Ayane Matsunaga

Ayane Matsunaga is a character from Persona 4. A first-year student in class 1-2 from Yasogami High School, Ayane is a member of the Yasogami Symphonic Band and plays the trombone. Befriending her will help the protagonist realize the potential of the Sun Arcana.

Appearances

 * Persona 4 / Golden: Supporting Character; Sun Social Link
 * Persona 4 The Animation: Supporting Character; Sun Arcana
 * Persona 4 The Golden Animation: Cameo

Design
Ayane is a young female student with short dark green hair and gray eyes. At school, she wears the standard uniform save for a longer skirt. On the weekends she wears a pink dress and light red sweater jacket, long white socks with red shoes, and carries a white bag.

In Persona 4 The Animation, her eyes are the same color as her hair.

Personality
Ayane is a timid and shy girl who tends to apologize a lot. However, she dreams of becoming an accomplished musician someday, and despite a significant lack of musical aptitude, wishes to perform with the band in front of an audience. Ayane plays the trombone in the school band, but is outshone by another performer who she feels is much better than her. She hates when people mistake her for an elementary or middle school student due to her appearance.

Persona 4
The protagonist will meet Ayane on his first day of joining the school band. Under the same conditions, the Sun Arcana Social Link can also be created if the protagonist joins the drama club instead and befriends Yumi Ozawa.

When the protagonist chooses to join the symphonic band, he is introduced to Ayane, who handles most of the paperwork of the band. Ayane is a timid and shy girl who tends to apologize a lot. However, she dreams of becoming an accomplished musician someday, and despite a significant lack of musical aptitude, wishes to perform with the band in front of an audience. Ayane plays the trombone in the school band, but is outshone by another performer who she feels is much better than her.

As a result, she is usually not selected to play whenever the school band is requested for a public performance. Ayane would rather play the flute than the trombone, but her family could not afford to buy one and there was only a trombone for her to play at their house. She felt that it was awkward for a short person such as herself to use such an instrument.

Her break finally came through one day when the trombone player was involved in an accident. The band's captain decided to put Ayane in his place, but the performance they were going to do had a trombone solo. The captain was convinced that Ayane could carry it out, and urges her to practice the solo. Ayane struggles to keep up, and is almost on the verge of giving up, but at the protagonist's behest, she decides to stay and practice.

However, when the day of the performance came, the trombone player showed up, apparently recovered from his injuries. Ayane backed out and passed the trombone role back to him, despite nobody urging her otherwise. She then confesses to the protagonist that she felt really angry that her chance had been taken away, and decided from then on to become a selfish person; in a way that she would grab any opportunity that arise for her instead of backing out as she had done so before. She realized her interactions with the protagonist had changed her for the better, and thanked him.

Upon maxing out her Social Link, Ayane becomes a much stronger person and decides to go on a study abroad for music after her high school graduation. She gives the protagonist a Homemade Ticket with her name on it, the date and time left TBA, and asks him to come see her performance.

Persona 4 The Animation
Ayane is seen posting a drama club poster on the school board and sees Yosuke in pain after being kicked by Chie.

She reappears again on October 26, when she meets Yu after he accidentally hits her with a soccer ball while playing against Kou and Daisuke, which causes her to end up in the nurse's office. Ayane's role is similar to the original game except on October 29, she was depressed that she was bad at playing the trombone and decides to give up her role as a trombone player. When Yu was about to tell the captain, she grabs his arm and drags him to somewhere private. She cries that she had tried so hard to learn to play and that she had always loved music. It made her remember the reason why, so she was so frustrated and yet so happy at the same time. She was later invited by Yu to go to the school cultural festival.

Persona 4 The Golden Animation
In the opening intro, she is seen playing her trombone at the river. Later, during episode 4, when Marie is separated from the group, she bumps into Ayane who apologizes to her and takes her to an office. When Marie gets angry, she tries to calm her down.

Gallery

 * Persona 4

Etymology

 * The name Ayane means "design" (綾) (aya) and "sound" (音) (ne).
 * Ayane's surname Matsunaga means "pine tree, fir tree" (松) (matsu) and "eternal" (永) (naga).

Trivia

 * In many ways, Ayane could be considered the exact opposite of her Sun Arcana counterpart, Yumi Ozawa. While Ayane is described as looking young for her age, Yumi is described as looking mature for her age, and Ayane is not skilled at playing the trombone, while Yumi is shown to be an excellent performer. Also, Ayane develops almost the opposite way as Yumi through her Social Link, starting out shy but getting more serious about her work throughout the Link, while it happens the other way for Yumi.
 * Their Social Link progression are also designed oppositely; There are more than the usual number of dialogue options in Ayane's SL that rewards boost in Social Stats. Conversely, however, several progression-optimal dialogue options in her SL progression require high Social Stats check to carry through in the first place. Yumi's SL on the other hand have no Social Stats check and thus all options are safely available, but likewise her SL cannot help improving Social Stats.
 * There are instances in Ayane's SL that would have her and the Protagonist go outdoors at Samegawa's Riverbank, like during the advancement from Rank 3 to 4. Because the Sun SL by default can be advanced during rainy weather, the game would force the weather to Cloudy during these instances should the player advance them during rainy days.