The Persona, video game series, is wildly popular and has been for more than a decade. It has spawned five different games in the main series, plus numerous spinoffs and ports, showing its long-term potential as a series and its enduring popularity.
It has also spawned numerous adaptations of the various games, beginning with Persona 3, which had its own film trilogy and manga series. Persona 4, however, also managed to make its mark with adaptations, including a light novel, anime, and even a stage musical. Its manga is likely the most enduring of these adaptations and the longest-running.
10 The Creator Of The Persona 3 Manga Also Wrote This One
Shuji Sogabe wrote and drew the Persona 3 manga for 10 years, from 2007 to 2017, eventually creating 11 volumes of the manga to tell the complete story. He also wrote and drew the Persona 4 manga. This is especially impressive, considering that the Persona 4 manga began to release in 2009, just two years after Persona 3, which means that he was creating two monthly manga at a time for a long time. For those who know how difficult it is to draw manga, this is an incredible feat.
9 The Protagonist Is Given A Name
It might not be of particular note that the main character has a name in the series with any other franchise. But one of Persona’s hallmark traits is that the Protagonist isn’t named at the start of the game. The player actually names the character and plays a large part in their personality development.
This would be hard to pull off in a manga, and the Protagonist, therefore, needed to be named. The name settled upon for this adaptation was Souji Seta.
8 The Protagonist Has A Backstory
Persona games tend to start the same way, with the Protagonist moving to a new town at the beginning of a school year. While there, they make new friends, develop their Persona, and fight enemies to save the town. The manga gives the Protagonist of Persona 4, Souji in the manga, a backstory to explain this move. Because of his parents’ work, he has always traveled and changed schools frequently. After they go abroad for work, he moves to a small town to live with his uncle.
7 The Story Stays Pretty True To The Game
Fans of the Persona 3 manga might not be surprised to learn that the Persona 4 manga is pretty faithful to the game. Both series make it a point to follow the roleplaying games' plot closely. This is especially impressive considering how difficult it is to adapt a story from a 60-plus hour into a manga broken down into chaptered sequential storytelling. The mediums are so incredibly different and can pose different narrative challenges.
6 The Series Adds New Details To Characters’ Relationships
It’s hard for a video game to spend as much time with every character as it might like, considering how much needs to be done to move the story along and how time-consuming and expensive it is to make a role-playing video game. The manga doesn’t have the same concerns since its only major drawback is its length and the fact that someone has to draw it. But the manga features some extra scenes between characters, establishing their relationships more fully, such as the first meeting of Yukiko and Chie.
5 There Is A Spin-Off Manga As Well As The Main One
It’s pretty unusual for an adaptation of something to get its own spin-off to continue to expand on the story, but that’s exactly the case for Persona 4. A second manga, called Persona 4 The Magician, also began in August 2012. This story focuses on Yosuke Hanamura’s life in the small town of Inaba, where the story takes place, and it is actually a prequel to the game. However, only one volume of this manga was ever released.
4 There Is A Third Persona 4 Manga, Focusing On Detective Naoto As Well
A light novel, Persona 4 x Detective Naoto, by Natsuki Mamiya, with illustrations by Sousei Kurogami and Persona 4 manga creator Shuji Sogabe, came out in 2012. It follows Naoto Shirogane, taking place about a year after the end of Persona 4.
A manga adaptation of the novel, drawn by Satoshi Shiki, also came out from 2012 until 2014. However, the light novel and the manga are not considered canon with the game's events.
3 Souji Doesn’t Speak Much In The Manga
Anyone familiar with Persona knows that the Protagonist speaks relatively little compared to the other characters in the game, and he actually doesn’t have a voice since the player is the one who chooses his dialogue. By comparison, Souji does speak in the manga, but he doesn’t talk very much. To recreate the sense of his character interactions in the game, he mostly leaves the talking to the characters around him instead.
2 There Are Some Trimmed Subplots
As mentioned above, there are definitely ways in which the Persona 4 manga allows more space for characters and their relationships to be more fully developed. But in other places, since the manga has less room than a video game for storytelling, things have been trimmed out of the story to make it more streamlined and easier to follow. Since there’s not as much of an ability to explore the manga world, making sure everything makes sense means cutting extraneous details.
1 The Story Can Show Other Characters’ Perspectives
Part of the fun of the Persona games is the mystery aspect. The Protagonist is slowly putting together information about the things happening in the town and not necessarily knowing everybody’s motives for what they’re doing. But the manga doesn’t have the same need to stay inside the Protagonist’s head, which actually allows for a more well-rounded story since it’s easier to be inside the other characters’ heads and understand their thoughts and perspectives.