Persona3, Vol. 1

Persona 3 #1

by Shuji Sogabe, Atlus

Dix ans après la mort de ses parents, Minato Arisato retourne dans la ville de son enfance, où il intègre le lycée Gekkoukan. À son arrivée, il est témoin d'étranges phénomènes... Il va s'apercevoir que les occupants du dortoir auquel on l'a assigné n'ont rien d'ordinaire ! Et quand sonne la 25e heure, l'heure des ombres, des créatures effrayantes rôdent... mais seuls quelques élus en ont conscience.
Revivez ou découvrez pour la première fois l'histoire de Persona 3, l'un des meilleurs RPG de tous les temps.

Genres: Manga, Fantasy, Graphic Novels, Action, Mystery, Video Games, Ebooks

158 pages, Paperback

First published September 27, 2007

Reviews

[Animelove24 Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really feel like I needed to have played the Persona games to understand this manga. I mean I tried my darnedest to figure out what was happening but I just don’t understand. From what I can gather it flashes between the present and the future of some kid whose new to a school that and he has nightmares about a guy and he and a group of other students and an adult fight monsters for some reason and that’s all I’ve got. I don’t know anything about the monsters or why they’re there, I’m not entirely sure why sometimes all of the students seem to know each other and then sometimes don’t unless it’s a really badly done time jump, and I don’t even understand what was happening half the time because the panels were colored so darkly. I get that the creator maybe wanted a sense of foreboding by making most of the panels black, but when it’s 90% black it’s hard to tell what anything even is.
There are good ways to do really dark manga. For example Dragon Head by Minetaro Mochizuki which mostly takes place in a subway tunnel, or Hideout by Masasumi Kakizaki which is in a cave system, but one can still tell whats happening in them despite the manga being in a lot of black. I think the problem with this particular manga might be the lack of highlights in the pictures. When most mangaka, such as Junji Ito, draw a lot of mostly black panels, it’s punctuated by highlights coming off of skin or reflecting off a building by the moon or at least some form of light source and has some shades of grey included as well as having backgrounds. Persona 3 on the other hand is literally black and white. Because of that there's almost no background in most panels, it’s hard to tell what characters are doing, and it’s not visually interesting. Highlights and shades of grey are used to draw the reader in; let them focus on whats important in the scene. Here, because there are only two colors, mostly black, everything just blends in.
The only good thing I can say is that the monsters look cool and I suppose the questions I have from reading it like what the monsters are and whats up with the weird student run organization make sit a little interesting; mostly I don’t care though. All in all, for someones first manga, it’s not the worst. I however, don’t find it interesting enough, visually or otherwise to keep reading more.

[Mehsi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mm, I think I will just stick with the other manga, the game, and the movies. A lot is the same, but it is also a bit jumbled, like they are going from one part to the next without much connection between things. :(

[Irene (´・ω・`) · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Persona 3 manga is based on the PS2 game with the same name about a group of teenagers fighting these enemies called “Shadows” to get rid of the Dark Hour, a hidden hour between the current day and the next that only those with the potential to awaken a Persona know of. The first volume starts off with a fight that happens near the end of the game and then it shows a flashback to the beginning. In April of 2009, our protagonist Minato Arisato arrives at Port Island to attend Gekkoukan High School as a transfer student. When he gets to his dorm, he meets Yukari Takeba and Mitsuru Kirijo, fellow students who also live there and attend Gekkoukan. A couple of days go by and one night during the Dark Hour the dorm is attacked by a huge Shadow. Yukari is ordered to protect Minato and takes him up to the roof for safety, but then a different Shadow appears and corners them. Yukari gets knocked down and in the moment Minato manages to awaken his persona Orpheus.

One thing about this volume is that it would be confusing to those who haven’t played the game already since it does start at the last Shadow fight and switches around. Other than that I think the art that Sogabe has done is pretty good and is quite similar to Soejima’s art. There were times however that I was questioning what I was trying to look at, like during the part where Thanatos comes out of Orpheus and attacks the Shadow. Since it was in black and white, I wasn’t able to tell what was going on even though I already knew what was going on, if that makes sense. It’s a pretty alright adaptation overall though.

[✩‧₊˚MikɑTsuki ᥫ᭡₊˚ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hoy es el día de la promesa 🗣🗣❗️❗️

Es muy gracioso el autor jajsjjs y a mi también me hubiese gustado ver a la luz un Persona 3 FesFes 😭
Ver a mi personaje fav en el inicio me gustó mucho, no esperaba verlo tan pronto 💗

Hablando del inicio del manga no me pareció lo más acertado escoger esa escena en particular para "introducir" a la obra (aunque claro es mucho mejor jugar el juego y luego leer el manga) pero hacer que pueda resultar confuso y "puede llegar a perder el hilo"
MD alegra que este sea el primer manga que hizo el autor (a mi también me hubiese gustado tener ese honor pipipi)
Si se puede llegar a notar que es "principiante" pero lo piede llegar a condensar con lo cómicos entre escenas.
He jugado este juego tantas veces que puedo ver los pequeños cambios que hay (por ejemplo el campo de como Junpei es consciente de la hora oscura, pensamientos internos de Makoto y lo del presidente)
Le digo Makoto porque es su nombre más usado, ¿okey?

Un poco apresurado, sí, pero también hay que comprender que es mucha información y trama para un manga. (Llega hasta donde Makoto despierta su persona y derrota a la sombra)

Persona 3 (más específicamente el Portable) es mi juego favorito, me impactó y cambió varias cosas de mí. Y hoy, quise conmemorar el día de la primera leyendo este primer tomo. Esta obra conquistó mi corazón 💗

[Sarah ♡ (let’s interact!) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marking as read because I’m playing Persona 3 Load and it is apparently identical to the start of the game - a lot of reading involved lol feels very visual novel-esque! I think once the story gets into the action I’ll prefer it more but it’s intriguing atm. I don’t know anything about the Persona franchise - I’ve gone in blind!

[vexie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Been playing a ton of persona 4 lately. I beat persona 3 fes on ps2 last year and have been missing it a ton, so I figured I’ll read the manga while waiting for persona 3 reloaded to release. Nice refresher for the story so far, I’d already forgotten parts of the main storyline. Don’t recommend reading if you haven’t played the game. But otherwise enjoying the read.

[Necoli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ce manga est l'adaptation du jeu vidéo du même nom. J'ai joué au jeu, l'ai apprécié et connais donc l'histoire.

Le début du volume m'a plutôt déconcerté. Je me suis mise à la place d'un lecteur qui ne connait pas l'histoire et je me suis sentie plutôt perdue.
Bien sûr, ça continue après ça dans un flashback qui raconte l'histoire. Ce n'est pas vraiment le genre de mise en scène qui me plaît, que ce soit en connaissant déjà l'histoire ou non.

Niveau adaptation de l'œuvre originale, je la trouve bien faite pour ce premier volume. Quant à la traduction, j'en suis pleinement satisfaite.

[Nagisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked the art style, but found the book a bit confusing. I understand a bit about the persona series, but I've never really looked into the series, so I guess jumping into persona 3 might have been a bit much for me. I really enjoyed reading it though. It filled me with a lot of questions and seemed very good. I'm happy I read this book and I intend to look into the rest of all of the persona series.

[Nick Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

Black shadows over dark characters against a murky background makes it hard to tell what you're looking at, while a ridiculously disjointed story was somehow mangled from the game's relatively understandable and linear narrative.

Just go play Persona 3. Adaptions are almost always worse than the source material, and this is not an exception.

[Why · Rating 1 out of 5]

1 no entendí un pingo

[Yaori · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a massive fan of the PS2 game, can't say I enjoyed the presentation and pacing of the volume. If you are a Persona 3 noob - this is NOT a good way to experiance the IP for the first time. The usage of In Medias Res was not good; the constant time jumps were jarring and were hurting the pacing, making it far too incoherent, while also bloating the reader's attention with too many characters too fast. Perhaps the idea was to tease the later events to build up hype or suck the reader in with quick taste of out of context stakes and action, but I disagree with this direction. There are stories where this works, but Persona benefits from the slow burn pacing, carefully building up and exploring it's cast, introducing members one by one, rather than flashing them all at once before scaling back the tension, which will make their proper introduction less effective as the result.
To close on the positive note, the art is good, I guess, and when the manga actually following the game proper - it does a good job at doing so. Hoping the following volumes do not fall flat on their face.

[Selena Pigoni · Rating 3 out of 5]

That was a lot of screen tone. It was so dark, I could barely make out what was going on at times. It also felt rushed, with little introduction to any of the characters, even the main one. We don't know who anyone is or why they're doing what they are, but I'm hoping that will get fleshed out sooner rather than later.

The battles, when you can make them out, are executed well enough, and the art's pretty good when it isn't lost in seas of black ink.

This could be really good. I'm hoping that the story slows down once we're out of the tutorial levels and takes its time to do Persona 3 justice. I haven't played the original game, but I've heard great things. I just hope the manga isn't a cliff notes version.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's not a transliteration of "The Journey"/"Episode: Yourself." It starts In-Media-Res with Minato (canon name, as far as I'm concerned) and team fighting the Full Moon Boss (The Hanged Man major arcana) and then rewinds back to April/the start of Persona 3's story. There's a side chapter about Minato's social stats (not Social Links/Commus/Confidants), and then starts the intro of the April Full Moon/Minato's Awakening.

That's it. That's the volume. It moves at a break neck pace and doesn't properly give scenes room to breathe. Which can be a problem with Mangas but is more of it where the artist and writer is trying to condense an 80 hour JRPG down into like 50 chapters.

Thanks to Atlus for giving a digital copy out for free on Steam. I'd be a bit miffed if I paid for this.

[Anjali · Rating 3 out of 5]

As an avid fan of the game, it was fun pointing out the small organizational and translation differences between this and the video game. However, I wouldn’t recommend the manga to someone who hasn’t played the game, as it was oddly organized (those timeskips???) and occasionally hard to understand if I didn’t already know what was going on. Regardless, it was a quick & fun read and I am looking forward to getting volume 2.

[Etienne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having recently discover the video game franchise of the same series I thought the manga could be interesting to look at. Unfortunately, not so much. I didn't find the same vibe that I love in the games and so aspect being the same, it also felt repetitive at the same time. Maybe not bad as manga alone, but both game and manga might be too much for the casual fan (maybe the hardcore ones would enjoy both), so it will be just the games for me from now on!

[Tabitha Dickson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love persona 3 and have since i was a little girl diehard fan forever since I was nine years old and fell in love with the game box. Though clearly i never played it till i was 12ish. But i as a nine year-old with that box i must of known how much the game means to me its my favourite forever and the manga is perfect as its right from the game but with some extra detail 2006 ps2 couldn't get due to software. I love you forever persona 3 10/10 the best

[Nico D. · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice retelling of the initial hour(s) of Persona 3. Some previous knowledge of the game’s story can help overall, but the pacing and exposition are both solid on their own. The art style is nice, though the battle scenes in the Dark Hour and with the Persona summoning can be a little murky to follow. Overall a quick read and good start to the series.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating it 4 stars because I love Persona and thus already know the story of the 3rd game. Knocking it down a star because it would be Really hard to go into without already having played P3. Volume one is literally just the opening to the game with some stuff from near the end thrown into the beginning with the actual start being a sort of flashback.

[Jessi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not as familiar with this story as I am with P5, but the art is gorgeous and I already like the characters. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series, since I probably won't be playing the video game.

[Joseph Young · Rating 2 out of 5]

Confusing, and the battle action scenes do not clearly show what is going on. There is not enough context on the whole; is this intentional?
Might be better to stick to the game. Would not recommend unless you are a hard core fan of the game.

[Paulo · Rating 3 out of 5]

The start is extremely confusing if you haven't finished the entire game, which I didn't, so perhaps my rating is a little unfair. Everything else is fine, though! If you want a story about depression and the meaning of life, this is for you.

[Dante Eduardo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Am I the only one who didn't understood anything that was going on? I love Persona and their manga but at least this first volume was full of full page images of something that wasn't completely explained until the end... when it ended in a cliffhanger... I still don't understand...

[Michal Pilichowski · Rating 3 out of 5]

Manga jak manga, podobała mi się ponieważ to adaptacja jednej z moich ulubionych gier. Miejscami kombinacja w większości czarnych stron z drobnym drugiem była trudna do odczytania, poza tym jakość wydania jest ok.

[kerrycat · Rating 5 out of 5]

always a pleasure to return to The Velvet Room.

[gabi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, this is certainly an interesting concept, but I haven’t really connected too much to the characters. It was very intense and exciting though!

[Oracle777 · Rating 5 out of 5]

The art in this book is top-notch.

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think if I had played the game it would be more interesting. The story just didn't make sense to me. Just a lot of jumping around.

[Martha Silla · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved Persona 3 (the game) and reading it in manga form is delightfully relaxing and lovely. I can’t wait to keep reading through the rest of the volumes 🥰

[Toni Salvatore · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this manga because I LOVE Persona 5, but I could not follow the action at all. It might be better if I play the game first.

[Richard Carilo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Critical Score: 3.5
Personal Score: 3.5
Total Score: 7