Waifu Wednesday: Mitsuru Kirijo (Persona 3)

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Conor Evans
March 30, 2022
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For today’s Waifu Wednesday I wanted to go back in time a little bit. Back when I was hyped as all hell to play as much Persona as possible after being introduced to the series through Persona 5. Still hungry for more I went back and started playing Persona 3 (dang, that game’s pricy today, glad I kept my old copies! – Ed.), and that’s where I found her — Mitsuru Kirijo.

Coming off the back of Persona 5, which is a game with an incredibly powerful female cast, Persona 3 felt like it didn’t have as many strong contenders. What it might have lacked in quantity, however, it made up for tenfold in quality because good lord Mitsuru is one hell of a waifu.

When you’re done here, don’t forget to look back over the archives for Waifu Wednesday and Hump Day Husbandos here on Rice Digital! But for now, on with the show.

Waifu Wednesday: Mitsuru Kirijo(Persona 3)

Who is Mitsuru Kirijo?

Mitsuru is one of the main playable characters in Persona 3, and she is also one of the first characters that you meet after getting into the meat of the game. She is a Persona-user who has been researching the game’s core mystery of the tower Tartarus and the Dark Hour for quite some time prior to the main character’s arrival.

Alongside being a dormmate and fellow Persona-user, Mitsuru is also the school’s student council president and the heir to the prestigious Kirijo group, a multinational trading company that is said to be known to almost everyone in the world of Persona 3. As you can probably imagine, Mitsuru is a fairly mature, responsible, and intelligent person who carries serious weight with her at all times.

This being the case, she can often be interpreted as being cold-hearted or distant, but despite all the responsibility she bears, she is still a calm and collected friend of the main cast of characters and she is wise beyond her years, always offering advice to the main character.

Why we love Mitsuru Kirijo

Given my route through the series, after meeting Mitsuru I couldn’t help but draw some comparisons between her and Persona 5’s Makoto. Like many who played Persona 5, I really like Makoto, and she was a character that grew on me throughout the game… just not enough to pick her as my romance option! She comes somewhere after Ann, Kawakami, and Takemi for me. I feel as though Mitsuru is the same archetype of character, but done better in almost every single way.

She’s the confident leader of the main group, fearlessly pursuing a way of ending the Dark Hour and getting rid of Tartarus. She’s exceptionally smart — so much so that in order to even get on the path of romancing her you need your intelligence to be high enough. She is the ultimate in reliable waifu technology, who you can always count on to save your ass in a bad situation. Oh and she rides a motorcycle, so yeah, there’s that badass little sidenote.

To top it all off, she has an awesome design. Redhead is something I have a bit of a weakness for (Join the club – Ed.), and if you’ve seen her design in Persona 4 Arena then you already know what I’m about to say. Her design in that game is FLAWLESS — a black catsuit with a white fluffy coat… perfection.

Why you’ll love Mitsuru Kirijo

It might just be my personal taste in female characters, but I think that Mitsuru might genuinely be the peak of waifus in the Persona series as a whole. She really does tick every single box and more. She also has a nice aspect to her personality in which she struggles to have normal conversations with people, and can often come across as being quite awkward. It really helps add to the “human” parts of her character.

In the earlier Persona games, we MILF-lovers were left in the dust as most of the romantic options were all classmates of the main protagonist. Persona 5 really remedied our older lady desires with characters like Kawakami and Takemi — but Mitsuru offers something unique in the way that she is still a classmate of the character, but she is obviously much more mature and very different from other female characters such as Yukari and Fuuka. Definitely a recipe for success!

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