The World Ends With You

The World Ends With YouNEO: The World Ends With You

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Background

The World Ends with You, or It's a Wonderful World (すばらしきこのせかい, Subarashiki Kono Sekai), is an action RPG series by Square Enix. The game was developed by a team who had also worked on the Kingdom Hearts franchise, with some characters appearing in Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance. Tetsuya Nomura and Gen Kobayashi handled the character designs, while the game’s unique art style draws inspiration from Shibuya's youth culture at the time. The series primarily consists of two games.

The first game, The World Ends with You, debuted on the Nintendo DS in 2007. It was later remade for mobile devices and the Nintendo Switch as Solo Remix and Final Remix, respectively.

A sequel, NEO: The World Ends with You, was announced thirteen years later, for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC in 2021 and came out in July 27, 2021.

Plot Summary

Set in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan, the stories of both games follow teenage boys who find themselves trapped in a mysterious competition called the Reapers' Game. This Game takes place in an alternate dimension known as the Underground (UG), where other people cannot see, hear, or touch them, except for the Reapers running the Game and the other Players participating in it. The boys must collaborate with other Players to complete daily missions and defeat monsters called the Noise in order to survive the seven-day challenge, or risk being erased from existence.

The series is notably darker than Kingdom Hearts for various reasons, reflected in its Teen ratings compared to the Everyone or Everyone 10+ ratings of the Kingdom Hearts series. One major theme in the games is death. Other elements contributing to the darker tone include the appearance of guns, blood shown in the anime, and stronger language like "dick," "bitch," "damn," and "hell," with Neku even saying "shit" in the English anime.

The series also incorporates satirical elements and provides critical commentary on various aspects of Japanese culture. This includes Internet and otaku cultures, social media, the dominance of big businesses over small ones, fashion trends, influencers, the pressures of the high school system, societal peer pressure, and ageism—such as when an older shopkeeper refuses to sell an item to protagonists Neku Sakuraba and Shiki Misaki because they aren't "baby boomers," humorously referring to them as "Generation Z."

The World Ends With YouNEO: The World Ends With You

The story of the game follows Neku Sakuraba as he participates in the Reapers' Game over the span of three weeks, teaming up with three different partners: Shiki, Joshua, and Beat, each week. The first week begins with Neku waking up at the Shibuya Scramble Crossing, confused and with no memory of his surroundings, purpose, or past. He is immediately forced into a "pact" with Shiki Misaki, a stranger, as they are attacked by creatures called Noise.

As the week progresses, Neku learns that the Underground (UG) is where dead people, called Players, are given the chance to return to life by surviving the Reapers' Game for a week. Along the way, Neku also discovers the importance of listening to others and embracing life more fully.

Throughout the week, Neku and Shiki encounter various characters, including Beat and Rhyme, who Neku initially treats rudely but eventually accepts as friends. They also face off against the Harrier Reapers, Uzuki Yashiro and Koki Kariya, who seem like the primary antagonists at first and are responsible for erasing Rhyme. Another key figure is Sanae Hanekoma, an enigmatic man who runs a coffee shop on Cat Street and provides guidance to Neku and Shiki.

Set three years after the first game, the story begins with Fret inviting Rindo to meet him at the 104 Building. However, things quickly take a turn when they find Reaper Pins and get involved in a battle at Scramble Crossing, leading them to become participants in the Reapers' Game. The game takes place in the UG (Underground), a dimension resembling the real world, where Players form teams and must complete various missions set by the Game Master, Shiba. These missions range from solving puzzles to battling the Noise, and teams may even find themselves fighting each other for control of Shibuya in turf wars. Fret and Rindo meet Nagi and Sho Minamimoto, and together they form a team called the Wicked Twisters. The game lasts for seven days, with the team earning the most points being granted a wish, while the team with the fewest points faces erasure from existence. The question remains: will Rindo and the Wicked Twisters manage to survive and outlast the other teams in this high-stakes game?

General Information

Official Date: July 27, 2007 for The World Ends With You, July 27, 2021 for NEO: The World Ends With You.

Company: Sqaure Enix

Creator: Tetsuya Nomura

Genre: Thriller, Action role-playing, JRPG

Cosmology: Level IV Multiverse (In Secret Report 19 of The World Ends With You, the concept of parallel worlds are explained where reality is made of a continuous stirng of choices, and the consequences of those choices, where everytime a chocie is made, the option not selected brances off and exists as its own reality: a parallel world, composed of imaginary number planes and parallel planes being a fraction away, along with it being confirmed that the world is made up of numbers)

Number of Games: 2 video games, with the first video game having 3 updated versions

Status: Unknown

Sales

• The World Ends With You: Over 260,000 units
• NEO: The World Ends With You: Over 18,799 units

Reception:

• The World Ends With You: Critical Acclaim & Commerical Success (The first game was both a critical and commercial success, receiving the best JRPG reward of 2008 by IGN, along with being a nominee for best JRPG game by the Spike Video Game Awards.
• NEO: The World Ends With You: Critical Acclaim & Commerical Failure (While NEO: The World Ends With You was well received by users, it underperformed from Square Enix's initial expectations)

Power of the Verse

The World Ends With You has various supernatural characters with superhuman strengths and speed, with characters being able to do things like crash the moon onto the planet.

Knowledgeable Members

• GiverOfThePeace

Characters

Players

Neku Sakuraba Shiki Misaki Raimu "Rhyme" Bito

Repears

Angels

Noise

Physiologies

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  Noise Physiology