"...to be a Persona Master is my destiny~!"
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Didn't see this one coming, did you? Don't worry. It's not even my last surprise. ✨
I've been wanting to make this video for almost six years now, and I've been working on it for almost half as long! I had recorded the "rap" and singing vocals back in 2020, when I first finished Persona 5: Royal. Now that it's coming to every console, I knew it was just the kick in the ass that I needed to get across the finish line.
This was a daunting project from the start. It was really special to me, so I knew that I wanted to handle absolutely everything myself. But... that also meant I was a huge perfectionist about it. Whenever I wasn't satisfied, I would trash my whole editing timeline and start again. That's sort of the philosophy that I take when writing, too... but, I don't think I'll be doing that again with a project like this.
I went from borrowing gameplay footage from online playthroughs (varied quality), to using the PS4 Pro's Gameplay Capture (blocked from recording certain scenes), to finally just biting the bullet and buying a capture card (expensive!). Then, it was a matter of grabbing every clip, which... took a lot longer than expected.
The Vanilla P5 ending was a whole new playthrough. Then, there was purposefully losing to Caroline, Justine, and Lavenza - plus unique battle victory animations. Oh, and capturing everyone's ShowTime trigger animations! Which I didn't even end up using. It was a real hassle too, since Futaba's navigator dialogue in the upper right would sometimes make the footage unusable.
...Yeah. It was a lot. But, watching the video now? I think it was all worth it. Almost every single transition-shot is a frame-by-frame reconstruction that I made in Photoshop. There are at least four of those within the first twenty seconds! How many do you think there are, in the full three-minutes!? Did you notice the letterboxing during this video's CG cutscenes is fully animated and continuous? Or that sometimes, characters move their mouth like they're singing along? Even just timing the Compendium entries on beat! All of this took a lot of work, and I'm really proud of how it turned out. There are also little Easter Eggs for "Life Will Change", a P5R fanfic that I'm writing: archiveofourown.org/works/24846847/chapters/60106123 - See if you can spot them!
As the years went by, I came up with a couple of new ideas to keep things fresh. I considered getting a custom-made "P5-style" jazz/funk/soul instrumental with the same BPM, or altering the text of certain Compendium entries (Mothman: Longtime friend and companion of Erica Lindbeck). I wasn't able to do that this time, but I'm really happy with what I made.
I would like to thank:
Jess for helping with Compendium capture
klawl for playing for me while I was at work sometimes (lmao)
Delavi for learning Matt Mercer's "Goemon" pronunciation (this took a while)
elymoji for doing one of the frame-by-frames (Ryuji and Mona on the bridge)
TheChildd for teaching me how to layer-mask
mymymarians for hyping me up
Voltage for putting up with my project spam
Dima Lancaster for loaning me the Pokérap instrumental he made for Pokémon GO
Celeste for drawing Akira with the sort of smile that makes you wanna' kick him in his perfect teeth
Leanna for mixing so many voices so amazingly well (she deserves the world)
The Roonco & MasterofHamsters for their constant support
...and, you! Thank you for watching. I appreciate you all.
Next up should be another Persona-adjacent project. Basically, another song that I made a P5R Music Video for - à la "Lost One's Weeping".
'Til then, take care!
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STAFF
Vocals: Akane Sasu Sora (Showtime!)
Mix/Mastering: Leanna (goo.gl/FWwUY7​) @leannaasama
Instrumental: Dima Lancaster (bit.ly/2YwMFo7)
Video Editing: Akane Sasu Sora (Gotcha' now!)
Artwork: celexcity (bit.ly/3rZsviV)
Original Concept: PBNimo & asnpe (bit.ly/3eiVHQN)
CAST
Akira Kurusu: Akane Sasu Sora (Checkmate.)
Caroline & Justine: Tori (bit.ly/3rJshyh)
Morgana: YUniverse (bit.ly/3rP0k8g)
Ryuji Sakamoto: elymoji (bit.ly/3ekefQB)
Ann Takamaki: HafuPan (bit.ly/3EBKdm8)
Yusuke Kitagawa: Delavi
Makoto Niijima: Jess
Futaba Sakura: Kaerinasai (bit.ly/3EBKnde)
Haru Okumura: Irisu-yan (bit.ly/3MmN0Bt)
Sumi Yoshizawa: Julia Gu (bit.ly/3g0GWSO)
???: Akane Sasu Sora (We'll meet again someday. I'm sure of it.)
Goro Akechi: Delavi
This cover was funded by Patreon! (bit.ly/PatreAkane)
Want a Download? Donate $1 to my Ko-Fi with an attached email, and you'll get one! Or, become a $3+ Patron on Patreon for unlimited access to the mp3 archive! (bit.ly/kofikane)
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LYRICS: (bit.ly/3rO9lOI)
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when i was capturing footage, i labelled the haru/morgana showtime as "morgana fucking dies dot mp4" and every time i saw it in my project timeline i started laughing