The P-Studio Art Unit: The Art Of Modern-Day Persona Beyond Shigenori Soejima

Content originally posted to Instagram on March 10, 2020.

OK I actually received this artbook the day Persona 5 Royal came out in Japan….and here I am finally making a post about it when the game comes out in the U.S. later this month lol

A lot of people will think of the name Shigenori Soejima when they think of Persona, as his artwork and creative direction have helped guide the look and feel of the more-modern games in the series. But this book also serves to highlight the team that’s assisted him on creating so many of the art assets used in these games + more. Hanako Oribe, Akane Kabayashi, and Azusa Shimada: together, they comprise the P-Studio Art Unit.

Of course, it makes sense that there’d be multiple artists working on games together. But this book has been really eye-opening to me as well because there are so many pieces, from merchandise art to cover artworks, that were created by the team rather than Soejima! I wish this info was more publicly known so these artists could get their due credit. As such, this post will contain a few pieces that’ve been confirmed to have been created by them.

If there’s anything I could nitpick about, it’s that I wish the book would highlight what artists worked on each piece (even if most of the book is Soejima’s work). The team is very good at evoking Soejima’s style, but each artist also has certain indicators in their work that distinguish their styles individually. For a non-illustrator like me though, it’s hard to tell those differences…maybe artists have a better eye for those kinda things. Soejima’s style is more easy to identify at least because he has a lot of pieces with a more “painterly” feel to them.

At some point, Soejima will probably pass on the reigns of leading Persona artist to someone new. When that happens, I hope that future mainline titles give one or all of the P-Studio Art Unit a chance to lead the series in a new direction, and even give them a chance to showcase their individual styles more. Final review: megaTEN/megaTEN art.

Fun *relevant* facts: Hanako Oribe worked on the box art and promotional art for Persona 5 Strikers. & based on a video of the Persona 5 Royal artbook, I’m preeeetty sure Azusa Shimada handled promotional art for Royal (EDIT - April 28, 2021: She definitely did).