Female protagonist (Persona 3 Portable)

The female protagonist is an additional playable protagonist in Persona 3 Portable. Her role is non-canonical in the main Persona series timeline, as evidenced by the use of male pronouns and references to blue hair in The Answer, Persona 4 (and Golden) after fighting Margaret, and Persona 4 Arena.

Appearances

 * Persona 3 Portable: Protagonist (Female)
 * Persona 3 Portable: Velvet Blue
 * Persona 3 Portable Drama CD Volume 1
 * Persona 3: the Weird Masquerade -Ao no Kakusei- / -Gunjou no Meikyuu- / -Sousen no Kesshou-/Chapter 4: Ai no Seiyaku/Final Chapter: Hekikuu no Kanata e: Protagonist (Female) as Kotone Shiomi (汐見 琴音, Shiomi Kotone)
 * Persona Q2 New Cinema Labyrinth

Design
She is the polar opposite of the male protagonist. Her Persona Orpheus is gold, while his is a pale silver, her eyes are red, while his are gray, et cetera. With red accents instead of blue. Her main weapon is a Naginata that inflicts slash attacks.

The female protagonist has auburn hair, which she always has in a high ponytail, along with silver barrettes which form the roman numeral XXII, possibly referencing that the Fool Arcana is not only Arcana 0, but also Arcana 22 with the numbers increasing while going back to the first card after The World (Arcana 21). Since she's the polar opposite of the male protagonist, it would make sense for the male protagonist to be Fool 0 while the female is Fool 22. She is seemingly shorter than the default male protagonist. She has a pale complexion and striking red eyes (and longer lashes than the other characters, like Aigis.)

Her favorite colors seem to be red and orange, as most of her outfits compose of the same color scheme.

At school and at Tartarus, she wears a school uniform of Gekkoukan High School. She wears a Gekkoukan high badge, a red ribbon tie, a neck strap MP3 player (same as the male protagonist but in the color red), and loafers. On weekends and days off, she seems to wear a red scarf, a light orange sweater, a red plaid skirt, black leggings, and red boots (along with her earphones). During June at Gekkoukan, she wears a white collared shirt, a red ribbon tie, her red MP3 player, and the school skirt. During the days off in the summer, she wears a short-sleeved orange shirt over a red-and-white striped spaghetti strap top, a white skirt, and white sandals.

She is never seen without her earphones except in several events where such accessories would not be appropriate, such as the following: the beach excursion in Yakushima (where she wears a pink ribbon bikini); the Summer Festival (if the player chooses to wear a yukata); the brief school trip in Kyoto (in which she wears a bathrobe); and the post-New Years celebration in the nearby Shrine (in which she wears an orange kimono and replaces the usual barrettes in her hair with pink and red flower barrettes). Her High-Cut Armor is white in color. It is also said by Yukari that her ears are not pierced. She is also said to be very pretty.

When she was a young girl, she had short auburn hair down to her face, wore a red elementary school uniform, a red ribbon, dark red skirt, white socks, and gray shoes.

When Soejima was asked to create a female protagonist, he thought it would be easy to draw her. Soejima never drawn a female protagonist in his works. It was very difficult to distinguish differences between a heroine and a female protagonist. It wasn’t a problem limited to girls or boys, but with a protagonist, especially a juvenile protagonist, there will be a growth to adulthood and their personalities can not yet be solidified, the characterization of the heroine and the other characters will be different. Soejima somehow came up with the design, he felt she was a protagonist people would come to love.

Soejima drew this especially to pin facial expressions and atmosphere of the female protagonist. It was an image contrasting the cool male protagonist against the bright and lively female protagonist, the player named P3 protagonist is meant to be the player's alter ego.

Personality
She is a silent protagonist, as is the case with most Megami Tensei protagonists, although she does technically speak in battle when summoning a Persona and such.

Unlike the male protagonist or Megami Tensei protagonists in general, she is very bubbly, funny, upbeat, and cheerful. Her dialogue choices exhibit a broad spectrum of emotions, ranging from sarcasm, joking tones, utter seriousness, and otherwise depending on the player's choice. She is a sharp contrast to the male protagonist who is very reserved and concise where she, on the other hand, is not afraid to interject into conversations where her male counterpart would remain silent.

She is also said to be dependable and tough, just like how a leader should be. Although she seems to be always in high spirits, she hides her suffering and burden, which is why everyone, mostly Junpei Iori and Akihiko Sanada, worries so much about her.

Persona 3 Portable
She shares the same backstory as her male counterpart. She is an orphan whose parents died on the Moonlight Bridge during a fatal incident a decade prior to the game. She also begins her story when she transfers to Gekkoukan, becomes aware of the Dark Hour, obtains her Persona and becomes a member of the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad, or SEES for short.

However, unlike with the male protagonist route, her story can be slightly altered. If she initiates the Moon Social Link with Shinjiro Aragaki and maxes it before the October 4th Full Moon Operation, his death will not occur, and he will instead spend the rest of the game in a coma. During the last days of the female protagonist's route, a student will speak of his discharge from the hospital.

Another addition to the Female Route is that the player can choose who Igor's assistant is. Igor will ask the player whether they think his assistant is male or female, and selecting "male" will allow the player to unlock Theo as Igor's assistant, rather than Elizabeth. Theo is only available to the female protagonist, and cannot be unlocked for the male protagonist.

In the Female Route, the player can choose to pursue a romance with Ryoji, Theodore/Elizabeth, Shinjiro, Akihiko, Aigis and/or Ken.

At the end of the game, she uses her power to defeat the Nyx Avatar. By default, Aigis meets with her on the roof. It's also possible for Akihiko, Shinjiro, and Ken to stay with her.

Battle Quotes

 * "Orpheus!" or the name of the current Persona she is using (Enemy weak to attack/critical with Phys skill)
 * "Persona!" (When summoning Persona)
 * "I summon you!" (When summoning Persona)
 * "Here!" (When using items)
 * "Hah! Take this!" (When attack is Critical at an enemy)

Trivia

 * The in-game interface while using the female protagonist is pink, rather than blue. Also, it can be stated that the female protagonist wears orange in the majority of her casual clothing, since orange is the complementary color of blue (the color the male protagonist usually wears) in the color wheel.
 * The female protagonist's bed is pink, even though her curtains are blue.
 * The barrettes in her hair can be seen as the roman numeral "XXII," which corresponds to the Fool arcana (The Fool may be either 0 or 22) and is used to indicate that she is a new character (Persona 3 originally had 21 characters representing an Arcana, the female protagonist is the 22nd).
 * She is dubbed as MShe/FeMC/Minako Arisato by Western fans and Hamuko (ハム子 / 公子) by Japanese fans, loosely interpreting the last Kanji character for shujinkou (主人公) as Katakana. This refers to the early official P3P screen shot in which her name was written as "主人 公子" or shujin kouko (which means main character girl) (with "ko" as a suffix for female names).
 * In a Famitsu special, she was dubbed Runako Gekkou (月光ルナ子, Gekkō Runako).
 * All of her attack animations follow the "Slash" attack animation, as well as during a critical attack.
 * After finishing the game with the female protagonist, the credits roll only show the outline of (female) Orpheus as her silhouette passes by. This is in contrast with the rest of the SEES members and the male protagonist himself, who all have their ultimate Persona appear during the credits.
 * In some Social Links events (i.e. Magician, Moon, and Star) and Drama CD, she has a tendency to over gorge herself on food, similar to the male protagonist of Persona 3 in the manga adaptation. Some girls in her Social Links and SEES members said that sometimes they are jealous on how she eats a lot and yet can stay slim all the time. In addition to this, Akihiko states that she'll get angry if someone, particularly Junpei, takes her food without permission.
 * For the remake of an All-Out Attack in Persona 3 Portable, her eyes are shown to be brown even though her artwork shows them to be crimson.
 * When using the fusion spell Cadenza her Orpheus portrait does not change, unlike the male protagonist.
 * In Persona 3: the Weird Masquerade -Gunjou no Meikyuu-, she falls in love with Shinjiro Aragaki.
 * In game dialogue, the female protagonist is the only one to speak a full sentence.