YMMV / Persona 4: The Animation

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Yu has a habit of making rather odd comments with a straight face, which has fans debating whether he's a Cloudcuckoolander or a Deadpan Snarker with a strange sense of humor. Either way, he's a bit eccentric.
• Awesome Music
  • "Beauty of Destiny", the first ending song.
  • "Key Plus Words", the second opening song.
  • "Determination", used during the Shut Up, Hannibal! scene in episode 25.
  • "We Are One and All", used in episode 25 when everyone attains their ultimate Persona, Yu fuses Lucifer, and they all defeat Ameno-Sagiri.
  • "The Bond of Everyone's Souls", used in episode 26 during Yu and Margaret's battle, when the bonds that Yu forged throughout the series come to his aid and he faces his own Shadow. Keep a box of tissues nearby.
• Broken Base
  • The anime as a whole. Fans either call it a faithful adaptation with some extra plot thrown in, or they call it another example of the dark side of The Anime of the Game titles, where it butchers the story by cutting out all of the fluff that makes it worthwhile as a game, as well as having the obvious cases of Off-Model and editing certain plotlines to make them less suspenseful or humorous.
  • Kanji's treatment in Episodes 7 and 8, specifically Yosuke and Narukami's reactions to Shadow Kanji as well as the tent scene. Was it really funny or really mean?
• Creepy Awesome:
  • Ameno-Sagiri and Izanami. They were scary enough in the game, but despite the general badassery the cast displays, Yu especially, and to see them, respectively, almost outright stomp Yu without his friends saving him, and bring him to his knees while barely lifting a finger makes them even more frightening.
  • The Killer. In the game, his awkward and goofy facial expressions make it hard to take him seriously at times. Here, Adachi manages to become much more intimidating and frightening thanks to his Dissonant Serenity evoking a truly creepy atmosphere.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Aika Nakamura, a side character introduced in the anime, saw a sudden spike in popularity after a scene in episode 6 where she stoically delivers Chinese takeout to Chie in the middle of a chase sequence. So much so that by the time of "Persona 4: The Golden" she's no longer a Canon Foreigner, as while she doesn't physically appear, she is mentioned by name.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In Episode 22, after Yosuke gets' emotional, Yu, jokingly, tells him it's okay to cry. Yosuke flips out and yells "it's not like I'm a girl!" Just another wacky comedy moment, right? Come the start of the next episode and Yosuke is the first to cry at Nanako's death and naturally everyone thinks this is okay.
• Shocking Moments:
  • Episode 12. The sudden shift can make feel like the episode skipped ahead.
  • Episode 25 during the final battle with Adachi, with the Investigation Team taking down The Reapers all the while giving him a Shut Up, Hannibal! speech.
• Signature Scene:
  • The Investigation Team putting on their glasses against a stark yellow background in the second opening.
  • The King's Game scene in the bar, playing up the ridiculousness of the situation from the game's singular choice.
  • The final battle with the Killer, which was more climactic than it was in the actual game.
• Superlative Dubbing: No surprise given that this trope was very notable with the main game. Therefore, this anime is one of the handfuls where the fandom tends to prefer the dubbed version, given that most played the game with English voices. Many clips and moments posted by fans that one finds online tend to be dubbed, and aren't even usually titled as such, averting the normal situation where fans put "dub" in the title to warn sub fans, since the expectation is to default to dub.
• Vindicated by History:
  • When the series began its run, it was pretty divisive amongst the fanbase with detractors pointing out its creative liberties and various cases of Off-Model in its animation. Over time however, it gained a larger fan following as people start to appreciate it for being both a faithful adaptation as well as taking liberties to make the story more engaging, alongside being a great entry point to the Persona 4 universe. It helps that it was the only Persona anime to have an English dub at the time (until the P5 anime) and that its successors in the Golden anime adaptation and Persona 5: The Animation were not as well-received.
  • The handling of the Protagonist in particular has been praised, with the Animation making Narukami far more expressive and rolling with the eccentric dialogue options to make him a more memorable character. In essence, especially after more mixed reviews of subsequent anime adaptations, Persona 4's anime is sometimes considered one of the best ways to adapt a game, or at least on how to adapt a silent MC.
• Woolseyism: In the King's Game episode when Yosuke was outraged in seeing Yu being surrounded by Chie, Rise & Yukiko, Yu in both the Japanese and English said approximately the same lines in context, but the delivery was different. In the former, he sounded a little more shy and reluctant while the latter has him sound more confident and collected. While the dubbing was done in a way to match the way his lips moved, it still does a good job in not detracting Yu's personality and giving him a more cooler vibe overall, making it consistent with how the dubbing portrays Yu.
  Japanese: B-But I'm the king.
  English: I can, 'cause I'm the king.

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