Aigis (Persona 3)

Aigis Don't worry. I will always be by your side, protecting you... Gender: Female Age: 9-10 (Persona 3) 12 (Persona 4 Arena Ultimax) 16 (Persona 5) Species: Robot Portrayed by: Maaya Sakamoto (JP) Karen Strassman (EN; Original, FES, Portable, and Dancing in Moonlight) Dawn M. Bennett (EN; Reload) Status: Active Media of origin: Persona 3

"I exist to protect you."

— Aigis

Aigis is the main deutagonist from the videogame, Persona 3, the main protagonist of The Answer, the epilogue and aftermath of Persona 3 FES, and Persona 3's prequel, Aegis: First Mission, and one of the main characters of Persona 4 Arena Ultimax. She is an anti-Shadow weapon (seemingly the last one in existence) and a member of S.E.E.S..
She is played by Maaya Sakamoto, who had also voice Eto Yoshimura from Tokyo Ghoul, Quinella from Sword Art Online: Alicization, and Akito Sohma from the 2019 reboot of Fruits Basket.

Why She Rocks

1. When Aigis was first introduced, she is simply built just to exterminate shadows and follow orders. But as the game progresses and follow her Social Link, Aigis wants to know about why living is important as she learns about what it means to feel like a human.
2. Much like Schwi from the No Game No Life series, Aigis had fallen in love with Makoto even knowing she herself cannot die and so she will inevitably outlive him.
3. In Persona 3 The Movie: #3 Falling Down, Aigis wanted to redeem herself and apologizes to Makoto that it wasn't her intention to take Mr. Kirijo hostage, crucify the members of S.E.E.S. and use them as sacrifices while being controlled by Ikutsuki.
4. She's very powerful and strong, as she can stop a tank with her bare hands!
   • Aigis is also very athletic, as she can parkour everywhere against shadows.
5. She has her fair share of funny and cute antics, like lying down on the bottom of the hot springs to bathe, directly stare at Shinji, or waking Makoto up.
6. What's very impressive is that she herself is an Evoker, considering Aigis is a shadow exterminating robot, meaning she doesn't really need to shoot herself with a gun to summon her Persona.
7. Unlike other female characters in the Persona franchise, Aigis, alongside Maya Amano from Persona 2, are the only one who had impacted the installment's respective protagonist the most:
   • Her apology towards Makoto in the movie Falling Down is a major improvement over the game. Instead of constantly saying sorry to Makoto for being controlled by Ikutsuki, Aigis, even when malfunctioning shortly after the betrayal, still goes after Makoto and convinces him that his life matters alot to her, knowing her regrets ever since the incident with the Arcana of Death and sealing him inside Makoto when he was a child, and keeping him safe was her purpose.
   • Aigis has been very suspicious towards a new student named Ryoji Mochizuki, who had been very friendly towards Makoto. When she confronts Ryoji on the bridge, the boy now remembers he's the servant of Nyx. An incomplete fragment that resides inside Makoto ever since the incident on the bridge. Aigis gave her all to put up a fight against Ryoji, but was powered down after the Arcana of Death revealed his true power.
   • Right after Makoto made his choice by not killing Ryoji, she went after him by the time Ryoji left the dorm, but the Arcana of Death was nowhere to be found. And when Makoto arrived to confront the robot, Aigis starts breaking down and was prepared to end herself with her own bullets in sheer regret: after realizing her mission of stopping Ryoji failed, unknowingly caused the end of the world after she, and the rest of S.E.E.S. defeated the 12 Arcanas during the Dark Hour without ever realizing it was nothing more than a dastardly ploy by Ikutsuki until it was too late, the indirect deaths of Makoto's parents on the bridge, and why Makoto having to stay alone for 10 years was her fault. But Makoto calms her down, saying that Aigis was just doing her job, and had not been for her nor Ryoji, Makoto wouldn't be having friends in the first place, and found his one and only reason of living.
   • After the Dark Hour had finally ended, Aigis allowed Makoto to live like a normal highschool student for another month until graduation day (since the two are the only ones that remember their memories after the Dark Hour while everyone had theirs erased), comforted Makoto during his final moments before he is put to sleep for all eternity, and kept his Evoker to remember him by.
   • Aigis becomes the next protagonist, and gets a lot of development in Persona 3 FES' exclusive chapter The Answer:
     • She becomes devastated after losing Makoto, went back to being a machine, then at the end of the game, she develops into a strong-hearted girl with a talent of leadership, and regained her will to live, becoming more human than a machine. Yukari even admits that out of all the members of S.E.E.S., Aigis cared about Makoto the most, which is why out of all of them, she was the one who inherited his power.
     • After having a vision of Ken Amada dying at the hands of an unknown intruder (which was revealed to be Metis later on), Aigis had obtained the Velvet Room's Wild Card, and awakened to her Persona from Athena to Makoto's old Persona Orpheus. In short, a portion of Makoto's soul now resides with Aigis, and with Makoto's soul now in Aigis, she becomes more human throughout the epilogue.
8. Aigis has two themes:
   • Persona 3's ending theme Memories of You represents Aigis' experiences and feelings with Makoto; whether that being good or bad memories, she is very happy that she managed to be with him until Makoto died.
   • Her battle theme Heartful Cry symbolizes Aigis' growth since her debut:
     • The dubstep parts of the song that later turns into melody perfectly summarizes Aigis: her growth from a robot following orders to now a human with emotions.
     • The song playing as she is forced to fight her own teammates for having different ideologies and viewpoints of Makoto's death.
     • The sorrow portions of the song represents Aigis, while now a happy-go-lucky girl, she still misses Makoto and is unable to move on since he was the one that gave Aigis her purpose.
9. "I need your help!"
   • "Asta Lavista."
   • "I exist to protect you."
   • "I won't allow this world to be destroyed!"
   • "I... WON'T LET THAT HAPPEN ANYMORE!!!"

Bad Qualities

1. It was very confusing and out of character for Aigis and the female members of S.E.E.S. when she caught the male members during the hot springs (If you fail), when she's always seen wearing nothing but a collar with a red bowtie and the S.E.E.S. armband whenever they explore Tarturus.
2. Her getting physical upgrades (like rocket boosts, cannons or the Extreme Orgia Mode) in P4 Arena contradicts her character development of becoming more human than machine at the end of The Answer.
3. She is very unpredictable and random at times:
   • Such as breaking into the Makoto's room to wake him up five minutes early and requesting to be on standby in their room, which Yukari calls her out for.
   • Even going as far as to crash into Makoto, Junpei and Ryoji's room in Kyoto, claiming it was unfair that she and Makoto weren't in the same room.

Trivia

• Aigis is the only protagonist in the entire Shin Megami Tensei series who can speak fully. Aside from Ren Amamiya from Persona 5 being voiced so many times inside palaces.
  • She and Ren are the only ones that kept personal belongings that are currently with them (Makoto's evoker currently with Aigis, and Akechi's left glove currently with Ren) as a memory.
  • She is the second protagonist in the Persona series to be female, the first one being Maya Amano from Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, and the third being Kotone Shiomi.
    • Aigis is the franchise's youngest protagonist. Whereas Makoto/Kotone, Naoya, Tatsuya, Yu and Ren are 16-18, and Maya is 23.
• She, Makoto/Kotone, Ren, Akechi, Yu, Sho Minazuki, and Elizabeth are the only characters in Persona that have received a wild card so far.
  • Aigis is the second character to receive a Persona from its previous owner. But unlike Junpei (who's had his 2nd awakening after combining his and Chidori's Personas into Trismegistus), she had her original Persona transform into Orpheus.
• While perfectly able to understand Koromaru's thoughts at first, Aigis loses this ability little by little when she awakens to the powers of the Wild Card in The Answer. As the Wild Card makes her become more "human," she starts losing some of her mechanical traits: humans can't speak with dogs, so now that Aigis is more like a human, she can't understand dogs anymore.
• In the events of Persona 5, Aigis is 16 years old. The same age as most of the members of The Phantom Thieves of Hearts.
• The spelling "Aegis" as appears in the original Japanese region titles is technically a misspelling of アイギス in English. The correct spelling, "Aigis" is the acceptable rendering of the original Greek. In fact, Aigis is the preferred spelling of the proper noun by contemporary academic standards.
• In the ending anime scene of Persona 3 where Makoto sleeps on Aigis' lap, there is skin where Aigis' white suit used to be on her neck, and she has ears instead of the robotic headphone-like pieces she normally has. This could be symbolic to her having become more human.

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