Me Too Ryuji, Me Too

me too ryuji, me too

It still fascinates me that Akiren canonically is reluctant to tell the others about "Igor" and ultimately does not. You have a dialogue option to try explaining where the Metanav comes from when Makoto questions it, but Akiren shuts it down with something about it being too hard to explain if you try going that route. Again, Akiren does know how he and the others get the Metanav; Yaldabaoth tells him he gave it to him and will give it to potential accomplices in the future. While Akiren knows about this and also that "Igor" keeps alluding to future ruin, every other Phantom Thief is in the dark. And this is fascinating because without the blinders of "oh Igor's been good every previous entry, he's just cryptic", Yaldabaoth-as-Igor comes off as an extremely shady adult in an entry all about shitty adults manipulating and abusing kids, and Akiren is put in a weird spot where it is natural that it'd feel difficult for him to tell his friends about his connection to "Igor", which seems like a real good spot to get manipulated in.

I 100% believe that the only reason Akiren doesn't actually end up getting played for a fool with this set up is because he has main character privileges. Like, I can't speak for p1/p2, but 3-5, the main character is kind of a power trip. You make friends with a bunch of people, you can romance any girl (rip if you wanna romance boys outside p3p), you are The Special One.

Please imagine if Akiren wasn't the main character and it was either Ryuji or Ann (hell, while we're doing hypotheticals, let's say the game would let you pick which one you wanted to play as). Ryuji/Ann is the PoV character, but Akiren still starts as the nominal leader because he seems to have a better clue what he's doing then, and first-time players are like "wow, he's pretty cool, why aren't we playing as him" until you start getting PoV cuts to him interacting with Yaldabaoth and it's like.......not spelled out that "Igor" is bad news, but also it definitely seems like something isn't right, and again, this is the game of shitty adults manipulating kids. So you already know Akiren's background isn't great, he's not in the best spot, and now there are just these little hints that huh ok maybe your cool friendly leader is. doing something weird. hey buddy are you going to tell us about this weird guy??? No???? Not until a mid-game upset where the PT discover what they've been doing has been manipulating public cognition in a bad way they might have avoided if they'd just known to have the slightest suspicion about this old man most of them are just now hearing about and Akiren is having a meltdown out of guilt and shame because he didn't explain anything partially because it'd be hard but also because what if people didn't believe him, he acts cool but has trauma from his arrest and his hometown doubting him and he 100% avoided doing or saying anything that might make him anything less than the perfect trustworthy confidant for all his friends (which, guess how a few teammates would be reacting, so between that and Akiren having a meltdown, now Ryuji/Ann is the official leader! Yay, you're actually playing the leader now! Isn't that great? ...Yippee????)

and then on ng+ you just spend early game circling Akiren at his hangout spot yelling "TELL US YOU DUMBASS WE'LL STILL LOVE YOU AND IT'LL SAVE A LOT OF PAIN" but alas the plot is written.

anyway yes I still believe they set up Akiren so perfectly to be manipulated not just as part of the Phantom Thieves but as an individual, because of his own personal vulnerabilities, and that it would 100% have happened if he was not protag.

You know there's a whole genre of art that's just dogs playing pool? This is cards but same idea

Since it was confirmed the shadow in Tombstone Pinic is Henry and we know his look in game… can we get a Toon Henry ? 🙏

5/7, the birth of narc-oto

This comic is in Volume 1 of my P5R comic anthology, sold on my online store here! -> https://www.rodi.best/

after the revival au(?)

what happened after everything had been reset in batdr and Audrey became the new writer of the world.

Joey's world was built by anger, but Audrey will rebuild it with peace.