Posted: 08/09/2011

Persona: Trinity Soul Volume I

(2008)

by Ruben R. Rosario

Now available on DVD from NIS America.

Persona -Trinity Soul- is one of the most cryptic and mysterious anime TV shows to come out in awhile and shows how bold of a company NIS America is to bring it out here. Based off of the hit video game, Persona 3, the show takes place in the same world of Ayanagi City, ten years later after the game has ended. The main characters are the Kanzato brothers, Ryo, the eldest brother who is the city’s police chief, and Shin and Jun, who have recently moved back into the city to be reunited with Ryo. Ayanagi City has been plagued with mysterious deaths and disappearances that have had Ryo busy enough to not be able to tend to his siblings. After going around town exploring, Shun has a chance encounter and comes to realize that he has the ability to call out a Persona, an entity that is released from within oneself and can battle against evil forces. The first set of Persona -Trinity Soul- contains the first 13 episodes spread out on 2 DVD’s in Japanese only with English subtitles.

Persona has always been a different game, in comparison to the traditional JRPG’s that were released here in America. They’re set in the modern day and characters have the ability to summon various gods, mythical creatures and demons to do battle with them. Knowing this, I had high hopes for the TV show to deliver on the action. The fights with the Persona lend themselves to the ilk of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, with the Persona users using a sort of astral projection to do all kinds of awesome things in battle. The studio behind the production, A-1 Pictures, prove that they know how to make this show stand out where it needs to and make fantastic action sequences, without the series ever falling under production value.

The show is extremely dark in terms of tone and content throughout the 13 episodes. The three Kanzato brothers each have their own emotional hardships to deal with as well as dealing with reestablishing their relationships with each other after being apart for ten years. There’s even an episode that deals with addiction in a truthful manner. While it may be pretty depressing, there is a great episode in the middle of the series that pokes enough fun at the characters, that we’re reminded that this is an anime. The last episode ends in a brutal cliffhanger that will leave you wanting the rest of the series, as well as wanting all of the answers from the questions raised throughout the show.

The only major issue that I had with the show is the deliberately slow pacing of it. The Persona games have the ability to keep things at a slow pace because there’s plenty of action and dungeon crawling to go through to keep the player entertained. This never happens in the series and it’s pretty hard to get through with no immediate pay off. Sure, there’s great action sequences and wonderful characters, but there’s still so many unanswered questions after the ending of this set that one has to hope that they’ll be some pay off in the future.

Overall, this is a pretty awesome release for the up-and-coming anime distributor, NIS America. Persona -Trinity Soul- never falls into the category of a crappy adaptation of a hit video game. It stands pretty tall on its own two feet, has wonderful animation and has great characters that show some depth to them.

This anime isn’t for everyone, but if you’re willing to take a chance on an anime series that has something different to offer, look no further than Persona -Trinity Soul-.

Ruben R. Rosario  is a graduate from Columbia College Chicago with a degree in Audio for Visual Media. He works as a freelance location sound mixer, boom operator, sound designer, and writer in his native Chicago. He’s an avid collector of films, comics, and anime.

Got a problem? E-mail us at filmmonthly@gmail.com