Persona Q: Junpei and Zen English Trailers

Haven’t exactly been able to keep up with this perfectly but apparently Atlus has been slowly releasing english trailers for the characters in Persona Q. Featured today are the original character Zen, and Persona 3 fan favorite Junpee Iori.

They definitely sound pretty good. Vic Mignogna is doing a damn good job of being the idiotic and yet heartwarming and down to earth kinda guy. It’ll fit well with the colorful cast from Persona 4 who were pretty goofy for the most part. He’ll feel right at home. Zen on the hand is that calm and collected and somewhat more gentle sounding character. I can’t quite place the voice nor can I find a listing for it anywhere. I’ll update this when I find out who it is.

It’s nice to hear all this. Especially the cutscene dialogue since that guarantees that the full game will be voice acted as opposed to only in battle and key cutscenes since it’s a hand held game. It sounds pretty good.

Persona Q: Shadow of the Labrynth come out Nov. 25.

How Do You Think This “Midnight Channel” Thing Will Be Boy? “Ruff.” Ken Amada and Koromaru P4A USH Promo!

I didn’t know these two were going to be in. Cool. I mean, not cool. Now I have to pick between playing The Man, the best character, and playing The Dog, the other best character. Also, some kid who’s now some teenager. Only kidding. Ken’s fine if you don’t go the weird romance route with Girl Character. Though now it’s not quite as weird.

Translation courtesy of ANN:

Ken: I promised Mitsuru… That I’d live a proper childhood.
Ken: Thanks for the support.
Ken: Geez, you’re an adult, so what are you doing? You’re a bit too off guard.
Ken: As you wish. I don’t dislike sports at all.
Ken: I don’t understand either. That “honor” and “adult matters” stuff is completely ridiculous.
Ken: …Don’t give him weird names. Koromaru is troubled when you do.
Ken: My combination with Koromaru is good.
Ken: Let’s go, Koromaru!
Narrator: The Chunibyo (someone who is obsessed with a fantasy world to an embarassing degree) second-year middle school boy currently getting raving reviews! The cynical rookie who is cheeky to the max! Ken Amada & Koromaru!
Ken: What’s needed is determination.
Ken: We have no time to be turning back now, right!? It’s because we all clashed against each other and accepted one another that we’re here now!
Ken: It’s because I’m getting closer to this person…
Shadow Ken: Are you the idiot who wants to be killed?

As follows, this team is Ken heavy with a little Koro support, so not as totally sweet as it could be, but having a bigger body to hit on Koromaru probably lends itself to some more balance. I wonder if he’ll also get a shadow form.

But that’s not all! Atlus also loosed a trailer for Golden Arena mode. You pick a character, you pick a support character, you level up, and gain new skills through repeated battles. On the surface, it reminds me of the special mode in Continuum Shift Extend where you had to descend a tower while picking up stat boosts to make your character stronger. I wonder if you’ll unlock any goodies by playing it like costumes.

PV? More Like PunV! … なんちゃって！ Shō Minazuchi P4A USH PV!

PUNS, MOTHERFUCKER, PUNS! Translation courtesy of ANN:

Shō: Your peaceful days are over because of the red fog? I haven’t the foggiest! Well of “corpse” I want to turn everyone into corpses! Just kidding! Hey. Come on. Laugh.
Shō: Oh, do I need a self-introduction? My name is “Sho Minazuki.” I’m the mastermind behind this incident. Welcome, everyone… To my world.
Shō: Well, you’ve been identified as welcome to this unidentified showtime! Just kidding!
Shō: I told you, right? I’m going to break everything. Things like bonds? Don’t make me laugh! I can smash those things with a single button!
Shō: Shut up shut up shut up! I’m going to break everything inside of you!
Narrator: The flawless dual sword-user! The law-breaking pun machine! Sho Minazuki!
Shō: What’s this about the power of bonds!? It’s just an excuse for weak guys to gather all together, right!?
Shō: All of you can just disappear! I want to be alone forever!
Shō: No matter how hard you guys fight back, you can’t win!

You have a very normal anime bad guy quality in the “friends are bullshit” thing, Shō. That’s a little disappointing because I’d heard that this character was supposed to have some DIO in him. I didn’t see it in the PV, either in how he acts or the way he fights, so maybe it just didn’t come across.

Still, puns. I may have a kindred spirit in this guy.

Who Has to Swing the Bat? The Man! P4A The Ultimatx Ultra Suplex Hold Junpei Iori PV!

And Junpei persists in being the best P3 character. Seriously. I don’t care if I have no aptitude for playing him. I will always play Junpei because he, in a world of JRPG weapons like swords and bows, is fighting with a baseball bat. Those impacts are going to feel so good, and that juggle into the sky looks pretty fun. It’s like Kanji and his folding chair but totally sweet. I know what I said.

Oh, and if you’d like to know what’s being said, there’s a way. There’s no sub version, but ANN’s story on this video has it. Directly quoted:

Junpei: I’m sorry for causing you so much trouble all the time… I’m like this, but… Please marry me, Chido-!! Ah… No way… It was a dream…
Junpei: Ah, Ya-so I-na-ba, huh… Wait, where is this!?
Junpei: Ah! That “everyday young life” thing! (a reference to the Japanese Junes theme)
Junpei: Who are you calling a mob character! And whoa, Yukari-cchi is horrific!
Junpei: I’m Junpei Iori, head of the Shadow Walkers!
Junpei: I’ll take this on!
Narrator: Simply simple AAA simply easy-going ta-ta-ta! The super-speed full-power racing slugger! Junpei Iori!
Junpei: Is this… a Shadow? So this really is the Dark Hour?
Junpei: Wait, Feather Pink! We can talk this out! It’s dangerous to point that kind of thing at people-!
Junpei: Well then, it looks like it’s time for Junpei Iori Hour!
Shadow Junpei: OK, Game Over time. Too bad.

What sort of hidden pain will you be taunted with Junpei? Will it be about Chidori? My favorite moment in P3 came about because of a pain like that, so I’m looking forward to this.

Let’s Go Again! Let’s Go Again! Persona 4: The Golden Animation PV 1!

Once more with feeling, huh? The return of one of the few exceptions to the “video game to anime adaptations are bad” rule in it’s spiffy updated form. Not just a remake, this one is going to have the goods from Golden if Marie is anything to go by. So get ready for bike dates and a ski trip with what looks like a better budget this time. Seriously. Look at all the effort they put into the paper fluttering around scene.

Persona 4: The Golden Animation is coming to you this July.

Junpei Iori does not age. He merely gets a different hat. Persona 4 Arena 2!

Fucking finally, ATLUS. I’ve been waiting on Junpei Iori, Ace Detective since the first time I played P4A. If he gets special dialogue with Naoto because of that one off gag, I might never be able to have other fights. Not that I was going to play other characters now anyway. Yukari is here too, and she’s either wearing a cravat, or her jacket swings weird during a special. Good for her.

So, a P4A sequel. It’s more of an expansion, but this is a wholly new game. I guess you could call it Super P4A. It introduces new characters Junpei Iori and Yukari Takeba from P3. They come back with new clothes, though Junpei is using a new bat instead of a sword in his gameplay shot. You can see if you look at the pictures of the character select screen that these images are from an arcade cabinet. There’s a special Akihabara preview run from the 16th, which it is in Japan now, to the 18th.

It’s not just new characters. Apparently, gameplay tweaks are being made. There are some differences in the way the characters generally play, which can have huge echo effects in a fighting game, but you remember the rumor where they were going to have character be able to pick their persona before fights? Well, that didn’t get added in, but now you can pick to play either Normal Character or Shadow Character, like this Shadow Yukari. Shadow characters will have the majority of differences with developers saying that playing as Normal Character will more represent the original P4A. The specifics of it mention something called “Shadow Rampage” where… did you ever play Challenge Mode and get to Yu? Remember how he was crazy fast and could therefore do combos that were usually impossible? Yeah, that but limited by SP.

This Akihabara run is a test version. That means we’re not at the end of production, so there’s plenty more opportunity for surprises. If they manage to work in Koromaru, this has the potential to be the greatest game because it will have Bear vs. Ninja Dog. They’ve only announced the other two, so probably not, but it lives on in my heart.

(Images from Famitsu, as you can see from the watermark. See a few more pictures over at their article.)

Persona 3 Live in December: The Weird Masquerade

Movies are never enough. Let’s have a musical too. This is a flyer for what will be the Persona 3 stage play PERSONA 3 the Weird Masquerade. It will be a live action musical put on by CLIE, a stage production company that does this sort of thing including collaborations with Nico, beginning its run January 2014.

The actors have not been decided on, but key parts of the production team have.

Director – Oka Shutaro
Screenplay – Jun Kumagai
Music – Shouji Meguro

Oka is an award winning director of both film and stage, garnering tons of praise for his originality, but the other two may strike names with Persona fans. Kumagai was the key writer for P4: The Animation and will be returning as the writer of Spring of Birth. As for Meguro:

Ah, that’s good. Meguro is the big time ATLUS composer who’s been working on Megami Tensei games since way back in Persona 1. He mostly makes the beautiful BGM, but he was also the composer for P4‘s ending theme “Never More,” so he’s all ready for composing for singers. He will also be returning for Spring of Birth.

CLIE is supposed to be setting up an official site soon. Whether that will be a section of their main site or a wholly other domain, I’m not sure yet. Keep an eye peeled.

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.

Dangan Ronpa: Academy of Hope and High School Students of Despair Preview Show

Once in awhile, something comes along with such a ridiculous premise that you have to check it out. The most recent thing to meet that criteria of mine was Spike Chunsoft’s Dangan Ronpa: a game where a bunch of gifted high school students are selected to attend Hope’s Peak Academy, the most prestigious high school in Japan where every student is “Super High School Level” in their respective fields, covering the wide gambit from “Cook” to “Hall Monitor.” However, when they get there, they’re trapped inside the school and told by the enigmatic Monokuma that they may only leave by successfully murdering a fellow student without getting caught. It’s sorta like… imagine if Ace Attorney decided to have a lot more character interactions high school anime style like Persona and the lawyering was bullets.

It’s pretty cool and a real trip to read. There was an LP thread for it not too long ago that was astronomically popular, but the thing just refuses to be archived, so you’ll have to wait a bit to read it. Not that you’ll have to wait long to get the story because there’s an anime, and there’s an event for it soon.

This was posted by the official Dangan Ronpa Anime twitter about a special preview event that is being held on the 23rd of June. A snippet of the first episode will be shown shown twice at the Toho Theatre in Roppongi Hills. Along with the preview is a little talk show like event with special guest Megumi Ogata, the voice of the main character Makoto Naegi who you might recognize for as a young Shinji Ikari. She’ll be talking about the development of the show and her role. Tickets are going on sale in a few days, so pop into your local airport for an international flight so you can head on over. Or wait for the news. That works too.