Maya Amano

**Maya Amano** (天野舞耶 (*Amano Maya*)) is a playable character in *Persona 2: Innocent Sin* and the protagonist in *Persona 2: Eternal Punishment* where she is investigating the New World Order.

She also is a major character in the manga and anime series *Persona 2: The End of Seven Sisters High School - Eternal Punishment Arc*, as the head editor after Chief Mizuno's retirement and the Assassination Specialized Execution Foundation's agents.

In *Future Generation*, she and The Adults Team is no longer Persona user due to Lisa's death.

Maya is the first female protagonist of the *Persona* series as well as the oldest.

## Design

   Maya is a young woman in her early twenties with light skin (pearl white skin in anime), shoulder-length black hair styled in a flip, and purple eyes. At 5'6" (168 cm), she could be considered tall (especially in Japan where *Persona 2* is set), although she is shorter than fellow party member Yukino Mayuzumi.

Her outfit is unique and appears to be custom-made: she wears a two-piece ensemble consisting of a two-tone brown jacket with distinctive pink hearts on the chest and a matching skirt trimmed in metallic silver paired with knee-high brown boots, finished off with a long navy necktie. Her nails are painted dark red.

As a young teenager, her hair was bobbed with bangs, and she alternately wore a red, white and blue sailor-style school uniform, and a pink shirt under blue overalls with a red heart design.

In *Persona 2: The End of Seven Sisters High School - Eternal Punishment Arc* series, as seen she is a member of the terrorist organization group in the first season, she wear a black jacket with chrome pink hearts on the chest, red necktie, a dull black skirt and paired with knee-high black and pink boots. Her nails are painted black with glitter on it.

## Personality

She is famous for her rather unwavering and relentless optimism, something which begins to break down in *Eternal Punishment*. Maya Amano is a cheerful and compassionate woman, and works as a reporter for the teen magazine *Coolest*. Maya is also known for her motto, "Let's think positive!"

Maya often takes the role of a leader in the group, even in *Persona 2: Innocent Sin* where she is not the protagonist. Her unstoppable optimism and kindheartedness inspired and encouraged the group throughout the events of the game and anime, making her an unforgettable force within the world they inhabited. Maya also often cheers the party up with her stuffed rabbit doll, which she calls "Mr. Bunbun." This doll evokes memories of her father.

Maya functions as the silent protagonist in *Persona 2: Eternal Punishment* but still retains components of her *Innocent Sin* personality.

However, in the anime series, she is a emotional, weakest, depressed, assertive, and heartbreaking woman as she want to defend Tatsuya from being removed by her rival or enemy Shiori Miyashiro. This cause of she won't be able to fight Shiori back due to Shiori has a strongest power.

## Etymology

* The name **Maya** means "dance" (舞) (**ma**) and "question mark" (耶) (**ya**).
* Maya's surname **Amano** means "heaven/heavenly, sky, imperial" (天) (**ama**) and "field, wilderness" (野) (**no**).

## Trivia

* Maya is the first (and to date, only, not counting Aigis, Shin Kanzato, and Akane Sanada) *Persona* protagonist that cannot be named by the player. She's the only one to do so as protagonist in a main series game, as Aigis is the protagonist in a special episode in *FES*, Shin Kanzato in a non-canon anime spin-off and Akane Sanada is the protagonist in a sequel story in *The Havoc*.
* Maya is the oldest protagonist in the series at 23 years old, Tatsuya being second at 18.
* Maya is currently the only *Persona* protagonist that is not a student.
* Maya's intense guilt about her resentment of the original Masked Circle for the Alaya Shrine incident prevents her from ever accepting her own Shadow as an aspect of herself, making her unique among the series' playable characters who've interacted with their Shadows. She instead chooses to insist that her Shadow is an impostor created by the conflicting rumors about her involvement with the Masked Circle. The only other playable character in the series to ever do this is Rei.
	+ This is represented by her Arcana, the Moon, which is associated with illusions, self-deception and subconscious emotions.
* There's some debate over the canonicity of Maya's romantic feelings towards Tatsuya and Katsuya Suou. Tatsuya is often considered the "default" option between the two, but according to the *Persona World Guidance* book, Maya is romantically uninterested in both of the Suou brothers. Meanwhile, interviews state that it's up to the player to choose for Maya, although scenario writer Tadashi Satomi personally leans towards Tatsuya.
* When the party goes to get her legendary weapon from Garcon Soejima, he tells them that the only way she can get the weapon is to eat his spaghetti di kusaya (spaghetti horse mackerel in the fan translation), which she descibes as her least favorite food.
* In *Persona 2: Innocent Sin ~ The Errors of Their Youth*, track 10, "Bomb Shelter Imitation Hell," Maya does an impression of Shinnosuke Nohara from the manga and anime series *Crayon Shin-chan*, a reference to her voice actress's role as Shinnosuke.
* Tadashi Satomi proposed the idea of allowing Maya to speak in the bonus content of *Eternal Punishment* PSP remake. This was dropped due to the tradition that the protagonist must remain silent because they represent the player.
* In the English version of *Persona 3*, the protagonist can befriend a player in the fictional MMO "Innocent Sin Online" (which itself is a reference to *Persona 2: Innocent Sin*), who uses the name "Maya," and even says "let's think positive!" In the Japanese version, that character is instead a reference to Yumiko Shirasagi.
* In the game files of Skullgirls, there is a text portrait of Maya shrugging.
* In *Shin Megami Tensei NINE* there are leftover textures from a model of Maya.
* In *Eternal Punishment*, despite being silent, Maya Amano appears to have some sort of internal monologue in character introductions: her introduction of Maya Okamura is "I sense that I've met her somewhere...?", while Tatsuya Suou is introduced as "He ran into me. For some strange reason, I feel I know him from long ago...".
* While looking down at a dolphin brooch at Tony’s shop, Maya mentions that she’s gone scuba diving with dolphins before, but has long since gone again due to busy-ness at work.
* Maya loves ramen and one of her favourite foods is crab. She has a big appetite and is known at Kizmet for having a “black hole stomach.”
* Maya is quite careless in her private life and her apartment is a complete mess. According to Maya her room smells like mildew from her AC because she cannot remember when she last changed the filter.
* Maya once told a story in which she had jumped a fence to get to a closed off building for an assignment she and Yukino were working on together.
* She is quite oblivious when it comes to love and relationships and wasn’t aware that Yukino had a crush on Fuji or why Lisa was so envious about her and Tatsuya talking alone in the bomb shelter while Lisa was asleep.
* Maya wanted to be a journalist ever since she was a kid and feels passionately about her work, saying she’s “married to her work” and prioritizes work over finding a relationship.
* Shortly after Yukino departs from the party, Maya in London Clothier says she saw Yukino as an older sister despite Yukino being younger than her.
* She has a habit of touching her earlobe when she's lost in thought.
* The right side of her chest is scarred from a bad burn in the past, and she's very self conscious about not showing it.
* Despite being terrible at driving, Maya loves driving and considers herself a durable person because no matter how many times she crashes her car she doesn't get injured.
* Maya is very dependent on Ulala and she takes care of Maya's makeup, clothes (She doesn’t understand fashion and has all her clothes picked by Ulala), and all the cooking at home.
* She finds mornings difficult because she has low blood pressure and it makes it hard for her to get out of bed. Maya naturally became a night person due to this fact and the nature of her job.
* Her future dream is to become a successful journalist who can juggle her career and family.