#this is even more obvious in royal with maruki but. that's a different post this is about yaldy and base p5

[akechi-stole-my-heart]

I think some people miss the fact that the Phantom Thieves are playing right into Yaldabaoth's hands when they change people's hearts. They're basically proving that people need someone else to act for them and that people aren't willing to solve their own problems. Just look at how they end up sending their targets back into the depths of Mementos.

Don't get me wrong, the Thieves are doing good by freeing people from Yaldy's control and from their selfish distorted desires (which are just another form of control), but they are also showing that people are unwilling to free themselves from Yaldy's control on their own. When people don't free themselves, they only end up being imprisoned even further by society. That's why all the morally redeemable characters in the game change their own hearts, and that's why the Bad Ending is Akira deciding to keep society just as it is under Yaldy's control, with the Phantom Thieves as heroes who continue to change the hearts of individuals, but society as a whole is kept stagnant for eternity.

This is also why the public's support for the Thieves is so important in the final battle. Without their support, the Thieves couldn't have defeated Yaldy, because the public needed to show that they wanted their hearts changed, that they didn't want to be controlled after all. They all needed to show a will of rebellion against their oppressor or the Phantom Thieves would have just become the same thing Yaldabaoth was doing by removing their free will. Prior to fighting Yaldy the PT don't respect the agency of their targets, and they solve other people's problems without thinking about how that might affect the person they're saving. By defeating Yaldabaoth, they let go of that power and give control back to the individuals of society so they can start to change their own lives again. The public shouldn't and can't rely on Yaldabaoth to solve their problems, and they shouldn't and can't rely on the Phantom Thieves to solve their problems either.

And again, don't get me wrong, Persona 5 says that it is good and even necessary to get help from others, but if you really want to improve your life you need to act for yourself. If society is going to improve people need to take destiny into their own hands. Persona 5 is about finding hope even in the darkest circumstances by forging connections with other people and refusing to let society crush you under its heel. But the key to this all is that you must choose to fight against the cruelties of society, even if it seems impossible. Hope for change can be seen by finding belonging with others and working together to change society for the better. In the words of Morgana:

"Even if you feel that only darkness lies ahead...as long as you hold hands together...see it through as one...the world will never end!"

[senblades]

Just realized that Crow and Violet enter the Phantom thieves group with the same condition, though not the same circumstances.

They both first Joined as a fake of themselves, fooling everyone. Then they were a 2-phase boss fight, where the true self gets revealed. Then they join the team, for good and for real.

Hmmmmmmmmm

ANON YOU'RE SO RIGHT I'M

I'll always be a little sad that Atlus never went all-in on the SumiGoro friendship/parallels potential... o7 another fallen dynamic for the pit

in all seriousness, though: many people have talked about the Akechi and Sumire parallels far better than I ever could, but I'll talk some more anyway!

I think the most obvious parallel is in who they admire/resent. Sumire, obviously, admires Kasumi in every way- undercut with resentment that she's scared to ackowledge. Akechi, meanwhile, resents Joker to hell and back, undercut with layers of admiration that he refuses to admit to (+ uh. shauke angst HAHA)

Both are lying to themselves about their other halves, but even more interestingly: Both Kasumi and Joker see Sumire and Akechi respectively as their equals/rivals, despite everything, and even though it may seem that one half is clearly better than the other at first glance.

Sumire's coach, during the Faith confidant, tells Sumire how Kasumi had worked so hard because she knew if she didn't, Sumire would catch up to her- that Kasumi was jealous of Sumire's grace (Ironic, as meanwhile Sumire was desperate to emulate Kasumi's boldness)

Joker's a bit different -silent protag, and all- but, even still: "I'll hold onto you're glove", "I won't lose"- so much of Joker's dialogue about Akechi makes it clear that he takes the other seriously. Plus, the consistent reminders that the promise for a rematch hasn't been fulfilled: clearly, Joker doesn't consider the interrogation room nor the engine room 'fair fights', or true indicators of either's skill (stop me before I go on a tangent)

It's not just Joker=Kasumi and Sumire=Akechi, though. The fact that both sides of each equation are equals means that some lines get crossed. I'm thinking Kasumi's "Because that's my right, as the elder sister!" vs. Akechi's "Going all out against a junior seems a bit gauche, don't you think?"- both Kasumi and Akechi seem to have this idea that they have to be better (a bit of speculation on my part, for Kasumi)- they have no excuse to lose; it's only natural if they win, and incredibly dissapointing otherwise.

back to crow/violet parallels, they also act as excellent foils for each other in the royal trio dynamic: Sumire, when faced with low self-esteem and terrible circumstances, latches onto people that she considers "better"- imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all! And Sumire has imitation in spades.

Akechi, meanwhile, distances himself from pretty much everyone. He seems to value shallow praise of people that don't really see, rather than experience the mortifying ordeal of being known, and whatnot.

but even then, Akechi does have some similar tendencies to Sumire- he just hides it under layers of deflection and lying to himself. He claims to absolutely hate Shido and Joker, and while I don't doubt that, necessarily, it's clearly far more complicated than that. Akechi, no matter how he feels about them, lives and dies by the will of his obsessions- and by the time of the third semster, he's had enough. (while, conversely, Sumire hasn't quite learned to stand on her own)

Actually, speaking of the third semester; Maruki's reality also highlights some similarities between the two, as the two people most egregiously edited by the false reality: Sumire, back to believing she's Kasumi, and Akechi as "I've never had a violent thought in my life!" pleasant boy. Those two are the only members of the PT where Maruki goes straight for the personality.

whoops. long post HAHA

[patchesthegothictramp]

Feather Seeker and the Okinawa Jail

So anyone who’s been talking to me knows Feather Seeker is a game that’s perked my interest from the get-go, and I’ve been thinking of talking about it for a while. Now that I’ve been able to replay Royal and play Strikers, some other things have come out in the meantime and I’ve been paying more attention to additional media, I want to make a meta post about Feather Seeker, the Okinawa jail from Strikers and it’s connection to Akechi specifically. Be warned, this ended up being a very long post.

Let’s start with just getting a few questions out of the way:

Isn’t it just a mini game made to raise your stats?

Yes, absolutely, it’s optional and honestly if you don’t care for playing the video games it’s easy to miss. I don’t think it was honestly intended to be some massive breakthrough on a character’s backstory but rather an Easter egg that gets you to think about it.

It’s just about Neo-Featherman, there’s references to it in all persona games, so why is this one different?

It’s not different. There’s been plenty of times when Easter eggs have led to something bigger in this game, even specifically featherman ones. There’s an episode of Featherman that describes exactly what happens in the 3rd semester, where a character loves another so strongly it brings them back to life. Now whether you want to apply that to Futaba and her mum, Ren and Akechi or whoever it still fits- there’s an entire semester where at least one character loves another one and wishes them back to life through Maruki’s power. So having another piece of media, like the Feather Seeker game, be another allusion to something else isn’t entirely unjustified.

Feather Seeker is just detailed cos it’s about Featherman, why are you comparing it to other games?

See, here’s the thing and why I needed a second playthrough to make sure I was right about it. Feather Seeker is the odd one out. All of the games have some kind of plot or something going on (except for Golf sim but y’know... it’s a golf sim), but they’re all very, very basic things. Train of Life is just board game with very simple characters, the Goemon game has you just walking through hell but doesn’t really go more in depth with characterisation. Whereas you find out so much about what’s going on with Gray Pigeon and Osagiri in Feather Seeker that it feels a little… weird to simply ignore it. Do I think that the simplest answer, that they just wanted some plot in there for fun, is the right answer? Honestly I think that’s highly likely. But it’s the boring explanation too, it’s easy enough to just write any kind of intrigue like that, so whether what I’m writing about was intentional or not, I still want to discuss Feather Seeker and see people’s own thoughts on the possibility that it could be more than just a basic game.

So with that out of the way… let’s get into it.

First, there’s establishing who’s who. I can pretty confidently say that Gray Pigeon is Akechi in this entire metaphor. This one is the most obvious for multiple reasons, first of which being that it’s the exact same costume Akechi gets in the featherman outfits DLC so there’s the direct correlation there. Beyond that, Gray Pigeon is a character who awakens to a new power and wants to become a hero of justice, just like the feathermen, the hero’s he’s heard about before. Ring any bells?

Also the final revelation of Feather Seeker is that actually the Feathermen see Gray Pigeon as their enemy, who ends up sacrificing himself so they can keep fighting.

Which brings me to discussing who Osagiri and the Feathermen are. Given the timeline presented, I don’t think it’s possible for them to be one specific character or even group of characters. I think these aren’t supposed to be characters, but rather the major influences in Akechi’s life. Osagiri is a scientist (possibly Wakaba, I’ll get into that later), but also the one who pushes him to do bad things. Osagiri starts by training Gray Pigeon to become one of the Feathermen, the good guys, but eventually ends up manipulating Gray Pigeon into trying to kill them. Osaigir at the bare minimum has to be two people- the cognitive scientists who were able to uncover more thanks to Akechi’s escapades in the metaverse and the people who pushed him to commit crimes- the conspiracy.

The Feathermen, at the end of the game, have to be the Phantom Thieves- they’re the ones Gray Pigeon/Akechi ends up sacrificing himself to save but… that can’t be possible. Gray Pigeon’s journey starts with him gaining a new power and wanting to use it for good like the Feathermen do and of course the Phantom Thieves weren’t an inspiration for Akechi to do what he did. I think then the Feathermen are what Akechi aspired to be- the heroes of justice who fought the bad guys.

I can’t lead myself to believe that at 15, Akechi thought of this overly convoluted plan where he would help Shido to become prime minister only to then ruin him, there’s way too many factors in this that could change. I think originally Akechi wanted to avenge what happened to him and his mother, make sure that the man who wronged him would face justice. That’s what the Feathermen would do, right? They fight bad guys. Translating it from Feather Seeker, Akechi was angry, furious even and that rebellion woke hm up to Robin Hood, the embodiment of justice for him.

There’s plenty things that point to Robin Hood being first, his placement when Akechi awakens to Hereward on 2/2 being in the same spot as everyone else’s, the fact that for all of the other Thieves their third tier personas are different versions of their initials personas and that applies to Hereward/Robin Hood and that the trend of initial/second awakening personas is that the first is a fictional who was considered a criminal (Robin Hood) and the second is described in game as a ‘mythological trickster’ (Loki).

Here is where I want to get to the Okinawa jail and why I didn’t post this theory/metapost sooner.

I mentioned earlier that Osagiri could have been in some part Wakaba, Futaba’s mother, and when I initially wrote this I didn’t have all that much to go off of. There’s concept art in the original p5 artbook of Wakaba experimenting on someone. There’s no context given and it’s sort of the odd-one-out. Of course, human subjects would have been necessary to study the cognitive world but this research is so under wraps it seems it’s almost impossible to get. There’s no military connotations anywhere so why is it such a secret? Well, illegal human experimentation would certainly be a good reason to keep this away from the public. They must have figured out somehow that killing a shadow can cause a lot of damage, even death, to a person, we know that from the research notes, but Wakaba was a scientist, working in a lab, she must’ve done experiments that weren’t entirely legal.

Here I wasn’t sure because accusing Wakaba or anyone of illegal human experimentation was a pretty big reach but the Okinawa jail in Strikers shows us that illegal human experimentation is something that was used for cognitive research. I don’t think that Akechi was experimented on there or that was where Wakaba worked, there’s no indication of it but… Konoe and Owada seemed to build on the work that Shido and his scientists began. That being said, I think the Okinawa lab is a continuation of that human experimentation, with whatever lab Wakaba worked in being its predecessor before Shido probably shut it down to prevent it from ever being discovered. Which is also why he had Wakaba killed- the research was only meant for him and no one else.

Beyond what we see in Feather Seeker of Osagiri/sometimes Wakaba experimenting on Gray Pigeon/Akechi, we’re also told (albeit this is of course biased information), that he only targeted people he deemed deserved it but… Wakaba is the odd one out here for the most part. Okumura was hardly a good person and the principal decided covered for a sexual abuser, most of the others were survivors except for accidents which are mostly uncontrollable and unpredictable. Wakaba however, like Kobayakawa and Okumura, were targets that were supposed to die, Akechi intended to kill them. How then was Wakaba a bad person? Illegal human experimentation would explain that, especially if it was done on Akechi himself.

So then, Akechi was experimented on by Wakaba. I don’t think he was fully informed about what he was doing either. Gray Pigeon certainly wasn’t. Akechi was still trying to be a good person, using his power for his own vengeance yeah but I don’t think murdering random people was part of his initial plan at all. I think that Feather Seeker also emphasises just how little he knew about what his actions were doing. How would he know what his effects of shadows are on the real world? He could only know that from the scientists, from Shido. Of course he did find out, eventually, and that rage he must have felt about being used and lied to gave him the power to awaken to Loki, as Futaba puts it, the representation of his anger. It’s only then that he forms his plan, to get back at Shido for all of this, not just him abandoning him and his mother but for using him for his own means as well.

And we know how the rest of the story goes.

The overall story presented in Feather Seeker, as I see it, is this: Akechi awakens to Robin Hood, and realises that his anger is no longer a hopeless endeavour, he can use it, show that he’s useful and get acknowledged by his father. Shido sees this, sees that he can use this power and subjects him to experimentation, as someone who can actually survive the cognitive world and even have an impact on it. Wakaba sees what he can do, tests him but he’s never told what he’s done. He’s manipulated through praise and lack of information. One day he does find out, he realises this wasn’t getting him any closer to vengeance or getting acknowledged by Shido, he’s just another test subject being used by them. He’s angry, he awakens to Loki and now with the unique power of psychotic breakdowns, Shido recognises him and hires him as his assassin.

Granted this is all just my own theory, I think there is a lot pointing us to at least something similar but of course I also think this is wishful thinking as well. At this moment, my biggest wish is that Atlus makes a game that actually delves into what happened to Akechi. All the explicit information we have is given to us from biased sources, ie. Akechi himself, and it’s really the only question I have left for persona 5’s continuity.

[mistresseast]

You make some really good points, but I wish literally anyone in this fandom wanted to write about it. I just hate how Akira is not allowed to be happy, and even with the long wait, no one seems to want him to be reunited with Goro and to be happy. Or address how Maruki was manipulative and fucked up. It's just so unfair to him.

I know this fandom seems really doom and gloom most of the time, believe me, it kind of wears me down too sometimes. I love some nice, cathartic angst as much as the next person, but it’s hard to watch characters you care about be essentially left for dead by the fandom over and over when there’s plenty of evidence that they are actually okay and will be able to grow and heal in the future. However, I promise that’s not the only content to be found here. Since Royal came out, I’ve seen a definite upswing in fics and art that celebrate their future reunion and the positives that resulted from the revelations of the third semester. Most of the popular, well-known stuff is just still from before Royal, so the tone is admittedly darker. There’s more emphasis on grief and exploring the repercussions of Goro’s unceremonious “death” and even fix-its tend to get hung up on atonement and redemption instead of healing. And it’s understandable; when a relationship ends the way shuake’s did in vanilla, it leaves people feeling restless and upset, and the best way to vent those feelings is through generating bittersweet content. It’s a catharsis, a way to purge all of the unfinished emotions vanilla left us with. And even now that we have a more hopeful ending, most fans, the ones who have been around since vanilla, are still in that frame of mind. We were so screwed over by the last ending, that we’re just kind of...used to mourning Goro Akechi at this point. 

My experience following along with the real-time first playthroughs of Royal is something that will stick with me forever. I won’t get too into it, but when it looked like Goro’s fate in the ship was unchanged, I was devastated. But then he was back! And then he was gone again. And the translations were perfunctory at first, most of us didn’t know for sure what was going on, so we were all getting ready to accept Goro being “dead” again. Fortunately, that’s not at all what happened! He’s alive and he’s fine and in fact he was never dead in the first place, even in vanilla! It was amazing! And I was so happy for a reason to let go of the grief I’d been nursing since I learned his fate the first FIRST time around. But not everyone is as eager to leave that darkness behind. In some cases, people just genuinely don’t understand what happened in the game, and the narrative of Goro being alive bc of Akira’s wish is so tempting and so painfully beautiful that it’s become essentially fandom canon just by the sheer power it evokes. I may be wrong, but I feel like this is the majority of people. They take Maruki’s words at face value and are then inundated by fandom content that reinforces that idea, making it easy to ignore Goro’s brief appearance in the true ending or write it off. They’ve been trained by vanilla not to expect a happy ending for these characters and they just accept it. And there are also folks who prefer the darker ending, of course, and willingly choose to believe it bc it satisfies something in them. Even I’m seduced by the inherent eroticism of things going badly sometimes, and I write almost exclusively for the express purposes of getting the characters soul married or whatever. Tragedies are compelling and that’s just some people’s cup of tea. No shame there. 

That’s not to say I don’t get frustrated by it sometimes though. It’s frustrating to me that the idea of Akira’s love for Goro sustaining a new dimension is so fucking delicious that it basically overshadows the fact that Goro is actually alive AND buries the lead about what a scumbag Maruki truly is. We’re all so enamored by the High Romance of it all that we fail to recognize it for what it is: a lie. Maruki fucking got us!! He tricked this whole fandom into living in a fantasy world!! God, how meta, how unintentionally brilliant. We’re just like Akira: too in love with Goro to even question what Maruki says. As frustrating as it is, you kind of have to love it.

That said, as time goes on, I believe the fandom outlook will continue to lighten. I saw a HUGE surge of positive post-game content after the deleted scene of Goro at the clinic was discovered bc people were finally willing to give into the desire to give Goro a happy ending now that they’re less afraid of being hurt by some new revelation later on. And as that becomes the norm, the discussion around Maruki will change too. Currently he has this reputation as a well-meaning villain, but when Goro being undeniably alive becomes more ingrained in the fandom consciousness, his manipulation will be more obvious to people. I truly believe that this fandom is full of people who WANT happy endings, who WANT Goro and Akira to be reunited, but have been taught for so long that believing one can actually happen is stupid. And the ending we got is just ambiguous enough to prey on that fear of being played for the fool. As time passes, so will that fear, and the fandom content will reflect that. And there’s already hopeful stuff out there if you look for it! People are catching on! Plus, there’s my time-honored advice: if you can’t find the content that satisfies you, you just have to make it! That’s why all of my fics exist. Putting more positivity out there will only help other people get on board the happy ending train faster.

I know you probably just wanted to vent and didn’t need a whole essay about fandom psychology, but I promise you, I know how you feel, and I’ve been steeping in the shuake stew long enough to tell you that things are already better than they were. We can only go up from here!!

Also disclaimer!! All of this nonsense is based on my individual experience and interpretation. Everyone experiences fandom differently and I certainly don’t claim to be an expert. ymmv

[mara-dine]

On P5R ending (true end) song v.2 - translation and analysis

part one was here - I’m only feeling things here but still xD 

 Okay so first of all, the following translation of the song lyrics is made by me so if you somehow want to copy paste them somewhere, please link the source, thank you <3 The original japanese and translated lyrics you can find at the very end of this post.

My point here is to prove that the lyrics are Akiren’s feelings towards what happens with Akechi so the post is going to contain some Persona 5 Royal spoilers. It gets a bit shippy.

And now let’s get this party (of feels) started. 

--------------------------------------------------------------

I need to say this - I had a second of doubt there, because I thought those lyrics could as well suit Yoshizawa sisters, if one wanted to dig that way. It doesn’t though, because the subject/narrator is using the 僕 (boku) pronoun, which is reserved for males. If the lyrics were meant to be gender neutral or so, the more neutral 私 (watashi) would be used. That’s why I’m 100% sure it’s from Akiren’s perspective, and I will only give you more proof ;)

Let’s start-start.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Our light

That night I realized my dream was (just) a dream, I close my eyes fixated on you. The warmth, hands one on another, the voice, if I wake up it will all disappear into a dream.

The whole thing is kept within the dream-reality contrast. The night here is, I think, more metaphorical than anything, since it’s deepening the symbolism and refers to the association of night and dreaming. 

It doesn’t have to, though, since at the very beginning of the new arc, Akiren ‘wakes up’ in the school, wearing his inmate clothes, thinking something is wrong and that he needs to go back. He follows the butterfly which we know is supposed to be the form Lavenza takes in the places she can’t fully materialize in.

I think it isn’t such a literal reference though. I’d say it refers to Akiren noticing the weird things happening around him, realizing they weren’t like this before and they should be impossible. Then we jump straight into gay the moment Akechi walks into Leblanc. Akiren can’t help but be surprised, he stares at the detective, who is supposed to be held at the police station or wherever his interrogations are being held at the time. He closes his eyes, as if to hold the image of Akechi being there in his mind for longer. 

I think the next line is pretty obvious and really surprising, if we agree on my little theory, because it straight up tells us about Akiren’s feelings. Akechi, who was supposed to be dead in the first place, comes back into his life for the second time this... week I think. Akechi, who Akiren has a really strong bond of rivalry and at the same time deep mutual understanding with. He wishes for Akechi to continue being a part of his life, as he gives him the kind of stimulation no one else does. Akechi is very, very special to him. You can basically say, he is Akiren’s dream.

Even if we can’t ever meet again, even if the time we spent together transforms into pain, Please guide me with that pain, towards the night sky full of stars that illuminate me.

Now we are thrown into the hole of pain and suffering. We got to know that Akechi’s miraculous return is Maruki’s doing. Akechi is Akiren’s justice arcana, not only because he always speaks of justice and sticks to his own. He is a sort of counterweight and at the same moral compass to Akiren, they complement each other in many ways. Interacting, sharing thoughts, getting to know each other, it all leads both of them to build up even more resolve to stick to their own justice. So, even if Akiren decides to reject Maruki’s offer, not folding, not running away, following through with his own justice and his own truth, even if it means he is going to lose Akechi again, and the memories of the time they spent together will transform into pain, even then, Akechi will still continue to be his guiding light. He will always remember him, he sort of wishes for Akechi too look over him from... well, I guess, the afterlife. He will always live in Akiren’s heart as pain and regret of not being able to be together more, not being able to save him, but also as everything he was to him while still alive.

I was able to meet you in that sweet, sweet fairytale kingdom in distorted world. You quietly closed the mouth that said “even if it’s false happiness, it’s okay”.

This line is a bit more complicated than it looks like in English (actually, the whole song is like this, but if I started to explain all the hidden meanings and my translation choices it would take too much). I need to say here though, in the original it’s 甘い甘い (amai amai) which can actually mean two things. It’s used both as sweet and naive. I chose to use sweet here twice, but I think in japanese it’s supposed to be a bit ambiguous, as naivety is something Akechi often accuses Akiren (and other people) of, even if not directly (ex. there is this line of his where he says Akiren coming just to see him is ‘brainless sentimentality’). 

The fairytale kingdom is of course a way to refer to Maruki’s perfect world where all dreams come true, it’s one way to see it. The other is distorted world, and it’s ultimately how the people who are aware of it’s falsehood view it. This way of putting the contrasting views together shows the dilemma Akiren stands before. He needs to confront it and make a choice, which in any outcome will result in gaining one thing and losing another.

Then, a really important line, one of a few that adress someone (Akechi) as ‘you’. In japanese it’s expressed through the verb that can mean close (something) up as well as shut (someone) up which I think is amazing in a way, since the Black Mask Akechi would rather shut up this mouth full of lies. There is an omanotopeic adjective there though, which indicates he did it quietly, gently. At first I thought it’s literal. That it’s about Akechi shutting up Maruki, so his words won’t affect Akira, since the thing there is basically a quote, it’s also gramatically written that way in the lyrics. But the quietly/gently thing kept bothering me, and I think in the end it’s like this: Akiren, in his heart, was tempted to agree to Maruki’s deal, to his perfect world. But Akechi, holding on to his own beliefs and resolve, made Akiren realize he can’t disrespect his wishes by being selfish. Akechi kept fiercely rejecting Maruki’s world, not wanting to be controlled by someone ever again, set on forging his own path, his own truth. Akiren couldn’t go against it. 

It’s, I think, one of the reasons why this song plays only when you get the True End. It’s because you do things following Akechi’s wish, inspired by him to fight for the truth and the real.

When there comes a day when memories start, you will be gone, it’s the path you chose yourself, Even if walking it is always heartrending, towards the stars of tomorrow that I’m aiming for.

I think this part was the hardest of them all to translate, it’s again pretty ambiguous, not only because of the used words though, but the different ways you can chop the sentence at. You can translate it both as “it’s the part you chose yourself” or “the part one choses for themselves” and following this you can also chose to translate it in first person view as “the path I chose for myself”. I think all of them are pretty cool but I chose to follow the logic of the consequence, since it appears after yet another ‘you’ I decided to go with that. It also goes well with the thing about Akechi choosing his fate himself. He chose to reject Maruki’s world even if it meant he will disappear again, he strongly believed it’s better to die than live in a reality forged and controlled by someone else. He made that choice, like he made every other choice in his life before, aware of the consequences, even if they were painful to the point anyone else may have broken down. He doesn’t have any regrets, even if it’s hard and kills him in the end, because it’s the path of his own choosing. 

‘The day when memories start’ it’s a pretty literal translation, but I’m fairly sure it’s about the fact that the time everyone spent in Maruki’s ideal world will be overwritten once again to how it should have gone if not for the distortion. So the day when the Phantom Thieves steal his treasure and defeat him is going to be the day when everything goes back to normal and the memories start being the true ones again, not falsified, and the false ones erased.

The stars of tommorow, the future, the goal both Akiren and Akechi are aiming for, even if their methods differ, is the same. Akiren hopes that if they continue going on, their paths will lead them to the same place, where they will be able to meet again.

When I wake up, the real world comes back, different than yesterday. Because the sadness is important, I’m going to keep on living tomorrow.

Now that the decision has been made and Maruki defeated, his treasure stolen, everything is going back to normal. Akiren wakes up in the real world again, it’s a different world than day before, because it’s the real one again. He thinks about Akechi, about the sadness engraved in his own heart, but he is going to keep going. He is going to keep his promise to Akechi. He is going to live with this sadness as it’s the memory of him, the proof that he lived and that he was important.

  Even if we can’t ever meet again, even if the time we spent together transforms into pain, I’m going to overcome even this pain, greater than (the pain that comes from) surpassing the tears I shed

Akiren doesn’t cry, it’s not the way to remember Akechi. It’s hard, but even though his tears would naturally flow, he is surpassing them, he can only shed them in his mind. It’s in a way unfair. He can’t really speak to anyone about it, he can’t tell the true story, honestly there is probably noone who could understand the bond that was born between him and Akechi, who could understand Akechi himself. The pain of the loss is even greater than that though. He may never meet Akechi again, but he is set on keeping the promise they made till the end. Because now, it’s not the end, he will keep on going. 

And I will grab it, perfectly clear sky, our light, floating eternally.

It’s very important, as it’s also the title of the song. ‘Our light’, the light that belongs to them both. The hope, the justice, the truth, the image of it clear as the perfectly clear sky. He will hold out his hand and grab it, he will keep it in his hands, his, mind, his heart. He won’t let go of it, it’s their mutual dream and goal, it’s something they share and something that will allow them to meet again.

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Thank you for reaching the end of this post... xD  If you have any thoughts on it, don’t be shy to share! 

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lyrics:

Our light

That night I realized my dream was (just) a dream, I close my eyes fixated on you.

The warmth, hands one on another, the voice, if I wake up it will all disappear into a dream.

Even if we can’t ever meet again, even if the time we spent together transforms into pain,

Please guide me with that pain, towards the night sky full of stars that illuminate me.

I was able to meet you in that sweet, sweet fairytale kingdom in distorted world.

You quietly closed the mouth that said “even if it’s false happiness, it’s okay”.

When there comes a day when memories start, you will be gone, it’s the path you chose yourself,

Even if walking it is always heartrending, towards the stars of tomorrow that I’m aiming for.

When I wake up, the real world comes back, different than yesterday. Because the sadness is important, I’m going to keep on living tomorrow.

Even if we can’t ever meet again, even if the time we spent together transforms into pain,

I’m going to overcome even this pain, greater than (the pain that comes from) surpassing the tears I shed

And I will grab it, perfectly clear sky, our light, floating eternally.

僕らの光

夢を夢と気づいた夜　君を見つめ瞼を閉じる

温もりも重ねた手も声も　目覚めれば微睡みへと消えて

僕らが二度と会えなくても　過ぎた時が痛みに変わっても

その痛みでね導いてよ　僕を照らす夜空の星へと

甘い甘いおとぎの国　君と会えた歪んだ世界

偽りの幸せでもいいと告げる口　君がそっと塞ぐ

思い出の始まる日になる　君が消えた自分で决めた道

歩くのさずっとせつなくても　僕の目指す明日の星へと

目覚めて現実が来る昨日と違う悲しみが大切だから明日を生きていく 

僕らが二度と会えなくても過ぎた時が痛みに変わっても

その痛みさえ超えていくよ　流す涙乘り越えより高く

そして掴むよ　澄み切った空　永遠に浮かぶ僕らの光を