My opinions on him pre Royal were more along the lines of it being a fascinating train wreck. I thought his writing was awful but some weird part of me liked him anyways. It was like watching a car crash and being unable to look away if that makes any sense. Then Royal unironically made him my favorite character in the whole game which totally blindsided me.

Akechi is one character I have always found interesting. He is someone hwo only knows suffering, and as such only knows how to inflict suffering on others and needs help. He is someone the Phantom Thieves could've become, or someone who one of the victims they saved from abuse could've. He is essentially a cycle of abuse. I don't forgive him, but I like him for how twisted he is, and like him from a more analytical/'love-to-hate' POV.

What I like about Akechi is that he is not just a foil to Joker but of the phantom thieves as well. In fact some parts of his backstory are very similar to the other party members: Abusive father: Ryuji Was raised by their single mothers, who were also their primary or sole source of love and emotional support: Futaba Didn't have many, if any, friends and were bullied by their peers: Ann Lost their mother to suicide when they were young : Futaba Was used as mere tool by other adults: Makoto,Yusuke and Haru But despite coming out of some very similar circumstances, Akechi ends up in very different situation later in life. And a big factor that seems to drive the divergence between him and the thieves is that while the party members manage to form a bond with each other, Akechi, despite his celebrity status, was unable to make bonds with anyone ,with the exception of Joker.

My thoughts on Akechi in vanilla P5 were that it felt like he was looking into the camera and making baby-doll eyes at us to get people to sympathize with him. None of the tragedy in the story really hit at all, and I ended up disliking him for how the clumsy writing made him look like a huge douchebag (seemingly unintentionally?) I like Akechi's new content a lot, though. He feels like a real person, and the added depth made his sudden tragic backstory dumps feel less like plot filler and more like a desperate in-character attempt to be acknowledged. I think I'm somewhere between 1a and b now-- it's really funny when he hams it up (I remember the glove throw after his "duel" made me crack up hard) but the emotional core of his story feels a lot more genuine now, too. To the disdain of all my friends who like this game, I think the pancake meme is so bad it loops around to being hilarious again.

Sooo, Goro Akechi. Starting off, I'd like to say, I'll mention a couple of small spoilers concerning Persona Q2 later in this comment, which I will warn for anyone reading this so take note. For me, I'm in a mix of both 1A and 1B groups. I find him a great example of a tragic villain. I definitely don't think he's purely a victim and he did nothing wrong, but I definitely don't think he was entirely responsible for his acts either, and he was still manipulated pretty harshly by Shido preying on his insecurities, especially with the limited knowledge he got on the Metaverse. While he is with the Phantom Thieves he acts genuinely surprised at several of the methods the Thieves use, such as the calling card, showing he had no idea that was even a possibility when he dabbled in the Metaverse before then. While we don't know the exact details of how it all went down, I do have somewhat of a headcanon. Gotta mind that Akechi was rather young when he first approached Shido, a teenager probably around 15 or 16, an age where people aren't exactly known for making good long-term decisions. My guess is once he gained a Persona and knowledge about the Metaverse, he found in it a means to enact the revenge he desired on Shido, took it without fully knowing what it'd entail, and once he started causing breakdowns and shutdowns for him, he became drunk in that power and went downhill from there, and since he was both praised by Shido in performing those, giving him the acknowledgment he craved so badly, and saw his plan was getting closer to succeeding the further he went, he just allowed himself to succumb to that darker, murderous side of his. And this is without even getting into his background as a bastard child in Japanese society, growing with a mother who tried to care for him but ultimately resented him and (presumably) took her own life because of him, as well as years of pain and a lack of any true friends or family to care for him, leaving him a complete emotional wreck even before gaining those powers. Ultimately he committed terrible acts on his own and he is responsible for them, but he was still led into committing those by extremely bad circumstances, so you can't 100% pin the blame on one side or the other. He literally got the Darth Vader treatment in almost every way, really. What really bothers me most among fans really are those who just see boil him down to nothing but an unrepentant murderer, especially people who belittle his bond with Joker or call it fake, because that's just horribly missing the point. To Akechi, Joker was his one morality pet in a sense, the realization that he really could've done better, but by the point they met he was too far gone in his dark path, and knowing that the one genuine friend he's ever had is becoming an obstacle in his goal, so he'll either have to add him to his kill count or make all his other murders be for nothing, coupled with the envy from Joker so easily achieving everything that Akechi wanted and how he didn't succumb to the same darkness in spite of his troubled background, that all just adds up to a bad concoction. Also, while I see so many praises for the hilariously hammy ways of psycho Akechi, I honestly find little to be said on his White Prince side with Robin Hood, and most I've seen on that seems to just write it off as a fake personality. I really don't think it's that simple. In my own eyes, that side of his isn't so much fake, it's his idealized self. A Persona can't be faked, that's just not how it works, and same with his white Metaverse outfit. He said it himself, it is how he views someone who sticks to justice, both the outfit and Robin Hood are the part of himself that wants to truly be a hero just like he desired as a child, and he saw himself almost realizing that dream when fighting alongside the Phantom Thieves, as he said he actually enjoyed his time with them quite a bit. Hell, even his Black Mask outfit resembles a corrupted edgy take on a Featherman/Power Ranger outfit, which really goes to show that desire to be a hero, but it got tainted by his hatred and grudges. He was just aware that he just wasn't really like that, it's what he wants but the reality is different, he knows he's a killer and a monster who has caused plenty of suffering and disaster, and he's too far gone to ever become that idealized self. He barely even tries to justify himself either, beyond his crazy breakdown that is. He knows fully what he did was just terrible. WARNING, PQ2 MILD SPOILERS IN HERE SO SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU WISH TO AVOID THEM: Long story short, I do condemn his actions, but I still do feel pity for him because of how it all turned out and I do wish he had found some sort of way to redemption (even though he would totally reject either of them). What really gives me this feeling is in fact Q2. In that game, he has to play the part as the nice, charming Detective Prince the whole game, and during it, you get to see the extended time with the Phantom Thieves, especially time in a world where he can forget about Shido and his plans for a bit, as well as seeing and interacting with other groups with tight bonds with each other, and how towards the end he seems to behave more like those events really did change him for the better and allowed him to finally let go, and he didn't want to forget about it and revert to how he was before, what whole thing really hurt to me, even more so than the somewhat similar but still painful development certain P3 cast members go through in Q1, which if you know you know. Don't get me wrong, I want him to pay for his acts and not just get away with it free, but I genuinely do feel like, as that game showed, if he was given the chance he could've put it behind him eventually and become a better person. The Twins keep telling Joker about his rehabilitation but really, he's the one that needs to be rehabilitated most. And yeah, that about sums it up. I apologize if it dragged on, but at this point Goro Akechi has truly become one of my absolute favorite characters in all of fiction ever, and I find him to be an incredibly complex character in so many levels, and I just get extremely triggered when people write him off as "nothing but a psycho murderer", not because I defend his actions but because that's just such a gross oversimplification of his character it hurts. I liked him in vanilla, even in spite of the shaky writing. But now in Royal? Well, I already summed it all up, so no need to repeat all of it again. When I played along my friend, honestly I've ended up very satisfied by his overall reaction to Akechi. He started liking him, then escalated into him hard shipping him with Joker, then being at pure shock at his betrayal and true nature (yeah, he actually didn't see it coming despite it not being that surprising) and ultimately ended up with a ton of mixed feelings about him. It was, in all honesty, exactly what I was hoping to see as a reaction. Anyway, that's all, thank you if you read this far, I just love discussing Akechi's character, really. Ummmm, no real closing words come to mind sooo... peace!

It’s a wild ride, this passage of Pancakes!

Honestly it wouldn't shock me if the Shido palace game over is Yalbadaoath's doing entirely. Would certainly explain Akechi's choice in words there. The most interesting part of Akechi I feel really comes into play when you hit semester 3 and his motivation there. He's got a redemption of sorts, but that doesn't change who he is. Edit: Funny enough he'd probably hate the "Akechi did nothing wrong" crowd. He doesn't react well to pity XD

I basically have the same thoughts on Akechi. For vanilla P5, I was basically in category 3. And for Royal, my thoughts on him changed a lot (thanks to his new Confidant), so now I sit comfortably in category 1B. I love the hamminess of Akechi as a villain (probably because of Robbie Daymond's line deliveries), and I appreciate the fact that the writers for Royal didn't give him some kind of predictable redemption arc. The two biggest improvements so far that got me to like Akechi after hating the writing around him in vanilla P5 were... his new Rank 8, and him giving Joker one of his gloves after the duel those two have in that Rank 8. Like sure, the parts of Akechi's Confidant that carried over from vanilla P5 stick out in a bad way... but like you said: In a way, it's good that those bits were kept in Royal. So although Akechi is still an obvious villain at the end of the day, I can like his character for what it so now because the writing around him is not only greatly improved, but new parts of it mostly fit in with the old parts. So the new parts of the Confidant don't really feel out of place, and they're enjoyable to go through, especially since the player has to go out of their way to bond with Akechi in Royal, making what happens in those events feel earned rather than simply forced. And as for the whole pancakes thing: I like it, because of how frankly stupid and absurd it is. Like, early on, the game was giving us the impression that Akechi was this ace detective. But then, after he's revealed to be the obvious traitor and looking back at the line: "Oh, am I mistaken? I thought I heard something about delicious pancakes.", it's incredibly funny that the thing of which would ultimately become his downfall is a stack of pancakes of all things. Usually, I don't like stupidity with actual important plot points, but this is an exception, because in a way... Akechi being foiled by something as unassuming as pancake is legitimately satisfying. I wished that the writers of Royal added something right before the fight with Akechi in Shido's palace, along the lines of him despising the fact that he was sniffed out as the traitor because of pancakes. I would've LOVED Robbie Daymond voicing Akechi in that scenario, since that would no doubt add to the overall hamminess. With all that said though, those were my thoughts on the pancake meme lord himself.

This was a lot of fun reliving the journey of Akechi and all his meme glory! Even though I was already into Persona prior to P5's ENG release, I stayed away from the fandom once the game released in Japanese, so I wasn't aware of what was going on between 2016 and when I finally finished the game myself. I feel like I'm a mix between all three (1a, b, and c lol). don't think he did nothing wrong, and he definitely needed to be held accountable for his crimes. As in, if he didn't die, then he definitely needs to be locked up in prison. But I also don't fall in the "love to hate" category, since I don't hate the dude. And then prior to the Royal changes and additions, I was disappointed in the way his writing was executed for reasons that you mentioned (all the exposition dump, especially in the final few moments). He was still my favorite even back then, but only because I was aware of how Japan would view someone with a background like him... and also headcanons lol. Not for any of Atlus' actual writing reasons. But nowadays (since P5R), the 1c part no longer applies haha. Overall nice job and thanks for this video Klingy! 😄

I'm definitely part of the category 1b, I can't help but snicker at Akechi's hammy insanity. He gives King Gianthamnotavillian a run for his money of how enjoyably evil he is lol

The og P5 tries to make you sad for him, while royal just says this is Akechi’s character and let’s the player decide for himself what to think.

I must confess, as someone who played P5 completely blind for the first time in 2018, even before the "Delicious Pancake," scene, which I picked up on immediately, I think I even screamed out loud, "Hey, you're not supposed to know the cat can talk!" I had suspicions about Akechi because of his name. I'm sure this obvious to Japanese history nuts like me, but Akechi is the name of possibly the most infamous traitor of the Sengoku period, Akechi Mitsuhide, the general of Oda Nobunaga who allegedly betrayed his master, (there is a lot of scholarly debate on whether Akechi was a traitor and if acted alone if he was,) and caused the fire that Honno-ji temple that killed both Oda Nobunaga and his wife Noh-hime. I don't think it was just a coincidence that the writers at Atlus gave him the surname of Akechi. I don't know how quickly the Japanese audience picked up on that, of those who weren't influenced by the his memes, but it seems a lot of Western fans don't draw that connection. Then again they probably weren't paying attention in their World History class that day. *Sniffle* As for Goro Akechi, I would definitely put myself in category 1a as I despise Shido way more :)

What great timing for this to be uploaded after LadyVirgilia's video about Akechi Rank 8. So as someone who never played Persona 5, I knew about the betrayal and pancakes for a long time because the memes spread everywhere. Also, the part about the Phantom Thieves outsmarting Akechi was somewhat of a meme and got spoiled on that as well. On the Akechi scale, I would say I'm a 1B.

As someone whose experience with p5 has been pop culture osmosis and this playthough (recently got the switch port, but I'm in Sae's palace), I think I'm in category 1b, with elements of 1a. I guess I'd say I'm sympathetic to his circumstances, but I'm also a suckered for a good third act breakdown. That said, I know he has a *redacted* with Joker, which appears to take place on a rooftop at night. So it will be interesting to see how that comes about. Also, I've known about the pancake jokes from their inception, and regardless of context, they are undoubtedly the best part of Akechi.

1b. Dude is fun. Absolutely fun. Hell his Rank 8 fight is one of my favorite fights in the game to boot. The glove. Oh my god the glove. I love what they do with it.

I'm 1b with slight 1a. 1b - he's a good foil to the Phantom Thieves, and seeing him become completely unhinged is delightful, as is the description of how the Phantom Thieves played him for a fool during the Sae arc. As for 1a, I see him as a tragic villain who, by the time of his Heel-Face Turn, has repeatedly blown his chance for a proper redemption and _knows_ it. While his backstory is sympathetic and I see him as partly a victim of a horrible father, *nothing* excuses either his complicity in Shido's crimes, his own crimes, or the direct irreparable harm he did to Futaba and Haru.

As someone who only got to experience P5 recently thanks to the recent ports of Royal, this was a much-appreciated glimpse into the history of this game’s hype cycle. I think I’m firmly in Camp 1. Speaking personally, I saw the betrayal coming from a mile away, but that wasn’t enough to make me dislike Akechi immediately. I don’t mind stories with obvious twists because then the fun for me comes from guessing why the twist happens, and that’s where I think Akechi shines. This is one of the few cases in fiction I’ve experienced where “you and I are not so different” is done well

There’s no getting off Mr. Akechi’s wild ride.

I have always loved Akechi. In the vanilla and even more in Royal. I don't excuse his actions or believe he did nothing wrong, he killed people and he did betray Joker who was his only real friend, but I also understand that half of it was circumstance. Yaldaboth and Shido both using and manipulating him, after all he is still a teenager and although he is intelligent he still got caught up in revenge and pride in a very juvenile way. I think that the new confidant not only strengthened his bond with Joker a lot better, but by expanding on his life and his thoughts it reminds the player that Akechi is still a kid like the other thieves who was just processing his anger and hurt in the opposite direction. He even acknowledges that maybe if he'd met Joker earlier things could have been different for him. By third semester he's accepted his fate and his actions in a very honest way, I think he is well written and I always recommend Royal more than the vanilla game for his character (+Maruki). Royal really did well by Akechi, I loved his new confidant and third semester Akechi is everything.

0:14 That line is such a good description of Akechi's reputation in the fanbase, I almost wonder if it was intentional. 0:35 Ah yes... *DELICIOUS PANCAKES!!!* 1:11 Right, I remember hearing about that. 1:33 Hmm... 1:40 HMM... 2:38 Yeah, Akechi was so obviously the traitor, it wasn't even funny. 3:09 ...Well, I think that settles it. 3:24 ...Unrelated to the whole Akechi thing, but I wonder who that 4chan poster was referring to when they said "waifubait", since, let's be honest here, EVERY ONE IS WAIFUBAIT!!! 3:46 Yeah, Akechi and one of the twist villains are pretty similar. 4:16 Heh, nice MGR reference! 4:58 And thus, A MILLION MEMES WERE BORN THAT DAY!!! 6:12 Damn, I wish I got into this series sooner! Then again, I would have been around 11 at that point, so... maybe not. 6:36 Yeah, how this game got so big so quickly, I will never know. 11:31 Hmm... I'd probably put myself somewhere between Category 1B and Category 3, albeit closer to 1B. 13:43 To be fair, being better than Akechi's vanilla Confidant isn't exactly a high bar. I already gave my thoughts on Akechi back in the video where we fought him, but to summarize, while his writing can be inconsistent at points, due to his new scenes in Royal and just how crazy he gets during his boss fight, I do like him. So, some interesting stuff has happened since the last time I posted a comment, but first, a little context: as most of you probably know, the 3DS and Wii U eShops are closing soon, and because of that, I wanted to buy a few more games before they close. Unfortunately, my SD card was only 2GB, so I had to get an upgrade, and thankfully, I have a microSD card adapter, meaning my best option was definitely to get a microSD due to how widespread they are. Since I didn't have any microSDs lying around for me to use, I decided to ask around at my school to see if anyone had one they'd be willing to give me (if this plan failed, I would have to buy a microSD and spend even money). I eventually asked one of my friends and he was willing to give me one, however (and this is where the story gets interesting), he offered to download some games I wanted from the Internet for me. Normally, I don't condone piracy, it's a terrible practice that steals money from developers and publishers and it prevents them from having the money to make better games. However, since most of the games I wanted are pretty old at this point, it would be pretty expensive to buy them all, and the eShop closing soon meaning it'll soon be a moot point, I decided to give him a list of games I wanted. After I modded my 3DS, he gave me the microSD with some of the games I asked for (due to some issues involving mistaking DLC for a game as the game itself, I gave it back to him after I had put the first batch of games on my 3DS, and I have all of the games I asked for, albeit the files are still on my laptop), and I downloaded them onto my 3DS. Because of this, I can now say that I am the... somewhat ashamed owner of Fire Emblem Awakening, Fates (with all 3 routes), and Echoes, SMT4 and SMT4A, DeSu 1 and 2, PQ1 and 2, and Apollo Justice, Dual Destinies, and Spirit of Justice. Thankfully, despite my little stint into piracy, I will still have to pay money for some things, namely, the DLC for the games that my friend wasn't able to find all of the DLC for.

I don't see 1B and 2 as mutually exclusive, because i love to hate him but I also consider him explicitly irredeemable. I'm also glad that I only started playing Royal a few months ago and had never heard of the game beforehand, and so I didn't go into it really knowing anything at all. I also went out of my way to avoid plot spoilers, although I couldn't help seeing the Kasumi spoiler, although I still managed to avoid getting much in the way of details ahead of time, and so it was still an enjoyable arc in the 3rd semester.

Akechi is pretty freaking weird. I was spoiled on him being a twist villain, but it felt organic. Pancakes aside, Robbie Daymond's performance always had a 'there's something not right with me' element in the background. The sympathy moments felt organic enough, and the Phantom Thieves not fully forgiving him made them feel less obnoxious. When he joins again to undo the new fake reality, I find it fascinating he's pretty normal outside of combat - and even in combat, he's actually somewhat decent to the Thieves. He's one big enigma, and I really like him.

Really nice to see a video-essay type video from you. Really well made My opinion on him started with “I like him, but not as much as other people and I find his writing very flawed at some points” to finding that royal very much improved him.

Great video, lots of good points and a good case study on how fandoms can be xD. Overall very interesting with some sutff I honestly didn't know. Honestly, I have always been a category 2 and Royal didn't really change that, but it did help me understand more of why category 1A even exists xD. I just feel like he ultimately doesn't have much of an excuse to be the way he is, as the Phantom Thieves came from the dirt too, and Akechi shunned people and help and stewed in his hate alone his whole life and thus ended up the way he did.

Akechi is quite the interesting character for me. As someone who ended up watching a persona 5 playthrough right after the fakeout because it ended up in my reccomended and knowing nothing about him. Having no context for anything he did was a wild ride. In the present now I do believe I do find him quite cool of a character and his personas are up there design-wise for my favorite persona designs. Royal and Q2 added a lot to like for me too so overall I would say 10/10 and probably somewhere between 1a and 1b Also delicious pancakes is peak comedy for my mushy brain lol

It's finally here. It's Pancake time folks! 0:58- This frikin image. LMAO 2:39- Well that was a massive giveaway once they found that. 4:56- The frikin KZfaq video chapter thing just being called "Pancakes" is just so stupid and yet funny. Xp 5:26- I still want a full blown edit of that one really old Marvel Cartoon of Magneato being beaten by a wooden gun, but all mentions of the wooden gun are replaced with "pancakes" and Akechi's face is photo shopped over Magneato's. lol 6:23- I was not ready for that. Xp 8:41- I'm probably in this camp. While I share some of the next category's views of Akechi being responsible for his own crimes, I don't seriously hate him because of how he hits the just right notes to be a love to hate villain and how he's handled in that sense (at least in the context of P5R where they gave him a massive overall to be a good "understandable, but still has done horrible things that must be answered" kind of villain). 14:50- Somehow knew in the back of my head you'd end up in this group initially. After hearing how poorly vanilla P5 handled him, doesn't surprise me. 15:05- And no surprise about how you feel about him now; Well done Hamminess will give one many points with you. 16:42- When you leave it like that, I feel mildly concerned... 16:50- As I've already stated, I personally land in the 1B Group with some mixed feelings from the 2 Group. He's a very fun villain to watch, especially when he's allowed to have it out on full display during his final fight. However I do recognize him as a I stated earlier as a villain you can understand how they got messed up, but can't overlook their actions. I feel bad for him going down such a twisted route, but I'm not going to excuse all of the death and suffering he caused and/or aided in. That said, still enjoy watching this SOB do his things and love watching his madness the more intense it becomes. Seriously, I'm annoyed with him dying when he did not because of any of the usual reasons, but because we don't get to see more of his insanity and how fun that'd be to watch. EDIT: Also, I'm VERY glad my first serious exposure to the whole Akechi stuff was on this channel and more specifically, with an LP of P5R and not vanilla since holy hell I would have vastly hated him/ would have been in Hard Group 3 for him if I experienced Vanilla first. Seriously, it's absurd how much Royal fixed him and made him so much better. In other news, been making a great deal of progress in Tactics Ogre Reborn, after breaking up the grinding trip, did some more fights and made some solid progress. Though I annoyingly got roadblocked briefly for a story map with the jump in levels and needing to do a bit of grinding to match the enemies' levels. Also not helping was how on this map, there were *FOUR* enemy units I wanted to recruit and needed to play carefully to both recruit AND keep them alive during the fight. After quite a bit of planning, trying out different Strats, and getting lucky as hell thanks to status effects (ranging from lasting as long as I needed to the poison wearing off on one of the units I wanted ti recruit before it could kill them AND put them at the best HP threshold to start recruiting them at), I FINALLY won that fight. Going to be happy playing more, but other things will delay how often I'll play it (though I might go back to playing it in spite of it). Speaking of which, playing more Master Duel due to needing to finish up my current Duel Pass before it expires in the next week or so. Thankfully I cam back for the right time to do so since the Theme Chronicle Event (using decks that are featured in the Solo Mode stories) is now out. And for my deck, I have a totally creative idea for it... *Copies current Crusadia Deck and takes out Access Code Talker from it and have him sit outside the door* AND done. Yeah, it might be lazy, but boy is it fun to basically play my normal deck for this event at near full power barring the lack of the Access Code Talker back up plan. So many quick wins (or loses...), so many points racked up, and my Duel Pass gets filled up. It plus a few matches before the event started already has me halfway there and I should hopefully spread out these sessions enough where I can fill out the pass without feeling insane over it (yet again). And I'll be getting Engage, though there's a good chance it might be coming late for me. Regardless when it comes in, making it know here that I'll be taking my usual oath of silence on this channel and will have my lips shut on the matter until an appropriate time has arrived months later to talk of it. At most maybe super vague thoughts on the game. EDIT: Also for whenever my Switch needs to be charged, I have something else in mind to do that I've started. I'm started playing Megaman X Command Mission and THIS TIME I hope to actually play the game through to actually beat it and to a decent amount of completion. Already on the game's third chapter and having a good time for the most part. Some things about the game hasn't hold up as well as I remembered, but I'm still enjoying the game and once I get a bit later into the game where more starts to open up, I can finally tap into the things kid/teenage me was too dumb to take note of.

Theory for failing shido's palace even if you beat Alechi: i think he did survive but hes forced to serve shido And he did survive but the ship explosion probably killed him And a few other factors that i cant think quickly to write i dunno this is the best thinking i can do

I started with Vanilla Persona 5 just right before Royal was released. And man Akechi was just...there in Vanilla. Admittedly I didn't catch on that he was the traitor until the "twist". And afterwards it's at least fun to watch him spiral out of control, but then that's just over before it begins and then it's the end of the game. As much as game wanted to, he doesn't leave much of an impression for me to fully enjoy him. Then I finally got to play Royal and man, he's just MILES better than Vanilla. He's an actual character now. He's no longer a narrative or figurative puppet. His Social Link is super good and fun to witness if you know the comparison from Vanilla. And by the end, it's a much better send off. And then the 3rd Semester takes all of that and makes him EVEN better. Also shoutout to Robbie Daymond for Akechi's performance. He carried it by the end.

I wouldn't go as far to say that I think Akechi did nothing wrong, but I'd probably classify as a 1A. I only played Royal, but it was impossible to escape the spoilers, particularly since any video on [insert P4 culprit here] would inevitably compare them, saying that he was a far better twist villain than Akechi. So, I obviously had an idea. And like you said, it wasn't exactly a secret that he was the traitor. All that said, I can't help but empathize with him. Maybe I'm just too nice, but, as I said before, "a child that isn't embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth". Akechi isn't a monster, he's a person that's had nothing his whole life. A pariah from the moment he was born. Most people in his position would have just rotten away in some corner of the street, but he was the rare one that managed to turn around. And all he had to do was sell his soul to the devil. Honestly, if your whole life you've been treated like trash, why would you care if you have to kill a few people to make something of yourself? Society used and abused you, so why not burn that society to the ground? Akechi is mostly designed to embody the sin of emptiness. That's pretty obvious, since everything about him amounts to nothing: He has nobody; he doesn't care about anybody; nobody cares about him; his plans were doomed from the beginning to amount to nothing; and, in a way, he himself isn't anything either. All "Akechi" is is a loosely cobbled together set of traits to make himself the most desirable. To people who want a charming and clever celebrity, he's an ace detective. To those who want a ruthless, psychotic murderer, he's the black mask. But, the truth is, he's neither. He's just a hollow person that simply behaves as people expect him because he doesn't really know who he is. It's heavily implied that he doesn't really take pleasure in his killings, only behaving like a maniac because it's what others expect. In truth, he doesn't see beinh a serial killer as any more than any other job. It's what needs to be done for his survival, so to hell with it. That gets into my next point. Joker, in a sense, is empty too. A mere vessel for the player to project themselves into. However, realistically, Joker is a vessel for an idealized version of yourself. The handsome, intelligent and capable leader of a group of vigilantes trying to better society. He's a hero you'd like to be. Meanwhile, Akechi is empty in the worst sense. A person that came from nothing, has nothing, and is doomed to make mistakes that will ultimately lead him to die with nothing. This also leads into another point. Akechi is what the Phantom Thieves, and really, anyone that's been mistreated long enough, could become. Remember Kamoshida's Palace, when we chose to target him despite knowing he might die? Sure, it was for noble reasons, but it's a slippery slope, and when you already have blood in your hands, why not cause some more destruction if you deem it "right"? Who draws the line of who deserves to die and who deserves to live? Moreover, despite all the hardships, the Thieves had each other. If they didn't, I could easily imagine what could have become of them. Ryuji being expelled after Shiho's attempt, probably shutting himself off from the world and likely rotting away until his mother passed, at which point he would too. Ann going after him herself, either killing Kamoshida or getting stopped, but having her life destroyed either way. Yusuke being sucked dry for the rest of his life, until the day he either died or had nothing else to give, and was thrown out like all the other pupils. Makoto being just a puppet, having nothing in life but the hollow achievement of being what people wanted her to be. Futaba just stewing in her room until the pain was too much and she followed in her mother's footsteps. Haru continuing to be a mindless slave to the whims of others, being little more than a cheap toy to be used then discarded by everyone around her. The only difference is that, by the time Akechi managed to make even one connection, it was too late. He'd gone too far and sacrificed too much to go back. Maybe he was wrong, and he had a choice at the beginning, but he was fifteen, and isn't it so easy to judge a child's behavior as "wrong" when you're an adult and have your life figured out? Maybe he could have been better, but why would he be, when he was an inconvenience from birth? Why wouldn't he jump at the opportunity to be someone, anyone, instead of just waiting to die in some hole, forgotten, even if he had to kill to accomplish that? You reading this had privileges in life. He didn't. Can you truly say you'd be different, if you never had anything? If the little you ever had was slowly and meticulously taken from you? Would you even care to be? Anyway, I digress. Can you tell he's my favorite character in the game? There's just so much to unpack with him, it's great.

This carousel... takes us round and round... with pancakes! 4:14 Raiden? That you? This was quite a fascinating dive into how Akechi was received by the fanbase. Overall, I would say I like Akechi as a character, but I certainly see him as more of a "love-to-hate" villain. While he does have sympathetic traits, his villainous actions are too big for him to escape all of the blame. He's also elevated a point by Robbie Daymond's voice acting, especially during his boss fight. If there are any other topics like this regarding fanbase reactions you know of, I'd be quite interested to see them.

Can't wait for the Third semester. That'll really be something else to talk about. Also Engage is finally out and i avoided spoilers. Yay! And I'm gettibg both 3 and 4 next week too.

You know when something gets people riled up a ton to the point of tons of arguing, but you experience it and don’t really feel strongly at all? That was me. I was in the small, weird category of being really ambivalent to Akechi during the vanilla days. I didn’t pay attention to him much at all apart from noticing how wonky his writing was. The part I liked most was that he was obviously evil to both the player and the party, which informed the ludicrous plan at the end of Sae’s Palace. That stuck out because it was pretty ridiculous and memorable whereas I found Akechi pretty untransformative. Buying into the tone made it hard to enjoy the hamminess too. But I will say, I’m with the large number of people that vastly prefer him in Royal. It’s hard to disagree with how much more fleshed out he is. For the most part, the Royal bits of added story are really well done compared to some of vanilla’s and I’m glad it applied to Akechi too. The presence of the original scenes does make the Royal stuff not feel as seemless as Maruki’s inclusion though, as understandable as their continued inclusion is. I do kind of owe him and the pancake meme though, as knowing that got my foot in the door with someone I’d become good friends in High School. Knowing the meme made her realize I knew the game and its characters, and wasn’t some normie who thought the character in her drawing looked cool like some other people did. The meme is pretty normie now, but this happened before the massive meme boom in the western community, so it worked.

Personally I don't really see myself falling into any of these categories, I'm mostly a mixture of all of them (Except for category 3. I never had a problem with Akechi's writing in Vanilla, though it is obviously done better in Royal.) I sympathize with Akechi and do think he was a victim, but I would never say he did nothing wrong. No one forced him to work with Shido, and while what he went through was awful, that doesn't justify any of his actions. But that doesn't mean I hate him either. To paraphrase a line from Yusuke's confidant, "The heart can't completely separate black from white." That's what makes Akechi so interesting to me and why I love his character... Plus it's just a lot of fun watching him ham it up.

I never really had an opinion on Akechi. Obviously I think he was better handled in Royal, and I like his boss fight. But the only lines of his that really stand out to me is "How does someone like you have things that I don't?" and when he flat out tells Joker in his confidant that he hates him. I think it just speaks to his mindset in a more interesting way than "Screw friendship" and the like. Otherwise, I just don't find him very interesting either as a character or a villain.

I saw a playthrough of the vanilla game, I hated Akechi and his smug face initially. But over time I grew to sympathize with him, but I didn’t excuse his actions. Royal made him one of my all-time favorite characters and that is solidified by Robbie’s amazing voice work. His Rank 8 actually gave me a bit of trouble when I first played and I had to be a bit scummy when it came to a strategy xD.

4:13 Can't say I expected to hear Metal Gear Rising voice clips here, but I'm certainly not complaining! 6:21 "stop talking about groo holy shit" 7:48 My old stance in the fandom, as you might remember when I commented on one of your Vanilla P5 videos all that time ago. 8:21 My current stance. I can't forgive him, and even in Royal some aspects of Vanilla hold the quality of his writing down, but my _gosh_ is it is a blast to hear Robbie Daymond go all-out with him! Seriously, "award-winning" is kind of an understatement for that performance. I don't think I was really around for the Goropocalypse. If I remember correctly, while all that was going on, I was still watching your Persona 3 FES playthrough, waiting for new videos and mostly avoiding the other Persona games at the time. I only really checked out P5 when P3 was nearly over, and by then things had settled down. Though even if I'm misremembering, I don't get very involved with fandoms outside of MLP, and even with MLP I'm pretty selective and mostly talk with friends. Can't say I really witnessed the immediate impact of the Royal re-release back when it first hit shelves for PlayStation either. But I did hear about some of the improvements made to Akechi before your Royal playthrough started, and I'm glad for the changes. Think I've already said everything I really _can_ say right now, if not here then definitely in my comment on the Akechi fight video. Besides quoting more Goropocalypse memes, anyway.

Herlock Sholmès: ARRREEENNNSSSEEEE!!! Inspector Koichi Zenigata: LLLLLLUUUPPPPIIIINNNN!!!! Goro Akechi: JJJOOOKKKKEEERRRRR! As someone who been watching lupin the third, that pancakes reveal would defienftly be in a movie, special, and/or an episode(epesically part 2). It funny at first he seems like Zenigate exp but he was similar to Oscar from the "an woman named Fuijko Mine" in which he a young destice that looses it and does a convoluted plan

Yeah, I'd say I'm also in group 1B as may or may not have been obvious from how much I was raging when the reveal happened, also I was reading some other comments and OH MY GOSH I totally forgot Akechi was Mitsuhide's first name, if I did then I wouldn't have ignored my realisation he's not to be trusted or been tricked by his explanation when he joined the PTs.

Cabin Fever, everybody! PANCAAAAAAKES!!!

Played Royal in 2020. Glad I got to experience Akechi’s improved story, he’s one of my top 3 favorite characters, along with Futaba and the Protagonist

Pretty good recap of the entire "Goro Saga" as I like to call it. Not much I can disagree with. Though, if I were to be pedantic, I'd say I probably belong to something like a 1c option where I believe they did a good job with him in Royal (He's an actual character now instead of just a meme), but I don't really love to hate him or anything of the sort. I think he's okay, but he doesn't do too much for me personally.

Learning about the origins of the memes surrounding Akechi is quite facinating. I didn`t know about any of this, seeing Persona 5 for the first time when playing it when it came out during 2017. The video title is very fitting, it really seems like it was a WILD ride for Persona fans. If I had been around, I would definitley have gotten tired of the constant posting of pancake memes. Originally, I did not care much for Akechi. Nowadays, I find myself in category 2, with a touch of 1b. Akechi`s hammyness makes the reveal very entertaining and solidified Robbie Daymond as one of my favourite English voice actors period. Despite this, I cannot say that I "like" him that much. Even putting his murders aside, the combination of his superiority complex and seeking validation almost constantly makes him a character I dread interacting with. I also kind of agree with some of the points against the way he is written, namely how the narrative tries to paint him as "not as hateful as he seems", while failing to show that in any meaningful way. Royal definitely helped improve him thanks to the reworked Confidant, the moments of sympathy now feel more earned. However it also focuses on his "rivalry" with Joker too much for my liking. The final confrontation having Joker plead with him to work together particularly annoyed me, as I had no desire to cooperate with him. There is also something else Royal did with Akechi I don`t like, but we will get to that much later. For the record, I have nothing against people who LIKE Akechi. They are entitled to their opinion. I am just not one of those people.

Also my opinion regarding Akechi is probably a bit weird, because I'd consider myself a category 1C, that is, Akechi did stuff wrong and he's definitely a villain, but I don't love hating him as a villain, if anything seeing his outbursts like that make me sad, that he felt he had to end being a villain, walking down a path tainted with blood because he felt he had no other choice, and he ended up doing a lot of things wrong in the first place, he was alone, didn't have anyone to confide in, no one to acknowledge him, that's why he says he had wished to had met Joker earlier, because thanks to him, he finally learned what it was like to trust someone, to confide, to have someone by your side, if he and Akechi had met earlier, Akechi wouldn't have walked down that horrible horrible path, he was a victim, but the blood is on his hands just as much as it is on Shido's

3:14 I'm sorry but the Goro confirmed Sus sentence is just killing me LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL It's so funny to me idk why

Honestly, despite being similar to Naoto Shirogane and Sho Minazuki, I like Akechi. Although, I find the pancake memelord bandwagon to be overrated, the improvements to his Confidant in Royal made him a far better character than in the original game. As for his appearance in the Shido Palace Game Over scene, it's heavily implied to be a nightmare that Joker had. I wonder if you'll do an analysis video on Maruki?

Now I want pancakes 🥞 😩 😫 😋 gonna have to go buy ingredients

I’m a mix of 1a, 1b, and 2. I sympathize with Aketchi for what he went though, but I don’t consider an excuse for his deplorable actions, and I think some characters are to quick to forgive him. I don’t hate Aketchi as a person or character, but I’ll will admit that he is morally despicable, and I fully blame him for what he put Futaba through by murdering her mother. He’s and interesting and entertaining villain (or anti hero in the case of the 3rd semester), and I’d be interested to see more stories involving his character development after P5R. My opinion Didn’t change much in royal. Much of what the new confidant told us I had already picked up from context clues in vanilla P5’s story. I think he’s acting like an idiot in falling for shido’s trap, but I understand why he was susceptible to shido’s manipulation and what he was trying to do (misguided and foolish as he was).

EDIT: Just pushing the spoilers past the "read more" _just_ in case newbies wander through unexpectedly. . . . While Akechi being obviously the traitor does seem intended, I'm still torn as to whether or not him having a Persona in the first place was meant to be obvious. I wish the pancake memes hadn't been _quite_ so overwhelming, that I might have had a chance to go through the TV station sequence without being hyper-aware of the word "pancakes" and see if I could have caught his slip-up naturally. I can't think of any content creators off the top of my head who didn't, but once again the fandom seems predisposed to draw attention to the moment even when they're not spoiling it outright. (As a tangent, I personally had practically forgotten that pancakes _existed_ as a food before the memes brought them back into mind; the IRL pancake industry owes a lot to Goro Akechi and Persona 5. :-P ) My opinion on Akechi (which I only _very_ occasionally see reflected in the fanbase) is somewhere in between 1A and 1B; he's a _villain,_ and has thoroughly earned the vitriol that people have towards him, but hating him doesn't preclude also having sympathy for him and wishing he'd made better choices. It's a level of nuance that I think the game was going for, but with a few rare exceptions the fandom doesn't really seem capable of comprehending it. Fanfic about Akechi tends to either erase his rage and violence to turn him into a misunderstood woobie (which is a completely different character who is _not_ the Akechi from the game), or else erase the traumatized human beneath the sadistic Black Mask (which is _also_ not the Akechi we see in the game, though with the awkward vanilla Confidant I can somewhat understand fans making the mistake of thinking that was all 100% part of his fake public-facing persona). Akechi is a violent and selfish person, even without magic mind superpowers, but it's still his _actions,_ not his personality, that make him a villain, and it's only recently that I've started to find fic that understands the difference. (Yes, his personality does make him more vulnerable to becoming a villain, but there's still a _difference_ between potential and actual villainy.) TL;DR, I don’t "love to hate" Akechi, I'm "sad to hate" Akechi, even if at the end of the day I do still think he deserves the hate.

I recently got my hands on a copy of persona 5 royal and have, in my short time of playing: 1. Broken the game in the third palace by getting a persona with a shock technical build in a fusion alarm in the third palace 2. Gotten to the max yen amount because one stamp did not want to spawn in mementos 3. Waited till the sixth arc to go to to actually do mementos instead of rushing to Kawakami and Takemi's request locations and leaving within half of an hour 4. Had Akechi be 10 levels above Joker at the beginning of Sae's palace. ( thank God for merciless mode)

For akechi i think im somewhere between 1A and 1B. i think what he does is certainly unforgiveable, and i do take great delight in fighting him when hes in his psychotic state, but at the end of it i do feel quite sympathetic to him. In p5 base i was definitely camp 3. but the royal improvements made every part of akechi better to me, especially his betrayal and the subsequent plan the PTs use to save joker, as i think ren knowing him better makes it more believable that hed pick up hints that akechi wasnt all he said he was, (ive never been a massive fan of the timing of the pancakes scene as i believe makoto shouldve caught them out first, so that the PT's were more on guard about this sort of thing)

Persona 5 Royal really helped me like him as a character, vanilla P5 Akechi beyond the pancakes meme was not likeable even as a villain 11:31 i’ve heard a headcanon that the rank 8 was like akechi’s confidant with joker ranking up instead of joker’s confidant with akechi, if that’s what it was supposed to be it wasn’t made obvious enough (just a fan theory but if true give a better reason for the vanilla rank 8 exists)

...why have I not seen this video until the algorithm gave it to me right now

10:17 As a Vanilla P5 fan, I must admit that Akechi's new Confidant is one of the best changes (if not the best one) that Royal brought on the table. Edit: As for my opinion on Akechi, I'm also on the 1a Group, but I'm open to the possibility of a redemption arc, as long as he turns himself in afterwards or sacrifices himself to save particularly either Futaba or Haru. Edit 2: I remember that in a previous video I compared Shido with Firelord Ozai from ATLA, in that regard I also view Akechi as a kind of a mix between Zuko and Azula that strangely worked.

i’ve watched this video before but i’m rewatching bc it’s fun. i own vanilla p5 but never completed it till very recently and despite being spoiled on akechi i REALLY enjoyed his climactic moment. so i became a gorogirl and bought royal so i could see the better akechi content 😭 i’d say i skew towards team 1A but not really? because it’s not like he did nothing wrong but it’s more that he was both a victim and a perpetrator of harm; he’s full of dualities like that. there’s a reason he doesn’t get a standard redemption arc and instead a deep dive on his ideals and how much he values free will & accepts his own mistakes rather than really wanting to be pitied. I like my little guy :)

Welp, Dokapon Kingdom Connect just announced for west. TRG 2nd Cour of Dokapon arc when? Oh, right. We also have canon names for all protagonists now, including PSP FEMC. 11:59 Weirdly, that's the second major character his Japanese VA did with such polarizing opinions.

Overall i kinda agree with the bad writing crowd. I also dislike that scene where he exposits about being unwanted out of nowhere and i also kinda dislike how the game kinda wants you to forgive him even when he doesnt regret anything. 16:28 its akechis ghoooost who came to haaaaauuuuunt you. Unfortunately i wasnt part of the pancake apocalypse (aka when akechi somehow gets his hands on helel and satan). I only heard of persona due to p5s popularity, lost interest in it, heard of it again and here we are.

I was very minorly involved in the Goro Akechi’s Wild Ride phase 1 since I did scour some forum posts outside of 4Chan when the game released in Japan, albeit I never really knew the memes context, I had heard about it before Persona 5 came out in English but nobody gave the full context when they mentioned it, so the fact that he was caught because he heard Morgana say Pancakes when he wouldn’t be able too, creatinine a contradiction in his story, I was more familiar with the Goro represents Law misconception. Which also meant that the idea that Okumura was more sympathetic came with. And when it comes to my general opinion on him, I don’t really feel I fall into any of those broad categories, Im probably most similar to Type 1B and always have been, but I woild say I’m more fascinated with Akechi, his sense of duality, how he tries to appear respectable but has an inner sadistic streak, how he’s quoyw skilled and intelligent but he can be somewhat emotionally immature and over complicated his main plan. How he both gets sympathy and hate from the Phantom Thieves in universe. Talking about Akechi backstory, part of what I feel hurts his reception as sympathetic , albeit this is something I don’t agree with at all is the fact that since the Japanese stigma about illegitimate children isn’t understood the means he went too to get revenge on Shido appear even less understandable, considering that Shido is not only his father but due to his illigiminate status he would lose his public image and support. Hence ruining that. To me it doesn’t make what he’s done any better, but I have seen cases when talking about media where the fact that people who have syanoqtehtic and somewhat understandable reasons for villainous actions, Akechi when you get down to it is trying for revenge for parental abandonment and leaving him in a social position that would hurt his public standing through no fault of his own, and how he did so added a lot of innocent people either injured or dead. So if the stigma was understood to be part of Japanese culture I feel we would see even more Akechi apologists. Something tha5 does somewhat baffle me, as you said his murders were something he chose to do and join in on, he would have only become forced to do something he wanted to not do if he decided he didn’t want a part of it while doing so and since Shido would kill him he would be scared to not join. Although I do end up somewhat baffled in general as to what people are willing to forgive with fictional characters, or sometimes being inconsistent or being less forgiving of something less morally reprehensible, Three Houses, I’ve seen more people being forgiving of Edelgard compared to Rhea, when both are nowhere near squeaky clean or Gilbert. So Withthe propertied issues with Akechi, this may be my perspective but I do have trouble understanding fully the problems with some of the, since to me some of them are counter balanced by other aspects, Akechi being an obvious traitor, not only was this preordained by the marketing so it’s not really a mystery at all from the perspective of someone who followed prerelease material, rather than a case of a disappointing answer to a mystery, but him being obvious is intretengky actually made into a plot point. A lot of mysteries that have very obvious answers try to be coy. I can very much understand anybody who didn’t have that context being disappointed because it is somewhat portrayed as a mystery in universe and it takes a while for Akechi to join and we know the traitor exists from about 10 minutes into an JRPG which can take 100 hours to beat. Him being sympathetic, this game feels like it has way less of a narrative with Akechi being intended to be sympathetic, because it allows the Phantom Thieves to have multiple varied opinions on how sympathetic he is, hence saying to me that there’s no right answer to it within the narrative. So whose meant to be the moral centres of the story aren’t forgiving him wholesale…. While I’m admittedly not that big a fan of his vanilla confidant, but that partially comes from how it’s a story confidant, which tend to be either with groups hence meaning theirs not a character to connect to, the fact that they they tend to be connected to story events and don’t have as solid an arc because their connected to story events that might not be relevant to what’s happening, I feel it somewhat falls under the latter problem. We do learn about and get closer to Akechi, but their synced to every time we meet Akechi and have a major story moment with him, making it feels like Akechi does something important with Joker, a rank up, rather than a self contained story where Social Links/Confidants shine. I feel Rank 8 would be more justifiable in a story sense if it was established that Joker had some method to hear Akechi in the Cognitive World, since even though Akechi was talking to the Cognitive Joker there Joker is getting the same information Hence I vastly prefer his Royal Social Link, since not only is it no longer shackled to Akechi major story appearances but you have the two becoming friends yet coming to blows eventually as a plot. I can very much believe there being a vocal minority in regards to Akechi, admittedly I’m not as sure about it, both because I haven’t seen an English popularity poll that shows Akechi being surprisingly popular, nor have I seen a discrepancy in sectors of the fandom that like certain characters more the others. Since I’ve been thinking about Fire Emblen a lot, let’s use another base breaking character Camilla, I’ve lurked on the Internet in general and Serenes Forest in particular, and I don’t think I’ve seen anybody praising her unconditionally , or at least say that they like aspects of her without talking about her flaws to again acceptance from those who would judge you for liking her but you don’t win a CYL of over 500 characters that includes both Western and Japanese fans without being liked by somebody. So evidently theirs sectors of the fanbase who like her or at the very least don’t mind her, Akechi doesn’t really have that case for my knowledge, the popularity polls I know off are Japanese, which can show a discrepancy in country demographics. I can use Female Corrin getting first for Females in a Fates popularity to show that she’s liked in Japan, but cannot do so as much in English, she does tend to do well in CYL however but hasn’t won it, albeit when the CYL 7 results come in could prove otherwise.

My immature naive 17 year old self was in 1A and i as i saw more of the world and grew up in the past 5.5 years i slipped down to Category 2 but then due to Royal, part of me is in 2 but then some part of me also is in 1B because those memes are hilarious and just hearing Robbie Daymond go wild during the boss fights is just a treat to hear. Also youtube did not show me this video until today, thanks youtube

My personal take on Akechi is: he’s just there in base and he’s my absolute favorite character in royal.

So does this mean we have to ‘stop talking about Gruu’ now? Lol sorry I still laugh at how one person misspelled Goro and people memed on that. Now where I was on the scale of Goro Akechi in the original. I believe I was in a weird in between 3 and 1b. Like those very clearly written for exposition stuff did drag. But that reveal and creepiness shoots him high. Royal though. Yeah no 1B for sure. Can’t exactly look past all the things he did to say ‘he did nothing wrong’ I get where people are coming from. But Akechi’s actions are still his own he could have just dealt with his old man and be done. But innocent people died so. Yeah. But still now he is. Mostly well written and is mostly enjoyable to listen and watch to. And that’s not getting into the best part about Akechi! That’s right! Tycoon! Tycoon playing Akechi is amazing! Too bad you got to beat all of Royal to get him! *hushed stage whispers* did I fool them? Did I do a good job fooling them into thinking there isn’t a better Akechi moment?

A case study on the pancake lad

I'm in what I like to call group 1c, basically a mix of group 1a and 1b, yes he's a crazy bastard who did a lot of things wrong and I love it (navigator Akechi is the best) but I also sympathies with how he got where he was and (in Royal anyway) I find his interactions fascinating. He's amoral, snarky, a bit tragic, a more than a bit insane, and it all comes together to make a character I love. (If anyone's curious Pre royal I was somewhere in between 1b and 3)

I feel like my feelings on Akechi are similar to villains like Berkut (Fe Echoes) and a certain villain from Xenoblade 3. I can understand why and how they turned into the people they are but I don’t feel really bad for them.

So Goro Akechi. Man It been such a roller coaster of a character from the first 5 years(as in vanilla to royal). I didn’t look at anything from game until it western. Thankful I was into persona 5 hype a year before it western release. I playing the game having a blast. I was almost in the clear of not being spoiled, until I saw Loki page on the smt wiki and saw Loki’s arcana for persona 5. If you know anything about the pop culture stuff with loki, i.e an backstabber, it was easy to put two and two and was angry by that. I also think kinda spoiled myself with briefly looking at cognitive wakaba page with akechi killing her. Yeah the spoiler come when I’m playing he game because I’m become curious and impatient. At first I love Akechi for his hammy moments and the meme coming from him. Like seriously Props to Robbie Daymond for this performance. Given I first hear him with Akechi and Hubert I was surprised he does heroic voices. Give those 2 characters, I can see Robbie Daymond played a dark Jedi/sith. My favorite was the ones where Akechi talking to pancakes and telling it BEGONE! Again the first 3-4 months of persona English released were fun. But after the “honey moon” phrase of this game, Akechi in vanilla game feels confusing. Like it feel there conflicting stuff going through writing. Cue me being to category 2 person to category 3. Like the sympathetic and wanting to save him stuff ring hollow when he kills 2 of the party members’s parents (he might have not kill Wakaba, but atleast heavy implied he did). He also a terrorist and nearly put Japan(an important country in Asia and the world in general) into political crisis. Didn’t help persona q2 was going through that redemption angle. Which made me worried about royal. (slight spoiler for persona 5 royal 3rd semester) Then cam royal and man he was improved. *akechi royal rework is such a big improvement, especially rank 8. Only problem with rank 8 is that maybe show his insanity a bit too early. Despite the game saying shido being the main human antagonist/villain for the game, I said it akechi deserves that title more. He a dark foil to joker, he interacted you and your team way more, he behind a lot of the conspiracy. Hell he have his hammy Villain moments that people can meme on-. He still suffer from not so good writing from the main story, but feel a lot more better written, especially the third semester where becomes the spy from the tf2 comics with more shouting. *- this is a repeated from another video about akechi

7:52, never heard of this type of akechi fan before. Or that there were even different subsections of akechi fans as a matter of fact. I don't get the whole "akechi did nothing wrong" if I'm remembering correctly dosent he acknowledge he's willingly murdered people, which surprisingly, is considered doing something wrong. Yes he may have had his reasons for doing so but it's still doing something wrong His vanilla confidant is entirely forgettable to me, royal definitely gave him the confidant he deserves

Goro Akechi was a character I was more neutral on in my first play through, didn't leave an impression until Shido's palace. In the middle of my second play through I saw the memes about him and it maybe the videos and discussions I saw but there was for a lack of a better word apathy towards him in a mocking way. Fast forward to Royal and I like him alot, I enjoy him more than the other male party members honestly and the people I mentioned earlier grew to like him as a character. It's also quite funny that the people who started with Royal and like Akechi REALLY like Akechi, you wouldn't see that fan reaction in the west in 2017. 3:25 That quote is quite funny in hindsight as a fan of Fire Emblem

I've said my piece on Goro Akechi in the video with the boss fight against him, so I'll add this. It's spoilers, so I'll leave in a lot of empty space: We get to see and hear Akechi become the navigator in the Third Semester, and for the short time he does, oh man, most of his navigator lines are impossible for me not to burst out laughing at due to Robbie Daymond absolutely shredding it with his delivery.

I am on both Camp 1A and 1B!

Personally I find myself split between the 1A and 1B catagory when it comes to Akechi. On one hand, I do feel he is just as much of a victim of... what happens in the story that I wont get into here. But at the same time, I do agree that what he did is unforgiveable and I really enjoy just how batshit crazy he gets in his bossfight. Now in terms of the wild ride itself, I wasnt there for it sadly, But I did read up on it once it was added to the TV Tropes meme page for P5 and honestly? Despite generally not liking it when games get leaked/datamined before release. *Glares at the Fire Emblem Engage leakers* I would argue that P5 getting leaked/datamined was a good thing. Mainly because if it wasnt, We would have never gotten Goro Akechi's Wild Ride and all the memes surrounding it, and it really did drum up hype for the game in general so... Its entirely possible that if it didnt happen, Persona 5 wouldnt have hit the mainstream as much as it did. Thats just my opinion on the matter though. Thank you so much for this video though! The story of our favorite Pancake Boi needs to be known to the world!

Goro Akechi wanted gratification from others. So in true Akechi fashion, he succeeds in the dumbest, most ASININE way possible. Edit2: In thinking about my view on Akechi I am on the apex of 1B and 3. I think several aspects of his are still done poorly in Royal for spoiler reasons, but I still LOVE to despise him when he's done well.

for me, im a mix of both 1a and 1b, even after royal. while i do blame shido for making akechi kill all those people, hes still responsible for the murders and agree that he should be locked up for his crimes. in my opinion, the phantom thieves wouldve become akechi if they didnt meet each other, mainly joker. that and the fact that akechi is the foil to joker, made me like his character and the moments in the anime between joker and akechi. proof of justice made me cry and solidified him as one of my fav p5 characters. now, i do agree that the writing couldve been better and hated the fact that his confidant was auto. but i didnt mind it, mainly cuz of the anime and akechi fanfics helped fix the points i didnt like. also, pancakes meme will never die lel. Royal spoilers below: then royal came around and omg, akechi became my fav p5r character. when atlus uploaded his character trailer and basically spoiled him being playable as black mask akechi got me excited. obviously for the fact that we could use loki, but also i wanted to know how they will write his story after the boiler room scene and my god, i was entertained A LOT and i love it. wont go any further than what i already have, but know that i am immensely satisfied with how akechi was written

When I play the vainilla versión I dientes carece mucho about, but Witherspoon rosal I leve his actituc in the extra month.

I'm firmly in the 1B camp personally, in this semester at least. The third one however.... That may or may not change. Good boykechi seemed kinda.... Fake to me anyways? Idk, something felt off. Waaay too.... Forced? But i could just be tired and or weird, who knows. As far as favorite goes.... He's DEFINITELY NOT. Nobody can take the best boy crown from Yusuke. (Or Haru in case of best girl for me) Please don't come after me for my opinions-

So klingy how do you feel about makoto and Kotone being the definitive default names now?

I'd say I'm a 1b fan. I played the vanilla version blind and was pretty meh about Akechi's character and confidant, but I can never find myself able to hate characters for bad writing and I saw a lot of potential for Akechi. Even without the knowledge of Royal's new confidant, I was interested in how his character was shaped. I ended up liking him more after seeing the new confidant, so while I am still more of a 1b fan, I have some sympathy for his actions, but not all of them. The murders and all that is still his own doing, but I have some sympathy for him feeling like he can trust no one due to his past.

I'm wondering, will you update/release an other video on akechi after the events of the third semester ? I feel like a analyse/video on him is incomplete without the third semester.

I'm honestly surprised that Q2 doesn't transform Robin Hood into Loki when it's Persona upgrade time. Wait, does this mean that during the entirety of Q2, the Phantom Thieves are still having to pretend they don't know Akechi's the traitor?

During my first vanilla run I’d probably say in between not particularly liking his writing and not enjoying his character as much. I didn’t understand how Haru could forgive him so easily in that moment. It felt a bit like the game was telling you how to feel. Also I think back then there was a need to compare a lot more with P4s story and characters, such as with Adachi. Especially since the anticipation was there for a new games story. I think many including myself at the time when hearing about a traitor caught onto that so heavily and believed that to be the huge overarching plot twist that was in the same vein as P4s killer. However this wasn’t the case. Whereas with the release of royal, an enhanced version it was a bit more removed from persona 4 golden and by that point no one expected this much of a rewrite of his confidant that would in my opinion bring his character to a much better level, even if he’s still hated by some there’s way more reasons to like and connect with his character now. I find him more of a fun character rather than outright disliking him.

I really don't have much to say... I can just say that royal improved Akechi. Really, Really improved him. I'm just waiting for the end of Shido's palace deadline.

Hmm, as someone who knew nothing about the original P5 and only got to see him through your playthrough (blind mind you) I’d have to say… I think I’m possibly in category 2. I kind of view him the way I viewed Edelgard; I do sympathize with what Akechi has gone through, and I do wish he wasn’t subjected to what he had to go through, but I don’t see his actions as forgivable in any way. While he was under Shido’s thumb, Akechi was both the gun and the one who pulled the trigger. Yeah sure, he did Shido’s bidding because Akechi wanted to be close enough to kill Shido, but if he really “wanted to be a hero”, he could have been like the Phantom Thieves and found a way to get what he wanted without taking innocent lives (I mean aside from Shido’s). I almost feel like every time Akechi could have redeemed himself… he just blew it.

Since this is a video that also mentions Akechi's popularity, I shall share my P5 Party Members Ranking (without counting Joker), in terms of only my personal preferences: 1. Akechi 2. Futaba 3. Makoto 4. Ann 5. Yusuke 6. Haru 7. Ryuji 8. Morgana 9. Yoshizawa

I went from B to C to 1B mixed with some slight sympathy but very cautious sympathy. I do feel bad for the hand he was dealt but the idea that Shido is to blame for all of this is ludacris to me. Shido is obviously an awful father but Akechi chose his path himself. At the same time, I have an odd sort of respect for Akechi in Royal. I like how he doesn't switch over to being super regretful. He choses to stick by his actions and doesn't want any sympathy for it either. It's somewhat refreshing. A lot of my issues woth Goro came from how the stans portrayed him. He himself isn't looking for redemption. He's not anywhere near Adachi for me, but Akechi went from least favorite to top 3 Phantom Thief.

I went into this, but Akechi should by all means be a love-to-hate character and that's what the new writing pivots him towards-- but the leftover stuff/scenes that weren't changed awkwardly contrast with things and legitimately leads to two different interpretations of the character existing simultaneously. If the original intent was to make Akechi a more "ambiguous" foil to the Phantom Thieves, they were completely misguided because the Thieves are never portrayed as having done anything wrong and always do what the game deigns perfectly moral. P5's writing is incredibly cut-and-dry black-and-white, so making an active foil to the Phantom Thieves is just making another hatable villain-- and by being a direct foil of the pure justice good guys he's more vile than the other antagonists in the game.

My opinion on Akechi is complex. The best way I can sum it up is that I'm a 1B for Royal Akechi (3 for vanilla P5 Akechi), but a 2 for the vocal portion of the fandom's version of Akechi. In my experience, the vocal parts of the fandom fell strongly into the 1A category. They treated him as a (for lack of a better term) 'uwu soft gay boi who could do no wrong'. Couple that with the overabundance of gay shipping between him and Joker, a fandom phenomena I've always found tiresome in ANY fandom, and I fall squarely into category 2 for what the parts of the fandom I saw did. However, I absolutely adore Akechi when he's allowed to cut loose and be an absolutely bloodthirsty psychopath. So the game's version, I quite like for that reason. Especially with the actually good writing in his new Confidant in Royal

This was a good informative video. I do appreciate that Altus made the effort to improve his writing in royal. But I think I have three main points of contention that stop me from liking Akechi. 1) Futaba never gets to ask Akechi why he killed her mother. Futaba's a smart girl and mentions that haru's dad died in the same way that her mother did in the main story. She also mentions that she'll never forgive the people that killed her in her palace. Yet when the confrontation with Akechi happens in Shido's palace, the writers had Futaba tell akechi that he can start over rather than bring up the fact he killed her mother and how that affected her. p5 is supposed to be all about holding corrupt people accountable for their crimes, yet such an obvious chance to hold him accountable is ignored in favour of trying to make the player feel bad for akechi. It's a disappointing confrontation compared to how the investigation team get to call out Adachi's shortcomings without the game trying to make the player feel bad for him. 2) The writing of p5/r made me feel that Atlus had a gun to my head telling me I was going to be Akechi's friend whether I liked it or not. There are people that will understandably want nothing to do with akechi after realizing everything he's done, but there's no real dialogue options that allow you to express that kind of feeling or to get rid of him for good. There's no dialogue option to say to him 'get lost, I don't want anything to do with you after what you've done' and royal's third semester pushed that feeling of being forced to be akechi's friend. 3) Lastly, I find the people of group 1a to be incredibly annoying. I've seen so many rabid akechi fans and joker/akechi shippers say the most ridiculous things like 'futaba's mother deserved to die' or 'akechi was MaNiPuLaTeD and he has no blame for the deaths he caused.' as an example. They get so worked up when someone dares criticize akechi's actions or metnion that he acted out of his own free will. They're insufferable and I can't fucking stand those kind of people. I think overall I'd put myself in group 3 with my opinion of Akechi, his royal writing is kind of an improvement but it didn't address my issues with his character writing enough to make him an enjoyable villain.

I'm in the love to hate him group. I find him to be similar to an anti-hero now. I did play the vanilla game and he didn't leave a good impression on me because of P4 and thought it was lazy writing.

He’s literally me (I also hate my neglectful bald glasses wearing father)

So I wasn't part of the initial Akechi chaos before Vanilla P5's release, heck I wasn't even a Persona fan back then. When I played Vanilla P5 for the first time I could see Akechi's betrayal coming a mile away, mainly because Sae's Palace has a fixed date to steal the treasure and that raised a lot of red flags. Up until then, Akechi was a nothing character for me because once I realized his Confidant was automatic, I turned off my brain whenever he was on screen because I knew my dialogue choices didn't matter. From my Vanilla P5 experience, I definitely fit in Category 3 as even I could tell Akechi's story was clunky and badly written. Now that I've seen his new Royal Confidant both through this playthrough and experiencing it myself first-hand, I can say that my opinions on Akechi have done such a 180 into Category 1B as well. I'm glad the writers didn't do the cliche redemption arc thing and just kept him as a psychotic hitman with serious daddy issues but now with added layers of depth thanks to his new Confidant. Vanilla!Akechi and Royal!Akechi give off such drastically different impressions that I honestly consider them completely separate characters. So in short. Vanilla!Akechi was pretty much "meh" for me while Royal!Akechi is much more fun and fascinating as a character, especially given what happens in the Royal-exclusive content.

Considering Akechi looks and acts so much like Light Yagami, I suppose it makes sense he has a fanbase split into the exact same categories. I'm 1B on both of them.

Akechi is a cool character and I think he is a really fun character but as for my opinion on akechi he is a victim who grew up to be a sadistic monster. You could say that I both sympathize and don’t sympathize with him at the same time I know it sounds contradictory but that’s how I feel but overall I am mostly in the 1b camp

Evil Counterparts are some of my favorite tropes ever. I think Akechi fits that role better than the P4 traitor and Strega in my opinion.

2:10, I would hope not. That site is toxic (sad part is some people didn't think it was toxic enough and created 8chan).

Sometimes I always view Akechi as a anti-hero which I thought was the time we had a persona user a anti-hero. Regardless of his actions and the meme I still like Akechi as a character.

I thought I read that goro akechi is loosley based on a famous Japanese novel character, like Sherlock Holmes in the west. Don't quote me on that, though

I really love Akechi. Now, I was fortunate enough for my first P5 experience to be Royal, so I never had the ups and downs everyone else had. I will say tho that from what I have seen of Akechi in og P5, he seems like a character I would strongly dislike. Writing is a very big deal for me, and from what I can tell, P5 Akechi is horribly written. And yeah sure he still has his issues, especially with certain plot scenes that clearly weren’t changed from the original to adapt to Royal, but overall he’s one of my favorite characters in this game

opinions 2 . i hate him more than ryji

Akechi couldn't beat Shadow Shido, Shadow Shido was very strong.

Still Category 3 here. Yes, he's better written in Royal, but it still doesn't make *any sense* for Joker to actually go out of his way to become the best friend of the guy who is trying to bring in the Phantom Thieves. It's like Venom just casually asking Spiderman to go out for coffee, it's just asinine. He's simply a Confident because the "the plot says so"... and because the yaoi fangirls won't shut up until he was! And no, I'm not backing down on that last point. The only reason he gets sympathy from a big portion of the fanbase is because he's hot. I am sick to death of pretty boys in anime getting special treatment and never being allowed to be straight-up villains. The only reason Adachi was allowed to be a cruel, sadistic, sexist bastard in P4 (and remains so in Ultimax, even if he dosen't want to destroy the world anymore), is because he was an adult. Akechi is Adachi if Adachi was written to be a teenage pretty boy, with all the yaoi fangirl bait that entails. It's funny because Mona's lines about Joker being a REALLY SUPER SPECIAL FRIEND to Joker ring utterly hollow if you didn't max out his Confidant. I mean, I know if I played P5R first instead of vanilla, I would've avoided him like the plague and enjoyed picking all the angry dialogue options during his forced interactions. And the final nails in the coffin that come from the final semester. Do the theives throw out the mentally unstable psycho responsible for the deaths of 2 of their parents? OR do they invite him to join up and study and go to the movies and have a grand old time being buddies?!? ARGHH! The real reality warping isn't because of Azathoth, it's because of popularity polls dictating how everyone acts.

I was actually there on /pg/ when it happened it was glorious