#and smth involving his obvious love of sci fi

[235uranium]

actually I'm gonna be self indulgent here. I think it would be really good if the p5r arena equivalent we've been waiting for since fucking 2017 is the akechi game and focuses on tying together the modern persona trilogy with the first two games.

p5(r) was incredibly successful and even people who aren't diehard persona fans are interested in a proper sequel to the game. diehard fans have been begging for arena bc we VERY MUCH want to see the shadow ops interact with the thieves. and a high percentage of diehard fans are also akechi stans and we want proper akechi backstory + survival confirmation fuck you

if team persona finally has permission to bring in p1+p2 lore and characters from the og writers, then p5r arena would be a pretty good opportunity. that was what ultimax did with p3 and p4. and ofc everyone also wants the p3 + p4 teams to properly meet the thieves

using akechi would be smart not just bc a significant portion of fans want him back, but bc:

it would be virtually impossible to bring him back without a significant portion of the plot being dedicated to him. he's the deurtagonist and tends to steal the spotlight in every scene if he's there.

cognitive psience has to be related to previous persona research and there seemed to be one major funder. who then used that research to train a metaverse assassin. which is akechi.

like- it would be pretty stupid to make a true p5r sequel and not address cog psi directly. it comes up constantly, yet there's no explanation as to why the fuck shido got involved. ig you can hand wave and say it was yaldy, since shido certainly... sees himself as chosen by god.

but we still don't know what wakaba was doing. why the fuck was shido so dead set on her research specifically. what does he mean that he "taught" akechi how to use his powers. and featherman seeker certainly... suggests that akechi was used as a test subject at some point.

I really do think this is all a pretty damn good way to bring in p1 + p2 + p3. the connection is pretty easy to make.

p4 doesn't come in as directly, but I think it's reasonable to have naoto trying to figure out what was actually going on with the mental shutdowns (since I doubt shido or joker implicated akechi by name). or just working with the shadow ops, since I maintain the shadow ops stepping in and managing akechi's ""probation"" would be a good entry point