As you may or may not know, the film adaptation of Persona 3 has finally been made available for import. Being a fanatic of the Persona series, I made it a goal to see it as soon as possible. After my second viewing, I've decided to share my opinion on the film, hoping that some might find it useful when making a decision to watch it or not.

How much Persona 3 is actually in this film? Well, not a lot. Actually, the film covers very little in the grand scheme of things, leading me to believe that we'll (hopefully) see more than just 2 films. The plot moves along and chooses the fight with Emperor and Empress as it's climactic endpoint. This means Fuuka has only just been introduced, and 4 other S.E.E.S members haven't played a role in the films yet.

How loyal to the source material does this stand? Surprisingly well, to be honest. The enemies shown throughout the movie had the correct weaknesses(To my memory). Very little was added or replaced in terms of scenes. The tone is very similar to the games, with the only outlier being MC's cold and nonchalant demeanor that is more exaggerated than the attitude that the MC in the game had, having him just come out and say the death isn't a big deal. the fight with Emperor and Empress is a tad bit different, but I'll let that one slide because it made it more dramatic.

How about the animation? The film looks great in it's entirety. Every character looks right and good (Aside from the occasional weird looking face on Mitsuru). The animation team managed to sneak in Philemon any place they could and it fun to catch one every now and again. The effects during fights have been stellar, and really make me excited to see my Waifu Aigis(<3) in action in the 2nd film. I did have one complaint about the action scenes, the physical hits felt lackluster (Akihiko and Polydeuces in particular). When a character was hit by a shadow, or a shadow was hit with blunt force, it didn't have the right weight behind it. They felt weak.

Acting? Well, I wouldn't call myself an expert on acting, but I think it was overall pretty good. MC sounds fine. Although Junpei seemed a little too angry at MC a little too early.

Pacing? I mean, they're doing what they can. I feel that only sticking to the main plot is the correct choice. The S. Links in P3 aren't the greatest and characters develop fairly well in the main tale. Even with the little amount of story the showed, it still felt rushed. Although that is a problem that is near impossible to fix for a 80+ hour JRPG.

Overall I really liked this movie and I'm hungry for more. This is spades better than Persona 4: The Animation, and I'd recommend that anyone watch this. Even if you never played the game, it's good enough for you to watch, and it might even convince you to get it on PSN.

So, please get excite for Midsummer Knight's Dream

If you saw it, I'd love to hear some other opinions on it, as it will take some convincing to get my friends to see it. They have a bias against Persona because I say shit like "Aigis is the best robot waifu". Go figure