Berry’s Impression
With this episode, the Kamoshida case has come to an end. Before the Phantom Thieves infiltrate Kamoshida’s Palace to steal his treasure and destroy his twisted desires, Ann visits Shiho in the hospital and the boys do preparation such as buying weapons, first aid, and crafting some tools, which is stuff of course you can do in the game before facing the final boss. We got some cameos from certain characters, hello Takemi and Iwai. I don’t know if we’ll see more of them, but it was at least nice to see them and hear Akemi actually talk.
As for the episode itself, I think it was the best of the four we’ve gotten. They put up calling cards around the whole school, catching the attention of everybody. Kamoshida is angry at the message and gets a little violent. The group see Kamoshida’s other self and Morgana confirms that they can enter the Palace and steal the treasure. However, they have to do it immediately before the effects of the calling card fades away. What he means by this is that if nothing is done immediately, then Kamoshida will think of it all as nothing and not worry about it. But once he saw the calling card, he was immediately on edge so that’s the best time, as was seen by the increased security in the Palace.
The fight itself was fine, they actually retained a bit of the game by making Kamoshida’s gross monster form in CG, which I think looked nice to me. Ren’s Persona fusion happening during the fight and not before or after was actually really cool, it added a bit more tension and “NANI?!” moments that kept my attention. I’m actually kind of glad that they didn’t spend too much time on the action, because so far from what I’ve seen in the anime, the action scenes can be a little clunky. They still added the all-out attack in the end, but it wasn’t as awkward as all the other times. Also, they kept in the game OST like Blooming Villain, Last Surprise, etc., which is always a huge plus. Ann confronting Kamoshida after the fight was good too, but I felt like she shined more after, when the day finally came when Kamoshida barged into the assembly and confessed in front of everyone that he was physically abusing the volleyball students, and sexually abusing the female students. Wanting to kill himself from his guilt, Ann stepped up and told him not to run away from what he’s done like a coward. Considering Ann is one of Kamoshida’s victims, it was very brave of her to fight him and confront him in the Palace while also speaking up to him at the school assembly. It’s definitely not easy for a victim to go up against their abuser, but Ann is a very strong-willed girl despite how she was in the beginning. And thankfully in the end, all ends well when she texts the boys that Shiho woke up from her coma, which again we didn’t see in the game, and seeing Ann breaking down into happy tears really touched me.
For now, things are better as the Phantom Thieves have saved students from more pain and trauma. We also got some more tidbits, such as the code names for the characters while they’re in the Metaverse, and with Ren a.k.a. Joker being pretty special. He can posses more than one Persona, as we saw as he met up with Pixie, and that he can create a whole new Persona through fusion with the help of Igor. It’s a mystery as to how he can do all this and it certainly caught the attention of Morgana, and also got him his code name, Joker. The other code names are pretty obvious.
We also got the official visuals for the OP and it’s pretty cool! Kind of wish they kept the black/red aesthetic throughout, but it’s still good. As the anime finishes its first arc, I’m kind of pondering my feelings about the show. So far, it’s going fine I guess. It’s presenting us everything we need to know about the plot, but also is cutting out lots of stuff such as deeper explanations on certain things, cutting out subplot points (I’m not sure if they’ll mention them later), and just basic character interactions between the members. Ren, Ann, and Ryuji I feel don’t really stand out all that much right now, and that’s because the anime doesn’t have enough time to include at least a little more of the dialogue from the game that increased their bond.
At least best boy is going to show up next. And I would be much happier for that….until the VERY end. The very VEEEEERY end, with Akechi. I know they wanted to show the Sayuri painting, but I don’t know whether I should laugh or scream in astonishment from the spoiler they showed in the end. I won’t say anything more, so as not to spoil the anime-only people watching this, but oh my goodness. They’re making things too obvious…
They could have handled the end of the episode much better.
