Shigenori Soejima’s blog, Shinjiro’s installment translated
Behind the Scenes with Artist Shigenori Soejima Vol. 22
Hello, I'm Soejima, the Art Director for P3.
The 10th installment of the P3 character introductions features Shinjiro Aragaki.
Since this character appears relatively less often than the others, there isn't much artwork of him. He also wasn't drawn very often in illustrations either, but personally, he's one of my favorite characters.
There are almost no mid stages design sketches for Aragaki, the very first image I came up with in my head practically became the final design.
In the school setting of Persona 3, the upperclassmen roles are filled by Mitsuru, Sanada, and Aragaki, but the first two don't really feel like “senpais”.
Even though they are older, they don't have an atmosphere that makes you feel a hierarchy, so there's no sense of tension. In that regard, since Aragaki is a delinquent, I like that he has that intimidating presence of an upperclassman. Having just one character like this significantly boosts the sense of reality.
Back in your student days, didn't the seniors just one grade above you seem like total adults? It's especially prominent in high school, where upperclassmen seemed grown-up in many ways. Perhaps because I was drawing with that feeling in mind, I had people tease me that Aragaki looks like he's in his 30s…
This is the 10th P3 character introduction, which means we've now covered all the main characters. I haven't had many opportunities to look back on my past work until now, but organizing my thoughts like this has revealed new perspectives, making it a very meaningful experience for me.
From next time, while touching upon other characters in P3, I'd like to write about my other work and things I've been interested in lately.
Art Director for "Persona 3," "Persona 3 FES," and "Persona 4"
I had fun translating this to be honest, but I generally enjoy translating stuff related to Shinjiro. This sense of adultery could be the reason Shinjiro is considered the hierophant arcana (although his SL is the moon in P3P). But I think Aragaki is the hierophant arcana due to other reasons that I might create a post about later
Also thank you @elle-p for sharing Soejima’s blog with me! Here’s the link
I hope you enjoyed reading this!
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