Persona 4 is back and it’s going New Game + this time around XD. I was wondering how they’d handle Golden since they could have gone the full path of redoing the whole show from the beginning. Instead it appears like they will jump around a little in the story focusing on the key moments and especially the new material that the Persona 4: Golden game contained. They are certainly going all out in the first episode to make clear that if you haven’t played the original P4 or seen the anime…do so before trying to jump in here.

This episode was just pure nostalgia. Similar to the first season they make use of the opening music, just this time they use the opening for the Golden version of the game. Also it sounds like they’ll fully use the game soundtrack. I did like the use of music just when Yu first gets to meet Marie. Seems like this will be a pretty fun show to cover since they can have fairly free reign if they aren’t restricted to showing the entire story and social links.

You pretty much have to call it the NG+ version of the original anime since Yu is starting out here pretty much how we saw him at the end of the original. Not taking the near emotionless version they ran with before (since his stats are pretty well maxed from the beginning XD). Honestly it’s pretty fun seeing this Yu take different responses than we saw in the original. The first time Yu was pretty quiet at his school introduction, but this time he took the more confrontational option.

We got some nice focus on scenes that the story skipped over the first time around (so we could hurry to the big moment at the end of the first episode) which I certainly appreciated. The little first dinner with Nanako and Dojima was nice. Got to see this Yu’s character a bit in how he was really friendly while dealing with Nanako and Dojima. It should be a lot easier to get behind his character this time around since he won’t just be comic relief.

And yeah that big intro battle pretty well showed the difference between Yu now and Yu the first time around. The original had Izanagi fairly easily winning the fight, but he didn’t have that much firepower. Some quick sword work and a small electrical attack. This one had him pretty much busting out the most powerful mass electrical spell possible and just fighting an insane amount of shadows. From fighting 3 to fighting thousands. And it was awesome XD. We’re watching guys with personas fight inside the TV world. If you aren’t going over the top for this then something is very wrong. Props to the show for just going nuts and showing how powerful Yu is right now.

Visually the show just looks really good. They certainly had time to improve on what the original looked like. May not win animation awards, but it definitely allowed the action scenes to be flashy and full of energy. The characters themselves look sharper than the original anime, though maybe it’s not hugely different.

The other big presence in the episode was Marie. She’s the most obvious change for anyone who’s seen the original anime and knows nothing about the Golden game. The first person he ended up meeting in Inaba though it wasn’t a lengthy conversation. Certainly gives her a heroine kind of presence being that first person and the great musical accompaniment that came with her.

Of course some surprise to be had (well for Yu) to find her in the Velvet Room. Marie made it pretty clear about having memory trouble and basically just ending up in that room because it’s tied to Yu’s fate. Entirely possible that it was her wondering around inside the TV like that. That might have been what lead her to ending up in the Velvet Room.

Either way it will be interesting to see these outings for Marie. While Yu isn’t the most used to Inaba, he’s still the only one really who can guide her around right now. She’s a bit unusual with the random poetry moment and verbally is a pretty straight forward tsundere. Although to be fair it’s easy to read her so it’s not like anyone could really get that offended by what she is saying. By the end she was happy to have him guide her around and I’m sure she’ll get a huge focus as this Golden version continues.

Honestly this was a much stronger opening episode than I thought we might get. While some shows are slowly getting into things because they are sequels this is a kind of show that can jump right into the mix and the preview hints that they will really move through the story focusing on the new moments as they go. Might make the series more episodic in nature, but I expect next episode to be plenty entertaining. And yeah Hanazawa Kana does a great job as Marie. Good start and can’t wait for more.
Score: A