Forum:How I would have adapted Persona 5 into anime

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Persona 5's anime tried to be too faithful to the game and it adapted things which don't work due to the medium change, and it had a really bad pacing, trying to condense 100 hours in 26 half-an-hour episodes. Not to mention, Joker was still kept silent (he talks a little bit more, but he didn't receive enough characterization and was still a self-insert) I have two alternative approaches for an adaptation: the Pragmatic and the POV-Switch. The Pragmatic consists of various cuts and fixes to have the story work in anime form, even if it's unfaithful to the game.

Pragmatic Approach: 

1) The protagonist and Haru do not exist in the anime, but Kasumi Yoshizawa does and takes element of both. For one, you can't have a silent protagonist in an anime, and second, the Okumura arc is completely cut off to focus on Futaba, Sae, Shido and Goro. Ryuji replaces the protagonist, and he goes to the metaverse alone, then Ann is the leader of the PT until Makoto is recruited. Kasumi is a secondary protagonist (replacing Joker) but she doesn't actually fight until the end.

2) Since the protagonist is adapted out, the Velvet Room, Persona fusions, and the Wild Card stuff are omitted completely (or everyone goes to the Velvet Room instead of just Joker). Persona fusion and recruiting made sense as game mechanics, but they're hard to show in a non-video-game adaptation.

3) Social Links aren't mentioned and they're replaced by "bonding events" between two party members, where each one reveals to the other elements of his/her Social Link.

4) Madarame and Kaneshiro are killed by Goro instead of Okumura, who does not exist at all.

5) Kasumi takes on elements of Joker (like the fact that she defended a woman from being assaulted by Shido and the fact that Sojiro is taking care of her while on probation). While Joker was the protagonist in the whole game, Kasumi becomes a PT only right before Shido's palace. Making Joker and Kasumi one single character is a good way to make Joker not silent, as she now has Kasumi's name, design, backstory, personality and Persona. Kasumi's Arcana is explicitly noted by Igor to be a nonexistent Arcana (Faith/Reich) instead of Fool/World.

6) Weapons aren't real. They are summoned in the Metaverse. No items are used, but Healing and support spells are. Persona fights are animated like Pokemon fights, where the user summons his/her Persona and has it fight in his/her place, but weapons are sometimes used: when using weapons, the Persona is "still" and can be hurt, and damage inflicted to the Persona is transmitted to the user. 

7) Kasumi gets expanded characterization in Shido, Yaldabaoth and Maruki's arcs.

8) No Mementos until the Yaldabaoth arc.

9) Okumura Arc, as I said before, is cut off completely. Haru is only mentioned offhand and appears as a cameo character.

10) Palace exploration is given more time. There are episodes where the PTs are entirely focused on Palaces and fighting against bosses, and exploration is broken up by some Kasumi scenes outside palaces.

11) Sojiro has actually taken in Kasumi, so his Social Link is only made of interactions with Kasumi. The PT meet up at Café Leblanc because Ryuji and Ann are regular there, not because Joker/Kasumi lives there. Only after hearing them, Kasumi decides to join the PT (but she doesn't actually develop a Persona until Shido Palace).

12) The rivalry between Goro and Kasumi is built up like the one between Goro and Joker, but since Kasumi is not a PT, it starts out disconnected from the PT stuff (though the PT often meet Goro and Kasumi in Leblanc). Either that or the Goro-Joker rivalry is turned into a Goro-Makoto rivalry.

13) Kasumi doesn't evolve Cendrillon into Vanadis, but into Satanael. She finishes off Yaldabaoth with Sinful Shell. Instead of the Fool Arcana who later becomes the World Arcana, Kasumi is Faith at first, then she gets the Reich Arcana. Satanael is Reich instead of Fool.

14) Since there's no Velvet Room, Igor-Yaldabaoth talks to the cast in dreams. All the PTs dream of Igor at the same time, and the protagonist being dressed as a prisoner in the Velvet Room is absent, as the VR is always seen in first person. Caroline and Justine talk of "Inmates", in plural form, rather than "Inmate".

15) The Velvet Room houses a secret jail containing Kasumi. Instead of "becoming trickster", the characters have to "free the trickster", as in "make Kasumi a PT".

POV-Switch Approach:

The anime is shown not from the PT's POV, but from Goro's POV trying to investigate on the PTs and in the meantime killing shadows and causing psychotic breakdowns. This anime is more focused on Goro's story, contains internal narration by him explaining his connection to Shido and his inner feelings, and the PTs are little more than cameos (until the fight in Shido Palace). Joker doesn't speak at all (until the Maruki arc) and he's never mentioned by name, as he's not the protagonist but a recurring cameo character (that Goro meets in Café Leblanc). After the fight, we should show a new epilogue that explains that Goro has survived, and that he has left Japan during the Yaldabaoth arc because he was thought to be dead. Royal's Maruki Arc is added, shown from Goro's POV and with Joker still nameless (because Goro knows he's Joker and always calls him that). Joker could become a fully-speaking character in that arc, where he's more relevant to the plot, but Goro is still the POV (explaining Joker's voiceless cameo status as him being suspicious of Akechi from the start and having refused to talk to him beforehand, thus his "silence-breaking" is justified as Joker trusts Goro more in the Maruki arc). Goro uses both Robin Hood and Loki, while Joker is only shown using Arsene,

Which approach is better?

Tokoyami no Nietzsche (talk) 10:45, July 29, 2020 (UTC)