Persona 3 Portable’s defining feature was the option to be a female protagonist and the always optimistic Maya Amano from Persona 2: Eternal Punishment was one of the “coolest” heroines in the series.

Atlus has made memorable characters in the Shin Megami Tensei universe, but the numbered Shin Megami Tensei games only have male leads.

When I spoke with Masayuki Doi, character designer on Shin Megami Tensei IV, we talked about the idea of having a female protagonist in a mainline Shin Megami Tensei game. “I like female protagonists,” Doi said. “It would be cool to have a female protagonist in the next SMT game.”

“However, there are traditionalists that see the series from the past to present and all of the protagonists have been male. To keep that tradition, there is feedback I’ve been hearing saying that if there is a new SMT title we should keep the tradition of having a male lead.”

We’ll have more from our interview with Masayuki Doi on Siliconera soon.