Persona 5 Artbook

I've had the pleasure of reading through the Persona 5 Artbook that came out recently. I say recently but that's referring to the English version. The Japanese version came out a long time ago and, for some reason, we get fewer pages and honestly, the amount of actual content that needed to be translated isn't much. I don't quite know why it took so long but hey, at least we get it.

I am bummed out about one thing, evident from the start. See, the image above is the cover art for the Japanese version of the art book whereas the splash image I used at the start of this article is the cover art for the English version. It's a big difference and a little disappointing. Why couldn't we have gotten the cooler splash art? Who knows.

That's just the book sleeve though. Underneath the book sleeve, there is another image spread printed onto the actual hard cover for the book. The image spread is reminiscent of the art used for the Take Your Heart Premium Edition for the game. You know, the one where the crew walks away from the city all cool-like in slick monochrome. I'm not quite sure whether the Japanese version has this portion.

Other than that cover, the book itself should be identical. The pages include images from the promotional art, concept art, character and persona details, and the world concept. It's a great book for Persona fans but not quite a pick-up book for artists in general. It's more for fans to get a better understanding as to why the characters look the way they do or why certain colours were used.

Overall, it was a fun look through. You can sit down for a day to go through it. It really doesn't involve much reading at all. Just lots of fancy pictures with light insight into their design.