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  Spoilers for Innocent Sin will definitely follow, so don't read if you want to play the game and find out for yourself. Consider yourself warned if you've only played Batsu. (A lot of the details of her backstory come from the game guide and the conversations between Kaneko Kazuma and Satomi Tadashi, if you're wondering.) PERSONALITY Ginko is a lively, talkative, energetic girl, the most popular girl in her high school. Although she looks like a foreigner (blonde hair, blue eyes - it's not stylistic, that's what she really looks like), she was born and raised in Japan. Her parents are naturalized Americans, and they were so enamored of Japan and the Japanese lifestyle that they decided to raise their daughter to be the perfect traditional Japanese lady - a "yamato nadeshiko" - you know, demure, quiet, feminine, doesn't talk back to her husband, suffers in silence, handles the household, all that. Instead they got...Lisa. Teenage rebellion is a strange thing. >D Lisa has major Issues with her parents; she hates their obsession with Japan and all things Japanese and the whole "yamato nadeshiko" bit. (For what it's worth, the Silverman house is just south of Seven Sisters High School in Rengedai. You can see it but can't enter in P2:EP. It's a very...traditional Japanese house, the kind you expect to see in old movies. Lisa's dad, Steven Silverman, gives out the results of the magazine giveaways.) Lisa is a huge fan of Hong Kong movies, and has picked up fangirl Canonese the way anime fans pick up Japanese. The following is a list of the words she uses, the japanese translation, and an approximate english translation:
(Thanks to Hanku for helping me with the Cantonese! The guidebook gives the Cantonese as kanji + a katakana pronunciation that doesn't necessarily match the correct romanization of the Cantonese words...oh, hell, you know what I mean. If you want to see how they're written in hanzi, go to Fool-Est. ) In addition to the fangirl Cantonese, Lisa "learned" kung-fu from her Bruce Lee movies. She's similar to Ulala or Reiji in that her physical attacks don't involve weapons; she just runs up and kicks ass. She's actually not a bad character for physical attacks, although Eikichi is the powerhouse of the Tsumi group. :D Her basic element is Earth, being a Taurus. Lisa is extremely self-conscious about her looks. When she was little, the other kids used to constantly tease her about her blonde hair and blue eyes, and she has never really gotten over that. People assume that she's fluent in English because she's American, but she can't speak a word of the language, leading to all sorts of embarrassing situations. To compensate, she learned to use her unique looks as a social asset, climbing the social ladder at school by any means necessary. She has two best friends, Asacchi and Miipo, but she's rather cold to them, figuring that they're just leeching onto her popularity and that they aren't really her friends. She also has set her eye on the popular, distant upperclassman Suou Tatsuya, and chases him with rather terrifying single-mindedness. She's probably going to be Miss Sevens, and he's popular and handsome; a perfect match, she thinks. Her Shadow in the Taurus Shrine reveals an even darker side to her. She's done drugs (hm, not shrooms, those were legal in Japan until 2002 - who knows? Weed? Stronger than weed?) and may have participated in the time-honored tradition where skanky schoolgirls are "escorts" for middle-aged men. (This is called "enjo kosai," and you can read more about it here. She didn't necessarily sleep with any of the men, but she probably dated horny old men and got paid for it. It's not that uncommon in Japan, it seems...fashionable clothing is expensive, and you have to get money for it SOMEHOW...) Basically, she's a typical status-obsessed Japanese schoolgirl. She sounds a bit like a raging bitch, doesn't she? Yet somehow, she's so likeable that you sort of wish Tatsuya WOULD notice her. Part of that is due to her independence; she isn't the sort of girl who gets kidnapped every other dungeon and requires rescuing. She is fully capable of taking care of herself. And as she works herself into the group, you get to know her better and she becomes more a funny and energetic girl than the socially-conscious preppie she is in Sevens. She's not stupid, and some of her issues with identity and friends are very easy to identify with. Lisa is the sort of character I'd normally hate; the "cute, spunky, childhood friend" type. If all she did was run around after Tatsuya screaming, "Ching-yaa~~n!" I'd want to slap her upside the head. But she has the comedy slapstick stuff with Eikichi to defuse any potential annoyingness. I actually ended up liking Lisa a lot; she's so cute and funny and energetic. And in the Taurus Shrine, she grows up and faces her dark side, and decides to ask Tatsuya what he feels, instead of just chasing him around. And whatever his answer is, she takes it like a mature adult. (Well, it doesn't stop her from punching Eikichi when Tatsuya and Jun flirt a little too much...there are limits to saintliness, you know!) Uh, what else can I say...she gets a 5000Y allowance from her parents (Satomi and Kaneko were joking that it was a 10 ryou allowance - ryou is the old-fashioned, extremely traditional coinage, which would be what the Silverman parents would be into.) She doesn't have an after-school job like many highschoolers her age. Her father, Steven Silverman, is the managing director of the foreign capital system trading company, whatever the hell THAT means. At his job, ironically, he has to wear a suit and speak English! XD Lisa's mother doesn't work; she is a traditional housewife. She cooks, er, natto and traditional things like that. She's also blonde, and goes by the name of "Akiko," despite being an American. HISTORY massive spoilers follow. got that? good. When Lisa was about 7 years old, she met a group of kids playing "Phoenix Corps Featherman" at Araya Shrine. At first, she didn't want to join them, but her daddy assured them that these weren't like those other kids who made fun of her hair and her eyes, and Black Falcon (Jun) promised her that they didn't care that she was a gaijin. She joined in as "Pink Azas" (an "azas" is a kind of pheasant, FWIW). She had a big crush on "Tacchan," the Red Eagle, and wanted to grow up to be his wife. (When they played House, she'd declare that she was the Mommy, Tacchan was the Daddy, Jun was the older son, and Eikichi was the baby. Then she'd declare that the kids were asleep, and it was time for Mommy and Daddy to go take a bath together...and "Big Brother Jun" would immediately interrupt and say that he wanted dinner RIGHT NOW. Ah, Jun...>D) When Big Sis told the Masquerade that she has to leave them, Eikichi, Lisa, and Jun 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. When it became dark, Sudou Tatsuya came to Araya and set it afire. When the three remaining children came back to Araya the next day to let Big Sis and Tacchan out, the shrine was gone - and they thought they'd killed Big Sis and Tacchan by locking her in there! Horrified, they collected the five masks of the Masquerade and hid them inside Mt. Iwato, and forced themselves to forget about their "crime." She tags along after Tatsuya when he receives a challenge letter from the Shinigami Banchou of Kasugayama High School, and meets Mishina Eikichi, with whom she develops a very weird friendship. They "fight like an old married couple," insulting each other nonstop and giving each other nicknames. Despite this, Lisa apparently finds herself starting to like Tatsuya as a person, not just as a status symbol, and by the time it's revealed that they were childhood playmates, she loves Tatsuya for real. She reveals her feelings to Tatsuya in a mature way - and as to whether her feelings are returned, that's up to the player! :D Partway into the game she discovers that SHE'S the rumored third person in the girl group MUSES. She protests that it's not true, but she ends up joining the group since everyone thinks she's part of it anyways, and she can find out more about the Masquerade if she infiltrates their group. The MUSES seem to be a sort of R&B'ish pop group, which is a pretty weird match for Lisa's personality, IMHO. Their hit single is "JOKER," which is both encourages you to call the Joker if you can't deal with your problems AND a recital of the Oracle of Maiya! :D Can you say the same of any other pop song? The MUSES's producer is Sasaki Ginji, who used to be in a hit band himself and has a certain reputation for how he treats his young female artists. Ginji is, of course, one of the bad guys; he's one of the Four Executives of the Masquerade, Prince Taurus. Lisa is the first to remember the childhood Masquerade, and the first to suggest that "Big Sis" might be the Joker. She knows that Big Sis wasn't killed in the fire - she mentions cops talking to her dad - but she thinks Big Sis might be mad at them still. Leo's raving about his beautiful, kind Joker-sama, with a face like a goddess, only cements her fears about Big Sis - why would she think he was talking about a boy? In the Taurus Shrine, Lisa has to face her Shadow and decide whether to acknowledge and own up to her failings, or ignore them and keep chasing after an illusion of popularity... FUTURE On the lounge TV in Persona 3, you can catch an interview with a blonde girl in her twenties who is a former idol. It's mentioned that her former group was called "MUSES." No mention of what she's doing at the time, but clearly she's still around! |