Technically, We Already Had Persona in Live-Action Before

It was announced that Netflix is going to ruin (oops), adapt Persona into a live-action series, and it will certainly be very good and extremely faithful to the original material (even if it’s an original story).

The fans’ reaction was: “Why?” Nobody seems very confident about this adaptation. Some believe Netflix should adapt Persona 5, the most popular and beloved entry in the series, while others think the show will tell an original story.

Either way, I’m here to tell you that this won’t actually be the first time Persona has been adapted into a live-action series in some form!

Back in 1997, a live-action series based on the game Devil Summoner aired. The series is called Shin Megami Tensei Devil Summoner, and it ran for two seasons with a total of 25 episodes.

And guess who shows up at the end of the series? The protagonist of the very first Persona game! And he’s a VILLAIN! Although he’s known as Naoya in the manga, his name in the live-action is Kamiya.

Below is what he looks like in the game:

Some people say the character who appears in the live-action series isn’t actually the protagonist of Persona 1, but simply another student from the same school who happens to be a villain. However, there are strong signs that it really is him.

First of all, even though the manga started publication before his appearance in the series, Persona manga often give unofficial names to their protagonists. For example, the protagonist of Persona 3 is officially named Makoto Yuki, but in the manga he’s called Minato Arisato, and the same goes for the other protagonists.

Naoya Todou is his name in the manga, and guess what? He has different names in other media as well. In the Drama CD, his name is Yuuya Narumi, while in the novel he’s called Jihei Suzakuin, and so on. Atlus has never given him an official name.

However, the strongest evidence that this is indeed the protagonist of Persona 1 is that the character in the live-action series summons Vishnu as his Persona. And guess which Persona the protagonist uses in the game? Vishnu.

Yeah, I know, that’s him summoning Vishnu in the scene above… I know it doesn’t look amazing, but that’s the best they could do back then, haha.

Anyway, there’s a fun piece of trivia for you: this wasn’t the first live-action adaptation of an Atlus series. And you know the best part? This live-action is fully available on YouTube with English subtitles!