Got Banned From The Little Ceasers. Call That A Little Cease-and-Desisters

if the version of akechi in the third semester is just Joker's 'ideal' version of him (rather than the og akechi actually being alive) then that implies he likes akechi crazy. He saw akechi's reveal as a complete maniac and thought that was cool.

Akechi comes back in maruki's world just as insane and angry as he was in the engine room and joker LIKES that.

Quick rant about Akiren, because I see many different interpretations of him (some I agree with, some I don't) but one that I don't see very often is this.

Yes, he loves his friends and cares for them. But imagine this- his home life was very uneventful, and considering how his family doesn't bother to reach out after his arrest, I'd imagine they see him as a lost cause. They gave up, or his worth is conditional. They love him conditionally. Being raised like that affects you as a person, and I like to imagine that after Igor told him that he now has to fill the role of a hero preventing ruin, and his bonds with people give him the strength he needs to do so, he embraces it. He embraces feeling important and valued, being admired, being the protagonist. Suddenly he has the world on his shoulders, and these people look up to him and admire and love him for it. Every dialogue response he chooses is his own thoughts, but he chooses what gives him more points. What people want to hear. He helps people so they look up to him, because he loves the attention and filling the role of the hero.

Especially since he's not very expressive, and he's nominated as the leader just because he fills the role the best. He embraces attention but he rejects vulnerability. It really feels like he cares for the image of a leader. It takes him a long time to see his role as anything other than the hero he loves being. I would say around Futaba's palace is when he starts to truly care for the Thieves, which is why by the Casino arc he chooses to protect their identities and risk his lives for them. He does eventually come to care for them, but he's supposed to be a leader. He's important suddenly. Playing the leader is selfish, but as the same time, as the leader he doesn't GET to be selfish. Playing the hero means he has to be empathetic, and that's where the selfishness lies. The intentions. Only once he risks his life for them does his true heroism shine. It's not about people relying on him, it's about him protecting them.

It's even better because after Futaba's palace when he fully starts to care, Morgana leaves and their decision to save Morgana is purely because they value their team. Morgana is his friend, so they must protect him. It's not a prerequisite of heroism to put aside their goals for Morgana.

And this interpretation makes 2/2 even more interesting, because he's given the opportunity to get the one thing he wished for. He can make the selfish choice. Doing so would give up not only his hero role, but also would betray and abandon everyone he cares about. 2/2 is like a checkpoint where he remembers how the Thieves formed and how at some point, his priorities shifted from being the protagonist and hero admired by all, to wanting to protect the people close to him. He has to reconcile with why. He has to think "It's not about me being selfish for once by taking Maruki's deal, it's about the fact that I care for these people and I don't want to hurt and betray them."

So yeah, I love this interpretation of Akiren Kurumiya and I would love to see more of this, please and thank you.

I wish Ryuji Sakamoto was right.

The last tag you originally put got me thinking about Hereward again, and dammit we NEED to rant about this later because I'm so interested

are you still there? are you still you?

Hey, so I don't want to be that guy, but when are we going to acknowledge that Akechi was right?

No, I obviously don't mean about the things he was very clearly wrong about. I'm referring to the things he says in interviews about the Phantom Thieves. I hate how many people switch up after playing through his betrayal who previously agreed with his views, because nothing he said is wrong and nothing he did changes that fact. He speaks in the TV Station on the objective facts that he should know about, and with or without the context of his form of justice those facts stay true. It's a fallacy to claim that his form of justice being universally less approved of makes the Phantom Thieves better by comparison, or discredits anything he said. I don't think the Phantom Thieves are evil, or that they should necessarily be imprisoned, but I do think that they are not morally sound. They're kids. Prior to his betrayal I think he served his purpose well, but it's easy to disregard the validity of his words when you find out that he's a murderer. With the knowledge he SHOULD have had (and that many DID have), everything he says is true. And honestly? It still can be true for basically the entire plot of the game. Mishima's confidant tests the thieves in that way. They could have changed the hearts of anyone who's not a persona user, for any personal reason. It's a slippery slope.

I'll use these three options as an example for why he's right:

"They're justice itself" is just subjective and incorrect, because justice as a concept is individualized and given how each Phantom Thief has different reasons for being one it's ridiculous for even them to say. Their first target was before they even formed a group, and Ann was ready to kill Kamoshida. The others were not even going to step in, and they were going to respect her choice either way. All the members are so different, so this is an insane claim to make.

"They're necessary" is wrong because to say they are necessary is pretty disingenuous to all "justice" that has ever happened BEFORE they existed. I don't believe that the Thieves were a necessity per say, and personally I think their actions can only be judged on a case by case basis. Some Mementos targets for example have issues that stem beyond what they have done. Now they have their desires stolen but still have the issue that pushed them to immortality in the first place, plus a shitton of guilty baggage. The Thieves only help with the atonement, but not the push. How many of those people didn't just go right back to their past behaviors? How many of them got worse in other ways? Think about Futaba, she felt so guilty for something she thought she did, she formed a palace to condemn herself to die alone. To claim the Thieves are necessary to reform society implies that their method is the most effective, and I think that's a lot to claim for something they don't understand.

"They do more than the cops" I almost agree with. Legally the police in Japan in this game anyway (yes I'm aware it extends to reality in many ways, but I'm referring to just the game right now) are corrupt and flawed for the most part, but the thing I don't agree with is that this makes the Thieves a better alternative. They're not. For the same reason Yoshizawa says later, the Thieves can only do so much as vigilantes, and to imply that society should rely on these faceless nameless flawed people to fix society is not any better than what they have now. Especially with the method being unknown, potentially unsafe, and easily exploitable. I cannot be the only one who if the Phantom Thieves were real, would be extremely alarmed by the prospect of a group of vigilantes "changing hearts" right? It's so vague, and the pattern is dystopian. At least police methods are familiar

What I'm saying is that they're kids, and it's kind of insane that this game places Akechi as the narrative foil for the Thieves in their message and then makes it so easy to disregard because "he's an assassin so how could he know anything about justice". The Thieves don't either, and Ann was nearly a murderer. If the bar is "don't commit murder when you're infiltrating someone's mind" then it's far too low. I wouldn't trust a group of adults with this power to reform society, even less a group of teenage vigilantes. I'm 19, and I find this odd. And Strikers frames them as even more righteous, and it bugs me even more in that game. At least Royal has the third semester to give a bit more nuance to how big of a responsibility Ren was given, but that's also very frequently misinterpreted.

I love this game, and I love this fandom, and I have thoughts that get weird and ranty. I apologize, but I hope you all found this as interesting as I did.

Hahaha I would never do that ( @checkerstheboard @avendoki @turretangel What character do I remind you guys of? 😊)

my friends open drawing requests and i bow my head with shame and avoid eye contact as i ask for the character they Already Knew I Would Ask For

Ratiorine!

This is why his introduction cutscene is so hilarious to me. It starts with showing this devastating and tragic subway accident on the news, and then the next thing you know there's this silly teenage detective thoroughly disappointed that his coworker is subjecting him to conveyor belt sushi. It's so funny to me that this face is literally him right after his most recent heinous crime broke the news:

P5r has a lot of writing flaws generally But you have to admit. no matter how you view his character “highly marketable anime Pretty Boy who keeps going ‘woaww Protagonist you’re so interesting <33’ is actually a hired assassin and is acting like that because he’s actively planning your murder” is an objectively hilarious plot point

Realized something so funny about Yusuke while playing Strikers.

1. He suggests that the Phantom Thieves go to Kyoto on their vacation because he really wants an art tour, and he immediately gets vetoed. They then plan a barbecue, and he gets excited for that but then plans change when the Metaverse returns and they go on their road trip, so he gets deprived of that too. But every single time their vacation gets brought up he acts like these things are going to happen. "What about our Kyoto excursion" "our barbecue extravaganza" he is in his own little world where the Thieves listen to him. They actually do eventually go to Kyoto and he STILL doesn't get his art tour.

2. Zenkichi tells them that Alice Hiiragi went to the same school as the Thieves and Yusuke pipes up like "SHE WENT TO KOSEI HIGH??" Even though he is the only member of the Thieves who didn't go to Shujin Academy.

3. The scene where they discuss how they're going to go on their road trip without a vehicle and he announces that he has money like it's HIS MOMENT. Like it's the moment he's been waiting for his whole life, and Futaba responds "keep your snack money, Inari". Later he makes a comment about how he's gone from "rags to riches".

Every single case of this he gets the dramatic cut-in thing, so what I'm saying is Yusuke is convinced he's the main character through all of Strikers. Like he goes through the motions assuming the world will bend at his whimsy and the other Thieves just sigh and move on.

I cannot help but find this one detail in Strikers endlessly funny. The game introduces Sophia and it's all like "What is Sophia's power? Is it a persona?? Keep playing to find out :3" and it's obviously going to be some kind of reveal or mystery they solve. I haven't finished the game yet, so I still don't know- but the point is her "Persona" skills and gameplay mechanics are the same as the other actual personas, which is an obvious plot hole that leaves no room for a reveal. So you would think that the game would come up with some serious sensical way to rectify this right?

Wrong, they literally just- slap a question mark at the end of all her Persona skills and call it a day.

It's "Dia?" because we think it's Dia, since it works the same, so let's just call it Dia and stop asking questions. It's so funny though from a gameplay perspective, because they could have just left it alone and hoped nobody would question it, but instead they put in the effort to put that little reminder that it's not confirmed to be a persona- but also want the ability to integrate her into the framework seamlessly. They were like "we can't have our cake and eat it too? Watch us" and then did exactly that.