| “ | I'll erase any who get in my way... just as I've always done! | „ |
| ~ Masayoshi Shido |
Masayoshi Shido is a character from Persona 5 and one of the main antagonists of the game alongside Yaldabaoth. The seventh and final major target, Shido is the head of The Conspiracy, a powerful politician, and Goro Akechi's father. His belief that it is his god-given right to lead society and destroy any who dare cross him creates a Palace inside the Collective Unconscious, where he transforms into Samael, demon of Pride.
He turns out to be at the center of a conspiracy to rig the election for Prime Minister in his favor, allowing him to put his highly draconian and ultra-nationalistic political beliefs into effect, uncaring of the misery this would cause to Japan in general. Shido's Palace is an enormous, multi-tiered cruise ship, which is imposed over the National Diet Building in the real world. His treasure in the Palace resembles a ship's steering wheel; in the real world it manifests as his politician's badge.
In the original Japanese version, he is voiced by Shuichi Ikeda. In the English version, he is voiced by Keith Silverstein, who also voiced Johan Liebert. Both of these actors also voiced Char Aznable in Japanese and English version, respectively.
Biography
Early Life
Shido started as a colleague of Sojiro Sakura, being a successful and ambitious politician who claimed that he was going to be the Prime Minister of Japan, but nobody took it seriously. Years before the story, he had an affair with an unnamed woman, which conceived Goro Akechi. Shido later left his lover, leaving her commit suicide once Akechi was born. Therefore, Shido was responsible for Akechi's start of darkness, just as he was responsible for the protagonist's start of heroism years later.
However, more than a decade later, Shido became a diet in Japanese Goverment and met a teenage Akechi, who gained his Persona after making a pact with Yaldabaoth, who was the main conductor behind Shido's later consipiracy connected to psychotic breakdown and mental shutdown. Akechi pretended to work for Shido and helped him to steal Metaverse research project in an attempt to seek vengence against his father, believing Shido has no knowledge of his own son. However, Shido had found out the truth all along but pretended to be oblivious, so that he could use Akechi as his pawn until the time was needed to depose him as soon as Shido rose as the Prime Minister.
Using Akechi's mental shutdown ability as his tool, Shido made Akechi to murder Wakaba Isshiki, a prominent cognitive psience researcher and Futaba Sakura's mother, before sending Futaba a false informations that defiled Wakaba, falsely claiming that she hated her daughter all along. Sojiro, who was a close friend to Wakaba and adopted Futaba as his own daughter, failed to expose Shido and was forced to retire and become the owner of his Cafe LeBlanc in order to protect Futaba. Throughout years, Sojiro silently listened Shido making speeches about the nation's crisis, but reacted in apathy as he knew what kind of monster Shido truly was.
Throughout the years, Shido used Akechi and his ability to cause mental shutdown incident, most notably the train derail that caused many people died, causing a scandal that deposed the former Minster in charge of public safety, so that Shido could take his place. He used Principal Kobayakawa of Shujin Academy and is indirectly responsible for the sexual harrasement of Suguru Kamoshida being concealed. He also used Ichiryusai Madarame (through his plagiarized artwork), Kunikazu Okumura (through his company's gain) and Junya Kaneshiro (through his underworld business) as his source of finance to run for Prime Minister, so that he could take charge into the country and start a rule with his iron fist. He even manipulated SIU Director to push Sae Niijima into investigating the Phantom Theives in an attempt to make her his unwitting pawn.
Combined to his dark influence on Futaba's life as well as being the one behind Akechi's involvement with the fake Medjed incident, Shido is the one directly and indirectly behind every targets of Phantom Theives before him.
Confrontation with the Protagonist
One year before the start of the story, the protagonist met Shido when he was drunk, harassing a woman on the street. When Shido noticed the protagonist he threatened the latter not to get in trouble with him because of his status as a powerful politician and connection to the police. He lost his balance when the protagonist attempted to pull him from the woman. His forehead hit the corner and bled. Shido angrily accused the protagonist for the nonexistent violence and forced the woman to testify against the protagonist, causing the protagonist on probation as a minor offender.
Post-Palace of Lust Arc
After the protagonist created the Phantom Theives of Heart and stole Suguru Kamoshida's heart, the Phantom Theives' incident caught Shido's attention and he criticized the Theives as criminals. He and the protagonist later meet again when the protagonist are eating together at a hotel restaurant with Ryuji Sakamoto, Ann Takamaki and Morgana, though he does not recognize the protagonist. While waiting for the elevator to go back to the restaurant, Shido and his subordinates rudely shove them and other people who are waiting in front of the elevator away. When the protagonist and Ryuji protest that they are there first, Shido, as usual, threatens to use his connection to sue them. This convinces the protagonist, Ryuji and Ann to continue their work as Phantom Thieves.
Casino of Envy Arc
After framing the Phantom Theives for the death of Principal Kobayakawa and Kunikazu Okumura due to the two's attempt of betryal, Shido made the public to spite the Theives and turned against them. Seeking this as an advantage to destroy the Theives, Shido made Akechi to kill the protagonist via spying into the Phantom Theives' team, while taking down the SIU Director to silence him.
However, while Shido succeeded in deposing the SIU Director, the other Theives looked through their plots of murdering the Protagonist once Shadow Sae was defeated. Not only they faked the protagonist's death, but also they managed to discover that Shido is the ringleader of the mental shutdown conspiracy, convincing a willingly redeemed Sae Niijima to join their side.
Cruise of Pride Arc
Shadow Shido
After Futaba revealed that she discovered Shido was the mastermind, Sae revealed to everyone that she firmly believed Shido is the mastermind as well, due to his rise of power occured just in time when psychotic breakdown incidents happened, while Sojiro finally confessed that Shido was the murderer of Wakaba and the stealer of her research. Later, under his disguise, the protagonists encountered Shido and recognized him as the very same man that framed him, and he deduced from Shido's exclaimation that he saw the Diet Building as a ship for him to control as its captain, and that ship is the form of his Palace.
As soon as the Theives entered the Palace of Shido, they were shocked and enraged to find out that the whole nation of Japan was flooded around the ship, while confused at Akechi's reason of serving Shido. Shido's Palace was a clear view of his own delusions and complex, an enormous ship that sails on a flooded Japan (even probably the entire world), with Shido and his followers on the ship unscathed while other citizens would drown in ocean, showing his uncaring nature to the nation and its people.
Shido's Palace
The Theives managed to defeat five minions of Shido to get the letters of introductions they required to enter the Diet Building, right before they confronted Akechi and defeated him, but they start realizing Akechi was just another victim of Shido due to his parentage. After Akechi's defeat, Shadow Shido sent his own Cognitive Akechi to kill the real Akechi, revealing Akechi was nothing but his own puppet. Feeling horrified and guilty for his crimes, Akechi sacrificed himself to allow other Theives to escape, while expressing his last wish to make the Thieves change Shido's heart, a request that the Protagonist agreed, much to Akechi's relief.
Once they discovered Shido's treasure, the Theives then vowed to defeat Shido, realizing everyone connected to the incident was Shido's victim, even including Akechi. They immediately send a nationwide annoncement to accuse Shido as a villain, which infuriated Shido and made him desperately trying to stop the Theives from changing his heart. When the Thieves confront Shido's Shadow in his Palace, without knowledge of his son's apparent death, he admits that he was going to kill Akechi anyway once he becomes Prime Minister because he knows too much, much to the Theives' disgust. During the fight, he finally recognizes the protagonist as the student who interfered with him before. After the Shadow is defeated, Shido admits he was wrong for having the protagonist arrested, and vows to make amends upon returning to his real self.
His Treasure is his politician badge which takes the form of a wheel of his cruise-shaped Palace, symbolizing his ambition as a leader. Despite his Shadow's apology to the Thieves, the Shido in reality senses the change of his heart. His physician feeds him medicine to enter suspended animation, hoping to kill the gang in his Palace and stop his Treasure from being stolen. The plan fails as all Phantom Thieves successfully retreat unscathed. Shido's aides send him to the hospital to avoid media coverage of his mental state. On the day of the announcement of Shido's victory in the election, he openly confesses his crimes during the live conference. Sae Niijima is tasked with charging Shido.
Memento Depths Arc
Despite Shido's confession, however, the general public does not show support for the Phantom Thieves, but are rather more worried about the future of Japan without Shido leading the country. After Shido made his confession, his remaining allies commence an all-or-nothing plan to wipe out the Phantom Thieves and maintain their corrupt choke-hold over Japan. For this plan to work, Yaldabaoth directly influences the people of Tokyo to forget Shido's crimes and blame the entire debacle on the Thieves by manipulating the slothful nature within its citizens.
When the Phantom Thieves enter the Depths of Mementos to change the hearts of the now-distorted public, they encounter the Shadows of their previous targets including Shido. No longer arrogant or ambitious, Shido is now a broken man resigning himself to Yaldabaoth's control. His personality has changed to the point that he now prefers the vision Yaldabaoth has for Japan, saying it will be a far better country than what he had tried to build.
Fortunately, after Yaldabaoth is defeated and Mementos entirely erased, public opinion promptly turns against Shido and his allies, eventually bringing an end to the Conspiracy and its schemes. In spite of this, to prove Shido's guilt, the protagonist must turn himself in as a key witness considering the laws the Thieves had to break over their months of activity. Despite that, with help from the Thieves and their other allies, the woman who was first coerced into testifying against the protagonist is found and admits the truth of what happened with her and Shido.
With the prior testimony against the protagonist revoked, Sae succeeds in prosecuting Shido for his crimes and proves the protagonist's innocence, ending Shido's reign of terror once and for all. With the debt repaid and their fortunes fittingly reversed, the protagonist returns to Leblanc to his friends and the future once stolen from him as a free man while Shido presumably rots in prison for the rest of his life.
Etymology
Masayoshi (正義) means "justice" which is identical to "seigi", its meaning is mentioned in the plot several times to satirize Shido's injustice deeds. Shi (獅) means "lion" and Dō (童) can compose the phrases related to "child".
Trivia
- In the anime cutscene where Shido's full name in kanji is shown, one kanji is written differently, namely "堂" instead of "童" in-game. The typo does not change the pronunciation of his name, but the meaning of his surname is now "lion-institute" instead of "lion-child".
- The song that plays during his boss fight is Rivers in the Desert.
- Shadow Shido's first form in battle bears a striking resemblance to Char Aznable from the Gundam franchise, who is also voiced by Shuichi Ikeda and Keith Silverstein in Japanese and English respectively.