Persona on a Bike. P3 The Movie – #1 Spring of Birth – PV 4

6 more days until the movie launches, so one more PV for the road. We probably won’t see it until it goes to blu-ray/DVD, but this teaser shows us that our protagonist gets to have thrilling persona battles while riding the motorcycle around Tartarus’s crazy architecture. If he doesn’t kick flip off the bike so Orpheus or some other persona can smack it through a shadow causing them both to explode, I will be sorely disappointed. Considering everyone getting beat up by the Emperor/Empress combo, I assume that will happen during the fight to save Fuuka.

While it ultimately would be only a portion of the movie, the action element does actually look all right. I like Shinji headbutting that guy and getting to see Akihiko boxing. The animation direction looks like it has a lot of potential. I was really caught by how much more of a demented look the protagonist has when the evoker goes off on the roof and Pharos looking at the protagonist like he was looking at a dreamy boy. I mean, he is, so it’s just a nice touch. We just decided to replay P3, so I’m excited to see how it’s going to translate.

Persona 3 -The Spring of Birth- PV 3

Inching up closer and closer to this one. We’re just over a month out, so it’s time for the PV where we beat up shadows. I like the one Yukari kills because it just sort of pops like she’s playing a balloon mini-game. The animation also looks solid. The art is good, and the characters have a good sense of flow when hitting things, though this is one brief, second long snippets of that. Speaking of the art style alone, I also really like how they got Tartarus to look. With the moon in the background, it looks like something out of an old fable. Dark and imposing, but entrancing and mystical.

I think we’re also getting a good sense of where the story’s focus is going to be. When this was announced as a movie compilation instead of an anime series like P4 was, I think we were all curious about how they’d handle things like social links. You can devote an episode to downtime and get a few of those out of the way in an anime, but you can’t really stop the movie for 20 minutes so our lead can go to the mall and learn how to be a sleazy businessman. From what they’ve shown us, this movie isn’t going to have anything to do with that stuff. Social link characters will probably have background cameos so that we can go shadow busting at least up through rescuing Fuuka. With as much focus as they put on it, that might be the final conflict of the movie. The trailers have shown Shinji but not most of the characters that would have been around during his major arc, so I think we’re probably saving up that storyline for Movie 2.

The movie comes out late next month, so we should be getting its blu-ray release maybe sometime early next year, and that’s probably when we’ll get it in the west. I hope they can pull all the old VAs back and dub it. I liked that cast.

 

Persona 3 -Spring of Birth- PV 2 and Release Date

Good to see you, Junpei. Good to see the persona summoning animation too. I like the way it has an outline that the color fleshes out. It gives a sense of something ethereal becoming real. I also appreciate seeing The Fool arcana big shadow actually attacking Yukari and Minato before they get to the roof rather than just menacing the dorm building off screen.

But yes, Persona 3 -Spring of Birth- will be released to theaters November 23rd. For those of us not in a position to see a movie in Japan, that puts us at getting a potential English release sometime early next year from the gap between movie showing and DVD release. On the upside, we should be getting the movie theme, “More than One” by Yumi Kawamura, much sooner. Kawamura is the singer behind all the major P3 songs, so it’s not surprising they’ve brought her back. If it ends up being as enjoyable as “Kimi no Kioku,” I’ll be into it.

Persona 3 The Movie Preview Video and Cast List

Persona is pretty new to us, as I’ve mentioned before. Only just finished P3 and haven’t finished P4 because of this and that. Because of that, I haven’t seen the P4 anime, and this movie will be done by the same team and studio. I’ve heard good things, typically, but the two or so out of context scenes I have seen looked well directed but lacking for money to really make the animation good. Hopefully, with this being a movie instead of a series, they’ll have more overall money to pump in to making Akihiko boxing shadows as pretty as that deserves to be.

Yaraon also managed to get a hold of the cast list.

• (Hero Character) Makoto Yuki – Akira Ishida (Athrun Zala in Gundam SEED and Destiny, Kaworu Nagisa in Evangelion)
• Yukari Takeba – Megumi Toyoguchi (Revy in Black Lagoon, Winry Rockbell in Full Metal Alchemist)
• Junpei Iori – Kosuke Toriumi (Inui in Shinsekai Yori, Kiyotaka Ishimaru in Dangan Ronpa, Yuri Lowell in Tales of Vesperia)
• Mitsuru Kirijo – Rie Tanaka (Lacus Klein in Gundam SEED and Destiny, Yomi in Azumanga Daioh)
• Akihiko Sanada – Hikaru Midorikawa (Heero Yui in Gundam Wing, Masaki Andoh in Super Robot Wars)
• Fuuka Yamagishi – Mamiko Noto (Tsukiko Sagi in Paranoia Agent)
• Igor – Isamu Tanonaka (Mucha in Mazinger Z, Loki in Cyborg 009)
• Elizabeth – Miyuki Sawashiro (Jolyne Kujo in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle, Fujiko Mine since 2011)

All of these actors and actresses are consistent with their video game appearance, as you probably imagined. To that end, Isamu Tanonaka, who passed on in 2010, will be acting again from archived clips like in the P4 anime.

I’ll actually watch this one since I’ve already experienced the game. Looking forward to giving it a try.