Persona 5 the Animation Episode 6 & 7 [Review]

By: ThunderHeavyArmAfter a short vacation, it’s time for a little catch up with one of my favorite series of the season.So last time, I had pointed out that the final fight with Kamoshida had been a little lackluster in what I was thinking the series would be focusing on boss fights. After that, I was then a little disappointed with the representation that was shown for the mini fights in mementos. But let’s forget about all of that and see what happened this week and last.Episode 6 summary:Following the events in mementos, the group is approached by Yusuke Kitagawa, offering Ann the opportunity to be a model for his next art piece. The group is taken to the art exhibit for his patron Ichiryusai Madarame, a well respected classical Japanese painter. The name rings a bell with Ren, as their target in mementos blamed his current actions on Madarame for stealing his dreams and being abusive to him and his other pupils. After some investigating, the group discovers Madarame has a palace and the hunt is on for his treasure.Episode 7 summary:The phantom thieves are making headway into Madarame’s palace. Discovering that Madarame uses his pupils creativity to his own ends, stealing their work and taking credit for it. The group is stopped from progressing forward by a cognitive barrier, a large door similar to one Mona found in the shack where Yusuke lives. Using his desire to paint a nude portrait of Ann, Mona tries to time it so that the Madarame will see the door open and allow the group to progress deeper into his palace. After having the way opened to them, Ann and Morgana use the nav to retreat into the metaverse and bring Yusuke with them.Where confronted by the dark version of his teacher and awakening to the years of abuse and lies he summons his persona Goemon.Has the series stolen my heart?In a way. I’m still riding the thrill from when I played the game. Having a scene play out in higher detail than was possible in the game is still a bit of a novelty. But as I said in my last review, the fact that the series isn’t spending any of its time on fights is proving to be a little disappointing. I knew that there was going to be less of a focus on fights than in the game. I’m not going to be rehashing my thought on that, if you want you can reread my thoughts here. But to completely ignore it, or at least at the level the series is coming across, feels like it’s cutting a part of itself off.That said, the story is staying faithful to the series. Minus a lot of the random things that most players would have done by now. But it’s safe to assume that a lot of time has passed between stories. I’m hoping that once the series gets going in earnest (likely once Makoto or Futaba join the team to add some diversity) we’ll start to see more of the side events and stories of the characters. Which would actually be welcome at this point, since aside from Ren, even though I and those that have played the game know the other characters stories, new fans to the series don’t. And the characters are coming off as rather flat. Which, yes, I know seems like it goes against what I said previously about the show being able to tell long tales with only a short scene. But we still need to see that scene.I still have high hopes for the series to surprise me in the next few episodes. There’s plenty of time before the end of the season (the rumor is that the series ends shortly after this palace). Even if the Madarame fight takes an extra episode to get through, given that there was more to the fighting than the first palace, that still leaves a decent chunk of characterization time. Until next time…GG everyone!