#but since both the manga and the movies have aigis not be the love interest but still an important character

[elle-p]

My japanese is really bad, so absolutely take my translations with a grain of salt, but Soejima also mentioned this in his blog.

"Ultimately, in P3, the heroine(mainly as a love interest) is left to the player's choice, giving a degree of freedom through making it into a lovers(romantic) Social Link.

[...]

By the way, since there are lots of artworks of Aigis, who appears as the narrative's driving force, and Hero together, I'm often asked if she's the heroine. I focused on drawing Aigis' distinctive roboticness to support the general idea of the narrative, so she's more like a key character than a heroine.

In P3F we prepared an Aigis Social Link in response to demand, but that's why there isn't one in P3."

Old Interviews

A couple of years ago, I came across a compilation of interviews, including some that shared some very interesting info about Aigis' role in the game and the reasons why she didn't have a S-Link in the original Persona 3. I didn't trust my Japanese enough to capture all the nuance though, so the screenshots have been sitting in my folders collecting dust.

Well, no more! We now luckily have a professional Japanese translator in the Aikoto Server, and she has kindly gone ahead and translated the interviews in question. Thank you so much, kitaroai!

Interviews below the cut!

Dengeki PlayStation September 8, 2006 issue Vol.364 "Persona 3" Development Staff Interview

Dengeki PlayStation: I got the impression that Aigis was the main heroine of this work. What made you decide on having a robot girl as the game’s main heroine?

Tanaka (Writer): While I didn’t particularly set out to write her as one would a “main heroine”, we felt that a character who is unaffected by death was essential to a story with “Death” as its theme. In order to explore that theme, it was crucial to depict the process of an existence that starts-off not understanding the meaning of “death”, only to eventually come to face it and acknowledge it.

Soejima (Character Designer): When it comes “heroines”, the game has a system that allows you to date various girls… But personally, I feel that Yukari is a girl that is nearby, while Aigis is the heroine of the main story, or to be more exact, a character that is at the very core of it.

Dengeki PlayStation: So rather than a “heroine”, she could be considered another protagonist?

Hashino (Director): Yes… Aigis is special. She was necessary to depict the story we wanted to tell.

Dengeki PlayStation: I imagine that she is the only female character without a Social Link precisely because she is the one at the heart of the story.

Tanaka: Indeed. It wouldn’t be realistic to say that you can experience love with a robot partner in the exact same way you would with a human, but above all, we feared that giving her a Social Link would make her special role in the story seem less important.

Hashino: She was going to have a Social Link at first and we prepared the scenario for it, but we ultimately decided not to include it.

Dengeki PlayStation: And what about an ending that's influenced by the relationships built in the Social Links? For example, did you ever consider having character-exclusive endings?

Hashino: The staff discussed having character-exclusive endings depending on which Social Links the player did. However, we ultimately decided not to do so because it would take us away from the main story and from what we truly wanted to depict. The relationships with the girls reach their own conclusions in the daily school life section, which is separate from the main story.

Translation by: kitaroai

Material/Dengeki PlayStation July 28, 2006 issue Vol.359 "Persona 3" Interview with Katsura Hashino and Shigenori Soejima

Hashino: Aigis, on the other hand, is a character we added from the very beginning. Since she is a robot, she lacks “feelings”, so we wanted to contrast that with the Protagonist’s emotional side. She was also an indispensable character because she has no fear of “Death”, the main theme of this work.

Soejima: The setting of the story came before the concept, I believe. I remember I started drawing without knowing the story nor its stakes, which was a struggle.

Hashino: […] At first, Soejima seemed to be against the idea of a robot girl, but after convincing him that it was necessary precisely because Aigis is the heroine, it somehow worked out. Was that why you designed her with her machinery exposed?

Soejima: No, it’s not as if I drew her like that as a form of revenge (laughs). I just wanted her design to have more of a nostalgic vibe rather than a high-tech one. My tastes also played a part in it, though (laughs).

Translation by: kitaroai

Plus! One cute extra, this time translated by me:

Materials/Dengeki Maou September 2008 issue supplement “Persona 4” Katsura Hashino, Shigenori Soejima, Kazuhisa Wada Interview

[...]

Soejima (Character Designer): By the way, when it comes to Persona 3, I only worked directly on the one scene where we see Aigis for the first time during the trip to Yakushima.

Dengeki Maou: Do you mean that was the scene you were most particular about?

Soejima: Since that is the scene where we see Aigis for the first time, the Director, Hashino, asked me to make it as cute as possible (Laughs).

Translation by: @theoneprecioustome