Goro Akechi

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Goro Akechi
Other Name(s)	Crow (Phantom Thieves code name) Second Detective Prince Pleasant Boy Black Mask
Date of Birth	June 2nd
Age	17-18
Height	178 cm (5'10")
Relative(s)	Unnamed mother
Occupation(s)	Detective
Affiliation(s)	Phantom Thieves of Hearts (Temporary)
Arcana	Justice
Persona(s)	Robin Hood Loki HerewardPersona 5 Royal
Voice Actor(s)	Sōichirō Hoshi (JA) Robbie Daymond (EN)

Goro Akechi is a playable character in Persona 5. He is a detective investigating the Phantom Thieves of Hearts.

Profile

Goro Akechi is a third-year high school student and talented detective. Despite his youth, Akechi quickly rises to fame as the "Second Detective Prince," achieving celebrity status for his intelligence and charm. A young man of conviction, well-mannered, and affable, he investigates the psychotic breakdowns and mental shutdowns alongside Sae Niijima, which leads him to oppose the Phantom Thieves of Hearts. His public image as a charismatic and well-mannered young man masks a more complex and conflicted personality.

Gameplay

For complete gameplay information, see Gameplay:Goro Akechi.

Manual

Manual Descriptions
Persona 5	A 17 year-old third-year at a different high school than the protagonist. His bright mind has allowed him to solve numerous cases which had previously eluded the police, leading to him gaining the moniker of the "high-school detective." Due to his handsome features and frequent TV appearances, his popularity has grown greatly. Naturally, he ends up squaring off against the Phantom Thieves, but...

Game Appearances

Persona 5

While Akechi is the second playable character to appear in the game post-intro, alongside Sae Niijima on 4/10, the Phantom Thieves—Joker, Ryuji, Ann and Morgana—don't directly encounter him until 6/9, during the Social Studies visit to a TV studio in Akasaka. He eavesdrops on them in the corridor before trying to ingratiate himself. The next day, on 6/10, the Thieves watch a filming of Good Morning Japan, where Akechi sets out his public platform: the Phantom Thieves likely don't exist, but if they do, should be tried in a court of law for their crimes, since "you should never forcefully change a person's heart". After the filming, he approaches Joker, who exchanged words with him during filming, and asks if they can continue exchanging thoughts. This unlocks Akechi's confidant.

Akechi continues to appear over the following months, apparently investigating the mental shutdowns and psychotic breakdowns alongside Sae. His investigation focuses more and more on the Phantom Thieves, culminating in his blackmail of them on 10/26 at the Shujin culture festival, when he produces photographs of them exiting the Metaverse, and reveals that he has Persona power of his own. He proposes joining the team for one mission, to change the heart of Sae Niijima, after which the Phantom Thieves will disband.

Left with no choice, the Thieves accept this deal. On 10/29, Akechi joins the party with the codename "Crow", using the Persona Robin Hood, and participates in the Sae's Palace mission. At its climax, after Shadow Sae's defeat, the events of the game's intro replay: Joker escapes from a casino, loot in hand, only to be stopped and arrested by the police. His interrogation proceeds as in the intro, concluding when Akechi arrives in the interrogation room with him, revealing himself as the traitor Joker was told of at his arrest, and as part of the grand conspiracy the Thieves have suspected exists. While he then appears to assassinate Joker with a gunshot to the head, Joker survives through the efforts of the Phantom Thieves.

It transpires that Akechi's ability to hear Morgana marked him as suspicious right away on 6/9, the first time he and the Thieves met, when he remarked on Morgana's mention of "delicious pancakes". Since only Persona users who've heard Morgana speak in the Metaverse can understand him in the real world as a cat, this tells the Thieves that Akechi has not only been into the Metaverse, but has seen them there. He inadvertently underscores this during his blackmail attempt on 10/26, when he claims to hear Morgana speak for the first time, and to have awoken only on 9/15, during the Thieves' first entry to Okumura's Palace.

Shido's Palace

Akechi does not suspect Joker's survival until the events of Shido's Palace. Shido's behaviour becomes increasingly erratic as the Thieves progress through his Palace; eventually, while on the phone to him, Akechi realises that the Thieves are in the Palace and that Joker must be alive. He heads there at speed, ambushing them in the Palace's engine room.

During his boss fight, Akechi reveals that he's Shido's illegitimate son (隠し子 kakushigo, literally "hidden child"—the sometimes-unacknowledged child of a prominent person who is concealed from public view). His mother was Shido's mistress, discarded when she became pregnant, and subsequently driven into poverty and survival sex work. She died when Akechi was still young; he blames Shido for this, as well as his own birth. He confirms that he is the "true culprit" responsible for the mental shutdowns and psychotic breakdowns, including the murders of Wakaba Isshiki and Kunikazu Okumura, as well as the devastating subway train crash on 4/10 and many other events that have terrorised Tokyo for the whole of the game.

In an effort to conclude his fight with Joker and clear the way to his revenge, he turns on the Phantom Thieves, intending to kill them all—yet when he fails, he's met with grace and understanding, and an offer of a second chance, to fight Shido alongside them. But because Shido is aware of Akechi's intentions, he has one last line of defence against him—a cognition of Akechi himself, that appears at the moment Akechi appears to change sides. The cognition implies that Shido knew Akechi was his son, revealing that Shido knew Akechi wanted his attention and even his love. It seemingly offers Akechi one last chance to gain those things, by killing Joker and the Thieves after all. Instead, Akechi shoots the cognition, bringing down a bulkhead door between it and the Thieves—with himself on the wrong side. His fate is unclear; he asks Joker to "end Shido's crimes in [his] stead", before two gunshots are heard and his life signs vanish from Futaba's awareness.

Akechi's plan

Akechi intends to take revenge on Shido, casting him into a "living hell", controlling him, and becoming greater than him, a plan Yusuke Kitagawa describes as "distorted". To that end, he approached Shido two years before canon, saying he had "special powers" and offering his services; his first assignment was to stop several of Shido's political opponents who were conspiring against him within the Diet, by giving them psychotic breakdowns—caused by Call of Chaos, Akechi's unique ability, "the ability to control and drive others mad ... born from within his heart".

His first murder assignment appears to be Wakaba Isshiki, Futaba's mother, killed in an effort to steal and conceal her cognitive psience research; this takes place approximately three months after he enters Shido's service. He continues to cause "accidents and scandals" using Call of Chaos (referred to as psychotic breakdowns), and murders and brain death (referred to as mental shutdowns) until at least 11/20. After his apparent death in Shido's Palace, these events never recur.

Confidant

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Persona 5 Royal

Third Semester

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Confidant

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Persona 5 Tactica

A third-year high school student and detective. He has solved numerous cases and has built a reputation even among professional investigators. With his sharp intellect, amiable personality, and good looks, it’s no wonder people pay attention to what he does. With frequent media appearances, his fans tout him as the second coming of the Detective Prince. In his pursuit of the Phantom Thieves, a certain incident triggers him to cooperate with them. His Persona is Robin Hood.

Anime Appearances

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Manga Appearances

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Nomenclature

Goro Akechi (明智 吾郎, Akechi Gorō) gets his name from Kogoro Akechi (明智 小五郎, Akechi Kogorō), a fictional detective in stories by Edogawa Ranpo who was heavily based on Sherlock Holmes. Similar to how Akechi investigates the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, Kogoro Akechi's main recurring adversary was "The Fiend with Twenty Faces", a gentleman thief inspired by Arsène Lupin. This is mirrored by the protagonist's initial Persona being Arsène, and his use of the Wild Card ability through taking on different Personas as masks.

Akechi's surname may also be a reference to Akechi Mitsuhide (明智 光秀), a 16th-century samurai general who notoriously betrayed and assassinated his master, daimyō Oda Nobunaga. Goro Akechi plays a similar role as the "traitor" of the Phantom Thieves. (Incidentally, Shinya Oda's name is derived from that of Nobunaga.)

While the family name 明智 Akechi is written the same way as the word meichi, which means "great wisdom" or "sagacity", it appears to derive from a less auspicious older name Akuchi, meaning "bad soil" (悪土) or "bad land" (悪地).

Names in Other Languages

Language	Name	Meaning
Japanese	明智 吾郎 Akechi Gorō クロウ Kurou	Akechi Gorō Crow

Gallery

See Gallery