It’s been almost a decade since my brother first insisted I play Persona 5, and in that time, I’ve enjoyed the beloved JRPG series in more ways than I could have ever imagined. I’ve met and interviewed the voice actors behind my favorite characters, decorated my office with wall art and figurines, pouted about not being able to attend the official concert, watched the anime series, bought the manga, and have even gotten several tattoos.
After so long, and with the recent announcement of Persona 6, I kind of thought I was done experiencing Persona 5 in new ways. But then I opened Instagram and saw a story posted by Xander Mobus, the English voice of Joker, sharing news of a live-action iteration and half-jokingly asking who to contact if he wanted to get involved.
For Some Reason, Persona Is Getting A Live-Action Netflix Series
The series is being penned by Picard writer Christopher Monfette.
Persona 5 Royal is one of my favorite games of all time, one with a poignant story and immaculate vibe. There might be a parallel universe where the news of this upcoming adaptation filled me with glee, but I instead live in a world where live-action takes on anime tend to be terrible, so I let out a sigh instead.
Who Are Live-Action Adaptations Even For?
I was six years old when I found a copy of 1993’s Super Mario Bros on VHS at my local library. With a Nintendo 64 at home that saw plenty of use between us, my brother and I eagerly snagged it off the shelf, but even as children with limited media literacy, we were perplexed.
I love Daisy and will happily sing her praises any chance I get, but why was she the focus of this dystopian nightmare fuel of a film? Why were the titular Bros spelunking through the dank sewers of Dinohattan instead of the colorful and cartoonish landscapes of Mushroom Kingdom, on a mission to save her from the most unsettling depiction of Bowser?
They’re questions I first posed in 1999, and they’re ones I’m still asking in 2026, because seriously, what on earth was that movie?
After entering the realm of bad live-action adaptations of my favorite properties so thunderously and being around for so many of them since, I almost thought I’d be used to the oddities of it all by now. We had the Sonic the Hedgehog design that got Paramount bullied so hard online that they had to delay the film and fix him, or Ghost in the Shell starring acclaimed Asian actress Scarlett Johansson.
But Hollywood keeps churning this stuff out, and with nerd culture in the mainstream these days, I can’t imagine studios will opt out of trying to get their piece of the pie anytime too soon now video game adaptations are more profitable than ever.
My brother and I stuck together for bad live-action adaptations, though, even into adulthood. We went to the theater together for the Attack on Titan duology in 2015, laughing at the Titans’ appearance but not laughing at whatever happened to the plot. We turned 2017’s Death Note into a drinking game, taking a sip any time we cringed and needing to stop playing with a third of the movie left for the sake of our livers.
Some Stories Should Not Be Second Screen Experiences
Live-action adaptations have come a long way since then, though, with shows like The Last of Us, Fallout, Arcane, and One Piece readily making doubters like me eat our words. They adapt the source material successfully enough while still taking their own liberties with it, striking a careful balance of originality and inspiration. But in the era of ‘second screen viewing,’ where people put shows or movies on in the background while they scroll on their phones, I’m scared Netflix is going to beat us over the head with the exposition hammer in an effort to try and help those people keep up.
Take Avatar, for example. The live-action version of the show performed pretty well for its first season, but viewership is down by over half now that season two is out. Fans of the original animated series grew up with its vibrant characters and its comparatively mature, involved plot. Now, though, the biggest critique of the second season is that the storytelling is delivered in heavy-handed exposition, with characters from this action-adventure series simply standing around talking about what they’ll do next.
Persona is far too dense and complicated to even try to get away with the same sins. Having your friends gather around to discuss the current objective makes sense when you’re playing the story as a video game that’ll take you 80 hours to complete, but in a live-action series with a limited number of episodes, you’ve got to make every second count. Having Netflix adapt live-action versions of your favorite stories like this, whether they’re games or anime, runs the risk of making tales that once shined so brightly in their original form feel lazy and uninspired.
Christopher Monfette is signed on to be the director, and while he’s a certified nerd in his own right after beginning his career in gaming journalism, he’s also responsible for the viral 9-1-1 trailer that the internet calls ‘Avengers: Doomsday for moms,’ so we’ll see what happens.
What makes it worse is that these live-action adaptations become the way millions experience these stories for the first time. Plenty of people have begun to feel like One Piece, for example, is more approachable through the live-action, since not a lot of casual viewers have time for almost 1,200 episodes of anime. There’s still no word on which Persona will be adapted, but with Persona 5 bringing the series to the West in a mainstream way and Atlus proving time and again that they love popping the Phantom Thieves into anything they can, I can’t imagine they’ll stray too far from one of the most beloved JRPGs of all-time.
With so many live-action iterations of games and anime that end up being rough around the edges, my love for Persona makes me want to say that a bad adaptation is outside the realm of possibility, that you’ll never see it coming. But until we see anything from the show itself, I don’t think my hesitancy to be excited for the live action Persona comes from my other self – Netflix has a lot of Shadows of doubt to defeat before I’ll cave in and watch.
- Video Game(s)
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Persona 2: Innocent Sin, Persona 3, Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Portable, Persona 4, Persona 4 Golden, Persona 4 Arena, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, Persona 4: Dancing All Night, Persona 5, Persona 5 Royal, Persona 5 Strikers, Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth
