game", but this show has 26 episodes, this should be enough time to make me like someone no? Some characters straight up disappear and I don't feel a change at all.

  The only thing I like about the series is the idea of the villains consuming another person's persona, forcing their members to become "wild cards" and some other stuff I won't go into. But even that feels weak when you realize they haven't done anything to develop this in 10 years since the "incident" it seems. The basic premise of science is bad.

  I can't really say anything about the audio, the OP's and ED's were good, but everything else was background noise. Maybe if I had played Persona 3 it would be nostalgic, but I doubt that even that would save this.

  It's hard to pinpoint but the series is lacking... something. I can only see people who are fans of the other series enjoying this anime. Others who just jump into this one will find it - average or boring to the point of dropping. I only continued out of hope. The plot is hard to follow because of how vague and slow everything is. It's very forgettable and it doesn't help when each episode kind of starts randomly. And then in the later half, they introduce things that exist only for one episode, very odd.

  Persona fights are a mess, nothing interesting. Why is this considered an action anime? You can't even see their designs (which is arguably part of the charm), and when you do, they all look the same mecha-styled, no series favorite personas that we are used to encountering.

  It's very character-focused yet it doesn't flesh them out, the show would be more interesting if it had no connection to the Persona franchise. Replace shadow extraction with some new drug that makes you aggressive and some weird experimentation on humans and it's done. There is very little of Persona to begin with: a bit of Igor, a bit of Personas, the art. No real "awakening" or contract, it misses that inner turmoil that awakenings have. Felt very forced, especially the character added from Persona 3. He was also the only character that properly introduced what was going on, even if it was just a dialog dump.

  The anime didn't make me angry just indifferent. I hope that this isn't someone's first experience with the franchise, that be very sad. Overall I don't recommend this to anyone, learn from my mistakes and don't watch.

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• 

  Satonee

  35/100
  Atlus, what the fuck is this? - A 'Review' of Persona -trinity soul- By Satonee

  

  ---

  Introduction

  Since the dawn of time, the name of sequels (mostly) have always been determined a simple convention: number go up to bigger number. We can see this everywhere, from cinema with spiderman 1 to spiderman 2, with conflicts from World War One to World War Two, and with anime from Persona 3 to Persona Trinity So- wait what.

  Persona Trinity Soul is the ORIGINAL (not current) sequel to the popular 2006 JRPG Persona 3; it was released in 2008 following the massive surge of popularity Persona 3 gave to the series. Trinity Soul, being what was supposed to be the sequel to Persona 3, is know by the persona community by such loving titles, like the forgotten one, 50% opacity and i'm in the house like carpet.

  How could a piece Persona media (when most of the community don't explore the great outdoors) be so unknown even to their own fanbase, and is it really worth watching at all? Short answer, no. Long answer, this review, and trust me its long so lets get into it.

  Warning: spoilers for Persona 3 (Akihiko's plot) and Trinity Soul's main plot

  

  ---

  What Is a Persona Trinity Soul

  Persona Trinity Soul is an anime about 3 brothers, Jun, Shin and Ryou and revolves around the values of family, being close nit and how group se- i mean dru- i mean drunk drivi- i mean 'shadow extraction' is bad.

  I will talk about shadow extraction later on, but lets focus on the main story for now. It tries to portray how families are supposed to stick together, and in the beginning shows Ryou, the oldest brother, not to be close to his two brothers as he used to be after an earthquake killed there parents and sister, so you'd expect it to be a story about Ryou, Shin and Jun uniting together to defeat evil?

  

  While there is like one or two occasions I can name where he shows some sort of character development which involved his brothers (giving Shin a balloon while dressed as a teddy bear and saying he'll go to Jun's parent teacher meeting before killing the love of his life), but it is irrelevant until the very end where he decides to actually do something useful with his persona and kill big bad baddy called Ayane to save everyone, also dying in the process.

  I'd say the story revolves more around individuals overcoming their trauma or personal issues, which to give it credit it does a somewhat good job at. I don't think this can apply to Jun and Shin all that much, but the three characters that help Shin and Jun: Takerou, Magumi and Kanaru all have individual episodes where they overcome the past truama or in the case of Kanaru makes sure she doesnt die with any regrets which is basically saying 'i love you shin beep boop' (which yes she dies after its revealed she was a robot because she runs out of charge something and she seemingly cant be charged just because).

  Theres also the Marebito, which has twins that say basically nothing before dying, a tracksuit maniac, a singular woman, sunglasses and beanie man, mad scientist dad who used children, including his daughter Ayane who is the only villain worth naming and who they are cloning because shes dead but not really?, and a bozo who lost his persona in episode 1 haha what an idiot. Their roles is to just do forced shadow extraction to 'reach a new level of consciousness' or something. However all they're there for is to keep the ayane clone and eventually release it and all die whoopsie daisy.

  To make this section not any longer, Trinity Soul's plot kinda just blows but there is some good individual episodes for individual characters like once in a blue moon I guess.

  ---

  Character, Music and 50% Opacity

  To put it simply, there's only a handful of characters who are likeable and the rest I actually despise. Heres a tierlist I made in 5 minutes:

  

  Characters like Megumi and Takerou (and by extension Kanaru) are only really good because of the individual episodes they got and Itou is just chill imo, the rest of the cast stinks like the average street in Wolverhampton or Birmingham. Jun is annoying, Ryou is absent and a terrible, terrible brother, the Marebito have the personality of a Taylor Swift fan aka none, Ayane and her clone kill everyone just because we can only assume it was the child experimentation and Shin is such an insignificant MC its laughable. He never uses an sort of element or status condition and cant even switch Personas he just has one. Basically he swings persona sword and thats it.

  The one that hurts the most by far is what they did to Akihiko. This man had one of my favourite character arc in Persona, being an orphan, losing his sister, having to overcome grief after he best friend dies think he could've prevented it and starting to live for himself just before having to confront Nyx and the destruction of the world, he went through tragedy... and got turned into a detective NPC questgiver like what you doing to him Atlus this ain't him its a copy.

  The music and art also worth discussing somewhat. The music beside burning mans soul aka im in the house like carpet song funny is pretty good, and the way they use burning mans soul actually makes it sound like an alright OST song, but the OP and ED are very lacking to say the least and makes it obvious it was made in the 2000's. The art isn't anything special honestly, the style barely looks like Persona and more like a cheap knock-off from TEMU, but i just find it funny that they made the Personas 50% opacity so when you're watching the show, you can barely make out what they look like. Also theres a concept that adults lose the power to summon their Persona, which is why Akihiko doesn't have his a Ryou only has this due to drugs, but this is made obsolete by Persona 4.

  The final thing to take from this anime is how confusing it makes stuff for no reason. Remember shadow extraction? well it becomes an analogy for nono stuff like I hinted out earlier and is supposed to be a craze among the population like drugs, but this craze is non-existant by like episode 10 or something and is only mentioned a handful of times afterwards. This goes for many things, including the child story A Whales Feather written by the brother's parents, which is extremely significant as the main story is an analogy for it, but its just a described as a story about 'finding hapiness'. Seriously, that is it, trying to find information about it is impossible because there's no to begin with, and the confusing nature of this and the anime is its biggest downfall, as you just don't really know what's even going on half the time.

  ---

  Why did it Fail

  I believe the main reasons why it failed was in general its low budget an Persona 4.

  The low budget shine through in the quality of the animation, it feels very static with little drops of action which is quite detrimental for a Persona anime, and how all the concepts Atlus wanted to include were only half developed before being seemingly canned or just left vague to continue the story. This also lines up with the fact that Atlus were developing Persona 4 at this time, the game that not only made Persona popular globally but made Persona Trinity Soul no longer canon because it shows adults being able to use their personas, which contradicts the laws of personas in Trinity Soul making it obsolete as a sequel, forcing Atlus to no longer make it canon and remove all traces of it. This also explains why most persona fans don't even know about it, because its now treated like it didn't even exist, which honestly isn't all that tragic.

  ---

  Conclusion

  Watching this show was not worth it, even out of curiosity. While it has glimmers of hope in certain episodes, it mostly misses the mark and is plainly a confusing watch. I 100% would only recommend this to someone who can put up with a snoozefest just to make sure they've consumed all the Persona content possible. 3.5/10, will never watch again.

  

  ok this is the first review ive done in 8 months and wow its long whoopsie, i tried to be more light hearted this time but it still felt too serious while writing and a bit boring lol

  ill do another review soon, hopefully one that is 1. positive and 2. not as long and boring so the next one will be more basic now im getting back into the swing of reviews

  thanks for reading, love you mwah

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• 

  NyoDesu

  75/100
  Persona: Trinity Soul: An Underrated Anime Lost in the Shadows of its Namesake.

  [SPOILERS! MASSIVE ONES! BEWARE THE RAMBLING PERSONA NERD TALK!]
  

  The Story/Characters:

  Persona: Trinity Soul is...interesting because it tries to tell a story of its own while also leaning into the canon of Persona 3's story.

  Taking place ten years after the events of the game (which I'm assuming also includes FES with The Answer since it was already out in Japan by the time this series aired), it's a...decent enough crime thriller story that utilizes the lore of Persona in terms of both its concepts and its usage. It gets a little disjointed at times, sometimes focusing on the main group (Shin, Jun, Ryo, Megumi, Takuro, etc.) and the time they spend together growing both as friends and as allies in battle and at times the villains known as the Marebitos (Kujo, Saki, Toma, Sotaro, etc.) I actually found the story about Shin and how everyone else's pasts all tied into the current conflict they're dealing with very interesting and it's executed quite well. But, the biggest problem ultimately is that it bounces around too much and it makes it a little hard for people to keep up with and with all of the plot points it adds on top of itself, it gets a bit convoluted rather quickly. The other issue is that we're balancing between the internal conflicts of each of the main characters (i.e. Shin finding out about his past), the in-fighting between the Marebitos and how they WANT to stand up to Kujo but are afraid to, the Police trying to stop Kujo and HIS plans, while also trying to find time to flesh everyone out and make them compelling, which in 26 episodes...isn't exactly ideal. Some people like me may still appreciate what it does and the effort it goes through to try and make you care about them, heck Morimoto's death actually got me pretty upset because I really wanted her and Shin to get together and there had been some buildup between the two throughout the series, but sadly the bloated plot has to take precedence over the character-building and it somewhat hurts the experience as a whole.

  The way this series takes a spin on Persona is...hit and miss. The fact that adults can't use their Personas without a special drug is just flat-out dumb and directly contradicts the games that came both before and after this series. Persona 1, 2, 3, and just a month after this show finished airing, Persona 4, all have adult Persona users without there being any issue, so it just feels like they did this for these sake making it unique and while it works in THAT regard, it ultimately just ruined this show's chances of being canon. The sea of unconsciousness and the sea of psyche concepts were neat, but unless you're a. A hardcore Persona fan like myself who's played the earlier games and read some of the extra material to know what they're talking about or B. A Hardcore Psyche Major, you're not going to understand that. Apathy Syndrome and Reverse Cases also are a part of this story and while they add tension, they're all pretty much resolved with no further issues at the end of the series, which while nice in giving the plot some closure on that front (and for Akihiko and the other S.E.E.S. team members, I'm sure, wherever THEY are), it felt a little forced in and once again was just another plot point that was bounced back and forth between when it was needed rather than being a constantly looming threat to push the characters and the main story forward.

  In all honesty, I can't really tell if this plot was supposed to appease the general or hardcore fans of the fanbase, but even as someone who is SUPER into the series, this plot was overall a little overcomplicated and hard to follow. It feels like the writers wanted to tell something different, but had to stick with having Persona in there because of the namesake. However, the ideas it DOES present and does things WITH are all pretty neat and genuinely well-handled with the themes of death, regret, purpose, and trauma. Sure, all of these themes have been covered before in the games, but they are handled in a new way here that makes the characters who experience them and the message behind the series overall meaningful and at least somewhat memorable. There's an episode in there too (I wanna say it's Episode 11 where they bring up the themes of traffic safety and drunk driving using Megumi and Morimoto) that could've been used MUCH more wisely to expand on things more but they didn't so...yeah, it's basically filler with a minor little development for Ryo at the end.

  The Characters themselves vary in quality, characters like the main cast with Shin, Jun, Ryo, Takuro, Kanaru, Ito, and eventually Akihiko are actually quite good and they all in a way go through an arc of their own and aren't just tossed to the side. The Marebitos for the most part outside of Saki, Sataro, Kujo, and Udo, are completely inconsequential and don't have much done with them. Saki and Sataro and really the only ones who really get a decent amount of screen time and even then, due to the constant bouncing around between plot points, we don't necessarily get to see them talk or know how they feel until the near end of the series. Kujo is a pretty cliche antagonist who just wants to continue doing his research and basically make the world his own (a main theme in the series is control and how reality can be molded by one's consciousness and things of that sort, but it's not really used again til the end of the series.) I'm aware of the Trinity Soul novelization that contributes more to the Marebito's side of things, but they REALLY should've just focused on making sure they were fleshed out more in the series. Overall a mixed bag, but I do like most of the cast and it is a bit of a shame that we'll never get to see these guys outside of anything else other than this anime outside of maybe some Anniversary art, if even that.

  The Visual & Sound Design:

  Probably one of the better aspects of this show. A-1 Pictures worked on this series, and they were the ones responsible for animating some of the later Persona anime-related stuff like the cutscenes for Persona 4 on PS2 (with Studio Hibari), the Persona 3 Movies, and...sadly the Persona 4 Golden: The Animation, as well as Persona 5: The Animation. Hey, three out of five ain't too bad, I guess.

  Visually, it looks fine for its time. The characters, both in terms of design and animation, are usually pretty on model and fit the P3/P4-era style perfectly. The environments look nice. The scenes where things are abstract are neat (albeit a little confusing at times, in part due to the story). The fight scenes, while sprinkled throughout (more than likely for budgetary reasons), are pretty flashy and have a lot of weight to them. CGI is used sparingly and really only for vehicles where it looks fine enough. It's all around just fine, nothing incredible, but it has some beauty in it at times and looks presentable enough.

  Sound Design-wise, it's all pretty solid as well. The voice cast is all pretty great (Shin's VA pouring it out in the emotional scenes was genuinely incredible) and Jun's VA doing both him and Yuki at the same time sells the split-personality part of their character perfectly. Music-wise...again, minus Burning Men's Soul's ATROCIOUS rap lyrics, is actually all pretty wonderful. There are some ambient pieces, orchestral pieces, and soft acoustic pieces all done by Taku Iwasaki, who's done other work like Black Butler, Gurren Lagann, and Shin Kamen Rider. There are also some vocal tracks done by Lotus Juice AND Yumi Kawamura who were both involved with the Persona series at the time and they absolutely NAILED it, some of their most underrated songs, for sure. The opening and endings are also pretty great too (visually as well.) The show uses some music from both Persona 3's game soundtrack AND the Reincarnation album for some of the background music, which is a nice nod, didn't really distract me, and honestly works in context to the world just fine due to their sound. Outside of one noticeable blemish, it's a solid soundtrack throughout.

  The Verdict:

  So...would I as someone who LOVES the Persona series and even likes this series in a lot of ways recommend this to people?

  Well...the thing is that this show is pretty all over the place and at times is a little stop-and-go plot-wise, which may turn a lot of people away from it. But, if you're enough of a Persona fan and you are willing to stick with it and go in expecting something pretty different from what the games are, you may come out liking it more than you expected like I did. There clearly was a lot of effort to try and make this something special and I think for what it is and the ambition and scope they were going for with this series...I can't help but respect it.

  Is this anime for everyone? Absolutely not! But for those who stick with it and give it a chance (or are just a massive Persona nerd like I am), it's definitely worth checking out.

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