Every Persona 3 Reload Social Link - Ranked

3 – Akinari Kamiki

Honestly, these top three could be shuffled around a bit and I found it difficult to place them in exact spots. Akinari is without question an absolute top three Persona 3 Reload Social Link if not higher though. His Social Link shines via the quality of its dialogue. The entire link takes place in a single setting, meaning all you have to digest is the incredible voice acting and the message it communicates.

Akinari is somewhat similar to Aragaki in my eyes in the sense that both know their death is imminent and they’re searching for a way to live despite that, much like what all of SEES struggles to do in December and January of Persona 3 Reload. His story is absolutely heartbreaking; the book he manages to finish is something that could hit anyone like a truck. Early on in his Link he describes a unique hopelessness festering within him. If the player tries to say they understand his situation too early, Akinari will lash out. But, over time, he decides that the player is quite different from everyone else, almost as if he’s shouldering the same hopelessness.

This is clear foreshadowing to the player’s ultimate fate and even the events of January; Akinari stops taking his medicine because he is going to die either way, but the medicine numbs his hands so he can’t write. This choice feels analogous to the decision to spare Ryoji and face Nyx with the knowledge of imminent world destruction.

It’s extremely compelling to see a character decide to live their last days with a strong, simple purpose in mind, comforted only by close friends and fulfilling that purpose. He finds his meaning for life when he stops searching for it and instead focuses on how he affects the world. The final rank of his Link, where he vanishes with a flash of light and you realize he’d already died after all, left me genuinely stunned.