Persona 4: Collection 1 [Blu-ray]

Persona 4 fans will not be disappointed!
I just got the Blu-ray of Persona 4: The Animation today which is a few weeks before it's supposed to be released, but I pre-ordered it back in July from Rightstuf who for some reason decided to ship it to me early before the release date. As you can imagine I was pleasantly surprised when I got an email telling me that it had already shipped!

But enough about how I got it, lets get on with the review! This release only contains the English audio and not any of the Japanese track, but that's a problem with the Japanese licensers not Sentai Filmworks. If Sentai was allowed, they would have kept the Japanese track in. As far as the English voice cast goes, just like the video game, it is amazingly good and most of the voice actors, even the side characters, reprised their roles. The only differences are the voices of Chie Satonaka, who is now played by Erin Fitzgerald instead of Tracey Rooney, and Teddie, who is now played by Sam Riegel instead of Dave Wittenberg...
Pleasantly Surprised
I mostly buy my anime for the Japanese track; very rarely do I watch something dubbed in a language that is not what it was originally released in. The last few anime series I've liked enough to buy have been disappointing in terms of local releases. Persona 4? Met and exceeded my expectations.

The subtitles are very well translated, and true to the Japanese dialogue, which shocked the hell out of me. Most anime such as this usually stick to the English naming conventions in the dub. I was surprised to see Teddie come up by his Japanese "Kuma" come up, among other instances of dialogue where it would be different in English. The only exception of this was Pyro Jack/Jacklantern, though I suspect this was due to copyright issues over multiple series, and doesn't come up often enough to be a noticeable glare on the translation. So, bravo to the translators for doing something I haven't seen done for a good ten years or so.

The menus are very nice, with full...
Probably the best game-to-anime ever
+ near-perfect adaptation
+ captures all the nuance of the game into a new form
+ helps to develop some of the lighter features from the game, especially SLink characterizations
+ looks really nice - great motion and reasonably well scripted fight scenes
+ + genuinely funny
+ + + best job of pulling off a twist I've ever seen in animation in episode 12

- nameless, voiceless protagonist does not translate particularly well outside of a game setting (Yu doesn't have a lot of lines)
- some of the funnier sections of the game are paired down to much faster jokes in the show, losing much of their effectiveness
- some of the story that takes weeks in-game unfolds in one episode in the show, lessening its importance
- around one minute of dead-silent credits after every episode
- - anyone who has not played the game will only get about half as much out of this show as those who have
- - - barest of bones Blu-Ray release, with one...
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