I have found over the years I have been sort of shying away from a lot of things Japanese. All I seem to be able to get into is what I have played in the past. However, I keep hearing great things about this specific game. As such, I got it on the Vita today, and plan on starting it when I finish Assassin's Creed III: Liberation. Is this game endemic of how JRPG's are like in this modern era, or is it more of a rarity?

I would say it's more of a rarity in that though it's a JRPG, there's not a lot out there that's similar to it, with the exception of its predecessor.

I guess it depends on what drove you away from JRPGs in the first place. The dungeon crawling aspect of it is not wildly different from other games in the genre (though it's got its own unique takes on combat) and the huge draw of the game for me (and likely many others) is the "dating sim" social aspect of the game, where you go around and build deeper relationships with characters in the game. I really enjoyed that part of the game and it made me care about the characters without feeling forced.

It's not for every one, and the start can be a bit slow, but get an hour or two in where you get to choose what you can do with your day and the game really opens up and starts to consume your waking moments... talking about it makes me want to go play it right now...

Playing Persona 4 will get you (back) into playing Persona 4.

That's about it.

@Rays_Gaming_Rants: This game will get you into the Persona series, as it still stands rather apart from most JRPGs out there.

So, after this, you can play Persona 3, look forward to Persona 5, and maybe check out the Shin Megami Tensei games.