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akechi-stole-my-heart · 2 hours

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Hifumi Togo :)

hifumi togo :)

#p5 #hifumi togo

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akechi-stole-my-heart · 1 day

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sticky note doodle

#p5 #goro akechi

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akechi-stole-my-heart · 1 day

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have you seen the commentary from the p5r artbook going around? the shuake part of my dash is losing it a bit at the implication that their wishes were mutual!!! that seems to be what some people are getting from the commentary at least… amy insights?

Hi! I have been through the artbook. It's great, isn't it? :D

The image above is called "One Ending", and the creator caption (by illustrator Akane Kabayashi) reads:

When I think about how Akechi's wish was to play chess after school with the protagonist, I almost want to call him out with "You liked him after all, didn't you!"

Look at that. We're told about Akechi's wish, and what it included. We're as good as told outright that he likes Joker—and this isn't the only time, there's also this:

—There are a whole lot of things we can imagine, based on how the protagonist was depicted as someone special to Akechi. Those are more or less the exact emotions represented during Akechi's confidant. (Mumon Usuda, chief designer)

"someone special" here is 特別な存在 tokubetsuna sonzai—literally "a special presence". It means a special person, and more than that; it describes someone you find compelling, someone you can't look away from, someone who becomes one of your most important people, the centre of your world. It's another term that is often romantic, but isn't necessarily romantic.

(In the same way, I think Kabayashi's suki jan! is more tongue-in-cheek than it is a cast-iron confirmation that Akechi was canonly in love with Joker. The language there is teasing, it's ambiguous, it's baity; Kabayashi is joking. This is a rank 6—as they say, if you know, you know. But it is of course ultimately up to all of you.)

There's another mention of this image, down in the creator interview:

Out of all the Maruki ending illustrations, it was Akechi's that stuck with me the most. It made such an impression to see them opening up as friends, having a fun, peaceful time together like high school students should. (Mumon Usuda, chief designer)

What really strikes me in all of this is the emphasis the creators put on the fact that this is Akechi's illustration, Akechi's wish. Because I've thought for a while that we know Akechi has a wish. You can see him struggling with his refusals to Maruki in the first week of January. And you can hear his wish spoken—when Maruki repeats it back to him, during the boss fight, on 2/3:

Maruki {F1 81}君たちとなら、君も過ちのない道を歩めるかも知れないじゃないか！ {F1 81}-kun-tachi to nara, kimi mo ayamachi no nai michi o ayumeru kamoshirenai ja nai ka! If you're with {F1 81}―kun and his friends, you could begin to atone for what you've done! Think about it! With [Amamiya]-kun and his friends beside you, you could choose a path with no mistakes as well!

So this wish has several parts. First, there's that kimi mo, "you also"; it's tempting to read this as Maruki also wanting his new world to erase his past mistakes. Second, there's the first part, "if you're with [Amamiya]-kun and his friends". Where to even start here?

Being with Joker and the others is a prerequisite for the second half of Akechi's wish. It doesn't just coexist, it enables the rest of it. Just like his words in the engine room, "I wonder why we couldn't have met a few years earlier, [Ren]..."

Remember, Akechi's whole arc is about his rejection of trust and friendship, and his insistence on doing everything himself. This is precisely what Futaba calls him out on—"you trusted no one", or "you played life in single-player mode". This is what he unlearns at the climax of the engine room, when he realises he isn't prepared to let the others die—and follows through to save them.

Akechi is nothing without others, and he knows it. Without their support, which he believes he has no right to, he has no hope of living a better life, even were he to be given the chance—and he knows that, too. He has learned, and he has grown—and yet he knows the things he needs and wants so badly are forever inaccessible.

And his wish is about all the Phantom Thieves, not just Joker. There are many tiny references to this end—not least the original Japanese rank 10 line for his confidant, where he sacrifices himself for all of you. Joker is his compelling presence, his someone special, but he's formed small bonds with the others too, God help him.

and then there's the crime thing

The localisation frames Akechi's wish in terms of atonement, but that's not what's on offer. You cannot, after all, atone for things you never did. We see Akechi's wish put into practice, in the Maruki ending, where he appears with his friends beside him, wholly innocent and with unstained hands. And we see it in the first week of January, after he has finally met Maruki and spoken to him:

Akechi: Ah, that reminds me—there was one more thing I wanted to tell you. Akechi: About the reality Maruki's put us in... Akechi: It seems that Okumura and Wakaba are both considered alive by all accounts. [Ren: They're not dead anymore? / What do you mean?] Akechi: They aren't mere illusions, or cognitive beings—they truly are alive and existing in this world. Akechi: In fact, their deaths seem to have never taken place at all in this reality. [Ren: What happened to Shido?] Akechi: Shido was the only one arrested on the crime of attempting to overthrow the government... Akechi: It seems the Phantom Thieves were causing a stir in this society as well, but there's no record of your arrest now. Akechi: Basically, in this reality, you and I haven't committed any crimes.

While Akechi still remembers his crimes, they never took place. They have been undone, and only his lingering memory—and Joker's, at this point—speaks to them. He objects to this on countless levels, he summons all the strength he has to refuse it, but don't make the mistake of thinking that means he doesn't want it. This is Akechi's wish in action.

People are often very certain that Akechi's resolve in the third semester is like iron—that he rejects Maruki's offers right away, is never tempted, never wavers. But that can't be true. We know he's afraid to die. We know about the bad end where you don't complete the Palace, where Akechi says nothing and stares at the floor, seemingly blaming himself internally while all the others blame themselves aloud, for being unable to say no to Maruki's temptations. We know how he responds to this assertion of Maruki's—Maruki, who has perfectly summed up what we know all the other PTs wanted, and who (even if Word of God hadn't just confirmed Akechi's wish) we have, honestly, no reason to doubt.

Because Akechi never refutes this wish that Maruki describes. He never says he doesn't want it. He just rejects it—like all the others, who so desperately want what Maruki could give them. Futaba's mother, Haru's father. Akechi's life, and his innocence. And the people who might have been his friends, if he could dare, one day, to ask.

Akechi is tested just like the others, and the price he pays for his defiance is perhaps the highest of all.

and finally

[The Maruki ending illustrations are] of Maruki's world, where everyone's wishes are granted and they seem happy. The scene shows their actualised wishes, which were never granted in the real world. (Mumon Usuda, chief designer)

We shouldn't forget the price Akechi pays for his impossible wish. Sure, the vision of himself being altered like Sumire clearly haunts him, and I'm sure it made the choice easier—but I don't think it made it that easy. Instead of taking the dream Maruki offered him, Akechi chose to face up to what he'd done, and who he'd become; at the very end, in the third semester and in the engine room, he always makes the right choice.

And that choice was taken away from him. Agency over his life and death, his own acts, and who he would even be—Joker and Maruki take it all away from him and make him a puppet, just like Shido.

Maruki's ending isn't pretty.

revision history

Click here for the latest version.

v1.0 (2024/03/29)—first published.

#p5 #goro akechi #fave #all of this a million times over. akechi IS tempted! akechi DOES want a second chance where he never committed any crimes #and could have friends! akechi HAS made bonds with all the thieves but he thinks he doesn't deserve that!#maruki's ending has akechi join the rest of them in the picture. as equals. as friends. just as much one of them as the rest of them.#ughhhhhhhh #pain

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akechi-stole-my-heart · 1 day

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Quick snippet from 10/26. In case you ever wondered whether Akechi knows Mona talks all along... watch him here, and listen to him. At first he's on script—entirely in control even when he talks about how he was supposedly nearly murdered by himself. It's the same tone he uses on the news. He's gone over this speech a dozen times.

Then Morgana talks, and while Akechi does react, he's still acting. He's still on script, prepared and practiced. The portrait looks shocked, but the model is just standing there, playing detective....

... until Ann steps in with "our friend who taught us about the Metaverse":

He jumps back so fast I didn't have time to load the textbox, lol. "What do you MEAN you had a MAGIC CAT GUIDE, the FUCK??"

Of course he knew Mona talks. How does he expose himself, right away on 6/9?—he hears Mona talking about pancakes. He had to be close enough to hear Mona, the cat. So it's not Mona talking that shocks him, but the revelation that Joker and the rest had help, had a guide from the very beginning, when he did not.

And you can hear his voice change register at that moment. That careful, controlled, rehearsed tone goes out of the window. He talks faster, he pitches up, he's breathless, without a script. He is, in short, more real. And he immediately asks Mona a question:

He really hasn't solved that mystery; he really wants to know. In fact, he has to know—about the difference in their methods and his own, which he just can't figure out....

There's a little of that high-pitched breathiness when he talks about his awakening, too. I'd say that's pretty much how it happened way back when, and he's adapted the story a little. "I can't die here... I need to determine the truth"—of course he did. The same truth that his "sole interest is uncovering"—the truth about Shido and himself.

What about that image of the killer, standing in the entrance to Okumura's Palace? Well, sometimes people think this is a photo, but it's not—Akechi doesn't produce any more photos, he just continues with his story. So this is presumably what Akechi pictures in his mind at that moment. This is his self-image, God help him:

Lastly, here's an incredulous Akechi with a bonus Futaba glaring at him. Don't neglect the models—they really repay close examination, and the face animation is often incredibly detailed. And as for whether Akechi is lying or not at any given moment—it's often easier to tell than you think.

revision history

Click here for the latest version.

v1.0 (2024/04/18)—first posted.

#p5 #goro akechi

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akechi-stole-my-heart · 1 day

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it is objectively super homophobic but it is pretty funny how shadow kanji’s first attack “forbidden murmur” will always poison yosuke and yu and miss the girls

#all it does is make it canon that souji and yosuke are attracted to men and yukiko and chie are lesbians #tried to be homophobic but accidentally made all the characters gay! whoopsies!#p4

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akechi-stole-my-heart · 2 days

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practicing drawrjng him

#goro akechi #p5

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akechi-stole-my-heart · 2 days

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going thru old art and i realize i never posted this erm.... this is a yr old but i luv ryugoro hi <3

#p5 #goro akechi #ryuji sakamoto #ryugoro

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akechi-stole-my-heart · 2 days

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post-canon goro who drinks shitty chain coffee bc he hasn't worked up the courage to go back to leblanc

#fashionable idiot. go home dumbass #p5 #goro akechi

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akechi-stole-my-heart · 2 days

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Thinking about the third semester again

(commissions open!)

#goro akechi #akira kurusu #takuto maruki #akeshu #p5

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akechi-stole-my-heart · 3 days

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final victor...?

#p5 #goro akechi #akeshu #akira kurusu

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akechi-stole-my-heart · 3 days

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4 yusuke day !

#p5 #yusuke kitagawa

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akechi-stole-my-heart · 3 days

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P5 cast P5X chat icons

#gowoooooo #p5 #phantom thieves

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akechi-stole-my-heart · 3 days

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Far worse, in my opinion, than the famous “he wouldn’t fucking say that” is “he WOULD fucking say that, as part of his facade, but you seem to think he would mean it genuinely”

#goro akechi #tagged

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akechi-stole-my-heart · 4 days

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