Persona 3: Official Design Works Paperback – July 3, 2012

I love this mainly because I am a fan of the series and because it is Atlus. I especially love the gestures and character concepts, they're beautiful but I found it a bit disappointing to see very little emphasis on the character development. Sure they get a page or two but a lot of the work are in-game head-shots and expressions (most of which are too small and crammed together).Though, that is just my opinion. I was looking forward to a more gestural, rough, work-in-progress - which is why the last chapter by far is my favorite section of the whole book since it has a lot of the development art I'm looking for.Lastly, the book doesn't make much use of the white space around its borders. Could have included more content if they worked on placement.

First off, I just want to say that I am not a fan of most "art" books, even if I love the artist(s) or series. I don't buy a book just to LOOK at full page pictures. I want to see where the artist/design team first started when they came up with the idea and how it transformed into what we know now. I like being able to read their thoughts and comments on each step or the design over all. This book does NOT disappoint, and does a great job of letting the reader see into the minds' of the game's brilliant team.Persona 3: Official Design Works starts off with some nice promotional art and then leads into breakdowns of each character, all the story-relevant Personas, some shadows and enemies, the "world" itself, some color charts, and lastly into a lengthy interview with the game's producer and art director about the themes of the game. It's well composed, and has got some great early/rough drafts, some of which I almost wish they used instead. Ha.My only real complaint was that they only threw in the rough drafts for a handful of characters, some of which I believe didn't even really warrant the attention. I love rough drafts, because I believe they do a great job of letting you see... well everything I mentioned int he first paragraph. Yukari has the most, filling up a whole three pages, but many just have a sketch or two labeled "final design". I'd love to pretend the design team was so genius they got every character right the first time, but... I doubt it. I understand some early drafts might have been deemed so embarrassing, atrocious, or just plain unworthy to be seen by human eyes they decided not to include them, but a few more wouldn't have hurt.Besides that, overall it was a great buy and I definitely can't wait until my copy of Persona 4: Official Design Works shows up the mail!

Whether you are an old fan of Persona 3 or new to the series this is a must have art book. It does include some of the art that was included with the original PS2 game's artbook, but it also has plenty of new material. The book is well done and beautiful to look at. Udon got the translation spot on, so you can read about the creation process in addition to enjoying the illustrations.You have characters, personas, creatures, and settings all available in seperate chapters. If you haven't beaten the game though beware of spoilers, as can be expected they lurk within. Overall though is a great purchase for yourself or a gift for fans of the series.

If you never got the limited edition of Persona 3 or if you are a fan of Persona 3 then this is the book for you. This books showcases all of Shigenore Soejima line art and rendering that went into creating P3. There are even little commentary spread through out the book describing his intention and the emotions and feeling that he wanted to capture as well as unused art that wasn't in the game, like the original design of the main character. Their is 140 pages of stills and artwork from P3 in this book and they are breath taking. A great art book that should be picked up by anyone who is a fan of Shigenore and/or Persona 3.

I owned the original Japanese publication of this book before buying this one, because I love the art from this game. However, being unable to speak or read Japanese fluently left me in the dark when it came to the artist comments and other text within. Udon is amazing for providing an English translation of the book; I'm a huge fan and I still learned things about the game and its characters that I didn't know about from playing. I hope they'll translate more art books from Persona and the Shin Megami Tensei series in the future.

I ordered this art book as well as the Persona 4 art book and boy was I not disappointed. What wasn't perfect about this book, the pages were crisp and used that thick type of paper that I look for when buying any type of art book. Many of the character models were there even some of the minor ones. I particularly enjoyed the sections regarding shadows and personas. My only complaint is the size difference and content difference between this art book and the one for Persona 4. The Persona 4 art book just felt like it had more in it than this art book did. Overall though I really enjoyed this book and it is a must have for any die hard Persona fan.

Great shipping~ It was shipped on the first and I just received it today! If you're a lover of the Persona series or even Shigenori Soejima's work, I think you'd definitely enjoy this. Although many people have said that you can easily access these photos on the internet, it's always more enjoyable to have your own copy of them.

I LOVE this series sooooooo much and this book brings out my inner fangirl. The pictures are all wonderful. And the extra info about each of the characters is a wonderful treat. Love this so much :3

J'ai commandé cet article en 2015 et franchement j'adore le feuilleter. C'est vraiment très beau et inspirant, une superbe pièce à ajouter à la collection de tout fan de Persona 3.Par contre quand je vois le prix auquel certains proposent l'artbook aujourd'hui, je me marre : il coûtait 29,99€ quand je l'ai acheté en 2015... À bon entendeur :)

If you are a fan of the video game, and are interested in the art, there couldn't be a better collection for Persona 3. The book absolutely amazing and filled with breathtaking concept art. Even the book itself is very well crafted and brings pleasure when simply opened.

Absolutely love Persona, and I love art and the art of video games, so finding this artbook was awesome.The art is gorgeous and all really high quality. The information is really cool for anyone into the Persona series.It does have a couple of small typos but it's the art you're here for so it doesn't really matter.

The media could not be loaded.  This is the video game art book for the highly acclaimed Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3.The Japanese edition of this book (ISBN 4757730942) was originally published in 2006. Udon does a great job at translation, as usual. The book only has 144 pages so that's quite thin compared to other Udon art books.It collects the character designs, sketches, storyboards, backgrounds, miscellaneous in game items, and interviews with the creators, producer and director Katsura Hashino and Shigenori Soejima.The character designs are from Shigenori Soejima who designs not just this but for other Persona games as well. The character designs are in the form of coloured illustrations, sketches, in-game screenshots of poses and costume changes. Chapter 2 covers Persona and Shadow. Initial and ultimate Persona are both included.The background art consist of sketches and the coloured version. It's a short section with 6 pages. There are only 6 colour illustrations and each is printed smaller than quarter-page size. The sketches are larger but not all sketches have coloured versions included.There are a few pages of splash art. Some you might have seen in  Shigenori Soejima Artworks SC . Not much is duplicated.It's a good book but I feel that fans of the game and the Persona series will enjoy it more.(There are more pictures of the book on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.) Shigenori Soejima Artworks SC

I was pleased with this product once it arrived. It was due to be released June 10th, but that date got pushed back, then my delivery date got pushed back twice, and it eventually arrived around mid-July, after I had to cancel the order so I could change the delivery address. The book itself is good quality and whilst I know very little about the Persona series (I bought this as a birthday present for a friend who's a big fan), he agreed with me. He also managed to get it signed by famous voice actor Vic Mignogna, who voices the character of Junpei in the game.