Persona 4: The Animation, Collection One

While his parents are abroad for a year, Tokyo teen Yu reluctantly relocates to an unfashionable provincial town, which is struck by a series of strange deaths as well as rumors of a "Midnight Channel" supernatural TV broadcast on rainy nights that features grainy images which seem to foretell the dire future. Before long, Yu discovers that he and his new friends can step right through television monitors into a weird alternate universe that is also having Midnight Channel-related problems with invading "shadows." Yu and his schoolmates are able to combat the marauding entities with "personas"—powerful beings of their own invocation. Since the personas and the shadows dredge up unreconciled issues and anxieties within Yu and his pals, the super-powered fights kind of double as therapy sessions, as the series alternates unevenly between Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh!-style battles and seriocomic high school teen fare. Inspired by the popular video game franchise, the first 12 episodes from 2011-12 are presented in a dual-language set, rated TV-14. Extras include a director's cut version of the opening episode. Recommended. [Note: Persona 4: The Animation, Collection Two is also newly available.] (C. Cassady)