Goro Akechi

*“You don't allow yourself to be enslaved by such things as human relations or past selves... And so, your heart is always free. The exact opposite of mine. To be honest, I'm envious... I wonder why we couldn't have met a few years earlier, Ren...”*

— Akechi

## Goro Akechi

### Affiliation

Shibuya Police
Persona Users

Phantom Thieves

### Family

Masayoshi Shido (father)
Unnamed mother

### Status

Deceased

**Goro Akechi** is the second coming of the Detective Prince and the main antagonist of *Persona 5*. He is the sixth antagonist of the series.

During the course of the story, Akechi would condemn the Phantom Thieves' actions. He temporarily cooperates with them for professional reasons, using the codename **Crow**. He also acts as the protagonist's rival. His past having produced inherent feelings of hatred that would become a stigma for him, Akechi tries to perfect himself to be acceptable to others.

He is a Persona User who wields the Persona Loki.

## Physical Appearance

Akechi has shaggy, neck length brown hair with bangs and reddish-brown eyes. He wears a tan peacoat with black buttons, striped black and white tie, black pants, black gloves and black loafers. His casual winter outfit consists of a white long sleeve shirt with flaps under a blue argyle sweater vest, beige pants and brown shoes.

### Occasional Appearances

As Crow, Akechi wears a princely pure-white regalia with red accents and a red, long-nosed mask. His mask motif resembles a long-nosed Venetian mask. His image is a combination of a noble's attire, and a uniform worn by cavalry or guards of honor. As with his Robin Hood Persona, it's meant to give the feeling of putting on the air of a champion of justice, with nothing to do with being a Phantom Thief, robber or burglar of any sort, invoking the image of being at the front of a stage to contrast the protagonist's image of being more of a backstage actor.

Once he reveals his true intentions, Akechi swaps his princely garb for a body-covering, black and dark blue striped outfit. In this form, he has several black studded belts strapped around his legs and arms, a short black cape and clawed gauntlets. He also wears a dark enclosed knight helmet, with a black mask tinted red, resembling a sharp beak, which breaks after his defeat. Much like with Loki's design, it alludes to a lack of agency, and is meant to give a chaotic feeling and invoke the question "what's the real you?"

During the third semester in *Royal*, Akechi seems to have replaced his broken mask with a blue-black version. On days off, he wears a green vest and white collar shirt, both under a brown coat with black buttons, and blue pants while retaining his gloves and loafers. On school days, Akechi wears a tan coat with a red and gray plaid scarf tucked underneath, while keeping his black gloves, pants and shoes from his detective uniform.

PrinceBlack Mask
### Models

Akechi's model in *Persona 5*Akechi's portrait in-game
## History

Akechi is the illegitimate child of Masayoshi Shido, the same man responsible for the protagonist's probation period. His mother was a sex worker who was shamed for having a child out of wedlock and committed suicide. According to him, before her suicide, she raised him alone, and whenever she brought men from the red light district into their home, she would tell him to go to the bath house. Akechi desired to make Shido apologize for his crime of making her illegally conceive a child, but was powerless to do anything because Shido was already a high-ranking official by then. Orphaned after his mother's death, he was passed between a succession of relatives who took no interest in him.

Two years before *Persona 5*, Akechi acquired the power of the Wild Card and gained access to the Metaverse, although he is never shown in, and is likely not permitted in the Velvet Room. He then offered his newfound abilities to Shido, who employed him as an assassin to achieve his goal of becoming Prime Minister. However, in truth, this was just a plan by Akechi to catch Shido off guard so he could expose his acts to the public before killing him when he took premiership.

Shido proceeded to teach Akechi about inducing mental shutdowns by abusing Mementos. One of the first people he killed was Wakaba Isshiki. After Akechi killed her, Shido seized her research and had men in black read a false suicide note to her daughter Futaba out loud, keeping her in the dark by convincing her she's responsible and psychologically harming her.

During their collaboration, Akechi used Loki to fabricate scandals of Shido's opponents to discredit them, then proceeded to "solve" the case himself. This, along with his already standing charisma, earned him the title of "The Second Coming of the Detective Prince," along with celebrity status. If any of Shido's enemies proved particularly troublesome, Akechi would assassinate them personally by inducing a mental shutdown. Akechi's powers and pragmatic tendencies quickly made him a valuable tool for Shido to dispose of his opposition. Aside from Shido himself, Akechi also killed people that were commissioned by Shido's allies (sometimes other political players who aren't in Shido's party) to silence their foes or anyone they don't like, often in exchange for granting Shido funds or connections. With a powerful tool to instill fear and silence all opposition in his hands, Shido became nigh-impossible to stop by normal jurisdictional means courtesy of the fear of experiencing a mental shutdown or a psychotic breakdown.

Around a day after the protagonist is pulled into the rehabilitation game, Akechi causes a massive subway accident for the sole reason of framing the traffic department for incompetency.

Akechi is first brought up to the Phantom Thieves of Hearts by Shadow Madarame and Shadow Kaneshiro after his fall, although they only mention him as a nameless figure with a black mask.

## Personality

In public and with all of his relations, Akechi appears to be well-mannered, friendly, humble and charismatic. His achievement of being a high-school detective, coupled with his handsome features, makes him highly popular among the general public and he is commented to be "The Second Coming of the Detective Prince." His intelligence and smooth-talk earned him enough trust from the police to conduct his own investigation despite his young age, working with Sae Niijima, who fully trusts him to assist her in her investigation.

## Powers & Abilities

### Loki

Loki appears as the true Persona of Goro Akechi, manifesting during the second battle with him in Shido's Palace. Its ability to induce states of berserk rage is revealed by Akechi to be the source of the strange epidemic of sudden assaults. Usually, this ability is used to discredit Masayoshi Shido's enemies by fabricating scandals on them, but all such uses happened off-screen; both on-screen uses are during the battles with Akechi, first to drive a Cu Chulainn and Cerberus berserk as a demonstration and then on Akechi himself before the second battle. It is of the Justice Arcana.

## Appearances

* *Persona 5* / *Royal*
* *Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight*
* *Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight*
* *Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth*
	+ *Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth Roundabout Special*
* *Persona 5 Tactica*
* *Persona 5: The Phantom X*

## Trivia

* The gun Akechi uses is a SIG Sauer P230 with a detachable suppressor.
* Gameplay-wise with his Persona Robin Hood, Akechi directly borrows Naoto Shirogane's key moveset, consisting of clean attacks with complementary insta-kill spells, down to the pattern of the affinities: single-target Physical and multi-target Almighty, Light and Dark.
* Akechi breaks the recurring trend of the protagonist's rival/antagonist having the same English voice actor as the protagonist. In *Persona 3*, Ryoji Mochizuki was voiced by the same voice actor as Makoto Yuki (Akira Ishida/Yuri Lowenthal), while in *Persona 4*, Tohru Adachi was voiced by the same English voice actor as Yu Narukami (Johnny Yong Bosch). Goro Akechi, on the other hand, is voiced by Soichiro Hoshi/Robbie Daymond, while Ren Amamiya is voiced by Jun Fukuyama/Xander Mobus.
* Akechi is one of the few confidants (along with Sae Niijima) and the sole party member not given any alternative mocking title in the official Japanese site of the vanilla *Persona 5*.
* Ordinarily, in the Japanese version, Akechi's name is written in kanji. It is used for all of his text boxes, as well as the boss title card for his first fight. However, during the fight against his black-masked form, his name is displayed on his boss title card in katakana as "アケチ ゴロウ." This is the only time Akechi's name is written this way, as the kanji is still used for his dialogue boxes during this same fight.
* Unlike most party members, Akechi is always referred to by his surname, which would otherwise be shared by most antagonists in the series.
* Akechi's outfit when he uses Loki has a pattern of blue and black in contrast to his outfit when he uses Robin Hood, which has a theme of red and white.
* While Akechi is a Wild Card just like the protagonist, unlike him, he can only use two Personas.
	+ According to *Persona 5: Mementos Reports Vol. 3*, both his personas are aspects of him, so there is no particular order to their awakening.  This could imply that they were awakened at the same time.
	+ In *Persona 5 Royal*, Futaba claims that this is because Akechi never trusted anyone, so he got one Persona for his lies, and one for his hate (referring to Robin Hood and Loki.)
	+ Akechi himself hints at the idea of having the same potential as the protagonist in a conversation between him and Yusuke in the Thieves Den, before jokingly shrugging it off.
* Akechi has the ability to change his Metaverse outfit; how he is the only one to do so is never elaborated upon.
* Despite being a party member only briefly, Akechi won first place in a *Sega Festival 2016* poll for a favorite party member.
* According to an episode of Persona Stalker Club, Akechi's attaché case contains a laptop and documents about various cases. The "A" mark stands for "Akechi," and was created by him because he likes to show off. The period after the "A" indicates an abbreviation for "answer."
	+ *Maniax* states that it also contains student supplies, food and water if he has to rush to work without time to eat, and free samples like sweets or cosmetics for men from parties at TV stations.
* Within the Metaverse, Akechi's stance mirrors the protagonist's but lacks the natural sway that the protagonist has; instead, he stands completely still.
* Many of Akechi's DLC outfits hint at his status as the traitor: he is dressed as a major antagonist for three sets (Boss from *Catherine*, Ideo Hazama from *Shin Megami Tensei: if...* and General Munakata from *Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army*) and as a major enemy-turned-ally for the *Persona 2* set, as he's the only one wearing the Kasugayama uniform: the same worn by Jun Kurosu and Eikichi Mishina, though the latter being a party member since the start. In the Featherman Suit, Akechi is the Silver Ranger with red eyes on his visor, both are common indicators of evil Rangers in Super Sentai franchise.
* Just like with Makoto Nijman before, the official twitter account for the Persona series posted a "Happy Birthday" message for Akechi on June 2, 2017, JST.
* Akechi is left-handed. In *Persona 5 Royal*, when meeting the protagonist for the first time, Akechi shakes hands with his left hand. Later, during a game of pool with the protagonist, Akechi uses his right hand. The protagonist notices this and even points it out, surprising Akechi. During their duel in Mementos, Akechi admits he was surprised that the protagonist noticed such a small detail.
* According to Akechi's *Maniax* profile, his ideal type of lover is someone who keeps a reasonable amount of distance. Also, if he won 700 million yen, he would travel and see the world after his entrance exams.
* In *Maniax*, Akechi's message for someone in the PT reads: To the leader: "You don't seem to excel particularly in areas of looks, intelligence, or athletics. Yet I wonder why people tend to gather around you... it makes me very curious."
* In Shido's Palace, the Justice Confidant ranks up from 8 to 9, and then 9 to 10, in back-to-back story cutscenes. Since there is no opportunity to go to the menu to view the Confidant menu in-between those 2 rank up scenes due to boss battles, the description for Justice rank 9 is normally not viewable in-game.
	+ Rank 9 reads as follows: "Akechi's objective is to settle the score that stems from his hatred for—and attachment to—Shido, the father who threw him away. Now an enemy after revealing his true feelings, Akechi attacked..."
* In the Japanese version of the game, the flavor text before Akechi's Confidant is maximized is unique: "I feel a certain/doubtless bond (確かな) with Akechi...", while most Confidants have a hard/solid bond (固い). This most likely alludes to contrast Akechi's public image and his duality. The message's meaning doesn't carry over to the English or Korean translation.
* Akechi's Confidant was originally planned to be optional in *Persona 5*. Because he became an enemy, later on, it was difficult to incorporate it into the plot, so his Confidant became automatic. This idea was later restored in *Persona 5 Royal.*
* Every party member learns Protect upon reaching Rank 9 Confidant, in which they sacrifice themselves to protect the protagonist from a fatal attack. Upon reaching Rank 9 for Akechi in the story, Akechi sacrifices himself to protect the protagonist and his party against Shido's cognitive Akechi and Shadows. In *Royal*, however, he possesses the ability normally after rejoining.
* Despite Akechi technically being responsible for murdering Futaba and Haru's parents, they never put the full blame on him. Their anger is instead directed towards Shido, as he was the one who made Akechi murder them, and Akechi was only following orders because he was groomed and manipulated as an assassin.
	+ In *Persona 5 Royal,* however, they both deliberately make a point to speak with him as little as possible during the third semester, showing that they still don't wish to be amicable towards him.
	+ According to the official interview from the *Persona 5 Royal Official Complete Guide*, Futaba and Haru were deliberately designed to distance themselves from directly interacting with Akechi during the third semester to display that they never forgave him.
	+ During a game of Tycoon in the Thieves Den, Akechi cannot be at the same table as Futaba or Haru.
* Akechi is the only major boss in *Persona 5* that is fought while securing the treasure route instead of after.
* If the Phantom Thieves fail the deadline for completing Shido's Palace, Akechi will arrive at Leblanc with a squad of police to arrest the protagonist personally. If the protagonist waits too long to send the calling card, this can occur even after Akechi was fought in the Palace, which creates a paradox as it's all but confirmed he vanished after his defeat.
* Unlike other team members who join the party, a book based on Akechi's persona, Robin Hood, isn't available to check out at the library in *Persona 5*.
	+ Files in the game, however, indicate that there is a book on Robin Hood which would raise the Kindness stat.
		- Although added in *Persona 5 Royal*, the updated book boosts Guts instead of Kindness.
* Unused Shadow negotiation files in the game indicate that Akechi was intended to have a Palace at some point, as he's referred to as "Lord Akechi/Master Akechi." The inconsistent naming seems to be the result of a mistranslation since his name is the same in the Japanese version of these lines. Akechi's Palace was likely meant to be after Sae's Palace, as palace assets go from Sae's Palace (57) to Shido's Palace (59), skipping 58 which the unused negotiation lines are associated with.
* There are unused files in the game for an unfinished scrapped phase of the Akechi battle. The used phases are internally called AKECHI\_1 and AKECHI\_3, meaning this scrapped phase was supposed to be an in-between phase called AKECHI\_2. The unused phase seems to have been scrapped early as Akechi has no AI programmed, but the battle takes place in the area where you fight Shido with the instrumental version of Rivers in the Desert playing, indicating that Akechi was intended to be fought after sending the calling card to Shido instead of before.
	+ In addition to this, the cutscene files for encountering Akechi as well as the cutscenes in-between and after the battles are found after the cutscene files for sending the calling card.
* According to the Artbook of *Q2*, Akechi is the one who painted the Phantom Thieves (excluding himself) in the subway during the opening movie.
	+ In the opening sequence to *Q2*, he holds the spray paint can in his right hand despite being left-handed.
* Early in development when the developers were unsure of what Akechi's role was going to be, one idea floating around was that he could be Makoto's older sibling, which ended up being Sae's role in the final game.
* In *Royal*, Akechi gives his glove to the protagonist at Rank 8 with a promise that he will defeat him the next time they fight. This mirrors the time Ren gave Akechi the chess piece that he and Akechi usually use to play, along with a promise to defeat him in *Persona 5 The Animation*.
* In *Royal*, even if he joins the party as the Black Mask, Akechi's *Persona Q2* DLC Outfit always has him retain his princely outfit's appearance.
* During the protagonist's Showtime with Akechi, if he is wearing any costume that exposes his face, it can be seen that his eyes glow red throughout.
* Unlike most enemies in the Metaverse, Futaba was seemingly unable to detect Akechi being nearby at all even long before his assumed death in Shido's Palace.
* During a Mementos skit in the third semester, it's revealed that Akechi still holds a grudge concerning his exposure courtesy of his "pancakes" comment.
	+ This could be a reference to the same line becoming a popular meme in the community following the release of *Persona 5,* even being acknowledged by Robbie Daymond, Akechi's English voice actor, himself.
		- Akechi is shown eating pancakes in his *Persona 5 Royal* PSN theme.
* When he rejoins in January in *Royal*, his portraits are colder and more blunt compared to those before his betrayal.
	+ In the *Royal* completion guide, it is revealed that these new sprites were a late development decision brought up by the art team.
* According to the *Proof of Justice* OVA and his Confidant in *Royal*, Akechi cannot cook.
* When Akechi takes the role of temporary Navigator, if he loses all of his HP in battle, unlike Morgana, who hides behind the sidelines to continue providing support during battle, he will simply faint and his navigation will cease.
* According to his Rank 5 Confidant hangout in *Royal*, Akechi's greatest desire is to become a hero, and he would often carry a toy raygun around his home to play as one when he was young.
* Akechi's Rank 8 Confidant scene in *Royal* is the only non-max rank optional Confidant scene in the game that is fully voiced.
	+ Akechi also has the only third awakening scene that is fully voiced.
* If Akechi is invited to play Darts in Kichijoji, no other party member will show up alongside him, aside from Morgana. Furthermore, unlike any other party member, he will only play 701 darts (the hardest difficulty) and nothing else.
	+ Despite this, there's still dialogue for Akechi throwing last both before and during the third semester, which is impossible due to the protagonist always throwing last while playing 701 darts.
		- He states that he's always calm in response to one of the protagonist's dialogue options before he throws during the third semester, but he's the exact opposite of calm while fighting in the Metaverse.
* In Akechi's in-game model, his Black Mask helmet is completely black. However, in his dialogue portraits (after his boss battle in Shido's Palace), the helmet is tinted blue while the visor is tinted dark red. During the third semester, the visor is tinted blue to match the rest of the helmet.
* In the *Persona 5 Royal Official Guide*, Kazuhisa Wada stated that Akechi serves as both rival and deuteragonist.
* *Persona 5 Strikers* is the first game in the *Persona 5* series where Goro Akechi is not physically present, nor is he even mentioned.
* Akechi is the only party member who has more than one Cut-in for battle. In Royal, instead of having his Cut-in from his boss battle, he is given a new Cut-in after rejoining the party, giving him a total of 3 different Cut-ins.
	+ Technically speaking, the protagonist also has more than one Cut-in, but the additional one is only used during mini-games such as Darts or Fishing, not in battle.
* In *Persona 5 Royal*, there are unused voice lines for Akechi that were meant to be used for a supposed Showtime in his Prince attire. It is unknown who he would've used it with, but it was most likely meant to be unlocked during Niijima's Palace. This would make Akechi the only party member to have a Showtime change during the game.
* While it is never shown in canon, Akechi has an "awakening" for obtaining Robin Hood. Created as a completely original scene for the *Identity V* crossover collaboration, it only plays when obtaining his prince outfit during the event. It was created to match the other character's awakening scenes, without revealing spoilers from *Persona 5* and *Royal*.
* Datamined assets show that Akechi has the Reddit application on his phone.
* Akechi shares the same blood type as Futaba: AB-, which is extremely rare in Japan.
* In *Royal*, Black Mask Akechi uses early unused versions of the tactics selection animations from his Prince outfit rather than the final ones the Prince outfit uses.
* When Akechi is fighting in his Prince outfit, he is using his right hand when summoning Persona. However, when he is in his Black Mask outfit, Akechi summons his Persona with his left hand.
* Akechi apparently has a taste for dark humor. With a smile, he tells Ryuji that Captain Kidd was hanged in *Royal*. In *Q2*, before he can reveal to the group where "sci-fi meat" comes from, grinning all the while, Naoto stops him out of disgust.
* Mentioned in the passing conversation of Shujin students, it is stated that Akechi consistently scores at the top of the country in the practice exams.
* According to Mementos dialogue in *Persona 5*, Akechi enjoys horror movies.
* Akechi states he prefers black tea when he's tired.
* At one point in Mementos, Akechi considered buying a motorcycle.
* Due to his public image, Akechi has been given special permission not to attend school.
* Akechi actually finds a lot of the detective work he does boring. Other characters' responses compare it to minor and petty work, such as "finding lost cats" and "catching people in affairs."
* In *Royal*, Black Mask Akechi's Safe Room idle animation is bugged. His right hand is placed at the bottom of his sleeve which results in it looking like it's detached from his arm. The animation was fixed in the 2022 remaster.
* Akechi's tie, which is only visible at its full length in his summer uniform, is longer in *Royal*.

## Cover Gallery

* Manga Covers
* Game Covers

*Persona 5* Volume 6*Persona 5* Volume 12

*Persona 5**Persona 5 Royal*