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.
