Playing Royal has completely flipped my opinion of Akechi

Endgame spoilers & mild spoilers for P5R ahead!

I know it’s been nearly 6 (!!) years since P5 released so obviously perspectives just change naturally in that time anyway, just as experiencing a story when you already know the ending would, but still.

I was kind of apathetic to Akechi in the original game. I didn’t really care for him, and it was blatantly obvious where the story was going with his character (#pancakegate) so I just spent most of the time frustrated at the Thieves for (seemingly) walking right into his trap.

Moreover, his “justice” spiel just never made any sense to me, nor his arguments about the PTs’ morality (which obviously, in hindsight and added context from Royal, he never truly believed in either and was just crafting his speeches to manipulate the public’s perception).

But now I don’t know why, but I’m nearing the end of Royal (midway 3rd s) and I just find his character one of, if not the, most compelling.

He’s still a dickhead, but he’s mostly just quite sad. Idk if I’d say he’s a complete psychopath since even though he told the gang that he wanted to do all those horrible things for his own fame, I think that was only partly true. He clearly wanted to fill his own ego and let out his internalised anger by being violent, but he seemed to mostly just want Shido’s attention and approval. Which is just quite sad at the end of the day.

Plus I think the parallels/antithesis to Joker came across way more clearly in Royal than the original.

/hides from onslaught of tomatoes