Muses
Artwork of the Muses group, as included in the Persona Tribute Illustrations book.
MUSES is a female idol group that appears in the Persona 2 duology which consists of Lisa Silverman, Mami "Sheba" Shibata and Miho "Mee-ho" Ogishima. All girls are classmates to each other from Seven Sisters High School.
Appearances[]
Profile[]
Persona 2: Innocent Sin[]
As Sheba and Mee-ho are in effect Lisa's only friends at school, they usually hang around together. One day, the three shoot a photo in a sticker booth (Purikura), write down they want to be idols and stick it at the Purikura board. This sticker is noticed by music producer Ginji Sasaki. He scouts Sheba and Mee-ho to form the group Muses; the two happily accept to form a group with Lisa, without her agreement or involvement in the initial decision; she turned out to be less than interested in becoming an idol.
Lisa is further infuriated when confronting Sheba and Mee-ho at the Casino Mu Continent when she is asked to sing the English solo part of their debut song "Joker" which, actually, she is completely incapable of doing, as she was born in Japan to Western Japanophile parents who never taught her to speak English, and most of the school simply assumed by her appearance she did in fact know English.
Although Lisa is very unwilling to join the Muses, Maya suggests the Muses is very likely orchestrated by the Masked Circle and persuades her to sneak into the group and extract as much information as possible. Right before the debut concert of Muses in Aoba Park. Sasaki urges her to call Joker to grant her the ability to speak English fluently.
Then the player is given two choices; just watch or rush in to aid Lisa. If the player chooses to trust Lisa, the concert will begin without the English solo, but instead she unknowingly recites the full content of the Oracle of Maia. Eventually, Lisa will admit to the audience her inability to speak English. Sasaki will then appear as the Masked Circle executive, Prince Taurus, and reveal that his goal is to fulfill the 'foreign song' line of the oracle, allowing the prophecy to assert itself. The group of 5 will fight him on the stage. This option will grant Lisa's unique upgraded Persona, Eros Prime later.
If the group rushes to Lisa's rescue, Prince Taurus will order another idol group under his manipulation, the Spade, to perform in place of the Muses. Lisa, Tatsuya and Eikichi will fight Prince Taurus in the dressing room. In any case, Sheba and Mee-ho will have their Ideal Energy absorbed and the concert hall will detonate as fulfillment of 'the flames of expiation light the heavens' line from the Oracle.
Persona 2: Eternal Punishment[]
Using Wang Long fortunetelling popularized by Chizuru Ishigami, Muses has already been formed before the beginning of the game; this time, Lisa joins her friends willingly, practicing together in a karaoke bar. The group is still produced by Ginji Sasaki, but this time, the organization behind it is the New World Order. Although the Joker in this universe is a killer who murders those who the callers want dead, the debut song of Muses is still the same as in Innocent Sin, albeit without the Oracle of Maia line. It is likely the Muses group was formed for two purposes: to force an overlap between the Eternal Punishment reality with Innocent Sin's timeline, and to increase Sasaki's fame in order to host the seminar for collection of Kegare.
The player will run into the Muses when following Eriko Kirishima's route to visit Sumaru TV to investigate Chizuru Ishigami. Muses also appears in the Japanese exclusive fan disc "Sumaru TV Special Preview Disc", in which Sheba and Mee-ho as Muses introduce the featured shops in the city.
Etymology[]
Muses is a group of goddesses of literature and arts from Greek mythology led by Apollo.
Gallery[]
Lisa in her Muses outfit
Miho in her Muses outfit
Mami in her Muses outfit
Trivia[]
- The Muses are based on the idol group D&D, formed by the vocalist Olivia Lufkin (a half-American) and dancers Chikano Higa and Aya Uehara. The group was managed by Tetsuya Komuro, the man who served as inspiration for Ginji Sasaki.