I found it to be funny. Don't know why but I just couldn't help myself.

Also I just loved how everyone around Charlie where one of the most talkative people you could ever meet.

@FluxWaveZ: You are awesome. I live in Asia and it works great!

@Video_Game_King said:

@DarkShaper said:

Anyone is welcome to dislike Persona as much as they want. If someone thinks it sucks or that it should not have a fanbase they are welcome to.

Only here's the thing: I don't dislike it. Sure, there are some awkward moments when the characters try to say English words (Juu-ne-su? And when she's saying the rest of the sentence in English?), but it's still pretty cool, what with the selectively deranged animation (did Igor murder the butterfly guy from the first Persona?) and just how well it translates from a game to an anime. It was all word choice, really.

Japanese tends to borrow a lot of English, mostly on account of the fact that English is a mandatory subject in Japanese high schools, so it gets used a lot, if not effectively.

@Video_Game_King said:

@Hailinel: Yea, but the weird thing was that her English was perfect up until Junes. Was it meant to preserve rhythm or something? Also, kind of odd that the bear character ends every sentence with the word "bear." Is that in the original in any sense?

Junes isn't English, dude. It's just the name of the store. It's pronounced Jyu-ne-su in Japanese, or "Jyu-nes" in the English localization of the game.

Crap I forgot to watch it today.

So a user by the name of Instro. on NeoGAF. who isn't too familiar with Persona 4 posted his impressions: 

@FluxWaveZ: To be fair, the Yosuke has to pee bit sucked and was unfunny in the game.

@FluxWaveZ: Then again, one viewers opinion does hardly a majority make. It is true that the show is geared toward fans of the game (which makes sense, honestly), but I'd be interested to see more reviews from sources unfamiliar with the game.

@Video_Game_King: It's a verbal tic that existed in the original Japanese version of the game. It seems to have been written out of the subtitles, to my relief.

@FluxWaveZ: Then again, one viewers opinion does hardly a majority make. It is true that the show is geared toward fans of the game (which makes sense, honestly), but I'd be interested to see more reviews from sources unfamiliar with the game.

@FluxWaveZ: To be fair, the Yosuke has to pee bit sucked and was unfunny in the game.

@Hailinel said:

@FluxWaveZ: Then again, one viewers opinion does hardly a majority make. It is true that the show is geared toward fans of the game (which makes sense, honestly), but I'd be interested to see more reviews from sources unfamiliar with the game.

I've actually just talked to a buddy who has no Persona knowledge who actually enjoyed it and and probably will enjoy it more if they flesh out what's going on.

It's a pilot episode. And we all know what happens when budgets run out. Quality.

GOD DAMN IT. I KNEW THERE WAS SOMETHING I WAS GOING TO DO TODAY

I'm hooking my friend on the ER (he's on episode 85, and is going to get The Golden), and I'll see what he thinks tomorrow.

Japanese teddie is annoying.... although I remember finding English teddie annoying to begin with, and he grew on me as the game went on. Also my japanese isnt 100% fluent these days, but I was pretty sure that the translators included a few 'bear' jokes that werent in the actual japanese audio. So if they did, those guys deserve a medal.

Just wayched it, it was awesome.

@babblinmule said:

Japanese teddie is annoying.... although I remember finding English teddie annoying to begin with, and he grew on me as the game went on. Also my japanese isnt 100% fluent these days, but I was pretty sure that the translators included a few 'bear' jokes that werent in the actual japanese audio. So if they did, those guys deserve a medal.

It's the translator's way of covering for Teddie's verbal tick in Japanese, where he'll append "-kuma" to his sentences.

I have very little interest in watching past the first episode. I've been exposed to Persona 4 in enough different ways that I'm fine without this. It looks like it'll be good, and I smiled every time the music kicked in, but it's something I can live without. For what it's worth, it made me want to watch the Endurance Run again.

Freaking loved it. It's almost exactly like the game, down to the status menus and calendar! The original endurance run is what got me hooked on this site, so I'm pretty psyched about this. Let's see if funky student stops by.

Chie never stops kicking ass, and is cuter than ever. Nuff said.

I assume Yu will start developing a more assertive personality as the series goes on. If that status screen is anything to go by, it'll likely mean they'll evolve his personality as time goes on.

What about Funky Student?

WHAT ABOUT FUNKY STUDENT?!?

Yeah I thought it was pretty dam good, if they can keep this pace up it could actually be one of the best shows I've ever seen.

Everyday young life junes

THE MOVIE IS CALLED "Trial of the Dragon" JAPANESE CHIE, GET IT FUCKING RIGHT.

It's looking pretty good so far. Felt a bit rushed, but hey, that's what you get for wanting to get that far in the first episode.

Looking forward to how it treats Shadow Yosuke and all that.

I really want to watch this, but the video player is being stupid laggy right now. Guess I'll wait until it's up on Hulu...

@FluxWaveZ: To be fair, the Yosuke has to pee bit sucked and was unfunny in the game.

@coakroach said:

What about Funky Student?

WHAT ABOUT FUNKY STUDENT?!?

Hopefully he'll get his own spin-off show!

They nailed it. Looking forward to watching the rest!

The characters look dead because they don't have the usual huge anime eyes.

@Lykos said:

I assume Yu will start developing a more assertive personality as the series goes on. If that status screen is anything to go by, it'll likely mean they'll evolve his personality as time goes on.

Yeah, I was thinking at too.

I just watched the first episode, finally, and I liked most of it, and am sort of wondering if I watched the same episode that a lot of people that are complaining watched. There are moments where the pace is sped up, but what were some of you expecting? This series has 24 episodes of 25 minute installments to tell the story of an 80 hour RPG that had one of the slowest, most painstaking and methodical paces I've ever had to endure. They have numerous dungeons to get through, people to save, a mystery to unravel, and all the little details and nuances within that, to explain within 12 hours total of air time.
 
That's no easy feat.
 
And to deal with it you basically have three options. 1, you speed up the pace of the non-essential stuff and cut some corners to tell the story the best you can. 2, you take so many liberties with the story that you're practically not telling the same story at all anymore. Or 3, you just don't do it at all. Anime, perhaps moreso than any other entertainment medium I can think of, is incredibly condensed. By nature in nearly every anime aside from the ones with a billion episodes, they tend to move at a fast pace. Unless this series had gotten 48 episodes, I don't know how some of you can expect this story to play out as slowly and carefully, detailing every bit of the actual game from start to finish, and actually come anywhere close to fitting within the confines of 12 hours. 
 
I think they cut away from the scene with Adachi and Dojima too quickly and thought it was odd they didn't have the Charlie, Chie, and Yukiko come across it. I thought the "pissing my pants" joke from Yosuke fell completely flat and made no sense with how fast they were moving in that scene. I wish they had spent a couple more minutes explaining the concept of the midnight channel in a more natural way than they did. But aside from those things I thought the first episode was pretty good. I thought the music was, mostly, inserted appropriately and was paced about as well as I expected it to be paced.  
 
Those of us with intimate knowledge of the game need to be a little less starving for story, here, I think. We know so much and love so much about Persona 4 that we all want to see it crammed into the anime as soon as possible. We're not going to get Nanako and Dojima's entire family history in the first episode. Nor did we get that for hours and hours of playing the game.
 
I dunno, maybe some of you came into this with far higher expectations than I did, but I don't have some of the huge complaints that some of you are having. 80 hours of an incredibly dialogue heavy and exposition-rich RPG translated to a 12 hour anime. You kind of can't be surprised when they cut some corners. But with the obstacles they face, I can't think of a remarkably better way of handling them than they did.

   Those of us with intimate knowledge of the game need to be a little less starving for story, here, I think. We know so much and love so much about Persona 4 that we all want to see it crammed into the anime as soon as possible. We're not going to get Nanako and Dojima's entire family history in the first episode.

I´ll watch it if it gets dubbed, as of now I don´t know where to watch it and since I don´t live in the US the only other way for me to watch it is looking for a fansub or something, but to be honest I don´t know if I´m exited as I was before, if people say the episodes are rushed and don´t convey the plot very well I might have to take their word for it , unless they make some changes from the game story watching the anime isn´t going to fell much diferent from playing the game or watching all the cutscenes together, Im interested in the remix soundtrack though.

I think that

They made it too obvious about the gas station attendant. It lingered a bit too long on that shot, and it seemed out of place, especially with the pacing of the show. This might just be due to my having played the game, though.

@MrAristocrates: If they didn't at least give it a moment to linger, it wouldn't stick in people's minds and the end reveal could be cheapened if it had been just a brief encounter.

@Hailinel: I suppose you have a point.

As a fan of Persona 4, I thought it was promising. As a fan of narrative coherency I was a little dismayed, If you hadn't played the game, they were introducing new characters at a rate of knots, I'd imagine it'd be a little baffling if you were coming to the Persona universe fresh.

The pacing was great, they kept in all the right stuff and cut out most of the chaff. Morooka is still a threat..

I think that

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

They made it too obvious about the gas station attendant. It lingered a bit too long on that shot, and it seemed out of place, especially with the pacing of the show. This might just be due to my having played the game, though.

@FluxWaveZ said:

@MrAristocrates said:

I think that

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

They made it too obvious about the gas station attendant. It lingered a bit too long on that shot, and it seemed out of place, especially with the pacing of the show. This might just be due to my having played the game, though.

Also, it probably is just because you know what happens. It's a pretty obvious moment when you look back at the game too.

Pretty much, It never seemed blatant in the game the first time around and I remember it being almost identical. It really does seem odd looking back, the more you know...

WAIT!

Is the status screen really in the anime?

That's awesome.

Also,

@mutha3 said:

@Cloudenvy said:

Man, Japanese Chie is so much better than English Chie.

i will cut you

He won't be the only one.

This is really making me want to watch the Endurance Run again. Maybe I'll go watch the best of on youtube.

@DarkShaper said:

I really liked it and didn't mind the stuff they cut out, but I would really like to hear what people that haven't played the game think of it.

That's all I could think of while watching it; having experience P4 in one shape or another at least 3 times now, it's incredibly hard to see it with a fresh eye. It seemed incredibly frantic and quick to me, with Charlie (fuck that Yu Narukami shit) getting control of his Persona at the end. I frankly don't understand how people who didn't know the subject could have kept up. I'm kinda bummed that it's a straight-up adaptation, with absolutely nothing new to offer to the fans, but the numerous references and fan service moments were enough to bring me back (Nanako's Junes singing broke my heart... again). Overall, I will definitely be watching it, but I think my ambiguous feeling is going to last throughout the show.

I think the first ep was pretty good overall.

They have to tell the whole story in 25(?) episodes so it's only natural that the pacing is pretty high. I really liked the fact that they kept the calendar and the music in the game, but i think Yu has no personality at all. That can change though, considering the fact that they kept the personality stats from the game.