50 Fun Facts About Persona 3

During the Dark Hour in Persona 3, the hidden time between one day and the next, ordinary people turn into what?

Coffins are what most people become during the Dark Hour, a change the game calls Transmogrification. They stay unaware of the hour, so only a select few are awake to face the Shadows.

Members of SEES in Persona 3 summon their Personas with an Evoker, a device shaped like what?

A handgun is the Evoker's shape because Mitsuru wanted a design that would grab Akihiko's attention when she recruited him. Atlus kept the Evokers in the Western release, and no complaints followed.

In Persona 3, the online gamer 'Maya' who befriends the protagonist in an MMORPG is secretly who in real life?

His homeroom teacher, Ms. Toriumi, is the player behind Maya, who ends the Hermit Social Link by confessing her love in the game. Maya's name and Innocent Sin Online both nod to Persona 2.

Koromaru, the SEES member in Persona 3 who summons his Persona with a special collar, is which breed of dog?

Shiba Inu is Koromaru's breed, and he joined SEES after guarding the shrine of his late master, a priest, through the Dark Hour. In battle he bites down on a knife.

In Persona 3, SEES buys its weapons and armor at Paulownia Mall from Kurosawa, a man in which unlikely job?

A police officer, Kurosawa sells SEES its gear from the station in Paulownia Mall even though he is not conscious during the Dark Hour. By Persona 4 Arena he has been promoted to detective.

Which Shadow-filled tower, visible only during the Dark Hour, does SEES climb night after night in Persona 3?

Tartarus rises where Gekkoukan High School stands by day, so the heroes are climbing their own school. In the original game, staying inside too long left party members Tired or Sick.

Which former SEES member, a childhood friend of Akihiko, dies shielding a younger teammate from a bullet in Persona 3?

Shinjiro Aragaki takes the shot on October 4, having quit SEES two years earlier when his Persona went out of control. In Persona 3 Portable, the female protagonist can help him survive.

A viral typo famously replaced one word in the title of which Persona 3 signature song with a bakery staple?

Burn My Dread became 'Burn My Bread' in the meme. An extended version of the song also appears on the 2007 arranged album named after it.

Which 'maternal being', the creator of all Shadows, is the final boss of Persona 3's main story?

Nyx cannot actually be killed: SEES beats only an avatar, and the protagonist then gives his own life to become the Great Seal that holds her back.

Which Persona of the Fool Arcana is the first one awakened by the protagonist of Persona 3?

Orpheus is his starting Persona, and it looks different when the player picks the female protagonist in Persona 3 Portable. His rare power then lets him wield more than 150 others.

Yukari Takeba, the popular classmate who lives in the protagonist's dorm, fights with which weapon in Persona 3?

A bow and arrow is Yukari's weapon, and her skill with it later lands her a television role as a costumed ranger while she works as a model to pay for college.

Akihiko Sanada, a Persona 3 senior who pairs high grades with constant training, captains Gekkoukan High in which sport?

Boxing is Akihiko's sport, which is why he fights Shadows with gloves and claws. An injury suffered during the Dark Hour keeps him out of battle for the first part of the game.

Which shy Persona 3 student, locked in the school gym by bullies, later replaces Mitsuru as SEES's battle support?

Fuuka Yamagishi survives inside the Dark Hour's tower because Shadows cannot detect her. Her Persona reads enemy weaknesses, which frees Mitsuru to fight on the front line.

Which member of Strega falls for Junpei Iori in Persona 3 and later gives up her own life to revive him?

Chidori Yoshino spends her Persona's life energy to bring Junpei back after he is fatally wounded. He later inherits her sketchbook, which turns out to be filled with drawings of him.

Which Gekkoukan High chairman and SEES adviser, known for his silly jokes, betrays the team late in Persona 3?

Shuji Ikutsuki tells SEES that destroying twelve great Shadows will end the Dark Hour, when it really hastens the end of the world. He even doctored a dead scientist's video message to keep them fooled.

Which Persona 3 transfer student, known for asking out every girl he meets, turns out to be Death in human form?

Ryoji Mochizuki only learns what he is when Aigis confronts him, and he then offers SEES a way out: kill him and forget everything. Aigis had warned from their first meeting that he was dangerous.

Which assistant to Igor keeps the Persona Compendium and hands out special requests in Persona 3's Velvet Room?

Elizabeth can be taken on outings beyond the Velvet Room in later editions. By Persona 4 she has left her post to look for a way to free the Persona 3 hero from his fate, and her sister Margaret fills in.

Igor's Velvet Room, where the protagonist fuses new Personas, takes the form of what in Persona 3?

An elevator that never stops rising is the Velvet Room's form here, and only the protagonist can enter it. He gains access by signing a contract offered by a mysterious child.

In Persona 3, the powerful Arcana Shadows strike the city only on nights marked by what?

A full moon brings each of these boss battles, a pattern Akihiko works out during the mission to rescue a missing classmate. A mysterious boy also visits the hero's room to warn that one is near.

In Persona 3's battles, knocking down every enemy at once lets the whole party pile in with which move?

All-Out Attack is the reward for flooring every enemy, with all able party members rushing in for massive damage. Knocking a foe down, by hitting a weakness or landing a critical, also earns an extra turn.

The silent protagonist of Persona 3, named by the player in the game, goes by which name in the film series?

Makoto Yuki is the name the films gave him, and later games made it official. The manga calls him Minato Arisato instead, while the stage musicals use a third name.

Persona 3 FES added which playable epilogue starring Aigis, later remade as downloadable content for Persona 3 Reload?

The Answer traps SEES in a dorm where March 31 keeps repeating, and it drops the school-life side of the game entirely. In Japan the chapter is titled Episode Aegis.

Which elementary school student is the youngest member of SEES in Persona 3 and fights with a spear?

Ken Amada picked the spear to make up for his lack of height, though his size also makes it harder to handle. He joins SEES over his mother's death two years earlier.

What name does Persona 3 give the protagonist's rare power to carry many Personas and switch between them in battle?

The Wild Card belongs to him alone at first, but Aigis awakens the same power after his death, in the epilogue added by Persona 3 FES.

On a summer trip to which Japanese island does SEES first meet the android Aigis in Persona 3?

Yakushima is where the team is on a beach holiday when Aigis turns up, the target of both Mitsuru's retrieval mission and Junpei's 'Operation Babe Hunt'. She at once wants to protect the protagonist and cannot say why.

In Persona 3, helping Yukari Takeba mend her relationship with her mother advances the Social Link of which Arcana?

The Lovers is Yukari's Arcana, and with the right choices she falls for the protagonist. If the player dates no one at all, she is the one who turns up for every dating event.

When Persona 3 was localized for the West, Mitsuru Kirijo's second language was changed from English to which language?

French replaced English as Mitsuru's second language, a choice influenced by her cultured appearance. The school tests, built around English-language questions, had to be changed as well.

Getting a classroom question right in Persona 3 rewards the protagonist with a boost to which social stat?

Charm, not Academics, is what a correct reply in class earns. Now and then the protagonist can instead feed the right reply to his classmate Junpei, and the reward is the same.

In Persona 3, what must the class name when school nurse Mr. Edogawa asks for the mystical study of Jewish texts?

Kabbalah is the reply Mr. Edogawa wants, in one of his many lessons on the history of magic. His questions from the original game are the only classroom questions left unchanged in every later version.

In Persona 3, Mr. Edogawa quizzes the class on two Greek sorceresses he covered: Medea and which other?

Circe is the second sorceress, the enchantress who turns Odysseus's men into swine in Homer's epic. Medea, the other, lends her name to a Persona wielded by one of the Strega trio.

Which founder of Theosophy must Persona 3's class name when Mr. Edogawa lectures on the roots of magical societies?

Helena Blavatsky is the name he wants: the Russian-born mystic co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875. The original game's script calls her Madam Blavatsky.

Which mysterious boy appears in the protagonist's bedroom at night in Persona 3 to warn him of ordeals to come?

Pharos is the Death Arcana Social Link, which ranks up automatically as the story advances. His memory starts out in fragments, and he says goodbye in November once he recalls his purpose.

On which day must the player of Persona 3 decide whether to kill the Appriser and wipe SEES's memories?

New Year's Eve is decision day. Killing him skips the story to Graduation Day, where the team has forgotten everything and the world later ends; sparing him leads to the final battle on January 31.

Koromaru, the dog who fights beside SEES in Persona 3, summons which Persona of the Strength Arcana?

Cerberus gives Koromaru Fire and Darkness skills, and because he walks on four legs he calls it with a special collar instead of an Evoker. In Persona 4 Arena Ultimax he fights as one half of a duo.

Which leader of Strega, the revolver-carrying main antagonist of Persona 3, summons his Persona without an Evoker?

Takaya Sakaki calls his Persona, Hypnos, by clutching his head and dropping to his knees. Knowing he has little time left, he ends up founding a cult that welcomes the end of the world.

Which Atlus composer wrote Persona 3's vocal-heavy soundtrack and brought back the Velvet Room theme 'Aria of the Soul'?

Shoji Meguro said the PlayStation 2's streamed audio finally let him write without compromise, after years of squeezing music into tiny samples that he felt sounded cheap.

Which studio animated the second, third and fourth Persona 3 films after AIC ASTA produced the first?

A-1 Pictures took over from the second film, Midsummer Knight's Dream, in 2014. The game's main Japanese voice actors reprised their roles throughout the four-film series.

A new event in Persona 3 Portable sends the player to Inaba to meet a younger version of which Persona 4 heroine?

Yukiko Amagi turns up in Inaba, the town where Persona 4 unfolds two years later. A second cameo has that game's Ms. Kashiwagi making a pass at Akihiko during the beach trip.

Persona 3 Reload, the modern remake, dropped Atlus's in-house tools and was built with which third-party software?

Unreal Engine 4 replaced the proprietary engine Atlus relied on for Persona 5 Royal, and it drives the remake's new lighting effects. Reload's character models started from those made for the 2018 dancing spin-off.

In Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, Persona 3's Yukari Takeba, now an actress, plays which ranger on a Featherman TV show?

Feather Pink is her role in Phoenix Sentai Featherman Victory, a show that parodies the Super Sentai series. While she is filming on location, Mitsuru arrives by helicopter to ask for her help.

Akihiko's Persona in Persona 3 is Polydeuces; which Persona, named for its mythical twin, does his childhood friend use?

Castor suits the pair: in Greek myth Castor and Polydeuces are twin brothers, and the two boys grew up together in an orphanage. Losing control of this Persona once is what drove its user out of SEES.

Persona 3 FES and Portable let the protagonist date the android Aigis through a Social Link of which Arcana?

Aeon is the Arcana of Aigis's Social Link, and when it is maxed she confesses her love to the protagonist. In battle, though, her Personas Palladion and Athena belong to the Chariot.

Strega, the trio of rogue Persona-users in Persona 3, takes on assassination contracts through which website?

Revenge Request lets users hire Strega for killings carried out in the Dark Hour, which is why the trio fights SEES's effort to end it. Jin, the group's hacker, runs the site.

Atlus delayed Persona 3's North American launch three weeks over a manufacturing problem with which boxed extra?

The art book, a 52-page volume, hit a production snag days before shipping. Rather than sell the collector's box without it, Atlus moved the release from July 24 to August 14, 2007.

Which name did the stage musicals give Persona 3 Portable's female protagonist, played there by Kana Asumi?

Kotone Shiomi was coined for the musical The Weird Masquerade, whose male lead shares her surname. Persona 5: The Phantom X later adopted it as her name.

Persona Q, the 3DS spin-off uniting Persona 3's SEES with the Persona 4 cast, borrows gameplay from which Atlus series?

Etrian Odyssey lends Persona Q elements of its dungeon-crawling play. In the story, SEES is pulled into an unfamiliar school and must work with Persona 4's Investigation Team to escape.

Vincent Brooks, who makes a cameo appearance in Persona 3 Portable, is the lead character of which other Atlus game?

Catherine's hero Vincent is one of several characters from other Atlus games added to Persona 3 Portable as cameos. The handheld version also swapped the anime cutscenes for in-game graphics.

Which performer was the sub vocalist on Persona 3's original soundtrack and returned in that role for Persona 3 Reload?

Lotus Juice came back for the remake and asked for changes to the vocal tracks, including rewritten lyrics that better fit the scenes. The lead vocals, by contrast, passed from Yumi Kawamura to Azumi Takahashi.

Which illustrator took over character design for Persona 3 from Kazuma Kaneko, who wanted him to gain experience?

Shigenori Soejima felt real pressure not to disappoint the series' fans. He spent longer on the protagonist than on anyone else, since the rest of the cast was drawn to complement that design.

In Persona 3, Yukari Takeba's Personas Io and Isis let her cast magic of which element?

Wind is Yukari's element, cast first through Io and later through Isis. Isis is still at her side when she returns as a fighter in Persona 4 Arena Ultimax.