#this is akechi's first indication of how far ren will go *for his friends*

[vashtijoy]

Thinking more about Akechi's rank 3, and about its flow into rank 4 at the jazz club—where Akechi begins to open up to Ren, by taking him somewhere special to him that he hasn't shared with anyone else.

Don't you think it seems off, on a first glance? Like it doesn't work? Because Akechi does not seem to entirely appreciate Ren's intervention. If you look at their phone call afterwards, it seems like Akechi lost control in the café, and is trying to take that back from Ren. He threatens him with what Ren "took" from him!—"I'll be dictating everything, from hair to accessories". Ren dictated the hair and accessories in rank 3, and now Akechi needs to do the same!

Make no mistake, this exchange, while cute as a button, is also Akechi struggling to regain some control that he feels he lost. He needs payback; he needs to meet Ren's challenge; he needs more.

So what's going on?

always in chains

As Akechi mentions in the engine room:

This line, of course, suffers in translation, so let's take a closer look:

Akechi 君は、今までの自分とか、人間関係とか⋯そういうものに囚われない。 kimi wa, ima made no jibun to ka, ningen kankei to ka… sou iu mono ni torawarenai You don't allow yourself to be enslaved by such things as human relations or past selves…

Did you understand this line on its first pass? Or at all? "Past selves"? What is this, Akechi, are we bringing in reincarnation now? What do you even mean by "human relations", is this a biology class?

Let's rework it a little. ima made no jibun—that's "the you until now". We might say "who you've always been". And ningen kankei—well, that is "human relations", translated very literally. But nobody would ever say that—it just means "relationships"! When you talk about your ningen kankei, you're often talking about your skills with relationships—how you get on with people. And Akechi gets on with people very well.

So what is he actually saying?

You don't allow yourself to be enslaved by such things as human relations or past selves… You're not a slave to expectations, or to how others see you.

Akechi will later tell us that these chains have bound him since his earliest days:

Those chains are the core of the resentment and envy he feels for Ren. More than anything Shido could potentially do to him, the expectations of others are what bind and torment Akechi. And this difference in how Akechi and Ren respond to outside pressure is one of the most important contrasts between them.

back to rank 3

So what does all of this tell us about rank 3, when Akechi is spotted by celebrity hunters?

In this situation, Akechi can't do anything but leave. He has to be the good boy everyone expects. He can't just sit there soaking up the adulation, and it seems clear that he isn't so inclined—look at the way he cringes away in his seat, and more to the point, look at his face:

Before he's accosted, his sprite and model match—he is probably genuinely pleased! But afterwards, though the sprite is sad, the model looks angry. Akechi can't confront his fans and ask them to leave him in peace. He can't dare to be angry with them, even though he's spitting tacks. He is chained—he can only ever do what people expect "Goro Akechi" to do.

Not just as a celebrity, but in every sphere of his life, even when he's carping to Sae or showing off for Shido, he is a slave to his public image—to the expectations others have of him. He cannot act outside that box. Society put Akechi in chains from babyhood—and his response was to own them, to build a bigger, better cell for himself. That he understands—he tells us how it works repeatedly!—and that he recognises, but can never escape.

So what is it that Akechi learns about Ren, in rank 3? It's that if you dare put Ren Amamiya in a cell, he'll tear it down.

Akechi could only dream of acting the way Ren does in this moment. Ren takes a huge risk here—on how Akechi will react, on how the crowd will react—and it pays off. Rather than submitting to the chains others place on him, Ren refuses to be bound. Ren is ungovernable.

Of course that's catnip to Akechi. Of course, even though it unnerves him, he wants more. He's drawn to Ren like a moth to flame—and this is the genesis of the bitter envy that will become so toxic by rank 8.

revision history

Click here for the latest version.

v1.1 (2024/10/06)—clarified some pronouns.

v1.0 (2024/10/06)—first posted.

[maspers]

About the Persona 5 / Ace Attorney Timeline

I've seen a handful of fics engage in crossovers between Ace Attorney and Persona 5, largely along the lines of "So-and-so defends Joker in court" or some other assortment of shenanigans. And those are really fun, because the idea of Sae Niijima or Shido's Lawyers having to put up with Phoenix Wright (or Apollo Justice, or Athena Cykes, or whomever else) is delightful.

But here's the thing.

If we assume 20XX really is 2016 (and its calendar among other things indicates that yes, it is) then Persona 5 starts on April 9th, 2016. With Ren's false assault charges and the subsequent involved trial likely occurring anywhere between a couple weeks to a month beforehand, just so everything could get arranged for him to get registered at Shujin and for Sojiro to get located and convinced to take him in and so on and so forth. My guess is it happened in March, right before the school year started up, leading to his arrival at Shujin being later than the actual start of said school year.

The First Turnabout, Phoenix Wright's debut case, where he defends Larry Butz from a murder charge and honestly only barely gets a Not Guilty verdict by the skin of his teeth, with copious advice and assistance from his mentor, takes place on August 3rd, 2016.

In the games, at least. The anime gives the date of March 26th 2016, but the anime is very wishy-washy with dates and has a handful of other inaccuracies so I trust the games canon more.

In Ren Amamiya were to get a defense attorney from the Ace Attorney series to defend him in court from Shido's fraudulent assault charge, it would not be Phoenix Wright. It would be Mia Fey, who is far more comfortable than any of Phoenix's crew when it comes to dealing with underhanded criminal conspiracies involving large businesses and corruption.

Can you imagine how that would throw LITERALLY EVERYTHING IN BOTH GAMES OFF THE RAILS

Even if things end up going really badly and Mia dies to one of Akechi's mental shutdowns instead of to Redd White, that's still enough of a difference and enough of a divergence to set Phoenix and Maya (and later on Edgeworth, which might possibly mean Franziska too) on the trail to the Antisocial Force. Not to mention regardless of whether or not Mia succeeds in getting Ren a Not Guilty verdict, things are still DRASTICALLY different. If he gets Not Guilty then suddenly Yaldy has to do a lot more work to get his pawn where it needs to go (assuming he doesn't select a different opponent for Akechi entirely). And if Ren is still declared Guilty he'll see how completely destroyed Mia (and her tagalong lawyer trainee Phoenix) are by the verdict after doing everything they can, and be reassured that there will still be at least two adults he can trust, meaning he and the Phantom Thieves will be able to use the lawyers as a resource later down the line. Heck, Mia or Phoenix could even be a Confidant for him. Most likely this would come into play during the Medjed Arc at the earliest (because of Sae bothering Sojiro) and the Shido Arc at the latest (for obvious reasons).

Either way, the Ace Attorney Cast is involved, and provided with a very interesting distraction from the cases that Mia and Phoenix would normally have dealt with that year.

The First Turnabout probably still happens, since Larry will always get his friend to defend him, but Turnabout Sisters probably doesn't happen at all since Mia's pursuing a different conspiracy this time around. Turnabout Samurai might not happen either (though hopefully Will Powers still has a good lawyer). Then in Turnabout Goodbyes the murder happens LITERALLY on Christmas Eve right when the Thieves are facing down Yaldy, which could throw EVERYTHING about that case off when the murder might not even happen on schedule due to Metaverse shenanigans.

(Plus we'd probably get to see Mia Fey and Sae Niijima in the same courtroom and like YES PLEASE)