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| “ | Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Teammates?! Friends?! To hell with that! Why am I inferior to you?! I was extremely particular about my life, my grades, my public image, so someone would want me around! I am an ace detective... A celebrity! But you...you're just some criminal trash living in an attic! So how... How does someone like you have things I don't!? How can such a worthless piece of trash be more special than me?! | „ |
| ~ Akechi showing his jealousy toward Joker and wants to understand how Joker was able to establish connections with others. |
| “ | I will never accept this form of reality. I’m done being manipulated. Let’s go back… to our true reality. | „ |
| ~ Akechi to Joker on undoing Maruki's reality change. |
Goro Akechi, also known as the Detective Prince, is the secondary antagonist of Persona 5 and former member of the Phantom Thieves. He is a well-renowned detective in Japan and due to his celebrity status, he is admired by many and becomes the leading man to investigate the mysterious group known as the Phantom Thieves of Heart, which is the main protagonist group of the game. He goes on to publicly dislike the group until he decided to work with them temporarily. He revealed that he is a persona user and was given the nickname Crow. However, Akechi holds alternative motives that he was hiding from the group.
He was voiced by Robbie Daymond in the English dub and Sōichirō Hoshi for the Japanese dub.
What Makes Him a Base Breaking Character?[]
What Do People Like About Him?[]
- A lot of fans love Robbie Daymond's voice performance because he perfectly represented the character very well. His voice captures Akechi's antagonistic personality including his iconic mental breakdown when he revealed himself to be the traitor towards the Phantom Thieves. In other moments, his voice also captures Akechi's intelligence while having some moments of being awkward towards the cast.
- Akechi is heavily used for memes, specifically the pancakes meme, where Akechi thought he heard someone mention pancakes which gave away his position as the twist villain because he heard Morgana speaking about pancakes.
- A lot of fans deeply sympathize with Akechi's tragic story of being the illegitimate son of Masayoshi Shido, who raped Akechi's mother and then abandon her. His mother would then commit suicide after being shamed publicly for having a child out of wedlock. Akechi would grow up without any friends or have any parental figures in his life, this would lead him to despise his father and swore revenge on him for allowing him and his mother to suffer. By the time he became Detective Prince, he willingly worked with Shido as an assassin but his ultimate goal was to destroy Shido completely when he is at his height of power. Sadly, it is later revealed that despite his services, Shido did plan on disposing his son once he becomes Japan's Prime Minister.
- What makes it worse, Akechi would eventually become a misanthrope when he discovered the Metaverse before he became Shido's assassin. In the Metaverse, he saw all the shadows of humanity and seeing their lives while also being bestowed as the "Wild Card" persona user by Yaldabaoth, who wanted to use Akechi in his plan of controlling humanity and proving to Igor that humans are incapable of changing their ways. This shows that Goro Akechi is the pawn of two entities, one being his father and the other being Yaldabaoth.
- Goro serves as a good parallel to the main protagonist, Ren Amamiya. Unlike Ren, who despite having the reputation of being a delinquent, he was able to form bonds with people and friends alike while also trying to help society as a Phantom Thief, Akechi is a lonely man that seeked admiration from others but still finds the admiration hollow considering that they don't know the real him. This shows that he was putting up a facade in public while still growing distant from others. He still feels alone despite his good grades in school and being an admired celebrity. He tries to exact his own sense of justice by killing his father while not caring for the lives he has taken to achieve that. By the time he reveals his treachery, Akechi admits he could not understand why Joker is able to connect with others despite his status as a criminal.
- Much like Tohru Adachi from Persona 4 Golden, Akechi's relationship with Joker has been expanded in Persona 5 Royal where the player can form a bond with him. Unlike the first game, the player can understand his character in a deeper way and start a genuine friendship with him. Not only does this make the betrayal hit harder but you start to sympathize him after forming a bond with him.
- This also extends to his story in the 3rd arc, where he helps Joker on defeating Takuto Maruki and restoring reality to how it once was.
What Do People Hate About Him?[]
- A lot of detractors strongly despise Goro Akechi being revealed as the traitor and felt his tragedy does not hold up at all considering he has murdered a lot of people just so he can get revenge on Shido. The two people he murdered was Haru's father, Kunikazu Okumura, and Futaba's mother, Wakaba Isshiki. Not only does he show very little remorse for causing their lives to suffer of losing a love one but doesn't even apologize to Haru and Futaba for what he did yet the story still treats him in a sympathetic light even in Royal.
- Due to his actions, there is some people who strongly view him as a irredeemable villain and felt his tragic backstory does not excuse him nor does it make him sympathetic.
- For the original game. A lot of people felt Akechi was an underdeveloped character due to not knowing much about him besides everything the game offered. When he reveals his backstory, it feels out of nowhere and comes off as him excusing his actions in the name of revenge against his father. Not only this led people to hate him even more but some could not like his character and why he has a bond with the protagonist even though it was force on the player.
- Despite receiving a more redemptive story and being more fleshed out in Persona 5 Royal, some detractors still hate him and felt Akechi did not deserve redemption after all he has done. They found his story in the third arc unnecessary and view it as a shallow attempt to redeem him.
External links[]
- Goro Akechi on the Heroes Wiki
- Goro Akechi on the Villains Wiki
- Goro Akechi on the Megami Tensei Wiki
- Goro Akechi on the Inconsistently Admirable Wiki
- Goro Akechi on the Inconsistently Heinous Wiki