O.K. jerks I guess this is officially feels day. First Guardians and now Persona 4.
TONS OF SPOILERS O.K.!!!
All right, so as much crap as some people gave the anime for rushing things or having shotty animation at points, you have got to give it mad props for taking a blank slate of a character and making him, well… real. I will admit that, yes, the anime did rush social links and sometimes the animation wasn’t great. I mean, how do you do Naoki’s link in half of an episode? It’s Saki’s little brother, he needs more than half an episode! Or, you know, not even the entire team gets their social link covered, you never get to know that Kanji’s dad is dead, just… things like that. So yes, the anime has its problems.
But its moments like this that made me fall in love with it.
I mean, whether you want to call him Souji or Yu or not, the anime gave him a personality. I remember playing the game and running into parts where, god, I just wished he would scream or cry or something, you know? And I know it’s ultimately “you” playing, so the emotions are yours, but just… a cutscene, or… something would’ve been nice for some of those gut wrenching scenes.
This is what we needed the anime for. They did Yu beautifully. He starts out quiet and kinda bland, then he progresses into this character, an actual character. The whole theme of “bonds are the true power” really, really hits home in the anime, because you see him forming these bonds, and you see him just crumbling when those bonds shatter. Not just with the fact that the last episode gave him a shadow, but moments like this where he was like, “Everyone go home, it’ll be fine,” then he just broke down.
And can we take a minute to talk about Yosuke here?
No matter if you see the yaoi lenses or not, can we just talk about how great the anime nails their bond? In the game, it’s all about the social links, and how close you get to these characters. In this moment it’s like, “No, these characters are close to him, too.” It’s not, “you have to be there for everyone,” it’s, “everyone is really there for each other.” Like, how they took that whole, “you can hug Yosuke during his social link,” and flipped it! Yosuke goes back! And just… he’s there! And… just… bravo, anime, bravo! I mean, honestly, can we talk about how in the anime Yu would be completely dysfunctional without this boy? I swear after like, Yosuke’s shadow, Yosuke was always there. "Hey I got your back with Mitsuo,“ and, "Hey I’m here at the hospital,” and, “Here I am again during BOTH final boss battles, and even as the shadows take me hey at least I saved you.”
Just… the bonds aren’t one-sided! I’m not saying there were in the game, but in the anime when there’s parts like this it’s like, this is what a bond is. This is what friendship is. There’s this moment of, “It’s not just him who’s important to them since he’s always there, but they’re important to him, too. He needs them. Badly.” So when I watched him leave at the end of the year it wasn’t just me going ,“Oh god I love these guys no please,” it was, “Oh god no Yu don’t leave you need them too much!”
