Tatsuya calls her Maya-nee, since apparently he can only think of her as neesan. Katsuya, on the other hand, calls her Amano-kun, since he apparently has no Oedipal hangups about checking out her boobs.

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 Maya isn't solemn and quiet and withdrawn; she's very much like her best friend Ulala in that she loves to talk and do things and interact with people.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.



[ OTHER SIDE]