Persona 5 Royal's Dr. Takuto Maruki is the game's true final boss, and the best villain in the entire Persona franchise so far. Though unassuming in his initial appearance, like so many of the characters introduced and expanded upon in this expansion of the original Persona 5, there is much more to Dr. Maruki than first meets the eye. He is one of the secret weapons that makes Persona 5 Royal's Third Semester expansion one of the greatest storylines in JRPG history.
[Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Persona 5 Royal.]
Persona 5 Royal makes multiple changes to the original game, beyond adding an expansion to the original story. From redeg the original bosses with new tactics, to creating new characters and scenarios. While some were rougher than others in the transition - such as Persona 5 Royal's hardest boss being easier on the hardest difficulty setting, others, like Maruki, were welcome additions.
Maruki represents not only the added content to the original game, but the philosophical questions this new content asks of the original story. He is a villain that the player is not told to hate or given a clear reason to think he's bad, but is instead presented as a genuine philosophical question that the player must confront. Compared to the other final bosses in the Persona franchise, Maruki wins out by a considerable margin.
Persona 5 Royal's Dr. Maruki Is A Good Man The Player Must Decide Is Wrong
The original Persona 5 ended with the Phantom Thieves taking on a god named Yaldabaoth, a physical personification of mankind's apathy towards its fellow man and the world. But Persona 5 Royal's Yaldabaoth boss fight is but the prelude to the final confrontation with Dr. Maruki. Maruki finds Yaldabaoth's corpse in Mementos and uses it to augment and enhance his powers over the perception of other people. That done, he proceeds to trap the entire world in a perfect hallucination where all of their dreams, or at least what Maruki perceives to be their dreams, have come true.
What makes Maruki's actions interesting is the lack of any ulterior motive. Maruki isn't trying to resurrect Yaldabaoth, nor is he working toward some sinister end. He genuinely wants people to be happy and the world to be at peace. He isn't even a jerk about what he's doing, avoiding being even the least bit condescending - at least outwardly. He is exactly the same good-natured dorky doctor the player got to know in Maruki's Persona 5 Royal confidant series. This lack of "kick the dog" moments forces the player to really think about what Maruki is doing and whether they really have any right to stop him.
Persona 5 Royal Can End With Maruki Victorious
Of course, one cannot hand players a setup like this without giving them a clear way to side with the villain. To do otherwise would be philosophically dishonest. Which is why, the night before Persona 5 Royal's final battle, Maruki approaches Joker and offers for him to accept what he's given him. This is not Maruki issuing a threat, though he will defend himself if it comes to violence. He simply wants the Phantom Thieves to be happy. After all, that's why he brought back fan-favorite character Goro Akechi in the form of a perfect illusory construction. He leaves the player with a choice that determines Persona 5 Royal's endings: fight for a cruel, unjust, but true world, or accept the fantasy as reality.
It's hard not to see Maruki's point. What he's doing comes down to simple utilitarianism and the Hippocratic oath. Dr. Maruki has the ability to ease the suffering of others, so he believes that as a human being and as a doctor, he is under obligation to do so. Maruki, like a lot of people, does not see the pain the people around him have experienced - Ryuji having his ambitions dashed before they can start and Shiho being sexually assaulted by a teacher to give two examples - as being important enough to keep. But if there is reason to side with him, then of course there must be reasons not to.
Sumire & Akechi Poke Holes In Maruki's Philosophy In Persona 5 Royal
What makes Maruki the best Persona villain is that, just as it isn't hard to see what Maruki is doing as the only sane response to the scenario he finds himself in, so too is it easy to see what he's doing as incredibly condescending. He is, after all, essentially treating the entire human race as children that don't know what's best for them. There are multiple moments throughout the Third Semester where the holes in his philosophy are laid bare, such as when Yusuke points out that a friend who had given up one career path to pursue another had been forced back onto the former by Maruki's machinations.
But Maruki's biggest critic in the Third Semester is Goro Akechi, whom - ironically - Maruki had brought back to life to make Joker happy. Akechi instead drops all pretenses he had been using as a mask throughout the game and is the cold blooded sociopath he had always been. Akechi looks at the world Maruki builds and is disgusted at the sight, having spent far too much of his life dancing to another man's tune and not planning to go back to that. Akechi reveals Maruki's world to be a self-aggrandizing delusion by a quack doctor who doesn't actually know what he's talking about.
The biggest point in Akechi's favor is Persona 5 Royal's confidant Sumire Yoshizawa, who had (up until this point) been convinced she was her dead sister Kasumi. Maruki, convinced that Sumire would never recover from her sister's death, chose instead to have her live a lie without her knowledge or consent. And that, ultimately, is what makes Maruki a villain. He has no respect for other people's agency or privacy.
Dr. Takuto Maruki is the best villain in Persona because of the buildup behind his reveal, his actions throughout the game subtly foreshadowing everything he does in the third semester, and the philosophically fascinating storyline surrounding him. He genuinely makes the player think about their actions, and confront Maruki on a deeper intellectual level than previous Persona villains, who all boil down to being evil gods who are more embodiments of single ideas than subscribers to complex philosophies. Persona 5 Royal is one of the best RPGs ever made, and a lot of that comes down to it having one of the best villains in gaming history.
