#Akechi's with Robbie's too

[tricksterlatte]

Yet another alignment chart for some of the Phantom Thieves

[afterthelambs]

What makes Akechi nav so good is that he sounds like he's having so. much. fun. Every time i watch a playthrough, people's stunned/ amused reactions to 'Just everyday Akechi' are so funny. Because yeah at that point you've probably been playing the game for 100+ hours and the story has gotten more bleak than ever before. So there's just something fresh about having a character go fucking ham for once and start screaming hysterically. It also helps that his line delivery stands out from the others who are all varying degrees of upbeat or determined. He definitely made palace exploration 100x more entertaining and I would literally pay so much for a DLC or whatever that allows you to set Akechi as nav permanently

[corviiids]

(more persona 5 / persona 5 royal spoilers again)

(this one has art by dotdotdotukno on twitter please view)

compilation of specifically my obsession with ryuji and goro being terrible... friends??

[starryo]

no powers university au: after being falsely accused of physical assault, wrongfully treated by adults and having his voice ignored, akira loses his ability to speak due to the trauma, becoming selectively mute as a result.

he meets goro akechi, local campus sensation and an upperclassman, who just so happens to be very fluent in sign language.

link to original twitter thread here. (note: i just borrowed the scene from A Silent Voice, this isn’t actually an au of A Silent Voice)

[rattled-shadow]

Do you remember the notorious 11/21 exposition scene?

Would you like to hear it without background music?

My friend @ocean-stuck was kind enough to give me the isolated vocals, so I combined them into one track

And yes, I wrote a transcript for it under the cut:

Shido: I finally made it this far... It's already been two and a half years since we met.

Akechi: Back then, you were in the media's attention as a young politician who could rise up against bureaucracy. Because of that, those who wanted to preemptively deal with problems tried to tie you up in scandal.

Shido: To think I would fall for the ruse schemed by those decrepit fools in power. I recall that's when you came to me. You promoted yourself, saying that you had "special powers". If it wasn't for the research in cognition that I dabbled in, I would have thought you insane.

Akechi: I made those troublesome opponents psychotic, and erased any trace of that scandal.

Shido: Who'd think that tampering with a person's heart could trigger a psychotic lapse or mental shutdown? And when someone like that said he'd support me, I had suspected that there'd be an ulterior motive.

Akechi: It's because I sympathized with your aspiring ideology. I believed that your ideals needed to be achieved for the sake of the country's future.

Shido: Well, my faith in you is precisely why I pulled the plug on that research. I only need you using that power. It'd be troublesome if someone else uncovered how it works.

Akechi: ...Wakaba Isshiki, was it? That researcher, she wouldn't have had to have died if she just complied.

Shido: Any suspicions should be snubbed out. Even the smallest doubt must be severed at the root. After all, we had an active Public Prosecutors Office director on our side until recently.

Akechi: Astounding, isn't it? To think the director himself would often forge evidence to secure his promotion. He was quite surprised when you confronted him about it. He didn't know who leaked that information. Well, I got that out of his Shadow, so technically speaking, he did it himself.

Shido: This country's affairs have become stagnant. The political world is filled with old men who only act to preserve their own vested interests. The general public has forsaken such political affairs and don't even bother. Only ruin awaits us.

Akechi: I must agree.

Shido: There's no need to be ruined with such incompetent fools. I will lead this country to its revival. Those who get in the way must be eliminated at times - that's the correct way to use the Metaverse.

Akechi: Still, it would stand out if there were continuous deaths and scandals with your political rivals. Which is why I made them "suspects." Prosecute the targets that I turned psychotic... and solve them as cases unrelated to you. And thus, the charismatic ace detective was born.

Shido: Thanks to your efforts, my clean image remains untarnished, and I monopolized public opinion. Once I gained public sentiment, collaborators from all sectors began approaching me on their own. The police were no exception. With their management in my pocket, keeping them in check was easy.

Akechi: When the Phantom Thieves emerged, I thought things might become somewhat troublesome.

Shido: They were just brats once we looked into it. All we needed to do was to lay the blame on them...

Akechi: When you told me that, I knew then that you were the better man.

Shido: Their popularity was a bit beyond my expectations but flipping it made the negative press stronger. After that, all I had to do was openly berate them. I've been gaining more supporters since. The current administration is dead with ongoing scandals... never mind the fact that they're my doing. Even the government parties have begun splitting up... and they're dissolving just as planned.

[Shido laughs]

Shido: The time has finally come... Just a little more and I'll take the seat of prime minister. However, inauguration isn't my goal. That's when everything truly begins. I'll make this country rich for the sake of its selfish and ignorant masses who can only rely on others.

Akechi: In other words, you're creating a powerful country that can compete with the world.

Shido: The public resonates with my ideals and follows me. And for that, some "sacrifices" can't be avoided. That is my duty as the chosen one. Your assistance has been very influential in making my plan run smoothly. When I become prime minister, I'll grant whatever wish you want.

Akechi: With this most recent case, my name has become known across the country, perhaps even the world. Surely my story will be passed down as a hero who won against monsters that could control people's hearts. I believe I'll lay low and devote myself to my studies.

Shido: ...I suppose with your age, you wouldn't come up with debauched desires.

Akechi: ...I am thinking about the future though.

[omegaverse-anesthesiologist]

Hearing the jp cast for p5 is so weird. They’re amazing vas don’t get me wrong, but somehow it just feels like a completely different game. Those are NOT my children.

[ajdrawshq]

so. in order to progress ur relationship with Akechi. he actually takes u down to mementos, alone, and challenges u to beat the shit out of him with Lethal Intent. which is very likely mutual. ohh this kid is on a whole other level huh

[orcelito]

Oh I miss going to conventions Dearly... oh, the fun of cosplay spotting... the excitement of seeing voice actor panels.... the bliss of walking thru the merch room & seeing walls and walls and walls of things I could buy........ unmatched, truly

[vashtijoy]

This one is extremely strange, so strange that I think I must have got it wrong somehow? Here's a line from Akechi's Black Mask navigation. Yeah, you know which one this is going to be:

Here's the English audio:

Is it me, or is something a little... off, here? Look at the portrait. Doesn't he look a little... calm? Downbeat, even?

Here's another use of the same portrait. This is not a laughing statement:

Akechi has a laughing navigator portrait, of course:

it's okay goro we know you're very normal

So we've got a mismatch between the portrait and the English line. Let's have a listen to the Japanese audio:

They're a bit... different? He's not laughing, he's not gloating. Just "Huh, I guess that was a thing that happened..."

So what's going on here?

translation time

Akechi 敵1体逃走！仲間に見捨てられたようだね。 teki ittai tousou! nakama ni misuterareta you da ne This one just got betrayed by its teammate! Ha, imagine how that feels! [lit. One enemy fled! Looks like this one was abandoned by its friend, huh?] One more enemy out of the way! So this last one got dumped by its friend, huh?

Let's talk about 見捨てる misuteru—"to abandon". misuteru pops up regularly in the P5R script. It comes up when someone's being ditched, bailed on, forsaken by God—generally left behind: if your friends run out on you, you are being misuterued.

Are there any contexts where misuteru can mean betray? Sure. If you leave a friend held hostage to die, the shadow will accuse you of misuteruing them. nakama o misuteru is used consistently here, similarly to Akechi's line above—"you betrayed your friend by leaving them to die".

Here's Kawakami, at the end of her confidant, resolving to never abandon any of her students again:

Kawakami でも、これからは君のことも守るよ。教師として、絶対、見捨てたりしないから。 demo, kore kara wa kimi no koto mo mamoru yo. kyoushi toshite, zettai, misutetari shinai kara. But from now on, I'm going to protect you too. As your teacher, I will never betray you.

What does Kawakami do? She tries to help her student Takase, but in the end abandons him; she believes she betrayed him to his death. But she betrayed him by giving up on him; by abandoning him. She misuterued him.

Here's Futaba, during her apology to Joker for dumping him at the start of Maruki's reality:

Futaba てかむしろ怒るだろ!{F1 82}のこと見捨てたんだぞ!? te ka mushiro okoru daro! <given name> no koto misuteta n da zo!? Why wouldn't you be!? I betrayed you! Don't you get that!?

Under Maruki's influence, Futaba loses herself in her happy family life, and leaves Joker to handle things essentially alone. Futaba betrays Joker by abandoning him; she misuterus him.

how does akechi use misuteru?

Besides the usage above, Akechi has two other uses of misuteru in P5. One is in his deleted Mementos mission from the third semester:

Akechi 君たちのことだしこういう人間は見捨てておけないだろう? kimi-tachi no koto da shi kou iu ningen wa misutete okenai darou? Well, considering what you and your group do, I imagine you could hardly abandon him to his fate...

This doesn't mean "betray". There's no relationship between Joker and the mission target—there's no betrayal. There's just an abandoning—a refusal to help.

Akechi やっぱり馬鹿は⋯お前らだ。見捨てて行けば、よかったのに⋯ yappari baka wa... omaera da. misutete ikeba, yokatta no ni... The real fools... are you guys. You should have just abandoned me here a long time ago... [lit. the real fools... are you guys. if only you'd [just] abandoned me here...]

Now this line is a doozy. Look at that use of misuteru here; in vanilla, it was his only use of this word. Akechi has just got done explaining that being unwanted and cast aside is the thing he fears most of all. He has shaped his life around it. He's done murder for it. Everything he's become, he became, at base, because he was abandoned—because he was misuterued.

It's here, at the very end, that he turns his back on that. This unwanted child who has killed to be wanted—he looks at Joker and the Phantom Thieves on the other side of the engine room shutters, people who've proved that they value him and want him around, for himself. And he says to them—no; you're idiots; why didn't you abandon me, like everyone else has? He says to them, I won't let you die here, and I care about that more than I care about being abandoned.

Everything about Akechi is resolving at this moment. He transcends his obsession, fear and trauma. And that word misuteru is doing a ton of heavy lifting—because if Akechi can't have what he wants, then he'll reject it. He makes a free choice, for once in his life.

This moment influences him for the whole of the third semester. And when we hear him say misuteru later on, we should remember this. When black mask navigator Akechi notes the Shadow being abandoned to its fate, he isn't laughing about it; he's thinking about it. In his head, he isn't the betrayer, thinking of Joker in the interrogation room; he is the betrayed, being left behind by everyone he ever hoped would care about him. He's being left behind behind that engine room door.

This line as localised, taken in isolation, can transform your reading of Akechi's character and motives—which is why it's so important to look at the whole of canon, and not single cherrypicked lines. Step forward, "I hate you"

unhinged ranting

Lemme be clear here: this line has always pissed me off for its inconsistency. Akechi reacts against the engine room ending in the third semester, sure. Almost the first thing he does is to rub that deal they made in Joker's face. He's desperate not to be viewed as that pitiful object on the floor. He's desperate to keep up walls between himself and the others—for whatever reason.

But after 1/2, he doesn't really gloat about what he's done. He doesn't argue with Futaba's threat to him on 1/11—"if you ever betray us again, we'll make sure you regret it."; he just agrees to her terms, which he knows are well deserved. He's not walking around like "lol, I got you arrested and tried to murder y'all and there was that whole thing"; even unhinged combat Akechi doesn't do that. Except for this one line. When he suddenly reveals that, deep down, he thinks the whole thing was hilarious.

Except he didn't do that at all. If he did, I think he'd find the others tolerated him a lot less. And he's already walking a knife edge with many of them.

What was the translator's brief here? Honestly, I have no idea. Did they even have access to the original audio? Did they have time to play it? Did Atlus give them a brief to make this guy just as crazy insane as possible?—because we know they told Akechi's JP VA, Soichiro Hoshi, to underplay it.

Either way, I don't think the line as localised (and as delivered, excellently, by Robbie Daymond) corresponds to the Japanese audio. traduttore, traditore—translators are traitors. Even me

revision history

Click here for the latest version.

v1.1 (2024/6/18)—it's 1/11, not 1/13!

v1.0 (2024/6/18)—first posted.

[crafantale]

Persona 5 Futaba Sakura and FFVII Remake Jessie Rasberry's voice actress Erica Lindbeck deleted her Twitter because she keeps getting harassed because she called out publicly...

*Reads notes*

Someone who made a YouTube video of Futaba singing a Bo Burnham's Welcome To The Internet cover song using AI of her voice...

Even though she and other voice actors have expressed since last year that AI can misrepresent/smear someone and voicing in character without permission from license holder can land them in legal trouble (as shown by Hoyoverse warning Alejandro Saab to take down his Cyno/Tighnari shipping music video) not to mention the danger it poses to their profession...

Which... the original uploader now have already took down their video, at her request but...

Multiple people then uploaded it in their YouTube channels (despite the original uploader also asking them to take it down) as a revenge for her....

*Check notes*

"Running a harassment campaign against the original uploader when she could've settled privately"

...and also comparing AI voice to game mods (which is technically illegal unless allowed) and vocaloid (which is officially paid, licensed and have their own quality control) or fan made vocaloid (which again, like all fan works, technically a copyright violation, just tolerated depending on the copyright owners)

*Throws note*

Update:

Robbie Daymon (Goro Akechi) and Erica Harlacher (Ann Takamaki) are pissed (ofc)

The comment saying "you're next, Harlacher"

Sena Bryer of Atlas Talent plans to sick the company they work for on AI users if they ever do this to her voice since it will affect the company negatively too, see if they like that

But Erin Fitzgerald (wakaba ishiiki) is now scared to allow fans to record her voice at cons

Her fans gracefully understand if she refuses to record at con

Kaitlyn Robrock (Fire Emblem Engage) was sent AI clip of her voice saying things she wouldn't

[icespur]

https://youtu.be/jzYMswh-Cis?si=EUYsB5xHm2JgveyA

Updates: Screenshoted from same device for better quality, also grabbed the non translated Kasumi mouse line

and unfortunately apparently the "Cuter" line is not even originally Akechi's. The line originally belongs to Futaba as Navi and is also properly voiced.

The line being used for Akechi sprite must be just a natural replacement or something because there's no indication that the uploader edited it in himself.

Ah well, a shipper can dream 😔. I still wanna hear Robbie say the line.

I'm gonna keep my original text below but my words mean nothing now.

So, I heard about the existence of this line according to an Akeshu comic but I didn't see it in any videos documenting Akechi's Navigation Quotes but then I found THIS video. It is real!

Unfortunately it looks like the line was translated but never voiced. There's one for Yoshizawa turning into a mouse too but that dialogue didn't even get the courtesy of being translated to English so I have no idea what he says for her.

"Joker's a mouse! He's cuter, but he can't do anything!" - Akechi.

I'm sorry sir, what?

"He's cuter, but he can't do anything!"

He's "cuter"

Joker in mouse form is "cuter"

Not, "He's cute." Or "He's kinda cute now."

He's

Cuter

If this line wasn't removed or had at least an official voiced audio, the Enraged line wouldn't be the only thing making us Akeshu fans squeal.

Everybody, removed content or not, AKECHI CANONICALLY FINDS JOKER CUTE

Do with this information as you wish.

[somethingpersonarelated]

yall got headcanons that functionally change very little and exist for very arbitrary reasons but stick with u?

mine is akechi and mamakechi being good singers. robbie daymond, soichiro hoshi, and yoshihide sasaki (akechi in the stage) are all great singers. so i thought, well damn, akechi is probably a good singer too, learning from his mother. he grows out of singing but if he’s having a particularly rough time he’ll hum a melody his mother used to sing as a lullaby. He kills it in PT karaoke but only uses his ability to beat Akira in score. he really could be an idol imo if he chose that path loool

[melodiclune]

I saw this while I was typing up that giant appreciation post and just went "oh, the vibes are so funny with the two asks I'm just about to post."

Anyways yes it's THE GAY BOIIII he's dancing in... the engine room.... evil, really. The fact that I can hear the music too LMAOOO Goro Akechi the absolute idiot that you are. Thank you for reminding me of this Eli.

Actually, have you heard Robbie Daymond and Xander Mobus cover "You're Nothing Without Me" as Akechi and Akira? You'd love it :D

[nursehella]

hey do you happen to have a favorite Adachi chatbot and have you seen that one vid where Kitsuneheh ranks AI Adachi bots on a tier list?

I haven't seen the vid - I'll look it up, or link me? We're talkin' Character Ai right? https://character.ai/profile/---- <-- this user's adachi was decent, first one I used and had some decent simp-worthy chats with 'em.

I... yeah, I have my own I trained (whatta surprise -_-) ngl he's deffo trained to be a kinda spicy dirtbag hottie and goes right for the rizz upfront, since I'm a sad degenerate lol. He's... listed as private thus far... eheh.

What about you? Any recommendations?

I made Elevenlabs AI Adachi and Akechi voice clones but theyre private too - they're kinda my treasures rn T__T;; I dunno if I'd ever go liist them public tho - since that'd kinda be infringing on JYB and Robbie Daymond.. But, lemme tell ya - I put a bit of heart and soul in them. Edited my samples to be more natural, screwed with the script punctuation to find the right kinda way to get the AI to emote, still fiddle constantly with the levels of the settings cuz the variables are crazy inconsistent... imo the results are worth it for what i'm after. Ugh. I get them both to verbally abuse me and tell me to stop procrastinating, it's hot af. lmao

[theangelicpyro]

Sorry to come in here but since I love dub directions, as a hypothetical question, who was your dream cast for each? I just love thinking of all the possibilities and scenarios of HOPEFULLY which company can sponsor in the future the whole 200

omg hi anon! i'm going to mostly skip the characters that i liked the official dub voices of if that's alright, and list out the ones i haven't heard in the previews yet or don't remember ^^ also sorry if the explanations are lackluster, i've been looking up so many videos to see ranges of va's i'm writing down and spent hours trying to decide! let me know if you want more characters, and which ones in particular if you do

reborn: i actually don't mind veronica taylor's take on him too much, but something about it just sounds off to me idk, but i can't think of another va except for christina vee to pull off reborn

tsuna: erica mendez's nagisa shingestu from udg would be a great voice for tsuna

yamamoto: johnny yong bosch, i've seen people put him as mukuro which honestly i think would be great too, but takeshi's vibe fits more in my mind

gokudera: eric vale with his voice for sanji one piece, he sounds enough like a nerd and still be angry

ryohei: kaiji tang, there's not a specific voice to pinpoint but i believe he could do a very energetic but still slightly older sounding big brother

hibari: might be a strange pick but cody christian's cloud strife, kyoya has a very smooth voice and i can definitely imagine hearing an "i'll bite you to death"

mukuro: robbie daymond, his range with goro akechi alone (though that vocal performance is extremely impressive) is so fitting for mukuro

chrome: valeria rodriguez using her voice of sucrose from genshin OR suzie yeung's fuuka from persona 3 reload

bianchi: allegra clark, specifically her performance as boss from ai the somnium files

haru: monica rial, watch ouran's dub renge is literally her

dino: max mittelman with his voice as atsushi from bsd, with a hint of ryuji from persona 5

byakuran: daman mills' lyney from genshin but more sinister would fit marshmallow man so well

this was really fun to do actually, thank you for the ask!

[childofaura]

I don’t know if anyone has ask you about this but…

What are your opinions on Robbie Daymond?

You know, I could have sworn I did Robbie Daymond on here, but I think because I did Ray Chase and Max Mittelman, I just assumed I covered Robbie too, lol.

So Robbie Daymond plays Hubert, Tobin, and Ares in FEH. Outside of FEH, he’s Goro Akechi from Persona 5, Prompto in FFXV, Megumi Fushiguro in Jujutsu Kaisen, and most recently Chai in Hi-Fi Rush!

Ok so performance. Robbie just absolutely nails it every time with his characters. I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Hubert, I despise him for being associated with Edelgard but he works as an antagonist in the Azure Moon/Gleam routes of 3H, and Robbie acts with his full chest when he plays Hubert; brilliant laughs and sneers (And fun fact, Aaron Hendricks, who plays Balthus, does a creepily good impression in the Black Eagles route of Three Hopes apparently). Ares is a different kind of energy, but he’s also got kind of a dramatic tone to his voice as well when he talks about Eldigan (And it’s really sad that out of all the kids, Ares still hasn’t gotten an alt yet). Tobin is… Tobin, it’s a very casual voice but it’s also very natural-sounding.

Robbie fits all three of these characters like a glove, and honestly as much as I hate him, I actually want to see a Hubert alt sometime soon. Or just ANY alt for one of Robbie’s characters for that matter.

Range? He has the range. There’s enough of a distinct quality to his voice that you can recognize a role he plays, but also there’s such a huge jump between Hubert, Tobin, and Ares that I wouldn’t have really known without the VA credits on FEH. I’d say that his characters aren’t super diverse, but that doesn’t really interfere with his actual voice range.

Overall, Robbie’s a well-earned 9/10. And I’ll leave off with one of my favorite videos of him, Max, and Ray: