Persona: Trinity Soul

The Good: - Persona 3 fanservice (it features one of the characters from the video game midway through the series) - Great soundtrack - Beautiful art style The Bad: - Convoluted plot - Seriously...what's up with the whale feathers? - Can be too emo at times - Episodes never start exactly where the last episode left off. Annoying.Conclusion: Persona tries to draw you into their world, and into the dark histories of its characters, but only partially succeeds. Fans of the video game will surely find reason to like this anime. Those who have never played the game, however, will probably find it average at the least.

Persona -Trinity Soul- is a nice addition to the Persona story, and like Persona 3 before it, focuses a lot on character develpment. Even though this anime is considered a sequal to Persona 3, besides having a supporting character from the game, and the occasional mention of the "event 10 years ago," it doesn't entirely connect with the game, and is better considered a story of it's own. At first, the story is slow and confusing, but the explanations and speed picks up partway through the series. For people hoping to see a lot of Persona versus Persona fighting, sorry. The focus is more on storyhere. Overall, though, it was a very great anime, with sometimes surprising plot twists and touching flashback scenes (which I usually hate). The music is always fitting with the scene that is occuring. Character design and art is great, and the studio did a great job of perfecting the same dark atmosphere that the Persona series is known for.

How cool is it when you put a gun to your head, close your eyes, pull the trigger... and out comes a mask of your personality, a figure of your other self, a being of great power that you can summon...a Persona? Very cool indeed. That's the theme of the quite popular Persona 3, an Atlus game for the Playstation 2. Persona: Trinity Soul, is a spin-off to the awesome RPG. Sadly, it turns out to be a disgrace to Persona 3, and all of its fans. Trinity Soul has absolutely no relation to the game whatsoever (thankfully). Save one recurring character from the RPG, the rest ofthe series is unrelated to the original game's plot. It's not a sequel, but an independent anime based on the theme of Personas stolen from the game. The only excuse I found for watching this series (as i'm sure is also the case with the other persona 3 fans) is solely because it followed the theme from my all time favourite RPG. What I did not expect was the complete butchering of Personas, their summoning, their power and the over all story in Trinity Soul. Story The story, if it can be called a story, takes place 10 years after the occurences in persona 3 and centers around the young 17 year old Shin. A normal highschool student who gets transferred along with his younger brother, to live with their older brother who works in the police force. Strange things seemed to be happening in the city, and as Shin becomes aware of them and gets involved, he awakens his other self, his Persona. That is all which is notable in the series, the rest is crap. There's no actual plot, just a gang of bandits experimenting with persona users. The plot, at times, becomes difficult to follow and I can honestly say that I still didn't completely comprehend the ending. Art The art was somehwat decent. The characters were built nicely but they look like a mixture of the old 'cute' anime faces and the new 'real' looking ones. The eyes somewhat disturbed me. Apart from that, the backgrounds and sceneries were quite impressive I admit and the city highlights were heart warming and the only pleasure I could derive from the series. Sound The OP and ED themes were actually very good. But I never noticed the background music much (which are extremely important and if used correctly, can make the moment 10 times more enjoyable). Either because they never used anything decent (or maybe none at all) or maybe because I was desperately waiting for the series to finish quickly. Character This was just...bearable. Shin always exaggerated his feelings and sometimes, didn't show them at all. The characters never expressed at the right places and behaved very abnormally. I feel that one of the side characters, Yuki, was barely necessary but the series has stressed quite much on her. Then the way a few characters are dealt with is just plain PATHETIC. A moment which was supposed to make the viewer feel sad and depressed brought a reaction of 'WTF!?' Enjoyment Need I say more? You might be able to relax your eyes on the sceneries and on one of my favourite characters who made a return in this (why HIM of all the people?). But forget about the main theme: Personas. They are designed like personas but are almost transparent and their summoning is bull. No backstory on personas or their history. They are more like giant colourful flying robots. YES. EXACTLY like that. Utterly obliterated. And what's with the whale and the feathers? Overall Fellow fans of the Persona RPGs, expect nothing from this. I highly recommend you ignore this series if you don't want to see the lovable and awesome personas turned into garbage right in front of your eyes. Continue enjoying the awesomeness of the games Persona 3 and 4 and their brilliant story lines, characters and plots. Don't indulge yourself into this nightmare like I did, thinking that it's worth watching since it's related to Atlus' Persona 3. You might enjoy this series more if you were unaware of the original games, but you wouldn't understand anything to begin with. Very Poor. Nothing like the Persona brilliance, which is in a whole different league. A big let down for Persona fans.

Any fans of the Persona series, Persona 3 in particular, will probably be excited to watch Persona Trinity Soul, especially since most synopses describe it as a sequel to P3. Be warned, though, that while the anime does make reference to things in Persona 3 and even features a cameo of one character, it has very little to do with its predecessor. Plus, if you can manage to figure out what's going on, you'll realize there are a few things happening that are actually inconsistent with the video game series. Story: 3/10 The series goes from boring, to confusing, and ends with disappointing. Like the PersonaRPGs, there's a big focus on character development. Unlike the games, however instead of balancing that development with action, most episodes are 24-minutes worth of talking heads. The moments of action are minimal and usually appear at the end of an episode, leaving you with a cliff-hanger. However, the following episode doesn't start right where the previous one left off. So, you're forced to sit through another 20 minutes of talking, repeating the process all over again. The second half of the series has the same amount of talking heads, but this time the heads are saying things you don't even understand. The writers added too many elements to the plot and left most of them unanswered. I just wish the characters would stop speaking in metaphors for a minute and tell me what the hell is going on in plain English...or Japanese, SOMETHING. Why are they called “whale feathers”? Why are they talking about whales? What the hell is everyone doing? What's with the red lolita chick flying around? Also, I won’t mention any spoilers, but there are a few things surrounding the existence of personas, as well as one of the characters in this anime, that I found were inconsistent with the video games. Art: 4/10 When reading other reviews, I noticed most people really enjoyed the animation. Maybe I'm just a snob, but I found the animation to be some of the worst I've seen in anime. The characters aren't drawn consistently; facial structure or anatomy unintentionally change from frame to frame. Shin's chin might look normal in a close-up but suddenly be WAY too long when the camera zoom's out. There were a number of scenes where a character moved their head and their eyes would suddenly be too far apart or too close together. These are the kind of anatomical errors I'd expect from a beginner artist, not professional work. Aside from the fight scenes, there wasn't a lot of actual "animation," either. There was a lot of panning across still images or zoom-ins and outs, making slow episodes feel even slower. The backgrounds were drawn well, though. The environments and dark atmosphere of the series were the only things I really enjoyed about the art. Sound: 7/10 Listening to the background music in this series was one of the few things that kept me watching. I remember getting so excited when I was watching the first episode and suddenly heard a track from P3. From then on, I would wait for scenes to change then listen to see if I could recognize the background music. The original music in the series isn't too bad either. There are several catchy tunes that make the fight scenes (the few and far between) even more enjoyable to watch. Character: 5/10 The. characters. are. so. flat. I wanna say they're like "diet" version of previous Persona characters. I can see similarities to characters like Junpei, Fuuka, and Yukari, but they lack the depth and empathy said characters possess. They spent so much time angsting over their past, I found myself more frustrated than sympathetic. Akihiko Sanada from P3 is introduced in the second half of the series, and while he's by far one of the more entertaining characters, I still found that even his personality was somewhat diluted. Maybe hanging out with Shin and company too much killed his soul. But even with this, I thought the most interesting characters were Akihiko, Itou, Narasaki, and Inui only because I'm convinced he's Ken Amada in disguise. While Shin's friends are off angsting over the loss of their family members, Jun's playing Persona Whisperer, and Shin's having what looks like a bad acid trip, those guys were actually trying to figure out what the hell was going on. They were investigating, researching and showing general interest in the, you know, PLOT. I think it says something when the best characters don't even get featured in the opening. Enjoyment: 4/10 Like I said earlier, the few things I enjoyed were the well-drawn backgrounds, music, the investigations Itou and Narasaki conducted, and a 28-year-old Akihiko in a suit. If there wasn't a song I recognized or a scene with Akihiko and/or the cops, I found myself getting easily bored. I'd spaced out and miss what they were saying, but even if I rewound to catch the dialogue again, I'd still be confused about what was going on. Overall: 4/10 I don't know if I can describe Persona Trinity Soul as a sequel or a stand-alone series. It's too far gone from it's supposed predecessor to be a real sequel, but the characters make too many references to Persona 3 for it to be a stand-alone anime. This also makes it hard for me to assume who the target audience was. Persona 3 fans would probably be disappointed with the lack of action and less entertatining persona summons, and those who haven't played the Persona 3 would find it too confusing to get into. This series isn't worth watching for the plot or other characters. Fangirls can go ahead and watch it for the eye-candy; fanboys are just screwed. If you liked P3 and you liked Akihiko or you just like hot guys, watch this series to see Akihiko strut around in a suit. Watch it from episode 14 on and pretend it's a show about him walking around and talking. Don't worry about not understanding whatever else is happening in the show. Odds are, you won't understand what's going on even if you watch it from the beginning.