Goro Akechi

Goro Akechi is a playable character from Persona 5.

Appearances

 * Persona 5: Playable Character; Justice Cooperation
 * Persona 5 The Animation The Day Breakers: Cameo

Design
Goro has shaggy chin-length brown hair with bangs and brown eyes. He wears a gray coat, black and white tie, black buttons, black trousers, and black gloves.

As Crow, Goro wears a princely royal outfit with a pointed red mask resembling a long-nosed Commedia dell'arte mask (similar to a bird, hence "Crow").

Once he reveals his true allegiance, he swaps his Crow outfit for a body-covering, black and red armor that resembles European knight armor and a Featherman V uniform, with a visor that resembles his mask.

Personality
Goro is a high school student who carries on a detective business. His abilities as a detective have been widely approved since not only has he solved numerous cases, but he’s also able to deal with people from the investigation agency smoothly. His handsome feature also draws himself public attention, and people comment him as “The Second Advent of Detective Prince”.

Behind this, he is actually lonely and yearned to be loved as he was neglected by both his father since he was a child and does not have any friends. This loneliness pushed him to do anything his father told him to earn his acceptance, though he eventually resents his father as well and swore revenge, going as far as soiling his own hands to reach his goal. This loneliness has also given him a desperate desire for fame, affection, and attention, which he is forthright about being the primary driver of his actions as a detective.

After meeting and joining the party, for the first time he knows what it feels to be happy together with friends, particularly the protagonist whom he both admired and envied since no matter what his social standing is and how others sees him, the protagonist does not let any of it stopping him from making his own path. This made Goro sees the protagonist as the epitome of the very thing he could never have.

Unfortunately, his obsession to get revenge on his father and desire to be the hero of his own story overshadowed his true feeling for the party. Before fighting the party, he reveals his twisted view about how warped the current world is and dismissed the concept of friends and true justice and meaningless and sickening. He also has a narcissistic element to his personality, seeing himself as the hero by default and anyone who opposes him as the villain.

Persona 5
Goro is the illegitimate son of Masayoshi Shido, the same man responsible for the protagonist's probation period. He initially became a detective in order to receive praise from his father, due to the years of neglect Shido showed him. His mother, who was Shido's lover, was shamed by others after giving birth to Goro until she died. When he found out about this, he grew to hate his father and swore revenge. A month before the start of the game, he found his chance to get revenge after discovering The Palace and was granted the Wild Card ability; an ability that enables Persona User to wield multiple personas. He was chosen by Yaldabaoth due to his innate desire to "reform society by destroying it from the inside out" and let whatever else sort the rest of it out. Using his newfound power, he started to assist in his father's goal to become prime minister of Japan so he could gain his trust and then manipulate his father once his father accepted him as his secret right-hand man. As Goro admits to the Thieves, he also wants personal fame as the man who brought down Shido.

He becomes so desperate for revenge and fame that he commits crimes to solve as a detective, which gives him a fraudulent reputation as Naoto Shirogane's inheritor. He is the one responsible for causing numerous mysterious incidents that have occurred in Shibuya by causing havoc in the Palace to make the people in the real world either go berserk or become an empty shell. The people he targets are also taken care of by him as lead investigator. His victims are mere guinea pigs for experiments such as the subway train driver and those in Shido's way to be elected the prime minister. Goro is then tasked with investigating the matter alongside prosecutor Sae Niijima, though his attention quickly turns to the Phantom Thieves of Hearts when their activities of correcting man's hearts quickly become known to the public after Madarame's confession in Live interview.

Prior to meeting the party, Goro has been mentioned by Shadow Madarame as the guy with the black mask, which alerts the Phantom Thieves. He first met the protagonist when he is in the process of transferring to Syujin High School, greeting the protagonist when he overheard him talking with Ryuji Sakamoto, Ann Takamaki, and Morgana during their school trip at a TV station. He then attends a live TV show where he reveals his disdain towards the Phantom Thieves' actions as no different from brainwashing. He takes quick interest in the protagonist after being impressed by his debate regarding the Phantom Thieves and since then the two are closely acquainted with each other. Goro initially didn't pay so much attention to the Phantom Thieves' activities until they changed the heart of a yakuza, Junya Kaneshiro, whose Shadow reveals the existence of the black masked Persona User was controlling The Palace and does not care what may happen in the real world. Since then, he joins the special team formed by the police that is dedicated to capture the Phantom Thieves.

During the Thieves' heist to steal Haru Okumura's father, Kunikazu Okumura's heart, Goro kills Shadow Kunikazu before he can reveal anything about him, causing the real Kunikazu to die as well in the real world. At this heist as well, he photographs the Phantom Thieves when they returned from the Palace back to the real world. Having already possessed the proof of the identities of the Phantom Thieves, Goro decides to get close to them by purposely stating in TV news there's a possibility that Kunikazu's death is not their fault, leading Makoto to suggest contacting and making Goro their ally since he has connections with the police and may give them necessary information. Furthermore, Makoto can no longer get any information from her sister because Sae has became more careful than before after discovering someone has hacked into her computer.

After receiving contact from Makoto, he attends their school festival and announces to the whole school that he knows the Thieves' identities, alerting the party. However, he doesn't reveal their identities and instead tells Makoto and the others that he wants to talk with them before continuing the show. Talking privately, he shows the party the photos he has taken and reveals he had discovered the other world a month ago and then feigning ignorance of how the party makes people confess their crimes. He continues to claim that he believes they are not the ones who killed Kunikazu because he has met the real culprit and was attacked by him which led to his awakening as a Persona User. He then asks to be allowed to join them so that he can catch the real culprit and clear the Phantom Thieves' name, using the earlier photos and conversation as a blackmail should they refuse.

When the party agrees to his request, Goro reveals that Sae has a Palace and suggests they take Sae's heart to remove her from the investigation of the Phantom Thieves. During the climax of their heist at the Casino, Goro leaks their plans to the police, thus leading to the protagonist's eventual arrest. Shortly after Sae's interrogation with the protagonist, he visits the protagonist in the interrogation room, shooting the guard tasked with protecting him and subsequently the protagonist. His plan is either successful or foiled depending on the player's responses to Sae's interrogation after his long reminiscence.

In the good ending route, the protagonist and Morgana find out that he is the traitor after noticing Goro mention a cafe with delicious pancakes that Morgana talked about on his first meeting with the protagonist. Since only Persona Users can understand Morgana's words, this means that Goro has already awakened his Persona power before he met the party and was lying about he awakened his power after Kunikazu was killed. Goro receives orders from Shido to take care of their next obstacles earlier than they should be, which initially confused Goro but immediately realizes that the protagonist is still alive. He confronts the party in the engine room of Shidou Palace, where he reveals that he plans to snatch Shido's victory away at the last minute by revealing that he is Shido's illegitimate son and his father's crimes, which would destroy Shido's credibility and cause people to lose faith in society, clamoring for a new and better system of government.

Before fighting, Goro also reveals that he not only has the same ability to summon multiple Personas like the protagonist, he also has the ability to make Shadow go berserk, an ability that he also used on several of his previous victims. At his first defeat, the party tries to convince him to stop his revenge, but Goro is insistent as he lashes out his jealousy and envy to the Protagonist and his friends who have everything that he doesn't have. Deciding to get serious, he unleashes his full power, revealing his true form as the black masked Persona User mentioned by Madarame and Kaneshiro.

After his defeat, Goro laments for being unable to become someone special, but to his shock, the protagonist and the others point out how he is already special in their eyes and even offer him to rejoin them. Before Goro can reply, "Cognitive Goro" appears, the manifestation of how Shido views him: an obedient puppet. As his cognitive self taunts his wish for wanting to be accepted and loved, Goro realizes that he has been used by Shido the whole time. His cognitive self gives Goro one last chance to kill the Phantom Thieves. But instead of shooting them, Goro shoots his cognitive self and then shoots the switch on the wall, closing the barrier between himself and the party so that the party can proceed. He and his cognitive self then point their guns towards each other. From the other side of the wall, the party hears the true Goro's wish to right his father's heart and two gunshots. Afterwards, Goro's fate is unknown, with Futaba failing to sense his presence after the shooting and Sae reporting him missing. This may heavily imply that Goro died along with his cognitive self.

Shido is very insecure of the exposure of his disgraceful relationship with Goro. In one case he condemns Goro for calling out his name in the phone. When the party confronts Shadow Shido after Goro's apparent death, he confesses that he would eliminate Goro should he be elected prime minister because Goro knows too much about him and Goro's birth is a taint of his political power.

Cooperation
Goro's Cooperation is automatically established immediately after their first meeting. This Cooperation levels up progressively through the course of the story. Goro's Cooperation can only be maxed if the player can properly answer Sae's questions during the interrogation. After maxing Goro's Cooperation, the protagonist can create Metatron.

Persona 5 The Animation The Day Breakers
Goro makes an appearance on TV, where he is asked his opinion on the Phantom Thieves of Hearts. His response is that whether or not they truly exist, they are criminals who should be brought to justice; he goes on to denounce their actions, and believes that forcing people to change what's in their hearts is wrong.

He is later present at the arrest of Kazuya Makigami and his gang, noticing the protagonist when Kazuya saw him.

Etymology
"Go" (吾) of Gorō is the archaic form of the first person pronoun "I" in Chinese which carries no meaning in formal Japanese language and is merely borrowed for Chinese translation or naming. Akechi (明智) literally means "wisdom" in Chinese, the same meaning in Japanese would be "kenmei" (賢明).

Trivia

 * Goro Akechi is referenced to the name (明智 小五郎), a fictional private detective created by Japanese mystery writer  (a pseudonym for Tarō Hirai) from the story "The Case of the Murder on D. Hill" in January 1925 and continued to appear in stories for a quarter of a century. Edogawa Rampo is considered the father of the Japanese detective story and was a great admirer of Sir . Akechi is the first recurring detective character in Japanese fiction and is clearly inspired by Doyle’s.
 * His name may also be a reference to Akechi Mitsuhide, a retainer of the notorious daimyo and conqueror Oda Nobunaga who rebelled against him for reasons that are often interpreted as either disgust for Nobunaga's flaunting of bushido, the code of honor and ethics samurai were expected to follow, and/or jealousy of Nobunaga's success and fame. Both motives figure into Goro's infiltration and later betrayal of the Thieves.
 * Goro's Close Up style when he is in the player's party is similar to those from Persona 3 and Persona 4, rather than the Persona 5 style which is only used in his second boss battle.
 * After Goro's defeat by the player, the way he atones by sacrificing himself alludes to Takahisa Kandori upon his defeat in the Undersea Ruins in Persona 2: Eternal Punishment.
 * Goro shares some similarities to Tohru Adachi from Persona 4: Both of them are detectives, they both awaken to their personas before the protagonist does, both are being manipulated by the ones who orchestrated the events of the story. However, they differ in motivation-while Adachi was motivated by boredom, spite, and jealousy of people he regarded as luckier and more talented than him, Goro is motivated by the conflicting desires to be loved and to ensure that his father is punished for his crimes, and he is shown to feel remorse for his betrayal of the Thieves after the end of his boss fight.
 * As stated above, Goro is a Wild Card, just like the protagonist, though unlike him, he can only use two.