Title: Cop and Robber
Author: L.C. Li (FFN), lcli (ao3)
Rating: T
Genre: Mystery/Romance
Status: Complete
Fandom: Persona 5
Pairings: Akira/Makoto
Summary: Niijima Makoto is tasked to take down the Phantom Thieves. Spoiler alert: She gets her heart stolen. — Police!Makoto.
Link: (FFN) (ao3)

An AU where Akira (aka "Protagonist") doesn't quite make the same bonds of friendship that he does in canon. Instead, he has spent the last seven years as a loner and a Phantom Thief. This, of course, all changes when he meets a young up-and-coming police officer named Makoto.

I've been on a Persona 5 binge lately, and decided to see if there was any good fanfiction for the game out there. I found this and decided to give it a try, and suddenly it was 2 AM and I had finished the entire story. In my opinion, this is probably one of the best stories in the fandom (not that there is much competition to judge it by, since most Persona fanfics are based on Persona 3/4 and not Persona 5). It's long, well written technically, and gets bonus points for including my OTP. (Those of you who don't like Makoto can fight me.)

I definitely think that the characterization in this story is its strongest part. Akira and Makoto are both flawed characters and have their own host of mental issues. The fact that they take turns serving as the primary perspective in the story lets the reader see glimpses of just how messed up the characters are, while still allowing for a bit of mystery. Also, this is a fanfiction of Persona, so mental problems are actually really important, and this story weaves them excellently into the plot.

I would go out on a limb and say that not much knowledge of Persona is required to read this story (beyond what you can find with cursory wiki searches). You'll miss out on bits and pieces here and there, but most of it is still understandable without much knowledge of canon. There are some minor plot spoilers if you ever want to play Persona 5 in the future, but since this story is set seven years in the future, nothing huge is spoiled.

Overall, I'd probably give this a 4.5/5 rating. There are some things that could be improved (though I don't know whether I should list them here, given that they involve plot spoilers), but the story has good technical writing, is overall very well put together, and has a pretty unique plot for a romance. If the Persona 5 fandom had even a handful more stories of this caliber, then I would be overjoyed.

 

I decided I'd give this a go since I recently watched the first episodes of the Persona 5 anime and have since gone back into the game to chip away at that ol' progress bar, so I'm in the mood for this setting.

For the most part the writing in here is okay, and Joker does feel almost like a video game protagonist in that borderline Mary-Sue way which somehow works in this situation. I'm also rather fond, amazingly, of the short chapters here. I'm normally a big advocate of longer chapters since 2,000 words is barely a tease, but in this fic it fits right in with the snappy episodic day-by-day distribution of events in the games.

The writing style is somewhat sparse, with lots of short paragraphs breaking it up rather than big chunky blocks of text. Very light on description, as well, but absolutely in a good way - there's less waffle and filler prose.

Makoto's internal arguments with her "id" and "superego" read like those awful authors notes where the author feigns a conversation between themselves and characters, or like the dreadful "inner Sakura" of old Naruto works.

There are a few minor grievances like these, and this never quite manages to grab my attention, but it's the best I've read in the Persona 5 setting so far.

I'm going to give this a 4/5.

 

I read this back in November when I finally finished the game. It started off well enough with interesting characterisation and a nice rapport between Akira and Makoto, but I personally think it fell of heavily when it started getting bogged down by its uncreative and sometimes nonsensical plot.

Also I feel like I have to add this, specially due to its prevalence in the wider persona Fandom, but messed up characters with mental issues do not make a fic good.

Over all I'd give it a 3, but maybe a 3.5 because it has the virtue of not being a day by day Canon rehash like 90% of other persona fics.

 

It was a fun read but I wasn't too happy about the conclusion and the later twists on the plot. Still, had a good time overall and I quite like the take on the two main characters, even if things got a bit weird in the last third.

A really positive 3/5