Persona 4 #09 — Grinding Understanding With Rise
December 1st, 2011
Fold those cranes, Yuu.
Impressions:
I kind of liked the start where they showed Rise being chased as a way of showing her anxieties for it. That’s the kind of change the show should be making to better present this stuff instead of the exposition of the game. Of course, having it turn out to be a completely clueless Yuu trying to return her phone is an exceedingly mixed message that kneecaps the entire scene. Following it up by actually stalking her just makes that worse. Ordering take-out and having a party while ‘hiding’ about 20 feet away from her beihind a parked car is… I don’t even know. I do think I like most of the general changes they made here though, particularly in establishing Yuu and Rise’s relationship a little bit before she got tossed into the TV to give it more of a personal connection to him instead of Rise just sort of ranting at the world in general. It may be the closest he’s come to a personality yet.
Mostly though, just another fairly dull intro/setup episode with special Rie opening sequence. I guess it could’ve been worse, and with a new ZnT season around the corner, I already dread hearing her try to sing again. At least Kanji’s finally been scaled back and down and is no longer a walking joke, although the way he was staring at Chie during the whole discussion scene made it look like he was either about to rape, eat her, or wear her scalp as a hat. Possibly all three. It was also disappointing that they broke out the All-Out Attack sequence for chasing a fanboy into traffic. I did laugh when he began folding increasingly smaller cranes out of Rise’s photos to make her feel better. Way to put that Understanding stat to good use.
Preview:
Those damn cop shadows.
Posted in Persona | 10 Comments »
meh 
jingoi 
redlupine 
Nan 
The Phantom 
Anonymous 
Yukipon 
Wilfriback 
ark noir
Could you elaborate your thoughts on the first “stalker” scene with Yu? I think I’m starting to notice a few unfortunate points of this series: playing up disturbing things for laughs. First homophobia “jokes” and now this? Somehow, I predict that the next episode will be filled with “boob” jokes and the boys, instead of wanting to run away home, will now act all googly’eyed like stereotypical perverts and will be too distracted by “sexyness” to progress with the rescue. I still remember a quote from the game, an option for the protagonist to say “There’s no rush,” to save Rise so that he and Yosuke can see her strip. I hope that isn’t played for laughs, just like how even Kanji’s life was in danger, that apparently didn’t matter as the boys were considering leaving him there so that they wouldn’t be raped by his shadow.