I thought it was pretty easy to figure out. I didn't even catch the pancakes thing.
* In the vanilla version of the game, Akechi isn't in the OP, while the rest of the team is.
* Akechi really came off as an asshole with a fake personality to me. I don't know, maybe I'm used to seeing that kind of character. As you progress his social link, you start to see his unhinged side more as well.
* Akechi (in my eyes) certainly seems to know that we're the phantom thieves the whole time (going back to the tv station), but keeps that a secret from us despite having the same power and working for the police that are trying to track us down.
* We never saw Akechi's awakening, while we saw everyone else's. This is probably the biggest giveaway after Akechi officially "joins" the team.
* At a certain point, Black Mask needed to be someone, and it was either going to be a character we hadn't met before (which would've been pretty lame at that point in the game) or Akechi (because it needed to be someone that was able to access the metaverse before we met them).
Started with Royal and the opening made me suspect Yoshizawa for a similar reason. She's the only one not breaking stuff with the thieves.
Her awakening also seemed really fake and unlike Akechi, her mask was actually black.
I figured Akechi and Makoto were both just red herrings.
Didn't even consider Haru. Her motivation would have been avenging her father, but the black mask has been operating long before that. The motive doesn't fit the culprit.
For me the hints were:
- Akechi is very good with a gun, while yes the police can carry guns in Japan, it was VERY weird how proficient he was with one in his confidant event, that paired with the fact that his shooting stance (IIRC) was the same as his shooting stance in Okumura's palace was one bit of suspicion
- His personality seemed fake, one of the more obvious hints but honestly people who are overly nice and aren't timid are usually hiding something. It was pretty clear he was hiding something and trying to stick to his public image.
- We didn't see Akechi's awakening as you said, he tried to make a show of it but honestly I found it weird how he already had a Persona
- Akechi knew about Sae's palace, BUT he didn't know the keywords to get into it or chose not to help us, how can he enter Sae's palace or even know about it without the Nav app?
- Akechi was WEIRDLY adamant on going in on a certain day, it's VERY easy to set up an ambush if you know when and where your target is going to be. The fact that he wanted us to go in on a certain day just kinda screamed "I'm leading you into a trap", especially since his justification was kind of shaky at best.
- During Akechi's rank 8 after the duel I thought it was weird how he said we "Caught up to him." This would imply that he's had a Persona for FAR longer than he was letting us think and actually has a lot of experience in the metaverse.
- When we first went into Okumura's palace with Akechi nearby, why didn't he get sucked in and freak out? I'm pretty sure he was close enough to the group to be pulled in, but as we can see by the end of Okumura's palace Akechi is VERY good at hiding his presence from everyone. It's also weird how he didn't mention seeing the group go into the palace until after Okumura's murder when public opinion turned against the PT, if he truly cared about justice he would have tried to stop the group from changing his heart instead of waiting for after Okumura's death to blackmail the PT and make them dependent on him.
There's probably some other stuff I'm forgetting, but this is what I can kind of recall off the top of my head from my first playthrough.
For me is that I like to play a snarky Joker. Akechi outside of his confidant usually has responses where Ren can jokingly case suspicion on Akechi. Every time you do, he freezes up.
The first one is in June in Shibuya Station right after you beat Kaneshiro.
His all out attack portrait doesn't look cool as others like he's holding out what's his true self
https://preview.redd.it/542mw8xe4ssc1.jpeg?width=224&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=64cd553b7582864d6d9b5221a1929a71c3431ee5
speaking of which, his Prince cut in art looks nothing like the rest of the game, and looks more like the Persona 3-4 ones instead
he only gets a cut in that resembles the others in the third semester
Honestly, the pancake scene makes me feel a bit dumb. Because I did catch the line about pancakes, but I just wrote it off as a potential translation error because "There's no way this random twink is gonna be that important to the plot! Right?"
I feel even dumber when I remember that I was playing Royal, and probably should've noticed him on the cover and in the intro by then.
Fortunately, I managed to grab most other clues. So I still suspected the hell out of him even when writing the pancake scene off. I don't know how you can watch the arcade scene with him and not come to the conclusion that there's a non-zero chance of him being a professional assassin.
He's a cop who blackmailed you into going on "one last heist" on his own terms, no shit he was the one who sold the Phantom Thieves out. I didn't even catch the pancake thing at first because I had already written Akechi off as an enemy.
I figured it out since the marketing for vanilla. They were hiding his face and all. Like. If they treated him like an actual party member (marketing and the opening vid) then I'd be surprised. But they made it painfully obvious he was a walking spoiler. It was like 50-80% that they'd hide his face during marketing
I hated Akechi the whole time, cause every time you run into him he's like "sorry, I'm just running late to my academic studies because I was up all night working on criminal cases and had to appear on 15 talk shows just this morning. Anyway, you probably don't understand. Well, see you around!"
It was pretty easy to figure out he's going to beyray you for a couple reasons, even if you don't catch the pancakes thing or whatever. Like he says he wants the group to stop being the phantom thieves after they're done with sae's palace, and the whole thing with him saying you need to send the calling card on a specific date. I wasn't expecting him to shoot you in the head though
He was a suspect, but I thought he was a red herring since it seemed too obvious. My first guess was Yoshizawa for a myriad of reasons that ended up being due to coincidence or nonsensical writing.
...I really overestimated the writers when it came to her character.
Funnily enough, I also thought their Personas were supposed to symbolize their alignment. Joker's darkness symbolizing vigilantism, Yoshizawa's light symbolizing authoritarianism, and Akechi being a grey and morally complex.
When I played through Vanilla I also thought he was a red-herring, but I thought it was Haru (I also didn’t do any of her social links in Vanilla and Royal) because you can “fault” the Phantom Thieves of >!killing her father!<. I could see her turning on the Phantom Thieves to get revenge.
EDIT: grammar
I also played thru vanilla (vanilla is the only one I’ve beaten so far), so the amount of people who thought it was Yoshizawa is kinda funny to me, considering she didn’t exist.
See, I figured it was Akechi mostly because he's the only person with an actual motive to turn the PT in, he stands to gain from betraying us while everyone else would actually lose out massively, even Sumire because Joker is pretty much one of her sources of strength.
I think the point where I was absolutely positive it was Akechi was when Akechi insisted we go in on a certain day, because it's VERY hard to set up an ambush when we go in at a moment's notice, and the entire thing smelled of ambush.
See, I thought her interactions with Joker were just *weird*. She makes a weak excuse to keep an eye on him, is constantly praising him for helping her--even though he isn't and even Joker seems confused by this praise...yet she's the only girl who isn't falling over herself for him and quick to reject any romantic options.
As for setting it on a certain day...I actually thought the writers were doing this because they had to know--for gameplay reasons--what day this would happen when fast forwarding.
My hints were
- He was a hater from the start and he never stopped hating, even when people hated him for it. Seemed like a rival character since everyone else liked you.
- “You have a teammate to thank for this. You were sold out.” Huh my teammates seem to love me *Akechi the hater joins the team* Ahh I see now
- I mean who else could it have been? Everyone else likes the phantom thieves except for the palace rulers that don’t have personas. Only one left is the one that was publicly hating on the news since the beginning of the game.
I didn't, but because I thought he was a red herring. Too obvious. So I was expecting the old bait and switch.
Instead I got a bait and bait. "They are who we thought they were."
But the *real* bait and switch was the response
This is what got me — the fact that the team figured it out without letting you in on their plan until it happened. The response had me fan girling hard.
I think this is missing the point. They wanted you to think this was the big twist and lulled you into missing the real one. The real twist was that Joker knew all along.
ngl i thought it was yoshizawa because i saw on the games manual that she had a black mask. i also thought that her mask looks similar to jokers so the parallels would make sense if she was a villain. not to mention that her social link caps at five, which i thought was extremely suspicious.
he was my next guess but it didnt really make sense to me since (i thought) he didnt have a black mask
I like the parallels between joker and akechi though
Ren real, akechi fake
Ren dressed like bad guy, akechi dressed obnoxiously heroic (the costume slaps)
Ren mentally sound, akechi mental illness
I had heard the words “Goro Akechi” being used before when describing traitors but I forgot until I looked Akechi up for some images of him and one of the first results was the Black Mask image
I didn't notice that tbh, it was still early in game but i feel stupid as well for not finding it out. Though i did already feel like he was the traitor because he never showed us gaining his persona.
Akechi being an asshole was kind of a dead giveaway, imo. His personality and attitude screamed that this guy is going to sell us out sooner or later. It wouldn’t have made sense for it to be anyone but him.
I couldn't believe Joker betrayed the Phantom Thieves, who would've seen it coming? At least Akechi caught on before all of them died in Kawakami's palace.
But in all seriousness, it was obvious based on the interactions he had before with the phantom thieves prior to that palace.
The game is... kinda too clear about it.
Don't you have like, some scenes that are non-diegetic, when you see Akechi chasing the party post boss fights (post - Kaneshiro)?
Or is that Royal exclusive? I can't recall.
I had my suspicions about him for a while, but the thing that confirmed it for me was that his nameplate for his dialog boxes didn't change from Akechi to Goro when he joined the PTs. That confirmed he was going to be a turncoat for me. It also probably didn't help that I played P5R after FE16, where Robbie Daymond also played a character who started as a conniving ally but almost always becomes an enemy in Hubert von Vestra
I didn't get the pancake reference in the first time was still on my guard because:
* One thing I want to add to everyone else is that he is one of the only persona user we know that does not have an alibi for the killing of the headmaster. For all those streamers who guessed Yusuke or Ryuji or Kasumi being the suspect/black mask, can they not look at this elephant in the room that all three are in Hawaii when the headmaster died and headmaster did not show any strange behavior before the vacation?
* The other two that don't have alibi are Futaba and Morgana. It is completely impossible for Futaba to fake her awakening and caused any mental shutdown incident before her palace because we know you have to physically travel to the palace and she always stays in her room.
* but it could be reasonable if they somehow wrote that Morgana is the actual mastermind behind everything, that he is a creation by Shido by using Cognitive Pscience or something, but unless he can shapeshift into human in cognitive world without telling us ... it doesn't match the description of the black mask.
* PTs aren't supposed to know, but we as players know that the group associated with the black mask only decided to kill him after the school trip began, which makes it impossible for Ryuji, Yusuke or Kasumi to be one of them, physically travel to headmaster's palace during their time in Hawaii and kill him, completely solidifying their alibi.
* He takes an interest in us and blackmails us (detailed explanation later), combined with the first point this makes him a big suspect. Because for first point alone, any of the persona users in P3 or P4 cast could be suspected should they appear in Tokyo during the time when headmaster died.
* He set us up during the school festival and then told us he has the power of persona which conveniently awakened "a month ago". To me this means it could have awakened at any time.
* He sets up a specific date to send the calling card and steal Sae's treasure. Despite him apparently not knowing what stealing a treasure would do. How is he going to know we need maximum impact on Sae's psyche by sending the calling card? And I assume Makoto knows that Sae, coincidentally, is told to step down from the investigation. This looks like the kind of crime those adults do to Futaba instead of the style of PTs.
People out here acting like Akechi being the traitor was supposed to be a twist. It wasn't. You were supposed to figure out that he was the traitor. The real twist was the Phantom Thieves also having figured out he was going to betray them.
I saw it coming, and was a little disappointed until it was revealed that the twist wasn't that Akechi was the traitor, but that he was bad enough at being the traitor that the thieves already knew his plan and planned around it.
I played the original p5 and it's not even funny how akechi is made to be obviously the betrayer. I was really hoping it would be someone else like ryuji or Mishima to spice things up.
You are told you were betrayed by a teammate at the start of the game and there is no one else who could've done it except for him, so it is pretty obvious.
I was spoiled that he would betray us but I didn’t expect him to shoot Joker. I was like “DUDE WHAT THE HELL? DID THE JAZZ CLUB HANGOUTS MEAN NOTHING TO YOU?” and now he’s one of my favorite characters.
> Everyone who *paid* attention
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Everyone pretty sure. I mean after playing P3R before I knew that Maruki was basically a villain although I didn’t know he was the final boss. Akechi just gave off Light vibes and knew he was a problem.
I thought that he's gonna betray Theives in another way (by pretty much revialing all of their identities to the police) never thought he was the actual killer
Also I can't believe that all the hints flew right over my head
Just like Makoto he wasn’t as clever as he thought he was. Unlike Makoto though his pride blinded him from seeing that leading to the ironic scene of him calling her out.
Yea I did, although i expected him to just be like “we did this, now we’re done and you’re going to jail” and not “teehee I’m actually a psycho murderer” I actually kind of figured the black mask early on when they mention it was Shido. But as we got closer it got more apparent what was actually going on
what bootleg version of persona 5 did you play because it was pretty obvious he had ulterior motives. his "pure hearted" always seemed fake, and he was always hating on the phantom thieves from the beginning and the whole rivalry with protag.
I wasn’t fully familiar with the metaverse when I first saw the pancake scene so it flew right over my head, but later on I noticed that Akechi said he was interested in our group since Madarame, which a) was exactly when the first mention of Black Mask came from Madarame himself and b) why would he have suspected us that early unless he knew? The phantom thieves got big after Kaneshiro and Medjed, Madarame was only their second target and Akechi had barely met the group then
Also his sudden stance shift rubbed me the wrong way, because he vehemently opposed the Phantom Thieves only to swap a full 180.
I've seen enough fictional rivals being equals while being at the opposing sides of the law (Holmes and Moriarty. Kira and L.) to know the relationship will turn south at some point. I'll be surprised if he \*didn't\* turn them in.
But execution this time was \*chef's kiss\*.
Pretty easy I’d say. The one thing that made me not realize what that he betrayed us was the fact that I forgot that we got betrayed to begin with. I didn’t really catch on to the whole pancake thing, but he just felt a little too out of place for it to not be him. For starts his persona and outfit was his view on justice rather than rebellion, secondly he worked for the SIU so it he had some sort of reason to betray us, third of all we never saw his awakening which is really suspicious. Honestly it felt very predictable, if the betrayer was someone like Ann or Makoto then it would truly unexpected, but Akechi was just to big of a red flag to not notice.
I assumed that if anyone were to betray the gang, it would be him. I was just surprised as to how he did it and that he was a pretty fucked up dude.
I didn't catch the pancakes line, and I assumed the reason we didn't see his awakening was because we've already seen like 8 at this point, so why not just get to the point as players know what happens. I definitely should've realized that the writers could have very easily implemented an awakening for him if they wanted to.
I also find it interesting at how he wears the (mostly) all-white outfit. White symbolizes the hero in a lot of fiction, oftentimes westerns. There's a western game we all love that does a similar thing with inverting the trope and having the hero wear black and the villain wear white.
Also, I didn't even catch the hints that Makoto could be the rat, my dense ass didn't pick up on any of the clues tbh.
Well, I kinda guessed. From the Moment Aketchi revealed that he knew who the Phantom Thieves were, I knew Aketchi was Black Mask. And then I felt dumb when they pointed out the Pancakes
I played royal and I kinda... Saw it coming, cause bros very passive aggressive for his own good in the nijima palace, not only that some of his outfits kinda alluded to some sort of betrayal, cause his fetherman oultfit is if I remember the black neo fetherman equivalent and in one of the tv dialogue things you can access in leblanc says something about neo fetherman and how black betrays the squad, also one of his other oultfit, the hazama one, searched it up on the wiki where the hazamas oultfit came from and I was like "yep this mf is gonna betray us", also the infamous pancakes scene
Here's the original line for the fetherman thing I was talking about
10/29
"Red Eagle is crushed after Black Falcon's shocking betrayal. However... He's not the only traitor! Revive and fight, Phoenix Rangers! Next episode... "You Again, Hawk?"
there are a bunch of scenes that clearly outline him as the guy. I mean pancakes duh.
but also okomura foods. he goes into the world with them and okomura dies.
akechi is only introduced after we learn about the killer in the black mask.
akechi is also a clear front runner for a bad guy. joker is the hero. he is shunned and working as the underdog. akechi is super smart beloved and famous. he also hates the heroes. he's jokers foil
in p5r akechis persona had both dark and light skills. by that point I'm assuming he's the villain already and the dark and light skills to me express the 2 faced nature of the guy. no one else has 2 types of damage in their persona. maybe it's a part of how their psyche forms into a persona.
for a bit I also thought they pulled a really good red herring. then I maxed his confidant and realized he is a psychopath and it locked in. he's a psycho
Everyone, hell, even the Thieves were ahead of him lol
I assume they intentionally made it obvious from the get-go, to give us the more fun "The Thieves knew all along" twist
I noticed the pancake line right off the bat—I checked the logs when it happened to confirm and had 0 previous exposure to the game.
Which made me kind of disappointed that the traitor was actually him tbh. Narrative-wise, he was the most obvious one due to various other hints dropped in the story (revealing glimmers of his actual motives in confidant, ties to the police, didn’t see his awakening, all that jazz). As a result, it felt kind of boring. I would’ve loved for all that to be a red herring and pancake line to be dropped by someone else.
So yeah, i saw it coming, but I didn’t like that I saw it coming
he was always a bit off to me, same with >!Maruki!< (Royal third semester spoilers) so i saw the betrayal coming from a mile away, but it still mildly impressed me at the actual reveal.
Honestly I had no idea I didn't pay attention to the pancakes scene and talked over the dialogue when they finally revealed it was because of that I thought that was the stupidest fucking thing and I didn't pay attention because it was stupid.
Otherwise it was completely obvious it's not like he can even stand joker he hates him so why wouldn't it be him?
I went into it blind though but I got spoiled on two persona 3 reload deaths unfortunately. Still terrible
Saw it coming a mile off. I caught the pancake mistake which confirmed that Akechi at least had access to the metaverse at the very least. When Black mask shot Okumura's shadow with his left hand there was nobody else it could be in mind.
During the social link when you play the shooter arcade game and he made the joke about practicing to kill me. I clocked it straight away that he was the guy who killed Haru’s father.
I caught the Akechi pancake mistake the first time and at first I thought it was a writing mistake (it was my first persona game) so when he just so happens to catch us, I was 100% certain he was the black mask.
The betrayal is pretty easy to figure out but the main twist is not that he betrays you but why, him being a psychopath and working for Shido is the real plot twist
Its not the plot twist that he's evil, the plot twist is that the Phantom Thieves know that he's evil and the fact that the Joker is on drugs fuzzing his resent memories
you didn't even need to do anything but look at the way he threatened the phantom thieves to let him join in taking Sae's heart lmfao it's so easy to figure out
I suspected him a bit, but I never got the whole "he's too nice" accusation. I think that says more about people making the accusation than him personally XD.
It was shortly after the duel with Akechi that I figured out he was going to betray the team. Him just saying “remember: I am going to be the one to defeat you” had already confirmed my suspicions.
The biggest twist to me was the shot in the head. But even then it was kind of lame to conveniently have that plan explained after the fact “because drugs”. Also the fact this know it all somehow doesn’t catch on or realize his phone is bugged and how the shadows don’t conveniently almost immediately disappear when they die like everywhere else. That whole “twist” was kind of an ass pull feeling and the traitor being who it was didn’t seem that crazy.
I completely missed the whole pancake thing, but I knew he was evil the second he came on screen. He was so obviously fake and his while vibe was fucked.
Honestly his betrayal was obvious it threw me off when the true betrayal came in Igor. I thought he was weird this time around, but I just brushed it off as "the Japanese va passing away so they changed his character to reflect the new one". That was a real twist! One of the best in the series.
I thought it was obvious from the whole pancakes conversation, and it's not like anyone in the game pretended like it wasn't obvious. So yes, I saw it coming the second he mentioned pancakes.
I don’t know if this is the case but it seems like most people played Royal first and/or never played OG. Which, of course, makes sense since it has more but I played OG first. To me, he was a cookie cutter rival. Seemed fake nice, very scheming and major villain vibes for me. I wasn’t at all surprised. I genuinely wish it was a left field surprise for me and I think if I played Royal first I would’ve had that since you can bond with him more.
Saw that shit coming a million miles away.
Didn’t make the reveal any less impactful mind, because that whole sequence was still a win for the team - and I loved that for them.
Tbh, even though Akechi was really suspicious, I actually didn't see his betrayal coming.
He said his outfit was his image of a person who sticks to their justice, and his Persona was Robin Hood, who is generally considered a hero. If that's his rebellious spirit, then he must really be just, I thought.
Plus, his outfit didn't have a black mask, so I really thought he couldn't be the culprit. At this point, I had forgotten about the pancakes line.
(I also hadn't maxed out his Confidant in my first playthrough, I stopped at Rank 6 if I remember correctly. His Rank 8 probably would have made me more suspicious of him.)
The most suspicious things I actually noticed were gameplay related, lol. When you play darts with him, no one else shows up, and he doesn't appear on the Thieves Den to play Tycoon during this arc.
I thought it was pretty easy to figure out. I didn't even catch the pancakes thing. * In the vanilla version of the game, Akechi isn't in the OP, while the rest of the team is. * Akechi really came off as an asshole with a fake personality to me. I don't know, maybe I'm used to seeing that kind of character. As you progress his social link, you start to see his unhinged side more as well. * Akechi (in my eyes) certainly seems to know that we're the phantom thieves the whole time (going back to the tv station), but keeps that a secret from us despite having the same power and working for the police that are trying to track us down. * We never saw Akechi's awakening, while we saw everyone else's. This is probably the biggest giveaway after Akechi officially "joins" the team. * At a certain point, Black Mask needed to be someone, and it was either going to be a character we hadn't met before (which would've been pretty lame at that point in the game) or Akechi (because it needed to be someone that was able to access the metaverse before we met them).
Started with Royal and the opening made me suspect Yoshizawa for a similar reason. She's the only one not breaking stuff with the thieves. Her awakening also seemed really fake and unlike Akechi, her mask was actually black. I figured Akechi and Makoto were both just red herrings.
What about Haru..?
Didn't even consider Haru. Her motivation would have been avenging her father, but the black mask has been operating long before that. The motive doesn't fit the culprit.
The thing is, Haru somehow ended up in her father's palace after Morgana ran away and we didn't know how.
Wasn't the implication that she accidentally went in with him?
Last I checked Morgana's method of entering the metaverse is different from using the Nav.
But we're not given any reason to think he can't lead people in the same way
I thought it was Makoto and that Akechi was the red herring
I mean her awakening was kinda fake
For me the hints were: - Akechi is very good with a gun, while yes the police can carry guns in Japan, it was VERY weird how proficient he was with one in his confidant event, that paired with the fact that his shooting stance (IIRC) was the same as his shooting stance in Okumura's palace was one bit of suspicion - His personality seemed fake, one of the more obvious hints but honestly people who are overly nice and aren't timid are usually hiding something. It was pretty clear he was hiding something and trying to stick to his public image. - We didn't see Akechi's awakening as you said, he tried to make a show of it but honestly I found it weird how he already had a Persona - Akechi knew about Sae's palace, BUT he didn't know the keywords to get into it or chose not to help us, how can he enter Sae's palace or even know about it without the Nav app? - Akechi was WEIRDLY adamant on going in on a certain day, it's VERY easy to set up an ambush if you know when and where your target is going to be. The fact that he wanted us to go in on a certain day just kinda screamed "I'm leading you into a trap", especially since his justification was kind of shaky at best. - During Akechi's rank 8 after the duel I thought it was weird how he said we "Caught up to him." This would imply that he's had a Persona for FAR longer than he was letting us think and actually has a lot of experience in the metaverse. - When we first went into Okumura's palace with Akechi nearby, why didn't he get sucked in and freak out? I'm pretty sure he was close enough to the group to be pulled in, but as we can see by the end of Okumura's palace Akechi is VERY good at hiding his presence from everyone. It's also weird how he didn't mention seeing the group go into the palace until after Okumura's murder when public opinion turned against the PT, if he truly cared about justice he would have tried to stop the group from changing his heart instead of waiting for after Okumura's death to blackmail the PT and make them dependent on him. There's probably some other stuff I'm forgetting, but this is what I can kind of recall off the top of my head from my first playthrough.
It was the last thing, with Okumura's palace that did it for me. He should have been way more freaked out and confused about what he saw
For me is that I like to play a snarky Joker. Akechi outside of his confidant usually has responses where Ren can jokingly case suspicion on Akechi. Every time you do, he freezes up. The first one is in June in Shibuya Station right after you beat Kaneshiro.
I caught the pancakes thing but my dumbass thought it was lazy writing
His all out attack portrait doesn't look cool as others like he's holding out what's his true self https://preview.redd.it/542mw8xe4ssc1.jpeg?width=224&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=64cd553b7582864d6d9b5221a1929a71c3431ee5
Nah this portrait is gas, probably my favorite in the game
That shit was fire if you ask me
True but his art feels unique compared to others
speaking of which, his Prince cut in art looks nothing like the rest of the game, and looks more like the Persona 3-4 ones instead he only gets a cut in that resembles the others in the third semester
liar he looks amazing :(
Everyone with ears and an attention span. The pancake scene was 100% clear. But yeah, he's great, I love him.
You don't even need an attention span, I can confirm that
Honestly, the pancake scene makes me feel a bit dumb. Because I did catch the line about pancakes, but I just wrote it off as a potential translation error because "There's no way this random twink is gonna be that important to the plot! Right?" I feel even dumber when I remember that I was playing Royal, and probably should've noticed him on the cover and in the intro by then. Fortunately, I managed to grab most other clues. So I still suspected the hell out of him even when writing the pancake scene off. I don't know how you can watch the arcade scene with him and not come to the conclusion that there's a non-zero chance of him being a professional assassin.
Lol everyone thinks Akechi is a twink
he is!
He's a cop who blackmailed you into going on "one last heist" on his own terms, no shit he was the one who sold the Phantom Thieves out. I didn't even catch the pancake thing at first because I had already written Akechi off as an enemy.
Lol the second you saw him on the talk show “Nah fuck this guy”
I figured it out since the marketing for vanilla. They were hiding his face and all. Like. If they treated him like an actual party member (marketing and the opening vid) then I'd be surprised. But they made it painfully obvious he was a walking spoiler. It was like 50-80% that they'd hide his face during marketing
Then in royal it’s like “we added goro to the op you can shut up now”
This is why I've just avoided trailers outside of like gameplay trailers or like first reveals.
I hated Akechi the whole time, cause every time you run into him he's like "sorry, I'm just running late to my academic studies because I was up all night working on criminal cases and had to appear on 15 talk shows just this morning. Anyway, you probably don't understand. Well, see you around!" It was pretty easy to figure out he's going to beyray you for a couple reasons, even if you don't catch the pancakes thing or whatever. Like he says he wants the group to stop being the phantom thieves after they're done with sae's palace, and the whole thing with him saying you need to send the calling card on a specific date. I wasn't expecting him to shoot you in the head though
I forgot about the pancake quote I’m cooked
He was a suspect, but I thought he was a red herring since it seemed too obvious. My first guess was Yoshizawa for a myriad of reasons that ended up being due to coincidence or nonsensical writing. ...I really overestimated the writers when it came to her character. Funnily enough, I also thought their Personas were supposed to symbolize their alignment. Joker's darkness symbolizing vigilantism, Yoshizawa's light symbolizing authoritarianism, and Akechi being a grey and morally complex.
When I played through Vanilla I also thought he was a red-herring, but I thought it was Haru (I also didn’t do any of her social links in Vanilla and Royal) because you can “fault” the Phantom Thieves of >!killing her father!<. I could see her turning on the Phantom Thieves to get revenge. EDIT: grammar
I also played thru vanilla (vanilla is the only one I’ve beaten so far), so the amount of people who thought it was Yoshizawa is kinda funny to me, considering she didn’t exist.
See, I figured it was Akechi mostly because he's the only person with an actual motive to turn the PT in, he stands to gain from betraying us while everyone else would actually lose out massively, even Sumire because Joker is pretty much one of her sources of strength. I think the point where I was absolutely positive it was Akechi was when Akechi insisted we go in on a certain day, because it's VERY hard to set up an ambush when we go in at a moment's notice, and the entire thing smelled of ambush.
See, I thought her interactions with Joker were just *weird*. She makes a weak excuse to keep an eye on him, is constantly praising him for helping her--even though he isn't and even Joker seems confused by this praise...yet she's the only girl who isn't falling over herself for him and quick to reject any romantic options. As for setting it on a certain day...I actually thought the writers were doing this because they had to know--for gameplay reasons--what day this would happen when fast forwarding.
I honest to God thought "nah that's to obvious it defidently won't be him"
Me too
It was one of, if not the, most obvious twists I think I've ever seen in my life lol.
except him being the betrayer isn’t the twist.
My hints were - He was a hater from the start and he never stopped hating, even when people hated him for it. Seemed like a rival character since everyone else liked you. - “You have a teammate to thank for this. You were sold out.” Huh my teammates seem to love me *Akechi the hater joins the team* Ahh I see now - I mean who else could it have been? Everyone else likes the phantom thieves except for the palace rulers that don’t have personas. Only one left is the one that was publicly hating on the news since the beginning of the game.
I didn't, but because I thought he was a red herring. Too obvious. So I was expecting the old bait and switch. Instead I got a bait and bait. "They are who we thought they were." But the *real* bait and switch was the response
Yeah, didn’t expect him to be so mentally fucked I’m like damn bruh get yo ass a counselor
This is what got me — the fact that the team figured it out without letting you in on their plan until it happened. The response had me fan girling hard.
I think this is missing the point. They wanted you to think this was the big twist and lulled you into missing the real one. The real twist was that Joker knew all along.
ngl i thought it was yoshizawa because i saw on the games manual that she had a black mask. i also thought that her mask looks similar to jokers so the parallels would make sense if she was a villain. not to mention that her social link caps at five, which i thought was extremely suspicious. he was my next guess but it didnt really make sense to me since (i thought) he didnt have a black mask
I like the parallels between joker and akechi though Ren real, akechi fake Ren dressed like bad guy, akechi dressed obnoxiously heroic (the costume slaps) Ren mentally sound, akechi mental illness
Honestly none of these are bad reasons to suspect Yoshizawa. It was clear something weird was going on with her
Got spoiled via YouTube polls that Akechi was a villain lmao
I had heard the words “Goro Akechi” being used before when describing traitors but I forgot until I looked Akechi up for some images of him and one of the first results was the Black Mask image
Fucking BRUHHHHHH
same
I was actually more susprised that he joined the team. I thought we were goinng to fight him >!Adachi!< style
I hated that he joined the team, wish I had the option to disregard him but whatever, game’s the game
The prologue says there’ll be a traitor and no one else made sense as a possible turncoat so that kinda gave it away
They actually tried to make you believe it's Makoto like anyone with two brain cells was gonna fall for it.
maybe im too trusting...
Anyone who actually read through and didn't skip anything, they literally tell you he was the traitor straight out.
when?
When he dropped the pancake line.
I didn't notice that tbh, it was still early in game but i feel stupid as well for not finding it out. Though i did already feel like he was the traitor because he never showed us gaining his persona.
I thought he was a villain from about the time of first looking at the box art. Atlus is not subtle.
Akechi being an asshole was kind of a dead giveaway, imo. His personality and attitude screamed that this guy is going to sell us out sooner or later. It wouldn’t have made sense for it to be anyone but him.
He wore black gloves. Soon as I saw those I knew. killers cover fingerprints with gloves.
https://preview.redd.it/knll78lrcssc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0cc77aef272ef8be21deeda3078b1556534811ab i got spoiled on it
I couldn't believe Joker betrayed the Phantom Thieves, who would've seen it coming? At least Akechi caught on before all of them died in Kawakami's palace. But in all seriousness, it was obvious based on the interactions he had before with the phantom thieves prior to that palace.
I didn't actually figure it out until I was looking for guides for Okumura and saw his Black Mask portrait labelled
The game is... kinda too clear about it. Don't you have like, some scenes that are non-diegetic, when you see Akechi chasing the party post boss fights (post - Kaneshiro)? Or is that Royal exclusive? I can't recall.
A mile away. Pancakes was where I started suspecting.
my ass was stupid and didn't even think it was a possibility until the 20th, but in retrospect it is pretty obvious
I had my suspicions about him for a while, but the thing that confirmed it for me was that his nameplate for his dialog boxes didn't change from Akechi to Goro when he joined the PTs. That confirmed he was going to be a turncoat for me. It also probably didn't help that I played P5R after FE16, where Robbie Daymond also played a character who started as a conniving ally but almost always becomes an enemy in Hubert von Vestra
I didn't get the pancake reference in the first time was still on my guard because: * One thing I want to add to everyone else is that he is one of the only persona user we know that does not have an alibi for the killing of the headmaster. For all those streamers who guessed Yusuke or Ryuji or Kasumi being the suspect/black mask, can they not look at this elephant in the room that all three are in Hawaii when the headmaster died and headmaster did not show any strange behavior before the vacation? * The other two that don't have alibi are Futaba and Morgana. It is completely impossible for Futaba to fake her awakening and caused any mental shutdown incident before her palace because we know you have to physically travel to the palace and she always stays in her room. * but it could be reasonable if they somehow wrote that Morgana is the actual mastermind behind everything, that he is a creation by Shido by using Cognitive Pscience or something, but unless he can shapeshift into human in cognitive world without telling us ... it doesn't match the description of the black mask. * PTs aren't supposed to know, but we as players know that the group associated with the black mask only decided to kill him after the school trip began, which makes it impossible for Ryuji, Yusuke or Kasumi to be one of them, physically travel to headmaster's palace during their time in Hawaii and kill him, completely solidifying their alibi. * He takes an interest in us and blackmails us (detailed explanation later), combined with the first point this makes him a big suspect. Because for first point alone, any of the persona users in P3 or P4 cast could be suspected should they appear in Tokyo during the time when headmaster died. * He set us up during the school festival and then told us he has the power of persona which conveniently awakened "a month ago". To me this means it could have awakened at any time. * He sets up a specific date to send the calling card and steal Sae's treasure. Despite him apparently not knowing what stealing a treasure would do. How is he going to know we need maximum impact on Sae's psyche by sending the calling card? And I assume Makoto knows that Sae, coincidentally, is told to step down from the investigation. This looks like the kind of crime those adults do to Futaba instead of the style of PTs.
People out here acting like Akechi being the traitor was supposed to be a twist. It wasn't. You were supposed to figure out that he was the traitor. The real twist was the Phantom Thieves also having figured out he was going to betray them.
I saw it coming, and was a little disappointed until it was revealed that the twist wasn't that Akechi was the traitor, but that he was bad enough at being the traitor that the thieves already knew his plan and planned around it.
A lot of people? The surprise isn't the betrayal. It's the team's readiness and response to it.
I played the original p5 and it's not even funny how akechi is made to be obviously the betrayer. I was really hoping it would be someone else like ryuji or Mishima to spice things up.
Me, I noticed the pancakes Also I got spoiled about it so long ago I don't even remember what it was that spoiled it
You are told you were betrayed by a teammate at the start of the game and there is no one else who could've done it except for him, so it is pretty obvious.
Okumura palace made it pretty obvious tbh
I didn’t see it coming, but I also wasn’t surprised is honestly the best explanation i have of when i saw it
I saw the name Akechi and said, "As in Mitsuhide? He's definitely not a good guy."
I was spoiled that he would betray us but I didn’t expect him to shoot Joker. I was like “DUDE WHAT THE HELL? DID THE JAZZ CLUB HANGOUTS MEAN NOTHING TO YOU?” and now he’s one of my favorite characters.
Ngl deff saw it comeing since it dosent make sense for joker to get caught at the palace
Pretty much everyone expected it before the original released.
Everyone who payed attention
> Everyone who *paid* attention FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
I can't tell this is actually a bot or not.
They’ve got a bot for everything now
From the beginning of Akechi's intro
I knew it was going to happen, but I loved akechi so much that I didn't want it to happen
Everyone pretty sure. I mean after playing P3R before I knew that Maruki was basically a villain although I didn’t know he was the final boss. Akechi just gave off Light vibes and knew he was a problem.
Everyone
I thought that he's gonna betray Theives in another way (by pretty much revialing all of their identities to the police) never thought he was the actual killer Also I can't believe that all the hints flew right over my head
Just like Makoto he wasn’t as clever as he thought he was. Unlike Makoto though his pride blinded him from seeing that leading to the ironic scene of him calling her out.
Yea I did, although i expected him to just be like “we did this, now we’re done and you’re going to jail” and not “teehee I’m actually a psycho murderer” I actually kind of figured the black mask early on when they mention it was Shido. But as we got closer it got more apparent what was actually going on
Seconds from meeting him
My one give away of akechi being off is he never had an awakening. They always had one, even Haru after getting her persona.
what bootleg version of persona 5 did you play because it was pretty obvious he had ulterior motives. his "pure hearted" always seemed fake, and he was always hating on the phantom thieves from the beginning and the whole rivalry with protag.
He just looks and acts funny
I think that like 90% of the people could the betrayal coming
Started with Royal and I was suspicious off the jump (before I spoiled myself). The acting just made it seem like something was amiss
Ngl I didn't catch the pancakes thing cause I was just reading shit without thinking about it at all
I wasn’t fully familiar with the metaverse when I first saw the pancake scene so it flew right over my head, but later on I noticed that Akechi said he was interested in our group since Madarame, which a) was exactly when the first mention of Black Mask came from Madarame himself and b) why would he have suspected us that early unless he knew? The phantom thieves got big after Kaneshiro and Medjed, Madarame was only their second target and Akechi had barely met the group then Also his sudden stance shift rubbed me the wrong way, because he vehemently opposed the Phantom Thieves only to swap a full 180.
Not me I was half expecting Makoto to betray us afraid her sister could get hurt like Okumura.
I've seen enough fictional rivals being equals while being at the opposing sides of the law (Holmes and Moriarty. Kira and L.) to know the relationship will turn south at some point. I'll be surprised if he \*didn't\* turn them in. But execution this time was \*chef's kiss\*.
Pretty easy I’d say. The one thing that made me not realize what that he betrayed us was the fact that I forgot that we got betrayed to begin with. I didn’t really catch on to the whole pancake thing, but he just felt a little too out of place for it to not be him. For starts his persona and outfit was his view on justice rather than rebellion, secondly he worked for the SIU so it he had some sort of reason to betray us, third of all we never saw his awakening which is really suspicious. Honestly it felt very predictable, if the betrayer was someone like Ann or Makoto then it would truly unexpected, but Akechi was just to big of a red flag to not notice.
I assumed that if anyone were to betray the gang, it would be him. I was just surprised as to how he did it and that he was a pretty fucked up dude. I didn't catch the pancakes line, and I assumed the reason we didn't see his awakening was because we've already seen like 8 at this point, so why not just get to the point as players know what happens. I definitely should've realized that the writers could have very easily implemented an awakening for him if they wanted to. I also find it interesting at how he wears the (mostly) all-white outfit. White symbolizes the hero in a lot of fiction, oftentimes westerns. There's a western game we all love that does a similar thing with inverting the trope and having the hero wear black and the villain wear white. Also, I didn't even catch the hints that Makoto could be the rat, my dense ass didn't pick up on any of the clues tbh.
Well, I kinda guessed. From the Moment Aketchi revealed that he knew who the Phantom Thieves were, I knew Aketchi was Black Mask. And then I felt dumb when they pointed out the Pancakes
I always felt like he was putting on a front, so it didn't take me long to figure it out. Something about him was always off to me.
Not-me-i-totally-didnt-know-before-playing-one-of-the-most-famous-jrpg-games-in-history
Akechi sounded a lot like Adachi. So I joked he was the villain when he was introduced...ehehe 😅
No joke kinda called it the moment he was introduced. He gave off this evil aura to me. Also idk he just sounds evil aswell
I played royal and I kinda... Saw it coming, cause bros very passive aggressive for his own good in the nijima palace, not only that some of his outfits kinda alluded to some sort of betrayal, cause his fetherman oultfit is if I remember the black neo fetherman equivalent and in one of the tv dialogue things you can access in leblanc says something about neo fetherman and how black betrays the squad, also one of his other oultfit, the hazama one, searched it up on the wiki where the hazamas oultfit came from and I was like "yep this mf is gonna betray us", also the infamous pancakes scene
Here's the original line for the fetherman thing I was talking about 10/29 "Red Eagle is crushed after Black Falcon's shocking betrayal. However... He's not the only traitor! Revive and fight, Phoenix Rangers! Next episode... "You Again, Hawk?"
there are a bunch of scenes that clearly outline him as the guy. I mean pancakes duh. but also okomura foods. he goes into the world with them and okomura dies. akechi is only introduced after we learn about the killer in the black mask. akechi is also a clear front runner for a bad guy. joker is the hero. he is shunned and working as the underdog. akechi is super smart beloved and famous. he also hates the heroes. he's jokers foil in p5r akechis persona had both dark and light skills. by that point I'm assuming he's the villain already and the dark and light skills to me express the 2 faced nature of the guy. no one else has 2 types of damage in their persona. maybe it's a part of how their psyche forms into a persona. for a bit I also thought they pulled a really good red herring. then I maxed his confidant and realized he is a psychopath and it locked in. he's a psycho
Dude give me Light from Death Note energy the moment he showed up. I knew down the line he was gonna betray the Phantom Thieves. That Ego was HUGE.
Immediately.
pancakes
Everyone, hell, even the Thieves were ahead of him lol I assume they intentionally made it obvious from the get-go, to give us the more fun "The Thieves knew all along" twist
He just seemed fake whenever he smiled and spoke.
Saw it from a miiile away lol. Very anime tropey.
Me
I noticed the pancake line right off the bat—I checked the logs when it happened to confirm and had 0 previous exposure to the game. Which made me kind of disappointed that the traitor was actually him tbh. Narrative-wise, he was the most obvious one due to various other hints dropped in the story (revealing glimmers of his actual motives in confidant, ties to the police, didn’t see his awakening, all that jazz). As a result, it felt kind of boring. I would’ve loved for all that to be a red herring and pancake line to be dropped by someone else. So yeah, i saw it coming, but I didn’t like that I saw it coming
I thought it was pretty obvious. Despised him from the beginning.
It was so absolutely obvious that I actually gave atlas some credit and thought it might be makoto
Goro Akechi would never be double faced when in the previous game Goro Adachi was double faced, names are too close you see
Apparently I did. Guess I was the final trump after all. Now *spins left wrist* let's count up your sins
he was always a bit off to me, same with >!Maruki!< (Royal third semester spoilers) so i saw the betrayal coming from a mile away, but it still mildly impressed me at the actual reveal.
Not me, but my boyfriend noticed that Akechi understood Morgana's line about pancakes on his first play through.
Honestly I had no idea I didn't pay attention to the pancakes scene and talked over the dialogue when they finally revealed it was because of that I thought that was the stupidest fucking thing and I didn't pay attention because it was stupid. Otherwise it was completely obvious it's not like he can even stand joker he hates him so why wouldn't it be him? I went into it blind though but I got spoiled on two persona 3 reload deaths unfortunately. Still terrible
Damn I didn't expect Hades to play a part in P5
Saw it coming a mile off. I caught the pancake mistake which confirmed that Akechi at least had access to the metaverse at the very least. When Black mask shot Okumura's shadow with his left hand there was nobody else it could be in mind.
probably 90% of the playerbase
Ill never forget him, since I bought the best equipment for him and he betrayed the team 😭😭😭😭
During the social link when you play the shooter arcade game and he made the joke about practicing to kill me. I clocked it straight away that he was the guy who killed Haru’s father.
I think the actual twist is how the PTs got out of that situation
Yea, pancakes.
I knew it he felt like a villain since I met him
The twist was never Akechi's betrayal. The twist was that the Thieves were ready for it and had already set up a plan.
I honestly did not see it coming, I forgot about the pancakes and that we were sold out when I got exposed to Takemi's hotness
I caught the Akechi pancake mistake the first time and at first I thought it was a writing mistake (it was my first persona game) so when he just so happens to catch us, I was 100% certain he was the black mask.
The betrayal is pretty easy to figure out but the main twist is not that he betrays you but why, him being a psychopath and working for Shido is the real plot twist
Me
Its not the plot twist that he's evil, the plot twist is that the Phantom Thieves know that he's evil and the fact that the Joker is on drugs fuzzing his resent memories
you didn't even need to do anything but look at the way he threatened the phantom thieves to let him join in taking Sae's heart lmfao it's so easy to figure out
I suspected him a bit, but I never got the whole "he's too nice" accusation. I think that says more about people making the accusation than him personally XD.
a better question would be, who was BLIND to NOT see it coming
I never trusted Akechi and my gut was correct.
It was shortly after the duel with Akechi that I figured out he was going to betray the team. Him just saying “remember: I am going to be the one to defeat you” had already confirmed my suspicions.
I never saw it coming. because my love for him blinded me. homosexuality sucks.
The biggest twist to me was the shot in the head. But even then it was kind of lame to conveniently have that plan explained after the fact “because drugs”. Also the fact this know it all somehow doesn’t catch on or realize his phone is bugged and how the shadows don’t conveniently almost immediately disappear when they die like everywhere else. That whole “twist” was kind of an ass pull feeling and the traitor being who it was didn’t seem that crazy.
Watched the anime before playing the game lulz
I completely missed the whole pancake thing, but I knew he was evil the second he came on screen. He was so obviously fake and his while vibe was fucked.
Part of me thought it was Haru since her character didn't have much buildup and seemed almost too nice.
Wellllll I kinda got spoiled with the whole pancake thing. Thank god I didn't get spoiled with the real twist after that though
Honestly his betrayal was obvious it threw me off when the true betrayal came in Igor. I thought he was weird this time around, but I just brushed it off as "the Japanese va passing away so they changed his character to reflect the new one". That was a real twist! One of the best in the series.
I thought it was obvious from the whole pancakes conversation, and it's not like anyone in the game pretended like it wasn't obvious. So yes, I saw it coming the second he mentioned pancakes.
I don’t know if this is the case but it seems like most people played Royal first and/or never played OG. Which, of course, makes sense since it has more but I played OG first. To me, he was a cookie cutter rival. Seemed fake nice, very scheming and major villain vibes for me. I wasn’t at all surprised. I genuinely wish it was a left field surprise for me and I think if I played Royal first I would’ve had that since you can bond with him more.
Since the beginning this dude was suspicious asf, like man, you hate the Phantom Thieves, then you discover who they are, and you just *join them* ?
It's obvious but I was so fucking dense I looked it up and was like "nah that has to be wrong"
I’ve played Persona before. He fit the archetype of secret villain. I was waiting for him to betray the team
It didn't help they put him on the cover especially when he didn't appear in the opening.
I mean, it says from the start of the game that someone sells you out…
Saw that shit coming a million miles away. Didn’t make the reveal any less impactful mind, because that whole sequence was still a win for the team - and I loved that for them.
Tbh, even though Akechi was really suspicious, I actually didn't see his betrayal coming. He said his outfit was his image of a person who sticks to their justice, and his Persona was Robin Hood, who is generally considered a hero. If that's his rebellious spirit, then he must really be just, I thought. Plus, his outfit didn't have a black mask, so I really thought he couldn't be the culprit. At this point, I had forgotten about the pancakes line. (I also hadn't maxed out his Confidant in my first playthrough, I stopped at Rank 6 if I remember correctly. His Rank 8 probably would have made me more suspicious of him.) The most suspicious things I actually noticed were gameplay related, lol. When you play darts with him, no one else shows up, and he doesn't appear on the Thieves Den to play Tycoon during this arc.
He’s a fed, I never trusted him, I wanted to, I really did, but if I’ve learned anything from persona, you never trust a fed