And that, ultimately, is what makes Maruki a villain. 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. 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. 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.
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 instead drops all pretenses he had been using as a mask throughout the game and is the cold blooded sociopath he had always been. Related: How Long Persona 5 Royal Takes To Beatīut Maruki's biggest critic in the Third Semester is Goro Akechi, whom - ironically - Maruki had brought back to life to make Joker happy. 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. He is, after all, essentially treating the entire human race as children that don't know what's best for them. 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.