on the mental shutdown and psychotic breakdown incidents
this is probably going to be pretty long. buckle up.
definitions.
the mental shutdowns and psychotic breakdowns are both pretty horribly named in the english. in the japanese, the names are very different, and far more apt.
"mental shutdown" in the japanese is 廃人. 廃 means "oblivion," or "discard." the opposite of being present, the opposite of existing. 人 is the kanji for "person." so, mental shutdown isn't inaccurate or anything, but it doesn't quite get the same idea across. the japanese term is almost a bit poetic. i find "mental shutdown" too vague to understand exactly what it means. what is a mental shutdown? do you die, can you recover?
well, from various lines in the game, it's very clear that mental shutdowns don't kill you. for example, this exchange:
Can someone die simply from having a mental shutdown!? 廃人化したからといってすぐに死ぬのか!? I don't know! 分からないわよ! I suppose it's possible that the shock could kill a person... ショック死を誘発したりすることがあるのかも⋯ Haru did mention how her father wasn't in the best of health... 『お父様は体が弱い』って春も言ってたし⋯ But... for him to just up and die? This has gotta be some kinda joke... 死ぬ⋯とか⋯うそだろ⋯
from this exchange after okumura's shutdown, it's clear that "death" and "mental shutdown" are two different things. okumura had a heart attack after his shutdown, which is why he fully dies, instead of being reduced to the "living corpse" state of a mental shutdown.
when you have a mental shutdown, your body is still alive, but the mind is absent. whether someone can recover from this state is unknown, but put a pin in that, i'll get back to it later. the japanese phrasing describes this a lot better. it's an empty person. google translate renders it "numb" a lot of the time. it's like going into a coma, but more extreme. your mind is just, well, gone.
but moving on to psychotic breakdowns. this one is infamous for the ableist rendering of the translation. i think it's pretty widely known at this point that the japanese, 精神暴走, is much more like "rampage incidents," another description that's far more accurate. what akechi's powers do has nothing to do with psychosis. you could say they "go mad," but that's not quite accurate, either. essentially, he makes people lose control of themselves. people act without restraint, without higher-level cognition or self-awareness, and act on their darkest, suppressed desires. i think the biggest hint as to what's really going on here is the victims losing their memories after the incident.
the game never explicitly states this, but a good case can be made that akechi's powers function by forcing the shadow to temporarily take over the real person's body. people act out because they're acting on primal desires, base instincts. each person does something different because it's based on whatever chaos they want to enact on society subconsciously. akechi's forcing everyone's darkest selves to the surface. that's why they forget afterwards--the ego isn't present to process what they've done. consciousness is overridden for the id-fueled shadow. once again, put a pin in this. we'll be coming back to what this means later.
a final note: i will be using "shutdowns" and "breakdowns" as shorthand for the rest of this analysis. the similarities in the phrasing might be confusing, but i decided it would be clearer to use terms given by the game than to coin my own for this analysis. and i'd rather avoid the ableism as much as possible. that said, let's move on to:
localization issues.
so, here's a not-so-fun fact. the english localization of persona 5 is constantly interchanging these terms with each other as if they are synonyms. even when it makes no fucking sense and there's zero basis for it in the japanese. i went through the p5r script for this analysis, and i searched the document based on the japanese words for the shutdowns and breakdowns. and the game is constantly using "psychotic breakdowns" when in reality, the breakdowns were never mentioned in the japanese--mental shutdowns were. some examples follow. i've bolded the kanji for mental shutdowns for clarity.
Perhaps they intend to place all blame of past and future psychotic breakdowns on our group... これまでの、そしてこれからの、廃人化事件の罪⋯全部、怪盗団に被せるつもりじゃ⋯?
Now he's saying they've got nothing to do with the psychotic breakdowns?
それが今さら怪盗団擁護? 廃人化とは無関係って⋯
Uh, no. I hear you'll have a psychotic breakdown if you eat there. ああ、ナイ。絶対ナイ。食ったら廃人化するって噂じゃん。
And from what I hear, after you have a psychotic breakdown, you go brain dead and die right there. ああいう事件の犯人って、『廃人』になって死んじゃうって聞いたし。
Ahhh! It'sh happening! I'mma 'bout to have a shycotic brakesdownnn! Offisher, save me! うわぁ~廃人にされるうぅー!助けておまわりさ~ん!
There's no excuse. Making him have a psychotic breakdown was cruel and inhumane. アレはダメだろ。廃人ってやりすぎだって⋯
and to be clear, that last one was literally about okumura.
the most egregious example i found of this is from the following npc dialogue, where someone worries that because they've been tired lately, they might have a shutdown. except in english, they worry they might have a breakdown, which makes absolutely no sense--breakdowns make you act wild, they wouldn't be foretold by sluggishness the way a shutdown would.
Maybe you're just really tired? Don't go fainting on me all of a sudden, all right? 憑かれてるじゃなくて、疲れじゃね?急に倒れたりすんなよ? Oh, are you talking about those psychotic breakdowns? It's nothing that crazy. Maybe I'm just tired. ああ、廃人になるってアレか。そんな大げさじゃないし、ただの疲れかな。
all of this leads to the game being extremely confusing about what exactly either of these two incidents are and how they're related. it's not clear at all that the breakdowns and shutdowns are two separate things that are happening, rather than just two different phrases for the same phenomenon.
it is important to mention that even in the japanese, npc's are constantly conflating the breakdowns and shutdowns with each other. but it's far clearer that it's the public that's confused what's happening, rather than the writing of the game, and therefore, the audience. here's a great example of what i'm talking about:
I'm so traumatized from the video of that accident. I've been afraid of riding the train ever since. 事故の映像、トラウマだよ⋯あれから、電車に乗るの怖くってさ⋯ There've been similar accidents before, right? What happens if you get a psychotic breakdown? 同じような事件ばっかで、気持ち悪いね。『廃人』になるって、どうなっちゃうの? Well, out of nowhere, you go crazy and violent, and then you suddenly pass out. めちゃくちゃに暴れたかと思ったら、急に意識が無くなったり⋯ In the very end, you die in a lot of pain. That's what I hear. You die, or you're as good as dead. 最後には、苦しんで死ぬんだって。とにかく、二度と元に戻らないらしいよ⋯
in this exchange in the japanese, the npc's are gossiping about the shutdowns, and getting them confused with the breakdowns by describing the event as if people first have a breakdown, and then die as a result. meanwhile, in the english they are gossiping about breakdowns, describe them accurately, and then state that after the breakdown ends you die.
later in the game, once you learn these are two separate events, the japanese would make sense. you'd understand it was the npc's who conflated the incidents, because we now know you don't go into a rampage during a shutdown. they're clearly incorrect. however, in the english, it's less clear, because the description is almost entirely accurate. you might not realize these npc's were wrong at all because one asks how breakdowns happen, the other person answers accurately, and then states you die afterwards. the game is never super clear about what happens to breakdown victims afterwards--but there's no evidence they die, as several times npcs are described as having no memory after the incident occurs, which implies they're awake and coherent. therefore, no shutdown. if you watched this scene in the english, though, you would be forgiven for thinking that they do.
the worst example of this for the plot, though, is the incident with the train conductor at the start of the game. it is incredibly confusing what the fuck happened to this train conductor, if it was a shutdown or a breakdown. i've seen people claim both with equal frequency and just as much confidence. well, here's the answer:
If you pledge your loyalty, you're given the honor of selecting those who would have mental shutdowns. 忠誠を誓っていれば、廃人化の褒美を頂けるのに。 Did you ask Mr. Shido to trigger a mental shutdown in someone as well? 先生もやはり、獅童様に廃人化のお願いを? Considering your caliber, I would assume that the target must have been someone quite important. 先生クラスになると、廃人化のターゲットは、相当な大物だったのでは? Important? No, the target himself was nothing that impressive. 大物? いや、ターゲット自体は、大したヤツじゃない。 Oh, you must be being modest... ご謙遜を⋯ Do you recall the subway accident early last spring? The one I had targeted was that engineer. 春先に地下鉄事故があっただろう?狙ったのは、あの運転士だからな。 That was you!? あれを!? It was to take out the president of some company and a diplomat who sided with current government. 目障りな国交大臣と、現政権派の社長のクビを取るためだった。
this conversation takes place in shido's palace between the thieves and a cognition. the game is explicit in both english and japanese that this was a mental shutdown, not a breakdown. which answers the question of why his shutdown looked identical to okumura's shutdown: that is, in fact, how shutdowns work, not breakdowns.
of course, the issue is that this is clearly contradicted by the description in the news reports of this event.
she's very clearly describing a breakdown incident here--someone loses control, regains consciousness, and has no memory of the incident afterwards. his life is stated to also be in no danger, meaning he doesn't die. he's coherent and speaking, even if he doesn't know what happened. this is a breakdown. and yet, the game tells us that it wasn't.
my only explanation for this is that the media actively covered up his shutdown by lying about his well-being and making up a story about his memory that matched the other breakdown incidents. then rumors about his death encouraged people to conflate the breakdowns and shutdowns as the same thing. that said, if this was a cover-up, the game really should have clued us into that. it's either that, or atlus just flat-out contradicted themselves, and this is a plot hole.
that all said...if this is a shutdown, that means we don't see a single breakdown take place on screen, which is...honestly, a pretty baffling decision to make on atlus' part, considering how plot-relevant these incidents are. the fact remains, we have no clue what breakdowns look like in the real world.
before we get to the final section of this analysis, and the true point of all this--akechi goro analysis, of course--i want to make a quick aside about a phenomenon in a previous game that's oddly familiar to the shutdown incidents. remember that first pin? well, we're taking it down now with:
the confusion over the train conductor isn't just due to this localization problem. the writing around it is honestly a mess the whole way through. but the issue of confusion around shutdowns and breakdowns and the difference between the two is exacerbated by it significantly. you straight up can't trust the localization when it mentions either breakdowns or shutdowns that it's actually talking about that incident and not the other. it makes it incredibly difficult to glean actual information about either if you're relying on the english translation.
one final note: there is also the mystery of how the conspiracy seemed to be able to predict when these shutdowns would occur. for example: okumura's shutdown being delayed until his public conference, conveniently being broadcast to the whole of tokyo (if not all of japan), is one hell of a coincidence. and how did they know the train conductor wouldn't have his shutdown until a time when the accident could take out two unrelated victims?
the only answer i can come up for this is that the breakdowns and shutdowns are brought on by some kind of trigger that akechi's able to predict from the shadow's behavior. with okumura as the example, akechi killed his shadow just after the thieves changed his heart, so it would make sense that his shutdown wouldn't be triggered until the moment he acts on that change of heart--something akechi could have predicted from past instances. maybe the train conductor's shutdown didn't take place until he was at work because work was something his shadow was fixated on. shujin's principal is another example--it could be that reporting the conspiracy to the police was what his shadow was fixated on, so that's why his shutdown takes place just outside the police station. (and how the conspiracy knew his shutdown would trigger before he could report them.)
apathy syndrome.
so, in persona 3, there is this phenomenon called apathy syndrome. it's essentially the same thing that happens when people have mental shutdowns--people lose their shadow/psyche, and they become living corpses, unable to take care of themselves, sometimes falling into a coma. the strange part is that in persona 3, people can recover from apathy syndrome. their psyches are eaten by larger shadows, so when our heroes defeat those shadows, their psyches return to the bodies they came from, and many people recover completely.
so, is it possible to recover from a mental shutdown in persona 5?
the answer is simply: we don't know. their deaths function differently in persona 5 than they do in 3, with akechi killing the shadows directly, instead of them being eaten by larger shadows. to answer this question, we'd have to know what happens to a shadow when it's killed. does it disappear completely? or does it go somewhere else? you could say they disappear completely, but i wouldn't be so sure, considering the reveal about the change of heart victims' shadows being imprisoned even deeper in mementos, rather than returning to their hosts as we were led to believe. it's possible something similar happens to shadows when they're killed.
my speculation would be that killed shadows become one with yaldabaoth--he's fueled by apathy and indifference, so people whose minds have given up would be an ultimate example of that. part of why i'm inclined to believe this is that i have a hard time believing that shadows can truly be killed. shadows are a reflection of the real person, so as long as the person is alive, the shadow shouldn't be able to disappear completely. it would make sense that what's really happening when a shadow is killed is that they are metaphorically giving up in the face of conflict (this is a place of cognition, after all) and they disappear in the face of defeat, merging with yaldabaoth as a result.
to be clear, this is all just wild speculation. atlus wasn't interested in answering the question of what happens to mental shutdown victims. i do wonder if they had any plans to do that earlier in the writing process, though. for example, with ohya's partner being a mental shutdown victim. it's odd they set up that kayo is in a coma if they didn't intend for her to wake up by the end of the story. of course, people don't wake up from comas all the time. but in a story, why not just have kayo be dead? ohya could have found records of her death and realized they were consistent with shutdowns. if they didn't want to give us hope of kayo's potential recovery, it seems odd to me that they would have her still be alive.
i think that after yaldabaoth is defeated it is possible that some shutdown victims (that didn't die as a result of the shutdown, unlike okumura and wakaba and shujin's principal) might start to recover. this doesn't necessarily mean that akechi's kill count will significantly decrease--many people also died as a result of the breakdowns, and as i mentioned, many people also died after the shutdown occurred. but it does mean something.
as for intent, though, atlus once again left it annoyingly vague. they never bother to explain what happens to shadows when they're killed, or how that's possible when the real person is still alive. they don't ever imply a connection between the dead shadows and yaldabaoth. they also refuse to acknowledge the history of apathy syndrome in the dialogue. you'd think people would notice the similarities between shutdowns and apathy syndrome, considering persona 3 took place in a district of tokyo. people are gonna draw connections, even if it's just in the form of urban legends and conspiracy theories.
atlus didn't want to explain what happens to shutdown victims or if their fates are the same as those who succumbed to apathy syndrome. we simply do not know, because they refused to explore those ideas, because they're allergic to referencing older games in the series even when it would make sense to. (persona 3 is extremely relevant to many of persona 5's plot points, but those other instances are not relevant to this analysis). so we'll never know if recovery is possible for these people. i'd like to believe it is. and i'd like to see more fics that explore these ideas--and, perhaps, make akechi interact with his own victims post-canon. just an idea. do with it what you will.
alllll that said. let's finally get to the meat of this analysis, the reason i went down this rabbit hole. and that was to write a thesis on how these incidents reflect on
akechi's character.
let's start at the beginning.
I've finally made it this far... It's already been two and half years since we met. ようやくここまで来た。お前と出会って⋯もう2年半になるか。
shido says this in the infamous (to me, anyway) "i know that you know" scene with akechi, where they conveniently tell each other things they already know for the sake of the ignorant audience. (my conspiracy theory is this scene replaced information we'd have learned from akechi's cut palace, but that's neither here nor there.) so, we have our timeline. two and a half years ago, akechi approached shido. he's eighteen during the events of the game, which would make him fifteen-going-on-sixteen at the time of his meeting with shido. i have a meta here on what i believe his circumstances were before their meeting, but this meta is going to be on the events after their meeting.
I recall that's when you came to me. You promoted yourself, saying you had "special powers." その時だったな⋯『特別な力がある』と、お前が売り込んできたのは。 If it wasn't for the research on cognition that I dabbled in, I would have thought you insane. 例の『認知の研究』を偶然かじっていなければ、頭がおかしいと、突っぱねていた所だ。 I made those troublesome opponents psychotic, and erased any trace of that scandal. 僕はトラブル相手を暴走させて、スキャンダルをなかったことにした。 Who'd think that tampering with a person's heart could trigger a psychotic lapse or mental shutdown. まさか、他人の心を暴走でも廃人化でも好きにできるとはな。
here's something important i think a lot of people miss: akechi approached shido specifically offering the breakdown powers.
firstly, this means akechi had loki and his powers from the very beginning. that was his pitch to shido, after all, so he must have had loki from the moment he first awakened. (which fits with the interview where atlus said akechi awakened to both personas at the same time.)
secondly, this means his initial pitch did not include the shutdowns. he likely had no idea that was even possible at this point. his offer was the breakdowns--not killing people, not destroying shadows. if it wasn't for shido, akechi never would have ended up killing anyone. we see evidence of this scattered throughout the game. the existence of robin hood, the siu director's comments on akechi not being callous enough to have come up with the plan against the thieves, akechi's conflict during the engine room, akechi going out of his way to protect the phantom thieves. shido himself brags of this during their confrontation with his shadow.
He was sharp, but in the end he was just a kid. I controlled him merely by offering praise. 頭は切れるが、所詮はガキだよ。適当に褒めて手懐ければ、自在に踊る。
Moreover, it was thanks to me that Akechi was able to properly use his power to begin with. 私だから、明智のあの力も、有用に使えたんだ。
this could be interpreted in multiple ways. he could be saying akechi's powers were only properly used because they were used for shido's sake. or he could be saying his powers were only used properly because of shido's influence. it's likely a combination of both. regardless, it's clear shido is aware of his sway over akechi, and that without shido's influence, he wouldn't have committed nearly as many horrible crimes, or become the person that he did. and the thieves place the blame on shido for this as well.
I'd never accept a leader who makes a teenager murder people! 子供に殺人を命じる指導者なんて、絶対認めない!
Oh by the way, the captain says it's time you receive retribution for causing the mental shutdowns. ああ、船長から伝言だ⋯『他人を廃人化させてきた、報いを受けろ』。 What the hell, man!? That bastard's the one who put him up to it! テメエでやらせといてっ!
It's about Akechi―kun, is it not? That was really sad what happened to him... 明智君のことでしょ?やるせないね⋯ Honestly, I have mixed feelings... but I think he was a victim too. 私は正直、複雑だけど⋯彼も被害者だと思ってる A victim we couldn't save... 助けられなかったね⋯ Had I not met you all, I may have become like him as well... 今の仲間と出会わなければ俺もああなっていたかもな⋯ Personally speaking, I can't forgive the guy. 俺はアイツを許せねえよ But more importantly, I can't forgive Shido for warping his mind so goddamn much! けど、あそこまでアイツを歪めた獅童はもっと許せねえ! I must agree. What Shido did is reprehensible. 同感よ私も獅童は絶対に許せない
finally, let's talk about how akechi might have justified these crimes to himself, going back to my explanation of them at the start of all of this. in a way, akechi is merely revealing the darkness that already exists within people. he's forcing that existing darkness to the surface and leaving them with no choice but to face consequences for their actions.
akechi knows the world is corrupt. he knows adults are evil, that everyone is hiding their inner darkness. and he knows they all get away with it. every day, people get away with terrible crimes, because they commit them behind closed doors. akechi's powers force people to reveal their true selves to the world. it forces society to confront this evil, and to punish the evildoers for their crimes.
you can see how akechi might justify these actions to himself, then. he's just ensuring people who are already corrupt and evil, who have already done terrible things, to show their true colors. he's bringing justice to the world. if that darkness didn't already exist, his powers wouldn't result in any crimes. its their own fault, really, for harboring such dark desires in their hearts.
it's fucked up, obviously. and falls apart under the slightest scrutiny. but i understand why a child who has never seen justice, who has watched adults get away with crime after crime against him and the person he loved most in the world, and been powerless to stop any of it, would want the ability to force adults to become the monsters he knows they already are deep down.
not only do akechi's powers make a twisted kind of sense given his childhood, they serve as a mirror to the powers of the phantom thieves. the thieves take away people's darkest desires, while akechi forces their desires to completely take over. they're opposites. there is a similarity to what they're doing, just as akechi claims in the engine room, after all--they're both meddling with people's desires, just with opposite outcomes. one person loses their darker impulses and gains the ability to become better, while the other is taken over by their darker impulses and destroys their life and any future potential they had by being compelled to commit further crimes.
fundamentally, both forms of power reveal the inner darkness hidden within adults. both powers force people to reveal who they really are. both are forms of forcing accountability onto people who are normally immune to it. akechi's powers are more violent, yes--but the end result is strikingly similar to the thieves' actions. unfortunately, akechi's methods require far more victims than the thieves' do.
okay, but before you think this post was all about defending akechi's actions (to be clear, i am not doing that, i am simply explaining his motivations and perspective, but i think y'all are smart enough to get that), let's close this with a discussion about the mental shutdowns. just how many people has he killed (or reduced to a living corpse with an unknown recovery rate), anyway?
and now we finally come to the thing that triggered this monstrous analysis: a reply to a recent post i made about a comment akechi makes about the mental shutdowns. i originally decided to search the persona 5 script for shutdowns and breakdowns because this reply piqued my interest and i wanted to look at the game's textual evidence in its entirety. the reply on my post claimed that akechi draws a connection between the rate of shutdowns and the changes of heart. this would mean that akechi only caused about one shutdown per month. and the thing is, they're right! ...in the english, that is.
here's the english translation:
I was originally investigating the mental shutdown incidents. People change suddenly and cause strange accidents or horrible crimes... ...Don't you think it's similar to the change of heart that the Phantom Thieves are doing? Now that I think about it, their actions mirror the mental shutdown cases, with the rate of victims. It's impossible not to see a connection there... ...Ah, sorry. I don't want to make you late. I'll see you again.
to be clear, this is dialogue from akechi shortly after you've met him. at first glance, it does look like he's drawing a comparison between the rate of the changes of heart and mental shutdowns. if he really is talking about mental shutdowns, and he really only targets about one person a month, there might be a connection here.
but here's the thing. remember that issue with calling shutdowns "psychotic breakdowns" in the localization? well...here, they did the opposite. in the japanese, akechi never even mentions mental shutdowns. and this makes a lot more sense, because at this moment in time, akechi hasn't made a connection between breakdowns and shutdowns. it's sae who makes that connection. here's a dialogue exchange about the data makoto gets from sae's laptop:
This is just from a quick glance... ザッと見た感じだけど⋯ But it says "perpetrated" and "connected." 『人為的』で『一連性』だって。 It means that mental shutdowns aren't coincidence, that this is a "case" with a culprit behind it. 偶然、廃人になる訳じゃないって意味よ。犯人がいる『事件』だってこと。 Actually, it's not just about people having shutdowns. ていうか、廃人の事だけじゃないな。 Looks like she's inferring that the psychotic breakdown incidents are connected to the same case. 前から騒がれてる『精神暴走事件』ってのも、おんなじ一連の事件って読んでるっぽい。 Go, Makoto's sis! さすが真の姉貴!
akechi's job is to solve the breakdowns, not the shutdowns. at this point, officially, the shutdowns and breakdowns are considered two separate phenomena. and akechi's been trying to connect the thieves to the breakdowns.
so. let's look at that dialogue again, this time with the japanese. i've bolded the phrases that refer to the breakdowns in the japanese.
I was originally investigating the mental shutdown incidents. 元々僕は、いわゆる『精神暴走事件』ってやつを追ってたんだ。 People change suddenly and cause strange accidents or horrible crimes... ある日突然、人が変わったようになって突飛な事故や凶悪事件を起こす⋯ ...Don't you think it's similar to the change of heart that the Phantom Thieves are doing? ⋯似てると思わない?怪盗団のやってる『改心』と。 Now that I think about it, their actions mirror the mental shutdown cases, with the rate of victims. 思えば、怪盗団騒ぎと、精神暴走事件⋯始まった時期も、広まるペースも、よく似てる。 It's impossible not to see a connection there... 関係をまったく疑わないってのは、無理な話だと思うな⋯ ...Ah, sorry. I don't want to make you late. I'll see you again. ⋯ああゴメン、遅刻しちゃうね。じゃあまた。
he never mentions the mental shutdowns here. it wouldn't make any sense to! he's clearly describing the breakdowns. both times the phrase is, inexplicably, translated as "mental shutdowns," when in the japanese, it was the phrase for breakdowns. (roughly translating to "mental runaway/rampage incident.")
i don't know why atlus did this. to drive me specifically insane, i guess.
but anyway. what the hell does this mean, then? so far as i can tell, it means akechi is on some absolute bullshit drawing connections where there are none. we know breakdowns are happening with far more frequency than once a month, so that can't be what he's talking about. it could be that he's including all the changes of heart in mementos as well, and in that case, it'd make a lot more sense--but also mean a whole lot of nothing, because that basically means "both happen a lot and randomly." in my opinion, he's making this shit up just to provoke joker and foreshadow his plan to pin all this on the thieves. maybe this is even when he's coming up with that plan. but it doesn't mean anything beyond that. and it gives us no useful data on how many people have suffered from mental shutdowns, unfortunately.
that said. while we have no solid numbers, we can make some inferences based on dialogue in the game. short answer? it's a lot of people.
first: the script mentions the mental shutdowns about twice as often as it mentions the breakdowns. this is partially because shutdowns are relevant to the thief plot, with their worries over potential shutdowns in their targets and the drama over okumura's shutdown, but it's also because the public mentions them a lot. of course, people mysteriously falling into a coma is going to be pretty big news. but you'd think breakdowns, being much flashier and more obviously supernatural, would stick in their minds more. shutdowns must have happened to a lot of people for the public to be this concerned about it, and for them to consider it a legitimate phenomenon rather than just unrelated tragic medical events.
second: some dialogue that refers to the shutdowns as if a great number of people have suffered from them:
For causing countless mental shutdowns in others, you will atone... with your life. 多くの人を廃人化させた罪⋯生きて償ってもらわないとね。
How can I believe in murderers!? People have been losing their minds left and right, you know? 人殺しを信じるなんて!次々と廃人にされてるんですよ?
I am no Sun God... but people are losing their minds as we speak... 私は太陽神ではないですから⋯でもこの間にも民はどんどん廃人にされて⋯
The culprit forcing mental shutdowns... If you think about it, there's no bigger target than that. 廃人化の犯人⋯!よく考えりゃ、これ以上の大物もいねえ。
There have been frequent occurrences of mental shutdowns surrounding Okumura recently. 最近、奥村の周りで、廃人化の事例が多発しているらしいの。
And thus, the dangerous criminal responsible for the mass mental shutdowns shall end his own life. これで大勢を廃人化させた凶悪犯は、自らの手で人生に幕を引く。
Psychotic breakdowns*, thought to be caused by the Phantom Thieves, show no sign of slowing down. 各地で、怪盗団の犯行とみられる廃人化事件は治まる気配はなく⋯
*once again, this is an instance where the localization rendered "mental shutdowns" as "psychotic breakdowns."
third: we also have to consider the number of people who have been hurt or killed during the breakdown incidents, which cannot possibly be a small number. we don't get any confirmed deaths from the subway incident--unless you count the dialogue from shido's palace, where it's stated that accident happened with the express purpose of killing two people--but here's a list of incidents just from the news report about the train accident, taken from the wiki. there's no way a ton of people haven't died from these.
bus runaway accident, including casualties
bombing at a convenience store
arson within a tunnel
fuel leak at a yacht harbor
airport bus charging in
traffic accident
cyber attack at the cabinet office
poisoning incident
keep in mind: these are just the recent incidents that took place before the game starts. it's not even close to a complete list of every breakdown akechi has caused over the course of the past two and a half years by the time of november.
it's also important to remember that akechi is working overtime during the final few months for shido leading up to the election. the cases increase significantly during that time, which would exponentially increase the number of people affected by these cases.
so, yeah. akechi's hurt a lot of people. he's killed a lot of people. let's not play games trying to sugarcoat it: tokyo is in absolute chaos by the time december rolls around, and that's all thanks to akechi and his stupid ass, immoral, terrible decision to work for one of the most evil men alive.
i have legitimately heard from several people that they think akechi mostly killed evil people, which is absolute nonsense. this is primarily taken from his own dialogue from the engine room scene.
Who cares? My targets were all doing the same damn thing in this eat or be eaten world. 別にいいだろ? どうせヤツら自身だって、薄汚い『食うか食われるか』をやってんだ。 All I did was remove their evil from society. そんな害悪を処理してやったのさ。
first of all, are we really supposed to think ohya's partner was evil? really? she was just some journalist who got too close to the truth, so shido took care of that threat. there's no doubt in my mind shido took care of countless threats in the same way. akechi isn't some vigilante fighting for justice as an underdog. he's an assassin at the command of an evil, corrupt politician who has every intention to become dictator of japan. there's no fucking way shido hasn't had akechi kill countless good people who wished to stop him.
i'm also sure plenty of the people akechi's killed were evil. most people in politics are corrupt, after all. but it's not even close to everyone he's ever killed. that's just akechi deluding himself, because he fundamentally believes everyone is evil and corrupt. he's lost faith in humanity entirely at this point. there is an element to it that's true, of course. everyone is forced to be morally compromised in our fucked up society. but it's cope, and it's silly to take dialogue spoken in the midst of a mental breakdown from the mouth of a murderer as gospel.
but alright. i think i've made my case. akechi's a fucked up kid who does some fucked up shit at the behest of an evil, fucked up monster. let's move on to the
conclusion.
i wanted to make this post partially to clear up a very confusing plot element of persona 5 with some data, but i also wanted to talk about how that confusion leads a lot of people to come to some really dumb conclusions about akechi. i've seen some people defend akechi, saying that it's dumb for the thieves to have some moral high ground about not murdering people when they were willing to do the same to kamoshida. but that misses the point, in my opinion.
the problem with akechi is not that he got too mad and decided to kill some people about it. the problem is that he pointed that anger in the wrong direction. he saw the corruption in society, and instead of deciding to do something about it, he became part of the problem. he turns himself into a tool for the evil adults he hated so much.
the rest of the thieves find liberation in their rebellion because they are able to free themselves from the manipulation of adults through each other. but unlike the thieves, akechi was utterly alone. he presented himself to shido because ultimately? he had no other choice. it was either become the tool of the oppressor, or die. because you cannot free yourself on your own. you cannot deconstruct an oppressive society on your own strength. it is impossible to rebel against a system that wants to destroy you when you're alone. you will, ultimately, just end up becoming a part of it in the process.
akechi's character is fundamentally leftist, even if the rest of persona 5 refuses to go there, and they kill him off because they realized they couldn't do anything else with him without revealing the radical politics behind his character. akechi is a result of an unjust system. he is a victim, a puppet, and that isn't to rob him of agency--it's to place him within a context, and blame the structures that deserve it instead of the individual who is a victim of that structure. i'm not here to defend his actions or say he never did anything wrong. that misses the whole point.
akechi did a lot of shit wrong. he killed and hurt countless people, all for the sake of his desire to be loved by his abuser. and akechi is a victim, and i understand why he did it. there are no easy answers here. akechi lives in a pile of gray, complicated, sticky muck. there is no such thing as moral blacks and whites. just this muck. and the only way we're ever gonna free ourselves is by first acknowledging that it's there, and that's it's hurting us--all of us, including the people who hurt us, too.
