is a player-named character from Persona 3, a 2006 role-playing video game developed by Atlus. In the game, the protagonist is an orphan who transfers to Gekkoukan High School in Iwatodai City and discovers a phenomenon called the Dark Hour during which supernatural entities called Shadows roam freely. After awakening an ability called Persona, the protagonist joins their classmates in forming the Specialized Extracirricular Execution Squad (S.E.E.S.), dedicated to eliminating the Dark Hour and the threat of the Shadows. In the original release of Persona 3 as well as Persona 3 FES, the protagonist is male; for Persona 3 Portable, Atlus added the option to play as a female version of the character, to provide more options to returning players and attract a female demographic. Both protagonists were designed by Shigenori Soejima, who aimed to create ordinary youth who the player could relate to. In Japanese, the male protagonist is voiced by Akira Ishida, while he is voiced in English by Yuri Lowenthal; the female protagonist is voiced in Japanese by Marina Inoue and in English by Laura Bailey, and the male and female protagonists are respectively portrayed by Shouta Aoi and Kana Asumi in the game's stage adaptation, Persona 3: The Weird Masquerade. The male protagonist's character was reworked for the four-part animated film adaptation, where director Noriaki Akitaya explained pressure in giving the silent character his own personality. He is canonically known as Makoto Yuki in Persona 3 Portable and most other appearances. In the manga adaptation, he is named Minato Arisato. In The Weird Masquerade, he is given the name Sakuya Shiomi. The female protagonist is canonically known as Kotone Shiomi in Persona 3 Portable. Outside of Persona 3 Portable, the female protagonist also appears in Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth and Puzzle & Dragons, where she is named Kotone Shiomi. Critical reception for the character has been generally positive. Design and characterization The Persona 3 protagonist was the first character Shigenori Soejima designed for the game. Early designs of the character made him look mature and collected since the artist viewed him as a "cliche[d] cool guy." Soejima took longer to design the protagonist than any other character as the game's other characters would be made to complement his design. In Art of Persona 3, Soejima remarked that "Initially, he looked more honest, like an ordinary, handsome young man. But, I worked to achieve greater ambiguity