[Movie Review] Persona 3 The Movie: #1 The Spring of Birth, #2 Midsummer Knight's Dream

We all know Persona 3 was a very popular game produced by Atlus. The Persona series overall is very popular and very well done. Jeez, I have to thank a friend for giving me his copy of Persona 3 as a gift. So we got the games and then we got anime adaptations, Persona ~trinity soul~ and Persona 4 the Animation. We even got Devil Survivor 2 the Animation which wasn't very well done in my opinion. So what of these Persona movies?

The Persona movies tells the story as if you play the game, but it skips over all your Social Links and Fusions. So if you played the game from the beginning, nothing should be a surprise. It adapts closely with minor changes. The main character is named Yuki Makoto and is unbelievably apathetic. In the game he is silent because you the player assume the role so there's no reason to give him traits. In the movie, at least in the first one, he clearly doesn't care about a lot of things.

The first movie off the bat was very disappointing. The animation towards the end looked shoddy and drawn by drunk people. It just got really boring and I would have felt ripped if I watched it in a theater. Investing in the game would have been the better option. Each movie adapts a quarter of the year in Persona, so roughly half a school semester that the main character goes through. If they decided to go through the Social Links, if only briefly, it may have gave the films a more interesting touch. Given that every person's gaming experience was different, I was hoping that they would put some film-exclusive story or element.

The second movie somewhat redeemed themselves because we are introduced to Aegis and we also have Shinjiro and Ken's drama. Again, it adapts closely to the original story with minor changes. Shinjiro's kindness to Koromaru was a little added moe tidbit. So we also meet Strega and we are hinted at the "eminent demise". They tease Ryoji's appearance at the very end hinting at a third movie. They kept the animation consistent this time. Makoto is a little less apathetic and they seem to hint at a romantic relationship with Yukari in the future. His sarcasm however, is first rate dry humor.

I will watch the third movie and subsequently the fourth one so that I can see how the writers decide to rehash the series for more money.