Video: Persona 4 Anime Shaping Up Nicely
Fans of Atlus' fine RPG/high-school-sim Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 got some awesome news earlier this week, and here's the video to seal the deal!
While some games--Mass Effect, for example--are a bit of a stretch for the anime treatment, Persona 4 is a strong fit. The trailer above indicates the show will be done in the same style as the game's cutscenes, but with even more detail. If anyone else is squeeing as hard as I am right now, I can't hear them!
I'll be on the edge of my seat to see how they portray Kanji's desperation to seem tough despite his attraction to males, or if they'll show the gender-bending Naoto in any sort of positive light. Anime has traditionally been a bastion for crossing the gender divide, but the official art so far shows Naoto looking rather feminine, not quite like her preferred ambiguous presentation.
The fully-animated interpretation will likely feature a talking protagonist as well, though hopefully making exactly the same decisions as my character for full accuracy...! It's being handled by Anime International Company and begins airing this fall.
faePuck
Posted to Miscellany, Videos on 21 April 2011
· Comments (7)
Other stuff like this: anime, persona 4, shin megami tensei
I need a remake of Persona 4 for the 3DS! Please! (the trailer looks sweet!)
I was not a fan at all of the particular anime art style the game used for its cutscenes, so I'm really happy that the art looks significantly cleaner in this trailer.
With Kanji's 3-dimensional version of a teenage man attracted to men being the best representation I have personally come across of an individual with homosexual feelings in a video game, this became quickly one of my favorites(not to mention just being a fantastic design and play in general). I'd definitely check out the show.
You. Did realize that Kanji was not attracted to men, right? There was a clear underpinning with a love story between him and Naoto. Now yes, Naoto had the "I'm not fooling anybody into actually thinking I'm a guy but let's go with it for the sake of story" thing going to confuse Kanji, but when it was revealed that Naoto was female, Kanji was way more into it. He was afraid people would /think/ that he was gay because he liked to knit, and acted tougher to make up for it. It wasn't about sex, it was about gender rolls in society.
I can't wait to see this, hopefully won't take long to see fansubs.
With regards to Kanji I think I read somewhere Atlus made him ambiguous with his sexuality, leaving it to the player to decide (and not have the game dictate it) :)
So will be interesting to see how it is treated in the anime, as I'm sure it will be explored.
On another note, yes please to a 3DS Persona 4!!! I can just imagine the 3D effect working with the TV look while in combat :)
found your site on del.icio.us today and really liked it.. i bookmarked it and will be back to check it out some more later
Oh, that's why I made sure to emphasize that he had homosexual feelings instead of being a homosexual. What he was and wasn't and the evidence thereof is a topic in its own right, but I do believe he was a good showing of having to deal with feeling sentiments for another man that went beyond platonic.
I agree with the comments regarding Kanji. Because this game is created for Japanese by Japanese it is hard for me to put the label of homosexual. Regarding Kanji's sexuality well is complicated. I can see him being a not alpha male heterosexual that doesn't fit or I can see having some feelings towards another man. Again is complicated because often what we interpreted as femenine (in Usa and Europe) is not interpreted that way in Japan and Asia in general. You just have see the singers and Japanese Rockers, the look, the gestures, the clothes but most of them are married to a woman and have kids. Another example, the area cosmetic products section for men is as big as the women section. Really often a heterosexual man will act "femenine" because that's atractive to Japanese woman. It's a complicated subject for us to understand. Anyway even if Kanji is heterosexual that doesn't make him a less interesting character. I think one of the reasons why so many young people in Europe and the Usa like anime is because the presence of this ambiguous characters.