Friday 17 February 2012

Persona 4: The Animation - Episode 19

It's a well-known fact that Japanese law states that no high school anime can be completed without a culture festival episode... so whaddya know, here's Persona 4's culture festival episode!

Compared to the ordinary fare normally offered up as such events, it seems as if there's a al to push everybody's limits at this particular festival, with the gang's class somehow voting to stage a "group date" event of some kind, while the surreptitious entry of the girls into the beauty pageant is soon reciprocated by the boy's being entered into a cross-dressing beauty pageant.


Against a backdrop of Rise continuing to face her own issues as they pertain to her celebrity status, and with Narukami making friends with a wannabe musical girl with little outright talent to offer, the general goal of this week's instalment is very much a comedic one, with Yuu revelling in an opportunity to explore his feminine side while the festival also plays host to a fortune teller who is more than a little familiar to our protagonist...

It's at times like this that I find it hard to remember that Persona 4: The Animation is a murder-mystery story at heart, simple because it proves to be so marvellously adept at producing hilarious filler episodes such as this one.  Despite a huge drop in animation quality for the most part (it really does look terrible more often than not - was it "let your child animate an episode of anime" day at AIC?), and even without much grounding in the rest of the series, I couldn't help but laugh my way through this episode as it deployed its humour consistently and amusingly.  In terms of using its characters and using them well, I get the feeling that this series simply can't be beaten, and although it should maybe be focusing on its proper storyline at this point I simply can't get mad at Persona 4 for not doing so when it gets me laughing so often.

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