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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 People get the impression from Eternal Punishment that Maya is a silent, mature, introverted character, a bit like Tatsuya with breasts. Nothing could be further from the truth, actually; she's got to be the worst choice for a silent main character ever. Maya is a friendly, outgoing, silly, extremely nutty older-sister figure, who is more likely to giggle and tell bad jokes than to stare angstily into the distance and sigh. She's basically 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 Positive Thinking!" 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 things about humanity. Maya does NOT react to tragedy by breaking down; she does her best to stay positive. 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. She also seems to have an odd premonition that she's not going to survive this particular adventure. She quotes the second half of the poem "Le calmant" ("Sedative") by Marie Laurencin (translated into Japanese from the French, and back into English from the Japanese; sorry, I can't get ahold of the original French!):
Maya adds on two lines of her own: Even worse than being a forgotten woman Is being a woman who ties people down. Maya-nee does not 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. (Wow, look at me, even I'm calling her Maya-nee. Well, she's so nice!) That's why at the end of Eternal Punishment, it was really strange to Maya even CONSIDER clinging to Tatsuya, weeping and begging him to take her with him. It's completely out of character for her. Breaking down at a tragedy isn't what Maya does - she's all about positive thinking! She'd be sad that Tatsuya was leaving, but she'd smile and tell him that it was nice to meet him again, and to say hi to the kids on the Other Side. Something like that. And she'd tell him to keep following his dream. Clinging to him like that would also be bizarre behavior for her; that would be creating ties for him and making it harder for Tatsuya to leave peacefully. This is the woman who begged him to forget her as she died, after all! Well, anyways. Maya is a cheerfully lazy person. 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 loves to drive but can't drive worth shit; she'd probably love bumper cars. She met her roommate Serizawa Ulala 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!" HISTORY massive spoilers follow. got that? good. Maya's father, Amano Masataka, was a war correspondent, and was always away from home covering this or that. One of Maya's memories is that he took Maya to Araya 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 Araya Shrine and pray for her future, and during a festival, she saw five 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-sama," which was supposed to show you what you'd be like when you'd grow up. Two of the boys, Red Hawk 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 Hawk 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, Sudou Tatsuya came to Araya and set it afire. When she realized that the shrine was burning, Maya presumably helped Tatsuya-kun escape - out of a window, or something - 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 and Tatsuya-kun had been stabbed in the back. 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 fads, such as the new "Joker-sama Charm" or the "Joker Curse." (You may remember Mizuno complaining about Maya's article "The Dream of the Rumored Student." In Tsumi, the rumored student was Jun, but in Batsu, it's probably Tatsuya. That whole doppelganger thing again.) Maya had a stalker who kept following her no matter what; this was Sudou Tatsuya again, who thought of her as 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... Maya seemed to sense that she was going to die; she wouldn't shut up about "what if I wasn't there..." in Xibalba. She doesn't mind dying for her friends, as long as it helps them and they move past it and live happy lives, following their dreams. By refusing to forget and move on, Tatsuya's betraying her dream too.... |