Persona 3 is a manga adaption of the game Persona 3, written and illustrated by Shūji Sogabe.
Overview
Happy with the success of Persona 3, Atlus commissions a manga adaptation to be made the next year, in 2007, and was handed over to Shūji Sogabe, who would also handle the Persona 4 manga starting in 2009. Because of this, the Persona 3 manga would take a backseat and only be periodically updated and suffer from a laborious publication. Nevertheless, the series reached its conclusion on January 21st 2017, totaling 11 volumes. The manga was published by Udon Entertainment in the United States. The manga jumps between multiple points in the chronology, in order
Each volume is referred to as a "Chapitre", which is French for Chapter. Each individual chapter is referred to as a "Piece" and given a French name. The protagonist is named Minato Arisato (有里湊). The game adapts only the story of Persona 3, and doesn't present any element from either The Answer or Persona 3 Portable.
Differences from the game
- Certain changes are consistent throughout the entire manga, such as Minato taking his own decisions and being shown talking to the different characters. Dialogue is often shortened to fit the manga format or to help with the pacing.
- Minato does not summons multiple Personas like in the game. The only Personas he summons was Orpheus, Thanatos, and Messiah.
Chapitre 1
- The manga starts in November, during the Arcana Hanged Man fight.
- During the fight, Minato loses his sword and borrows Junpei's weapon in order to finish off the Shadow.
- Personas are also never seen during the fight up until the end when Minato summons Thanatos, in order to keep the mystery until Minato's awakening is shown.
- During the fight, Minato loses consciousness, and flashes back to his arrival at Tatsumi Port Island and at the Iwatodai dorm, when he signs the contract Pharos gave him.
- After the fight is over, the manga then skips to the day Ryoji joins Gekkoukan.
- It also briefly follows three female students who are investigating Minato. They ask Junpei to recreate scenarios in which Minato was seen, mostly of the latter eating comically large amounts of food. The three students then interrogate Yukari, upon which the manga jumps back to the day Minato arrived at Port Island.
- Minato is seen listening to the original version of Burn my Dread, instead of the Last Battle arrangement like in the opening cutscene of Persona 3.
- There are no instances shown of Yukari trying to use an Evoker, akin to the first cutscene of the game.
- When a random citizen gets overtaken by a shadow during the Dark Hour on April 7th, his transformation is shown behind a voice-over by Shuji.
- We are shown Akihiko killing a shadow.
- Minato is transported to the Velvet Room before awakening his Persona.
- Minato wears pajamas when sleeping, and he is seen changing back to his normal outfit when Yukari barges into his room because of an attacking shadow.
- Yukari gives Minato a knife to defend himself against the Arcana Magician.
- Pharos indirectly shows Minato how to use an Evoker to summon a Persona.
Chapitre 2
- We are shown bits of Yukari's internal monologue as she struggles to use an Evoker to summon her Persona.
- When Pharos appears to Minato, he directly asks the latter: "Can you do it?"
- After killing the first Full Moon shadow, Pharos appears to him in his room when Minato falls unconscious.
- Minato wakes up on the 17th, where he does so on the 19th in the game.
- Minato doesn't answer when asked if he believes a day has more than 24 hours; in the game, he is given a choice to answer.
- During S.E.E.S' first trip to Tartarus, Junpei separates himself from the group by mistake due to not attentive to Mitsuru's warnings about its infrastructure and gets attacked by a shadow, which he defeats on his own despite her orders to retreat.
- Yukari gets attacked by another Shadow, prompting Minato to jump in to protect her. He trips on a small pebble during the attempt, much to his embarrassment, despite the accident saving him from the full brunt of said Shadow's assault and only receiving a tiny scratch on the shoulder which Yukari heals.
- Junpei and Yukari get extended Persona awakenings for their first summon.
- The manga skips to the evening on May 9th for the fight against the Arcana Priestess. We are not shown Minato going to school, or any of the discussions that he has with his schoolmates.
- Junpei and Minato are shown without their school uniform, wearing more casual clothes before being sent to the station.
- Mitsuru and Akihiko have their argument about Akihiko staying at the dorm before Yukari, Junpei and Minato arrives.
- Junpei has a short internal monologue about his feelings on Minato being the field leader.
- When the monorail door closes, Junpei says they "got his fingers" and that they're all jacked up.
- We are shown Junpei dashing to the front of the train, killing the shadows in his path. During this, he has another interior monolgue, before Yukari catches up with him. We do not see Minato and her going through the train and battling shadows.
- Mitsuru gives a short explanation about how using one's Persona too much tires the user out.
- The trio faces the Arcana Priestess with only 1 minute left before collision, whereas in the game they had 5 minutes left.
- There is an intermission jumping to November 10th, where Junpei, Minato and Ryoji play different games at an arcade, including a train simulator, where Minato horribly crashes the train in a very graphic fashion, paralleling the end of the Arcana Priestess fight on the train. Though it is only strongly implied and not actually shown happening. Aigis then catches up with the group, and the 4 of them has lunch at a restaurant, where Minato eats a comically tall burger.
Chapitre 3
- There is a cryptic teaser with Fuuka hearing an horrifying voice calling to her at the beginning of Piece 8.
- The manga skips to May 23rd, after the exams, when Shinjiro and Akihiko meet up.
- The manga skips once again to May 30th, when a girl from 2-E was found collapsed in front of the school gates.
- Junpei doesn't call himself an "ace detective", and as such Yukari doesn't call him an "ace defective".
- It skips once more to June 1st, for Junpei's "Believe it Or Don't". Kenji makes a cameo appearance.
- After Shinji punches the thug, he makes a threat, but backpedals after getting a menacing look from Shinji.
- After Mitsuru interrogates Natsuki, the manga cuts to Akihiko being separated from the rest of the group in Tartarus, then jumps back to 6 hours prior.
- Minato is seen killing shadows in their form seen in Tartarus in Persona 3 outside of battles.
- When Pharos re-introduced himself to Minato, Minato briefly saw Pharos' original form as Death.
Chapitre 4
- Mitsuru's past from The Answer was shown.
- When Mitsuru awakens her Persona, Penthesilea was shown defeating a Shadow. In the game, her Persona was briefly shown, and a bright light defeated it.
- It also reveals her past took place somewhere in 2001, where in the game, the year and date remain unknown.
- The July operation has been cut short and is only shown as a flashback.
- During the shower scene plays it differently in the game:
- Minato already come back to his senses when Yukari was under Arcana Lover's influence. As she was about to wrap her arms around Minato, she regain her senses and slap Minato in embarrassment.
- Another shower scene where Akihiko and Junpei are paired together. Akihiko was disgusted and shocked to see half-naked Junpei. When brainwashed Junpei was about to jump on Akihiko, he punched him hard.
- The Arcana Hierophant boss fight was cut.
- During the shower scene plays it differently in the game:
- Yukari manages to defeated Arcana Lovers on her own.
- Yukari's past from The Answer was shown which took place on March 7, 2009. In the game, the date and year of her past remains unknown.
- Mitsuru does not join the others to have fun at the beach in Yakushima.
- After Minato manages to calm down Yukari after finding out her father is responsible for the Dark Hour, they were almost about to kiss before Junpei interrupts.
- The group photo on November 4 has been changed. It shows Akihiko punching Junpei for annoying him, Yukari getting annoyed by Junpei, and Minato doing a peace sign behind Ken.
- Koromaru does not accompany SEES to Tartarus as Junpei told him to stay and guard the dorm. However, he decides to save SEES from Ikutsuki and brainwashed Aigis. He summons Cerberus to stop Ikutsuki and uses his weapon to free Mitsuru's father.
- The hot spring incident plays it differently. Mitsuru's execution was literally freezing them with her Persona's ice spell which she used on the guys.
Chapitre 5
- Takaya summons his Persona in front of SEES during the July operation.
- Yukari had a hard time summoning Io due to questioning her resolve.
- Shjnjiro rejoins SEES on August 9th instead of September.
- In the game, the protagonist has the option to choose one of the girls to spend time at the summer festival. In the manga, it implies Minato chooses to hang out with Akihiko.
- Junpei meets Chidori during the summer festival.
- During the September operation, Ken faces Arcana Hermit alone until Shinjiro arrives just in time to save him.
- When Shinjiro summons Castor to finish off Arcana Hermit, Ken recognizes the Persona and found out the one who kill his mother was Shinjiro.
- When Chidori loses control over her Persona, instead of Shinjiro force-feeding her with one of the suppressors, he injects her with a serum that contains a liquid form of the suppressors.
- When Akihiko recalls ten years ago when he failed to save his sister, Miki, a flashback was shown when Akihiko and Shinjiro were kids.
- During a typhoon, Shinjiro gives Minato and Ken towels to dry themselves from the rain, but Ken ejects Shinjiro's offer.
- Phaos visits Minato in his dreams due to having a fever from the rain.
- The October operation is played very differently than the game:
- Junpei and Aigis do not participate in the operation due to Junpei wants to see Chidori a while Aigis decides to accompany him (mainly to keep an eye on Chidori).
- Akihiko ditches fighting the Arcana Fortune and Arcana Strength halfway to find Shinjiro and Ken after he realizes it is October 4th, the day Ken's mother died.
- The flashback from two years ago was shown. Shinjiro kills Mrs. Amada's Shadow out of self-defense when Ken's mother's Shadow was about to kill Ken. Mrs. Amada's shadow was a _target for the operation, he didn't know about it until it was too late. In the game, Shinjiro loses control of his Persona and accidentally kills Ken's mother.
- Ken slashes Shinjiro on the left side of his face when he warns him for taking a life. In the game, Ken does not harm Shinjiro for angering him.
- Akihiko witnesses Shinjiro sacrifice himself to protect Ken from Takaya. Blinded by rage, Akihiko summons his Persona to attack Takaya.
- The rest of SEES who were still fighting the two Arcana shadows wasn't present when Shinjiro died from his fatal injuries. Akihiko and Ken were the only ones to witness Shinjiro's demise.
Chapitre 6
- In the flashback of the November operation, it was revealed after Pharos left Minato's mind, his Persona had been replaced by Thanatos.
- Chidori does not temporarily control Fuuka.
- Junpei defeats Chidori on his own when he tries to reason with her. In the game, Junpei is unable to fight Chidori because he doesn't want to hurt her so SEES has to defeat her instead.
- Junpei loses control of Trismegistus and uses his Persona to burn Takaya to death. This results in Yukari being traumatized since it reminds her of how her father died. Minato is forced to stop him.
- Yukari uses her Persona's healing ability to heal Takaya because she doesn't want someone to die in front of her.
- Jin escaped with unconscious Takaya with his Persona Moros instead of using his smoke bombs to escape.
- Minato brought new headphones after his old ones got broken from a November operation.
Chapitre 7
- On December 2nd, Aigis confronts Ryoji at Moonlight Bridge in her school uniform before she destroys it to enter combat to fight him.
- After Aigis was defeated by Ryoji, she reminisces about the past from five months ago.
- From Aigis's perspective, it was revealed Koromaru summons his Persona to attack Aigis to prevent her from attacking their friends.
- Labrys and Sousei Kurogami makes a cameo appearance when Ikutsuki mentions them.
- While reminiscing about his fight against Aigis 10 years back, Ryoji, as incomplete Death, utilized both his sword and chaina against her to no avail.
- Junpei reveals about his father after he took his anger out on Minato.
Chapitre 8
- Minato choose Yukari to hang out during their winter date even though they aren't a couple before December 24th.
- SEES has a Christmas Eve party which never occurs in the game.
- Minato attempt to kill Ryoji with a knife (the same knife given by Yukari in April), but he has second thoughts.
- Ryoji's death form is completely different that the game, being amalgamation of his Thanatos and Nyx Avatar forms.
- The Nyx cult started on New Year's Day instead of a few or more days later.
- Most of Aigis's Social Link scenes were shown. Instead of spending time with Minato, it's Yukari.
Chapitre 9
- When Chidori mentions the special someone she saw in her dreams, an image of her dreams was shown. The person is Junpei except Chidori can't remember his face.
- Yukari tells Aigis that she will confess her feeling for Minato after the final battle.
- On January 30th, Junpei visits Chidori before the final battle on January 31st.
- Akihiko and Ken face Jin instead of SEES facing him together.
- Strega's past was shown.
Chapitre 10
- Junpei and Mitsuru fight against Takaya.
- Junpei fatally injured Takaya.
- At the beginning of the battle against Nyx Avatar, only Minato, Yukari, Fuuka, and Aigis were present.
Chapitre 11
- All the original social links from the game makes a cameo appearance when they witness the Fall.
- During the final battle against Nyx, Shinjiro appears as a spirit to encourage Minato.
- In March 3rd, it was reveals Aigis' memories was erased as well since the last thing she remembers was her time in Yakashima.
- Minato and the others hold a celebration party for Akihiko and Mitsuru's graduation dinner on March 4th. In the game, it wasn't feature since in the eventing, there was no one in the dorm.
- Minato does not lie down on Aigis' lap. Instead, he leans on Aigis' shoulder.
- Minato does not die on March 5th as he was able to stand up and greet his friends after they remember their promise like in the game. Whether or not it was temporary for Minato to live without a soul since he still suffers from the effects of the Great Seal.
Gallery
- Chapitre covers
- Volume covers
