Characters / Persona 3: Later Members

Persona 3 Main Character Index
Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight | Persona 3 Reload
S.E.E.S. (Starting Members [The Protagonists | Yukari Takeba] | Later Members) | Social Links and NPCs | Antagonists

S.E.E.S. Later Members

Fuuka Yamagishi

^{Click here to see Fuuka in her new battle outfit in Reload.}

^{Click here to see Lucia}

Patron Saint of the Blind

^{Click here to see Juno}

Queen of the Roman Gods

"All enemies defeated! Good work out there!"

Arcana: The Priestess
Social Link: The Priestess
Persona: Lucia, Juno
Theurgy (Reload): Oracle (Lucia)^note Grants 1 random positive effect to all allies, Revelation (Juno)^note Grants 1 random enhanced effect to all allies
Voiced by: Mamiko Noto (Japanese), Wendee Lee (English; spinoffs), Suzie Yeung (English; Reload)
Live actress: Marina Tanoue

Fuuka is a timid girl who is often bullied and put under pressure by her strict parents. She is supposedly sickly and initially comes to the attention of SEES through Akihiko and Shinjiro's visits to the hospital, where they become aware of her potential. However, before they can approach her about it, she goes missing, having been locked in the school gymnasium by bullies and becoming trapped in Tartarus when the school transformed during the Dark Hour. SEES must, therefore, stage a rescue attempt during the third full moon event. This ends up giving her the perfect opportunity to prove herself when SEES is unexpectedly faced with two Shadows who keep changing their weaknesses.

She does not actively participate in combat. Instead, her persona, Lucia of the Priestess Arcana, encases Fuuka in an indestructible globe and gives her the power to know the features of a given area, the location of any people and Shadows there, and the strengths and weaknesses of enemies. As Lucia's sensory powers greatly exceed those of Mitsuru's Persona Penthesilea, Fuuka takes over the support role and enables Mitsuru to join the field team. Through the events of the game, she develops from a shy, timid girl to an emotionally strong and compassionate young woman.

Fuuka represents the Priestess link for both possible protagonists, though it takes a different course in both. Both links focus on her not feeling very feminine and her own social anxiety. Completing her Social Link has her give the protagonist a pair of repaired headphones, allowing them to fuse Scathach.

In The Answer, Fuuka sides with Aigis, initially on Akihiko's suggestion, but later out of a belief that her solution is best.

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• Adaptational Curves: Fuuka is noticeably more curvaceous in the film series.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: In the first movie, Makoto first meets Fuuka on April 9th, whereas in the game she first appears in the second half of May.
• Adaptational Wimp: Lucia/Juno's skills require some of Fuuka's SP to activate in Reload.
• Age-Inappropriate Dress: The version where she wears clothes that would be regarded old; she has a slightly silly-looking floral-patterned sweater underneath her school uniform, and wears things like shawls on her days off school. Characters note she lacks some fashion sense.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Before being recruited, she had some minor issues with bullies, apparently due to her low self-esteem. The problem largely vanishes by the time she joins and she even makes friends with one of her former bullies.
• Badass Pacifist: She never delivers a single blow in battle, but she spends ten hours trapped in Tartarus and never gets so much as a scratch on her due to her ability to see where all the Shadows are and thus avoid them. (For comparison purposes, your party members can get tired after one hour there.) Furthermore, she takes over the Mission Control role against the Emperor and Empress Shadows despite very likely being exhausted due to the draining nature of Tartarus.
• Balance Buff: Oracle has a random status effect on the team, that used to include one where she damages the entire party, leaving them at 1 HP. In P3 Portable, while the status effect is still random, it's only beneficial as the damaging one was removed (Although the game may still say Fuuka damaged everyone). Reload repurposes Oracle as her Theurgy, providing a random positive effect, though part of it can be controlled based on the party's status. Oracle, which later is upgraded to Revelation, can provide a pull party buff, heal the party, or cast a party-wide Charge/Concentrate.
• Barrier Warrior: Her Persona has a 360-degree force field as part of her design. She uses it to protect Natsuki during one of the Full Moon Shadow fights.
• Birds of a Feather: Fuuka is somehow able to communicate with Futaba many years in the future in Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight and they bond due to their shared self-confidence issues.
• Boyish Short Hair: Subverted. She has the shortest hair of all female S.E.E.S. members but her appearance is otherwise quite feminine and she displays interest in some stereotypically feminine hobbies like cooking. Moreover, Junpei considers her to be the most feminine out of female S.E.E.S. members.
• Captain Obvious: She tends to state very obvious details regarding the enemy, like how many there are, at all times, even if you've done something that wouldn't have affected the number, like healing.
• Continuity Cameo: In Persona 4 Golden, Yosuke tells her ghost story on the ski trip to the Investigation Team after hearing about it from a friend, but isn't sure if the ghost girl (Fuuka) survived this. Naoto recalls reading a police report near-exactly like that.
• Crippling Overspecialization:
  • Implied when it comes to her role as Mission Control. Out of all the navigators' Personas, hers is the best at searching areas, not only superior to Mitsuru (whose Persona is a battle type), Teddie and Morgana (who rely on their senses), but also to fellow Sensor types Rise and Futaba. In addition, the range that she can interact with her team at is noticeably superior to Mitsuru's, and possibly Futaba's and Rise's as well. Despite that, she has the fewest support moves in battle, and unlike Rise in Ultimax, she doesn't evolve her Persona to use in battle.
  • In Reload, she also gains a number of supplementary abilities that drain her SP but which can be used at will, such as rendering her teammates invisible to Shadows, boosting their defenses and speed at will, Distressing every Shadow on a floor, scanning an entire floor's layout or an enemy's weaknesses and resistances, or summoning the field team back to her. However, she is unique among all of the navigators in Persona 3, 4, and 5 because she has no offensive capabilities of her own - Chidori, Mitsuru, Morgana, and Teddie are all capable of fighting on their own, Rise's Persona gains a combat mode in the Arena series, and in Royal Futaba gains the ability to drop bombs that can serve as an All-Out Attack and end a battle with weaker Shadows.
• Cute Clumsy Girl: Her very first scene in the movie has her trying to pull out a book at the bookshop only for the entire row of books collapse on her.
• The Cutie: You can't help it by just gushing at her adorable appearance and sweet demeanor.
• Dull Surprise: Rather infamously, her English voice track in the original game and FES is very flat and underdelivered. She gets a little better in The Answer when voicing new content, but her battle lines remain unchanged. Averted in Arena, Q, and Reload where her new voice actresses give her far more range.
• Dump Stat: In what becomes a recurrent theme for the Navigators in the series like Rise and Futaba, both she and Juno/Lucia have stats like every other party member and their respective Personas, but unlike those other party members, Fuuka never sees them applied, as she's never in combat. It does get downplayed in Reload, however, as she can use her SP for special skills to help with exploration and combat from the sidelines.
• Education Mama: Both her parents are really adamant about Fuuka keeping her grades up, to the point Fuuka feels more comfortable in the dorm instead of at home.
• Enemy Scan: Like Mitsuru before her, she can scan enemies to reveal their elemental affinities. Her scanning is more powerful as it also reveals the target's skills (though most bosses won't care to show you any of them) and can pre-emptively warn you of ineffective attacks.
• Extreme Doormat: Comes off like this at the beginning of her arc, which is part of the reason why Yukari is worried that she only joined because Mitsuru forced her to.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Fuuka suffers from self-confidence issues due to her parents which resulted in her being shy and withdrawn. Even after joining SEES she remains very self-conscious, such as when she is unable to detect Chidori with her Persona. This even extends to her feelings for the Protagonist in her Social Link, where she wonders why would he like someone as plain as her who couldn't even cook a simple dish. If she is chosen as the Protagonist's partner in Q, she states that she is not suitable for him.
  Fuuka: I'd never be suitable for our leader!
• Hidden Buxom: Made more apparent in the film series, but Fuuka's usual attire conceals a very large bust, which Junpei is the first one to take notice of.
• Hidden Depths: She's shown to have a green thumb if her room, which has numerous decorations, and gardening activities in Reload are of any indication.
• Hollywood Hacking: We never do see her do it, but with Mitsuru's assistance, she's accessed the Kirijo Group archives in order to find out the truth about SEES and Tartarus. At home, she's almost always sitting with a laptop, and she can piece back together video files purposefully deleted by third parties.
• Inconsistent Spelling: Her name is listed as "Huka" in the credits, at least, in the bad ending of the original release. The musical romanizes her name as "Fuka."
• Informed Attribute: In the original English dub, Junpei says that Fuuka has an angelic voice, which contrasts against her English voice, which makes her sound older than she looks. This compliment is more applicable with her Japanese voice (Namiko Noto) and new voice actors for either the spin-offs (Wendee Lee) or Reload (Suzie Yeung), where she sounds softer and sweeter.
• It's All My Fault: She blames herself for Shinjiro's death due to her inability to track down him and Ken when they went AWOL on the October 4th operation.
• Lethal Chef: Fuuka's cooking is so horrible, the male protagonist has to max out their Courage (i.e. literally become badass) in order to initiate her Social Link. The core of her problems is that she tends to deviate from the recipe without understanding the basics and panic when she realizes it's not going well, further worsening her mistake. Both her Social Link events are devoted to improving her cooking skills. Shinjiro can also drop some help as well. Not even Koromaru seems to be particularly delighted for her to cook for him — and Koromaru is a dog. In Persona Q, her beef stroganoff somehow becomes hotter after being placed in a rice ball, and is combined with contributions from the girls of Persona 4, whose cooking is equally bad because they like to mix random ingredients together, to produce Mystery Food X: the Final Edition, a chemical weapon that One-Hit Kills an FOE.
• The Medic: Her support skills in Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth are centered around healing and getting rid of status effects.
• Mission Control: She takes over Mitsuru's support role after joining.
• Nice Girl: She literally doesn't have an angry portrait, and never gets mad at anyone.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Fuuka is trapped in Tartarus for several days (or hours from her perspective) yet is able to survive by avoiding the Shadows, having been able to sense them before she awakens her Persona.
• Pimped-Out Dress: Both her personas have what looks like an old fashioned ballgown, although their skirts cover a huge glass bubble which covers Fuuka to protect her.
• Promoted to Playable: Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight marks the first time Fuuka is playable, after remaining on the sidelines as a non-playable support character in other spin-off games.
• Pungeon Master: Not to Ikutsuki's level, but she drops a couple of puns as your battle navigator in Persona Q2 in the English version.
  Fuuka: (if the P5 Hero is wounded) No joke — Joker's in trouble!
  Fuuka: (if Makoto is wounded) Queen's not ruling this fight!
• Random Effect Spell: Her final skill, Oracle, applies one of many effects chosen at random, and can be beneficial to either your party or all enemies. Q, Q2, and Reload downplay the randomness — in those games, Oracle will always provide a (still random) beneficial effect to your party.
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Her being locked in the school gym overnight and getting trapped in Tartarus for 10 days led to the suspicion that she committed suicide and her ghost came back to seek vengeance.
• Sensor Character: She handles all your enemy scanning after joining.
• Shrinking Violet: She tends to be very quiet, passive and finds it difficult to really speak up.
• Shy Blue-Haired Girl: She has teal hair and is one of the timidest and socially awkward characters in the entire cast, although she opens up more over time.
• Stronger Than They Look: By the end of the Dark Hour on June 8, Fuuka, despite her weak body, shows no signs of exhaustion despite being inside Tartarus for a significant amount of time.
• Support Party Member: As of Reload, she is firmly this. Her support skills can be used at will (unlike Futaba and Rise) as long as she has enough SP, but she's the only member of all three teams in Persona 3, 4, and 5 who has no offensive capabilities (beyond boosting the attack of her teammates or applying a Charge/Concentrate effect).
• Sweet Tooth: She loves sweets.
• Through His Stomach: Her Social Link involves having the Protagonist testing the dishes she made. Depending on the player's choice, she may or may not end up in a relationship with him.
• Water Is Womanly: Fuuka is the most demure out of the female party members and the usage of Lucia and Juno's powers are strongly associated with water.
• Wrench Wench: Of the tech variety; she's good with computers and tinkers with electronics. Played with in that she thinks that her tinkering makes her unfeminine, and she tries cooking (and failing at it constantly) to counterbalance it. Her Social Link focuses on her getting over this notion for the most part.
• Year Outside, Hour Inside: Junpei is reasonably concerned after figuring out that she's been missing for ten days, fearing that she would've been heavily-fatigued by starvation or ultimately killed by the Shadows. Akihiko theorizes that due to how Tartarus works during the Dark Hour and Fuuka was locked in the gym overnight, she's only experienced ten hours while trapped in Tartarus — still an alarming amount of time to be stuck in a monster-infested Eldritch Location, especially without weapons or a combat-oriented Persona, but far more survivable.

Aigis (Unmarked Spoilers for The Answer)

Aigis

"Target neutralized."

^{Click here to see Aigis in her battle mode in Reload.}

^{Click here to see Palladion}

Statue of Athena

^{Click here to see Athena}

The Goddess of Wisdom

^{Click here to see Orpheus}

The Master of Strings

"That's mission complete!"

Arcana: The Chariot, Fool
Social Link: The Aeon
Persona: Palladion, Athena, Orpheus, Wild Card
Theurgy (Reload): Orgia Mode (Palladion)^note Deals heavy Pierce damage to all foes, ignores resistances, Aigis will enter a Super Mode and ignore orders for a time, Maximum Firepower (Athena)^note Deals severe Pierce damage to one foe, ignores resistances, Fusion Spell (Wild Card)^note Fusion Spells replace her old Theurgies and, much like with the Protagonist, are unlocked by registering certain Personas in the Compendium; in addition, some Fusion Spells are unique to her
Weapons: Firearms
Voiced by: Maaya Sakamoto (Japanese), Karen Strassman (English; original), Dawn M. Bennett (English; Reload)
Live actress: ZAQ

During SEES's summer vacation, they're alerted to a dangerous Anti-Shadow weapon that's escaped the Kirijo lab and are asked to retrieve it. When asked if they have permission to destroy it if it can't be contained, Ikutsuki laughs nervously and replies that he seriously doubts that'd be possible.

Thankfully for the heroes, the weapon in question turns out to be Aigis, a Ridiculously Human Robot with a human mind and persona, as well as a harmless and seemingly inexplicable attachment to the main characters that Ikutsuki attributes to a minor glitch in her software. The last survivor of a series of battle androids created to help contain the Shadows gathered by the Kirijo Group ten years ago, she's now allowed to live in the SEES dorms. Aigis attacks with her attached artillery, and her Persona is Palladion of the Chariot Arcana, which specializes in physical skills and status buffs. She also has the ability to use "Orgia Mode" under the tactics command which greatly increases Aigis' attack power. Orgia Mode lasts a few turns and cannot be deactivated. The downside of this ability is that Aigis needs to cool off for a few turns, leaving her vulnerable.

Despite her behavior obviously marking her as inhuman, she forms a rapport with Koromaru due to being able to understand what he is thinking. Late in the year, she begins attending classes when she is able to pass more suitable for human. Her Aeon social link opens in FES, Portable, and Reload after she finds her resolve and awakens to Athena, which, if completed, ends with her giving the protagonist an old, charred screw from herself, allowing them to fuse Metatron. As can be expected, Aigis is uncomfortable about her robotic nature and feels she is unable to fit in among humans.

During The Answer epilogue in the FES version of the game, Aigis takes on the role of the protagonist and finds herself in the middle of a group conflict.

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• Adaptational Badass:
  • She's still a badass in the movies as she was in the games but she also fights her enemies in close combat as well as simply shooting at them. While in Orgia Mode, she casually throws a tank.
  • Justified in her appearances chronologically set after Persona 3. Aigis spent a lot of time in the last couple of years modifying her body to make it more powerful. This includes giving it new weapons, boosters to allow her to fly short distances, a Hyperspace Arsenal, and Enhanced Orgia Mode. She also learns how to use her initial Persona, Palladion, with some of her new hardware to launch an attack much more powerful than anything Athena is capable of.
  • In Reload's Expansion Pass campaign, Episode Aigis: -The Answer-, Aigis can use Fusion Spells, something she was not able to do in FES.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: In the fourth movie, Aigis has a major Heroic BSoD and Freak Out after Makoto spared Ryoji during New Year's Eve instead of parting with the latter on good terms, though she grows out of it through a pep talk from Makoto the next day. This can be chalked up to them not getting a chance to talk to Aigis about their decision before Makoto talks to Ryoji, though, which is saved for afterwards, thus absolutely leaving her with no chance to process and accept Makoto's decision before it happens.
• Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: In the vanilla release, she was no closer to the protagonist than the male members of S.E.E.S, lacking a Social Link of her own, and her only one-on-one interaction with him was in the ending scene thanks to her having a Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory and remembering the events of the Dark Hour. Her characterization was heavily expanded as early as the FES re-release, which gave her a Social Link and made her a potential Love Interest, and The Answer epilogue took things even further by making her the inheritor of the Wild Card from the protagonist. Every further adaptation and re-release has continued to portray her as one of the protagonist's closest confidants and effectively the Deuteragonist of the story.
• Adaptational Superpower Change:
  • In Reload, Palladion/Athena switches (Ma)Sukukaja, God's Hand, and Samarecarm for Primal Force, Resist Phys, and Fast/Insta-Heal.
  • In Reload's Expansion Pass campaign, Episode Aigis: -The Answer-, Aigis gains the ability to use Fusion Spells after inheriting the Protagonist's Wild Card ability, something she wasn't able to do in the original version of The Answer.
• Airplane Arms: Always runs like this. It looks especially goofy when she's wielding a rifle.
• Alpha Strike: Her Maximum Firepower Theurgy has her bombard Shadows from the air with missiles and bullets, and ends with her doing a Diving Kick for good measure.
• Arm Cannon: The reason why Aigis is the only character who can wield firearms is that they are attached to her hand and she doesn't require an Evoker to summon her Persona, mitigating the risk of mixing the two items up.
• Atomic Superpower: In Q2, she is given access to Nuclear element Frei skills to round out your party a little, as otherwise the only character with default access to Nuclear would be Makoto Niijima.
• The Atoner: When she regains her memory, she feels a lot of guilt towards the main character for sealing Death inside them.
• Badass Adorable: She may seem like a cute robot, but she was the last to survive the Anti-Shadow aftermath.
• Badass Bandolier: In The Answer, Aigis wears a tactical vest that holds extra bullets for her.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: Aigis' body lack nipples and genitalia. Justified as she is initially designed for combat and as such, having these parts is completely unnecessary.
• Become a Real Boy:
  • After her sortie with Death, Aigis begins to develop a more human personality. This culminates in the ending where, while holding the Protagonist's head in her lap during his last moments, she appears to be completely human for a moment: no mechanical components, no headgear, and no Electronic Eyes.
  • It's subverted because Aigis is also happy with who she is. While she does become more human-like, she likes being a robot because it means she can protect those she loves and will be able to stay with the protagonist as long as he lives, even though that ends up not being very long. Aigis coming to accept herself for what she is is and her potentially VERY long lifespan is the main theme of her social link and one of her developments in The Answer.
• Benevolent A.I.: Despite being a robot, Aigis is portrayed as only concerned with looking after those she considers her friends and not interested in taking over the world or whatever.
• The Berserker: Orgia Mode shuts off Aigis' inhibition logic and randomly attacks any enemy. In Portable and Reload (which backported direct party control after its absence in vanilla and FES), she cannot be commanded directly in this mode.
• Big Damn Heroes: In the second movie, she saves Makoto and Yukari from Shadows on the Yakushima beach.
• Bodyguard Crush: To the protagonist big-time, regardless of their gender. They are basically her main priority. So much so, that in Persona Q's wedding scene on the Investigation Team's path, she's mostly unfazed if she's ended up chosen as the destined partner for the P4 hero/Yu, which is remarkable given Yu's status as a manwhore among the fans.
• Book Dumb: She gets below average grades during the second term midterm exams, and as the Player Character of The Answer her Academics stat is "Needs Work". Her explanation is that her concentration is reserved for battle.
• Bootstrapped Leitmotif: "Heartful Cry" started off as just the theme for battling SEES members in The Answer, but starting with Persona 4: Arena and carrying over into works such as BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle, the song ended up being repurposed into Aigis' leitmotif.
• Breakout Character:
  • Aigis is one of the most popular characters of the game, and possibly of the Persona franchise as a whole. So popular, in fact, that she was made into the main character of the expansion, The Answer. Also, with Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight using her as a logo, she is officially the mascot for P3. She's treated as the main representative and main character of the Persona 3 cast almost every time they appear, and receives the most merchandise of any Persona character in the third game.
  • The movie adaptations were rewritten to give her more scenes that weren't in the game, and unlike Persona 4's adaptation which had No Romantic Resolution, Aigis becomes the protagonist's official love interest.
  • She's also the only representative of P3 to appear in BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle's Episode Mode alongside the cast of P4. The other playable P3 characters don't have this honor.
• Can't Have Sex, Ever: Justified. Aigis was built to be a combat robot so her body was not outfitted with any genitalia, making intercourse impossible. As a result, her Rank 10 scene with the Protagonist is a lot more chaste compared to other romance options.
• Changing of the Guard: She inherits both the protagonist's Wild Card and leadership role in The Answer.
• Character Catchphrase: In Reload, she sometimes adds "As they say," at the end of her sentences, mainly to highlight her being unfamiliar with humanity or trying to sound like a normal teenager. While she said this a few times in Q and Arena Ultimax, it's a much more prominent catchphrase in Reload.
• Character Development: Aigis initially started as an android wholly committed to her programming of eliminating shadows and protecting the protagonist. But once she's free from Ikutsuki's programming and regaining her memories of her battle with Death, she begins developing a free will of her own. Not only that, but this newfound agency causes her to grapple with the fragility of mortal life which can be explored further in her Social Link. In The Answer, where the protagonist's death causes her to subconsciously reject her newfound humanity out of grief, and only by learning the truth of the protagonist's sacrifice and embracing her bonds with S.E.E.S. does she finally embrace it.
• The Chooser of the One: She's an unwitting example, as it's her decision to seal the Death Shadow inside the protagonist that ultimately gets them involved in the plot ten years later. It's only thanks to sharing a body with Pharos that the protagonist can even witness the Dark Hour and wield their Wild Card ability. Furthermore, they're only inducted into S.E.E.S because Ikutski knows that they carry the Death Shadow, and wants to keep them close until Death is made whole again.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: In the female story. By the end of her social link she is pretty much begging the FeMC to not have any other romantic partner besides her.
  Aigis: I don't want you to love someone else... I don't want that, even if it's what would make you happy!
• Compulsory School Age: Justified with good measure. Not only can she protect the protagonist this way much better, but she also gets to experience more of her human side by interacting with other people.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Her lack of magical attacks means she's incapable of dealing anything other than Pierce damage when she's first recruited. Even after she learns a few Strike skills, the number of enemies who are resistant or immune to both damage types presents a serious problem for her until she gets her Infinity -1 Sword, which allows her basic attacks to ignore enemy resistance and immunity.
• Cutscene Power to the Max:
  • While under Ikutsuki's control, she manages to defeat and capture the rest of S.E.E.S. barring Koromaru with seemingly little effort, despite being only being shown to be no stronger than each individual member from a gameplay perspective.
  • Averted in the movies, where she takes Takeharu Kirijo hostage in order to prevent S.E.E.S. from resisting capture.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique:
  • Orgia Mode increases her attack power considerably, at the cost of making the player lose control over her as she attacks enemies randomly and then having to wait a cooldown period afterward before she can rejoin battle. Reload retains this while incorporating it into her Theurgy attack.
  • One of the last scenes in The Answer reveals that Aigis' robotic body can't fully handle the power of the Wild Card, showing that her usage of multiple Personas in the Abyss of Time over the course of a few days almost fried her circuits from the inside out. The damage report was bad enough that Fuuka thought Aigis was never going to wake up, and that if they replaced all the damaged parts, the result would "no longer be the Aigis we all know". That didn't come to pass, but she's shown to be careful of using the power of the Wild Card in Persona 4: Arena by limiting herself to only briefly shift Athena to Palladion for her finishing move, and instead taking a More Dakka kind of approach to power herself up.
• A Day in the Limelight: In The Answer, Aigis receives the Wild Card ability and becomes the central character. Unlike with Maya in the duology^note In Innocent Sin, Maya was a companion character with her own defined personality. In Eternal Punishment, she becomes a Heroic Mime due to succeeding Tatsuya as protagonist with her personality shaped by the player's decisions, Aigis remains her own defined character with no player input and speaks in cutscenes.
• Deadpan Snarker: She is prone to snark at others with a straight face and emotionless tone.
• Deuteragonist: Despite her lack of screentime till around November and lacking a Social Link in the vanilla release, Aigis is the second most important character in terms of the overall story of Persona 3, as she sets the story in motion with her battle against Death ten years prior and sees her seal the powerful Shadow in The Hero, which also serves to give S.E.E.S. any kind of chance of saving the world through this action. In addition to being the Playable Epilogue of the game in FES and Reload, The Answer is also fully her story and involves her coming to terms with her role in the plot and how to live past the protagonists death and coming into her own as the successor to his power and role.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Her final rank up in the S. Link doesn't have a sex scene since it's pretty unlikely she'd have been built with the necessary equipment for that. Instead, there is an incredibly subtle moment where she undresses, bares her (Papillon) heart, and says she would like your genetic information burned inside her. Yup.
• Discount Lesbians: With the Female Protagonist, if she is romanced by her, as the Protagonist is a human while Aigis is a robot.
• Driven to Suicide: In the last movie she comes very close to blowing her own head off with her finger guns due to all of her memories coming back and the incredible amount of guilt she feels for everything. The protagonist finds her on the roof and comforts her before she can go through with it.
• Dub Name Change: Her name was changed from Aegis to Aigis — it's pronounced like the latter in both English and Japanese (as opposed to the original Greek word "aegis", which is pronounced "eejis"), so the change was presumably done to better convey the pronunciation to English speakers.
• Dude Magnet: Aigis has an extremely beautiful design, so most guys that meet her without knowing she's a robot try to make advances on her. So much so that Makoto, Junpei, and even Akihiko blush and note how attractive she is they first meet her. Several NPCs also mention how cute she is. Usually, this dies down once her true nature is revealed, but in Makoto's or (Kotone’s) case, he (or she) still has the option to pursue a romance with her.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: In The Answer whenever her grief over the protagonist becomes too much to bear.
• Eating Machine: As shown in Reload, Aigis is fully capable of eating human food and seems to have a sense of taste.
• Electronic Eyes: A more subtle example: if one looks closely, one can see that there is a small circle in Aigis' irises surrounding her pupils. Reload shows them sometimes clicking and moving like actual reticles from the outside.
• Emotionless Girl: Starts off this way, due to her robotic nature. But over time she starts to understand emotions more.
• Everybody Hates Mathematics: Inverted. She notes that math was one of the only two subjects she did well on, the other being chemistry.
• Face-Design Shield: Athena's shield has Medusa's face engraved into it, which is notable compared to the mainline series Athena, who just has an eight-pointed star.
• Finger Firearms: Some of her weapons like the one she starts with have her firing bullets from her fingertips.
• First Girl After All: As it turns out, she was the one who created the MC's destiny from the beginning.
• Freak Out: She takes Makoto not killing Ryoji MUCH harder in the animated adaptation. First, she empties her machine guns as soon as she sees him in a futile attempt to kill him. When that doesn't work, she yells at the rest of the cast, wondering why they would want to suffer before running away in a panic. When Makoto finds her on the roof of the school, she's contemplating suicide. Again, this is because the movie switches events around where the talk that convinces her to keep living and find her own purpose takes place after Makoto spares Ryoji, unlike in the game, where this conversation took place the day before New Years Eve, thus giving her some time to process and come to terms with it first.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: In The Journey, since she's a machine, she's immune to poison. Not so in The Answer or the Q duology, the latter of which has her note that her parts are corroding when she is poisoned.
• Gayngst: While she supposedly doesn't identify as female for the male MC and stresses out over being a robot instead, with the female MC she starts to worry about them being the same gender, assuming her feelings can't be reciprocated due to her apparent gender.
• Gay Option: For the female protagonist. Her dialogue remains almost unchanged from the male protagonist's route, only with some additional Gayngst.
• The Gunslinger: All of her weapons are forms of firearms — from her gatling finger, to rifles, to semi-literal Hand Cannons.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Fits this trope after Character Development leads her to become more human. She starts as very innocent and naive as a result of having to learn how to be human.
• Hand Cannon: One of her weapon options, though this cannon extends its barrel when firing.
• Hate at First Sight: For reasons unknown even to her, Aigis does not like Ryoji from the moment he is introduced and begs the Protagonist and Junpei not to hang out with him. This is because she met Ryoji years before the events of the game, realizing that he's the avatar of Nyx/Death Arcana shadow, and failed to kill him on the Moonlight Bridge battle. After she fails to kill him a second time, she's put out-of-commission, giving her time to reflect. Before Ryoji turns into Nyx Avatar, however, Aigis tells him she thinks of him as a friend. She never gets the chance to change her opinion in the movie adaptation due to some of the scenes being switched around.
• Her Heart Will Go On: The main theme of the end of the game and The Answer. Aigis gains the strength to move on with her friends and cherish the short time she had with him instead of falling into despair. Even by the time Persona 4 Arena happens, she still thinks about him all the time, but she uses those feelings to give her strength.
• Heroic BSoD: The death of the Protagonist greatly affects her to the point she loses the will to live and wants to return being a soulless machine again. Her angst is what gives birth to Metis, Aigis' Shadow Self.
• I Am a Monster: When her S. Link opens, she spends some time angsting about how she has a human heart but a mechanical body and can thus be neither a person nor a weapon. Eventually, she does see one bright spot in the fact that she's a robot, which means she won't die of old age and thus will always be there for the protagonist.
• Icy Blue Eyes: Her blue eyes reflect her initially emotionless personality.
• I Have No Son!: In The Answer, Aigis temporarily forbids Metis from calling her "Sister" after realizing that Metis concealed the truth about what happens to the losers in the Colosseo Purgatorio from her.
• The Immodest Orgasm: Implied. During Rank 10 of her social link, before the Protagonist touches her Papillon Heart, she apologises in advance for making any weird noises.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: She is able to shoot the chains binding her teammates on crucifixes with her gating fingers and without even scratching said teammates. In Reload, this is depicted by her carefully scanning her targets to aim precisely where she wanted to shoot without injuring them.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: After she starts to become more human, she starts acting very innocent and naïve.
• Interspecies Romance: Aigis is a robot and canonically ends up falling in love with the human Persona 3 protagonist.
• Jack of All Trades: Her strengths generally lay in her ability to provide the -kaja series of party buffs, negate party debuffs and provide some healing support. She's also a decent physical attacker and has a fairly robust stat line, making her more difficult to take down than some of the flimsier party members like Yukari or Ken.
• Late Character Syndrome: As a party member, she averts this since she joins in July, so even if the player is somehow overleveled there's plenty of time for her to catch up. Aigis however plays it straight as a Social Link, as she only becomes available in January, and for whatever reason she initially is only available on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, only to become available on every school day starting on the 26th. This also makes completing all Social Links a headache since Mitsuru is also a Social Link that is unlocked late in the game and both of them have Saturday as a free day on their schedule. In releases before Reload, you can't complete Mitsuru's Social Link before January either, so completing both of their Links in the same run can be a headache.
• Leave the Two Lovebirds Alone: In the New Game Plus ending of Portable, she quietly steps back if either the male or female protagonist chooses to spend their dying moments with one of the other SEES members they've romanced.
• Leitmotif:
  • "Heartful Cry" and its various remixes from The Answer onward.
  • The movie series gave her a slow piano piece that plays during her emotional moments with Makoto. "Mass Destruction" also tends to play a lot in her non-battle comedic scenes, such as Shinjiro realizing that Aigis saw him feed and pet Koromaru, or breaking into the boys' room at the hot springs and subsequently breaking the balcony trying to push Ryoji and the protagonist out, thinking that's a normal exit.
• Limited Animation: In the PS2 and Portable releases, which is justified due to her being a robot. Her 3D animations are intentionally extremely clunky and linear, such as her pointing animation during her introduction, which has her raise her arm up without bending it.
• Love Hurts: Falls in love with the protagonist, who can reject her in Reload. Even if she isn't rejected, he dies.
• Magically Inept Fighter: All of Aigis' attacking options are physical. It's not until Q2 where she gets skills that uses her Magic stat, gaining access to Nuclear attacks. Reload retains her physical-based moveset, as the game doesn't have Nuclear element spells.
• Magikarp Power: When she first joins you, her skillset is rather lackluster, with a handful of physical attacks, single-target buff spells that have limited use, and no elemental spells whatsoever. Her usefulness skyrockets later on when she learns a healing spell, upgrades to party buffs and widens the gap in physical stats between her and other party members. At the pinnacle of her character development, her Persona evolves, giving her access to the strongest physical moves in the game, on top of a very potent revival spell.
• Magitek: Being a gynoid with a Persona, she's this by default.
• Master of Unlocking: Pre-character development Aigis has a bad habit of breaking into the main character's dorm room by picking the lock on his door, such as when she first moves in with the party and later as seen in a recording when she was breaking into his room at night to check on him while he had a fever. She even notes that she is getting quite good at it and is able to break her lock picking record each time.
• Meaningful Name: Her name is a reference to the Shield of Aegis. Incidentally, Athena has said shield rotating around her, evidenced by Medusa's face being on it.
• Mid-Season Upgrade: At the beginning of The Answer, not only does Aigis inherit the Protagonist's Wild Card ability, she is also given new armor.
• Mind-Control Eyes: When she's controlled by Ikutsuki on November 4th.
• More Dakka: She only uses firearms in battle. During the animated cutscene and the movie, she fires a lot of bullets at Ryoji.
• Mundane Utility: In Q, after seeing Naoto use her revolver on a target stand instead of the cork guns, she uses both of her gatling hands to instantly tear down the entire stand.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Upon regaining her memories, she's appalled with herself for having sealed Death inside the protagonist, at which point you have the option of telling her she did the right thing.
• My Greatest Failure: Her story in The Answer is mostly her coming to terms with not being able to prevent the main character's death.
• New Transfer Student: Sometime after joining SEES, Aigis becomes the second transfer student to the Protagonist's class.
• No Biological Sex: While she was built to be humanoid and feminine looking for purposes of establishing a basic human personality, it's obliquely indicated that she lacks any kind of genitalia because she was simply built to be a weapon. Where other characters get a strongly implied sex scene, Aigis instead goes for something that is rather suggestive in nature but explicitly not sexual. She does identify as female, however, even if she doesn't always admit it.
• No Sense of Personal Space: She wants to be close to the Protagonist at all times, even when he's asleep. In the movies, she often gets between Makoto and Ryoji.
• Only One Name: She is only referred to as Aigis and does not have a surname, much to Toriumi's confusion when she introduces herself to the class. Justified, since she is a robot and thus does not have parents.
• Out of Focus: Aigis joins the party in late July, during their trip to the Kirijo estate at Yakushima. Whilst she takes part in subsequent Full Moon operations and begins attending Gekkoukan in the fall, she doesn't really contribute to the main narrative in a meaningful way until Ikutsuki uses her to subdue the rest of S.E.E.S. during the events of November 4th, instead largely being used for comic relief due to her lack of understanding human conventions — this is further enforced by her Social Link being the last one to be made available and was completely absent from the original release of the game. This would be averted in the anime adaptation, with more focus being placed on her relationship with Makoto.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: She's only seen in a sun dress in her first appearance, with her robotic parts very clearly showing. Junpei, the protagonist and Akihiko don't notice. When she enrolls into Gekkoukan High, she's wearing the much-more concealing winter uniform. During the summer. Yukari notes it's a little weird to see her wearing the wrong uniform during the season, but reasons it'd be weirder if people saw a robot girl attend their school.
• Promoted to Love Interest: While she did have feelings for the protagonist in the original version of the game, she didn't have a Social Link and so wasn't officially romanceable. Updated Re-release FES adds her as a Social Link and romance option (though it wasn't a considered fully romantic coded relationship until Reload).
• Properly Paranoid: Her intense distrust of Ryoji ends up being justified as it is revealed that he is the avatar of Nyx.
• Rei Ayanami Expy: She falls into this role easier assuming that the female protagonist is chosen, on account of the fact that the male protagonist is ALSO a Rei expy, though she fits most of the criteria, from gradually developing emotions to being the main character's Love Interest.
• Ridiculously Human Robot: A justified case. If she didn't look like a human, her mind wouldn't self-identify as human, and she wouldn't be able to use a Persona.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: While she's completely correct in suspecting that something is off about Ryoji, she arrives at the erroneous conclusion that he's a hostile Shadow that she needs to destroy. In fact, Ryoji isn't malicious at all, and his role in bringing about the Fall is simply the result of who he is, not what he's done. Killing Ryoji will only erase everyone's memories about the Dark Hour, and the Fall will happen anyway.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: In the Bad Ending, she gets to be the only one to remember the Fall is coming. In the Good Ending, only she and the MCs remember defeating Nyx (at first), so she's the one at the MCs's side when they finally die.
• Robo Cam: A cutscene shows her view in first-person perspective having many readouts and lines of data.
• Robo Speak: Her speech starts out extremely stilted and robotic (in the original English version, anyway). Sort of like GlaDOS without the filter. In Reload, it's still a bit stilted and robotic, but less so than in the original.
• Robot Girl: If most of her skin is covered, she can pass for human. If not, she has some extremely obvious joints. Even without that, her head and neck are clearly robotic, with one female student noting how doll-like she appears.
• Robot Maid: When you present her the maid uniform to equip (given out in FES as a reward), she clearly states that it's the one she already wore before at the lab. In other words, the super-powerful battle android that she is also acted as an obedient maidservant before you found her (and can continue so even afterward).
• Robot Wizard: As Personas are supernatural in nature, this trope naturally applies to her.
• Rocket Punch: One of her weapon options.
• Secret Art: Her unique skill in Persona Q and Q2 is Aegis Shield, which gives her a chance to negate any elemental attack directed at her row. Q2 upgrades it to Aegis Shielding with a higher activation rate.
• Series Mascot: Unlike 4 and 5 whose mascots are their respective Team Pets, Robot Girl Aigis serves as P3's.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: For the bulk of the game, Aigis is primarily used for comic relief due to her not understanding human conventions. At the start of December, she is heavily damaged when she tries fighting Ryoji on her own and spends the remainder of the month away from the dorms being repaired whilst the rest of the team confronts their mortality after learning of the coming of Nyx. Notably, upon Aigis' return, she is much more human than when she left and her Social Link (in FES, Portable, and Reload) begins as she finally comes to understand humanity.
• Shoot the Dog: Her sealing the final Shadow in the Protagonist ten years before the story started.
• Shout-Out: In the original releases, whenever Aigis performs a Critical Hit, she says "Hasta la vista".
• Signature Move: Athena's unique skill in Persona 5 Royal is Akashic Arts, which deals up to twice the amount of severe Physical damage to all enemies and has a high critical rate. Notably, it's a regular move in Persona 3, where both her Persona and several late-game Personas can learn it, but it is otherwise absent in Persona 5.
• Silent Protagonist: Averted during The Answer. She is prominently the only protagonist in the franchise to have a speaking role instead of either being a Heroic Mime or only talking during certain cutscenes (not counting any of the spin-offs).
• Single-Target Sexuality: She finds herself in love with the MCs regardless of their gender. In Persona Q, if she's chosen for Yu's destined partner, she'll insist that the MC is her most important person. After his death, by the time of Persona 4 Arena Aigis still loves him and never shows romantic interest in anyone else.
  Aigis: All I can see or think about is you, [Protagonist Name].
• Socially Awkward Hero: Quite a bit of humor is drawn from her attempts to blend in with humans. While she gets better at it over the course of the game, she still has her moments. By the time Persona 4 Arena happens, it's hard to tell when her little slip-ups are legitimate or her messing with people at the times that the story doesn't show her thought process.
• Sophisticated as Hell: While in the original game she didn't use foul language, in Reload she does; this is often followed by "...as they say."
• Speaks Fluent Animal:
  • This conversation:
    Junpei: Wait, does that mean... this dog's a Persona-user!?
    Aigis: He says, "This is a place of peace, so I protected it."
    Junpei: Uh, Aigis? Don't tell me you can translate dog language too...
    Aigis: Canines do not have their own language. However, speech is not the only means of communication. ^note The Answer reveals that she is able to understand his thoughts and feelings.
  • Aigis starts to lose the ability to understand Koromaru as she becomes more human, as humans cannot understand animals. She regains most of this ability post-Persona 3 due to accepting her unique existence as a living machine.
  • Arena reveals that this is because it was inherited from the 5th Generation Anti-Shadow weapons, one of whom took time to communicate with a puppy named Snowy. In Ultimax Aigis meets him, now an old dog.
• Speaking Like Totally Teen: Her attempts at blending in with humans results in her picking up some rather odd turn of phrases at times, mainly mimicking what Junpei says or using vocabulary that is contemporary yet somehow awkward slang, usually followed up with "as they say," to highlight her unfamiliarity with it.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Aigis overshadows even the protagonist in most appearances among the cast of P3, even in non-Persona games. So much that she is treated as the Series Mascot of the P3 cast instead of Koromaru, with her being on the cover of Dancing in Moonlight. The movie tetralogy even makes her the main heroine and once she appears, the other characters' interactions with Makoto have been reduced. She is also the only representative of P3 in BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle to be playable in Episode Mode.
• Stalker with a Crush: She follows the protagonist around, picks his lock enough to start setting records about it, and watches him sleeping for hours on end. However, she does have a non-romance based reason, even if she can't remember it.
• Stone Wall: She has naturally-good tanking abilities in Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, seeing as though she natively has Safeguard, and possesses very high HP and Endurance compared to her allies.
• Super Mode: By activating Orgia Mode, Aigis increases her attack power greatly, at the cost of losing direct control of her if she had "Direct Commands" set.
• Super-Strength: Being a robot, she can lift objects weighing several tonnes.
• Taking the Bullet: Her main role in Q is to guard the party, and she learns a few passives that can reduce the damage she takes on top of her good Vitality stat. This role is retained in Q2 but downplayed in favor of giving her Nuclear skills, and also to prevent her from overshadowing Ryuji and Kanji who can serve a similar function.
• Taking Up the Mantle: In The Answer, she gains the Protagonist's Wild Card ability, Orpheus, and the role as Player Character now that he's dead.
• Talking to Plants: In Reload, she talks to the plants during her first gardening activity at the dorm's rooftop.
• Technical Virgin: She can’t have intercourse due to not having the required parts but the Rank 10 scene of her social link still has strong sexual undertones as it ends with the Protagonist touching her Papillion Heart and she appears to derive great pleasure from that.
• The Three Faces of Eve: The Child to Elizabeth's Wife and Nyx's Seductress.
• Tragic Keepsake: Aigis keeps the Protagonist's Evoker after his death.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: In Persona Q, the cast of Persona 4 is more focused on how she's seemingly in a relationship with the P3 Hero and doesn't bother keeping it secret than how she's obviously a robot.
• Verbal Tic: In the Japanese version, she ends her sentence with the formal and rarely used "de arimasu". The English voice has her speak with robotic pauses that clear the more human she becomes. In the English dub of Q, Arena, and Reload, she instead ends her sentences with "as they say" after mentioning a common turn of phrase (even if she sometimes hears it from Junpei first).
• What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: She struggles with this during her S. Link, but only a little.
• Younger Than They Look: Aigis may have the appearance and demeanor of a young woman, but she is actually about 10 years old at the time of the game.

Koromaru

"Woof! Woof! Woof!"

^{Click here to see Koromaru in his new battle outfit in Reload.}

^{Click here to see Cerberus}

Guard Dog of Hades

"Awooo!"

Arcana: Strength
Social Link: Strength (female only)
Persona: Cerberus
Theurgy (Reload): Hound of Hades^note Deals severe Dark damage to one foe, ignores resistances, Power Howling^note Next physical attack deals more than double damage for all allies
Weapons: Knives
Dog noises by: Shinya Takahashi (The Movie, Reload)

Koromaru is a Shiba Inu whose owner, a monk at the Naganaki Shrine, died two years ago in a car accident. He originally continued to live at the shrine as a stray. He's amazingly loyal, walking on the same routes through town that his master took him on when he was alive and keeping vigil at the shrine. However, there's more to this dog aside from being an adorable pooch; he gained the potential after seeing his master get killed by a Shadow on one of their late-night walks.

When SEES discovers that a Shadow has strayed out of Tartarus and is heading towards Naganaki Shrine, they arrive to see an injured Koromaru, and the Shadow nowhere in sight. Commending the dog's bravery for defending the shrine, and amazement that a dog can summon a persona at all, they give him the best veterinary care and, once he's recovered, a home in the dorms.

Koromaru's Persona is the Strength Arcana's Cerberus, who uses fire and darkness spells. Koromaru himself uses a dagger to fight by holding it in his mouth and wears cloth and leather dog suits as armor. Once Aigis joins the team, she often translates Koromaru's wishes for the rest of SEES. He replaces Yuko as the Strength Social Link in the female protagonist's path. Both protagonists are able to take him for walks in the evening on certain days of the week to either find items or get a small social link boost if another character comes along. However, Koromaru is one of two party members who doesn't have an Ultimate Persona.

Koromaru works with Junpei during The Answer, sharing his belief that SEES' infighting over the key is pointless and unnecessary.

In Portable, completing his Social Link as the female protagonist has him give her his dirty collar, allowing her to fuse Siegfried. Completing his Linked Episode events in Reload also ends with him giving his old collar to the male protagonist, allowing him to fuse Byakko.

---

• Adaptational Badass: While Cerberus still has the Agi and Mudo lines in Reload, he also gains two new Slash skills, the Eiha line, Debilitate, and Revolution.
• Action Pet: A dog who fought off a shadow with his bare teeth and joined SEES to continue the fight, now armed with a knife in his mouth and a super-powered incarnation of his inner psyche. He even saves the entire rest of the team from Shuji Ikutsuki.
• Adapted Out:
  • Of the stage play, for pretty obvious reasons.invoked He is mentioned by Shinjiro when cooking him a meal, but doesn't physically make an appearance on stage.
  • In Portable, Koromaru does not rescue the party from Ikutsuki by stealing Aigis' remote control.
• Amplified Animal Aptitude: While he is unable to speak, Koromaru is very capable of understanding what others are talking about. Sometimes he acts a little too much like a human to the point that he wants to go to the theaters to watch a movie.
• Animal Chick Magnet: The girls of P3 and P4 find him adorable, often giving him pets.
• Artistic License – Biology: Koromaru is supposed to be an albino Shiba Inu, yet his eyes are depicted as blood-red like that of an albino rabbit. In real life, dogs with albinism have greyish-blue eyes, with the area surrounding them being reddish pink. Also, in reality, one of the indicators of albinism in dogs is a distinctive pink nose, which Koromaru lacks.
• Badass Adorable: He's a sweet, good-natured dog with immense power over his Persona.
• Balance Buff: He got one of the bigger buffs in Reload. The Eiha line of skills gives him another offensive option against enemies immune to instant death, and he also notably picks up Debilitate to debuff dangerous targets.
• Berserk Button: Don't try to damage the shrine in any way.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He tends to be nice to anyone (as dogs tend to be) but loses his patience with Teddie and bites him after the bear pushes his buttons one too many times in Q.
• Big Damn Heroes: When Ikutsuki attempts to shut down/forcefully reprogram Aigis when she defies his orders to execute the other members of S.E.E.S., Koromaru jumps in to snatch the remote from his hands. In the manga, he actually stops Aigis from executing them at the last moment.
• A Boy and His X: A Girl and Her Dog in Persona 3 Portable, since Koromaru is a social link for the female protagonist. Reload also gives him more interactions with the male protagonist, such as hanging out in the sun with an old man in his Linked Episodes, watching a nature documentary in the dorm, or brushing him. The protagonist can also take him out on walks.
• Casting a Shadow: Befitting his Persona, Koromaru has access to two elements; one of these are the dark aligned instant kill Mudo skills, which he is also immune to. Persona Q2 has Koromaru lean heavier on this trope than his other specialty — his only source of fire damage is Firestrike Link while he learns up to Eigaon and Mamudoon in the Curse department. Reload adds the Eiha line of skills to his arsenal.
• Cutlass Between the Teeth: He holds a knife between his teeth for his attacks.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Koromaru's Persona is Cerberus, the guard dog of Hades, and he uses plenty of Dark/Curse skills. Despite that, he's a good boy, fighting on the side of the heroes.
• Demoted to Extra: With the exception of Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, he isn't playable in the spin-offs. He plays the role of Ken's support in Persona 4: Arena Ultimax with little story focusing on him and is only the main focus of one of the songs in Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight in his PQ design, and not fully playable.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: Quick to notice disturbances at his old owner's shrine.
• Fragile Speedster: Has the highest agility and dodge stat of all the characters in the game, but all his other stats are average. His "footwear" equipment are his own four paws, and they have a base evasion of 125, and since you cannot buy footwear for him, it boosts his vulnerability. Reload gives him access to Revolution, which makes him an option to potentially get a critical hit off the bat, though not to the same extent as Junpei. Reload also gives him a free Sukunda on any random foe if you spend enough time with him, eventually upgraded to Masukunda to target all foes. These skills lower the foe's agility, which in turn make Koromaru (and the rest of the team) more accurate and evasive.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: He has a scar on his abdomen from the shadow attack, which is the reason why he doesn't like getting his belly rubbed.
• Hellhound: Not Koromaru himself, but his Persona, Cerberus, who is the guard dog of the Greek Underworld and pet of Hades. Koromaru's Cerberus can use fire and dark elemental skills, and is depicted with three heads. Neither of them are evil though, and they are solidly on the good guys' side.
• Heroic Dog: Loyal, supporting, and knows when to act if given the opportunity, such as when the rest of SEES is at Ikutsuki's mercy when he captures them and controls Aigis.
• My Greatest Failure: Considers his failure to protect his previous owner as this. In Persona Q, Aigis and Margaret interpret this as his desire to not want his Persona to change whereas the party does, as a reminder of why he fights.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Is most likely based off of Hachikō, another dog who remained loyal to his owner even long after their death.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome:
  • A stray Shadow was detected during the Dark Hour of July 29, but Koromaru has already defeated it off-screen before Akihiko and the rest of S.E.E.S. arrive at Naganaki Shrine.
  • Not only does he manage to escape capture by Ikutsuki and a reprogrammed Aigis (who had singlehandedly defeated the other members of S.E.E.S.), but he's able to singlehandedly climb up Tartarus to where they were being held, just in time to save Aigis from Ikutsuki's control.
  • In Reload, it's suggested that the reason Koromaru doesn't have a second tier Persona is because Koromaru already went through a life changing event before he met SEES, therefore Cerberus is already a second tier Persona. The fact that he's the only party member who starts out with the ability to use two theurgies, something that the others could only do once they awaken their second-tier Personas, reinforces this.
• Only Sane Man: Stands with Junpei during the events of The Answer, hoping to stop the infighting and get everyone to just calm down.
• Playing with Fire: Cerberus gives Koromaru access to the Agi spells and an immunity to fire. Unlike Junpei, Koromaru is a lot better at dealing fire damage, learning group-hitting variants and the associated boosting passives.
• Secret Art:
  • In Persona Q, his unique skill is Deadly Vanguard, which causes any allies moving after him to deal more damage to any enemies he attacked.
  • In Q2, his unique skill is Serene Stroll, which passively restores his SP while moving in the labyrinth, offsetting his low SP bar. This upgrades to Paradise Stroll with greater restoration strength.
• Static Character: Koromaru is the only party member who doesn't undergo any significant Character Development throughout the story, highlighted by how he's the only one apart from Shinjiro and Metis who doesn't awaken a second-tier Persona. Reload downplays this by raising the possibility that Koromaru had already undergone his development off-screen, with Cerberus actually being his second-tier Persona rather than his initial one.
• Sitcom Archnemesis: In the Q spin-offs, he's treated as this by Teddie and Morgana, who are jealous of his Animal Chick Magnet status. Koromaru, for his part, doesn't seem to care.
• Spanner in the Works: Ikutsuki captured and crucified every member of S.E.E.S. to sacrifice them for his plans, except he didn't crucify the puppy, which left Koromaru free to interfere when he tries taking control of Aigis, stealing and crushing the remote. In the movie, Koromaru is tied up next to Akihiko's cross.
• Spectacular Spinning: He doesn't just charge into shadows with that knife, he somersaults into them.
• Stock Sound Effects: In the original releases of P3, he speaks using stock Shiba Inu sound clips. Averted in the movies and Reload, where he is voiced by Shinya Takahashi.
• Stuck Items: Because he's a dog, Koromaru's footwear equipment slot is permanently occupied by an unremovable item called "Bare Paws," preventing him from equipping shoes.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Of Pascal, the dog from Shin Megami Tensei I that would later be fused with a demon to become Cerberus, who serves as Koromaru's Persona.
• Team Pet: Although Aigis acts as something of an interpreter, leading to Koromaru demanding to be treated more like a human than a pet. You can take him to the movies!^note It doesn't work, for either protagonist, but as a consolation they both promise to buy Koromaru a copy of the home-release when it comes out. He sometimes asks the protagonist to watch a wolf documentary with him in Reload, having the TV remote in front of him when he wants to watch.
• Undying Loyalty: In the same vein as Hachiko, Koromaru continues to watch over the shrine long after his original owner's death.

Ken Amada

"Don't look down on me."

^{Click here to see Ken in his new battle outfit in Reload.}

^{Click here to see Nemesis}

Goddess of Retribution

^{Click here to see Kala-Nemi}

Rim of the Wheel of Time

"Justice always wins!"

Arcana: Justice
Social Link: Justice (female only)
Persona: Nemesis, Kala-Nemi
Theurgy (Reload): Divine Retribution (Nemesis)^note Deals severe Light damage to one foe, ignoring resistances, Divine Intervention (Kala-Nemi)^note Revives party, fully restores allies' HP, and reflects one attack
Weapons: Spears
Voiced by: Megumi Ogata (Japanese), Cindy Robinson (English; spinoffs), Justine Lee (English; Reload)
Live actors: Waku Sakaguchi (Persona 3, male protagonist version), Tomonori Suzuki (Persona 3, female protagonist version)

Ken is a precocious, but quite serious 11-year-old orphan the heroes first meet around town. He's soon invited by Ikutsuki to live in the SEES dorms once he's discovered to have the potential and, once his persona awakens, he volunteers to join SEES's fights against the Shadows despite the reservation of members like Yukari. Upon hearing that Ken is working with SEES, Shinjiro also rejoins the group. Ken mainly fights with spears and polearms, and his Persona is Nemesis of the Justice Arcana. It learns a diverse array of skills, but mainly specializes in light spells.

In the female protagonist's path in the PSP remake, Ken replaces Chihiro for the Justice Social Link. The interactions deal with him overcoming his buried resentment over his mother's passing, his childish tendencies versus his desire to be seen as an adult, and as a romantic option. The English release downplays this aspect of the relationship, however. Completing his Social Link has him give the female protagonist the silver key of his old house, allowing her to fuse Melchizedek.

In The Answer, Ken sides with Akihiko.

Like in Portable, completing his Linked Episode events in Reload ends with him giving the silver key to his old house to the male protagonist, allowing him to fuse Michael.

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• Adaptational Badass: Nemesis/Kala-Nemi is more of a Combat Medic in Reload due to having Mahama(on), the Kouha line, Dekaja and Heat Riser instead of being a Master of None like in the original.
• Adaptation Personality Change: Downplayed, but very much present in the movies. On a surface level, his personality isn't really that different, but the key change is that he doesn't learn Shinjiro killed his mother until much later than he did in the game. In the game, he found out not too long after he was introduced, so his entire time in S.E.E.S. was a bit tenser and mistrustful towards the group, especially concerning Shinjiro. As the second movie saves The Reveal for much later, he's much more friendly with Shinjiro, to the point of Big Brother Worship, which means he takes learning the truth much harder than he originally did. In the manga, he's still relatively cold with Shinjiro after joining SEES, but doesn't realize that Shinjiro was responsible for his mother's death until Shinjiro summons his Persona to save Ken from the Hermit.
• Adorably Precocious Child: Cute? Check. Serious? Check. Hates being thought of as a kid? Check. Relationship with an older girl? The tone may vary, but at the very least his Social Link with the FeMC is at the very least Cool Big Sis with the potential for a romance.
• Adults Are Useless: The Answer reveals that he was particularly hit hard with this. It leads him to believe that he should take matters of finding his mom's murderer into his own hands. It also becomes the basis for the trope below.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: It's not him, but the Female Protagonist has to perform in order to make the Social Link romantic. After telling him she hangs around him because she "likes" him, he remarks that's how adults lie. When she exclaims that she isn't lying, he finally trusts her enough to confirm his feelings.
• Badass Adorable:
  • He's the youngest member in S.E.E.S. and can stick a gun (er, evoker) to his head without flinching, yet he doesn't lose anything that makes him an adorable little kid. He also wields a rather large spear quite effectively despite his size.
  • In the movie, he's shown to be fighting Shadows even before joining S.E.E.S. since in this adaptation, he believes that a stray Shadow killed his mother.
• Badass Longcoat: His combat attire in Reload, due to the jacket being too big for him, gives this appearance.
• Balance Buff: Ken gets a couple of significant buffs in Reload. First is that he gets access to the Kouha line of damage-dealing Light spells, allowing him to exploit Shadows weak to Light better than his instant-kill Hama spells could. Second is that he gains the Spirit Refresh characteristic after hanging out with him several times, which lets him regenerate some SP every time he takes a turn, compensating for the high SP costs of his abilities.
• Be Yourself: A lot of his social link revolves around telling him he really should act his age. Of course, since the link is only available for the female protagonist that he has a Precocious Crush on he's even more reluctant than normal to do so.
• Big Brother Worship: He looks up to the Male Protagonist, Akihiko, Shinjiro (in the second movie) and Kanji (in Q) and sees them as his older brother figures. If the Protagonist is a girl, he sees her as an older sister figure instead.
• Boyish Shorts: Befitting of his status as the youngest human member of the S.E.E.S., Ken wears shorts that makes him stand out amongst the older male casts. In Arena Ultimax, his grown-up self no longer wears shorts and instead wears proper trousers.
• Break the Cutie:
  • Oh yes, definitely. First, he loses his mom, and then her death is covered up as an accident when he personally saw her killed. Then he finds who her killer is and tries to steel himself to avenge her but finds that her killer will die anyway. Then Shinjiro, said killer, takes a bullet meant for him, being killed by Takaya in the process.
  • Even worse in the movies, where at first he thinks it's some random Shadow that killed his mom. Then it turns out to be the person he admired most was Shinjiro Aragaki.
• Broken Ace: Ken is popular among his elementary school peers, a great athlete, mature, and has good enough grades to be considered an honor student by the time of Arena Ultimax. In Reload, one of his classmates complains that their team will be creamed by the competition if Ken doesn't join the soccer championship. This is on top of being the youngest known natural Persona user. But he has a lot of emotional baggage beneath his shiny exterior. Namely that he's been haunted by the death of his mother and seeks to commit Murder-Suicide with the one he blames for her death: Shinjiro.
• Broken Pedestal: In the second movie, Ken is rewritten to initially admiring Shinjiro, unaware that the Shadow that killed his mother was Shinjiro's Persona on a rampage. When he finds out the truth, boy does he not take it well.
• Call-Forward: Ken's first Linked Episode in Reload reveals that he plays soccer. In Persona 4: Arena Ultimax, Ken is the star member of the soccer club at Gekkoukan Middle School.
• Cheerful Child: Becomes more cheerful during the festival in the second movie, when he's hanging out with Shinjiro.
• Chick Magnet: His social link in Dancing in Moonlight reveals that he regularly gets love letters from his female schoolmates, much to Junpei's envy. Due to his own shyness, he's unsure how to respond. Arena Ultimax also shows he's inherited Akihiko's role as Gekkoukan's star athlete heartthrob, with half the female student body cheering him on at a soccer game as his fangirls.
• Closet Geek: He LOVES superheroes, but tries to downplay it so as not to seem immature. If you take him to the superhero movie marathon, his fanboy side gets the better of him and he starts gushing about the flick.
• Combat Medic: Has access to very good healing spells, but can still use effective Light and Electric attacks and is very good with a spear.
• Conveniently an Orphan: Along with the protagonist, Akihiko, and Shinjiro. His loss is much more recent, however, with his mother having died in an accident some months back. He originally lived with some relatives until Ikutsuki found him and made it so he could live at Iwatodai dorm.
• Covert Pervert: One scene that got intact through localization is the fact that post-Junpei going on about Kimono Fanservice, he's still flustered around Female Protagonist if you're in a relationship with him.
• Death Seeker: A subdued example in Reload. Throughout his early Linked Episodes, Ken makes several comments that make it sound like he doesn't expect to live for much longer, such as saying he won't be able to continue playing soccer or asking the protagonist to look after his pet hamster if he dies. It's implied he genuinely expects to die when he intends to get revenge on Shinjiro for killing his mother, either at Shinjiro's own hands or killing himself after all is said and done. Takaya even correctly deduces that Ken will kill himself after killing Shinjiro.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: His mom passed away in a car accident some time ago. Ken says nothing but good things about her, from her being a great cook to a loving parent. It's clear that her death hit him hard and he thinks about her constantly.
• Disappeared Dad: Ken's father is deceased, but what happened to him is never revealed.
• Discard and Draw: In Q2, he trades in his usual Shock and Awe skills for Psy damage.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: He hates being treated sympathetically, to the point of wanting to kill himself to run away from it.
• Driven to Suicide: All but states that avenging his mom was the only thing that kept him going after her death. When he learns that Shinjiro will die anyway even if he doesn't kill him, he loses his purpose to live and attempts Suicide by Cop using Takaya. He's saved only because Shinjiro takes the bullet for him.
• Giver of Lame Names: He sheepishly admits that he named his hamster Hamburger because he and his mom were eating hamburgers that day. His mom had a laugh about it, but the protagonist can tell Ken that it's a good name.
• Harmful to Minors:
  • Well, he saw his mother killed. It's accidental, but he doesn't know that. It's bad when facing Shadows isn't the worst thing on this list.
  • And then he witnesses Shinjiro, the one who killed his mom, take a bullet for him.
• Height Angst: Ken doesn't like it when others make fun of his height and is desperate to become taller, even drinking a lot of milk despite apparently being lactose intolerant.
• Heroic BSoD: Implied to have happened after his mother died. It happens again when Shinjiro takes the bullet meant for him and dies in his place, despondent over the person behind his whole reason for revenge died protecting him.
• Holding Hands: Gets freaked out after tricking the FeMC into doing this. When asked why it's because he thought of "the kids being used" while holding her hand.
• I Am Spartacus: He claims to be the team's Mission Control when Takaya demands to know who's helping SEES find the Full Moon Shadows and kill them, something Takaya doesn't want to happen.
• If You Die, I Call Your Stuff: Inverted. Ken's second Linked Episode in Reload has him asking the protagonist to take care of his hamster Hamburger should anything happen to him in Tartarus. Ken even tries to sweeten the deal by offering all of his allowance and New Year's money, comic books, and whatever else the protagonist could want. The protagonist clearly treats this as a hypothetical, but Ken seems oddly sure that something could happen. This is because on October 4th, he confronts Shinjiro with the intent to commit Murder-Suicide, until Shinjiro takes a bullet for Ken.
• I Owe You My Life: He comes to feel this way about Shinjiro, after Shinjiro's sacrificing himself to save Ken from Takaya. In the manga, he realizes that Shinjiro saved his life by killing his mother's Shadow.
• Kid Hero: He's only in elementary school.
• Kids Hate Vegetables: Ken doesn't like green peppers and tries to push them aside while eating a sweet and sour pork bowl. The female protagonist can gently chide him for this, which is actually the highest affinity option given that his mom used to do the same for him.
• Last-Name Basis:
  • In the Japanese version, the game and the characters all refer to him by some variation of his last name. He is also listed as just "Amada" in the musicals and Persona 4: Arena Ultimax.
  • In the English version of Reload, all the characters refer to him by his last name, rather than calling him by his first name in the original English version of 3.
• Light 'em Up: His persona is of the Justice Arcana and he's obsessed with the idea early on, which fits with the idea of light in this 'verse. However, light element spells aren't necessarily good in the original releases, as it is focused on instant-kill abilities and bosses would typically have immunity to them. Reload would re-introduce the Kouha line of spells, which are damage dealing variants.
• Master of None:
  • In the original releases, Ken's primary niche is being a Combat Medic who is useful because he's tougher than Yukari. In addition to this, he has a single-target Hama spell aided by Hama Boost, a single-target electric spell without any boosting passives, a single-target physical skill with a conditional damage bonus and a passive that augments his normal attack. His main problem is that he tries to be too many things at once, as you might expect of a kid trying too hard to be an adult. As such, the skills he shares with others are done better by them, and the skills that are unique to him are useless on bosses and mini-bosses. Portable gives him early access to Mediarama and trades his Hama Boost for Primal Force, making him a little more viable for boss fights but not really pushing him out of this trope.
  • Averted in Persona Q, however. Along with Hama skills having a much higher success rate, the sub-persona system allows him access to skills that he wouldn't have before and lets him cover all his usual weaknesses. As the game's mechanics tend to favor Magic Knight characters, his nature as a Combat Medic shines very brightly with these factors in mind. He also has the second-highest luck stat in the game with a decent enough speed, making him of the more useful support characters; the luck stat also affects the rate at which instant-kills land, making him more useful in that regard as well.
  • In Persona Q2, his innate skill set shows signs of this trope. His unique skill, like the P3P Heroine's, augments the damage his Link skills do, however he doesn't learn other Link upgrade passives beyond Double Link. His only source of Bless skills is just the unreliable Mahama (as the niche has been taken over by Akechi), and his only source of Psy damage is Psystrike Link (due to Haru taking the Psy specialist role). His healing skills are serviceable, at least. The Sub-Persona system and transfer of skills via Wild Card can make up for these shortcomings, but it's jarring to see the number of superfluous skills in his kit.
  • Averted in Reload, which reintroduces the Kouha line of spells and makes him a true specialist in the light field, while also giving him Heat Riser, Dekaja, and Tetrakarn to further round up his support kit. He also learns Samarecarm at level 47 rather than level 73 and Mediarahan nine levels earlier.
• Meaningful Name: Both the kanji of his given name and family name are synonymous, meaning 'heaven' as a reference to his arcana. More depressingly, his first name can also mean 'drought' or 'to desiccate'. One could interpret that as his life being a drought to him without his mother and the cover-up of her death, or his revenge dried up due to Shinjiro's health and Takaya's intervention.
• The Medic: Like Yukari, he learns the Media line of skills and learns Samarecarm at level 73, slightly behind Yukari, who learns it at level 68. The Recarm line of spells is maintained in Persona Q, in which it is very handy to have Samarecarm for late-game, and Persona Q2 also lets him learn Diarama and Diarahan. His second Theurgy gives him access to a party-wide full heal that also revives any knocked out party member, as well as set up a barrier that can reflect one physical and magical attack each.
• Murder-Suicide: It's implied that after getting revenge on his mother's killer, he then wants to end his own life.
• Orphan's Ordeal: Shinjiro accidentally killed Ken's mother when his persona went out of control. Ken is hellbent on revenge.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: During a conversation in Tartarus Ken states that he can easily carry the female MC if she gets tired and also mentions that she is light, meaning he already lifted her up "off camera".
• Please, Don't Leave Me: His New Game Plus Ending plays this quite tragically.
• Precocious Crush: He has a crush on the female protagonist, but knows that he's too young to really have a chance, though he is a romance option. He's more serious about it than you might expect.
• The Promise: Rank 10 romantic has Ken promising not to leave her behind and asks the protagonist for the same. It's also slightly different between the localization, with the original Japanese asking the main character to love only him with the English localization switching it to letting him be there for her. Swear to it, and he drops the -san when referring to her.
• Psychic Powers: In Q2, he is given access to Psi skills to round out your party a little, as otherwise the only character with default access to Psychokinesis would be Haru.
• Real Men Take It Black: Ken takes his coffee black and can sometimes be seen blowing a cup of black coffee to cool it off. According to him, only children take it with milk and sugar, though he admits he doesn't mind it if the protagonist says they like their coffee with milk. Reload has him trying to learn how to properly make coffee in its purest form.
• Revenge: He lives to find his mother's killer and punish them.
• Secret Art:
  • His unique skill in Persona Q is Target Boost, which raises his damage dealt while striking enemy weaknesses.
  • His unique skill in Q2 is Aspiring Heart which increases the strength of each consecutive Link follow-up. This upgrades into Great Unity Link with a greater damage bonus. Note that these skills are functionally similar to those of the P3P Heroine.
• Secret Relationship: In the lover's route, naturally. He freaks if you tell him that you two should come out and tells her to keep it a secret.
• Shock and Awe: He has access to a few Zio spells, but not to the extent of Akihiko. He loses them in Q2 in favor of Psystrike Link.
• Situational Sword: Ken in the original games was a Master of None in most situations, but his colorful lineup of skills and his Light resistance meant that he had very positive matchups against several particularly tough Tartarus gatekeepers like the infamous Sleeping Table. Reload retains that utility while allowing him to be more useful elsewhere.
• Squee: He's prone to doing this when he gets excited before badly trying to cover it up, due to his anxieties over being seen as immature. In Reload, the chance to see Akihiko bust open a watermelon with his bare knuckles has Ken so gleeful he doesn't even bother to hide it.
• Stepford Smiler: He appears to be a mature, even cheerful child who's Wise Beyond Their Years. But that kind, composed exterior hides a lot of emotional baggage. He is in fact a Death Seeker whose sole wish is to commit Murder-Suicide with Shinjiro, whom Ken blames for his mother's murder. According to Ken, every waking moment since her death has been torture for him. The only reasons he's still alive are his thirst for revenge and his unwillingness to shame his mother by committing suicide until his mission was complete.
• Suicide by Cop: In an attempt to prevent Takaya from going after Fuuka, as Takaya is searching for the navigator that is helping S.E.E.S. get rid of the Arcana Shadows, Ken tricks him into thinking that he is their navigator in an attempt to commit suicide by proxy. This fails when Shinjiro takes the bullet for him and dies.
• Through His Stomach: Almost all of his dates are taking him out to dinner and one time actually making his favorite meal, omelets and wild rice. He explains that he can't enjoy the boxed lunches that he buys compared to a home-cooked meal, which reminds him of his mom, who was a great cook. His Linked Episodes in Reload begin with him forgetting to eat and asking the protagonist to eat out with him.
• Token Mini-Moe: Token cute, sympathetic kid of the group and a potential love interest for the female protagonist, though downplayed relative to the other guys.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Ken likes omelets, usually supplemented with fried rice.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour: Killing your mother's killer is pushing it for an 11-year-old. Takaya's insinuations that Ken planned to off himself afterward make it far, far worse. The manga doesn't help.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Shinjiro's final words to Ken are to continue living and not allow his hatred to consume him. Ken takes his advice and continues to help SEES to end the Dark Hour.
• You Killed My Father:
  • Ken joins SEES hoping that it will provide him with the chance to kill Shinjiro in revenge for Shinjiro's role in his mother's death. Further, he's intensely distressed when he finds out that Shinjiro is dying anyhow, feeling that it robs his vengeance of meaning. Ultimately, Ken forgives him, but it takes Shinjiro not only accepting blame for his mother's death but also taking a bullet for Ken for good measure.
  • The movie switches things around so that Ken initially joined SEES so he could hunt down Shadows, believing that a Shadow killed his mother. Once he learns it was actually Shinjiro's Persona, it becomes this.

Shinjiro Aragaki

"Don't waste your breath."

^{Click here to see Shinjiro in his new battle outfit in Reload.}

^{Click here to see Castor}

Blue Gemini

"Not even worth mentioning."

Arcana: The Hierophant
Social Link: The Moon (female only)
Persona: Castor
Theurgy (Reload): Bleeding Fury^note Deals severe Strike damage to one foe, ignoring resistances
Weapons: Axes, Hammers^note PQ only
Voiced by: Kazuya Nakai (Japanese), Grant George (English; original), Justice Slocum (English; Reload)
Live actors: Ray Fujita

A former member of SEES, he left the group several years before following a tragic accident. Despite looking like a delinquent, he has his soft side. After pestering his friend throughout many early game scenes, Akihiko finally persuades his old friend Shinjiro to rejoin the group after Ken Amada does the same. Shinjiro uses axes and other bludgeoning weapons in battle, and his Persona is the physically-oriented Castor of the Hierophant Arcana.

In the female protagonist's story, Shinjiro is her Moon S.Link, replacing Nozomi and allowing the player character to see much more of his softer side, unlike the male protagonist who does not have much opportunity to interact with him and receives a somewhat more standoffish attitude from him. In his S.Link, Shinjiro prods the protagonist about concerns over her health and their teammates' eating habits, assists Fuuka with her cooking, and at one point makes a grand dinner for the rest of SEES. He also voices concerns over Akihiko's well-being and talks about their childhoods and his sister, Miki. Towards the end of the link, the protagonist can retrieve a pocket watch he'd lost from the police station and return it to him.

After maxing his S.Link, Shinjiro gives the female protagonist a Leather Watch, allowing her to fuse Sandalphon. The female can start a romantic relationship with him after completing the S.Link by talking to him again — although she will have to be very persistent with her feelings to overcome his reluctance.

In Reload, completing his Linked Episode events ends with him leaving behind his incomplete reinstatement form for the male protagonist to retrieve, allowing him to fuse Hell Biker.

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• Accidental Murder: His Persona killed Ken's mother when Shinjiro unexpectedly lost control of it in an early battle. Shinjiro spent the rest of his life punishing himself for it.
• Adaptational Self-Defense: A variant in the manga when it comes to the death of Ken's mother. In the original game, the death was due to Power Incontinence, while in the manga, Shinjiro killed Mrs. Amada's Shadow, which was the target of the operation, but didn't realize what happened until it was too late.
• Adaptational Super Power Change: A downplayed case since his skills are still focused on physical attacks, but noticeably one of his late game skills in Reload is Debilitate, a debuffing spell that lowers the opponent's attack, defense and accuracy, which is very noticeable since he claims he doesn't do support, and in the original he got no buffing or debuffing skills of any kind. This is likely representing his own potential to change and become more of a team player.
• Affectionate Nickname: "Shinji", especially from Akihiko, who uses this almost exclusively.
• Animal Lover: Shinjiro has a soft spot for animals.
  • He is embarrassed when Aigis sees him being affectionate to Koromaru in the movie after feeding him a hot meal.
  • According to Akihiko, Shinjiro once took in a stray cat when they were younger.
  • If the protagonist opts to take him to the one-day film festival re-run on September 23, they will watch an animal-themed movie together (titled "From Paws to Whiskers" in Reload). While Shinji tries to brush it off and sound unaffected, once its over, he tears up while recalling how the river washed the dog away and quietly says that he has to leave.
• Ascended Extra: A variation; while the rest of the male SEES members get social links with the female protagonist, he stands out even more, given that he's only playable in-game for one month before he kicks it. Pretty amazing that one can get a detailed glimpse of his life and why he's the way he is within that period of time. In Q and Q2 he becomes a fully-fledged party member, and Reload adds some extra content that fleshes out his character.
• The Atoner: Killing Ken's mom is what caused him to leave SEES. He was so guilt-stricken that he chose to take suppressant pills with lethal side effects. Both to ensure that he would never lose control of his Persona again and as a slow form of suicide. When Ken tries to get his revenge, Shinjiro doesn't try to stop him.
• Backup from Otherworld: His voice is the last one to be heard just before the protagonist casts the Great Seal on Nyx.
• Badass Longcoat: Is almost always seen wearing his trusty pea coat.
• Barbaric Battleaxe: He's a Bruiser with a Soft Center who's known for getting into fights with other people and fights like a Berserker in the Dark Hour, often showing an irritable temper and is perceived as a delinquent and outcast. He can wield any kind of weapon under the 'bludgeon' class and can wield axes as a direct result. This lack of restraint actually bites him in the ass, as it not only results in his Persona going berserk and killing Ken Amada's mother in the process, but impulsively Taking the Bullet for Ken and getting himself killed in the process.
• Big Brother Instinct: Looks after Ken in this way. It's atonement for killing his mother by accident.
• Big Guy Fatality Syndrome: Physically the strongest character, stronger than Junpei, and is killed by Takaya.
• Boring, but Practical: His fighting style can best be described as this. He only learns physical moves and his persona has no elemental immunities. At the same time, he has the highest physical attack in the game and plenty of health points to burn it on and has no elemental weaknesses either. This, combined with his uncanny ability to score critical hits, make him a fantastic tank. Reload only slightly complicates his skillset by having his Theurgy be an extremely potent physical attack that charges whenever he is below 50% health. Since he only has physical skills and gains a new skill that immediately uses 50% of his health his Theurgy is extremely easy to spam and him having Endure amplifies his survivability.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: He acts like a tough guy, but in truth, he's so soft that it's the only thing you really see during his social link.
• Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: He keeps the bearings of a delinquent and his weapons are hammers and other blunt objects, and in Persona Q his weapons are always rendered as a sledgehammer.
• Bulletproof Human Shield: Uses himself as one to save Ken in his Heroic Sacrifice.
• But I Would Really Enjoy It: A rare male example after his S.Link in Persona 3 Portable is maxed. To put it simply, he's not just afraid of their relationship changing, he knows that he's going to die by any of three ways, and that romance will not end well.
• Cast from Hit Points: While all physical abilities use health to cast, in Reload Shinjiro gets "Bloody Charge", a unique buff that uses half of his health to significantly raise his next attack's critical rate and physical damage. This is highly encouraged with his Theurgy, which rises faster whenever he is below 50% health.
• Characterization Marches On: Gets hit with this hard in spin-offs. He had a relatively short amount of time as an actual party member in the original game, but each of his subsequent appearances gives him more ample development. Portable made him a Social Link for the Female Protagonist route (and he can be saved from his death if it's maxed out), the movies expand on his interactions with the other members of SEES, and Persona Q, in addition to being a fully-fledged party member, establishes his role as the Deadpan Snarker and Only Sane Man to the rest of the cast.
• The Comically Serious: In Q, he often gets into childish arguments with Akihiko over even the most minute things. The original game and Reload also give him some scenes where he treats cooking and even things like gardening with the most upmost respect, being blunt about the correct and proper way of doing things.
• Convenient Coma: Of the Put on a Bus variety. If you play as a girl and retrieve his pocket watch, he survives the October 4th Full Moon Operation, but since he dies under any other circumstances, he spends the rest of the game hospitalized and in a coma in order to not interfere too much with the plot. You can see him again at the end of the game in a New Game Plus, though.
• Conveniently an Orphan: Along with the protagonists, Akihiko (who he grew up with), and Ken.
• Crutch Character: He sports the highest Strength out of the party and comes with some severely damaging attacks as soon as you get him. This, coupled with the fact that most of the bosses you face right after getting him are very susceptible to physical attacks and his tendency to feel "great" rather frequently, make him quite the powerhouse when you first get him. The rest of the player's team will likely already be leveled enough that Shinjiro theoretically could sit out of most battles, but putting him in the party can also get through most fights pretty easily. In Reload, if the protagonist does his dorm hangout events, he can create some of the most powerful healing items available too. After a month he re-joins S.E.E.S., he dies on the next Full Moon.
• Dark and Troubled Past: He's an orphan like Akihiko and accidentally killed Ken's mother.
• Death Seeker: Implied. The Movie and Reload make it obvious that not only is he killing himself with the suppressants but that he's dying out of guilt for what he did. His main reason for rejoining S.E.E.S. is to allow Ken to kill him for his revenge if the boy sees fit.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: In both The Movie and Reload, after being mortally wounded by Takaya, he expires in Akihiko's arms.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: A minor case in The Movie and Reload. In the original game, after saying his last words, Shinjiro did a brief dying walk before keeling over. In both The Movie and Reload, he instead bleeds out in Akihiko's arms.
• Dump Stat: His SP pool in Reload. All of his non-passive skills run off his HP except Debilitate, a skill he's unlikely to learn because he learns it at level 59 but dies at a point where you're expected to be at most level 50.
• Establishing Character Moment: The very first line you hear him say is the game's first Precision S Strike.
• Face Death with Dignity: On October 4th, Shinjiro allows Ken the option of killing him for killing his mother two years ago, while also explaining why it's ultimately a waste. Despite this, he doesn't object to Ken's choice, whichever it may be. That is, until he finds out from Takaya that Ken intends to kill himself once he's gotten his revenge.
• Face of a Thug: He may look like a delinquent and hangs around at the dark parts of the city, but Shinjiro is actually a sweetheart who takes interest in cooking and looking after cute animals.
• Flanderization: His Hidden Heart of Gold and Supreme Chef qualities go from being well-kept secrets that were only shown a few times in the original game to being more or less his two primary personality traits, with almost all spin-offs featuring him making a point of bringing up his cooking ability or softer side nearly every time he appears in them.
• Foil: To Akinari, especially if you play as the female protagonist in Portable or do his Linked Episodes in Reload. They're similar in that both are mostly quiet loners. They've both accepted that they're going to die early. Not to mention that the two of them are plagued with physical problems. Now, in turn, Akinari is frail and was born so; while Shinjiro is not only capable of combat, but is also one of S.E.E.S. strongest members, his ailments are also a direct by-product of being given a Persona as opposed to anything natural, with his lifespan also decreasing with repeated usage of the suppressants. Akinari is incredibly intelligent and has a manner of speech that requires the protagonist to be rather well-learned just to comprehend; Shinjiro, who is by no means dumb, is far more blunt and direct with little patience for mincing words. Finally, and this is specific to the female protagonist, Akinari dies no matter what happens; Shinjiro on the other hand, can be saved if special conditions are met. Fittingly enough, for the female protagonist, Shinjiro takes the position as the Moon Arcana to Akinari's Sun Arcana.
• Freudian Trio: With Akihiko and Mitsuru. He's the reserved and grounded ego to Mitsuru's strict and mission-oriented superego and Akihiko's hot-blooded and battle-hungry id.
• Gentle Giant: Though it might not appear this way at first. Shinjiro is the tallest member of the team and one of the strongest, but his Hidden Heart of Gold-hiding façade might make him seem like a subversion of this trope. However, once you get to know his softer side (such as romancing him as the Female Protagonist in Portable), he qualifies as a surprisingly straight example.
• Go Out with a Smile: On October 4th, Shinjiro dies with the smile on his face, satisfied that Ken will not end up like him.
• Guest-Star Party Member: He rejoins SEES after hearing Ken has been recruited. He's only ever available until October 4, when he's killed off. Averted in both Persona Q and Q2, as those games takes place just before the October 4th event and as such Shinjiro is available for the whole game.
• Hands in Pockets: Shinjiro is always seen with hands in his pockets. This serves as a joke in Q when the Investigation Team girls ask him where he keeps the dog food he reveals that he has for Koromaru. According to a fan question in Persona Stalker Club, the main reason is because the drugs Shinjiro had been taking makes him unable to regulate his body temperature.
• Held Back in School: Discussed in Reload where Akihiko warns him that the way he's going regarding his lack of attendance at Gekkoukan, the protagonist and Junpei are likely to be his classmates next year.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Shinjiro's final act before he dies is protecting Ken from being shot by Takaya, after he himself had been shot earlier.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Akihiko, who he still hangs out with even after leaving SEES.
• Hidden Heart of Gold:
  • He deliberately fosters and enjoys an aura of intimidation and aloofness, and is very embarrassed when others discover his kindness.
  • Played for Laughs in the second movie. He does some cooking to make some food for Koromaru while no one's watching. But then he turns his head and notices Aigis staring at him. He immediately gets flustered, with the use of "Mass Destruction" as the background music adding to the hilarity.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Says almost these exact words during his S.Link in Portable.
• Incurable Cough of Death: He sometimes falls into painful fits of uncontrollable coughing. Especially when stressed or after exerting himself as shown when it trips him in his Critical Failure. It's the only obvious sign of the sheer amount of internal damage that taking the suppressant pills has inflicted on him.
• Interface Spoiler: Averted. His Persona has a full set of skills that it can learn all the way up to and past around level 70, including God Hand. Most of them will likely still not have been learned yet by October 4th, unless the player specifically makes a point of level-grinding him. That being said, him getting skills up to level 70 at all is odd looking since everyone else except Koromaru stops getting new skills at around level 40 (Yukari, Akihiko, Ken) or 50 (Mitsuru, Akihiko, Junpei), or 60 (Aigis), however, Ultimate Personas are only introduced after his death, and despite Koromaru not dying, he doesn't get an Ultimate Persona (Albeit it is implied in Reload that Cerberus may already be Koromaru's Ultimate Persona), so Shinjiro still averts it.
• Irony:
  • During his social link, he is reluctant to romance the female protagonist because he is terminally ill and does not want to break her heart with his death. If you complete the social link, he outlives her.
  • Reflected in his and Akihiko's Personas, the Gemini twins: Polydeuces was the rowdy, physically-inclined twin, whereas Castor was more cerebral and restrained. While they reflect their personalities to a tee, their skill sets (Akihiko's mindful Jack of All Stats versus Shinjiro's simpler preference for physical attacks) are vast opposites.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: When you Max out his S.Link as the female protagonist in Portable, he hints that his feelings for her are like this, asking to take care of Akihiko and asks not to associate with him anymore. Under the circumstances he's in, where the suppressants he takes to pacify his Persona have left him with permanent internal damage that has shortened his lifespan, he'd rather not give the female protagonist any heartache when he inevitably dies; either by the hands of Ken, the suppressants, or in battle.
• Last-Name Basis:
  • In the Japanese version, all the characters except Akihiko refer to Shinjiro by his last name. In promotional material, he's often referred to as "Aragaki."
  • In the English version of Reload, all the characters except Akihiko refer to Shinjiro by his last name rather than his first name, unlike the original English version of Persona 3, where everyone referred to him by his first name.
• Made of Iron: Particularly if you complete his Social Link. He survives two .500 S&W magnum rounds to the gut with nothing but his pea coat and a pocket watch for armor, and the second bullet can't even pierce his chest to reach Ken behind him.
• Magically Inept Fighter: He has the second-worst Magic stat in Persona 3 (ahead of Junpei), the fifth-worst in Persona Q (ahead of Junpei, Aigis, Chie, and Kanji), and the third-worst in Persona Q2 (tied with Chie and ahead of Akihiko and Kanji) and he's the only Persona user in the entire series who has never had base access to offensive magic.
• A Man Is Always Eager: Averted. You have to be really persistent with wanting to pursue a romantic relationship until he gets over his hesitation. After that though, he won't hold back.
• Meaningful Name: "Aragaki" is written with characters meaning "rough" or "rude" and "wall".
• Mighty Glacier: Shinjiro has very high attack, defense, and health, allowing him to both give and take plenty of punishment from physical attacks without fear of getting downed. Additionally, his Persona has no elemental weaknesses, at the cost of having no elemental resistances, ensuring that he will never be knocked down by enemy magic. This is offset somewhat by his low speed, which nearly guarantees that he will always go last in any given fight.
• Morality Pet: He's nice to Koromaru so that we know he's really a softie.
• Multiple Endings:
  • In Portable, he's the only S.E.E.S member who's fate can be outright changed if you pursue his Social Link as the female protagonist.
  • His Linked Episode in Reload is also the only one other than Junpei's that can result in differing outcomes, though unlike in Portable you can't save his life. Instead, the final decision you make in his Linked Episode chain determines whether or not you unlock the Hell Biker Persona fusion.
• My Greatest Failure: Two years ago, Shinjiro lost control of his Persona and killed Ken's mother in an accident and had been guilty over it ever since. It is because of this that in Q, Shinjiro refuses to evolve Castor, as it will remind him of his mistake.
• Non-Elemental: His Persona has no elemental weaknesses, but no resistances either. Similarly, his Persona only learns physical attacks and attack buffing skills, meaning that he's only capable of damaging enemies physically.
• Not Too Dead to Save the Day: The protagonist doesn't pull together enough HP to cast the Great Seal until Shinjiro's voice provides the last bit of encouragement.
• Odd Friendship: With Akihiko. The overachieving Big Man on Campus isn't usually best friends with an incredibly shady thug.
• Only Sane Man: Q turns him into this as a response to the Flanderization undergone by a majority of the cast, often bouncing off Akihiko and Chie's extreme competitiveness for the most part.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Played for Laughs. Shinjiro is not afraid even in the face of death but anything regarding Fuuka's terrible cooking actually scares him. In Persona Q, he is even more shocked to find out there are three others like her among the Investigation Team.
• Palette Swap: Appearance-wise, Castor is a black-colored Polydeuces, but their similarities end there. In addition to specializing almost entirely in physical attacks (whereas Polydeuces is a Jack of All Stats), there's a blade in Castor's chest, and he's riding a Cool Horse.
• Parental Abandonment: Like Akihiko, he's an orphan.
• Permanently Missable Content:
  • In Portable, while playing as the female protagonist, miss three Social Link meetings with him and you're screwed out of hitting max rank. Miss two and you're screwed out of screwing him. You also don't get his Leather Watch, which allows the player to fuse Sandalphon.
  • In Reload, he has Linked Episodes that take place on specific days and only those specific dates. Miss to do all five of them, or make the wrong decision with his note, and you miss out on getting the Incomplete Form, which allows you to fuse Hell Biker.
• Pet the Dog: Quite literally; despite his Hidden Heart of Gold-hiding façade he enjoys cooking and feeding Koromaru when nobody is looking, revealing his softer side.
• Please Kill Me if It Satisfies You: He's prepared to let Ken kill him to make up for his Accidental Murder of Ken's mother. But he warns that if Ken does kill him, he'll end up becoming just like him.
• Plotline Death: Dies intercepting a bullet meant for Ken in the male protagonist's path or if you fail to clear his S. Link as a girl. He's only around in Persona Q because of time travel, taking him from a month before he dies. Persona 4 Arena confirms that his death in the male protagonist's path is the canonical one.
• Pocket Protector: Getting the last rank of his S.Link in the female protagonist's route requires her to find a pocket watch he mentions he has lost, and return it to him. Having it in his pocket on October 4th is what makes it possible for him to survive being shot, although he's still seriously injured.
• Power Incontinence: He has trouble controlling his Persona. Years before the game, his Persona went on a rampage during a mission, killing Ken's mother before he could recall it. He now takes dangerously toxic suppressant pills to ensure that it can never go out of his control again.
• Promoted to Playable: Kinda. In the original game, he's a Guest-Star Party Member but in Persona Q he's with you for the entire game on the P3 route, and after the first labyrinth on the P4 route.
• Purposely Overpowered: Between his insane skill set (most notably getting Bloody Charge by default, much earlier than the protagonist does at that point in the game), a powerful, easy to trigger Theurgy, and access to Auto-Heat Riser, Shinjiro in Reload is an absolute monster that can melt Gatekeeper Shadows in minutes. This is balanced out by him dying only a month after he joins, though.
• Put on a Bus: If you're playing as the female protagonist, max out his S. Link and retrieve his watch, he survives but is put into a coma instead, up until the very end if you romanced him in a New Game Plus run.
• Real Men Wear Pink: He's very fond of cooking and is a regular viewer of the family cooking show. In his S. Link, he, the protagonist, and Fuuka cook a restaurant-quality meal big enough for everyone in SEES. In the movie, this is taken literally, as he wears a pink apron.
• Sacrificial Lion: He is the first major character to die, in an event that serves as the first of many Wham Episodes that mark things continually going From Bad to Worse for SEES.
• Sarcastic Devotee: Especially to the male protagonist, who comes in for some snark from Shinjiro in combat: "Tch. Who does he think he is?" He's less belligerent to the female protagonist, but still warns her that he'll fight however he wants to and complains if she heals him in battle.
• Satellite Character:
  • He and the male protagonist don't spend much time together in the original and he is defined entirely through his interactions with Akihiko and Ken.
  • Averted in Portable, however, thanks to having significantly more opportunity to interact with the female protagonist as a Social Link.
  • Averted for the male protagonist in Reload where his Linked Episodes expand on his other relationships as well as what he was like while he was still active in SEES.
• Secret Art: His unique skill in Persona Q is Whirlwind Swing, which has a chance to add splash effects to his single-target attacks. This is converted into a 3-turn buff in Q2 named Ironfist Style, which then upgrades to Effortless Style that guarantees the splash effects.
• Secretly Dying: The suppressants he takes are not exactly good for him. By the time he enters the plot, the pills have already inflicted terminal damage to him.
• So Long, and Thanks for All the Gear: Subverted — after he becomes permanently unavailable, you can visit his old room and collect all the equipment you've given him.
• Spared by the Adaptation: In the female route of P3P, Shinjiro survives provided the player completed his Social Link. However, considering the side effects of the drugs he took, this is likely only a temporary delay.
• Stern Teacher: He's this when it comes to trying to help Fuuka with her cooking, coupled with a touch of Brutal Honesty. Apparently he doesn't think much of Fuuka's more methodical written approach and tries to get her to learn from a more on-the-spot observation approach. He's also this to the male protagonist in Reload during the Dorm Hangouts, though he never gets quite as stern as with Fuuka. Shinji mentions that he was taught how to cook by a manager of a restaurant he worked part-time at in Reload, where the manager was a stern teacher to him, though he remembers the experience fondly.
• Status Buff: His characteristic automatically boosts his Attack and Defense at the start of a battle, which can later upgrade to an automatic Heat Riser.
• Sugar-and-Ice Guy: Tough as he may be, his social link with the FeMC shows another side of him that is quite unexpected.
• Supreme Chef: It's stated that he cooks most of the team's meals, though he seems slightly embarrassed about it. If the protagonist opts to cook with him during the Dorm Hangouts, the protagonist comments on how it's on-par with restaurant quality food, to the point that food made with him can fully restore the entire party's HP. The final Dorm Hangout cooking event with Shinji has him mention how he used to work part-time in a restaurant, and that he learned how to cook from the manager.
• Taking the Bullet:
  • How he dies on October 4. He dives between Ken and Takaya's gun, saving the boy's life.
  • Persona Q2 gives him the Line Guard and All Guard skills to let him tank for the party in this manner. While there is overlap with Kanji and Skull, his lack of an elemental weakness means he won't be intercepting attacks that will floor him, and his Return From Yomi passive can bring him out of critical health if he falls too low.
• Team Mom: Think about it. He's a good cook, worries about whether or not everyone's eating properly tells you to take care not to get sick... Face it, he's your ideal House Husband.
• Tears of Blood: After the initial attack of his Theurgy, the sword stuck in Castor's chest starts gushing blood, and this either evokes this trope by splashing some onto Shinjiro's face or straight up makes one of his eyes bleed before he wipes it off and goes in for another attack.
• Think Happy Thoughts: Surprisingly his mantra, which keeps him from being too depressed over his condition, and tries to pass this belief to the protagonist. It's also what makes him so distant from Akihiko, who broods quite often about Miki, much to Shinjiro's discomfort.
• Tsundere: Equip him with the tuxedo in Tartarus and talk to him for his reaction. You'll either laugh or Squee.
• Turned Against Their Masters: In the second movie, Castor is seen strangling Shinjiro after being off the suppressants for too long.
• Unmanly Secret: He's a fan of cooking and watching cooking shows, though his denial and secrecy regarding them vary.
  • In one of the Command Room videos, he's watching a cooking show in the lounge, but then pretends to be asleep when Fuuka and Aigis walk in so that they don't think he was watching it. Unfortunately for him, Koromaru spills the beans to Aigis, and he happens to put a cooking show magazine on top of his face when they enter.
  • In the film adaptation, he makes a meal for Koromaru and is visibly sweating bullets when he sees that Aigis has been watching him the entire time. When Makoto and Ken return, Aigis and Koromaru end up spilling the beans, with Shinjiro trying to stop what they're talking about and hide his apron.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: In battle, he's pretty much only capable of one thing: hitting things REALLY hard, and buffing himself up to hit even harder. He does a very good job of it, though. Incidentally, his weapons in Q are hammers.
• When He Smiles: In P3P, he only smiles during the Social Link, which makes a pleasant surprise for those unaware. The only time you get to see Shinjiro smile in the male protagonist route is him talking to Koromaru while going on a walk, talking about the good times, or cooking with him in Reload.
• You Lose at Zero Trust:
  • Averted if you are playing as the female character, where he is a Social Link. As long as you meet with him every time the chance arises, you are perfectly guaranteed to hit max rank.
  • Zig-zagged in Reload with the male protagonist. The player is guaranteed to get through all five of his Linked Episodes, provided they meet with him each time, but can be locked out of his final two episodes should they make the wrong choice with his note.
• Your Days Are Numbered: Shinjiro has been taking drugs that suppress his Persona that are supplied by Strega. Prolonged usage of the drugs has lethal side effects. By the time of the game, Shinjiro has been taking them so long that he only has months left to live.

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