Persona 5

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Persona 5 is an excellent video game about discovering your inner self and entering the minds of corrupt individuals to change their hearts. There are plenty of friendships to be made, betrayal, rumors, and extremely stylized battles. Can't forget that iconic soundtrack either. So how does the manga adapt all of this?

Well, not too bad I'd say. The first two volumes are good at presenting that nostalgic feeling you get in the first moments of the game. It feels like you're kind of placed in Akira's shoes which is very fitting. (Yes, I'm using his manga name because "Ren" doesn't fit him in my opinion ... - deal with it, weebs.)

The manga stays true to the game's story but puts its own unique spin on some things which is nice and refreshing to see. It feels like it still has character and starts off strong.

Characters and plot points start to be introduced in a pretty quickly paced fashion. Which is fine by me, since it's a 100+ hour game condensed into a manga series, you're gonna need a faster pace and cut out unnecessary scenes in the process. My only problem is that Ann feels a little bit underdeveloped in the manga - her Persona awakening doesn't feel as impactful as the game since her backstory is shortened and we don't really get much time to connect with her. This is where the manga's quicker pacing kind of fails.

Volume 3 was fine, pacing is mainly kept the same but slowed down a bit. Not much to say about this one, moving on.

But then volume 4 happens. It starts off with the Phantom Thieves defeating Madarame and welcoming Yusuke into the group. And then it almost entirely focuses on Makoto, and the story slows down to a damn turtle's pace. My God was this volume a boring waste of time, and personally this is where it started going a bit downhill for me. It felt like the mangaka really wanted to push the idea down your throat that Makoto is a troubled character who has a lot of burdens to deal with, and that she isn't a bad person because of this.

This arc should not be 3 volumes long. Such a long introduction to Makoto's character was not needed. If Kamoshida could be dealt with in two volumes, this arc should not have been so slow considering it is the THIRD ARC.

After the third arc is finally complete, the manga starts introducing characters and plot points from Persona 5 Royal. This is the worst decision you could possibly make in the midst of writing a video game manga adaptation. Now it'll take even longer for this series to be complete. And guess what? Pacing is all over the place again in some volumes!

To sum it all up, the manga adaptation is good, but starts to go downhill in the span of only 4 volumes, which is very disappointing. Maybe Mementos Mission will be better.

7/10