After 8 Years waiting, finally the game is in the wide screen

Spring Of Birth Persona 3 the Movie

Synopsis

Warning - The synopsis contain some spoiler for the movie plot. While I am doing my best to limit the spoiler, some story elements will be covered. Unless you already know the plot, reading the synopsis may spoil half the fun. If you haven’t watch the movie or know the plot before, you could stop right here. Thank You

 Makoto Yuki, the protagonist

Yukari Takeba

Fuka Yamagishi

During midnight, Makoto Yuki a new transfer student entered the Gekkoukan High dormitory. Inside he met a mysterious boy who suddenly asked him to sign a contract. After signing it, the boy disappeared in the shadow and another person suddenly questioned him. The person was a teenage girl with middle-short hair and fair complexion and with her stuttering voice, it was clear that his presence frightened her. The girl, Yukari Takeba wanted to pull her evoker before her senior, Mitsuru Kirijo halt her. Mitsuru explained to her that he was assigned late to their dormitory and Mitsuru asked her to show his room.

Mitsuru Kirijo's introduction speech

........ speechless

After a brief introduction with the school life, Makoto’s entire life change during the full month of April, a giant monster injured Sanada Mitsuhiko, a S.E.E.S member, and it moved closer to the dormitory. A panicked Yukari woke Makoto and asked him to follow her to the rooftop. The Monster, which is called shadow, caught with them and it struck and injured Yukari. Makoto, who already seems to know about the monster and his newfound ability, took the evoker and unleash his other self; a Persona entity called Orpheus. He defeated the monster, collapsed and turned unconscious for one week.

Makoto's real personality is blunt and to the point

Makoto and Yukari came back from the hospital while the chairman of the S.E.E.S, Shuji Ikutsuki, waited for them. He met with Makoto and explained about the ordeal that he experienced. He told Makoto that the students that reside in the dormitory were members of Special Extracurricular Executions Squad or abbreviated S.E.E.S. He also explained to Makoto about the S.E.E.S mission, the Dark Hour, the Apathy Syndrome, as well as the appearance of shadows. In short, he officially asked Makoto to join S.E.E.S and help them with the investigations.

 

               Full Moon Phase

The victim of Shadows










 
The S.E.E.S main objective was to infiltrate the gigantic tower named Tartarus, which replaced their school building during the dark Hours. With Junpei Iori as the new member of S.E.E.S, Makoto and Yukari entered Tartarus to investigate it. Inside the Tartarus, they battle numerous shadows and Makoto’s ability have saved the team while fighting the tower’s guardian

Yukari and Makoto ready for battle

Together we can overcome this

In the next full moon, the party investigated the appearance of gigantic shadow in a monorail near the station. With Makoto as the newly appointed leader, the team entered the monorail. Suddenly, the monorail moved and they have to reach the front part of the train to defeat the giant shadow that controlled the train. With each member realizing the importance of teamwork, they won the battle and left the scene.

While the S.E.E.S members discussing about the new team member named Fuka Yamagishi, Mitsuru came and explained a case about two female students found with Apathy Syndrome in the school gate. Later, they knew that Fuka Yamagishi have been missing for a week before the incident happened. After finding a small lead regarding to the females students, Makoto, Junpei, and Yukari went to the Port Island Stations, a place where thugs and delinquents hang out.

Yukari curiosity's will cause trouble later on

Yukari’s harsh words stir trouble with the delinquents of Port Island. Fortunately, Aragaki, a friend of Akihiko and a former S.E.E.S member, happened to be there. He saved them and told them about the event of the two female students. It turned out that the students along with Natsuki Moriyama locked Fuka Yamagishi inside the gymnasium. When they decided to open the lock, Fuka was not found inside the gym and then the shadow caught them.

With the revelation of Fuka’s whereabouts, the team went to the gym during the dark hours and divided into two. Akihiko and Junpei teamed as the attack squad and Yukari and Mitsuru guarded the entrance of Tartarus. Meanwhile, Makoto was accompanying Natsuki in the dormitory.

Natsuki hides her real feeling

The attack squad found Fuka inside the Tartarus and they handed her the evoker. Later they realized that they entered the Dark Hour during full moon phase when suddenly Mitsuru called for emergency. Meanwhile, the mysterious boy appeared once again and told Makoto that he would face two ordeals today.

The King and The Queen Shadows

Back to the attack squad, they found that either Yukari or Mitsuru were wounded because of two gigantic shadows’ attack. One of them represents King and the other represents Queen. Both Junpei and Akihiko fought bravely against the two shadows. Yet, their combined effort still could not defeat them. Before the S.E.E.S lost entirely to the shadows, Makoto came to the rescue and along with Fuka, who is now acting as the team’s support; they defeated the shadows. The movie was closed with Fuka came back to the school and Natsuki, while forgetting the event, became her close friend.

 

Orpeus Struck the King

The two become real friend in the end

Impression

In  2006, Atlus created another episode of their Persona Series. It was named Persona 3, a role-playing game for Playstation 2. The game was a success and players and critiques received the game positively. Due to its popularity, Atlus later made another improvement with releasing Persona 3 FES, complete with additional scenes and costumes, and ported Persona 3 for Playstation Portable.

Regardless of it popularity, it takes another 8 years before Atlus decides to make the animation of Persona 3. In contrast with Persona 4 the animation, which is consist of 26 episode long, Persona 3 is divided into 3-4 movies, with each movie takes a duration around one and a half hours.

The atmosphere for the storyline is dark and gloomy. The movie focuses more in the horror of the 13 hours, the shadow and the battle of S.E.E.S members rather than the comedy or school-life part of the game. With fewer hours than Persona 4, Persona 3 has to focus more with the main storyline and there will be fewer filler in the movie. In addition, since the game already came out years ago, the viewer who already finished the game knows about how the story end; but I will not spoil it here for the sake of new viewer.

                       

Atlus decides that the protagonists name as Makoto Yuki. From the movie I can see that Makoto is not very talkative and he has cool demeanor. In addition, he is a type of person who does any given task without asking questions or disagreement just like any good soldier would do.

Now we could finally see how our main character actually behaved in the canon anime and how the event of the Persona 3 actually happened. In addition, Atlus tried to preserve the cast’s personalities with their game counterpart and hoping that it will not turn off the fans’ familiarity to the game.

I admit that the picture quality of the anime was very good and it has vibrant color. It is quite contrast with the movie’s more dark and serious theme. However, I find the colors good and pleasing. Also, being the incarnation of the original, the animation is more detailed and the characters face have been redone to meet with the standard of new generation anime. As for the music, the anime used the game tracks to fill the anime soundtrack. Atlus already did it before with Persona 4 the animation; in which additional songs was added to accompany the game’s soundtrack.

Left to Right Akihiko Sanada, Yukari Takeba, Mitsuru Kirijo, and Junpei Iori

Glossary

Apathy Syndrome – A condition when a human lost his/her mind and Consciousness. They lost their ability to act and think and sometimes they only mumbling unknown or mysterious words. It is revealed that shadows infect human with apathy syndrome.

The Dark Hour – An additional hour which took place right after midnight. During the hour, ordinary persons turn into coffins and they may not realize about the time freeze. During the dark hour, shadows hunt for the human who did not become coffin.

Evoker – Evoker looks like an ordinary gun but it was not even a gun to begin with. In order to unleash their persona, S.E.E.S members pointed the evoker to their head and pull the trigger. After pulling the trigger, the persona residing inside them will appear. It is no wonder that they still carried traditional weapons like bow and sword while investigating the Tartarus because Evoker itself practically is not a weapon.

Persona – Persona is the other self, the mask, or the other entity that reside inside the human. They could attack the shadow using either magical or physical abilities. Their form varied from an Angel like creatures to a demonic god, or even mythological deity.

Each member of S.E.E.S has his or her own persona with the exception of Makoto who could unleash more than one Persona. In short he is special.

S.E.E.S (Special Extracurricular Execution Squad) – On paper it was an extracurricular club but it membership was never open for public. In reality, S.E.E.S was a special operation squad in which every member was a Persona user. They fought shadows and investigated the Tartarus during the Dark Hour. Current S.E.E.S members are Makoto Yuki, Yukari Takeba, Iori Junpei, Mitsuru Kirijou, Akihiko Sanada, and Fuka Yamagishi

Tartarus. Tartarus is a looming giant tower, which replaced the Gekkoukan High School building during the Dark Hours. It has more than 200 stories and inside it, shadows lurk and attack any people who enter their territory. The origin of the Tartarus remains a mystery