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Kei Akashi is a character from Persona 5: The Phantom X. Being introduced as an educational consultant to Kokatsu Academy in Chapter 3, Akashi serves as the primary antagonist in "Chapter 3: Concerto for Rulebreakers."
Appearances[]
- Persona 5: The Phantom X: Major Character (Antagonist)
Design[]
Akashi is a young man with dark gray eyes and a bowl cut undercut that's half red and half dark brown. His clothing consists of a white shirt with a mandarin collar, a green jacket and gray pants with white shoes. He sports two different types of glasses.
His Shadow Self dons a military battle suit with a jetpack, giving him the appearance of an oppressive warden. He also wears a set of night-vision goggles. Unlike most Shadow selves who have golden eyes, Shadow Akashi's eyes are initially the same as his real world counterpart and do not turn golden until much later, when he gains full control over Katayama's Palace, effectively turning it into his own.
As the Demogorgon, Akashi transforms into a giant humanoid figure made of machinery and wires. Demogorgon has the head of a mantis with three long red feelers on the front, cracked, mossy pieces of metal that act as armor around his upper body, shoulders and hands, which cover the mess of wires underneath, two long cable tentacles on the side shoulders and green wire jacketing that appear as snake scales on Demogorgon's arms. His upper body is connected to a giant orb made of scrap metal and wires surrounded by many wire snake stalks around its body. When taking its third form, Akashi transfers over to his lower body and causes it to float, making it look reminiscent to the beholder.
Personality[]
Akashi appears initially to be a mild-mannered, compassionate, friendly, reasonable, caring, sympathetic, humble and kind man that wishes to help his students succeed. However, it is shown that his true nature is a very callous, unsympathetic, calculating and manipulative one, showing this attitude towards those he can make use of and exploit their vulnerabilities. He shows no care for the well-being of those he hurts, latching onto them and manipulating them for all that they are worth.
Due to an incident where his ex-girlfriend cheated on him with a senior director of his who stole his ideas for the prime shows and implicated him in a money embezzlement scheme, Akashi is extremely vengeful and will relentlessly target those who wronged him. He believes in a "strong eat the weak" mindset and that those who are strong have the right to exploit the weak to achieve their goals.
As somebody who was in the exact same position as his victims, Akashi believes that this is the right way for the strong to live, although due to his suffering, part of his behavior seems to come from a mysterious figure behind the scenes pushing him to do so. After his change of heart, he feels remorse about what he has done and turns himself into the police.
Profile[]
Persona 5: The Phantom X[]
“Chapter 3: Concerto For Rulebreakers”[]
Kei Akashi is assigned to Kokatsu Academy as the provisional educational consultant by the school board, in the name of addressing the overwork issue of on-duty teachers and improving school environment for students. In order to know the names of students and "understand them" better, he wears a pair of glasses at all times at school. Many of the students appear to look up to Akashi initially, and it is due to his presence that Kumi Katayama's class eventually start "rebelling" against her, believing that Akashi's way of teaching is more beneficial to them.
After numerous arguments, some of them in front of the class itself, Akashi would begin stalking Katayama and eventually uncovers her identity as the mysterious "rush rider" Phantom that has been responsible for many strange incidents around the city. Reporting directly to Vice Principal Yamanashi, Akashi uses Katayama's secret identity and her various stress-induced outbursts in front of students to get her suspended from her job. It's also revealed around this point that Akashi forged his own career as a education consultant (having only been a business consultant previously) in order to get hired at Kokatsu Academy, later being revealed that this was to uncover the identity of the Phantom Thieves.
When the Phantom Thieves first access Katayama's Palace, it is revealed that Akashi's own Shadow seemingly has complete control of Katayama's Shadow, therefore making him the secondary ruler of her Palace. Recognizing that the student disciplinary council president, Riko Tanemura, is now among the Phantom Thieves, Akashi tells her that those around her are only friends with her because of Riko's status as an heiress to a high profile company as well as her position within the academy. When Katayama refuses to fight the Phantom Thieves, Akashi proceeds to torture her with electrical shocks, and it is due to this abuse plus the previous words that Riko awakens to her Persona Chiyome, helping the protagonist and the Phantom Thieves repel Shadow Katayama for the first time.
This eventually leads the group to exit the Palace in order to recover and plan their next move. Following their exit from Katayama's Palace, the group eventually plan on extracting data from Akashi's laptop in order to find out his true intentions both at the academy and towards Katayama. Riko eventually discovers and explains to the group that previous targets of Akashi at former jobs had later committed suicide because of him. Due to his influence, even non-targets of Akashi would eventually express a distrust of individuality. How he chooses his targets are based on those who are easily exploitable due to past events, which is why he targets Katayama, designating her as the "villain" to both her students and the vice president. Akashi then uses the anger of his victims for his own usage, which is why Shadow Akashi was shown draining power from Shadow Katayama to power the Dam of Wrath. The group concludes that as long as Katayama is the "power source" of Shadow Akashi, he is "impossible to defeat."
After fully exploring Katayama's Palace, the Phantom Thieves are ready to steal her Treasure. However, they deem a Calling Card as unnecessary since Riko tells Katayama herself that they are going to steal her twisted desire, therefore triggering Shadow Katayama and materializing the Treasure within her Palace. Confronting Shadow Katayama in her Palace, the group is about to retrieve her treasure, but Shadow Akashi interferes and uses his power to force Shadow Katayama to go wild, transforming her into Kiskil-lilla and forcing the group to fight against her.
The group manages to defeat the out-of-control Shadow Katayama, who changes back to her normal form. However, Shadow Akashi escapes before the group get a chance to reach him. Shadow Katayama is relieved to see Riko has accepted her true self and cherishes her caring before she vanishes, leaving her Treasure. The group choose not to steal the Treasure, as they realize stealing it would potentially have drastic effects on the real Katayama and she doesn't actually need a true change of heart. Since the Treasure is not stolen, Katayama's Palace remains intact, but is then shut down by Shadow Akashi. The remaining power is transferred to the new section of the Palace, effectively doubling as Shadow Akashi's own Palace inside Katayama's, the Control Center of Gluttony.
Following the incident, Katayama still hasn't returned to the academy, With Riko protesting in front of other teachers about Katayama being unfairly suspended because she was purposefully provoked by Akashi, as well as spreading Akashi's past wrongdoings in a student committee meeting, which are later posted on Divine Justice referring him as The Unscrupulous Consultant, Akashi is outraged about his plan being hindered and threatens Yamanashi to cover him. He also spreads rumors about Riko exchanging good marks with money and the secret paper handover between Riko and Yamanashi on Divine Justice, aiming to mentally break Riko down just as what he previously did to Katayama. However, with Riko being immune to the rumors and revealing to other teachers what Yamanashi has assigned her to do, this move only causes Yamanashi to gather all criticism as he is the other party of the posts. Having no choice, Akashi switches his target to Yamanashi and forces him to expose his secret about accepting bribe to enrolling students before planning his next move. In the Metaverse, Shadow Akashi chooses Shadow Yamanashi as the new power supply. Therefore, Katayama's Palace is reopened for the group to continue exploring and make their way to Akashi's Palace.
In Akashi's Palace, the group uncover his traumatic past that involves his previous job as the assistant director to a primetime television program director at a prime-time programming block, having produced many well-performing shows in the past, culminating in a show about all the dams across Japan when it's his first time as a director was working on this show, but although it's been running for over ten years, it gets very low ratings because no one cares about it, and is mainly just a filler show for the programming schedule.
Akashi had suspicions that the senior director had been plagiarizing his ideas of the shows and taking them for his own, to which he confronted the director and was told that because of Akashi's inexperience as an assistant, while mockingly replies that Akashi's already so busy with the dam program, the director had the right to steal his ideas and use them as much as he wants. Due to this, Akashi's girlfriend leaves him for the director, implicating him in a money embezzlement scheme that he didn't do. When he confronts the two lovebirds about his stolen ideas and rumors about Akashi embezzling money, they claim that Akashi was weak and is "meant to be eaten" by the strong. It's this that eventually pushes him to do the things he does, being guided by a mysterious voice that persuades him to get his revenge on those who had used, abused, exploited and betrayed him.
After their exploration in Akashi's Palace, the protagonist receives a vision of Akashi, suffering from his mental breakdown, grabbing a kitchen knife and attempting to stab Riko on the school hallway. It's clear to the group that Akashi must be stopped at all costs.
The group post a video describing Akashi's past crimes as the calling card to him on Divine Justice to trigger his Shadow self. In his Palace, Akashi tries to appeal to the group's sympathy using psychological tactics, but Riko quickly sees through the ruse. Thankfully, after freeing Shadow Yamanashi and shutting down the anger energy production in his palace, Akashi is unable to siphon any energy from his Palace and forced to fight the group with the remaining energy from Katayama's Palace.
After the fight, Riko tells Akashi that while she sympathizes with him for his past, he should know better than anyone the pain of being a victim, questioning why he didn't choose to help others and stand by them. He answers that all humans are dirty, cunning, cruel creatures who enjoy seeing the misfortune of others, and he only does what it needs to gain profit from it. Lufel then demands that Akashi reveal the identity of the person he was talking to, with Riko asking who sent him to Kokatsu Academy. Before Akashi can answer, a whale appears from the seas, much to everyone's confusion. Then, a swarm of Shedim surround Shadow Akashi and inflict him with bites. In the real world, Akashi, while thinking how to deal with the Phantom Thieves, checks Magatsushin and surprisedly finds that he is certified as a Phantom as The Unscrupulous Consultant. Realizing that this would critically affect his reputation and job, he falls into despair.
Back in the Metaverse, the Shadows begin to inject rage into Shadow Akashi, which the group recognize as his transformation being the same as Katayama's, with his Shadow being forced to go berserk. After being influenced, Shadow Akashi transforms into Demogorgon. Lufel realizes that the negative emotions of human desire from the Shadows have not only affected Akashi's desire, but also his form. After fighting Demogorgon, Shadow Akashi claims he needs more power, which causes Shedims to influence him.
Lufel and Riko urge Shadow Akashi to stop since he will die if this continues. Shadow Akashi, still determined to be the devourer and consume, goes on a rampage. After the destruction, the Phantom Thieves are appalled to see Shadow Akashi abandon his sense of self in an abstracted form. Lufel realizes that Shadow Akashi won't listen to anyone anymore and will indiscriminately take the lives of others. The secondly transformed Shadow Akashi begins to devour all the Cognition workers around his vicinity, absorbing both misery and anger that empowers him more. However, with Riko unleashing her new power driven by her strong will to protect her friends, he is eventually defeated.
After changing back to his normal form, Shadow Akashi reveals he was a sick child at the hospital and not well enough to go to school. That's why he wanted to create a program for the other sick children at the hospital after he became a director. Realizing this, he decides to live to take responsibility for his wrongdoings. Back to the real world, Akashi uploads a video to Magatsushin to publicly admit that all rumors about him are true and his determination to take responsibility for what he has done to others. Conveying this to the person as well, Akashi makes up his mind to turn himself in. However, when he is walking on a bridge toward the police station, a homeless man on the bridge becomes influenced by a swarm of Shedim that suddenly appear in Mementos, and stabs him in the back with shears. Akashi instantly falls to the ground and loses his consciousness.
“Chapter 4: Melancholy of the Masked Actor”[]
At the beginning of Chapter 4, Motoha informs the protagonist that Akashi has been reported as having passed away on the recent news. His cause of death is being stabbed by a homeless man on a bridge near a police station. His death is reported on in a gossip article by Takami Shimotsuna.
Gallery[]
Video[]
Screenshots[]
Trivia[]
- Kei represents the Deadly Sin of Gluttony, which ties into his unquenchable thirst for power. This also parallels Junya Kaneshiro’s hunger for money and Mariko Hyodo’s desire for votes.