Kotone Shiomi

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Kotone Shiomi is a major character and the female protagonist of Persona 3 Portable, as well as a member and field leader of S.E.E.S. in universe. In Persona 3 Portable, her male counterpart Makoto Yuki. The name Kotone Shiomi originated as the name of the female protagonist in the Persona 3: The Weird Masquerade stage play adaptations; the name was later adopted as her default name in the 2023 re-release of Persona 3 Portable, which the game defaults to if the text language settings are changed.[1]

In game, Kotone acts as the Wild Card of the group, having the ability to wield and swap multiple Personas at once during battle, as well as having the ability to fuse said Personas in the Velvet Room.

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Kotone Shiomi is a teenager with auburn hair and red eyes, with pins in her hair forming the roman numerals of the number 22. She wears her hair in a ponytail with her bangs styled to the right side of her face. She wears her Gekkoukan Uniform with little modification and a pair of red ATH-model headphones. She wears the same uniform with the S.E.E.S. armband and her Evoker attatched to her hip during battle with her weapon of choice being a naginata. Her other outfits often consist of the colors red and orange.

Unlike her male counterpart, Kotone is seen to be very cheerful and upbeat in many of her dialogue choices, often making jokes or being sarcastic. She's often described as dependable and tough by her teammates, being referred to as a "tomboy" at many different times by them. However, events of the game show that underneath this cheerful exterior she hides much of her sadness and depression, with the tone of her dialogue choices changing to be more similar to her male counterpart's more blatant indifference and depression.

Gameplay

For complete gameplay information, see Gameplay:Kotone Shiomi.

Kotone is a Wild Card who starts with Orpheus as her initial Persona and can wield multiple Personas in battle. By visiting the Velvet Room, she can fuse new Personas, setting her apart from her allies. Additionally, by visiting the Mayoido Antiques, she can use Fusion Spells to do a variety of effects. In battle, Kotone uses a naginata that deals Slash damage to her opponents. She must be in the party at all times, and dying would have players receive a game over.

Kotone would later appear in Persona Q2.

Game Appearances

Persona 3 Portable

On April 6th, 2009 in a parallel universe, Kotone moves to Tatsumi Port Island as a transfer student to Gekkoukan High School. Three days later, she enters the Dark Hour, a supernatural 25th hour where Shadows roam, is caught up in a Shadow attack on the Iwatodai Dormitory and awakens to the power of Persona, with the initial Persona Orpheus. Kotone learns that her dormmates are actually members of the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad (S.E.E.S.), a group dedicated to fighting Shadows. Kotone is inducted into SEES and named their field commander due to her unique ability to control multiple Personas, the Wild Card.

Over the course of the next several months, with the aid of the inhabitants of the Velvet Room - Igor and Elizabeth (or Theodore) - Kotone leads S.E.E.S. in battle in order to bring an end to the Dark Hour and exploring Tartarus, a massive tower that appears in place of Gekkoukan High during the Dark Hour.

This section contains spoilers. (Skip Section)

Eventually, S.E.E.S. defeats the twelve fragments, but the Dark Hour is not destroyed. They learn destroying the fragments will allow Death to return to its full power and summon the maternal being, Nyx, and bring about the Fall, the end of humanity.

Death later manifests in the form of new Gekkoukan transfer student, Ryoji Mochizuki. It is revealed that in 1999, the Kirijo Group's experiments on the Shadows went disastrously awry, unleashing the most powerful shadow, Death. The Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapon Aigis pursued and battled Death, causing a car crash that killed Kotone's parents and left him the sole survivor. Aigis, unable to defeat Death, sealed a portion of its power in Kotone.

Ryoji offers Kotone a choice - kill him and allow SEES to live out the remainder of their lives in blissful ignorance, or let him live and make a futile attempt to delay the inevitable. In the bad ending, Kotone kills Ryoji and is last seen ignorantly singing karaoke right before the Fall. In the good ending, Kotone spares Ryoji. On January 31st, 2010, S.E.E.S ascends to the top of Tartarus and defeats Ryoji's true form, the Nyx Avatar in battle, but are powerless to stop the Fall. Kotone ascends to face Nyx and expends all of her life force to create a seal to protect the Earth from her.

Kotone spends the next two months living a peaceful life with her friends, growing more tired and weaker as the days go by, before passing away peacefully in Aigis' arms on March 5, 2010.

End of spoilers.

Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth

Kotone Shiomi appears in a cutscene in the first dungeon "Kamoshidaman" on the third floor. After defeating a Shadow with the Phantom Thieves, she explains she is a Persona-User just like them. She had mysteriously entered the Cinema Labyrinth just like the Phantom Thieves, but got separated from her team in the process. Her priority is to find and reunite with them again. She joins the Phantom Thieves and becomes an available Party member.

After the second dungeon, a film teaser hinting at the third dungeon shows a robot oddly reminiscent of Aigis. The movie itself is even directly named after her. Kotone becomes excited and theorizes her team could be in this movie, just like the Investigation Team in the prior dungeon. Shortly after entering the third dungeon she meets S.E.E.S during a desperate fight. She addresses them in familiar terms, but S.E.E.S is confused how she knows them. After the fight it is revealed that this is a different S.E.E.S from another universe. Kotone is upset by this, but tries to not show that.

On the third floor of the dungeon, S.E.E.S is reunited with Aigis and Makoto Yuki. After Kotone and Makoto interact, they realize they are the same person from different universes.

Throughout the game, Kotone acts overly familiar towards S.E.E.S but said team is unnerved by that. Multiple members of S.E.E.S think of her as a good friend, but express frustration on being unable to reciprocate the same familiarity. They note that it must be very lonely for her. The Phantom Thieves notice how Kotone hides her pain and confront her about it. After that, different members of S.E.E.S ( Notably Yukari Takeba, Fuuka Yamagishi and Junpei Iori) try to approach her to befriend her. Through this, Kotone establishes a real friendship with the alternate S.E.E.S.

At the end of the game, Kotone has mutual respect with Makoto and shakes hands with him as they leave to their original world.

Audio Drama Appearances

  • Persona 3 Portable Drama CD Volume 1

Manga Appearances

Persona 3 Portable: Dear Girls Comic Anthology

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Novel Appearances

Persona 3 Portable: Velvet Blue

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This novel focuses on the female protagonist's relationships with the Velvet Room attendants.

Nomenclature

The kanji of the family name mean "tide watching" and the given name means "the sound of a koto (a Japanese string instrument)."[2]

Names in Other Languages
Language Name Meaning
Japanese 汐見 琴音 Shiomi Kotone Kotone Shiomi

Trivia

  • Her hairband is shaped like XXII, the roman numeral for 22, which represents the fool arcana.
  • Screenshots in the manual for Persona 3 Portable show menus with Kotone's name set as "Kheri."
  • Unlike other Persona protagonists who's names originate from their respective anime adaptations, the name "Kotone Shiomi" originates from a stage play.
    • The name was also used in the 2020 Puzzle & Dragons x Persona collaboration prior to the 2023 release of Persona 3 Portable.
  • Kotone is not a playable protagonist option in Persona 3 Reload but she was considered. She was ultimately not included because it would have cost much more than including The Answer as DLC[3][4]

Gallery

References

  1. "The text language setting has been changed so the main character's name will be fixed as Male "Makoto Yuki" or Female "Kotone Shiomi." If you'd like to keep your original name, you must change back to the original text language setting." Persona 3 Portable (2023 re-release).
  2. Namedic. Website.
  3. Kann Serin, Persona 3 Reload producer apologizes for excluding the JRPG's female protagonist, but explains that adding her would cost "two to three times that of Episode Aigis". Published March 23, 2024. Retrieved March 23, 2024. Gamesradar.
  4. "Kazuhisa Wada: "I’ll begin with an apology, but unfortunately, the appearance of the female protagonist in P3R will not happen. Of course, we considered the inclusion of the female protagonist alongside “Episode Aigis,” but the more we delved into it, the more hopeless it seemed… The development time and costs would likely be two to three times that of “Episode Aigis,” making it challenging to entrust entirely to external companies and exceeding our capabilities. Even if P3R and the “Expansion Pass” were to exceed our sales expectations and resolve the cost issues, the release would still be far off. Additionally, the expectation is also that we make completely new games, not just remakes, so we need to allocate limited development resources accordingly. I deeply apologize to the fans who have supported us for a long time, but we are happy that P3R has been released and that “Episode Aigis” will be as well, and that many are interested in playing those. This would be the moment if we could do it, so I’m very sorry to the fans, but I don’t think there’s any possibility to make it happen in the future either."" Published by Persona Central. Persona 3 Reload Episode Aigis Developer Interview, Discusses Additional Content. Archived: P3R Episode Aegis Interview Archive. Published March 22, 2024. Retrieved March 23, 2024.