[TW FOR: CHILD ABUSE, SUICIDE, DEATH, AND MAJOR PERSONA 5 SPOILERS]
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A third year highschool student who conducts a detective business, he is highly revered for his intelligence and ability to solve any case he is tasked with. His abilities as a detective are widely acclaimed since he, not only has solved numerous cases, can also deal with the investigations agency smoothly. He is considered handsome by those around him, and is considered "the second coming of the Detective Prince".

Behind his popularity, Goro is actually quite lonely and yearns nothing more than to be loved by those around him. Before he was born his father had abandoned him, and later he subsequently lost his mother to suicide. Because of this he has been tossed around from foster home to foster home, that which has effected him greatly. He hides behind a mask of false happiness, when in reality he is jaded, jealous, and envious of those around him when they have what he cannot obtain.

He has a desperate desire for fame, affection, and attention, which he is forthright about his intentions for becoming a detective in the first place. However, the public only supports him if he upholds the pretense of a charismatic idol detective and his fans are quick to turn on him if he makes mistakes. He is very careful about his life, public image, and his grades, so that people will want to stick around him.

His desire to be accepted pushes him to do anything his father tells him to do in order to gain his acceptance. He is also unable to say no due to the latter so much as threatening him if even dares to mildly question his orders. He secretly resents his father for abandoning his mother when she was pregnant with him, Goro believing that having a bastard son was what brought his mother to commit suicide. Since then, he has sworn revenge on his father, even going as far as to become a hitman for him and acting as his right-hand man all in pursuit of his goal in order to ruin his father at the apex of his power.

Getting involved with the Phantom Thieves, he for the first time experiences how it feels to be happy together with friends, particularly Akira Kurusu. Goro both admires him and hates him, for no matter what life throws at him, he carves his path through life fairly and justly. He views Akira as the epitome of everything he could never have, and convinces himself that he hates him.

Nearing the final moments of his life, his obsession with getting revenge on his father and desire to be the hero of his own story had started to cloud his judgement and take over his true feelings. In a final showdown with the Phantom Thieves, he had revealed his true plans and dismissed any notion of friendship and true justice, claiming they were both meaningless and sickening. He reveals another hidden personality trait, a more narcissistic side to him where he desires to be viewed as the hero and all those who oppose him as the villains, namely his father and the Phantom Thieves themselves. After coming face to face with a cognitive version of himself in his father's own palace, learning that his plans for revenge were known to his father all along, he had been twisted around and used for his father's own gain.

After learning the truth, Goro sacrifices himself by protecting the others from his father's handmade weapon, himself, by killing himself alongside with the cognitive version of himself.

[PERSONA 5 SPOILERS]
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Prior to the game setting, Goro Akechi was the bastard son of Shido Masayoshi and an unnamed woman. His father abandoned his mother when she found out she was pregnant with him, claiming that it would tarnish his reputation as a formidable politician of Japan. In a unspecified amount of time, his mother eventually committed suicide, leaving a young Goro to become an orphan in foster homes. Much of his time spent in the foster system is unknown, but it is known that because of him never truly having a home growing up, he grew up lonely, jaded, and envious.

When he was fifteen years old, he had traversed the Metaverse for the very first time. In this time he awakened his power as a Persona user, and his persona was named Loki. He discovered he had the ability to cause mental corruption from within, which is what leads to him becoming the true culprit behind the famed 'mental breakdowns'. Because of his ability, he develops a plan to get back at his father who abandoned him before he was even born.

Through hard work and effort, Goro had gained the reluctant trust of Shido, aiding him in his quest to gain more political power in Japan. Using his Persona's ability, Goro struck down any of his father's enemies. During this time, Goro had started to become well known as a famed ace teen detective. He had done so by using his abilities to create accidents and solving them as a detective, giving him a fraudulent identity as a true detective.

In his seventeenth year, it was a great Japanese political strife. Election season was upon them and thanks to his efforts, his father had gained the approval of the masses. During this same year the Phantom Thieves of Hearts began their business, causing him even more trouble. From the very get go, Goro had deduced they were using the same abilities he had and traversing the Metaverse.

The only difference was that their victims did not die.

However, on one fateful day at a regular broadcasting station in Shibuya, he met Akira Kurusu, Ryuji Sakamoto, and Ann Takamaki. Overhearing them talking about what to do on their summer break, he intercepts their conversation by introducing himself. He claimed that they would get to know each other very well the following day, and that he should be on their way. The next day, Goro attends a TV interview in which he publicly disapproves of the Phantom Thieves and their actions and claims that he sees it no different than typical brain washing.

Among the crowd chosen to either compliment his claim or to tear it down was Akira Kurusu, who he claimed that the Thieves were doing the right thing in their own way. Goro later approached the teen after the interview was over, claiming the brief conversation he had was intriguing and that he hoped to have more conversations like those with him again.

Initially he does not pay much attention to the Phantom Thieves, so long as they did not get in their way, they were not in his line of sight. This was until the group targeted a well known, highly un-catchable man named Junya Kaneshiro, a high ranking member of the Japanese Yakuza. The Shadow version of Kaneshiro claims that there is a black masked Persona user manipulating the Palace that they are all in, which is in reality, Goro in disguise. Thanks to his father's influence and the corrupt police, Goro is tasked with solving the case of the Phantom Thieves alongside a formidable prosecutor named Sae Nijima.

During the Theives heist to steal a prominent businessman's heart, Kunikazu Okumura, Goro infiltrated the Palace alongside them and had slain the Shadow Okumura by his father's orders. This in turn causes a rift among those that trusted the Phantom Thieves, because in the end Okumura ended up passing away on live television after receiving a calling card from them. During this time, Goro has learned the identity of the Thieves, and has taken photographic evidence of them.

Now being the only one to possess proof of their true identities, he had become the main instrument in Shido's plans to destroy the Phantom Thieves from the inside out by making their crimes seem like their doing. In order to manipulate the thieves into his hands, Goro states in an interview that he does not believe the Thieves are behind Kunikazu Okumura's death, and that there is another enemy at large. This surprised the Thieves, and started another series of events.

Goro, voted for the main guest speaker of Shujin Academy's school festival, agrees to Makoto Nijima's proposal and comes to speak at their school. During his interview with the students at the school, the question of if he knew the true identity came up, to which he answered "Yes, I do.". However he does not alert anyone in the crowd, instead feigns a call on his cellphone, claiming it is urgent and that he must take it. He asks Makoto and the Thieves to speak with him privately.

This is where he tells the Thieves he knows who they are, and shows them the photos. He also conjured up a story of how he had only recently visited the Metaverse a month ago, sucked into the world when the Thieves had went in by accident. There he claims he was attacked by a man in a black mask, shrouded in darkness, with picture proof. He told them that his desire to continue living is what awoke his Persona, and that the only way he would not turn them in is if they let him join them. This is because he desires to clear their name and catch the true culprit, helping them clear their name and on the condition they put an end to their business as soon as it is over.

By then, he had successfully infiltrated the Phantom Thieves, unbeknownst to him, they are already aware of his status as a liar. Goro's first meeting with Akira and the other's had already long since given him up, making the fatal mistake of commenting on something Morgana mentioned. The only people that could understand Morgana were Metaverse manipulators, thus outting Goro immediately.

During his first meeting with the Thieves, he reveals that his colleague, Sae Nijima, had a palace. Makoto Nijima, a fellow thief and Sae's younger sister had confirmed this to be true. Goro laments that ever since being put in charge of the case to find and arrest the Phantom Thieves, Sae had been acting weird. He comes up with the plan to steal Sae's heart before she goes and forges fake evidence against an innocent person. While attempting to find the keywords in order to enter Sae's palace, unknown to Goro, Futaba Sakura had planted a bug inside his phone that recorded all of his conversations. This is when they find out that Goro and Shido Masayoshi have plans to rat out the Thieves and kill their leader.

As they were nearing Sae Nijima's treasure, Goro had leaked information to the police force about the Thieves next big heist. The Phantom Thieves are ambushed in the Palace that took the form of a Casino, and Goro quietly slips away as their leader is arrested and taken into custody.

Sae demands to speak to Akira, but unknown to her, Goro had been put in complete charge of the case, effectively knocking her out of any involvement. Granted with a limited amount of time, he awaited the moment he could speak to the other teenager. He had met up with Sae in the hallway, and apologized for deceiving the older woman as well. After a short talk with a seemingly agitated Sae, she held out a phone, asking him if he needed it in his investigations. Goro denies this, and that he simply wants to speak with the subject.

Deep underground in a unspecified room, Goro takes another life. The security guard who had been guarding Akira Kurusu, and then the boy himself. Shot straight in the forehead, Goro had made the death look like a suicide. Immediately after taking the boy's life, he reports this to Shido, who berates him for calling him.

Later on Goro makes another public appearance on television where he addresses Akira's suicide, claiming it was fairly disheartening that the man he worked tirelessly to find had ended his hard work by dying. Because of this, the Japanese population (and likely the entire world) had started to show support for him once more. With the Phantom Thieves leader dead, it seemed the only thing they cared about now was the elections coming.

When Goro received a phone call from his father, telling him that it was time to eliminate all those who had been involved in their crimes, Goro was taken aback. The teen questions if it is the right thing to do, for he thought that things wold calm down until after the election. When expressing his doubt, Shido snapped at him, reminding him of what would happen if he so much as mildly defied his orders. This sudden change in plan tipped Goro off to realize that, most likely, the Phantom Thieves were messing around in his father's palace.

He confronted the party in Shido's palace, down in the engine room. He reveals to the Thieves his plans of revenge, and his familial ties with Shido Masayoshi. Here he claims that by revealing his father's crimes and his illegitimate heir would cause the people to lose faith, and how he could care less what happened to the country, as long as he got his revenge. Goro continues on, lamenting about how perhaps if he had met Akira earlier, things could have turned out much different. But instead of dwelling on that which did not happen, Goro becomes enraged and reveals his ability of 'Mental Corruption', the same ability that is behind all the mental rampages, and fights them.

After some time it becomes clear that he was not fighting to his true potential, to which the team tries to talk him out of what he was doing. This angers him further, causing him to lash out and throw a tantrum. Morgana piped up, saying it was clear he did not actually hate any of them. That he should follow his heart, that it did not matter if he thought he was an unwanted child, that he should simply be himself. Far too gone to get a grasp of himself, Goro decides to get serious and reveals his true identity as the black masked Persona user, the same mentioned by Kaneshiro. Goro exclaimed his intent to destroy the Phantom Thieves, and uses his own ability on himself.

After his second and final defeat, Goro surrenders as he is now heavily wounded and expresses his jealousy and anger at the Thieves for being surrounded by friends who had each others back. Once the Thieves defeat and expose Shido, he as well will go down in flames. Finally having lost the will to go on anymore, Goro laments about his inability to become someone special; to become a hero. To his absolute shock, Akira points out that everyone is special in his eyes even offers him a space back with the Thieves. Visibly upset, he pleads with the Thieves to kill him and put an end to his life and when met with apprehension upon his request, he sighed and admitted that they were all truly beyond his comprehension.

Before anything else can happen, a cognitive version of himself appears, the manifestation of how Shido always viewed him: an obedient puppet. His cognitive self, also having the power to summon and control Shadows, taunts and mocks Goro's wish for wanting to be accepted and loved (even declaring him the true puppet). The cognition reveals that Shido was planning to kill Goro all along soon as the election was over, as well as planning to pin all the murders and incidents on Goro, and then tells him to take his death as a punishment. When the revolted Goro hears this, he realizes what a fool he's been and that revenge was not the correct path. Cognitive Goro then gives the real Goro one last chance to prove himself to Shido by killing the Phantom Thieves.

However, instead of shooting them, Goro shoots his cognitive self and then shoots a switch on the wall, closing the barrier between himself and the party. Goro says that they would have perished if they tried to protect him while fighting the shadows and that they should have left him there to die to begin with. He and his wounded cognitive self then point their guns toward each other. From the other side of the wall, the party hears Goro's new wish to change his father's heart; and Akira, in turn, promises to honor his wish. The party hears two gunshots, followed by silence. Afterwards, Goro's fate is unknown, with Futaba failing to sense his presence after the shooting and Sae later reporting him as missing.

In truth Goro had woken right after his sacrifice to the mechanical whirrings of Elysium, the words of the Gods echoing in his ears. Ever since he has been roaming the cities and attempting to gain his own footing once again.