Innocent Sin:
Maya is a friendly, outgoing, silly, extremely nutty older-sister figure, who is more likely to giggle and tell bad jokes. She's the warm heart of the party, keeping them cheered up when things are going badly, and providing the voice of an adult (sort of) to the kids. She's loud, talkative, friendly, and kind; she almost never shuts up in Tsumi!
Maya's motto is "Let's Think Positively!" ("Let's Positive Thinking" in her special brand of Engrish) and even at the worst of times, she keeps a smile on her face and tries to find a silver lining in the situation. Her optimism and refusal to give up has saved the group more than once; instead of despairing, she thinks of a way to solve their current problems. However, despite her unending cheerfulness, she's fully aware of how bad the situation is, and is privately rather doubtful that things will turn out well. But instead of depressing the "kids" with her worries, she tells them that everything will surely be okay, and her strength keeps them going. At first I wasn't sure about her, but she grew on me, and you only realize how important she is when she is replaced by Shadow Maya, who only says pessimistic, snarky things about humanity.
Maya has a great fear of fire, and the only time you see her lose her cool is when confronted with a burning building. She cowers and cries out for her father to save her. But she's brave and practical, and when trapped in the burning Air Museum, she doesn't lose control, but willingly goes through the building to save the schoolchildren trapped inside, even though she's essentially trapped in her worst nightmare. She's even willing to climb down a rope into a sea of flames to rescue Ixquic.
HISTORY
Maya's father, Masataka Amano, was a war correspondent, and was always away from home on various assignments. One of Maya's memories is that he took Maya to Alaya Shrine to pray that her dreams would come true. She said that she was wishing that Daddy would stay home, and he told her that journalism was an important job. She'd made him a little rabbit as a good-luck charm, and he told her to keep it instead until he came home, saying that if she cried, Mr. Rabbit would laugh at her. Sadly, Mr. Amano was killed, and she never saw him again. So the bunny reminds her of her father. Deep in her heart, she's angry at her father for being so selfish and putting his job over his family, so she wants to be a journalist who can balance her family and her career.
Maya continued to come to Alaya Shrine as a teenager and pray for her future, and during a festival, she saw four little masked kids playing together. She stopped to talk to them, and they invited her to join their group - the Masquerade, which could make her dreams come true. She was probably lonely and sad, so she joined the kids, becoming their older sister. She came every day to play with them, amusing herself with how they played and fought together. She taught them a game called "Persona," which was supposed to show you what you'd be like when you grew up.
Two of the boys, Red Eagle and Black Falcon, were especially attached to her, and one evening they came to her apartment complex and knocked on her window. At first she didn't recognize them; in the dusk, the two boys looked like twins. But then she realized that it was Red Eagle and Black Falcon without their masks, and she took them to the park near her house to hang out with them. She told them about a German poem she'd read; the two kids were the "doppelgangers" of the poem, and she encouraged them to always be good friends. They in turn promised to always protect her.
At some point, her mother decided to move away, and she had to tell the children that she wouldn't be able to play with them anymore. She went to tell them, and they were heartbroken and begged her not to leave. Three of the children decided to lock her in the shrine overnight so she couldn't leave, and when Tatsuya protested, they locked him in there with her too.
Maya didn't panic, but played with Tatsuya all evening in the shrine so that he wouldn't get scared. When it became dark, the arsonist Tatsuya Sudou came to Alaya and set it afire. When she realized that the shrine was burning, Maya presumably helped Tatsuya escape out of a window, and banged on the door, telling him to run away, since the arsonist was still out there. For the first time, she summoned her persona and was able to escape the burning shrine, but she was badly burnt in the attempt. Because the other three kids thought she'd died in the fire, a rumor spread that a little girl's ghost haunted Mt. Iwato.
Soon after that, she moved away with her mom and didn't return to the area until she took a job in Kismet Publishing in Aoba. She was made editor of the teen magazine Coolest, and with her friend and parner Yukino, they went around the city collecting info on the newest teen fads, such as the new "Joker Charm" or the "Joker Curse." (You may remember Mizuno complaining about Maya's article "The Dream of the Rumored Student" in Batsu. In Tsumi, the rumored student was Jun, but in Batsu, it's probably Tatsuya. That whole doppelganger thing again.)
Maya had a stalker who she was worried about; this was Tatsuya Sudou again, who thought she was a Witch for having escaped him with her Persona power. So when he took off his mask at the Air Museum, she knew exactly who was chasing them...
In Xibalba, Maya quotes the second half of the poem "Le calmant" ("Sedative") by Marie Laurencin (translated into Japanese from the French; here's the original poem in French and English.) Maya adds on two lines of her own:
Worse than forgotten Is being a woman who ties people down.
Maya would never want to become the kind of person who causes pain and sadness to those she loves, the way that the rest of the group was traumatized by their childhood losses. If she were to die, she would want them to forget her completely so they could be happy. At the end of Tsumi, that's why she tells them to "hurry up and forget about me," unlike most characters who tell people not to forget about them when they die.
That's why at the end of Eternal Punishment, it was really strange (in my opinion) for Maya to even CONSIDER clinging to Tatsuya, weeping and begging him to take her with him. That would be creating ties for him and making it harder for Tatsuya to leave peacefully. By refusing to forget and move on, Tatsuya would be betraying her dream too....
FUTURE
Unknown!
TRIVIA
Maya's theme song is called "Open your heart," and you can hear it several places. The "uprifting house mix" is available on the drama CD, "Errors of their Youth", and I like it a lot. She uses it as her cell phone ringtone in Tsumi, it plays when she first enters the scene in Sevens...in Batsu, the background music for Sevens is a remix of "Open your heart."
Maya is a font of obscure foreign poetry, even at a young age. The two poems she quotes in Tsumi are Marie Laurencin's "Le calmant" and Heinrich Heine's "Der Doppelganger."
Maya works at Kismet Publishing. Kismet means "destiny" or "fate". The major publications are the Weekly Coolest (for teens), the Weekly Mu (paranormal phenomena) and Weekly Gourmet Gems (a cooking/foodie magazine). She hates cooking, cleaning, and is bad at applying makeup; her room is a total mess. She has an entire outfit that only cost 1 yen (less than a cent) - there was some television promo that a certain store was selling clothing at 1 yen apiece, so she raced down there and shopped like crazy. (I guess her current outfit cost ten yen, then?)
She met her roommate Ulala Serizawa in high school, and they must have been living together ever since graduation.
Maya's precious keepsake is a small worn handmade bunny; she calls him "Mr. Rabbit" and uses him to cheer Tatsuya up in the Bomb Shelter. "If you're sad, Mr. Rabbit will laugh at you! Hop, hop!"
OFFICIAL PROFILE
Nicknames: Makki (used by Fujii), Big Sis Maya, Big Sis
Birthdate: July 4, 1976
Zodiac Sign: Cancer / Fire Dragon
Guardian Dragon: Light
Height/Weight: 168 cm (5'6") / 48 kg (106 lbs)
Bloodtype: O
Occupation: Journalist at Kismet Publishing (assigned to the teen magazine "Coolest")
Tarot Arcana: Moon
Elemental Affinity: Water
Starting PERSONA: Maia
Ultimate PERSONA: Artemis
Weapons: Cute pink handguns
Appearance: Well-endowed. The right side of her chest has a severe burn scar that she got when she was younger. She actually wears pants most of the time.
Idle Animation: While lost in thought, she tugs her earlobe.
Likes: Driving (although she's terrible at it), people-watching (she's a reporter, she has an instinct for it)
Favorite Sports: None (actually, she really enjoys scuba diving and aquatic sports)
Family: Father (Masataka Amano, a war photographer killed on the job when she was in middle school), Mother
Talents: Jan-ken-pon (she almost always uses "pon") and arguing
Favorite Foods: Canned crab (she really likes crab), ramen
Hated Foods: Crab roe, kusaya
Phobias: Fire (she has a terrible phobia of fire ever since she was caught in a burning building), cleaning (take a look at her room), alcohol (absolutely no tolerance!), mornings (she has low blood pressure which makes it hard to get out of bed in the mornings, and because of the nature of her job, she couldn't help becoming a night person), dating (basically, she's married to her job), makeup and cooking (Ulala takes care of both)
Dream: To be a successful journalist who can juggle a career and a family
Games: Main party character in Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment
Voice Actor: Akiko Yajima
Eternal Punishment:
Amano Maya is the main character in Batsu, as opposed to being a playable in Tsumi. Personally, I think she's a very strange choice for a silent Main....because she's probably the most talkative character in the entire Batsu party! Maya isn't solemn and quiet and withdrawn; she's very much like her best friend Ulala in that she loves to talk and do things and interact with people. (Do you think an angsty, silent type would have been able to put up with living with a noisy person like Ulala for so many years?) She's really a nice, friendly, talkative person...if a little bit absent-minded.
Q: Is Maya different in Tsumi and Batsu?
A: At the core, she is no different. Since Batsu Maya never met any of the kids, she was never pushed into the Big Sister role, and I think therefore she's got a little bit of a softer atmosphere. Since everyone around her is older than she is, it is not necessary for her to pretend to be more adult than she is. However, even though she doesn't make a big deal out of small things, she does firmly state her opinion, often enough to have frequent conflicts with the editor in-chief. That's pretty amazing, someone who's only been with the company for two or three years yet gives her opinions to the editor in-chief. That's why she's thought of as audacious and kept an eye on. Well, life doesn't have places where you can do as you like so easily.
[Editorialization: Kya thinks that this is perhaps Satomi Tadashi using the Maya interview as a chance to lament the situation of being the upstart n00b in a company! *laugh*]
Maya works for the Kismet Publishing Company - kismet is an old-fashioned word for fate. She's an editor and reporter for the teen magazine Coolest, which seems to cover teen issues and rumors and fashions. In Tsumi, she was sent to Seven Sisters to find out about the Joker Charm and to possibly discover the identity of the elusive Joker-sama. And of course, when time repeats in Batsu, she's sent to Sevens to find out about the Joker Curse. In Tsumi, she went with Yukino, and in Batsu, she went with Ulala.
The article she was working on that got her a scolding from her boss interests me. It's called "the Dream of the Rumored Student" (uwasa no koukousei no yume). In Tsumi, the "rumored student" was Jun - he was a transfer student into Kasugayama, but almost nobody had met him, since he was always skipping school (making people his bitches, you know.) I guess on This Side, the rumored student would be Tatsuya, then! Those wacky doppelgangers.
Q: Why did she become an editor?
A: It's a field that resembles her father's, and because Maya's goal is to do a job that lets her make people's dreams come true. If she were just a reporter, no matter what, reporting truth would be her utmost priority, don't you think. Reality tends to be brutal and savage, but the people who are within that reality are trying so hard - I think that's the kind of article that she'd like to write. But she got totally carried away with that feeling, proposed a project called "Everyone's Dreams" and was asked, "Are you an idiot?" *laugh* Even though she thought she was a genius. Maya doesn't notice the gap between what she wants and what other people want very well. Someday, she might realize this, and change her field.
Q: Does she live only for her work?
A: She thinks that she wants to have both a job and a family simultaneously, but right now that's still impossible. While her father did love his family, in the end he was away at a war scene and never came home, therefore Maya thinks that in order to not end up like that, she wants to have both a beloved job and a beloved family. Though she can't cook at all. *laugh* She's thought that it's something she has to do, but since Ulala is around, she's probably just let herself depend on Ulala.
Since she has only been working for about two years at her current job, naturally Maya is still standing somewhere near the starting line. Up until now she's mastered doing odd jobs, and finally has come to be allowed to do interviewing... she's got a ways to go from here.
The topic of Maya's father is covered in Tsumi, but not so much in Batsu. Maya's father was a war photographer who got killed on the job when Maya was perhaps nine years old. (He's the one she gave the handmade stuffed bunny to, and he told her to keep it.) She loved her father, and admired his work ("bringing truth to people"), but at the same time she resented how he put his job over the happiness of his family - never being home, and finally getting himself killed so he never could come home. So that's why she chose to go into the field of journalism, promising herself that she'd put her family on the same level as her job. But actually, she apparently doesn't have much time to date, since "her work is her lover"! *laugh* Ironic...
Q: What about her father's death?
A: She was very lonely. Because she said she'd be a good girl and wait, and then her father didn't return home...I think she must be very regretful. In reaction to that, she has the tendency to energetically pretend to be happy. I think that Maya's oft-said "Let's Positive Thinking" (Let's Think Positively) came from that as well. In the initial setting, Fujii was going to be acquainted with Maya's father, since they were both photographers. That scene didn't appear in the game, but they certainly know each other. I think that she will have the opportunity to meet other people who knew her father, since they work in similar fields. Therefore, she might still be influenced by him.
When time was reset at the end of Tsumi, Jun's father, Kashihara-sensei, was brought back to life, but not Maya's father. Why? Because apparently the only things reset were the events that happened as a direct result of the children meeting at the shrine and Nyarlathotep's influence. Maya's father died naturally before any of that happened.
Maya lives with Ulala in the Lunar Palace apartment buildings in Konan-ku. Looks like they have an ocean view!
Q: How about her relationship to Ulala?
A: They met during high school. They were the same year in school, but since Ulala repeated a grade, she was actually a year older. At first, she treated Ulala as her senior, but I think that little-by-little they became better friends. Since Maya was spacey ever since then, perhaps Ulala felt like she couldn't just leave her alone. "There's no other choice," Ulala thought, as she was concerned about Maya, and and they came to live together. Maya was also the one who taught Ulala the Persona-sama game. I think that Ulala probably said, "I wonder what the future will be like?" Maya said, "Well, wanna try it?" and like that, they played the game. Oh, Maya. You're always wreaking havoc by teaching people that damn game!
When Maya ran into Tatsuya (and the other Tsumi kids) at the train station, she developed a mysterious bruise on her chest, that hurt her whenever she thought about certain things. On the Tsumi side, she had terrible burns over half of her chest and part of her arm from when she was trapped in the burning Araya Shrine when she was a kid. (Sudou Tatsuya burned down the shrine with her in it, and stabbed little Suou Tatsuya in the back when he tried to save his Maya-nee. You see that in the flashback at Araya Shrine.) She also had quite a phobia of fire, too, but on this side, since those things never happened, they don't bother her!
Q: Is the mark that Maya has on her body in Batsu a burn mark?
A: Tsumi Maya had marks from burn scars, but Batsu Maya was never involved in a fire, so she does not have those burn scars. That mark is from being stabbed with the Lance of Longinus in the ending of Tsumi. At first, she didn't have it, but as she became involved with the incident and experienced more deja vu, it slowly began to appear. But since she doesn't have any memories of what happened to her, she doesn't think anything of it other than, "I wonder if I bumped into something?" She doesn't pay much attention to it. But I think that even after the incident ended, it still remained.
On the topic of the scars, Tsumi Maya thought about scuba diving, but the burn scars bothered her and she wasn't able to go through with it. But Batsu Maya doesn't have those scars, so she does have a scuba diving license. She dives deep in the ocean, touches the crabs, and says things like, "Looks tasty." *laugh*
Hahaha, Maya-nee, you're so cute! *laugh*
Tatsuya always calls her Maya-nee, a distinction that's lost in English, I guess. He apparently only thinks of her as a big sister - since that's what she was to him on the Other Side. Macking on her would be like macking on his mother, it seems. But what does she think of her little love triangle?
Q: Does she like Katsuya? Or does she like Tatsuya?
A: That's up to the player. Since Maya represents the player, if that person likes Katsuya, then Maya likes Katsuya. And if the player prefers Tatsuya, then that means she will fall for Tatsuya. If I were Maya, I'd pick Tatsuya. But Big Brother is a really great guy...I'm sorry...you know. *laugh* But since Maya has the "big sister" mentality going on in Tsumi, if she did this and that with Tatsuya, it would be kind of awkward, but in Batsu I don't think she has that problem.
As for the very ending of Batsu - what does it mean? Did she pass another little test of Philemon's by not talking to Tatsuya? I guess that's open to interpretation.
PERSONAL INFORMATION (Note at the bottom: I spilled coffee on this, sorry!)
NAME: Amano Maya (“V–ì@•‘–ë)
NICKNAMES: Makki (Fujii), Maya-nee (Tatsuya -"Big Sister Maya"), Amano-kun (Katsuya), Ma-ya (Ulala), Ms. AMANO (Eriko)
BIRTHDAY: July 4, 1976 (23 in Batsu)
ZODIAC SIGN: Cancer
CHINESE ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Fire Dragon
GUARDIAN DRAGON: Light Dragon
HEIGHT: 168 cm [5' 6"]
WEIGHT: 48 kg [106 lbs]
BLOODTYPE: O
OCCUPATION: "Magazine Journalist for Kismet Publishing (pick up a copy of Coolest!)"
TAROT ARCANA: Moon
ELEMENTAL AFFINITY: Water
STARTING PERSONA: Maia
ULTIMATE PERSONA: Artemis
WEAPON: cute-cute pink handguns
LIKES: "Driving in my beloved car. But lately Ulala won't ride with me...why not???"
FAMILY: "I live together with Ulala. I think I do nothing but cause her trouble..."
TALENTS: "Rock-Paper-Scissors. I almost never lose!! (Scissors!!)"
FAVORITE FOODS: "*CRAB*. The kind in a can is cheap and you get a lot for your money."
WHY? "Because I'm a Cancer...maybe?"
HATED FOODS: Crab roe (crab eggs) - ("That's not crab!")
DISLIKES/IS UNCOMFORTABLE WITH: "Cleaning and cooking and stuff. (I've always been bad at them.)"
DO YOU HAVE ANY HABITS: "Touching my earlobe. I do it a lot when I'm thinking about something."
DREAM: "To become a great journalist! To have both a family and a job!"
ANY LAST WORDS? "Later--------! <3"
GAMES: Main party character in Tsumi and Batsu.
SEIYUU: Yajima Akiko
MOST COMPATIBLE ARCANA: MOON, HERMIT, MAGICIAN, TEMPERANCE, FOOL, ROD, PENTACLE
INDIVIDUAL CONTACT:
INTERVIEW
AMUSING GROUP CONTACTS:
ULALA+MAYA+(MALE CHARACTER): WOMEN WANTING TO MARRY
MAYA+ULALA: BURN, SEXY WOMEN!
MAYA+KATSUYA: ADVISE
NANJOU+KATSUYA (+MAYA): DEBATE 'TIL DAWN
MAYA+NANJOU: SPECIAL REPORT!
Her blood type is O, and according to Japanese tradition, type O is "strongly purpose oriented, independent, takes chances, has a dramatic life, dislikes subordination, can be self centered, is romantic, expressive and straight."
Maya's tarot affiliation is Moon. The Moon is a very feminine card (it seems...), a card of illusion, confusion, unreality, and possibly deception. I personally think it fits her better in Batsu, when she's trying to find out the truth about herself and her past.
Maya's initial persona is Maia. Maia was a Titan, the daughter of Atlas (...) and the eldest of the Pleiades (the seven sisters). She was very shy and lived in a cave far from people (which made her a convenient target for a married god with a peevish wife...) She caught the eye of the king of the gods, Zeus, and their child was Hermes.
Maia's spells: Hama, Invitation to Sleep, Scratch, Maha Aques, Medirama, Multi Dimension, Recarm
Maya's ultimate persona is Artemis. Artemis is one of those lunar goddess with both beautiful and terrible forms, and she seems to have had quite a temper as well. She was a beautiful maiden huntress, the twin sister of Apollo, and spent all her time in the deep forests with her band of hunter-nymphs. Like her brother, she was an excellent archer, but her silver arrows brought an icy, painless deaths to her victims, unlike her brother's burning arrows of plague. Most of the stories involve Artemis gruesomely punishing the people who pissed her off. Examples: Actaeon (a hunter who accidentally came upon the pool where Artemis was bathing, and was turned into a stag so that his hunting dogs tore him to pieces), Niobe (a queen of Thebes who bragged that her fourteen children were better than the twins Apollo and Artemis, and got every single one of her children struck down by the arrows of the goddess and her brother for her pride), Agamemnon (he boasted that one of his shots had been better than Artemis herself, so Artemis changed the winds in the bay so the ships assembling for the Trojan War couldn't leave, and demanded the sacrifice of Agamemnon's oldest daughter, Iphigenia, to appease her wrath) and so on. Um...make of this what you will.
Artemis's spells: Bufudyne, Hypnotic Wave, Absolute Zero, Diarahan, Crescent Mirror, Diamond Dust
Maya is a Cancer all over (another description) Cancer is an extremely maternal, family-oriented sign, perfect for Maya-nee. And then you have this amusing quote: "Cancerians are strongly influenced by childhood memories, and have a tendency to live in the past. By nature, very giving and selfless, they need to be aware of falling into the role of martyr in certain situations." This also explains why Maya loves canned crab, right? :D
BATTLE PHRASES:
Enter Battle
Chome-Chome taimu! (Whoop-ass time!)
Yaru wa yo, minna! (Let's do it, guys!)
Low HP
Mazui wa ne! (This is not good!)
Regular Attack
Soko! (There!)
Snappu shuuto! (Snap Shoot!)
Odorinasai! (Dance for me!)
Persona Summon
Persona!
Saa, itte!
CIA~O!
Artemis! (When using Crescent Mirror)
Fusion Magic
Iku wa yo! Ii wa ne?
Minna! Kite!
LET'S-ra GO!
Damage
Aa!
Death
Uso! (No way!!)
Win
Chome-Chome kanryo! (Whoop-ass completed!)
Gomen nasai...
Yarisugichatta? (Did I overdo it?)
Maa, konna mon ka na...
Konna kanji...doko ka de.... (Where have I had this feeling... - middle of events)
Watashi wa kare ni aitai no...jyama shinai de! (I need to meet him again...don't get in my way! - middle of events)
Everyone Dies
Dame yo...konna toko de...
Tatsuya-kun....gomen...
Escape
Ketsumakutte nigeru wa yo~! (Grab your asses and run!)
O-A-ZU-KE (See-you-next-time!)
