I don't feel strongly about it or have a complex opinion
I don't like it and I've definitely heard it before
I don't like it and it sounds familiar
I don't like it and this is my first time hearing it
Voting ended onJul 12, 2025
The song is "Who's There?" from the game 'Persona 4', a JRPG developed and published by Atlus. Originally released on Playstation 2, an enhanced version "Persona 4 Golden" with additional content was released on PS Vita (2012) / Windows (2020) / Nintendo Switch (2023) / Playstation 4 (2023) / Xbox One (2023) / Xbox Series X/S (2023).
joker and akechi persona 5 are beautiful to me because its like akechi will go "i hate you i despise you" and "thats just the sort of brainless sentimentality id expect from you" but hes like a traumatized shelter cat who only lets joker near him without biting because he's never experienced someone genuinely liking him for his real self before because he spends all his time lying and also his real self is a serial killer and all around bitch and joker is a normal nice guy with everyone else but hes got this weird codependent attachment to akechi because he's got a weird thing only half explained by getting arrested where he hides his real emotions all the time and makes himself as palettable and helpful to others as possible so they don't ask about any of his real feelings except akechi who inexplicably gets his freak and also tried to murder him multiple times
A pattern that's so important - their time together called a free time/relax in all ranks between Rank 2 - Rank 6. They really are just two teens hanging out, having fun together. A break from their busy life.
We know that for Ren, most of Confidants are some kind of deals, having some kind of goal, he's taking a break from that. For Akechi, his one purpose was his revenge so he's taking a break from his goal to have an actual friend and enjoy time with him, someone who knows him beyond Detective Prince.
This is also a break from their role as enemies. They were made to be enemies, but relaxing together, they can escape these roles for a bit, enjoying each other's company. Which also foreshadows the ideal reality where they're given exactly that. A chance to be together and have fun without any roles imposed onto them
"akechi thinks his vengeance was just" maybe that's the lie he told himself to justify it but actually no. the whole point of loki and robin hood are that he knows he's a villain. he knows he's not a real hero, a real hero would live up to robin hood's ideals, which he doesn't, not deep down. he knows his actions are ultimately unjust and loki's villainous appearance displays that. but he commits them anyway because he needs his vengeance more than he needs to be a hero. he knows what he's done is evil and he did it anyway. akechi is not light yagami. anyway i need to go to sleep maybe i'll write a real meta about this in the morning
Today I learned that Goro Akechi and Ken Amada have the exact same blood type. All their other similarities aside, they just happen to share one of the rarest blood types?
I know that the Futagoro siblings headcanon is relatively popular because she's also AB, but Ken and Akechi being brothers is truly the funniest possible outcome. We need to slutshame Masayoshi Shido, look at this insanity
thinking abt lrb and how there was that whole trend in the fandom where everyone was like "akechi is the only one who knows akira is a normal human being with thoughts and feelings and struggles and the rest of the PT are stupid idiots who put him on a pedestal" and like you could get akechi to that point but. you'd need him to have an arc actually. bc akechi totally does put joker on an unrealistic pedestal actually. he is the ideal form of the person akechi wishes he could be, and as such he believes joker is Perfect. he thinks he's the suave amazing leader who has everything together and loves his friends and has a spotless moral code and is smart enough to challenge him. i think it'd be just as much a shock to him as everyone else just how much joker struggles under the surface.
the one time we get a moment in canon where joker struggles (2/2) akechi is put on the other side telling him to just get over it, stop being a human with emotions, be the perfect ideal of you I see in my head. and it's half because he doesn't want joker to care about him and he's afraid of being stuck in maruki's reality forever but it's also half because he doesn't want to see joker as a flawed person just like he is. he's supposed to be his rival. he's not supposed to struggle the way he does.
like, the interrogation room is the perfect example of this also. akechi straight up says in rank 7, "you are aware of the trap? of how we are on opposite sides and now we must prove our worth to come out on top? good. then beat me if you're truly my rival." he thinks joker is capable of besting him, i think when he kills joker and there was no plot and he's just dead (to akechi's knowledge) he's shocked and disappointed. he expected joker to meet him at his level. and it's also why he thinks his double crossing is entirely fair. they're rivals, if joker is worthy of him, he'll escape. if not, he wasn't worth a damn and akechi doesn't need to have any regrets at having killed him (he does anyway). akechi is not at any point thinking "oh wow joker will be traumatized by this" he's always thinking "joker will be able to handle this easily if he's truly worthy of being my rival."
anyway. point is, akechi is not normal about joker any more than anyone else in this game. there are of course ways he sees beyond the mask in ways the others don't, that is absolutely true. and he would likely be one of the first people to realize there's more going on in a story where joker is struggling specifically because joker is failing to live up to his unrealistic expectations. but he's also part of the problem of p5r framing joker like an infallible hero. everyone puts joker on an unrealistic pedestal, including akechi. and the game in the end mostly thinks they're right to do so. if you want to deconstruct that, give akechi an arc where he realizes the truth about his rival too.
Hi! I was wondering if you’ve translated the “this is no small potatoes” line from 2/2, where it later got changed to “this isn’t trivial” ? I love the scene so I’m curious if there is another layer of nuance in their discussion in the Japanese version
(Wow, this post was just hanging out in my drafts, totally written. Be free, little post. yeah, it's not little)
Hi anon! I currently have no thoughts of any kind and have forgotten most of what I ever knew, but I love this small sequence so much that I'm going to try to elaborate on it.
In short: these lines are the capstone of Joker and Akechi's arc. They run right back through the third semester to the Jazz Club, and right back to his confidant. They're the emotional heart of them.
Akechi
君は変わらず、丸喜と戦う道を選べばいい。
kimi wa kawarazu, Maruki to chigau michi o erabeba ii
All you have to do is stick to your guns and challenge Maruki.
[lit. if you choose a different path to Maruki without wavering, it'll be fine.]
First off, here's another instance of that "choose your own path" motif, elided from the localisation. This is not just associated with Akechi in P5, but he really does hammer it home.
now freeze: the callback to conf 7
Conf 7 is probably my favourite confidant stage, and I've discussed it before at some length. Specifically, we're looking at the phone call afterwards, where Akechi sums up what they've discussed:
Akechi
僕らにはお互い譲れないものがあって、そのためにも負けられない。
bokura ni wa otagai yuzurenai mono ga atte, sono tame ni mo makerarenai
Neither of us can afford to lose, because we fight in service of our principles.
It's the same for both of us. Neither of us can afford to lose, because of these principles we won't concede.
⋯だからこそ、もしも君が自分を曲げたりしたら絶対に赦さないよ。
… dakara koso, moshi mo kimi ga jibun o magetari shitara zettai ni yurusanai yo
And that is precisely why… I cannot allow you to change.
… And that's precisely why, if you betrayed yourself that way… I couldn't allow it.
だって、僕が負けたくないのは『君』なんだから。
datte, boku ga maketakunai no wa "kimi" nan da kara
As you are now, as you think now… I cannot allow you to win over me.
This phone call, which likely takes place the evening after Akechi's murder phone call, summarises how Akechi sees Joker, at the start of the Sae mission—and it's a remarkably positive vision. Conf 7 highlights the similarities between Joker and Akechi, before conf 8 casts their differences into sharp relief.
In fact, in his determination to illustrate why the two of them can never be friends, Akechi reveals something he may not quite have intended: the things he most admires about Joker are his loyalty and his devotion to his friends.
Seriously. Joker's devotion to his confidants is the thing Akechi sets alongside his own obsession that has driven him to murder. I don't have space to lay the whole thing out here, but you should check the conf 7 essay out if you have time.
january in the jazz club
This image of Joker as an impenetrable fortress with indomitable will comes up again in the jazz club, and rather indirectly:
Akechi
こんな異常事態でも 君がまともで助かったよ。
konna ijou jitai demo kimi ga matomo de tasukatta yo
I'm glad you're still normal, even in this bizarre situation.
Even in such a bizarre situation as this, you've saved your sanity.
Akechi
君まで正気を失ってたら… まあ、その時は叩き起こしてただろうけど。
kimi made shouki o ushinattetara... maa, sono toki wa tatakiokoshiteta darou kedo
If even you had lost it… Well, if that happened, I would have slapped you awake.
The logic of the first line has been slightly altered in translation. It's not a huge shift, but it's changed the emphasis—rather than being glad Joker hasn't lost it like the others, Akechi is observing it. He expected it. He would have expected no less of his rival. (That matomo de, by the way, is far more often seen as matomo de nai, and it means that someone is not sane.)
This follows straight on from conf 7—from the idea Akechi has that Joker is someone dependable. And more than that—if Joker should cease to be that way, Akechi views it as his duty to set him straight.
He said so in conf 7's phone call (that "I cannot allow you to change", which is actually far more like, "if you gave way, I couldn't allow it") And he's saying the same thing here: "if you lose yourself, I'll slap you awake."
This gives us a little additional context for 2/2.
back to 2/2
Here's Akechi's next line:
Akechi
それとも、君はこの程度で意志を曲げるようなやつなのか?
soretomo, kimi wa kono teido de ishi o mageru you na yatsu na no ka?
Or, are you really so spineless that you’d fold over some bullshit, trivial threat on my life?
There is a small linguistic callback here to that conf 7 phone call—Akechi uses the same verb 曲げる mageru, meaning to bend or distort, or to give way on a point of principle. The localisation has it as "fold", which does call back to conf 7, but to the wrong part! In conf 7, mageru referred to Joker's principles yielding under pressure, giving way under influence; here, it's in the extended form ishi o mageru—literally to bend one's will, to have it give way or crumble.
This word 意思 ishi is the "will" of Will Seeds, of the will to rebellion; this is the thing Akechi is calling Joker out on sacrificing. This is the thing he believes is so much more important than his own life. This is the callback here, through the jazz club and the phone call to that November night outside Penguin Sniper, to "You're my rival."
Literally, Akechi's line here is "or are you the sort of guy whose will crumbles for as little as this?". Compared to his image of Joker, Akechi's life is nothing. Compared to his image of Joker, the whole world is probably nothing. Again, it's the ideal and the real; 2/2 is when Akechi's image of Joker runs headlong into the reality of him, of a real, breathing, living boy who hurts and cries and bleeds and dies, rather than an icon. Even 11/20 never truly brings this home, because Joker escapes—just as conf 7 suggests Akechi expected him to. It is integral to the pedestal Akechi has Joker on that he would never throw the world aside for Akechi.
This is why it's only rank 10 promise Akechi, primed for the third awakening, who shows up to Leblanc to defend that pedestal. This is why the translation I return to for this line is "Or are you telling me you'd throw away everything you believe in for nothing at all?" Akechi's life is not the point here; he barely mentions it. The point here is supposed to be what Joker is throwing away.
And it's Joker, of course, not Akechi, who refocuses the conversation to what—to who—is really being thrown away.
joker's response
Joker
『この程度』じゃない
“kono teido” ja nai
This isn't "trivial"!
You're not "nothing"!
There are other responses, of course, but this is the big one. This is the one that used to be "This isn't small potatoes"—and I hope I've illustrated why that translation was so bad that Atlus went back in and changed it. Because as well as gutting Akechi's lines of their context, that line gutted this whole moment, the pinnacle of Joker and Akechi's story, of its emotional impact.
Joker simply was not saying that things were a little bit serious—not small potatoes. He was saying Akechi mattered. You could easily render that kono teido ja nai as, simply, "But you matter." and that really isn't small potatoes
An overlooked response here is the third one, the only one Akechi will accept:
[Joker]
意思は曲げない
ishi wa magenai
I won't fold.
My will won't break.
Yep. This one bypasses all Akechi's complaints about mercy, about betrayal, as he cuts to the chase:
Akechi
なら、もう分かってるだろ?
nara, mou wakatteru daro?
Then you already know what needs to be done…
Note that the Japanese is a question—"Then you already know what needs to be done, right?". And it leads directly into Akechi's final demand: "What do you intend to do?"
Love love love characters that present themselves as emotionally open social butterflies but the more you see of them the more obvious it is that they’re the most closed off fuckers in the story. Sure, they want to help you with your personal problems and messy emotions, but if you turn that shit back on them, they’ll shut down or deflect every time. Why are you sticking your nose in their business anyway? It’s not like it matters. They’re not a person, they’re just a role being played. They’re the guy who fixes things and saves people. Please ignore the man behind the mask, he’s fine. Everything’s fine.
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