Crim's Art Blog

And that’s what I honestly love about his character because like any well-written character, he is often fraught with his own subjectivity.

I think an important thing to note is that in the Secret Reports, there is a small mistranslation that shapes a lot of what Hanekoma has to say regarding the events that takes place within the story; namely, Rindo DOESN’T have a high Imagination. It’s actually rather low or mediocre and his Replay power mainly comes from his pin, with Nagi and Fret being the real powerhouses.

(Shout-outs to my friend ζ for this great document!)

In the original ENG translation, the report went "For better or for worse, he is able to maintain abnormally high levels of Imagination, thereby increasing the accuracy of each Replay."

When in actuality, it’s "The higher [the] levels of Imagination he is able to maintain, [the] increas[ed] accuracy of each Replay." Which basically means that Replay relies on him maintaining the focus of his Imagination, rather than how much Imagination he has in general. It also fits in well what we know about Rindo and how he contrasts his team. Nagi is a huge otaku with a passion for her favorite gacha game, Fret is a fashionista that’s caught up on the latest trends, Shoka has her entire thing with Gatto Nero and Neku and Beat are winners of the last Reaper’s Game, with the former already having high amounts of Imagination even before he got sucked into the game due to a combination of his love for urban culture and the arts and Hanekoma’s graffiti subconsciously raising his Imagination levels even higher. Meanwhile, all Rindo has is the words of a social media guru that he mindlessly parrots and a mobile game that he casually plays. Not exactly grounds for cultivating a high level of Imagination, no? That said, Rindo is still able to function as a potent user of Replay due to his ability to hold a LOT of information in his head at one time, giving him a holistic view of the situation that makes him be able to piece together character relationships and bits of information in a way that he can use to his advantage to turn a bad situation around to his favor. W1D5, W2D2, W3D3, and the final day are especially great examples of this.

This is an important distinction to make because Hanekoma actually dismisses Rindo multiple times due to his low Imagination, in contrast to how supportive he was of Neku in the first game. Hanekoma's prioritization of Imagination is him believing that it is a necessary foundation for people to have in order to face adversity; to interpret their world; to grow, self-analyze, and to properly contribute to society. With that in mind, Rindo not having a good level of Imagination to him is indicative of a kid whose potential to do all these things is not as impressive and therefore would probably fail the Shinjuku Reaper’s Game. And to some extent, he’s right since Rindo does fuck up at times and stagnate when people he believes to be more capable show up to potentially solve his problems for him; taking away his responsibilities from him.

However, Rindo does grow from his mistakes, which ultimately culminates into him rejecting the offer for Haz to solve everything for him in favor of striving for a better future for both him and the people he cares about and the Shinjuku Game’s ruleset does make him come out of his shell as a leader, which was what ultimately saved all of them in the end, not his Imagination levels. It’s important to note that unlike the others, Rindo doesn’t actively participate in Operation Awakening: he’s the guy who gets the pieces to go where they need to go in order to have the operation go by smoothly and navigates them to do their job correctly. Operation Awakening ultimately succeeds due to Rindo’s skill as a leader, which Hanekoma did not view as something to make ado about. Hanekoma's vibe was that imagination, and by proxy, the things it provides a person to do, is something that is predisposed..but Rindo proved that you don't have to be predisposed to imagination to do really amazing things or affect change on a grand scale; you can learn how to do it through your experiences. There’s a reason why World is Yours, which is basically Rindo’s theme, has the phrase "Making mistakes is proof that you’re challenged. The World is Yours."

This is also a pretty big contrast when you consider how the Shibuya Game operated, which was heavily biased towards high Imagination people to excel further while pushing low Imagination people out of the running. I mean think about it: out of a normal week in the original game (Week 1), only Neku and Shiki survived legitimately (Beat only got by due to Hanekoma’s intervention in order to make him a wild card later on). But because they have high Imagination, Hanekoma is fine with such a low survival rate for the others. If someone only cares about supporting the already "gifted", then it makes sense that Hanekoma would only focus on a model that promotes Imagination gain and self-reflection for those he deems worthy, i.e. already have good Imagination.

That’s not even getting into how the nature of psychs and pins already predisposes low Imagination people to be weeded out in the original game. And of course, there’s also this Report from the original to consider.

"So, what happens to those who survive the week? Those whose Imagination is less than outstanding are broken down into Soul, while those with excellent Imagination become Reapers. The most talented of these may travel to the next plane, inhabited by Us Angels."

Remember Sota and Nao? By Hanekoma’s and the Shibuya Game’s logic, those two deserved to be absorbed into Soul by account of them not being able to survive but it’s because how the Game operates, that’s just how it has to be, even though the circumstances were out of their control and they are shown to be genuinely good people. From Hanekoma's view, he sees the act of facilitating Imagination as the means to progress evolution; a way to improve the health of world's laws. And why wouldn't he, right? By focusing on Imagination, you are promoting people to think better, to build self-awareness, to grow and change into better people; to reflect. Hanekoma finds this to be ideal, but maybe doesn't consider the vast ways with which people could achieve high Imagination. Hanekoma essentially viewed the lack of focus on Imagination specifically in the Shinjuku Games as precluding the capacity to grow and change, but failed to account for ways in which the team system could allow for growth and self-reflection in other ways even without an entry fee, and arguably more so because of it. The great thing about Hanekoma as a character is that while he has good intentions, he still falls under the Higher Plane mentality of "the ends justify the means" and this leads to a heavily biased perspective from his end. Just take a look these excerpts from the original game’s secret reports:

"My art is widely accepted in Shibuya."

"This proves that those with Imaginations sufficient to create the future are gathering in the area. Shibuya's future is looking very bright."

"I imbue my art with two command codes. The first is "Enjoy the moment more". This strengthens the Imagination. The proxy received this signal loud and clear, though past trauma precluded him from responding accordingly."

"The second code, "Gather", calls to those with strong Imaginations. Hence the inevitability: why wouldn't the Composer find his worthy proxy standing in front of my graffiti?"

When you break it down, he’s essentially saying "My art is so good that it is propelling Shibuya into a better future. Just ignore how I implant my own codes within it to specifically cultivate Imagination." Sounds just a bit egotistical, doesn’t it?

Shibuya is a hub of youth culture and is where new trends are born. Of course the UG of it would value individuality and creativity -> influencing others through art and passion. Shinjuku is both a business district but also has a very expansive night culture. It’s considered "adult" in comparison so of course the UG would value having to work with many, many different kinds of people -> being able to navigate and work with people to your advantage. This also helps to explain why the concept of entry fees aren’t a thing because the team set-up is the challenge in and of itself. Obviously Shiba’s version of the game is an anomaly so huge teams like that probably wouldn’t exist in a "normal" version of the game.

But being a leader in and of itself puts that individual in the best position to ascend and gain power within the UG, but then the leader is burdened with being in charge of the individuals under them. Meaning they have to learn to balance the two and work with their team. Likewise, just joining a team means you end up at the mercy of just following along with what your leader says, meaning without the ability to actually challenge or discuss things openly, you will also fail as an individual within that team.

Let’s compare Fuya and Kanon’s teams for this example: Fuya is explicitly noted to have a high Imagination but that didn’t stop him or his team from repeatedly coming into second-to-last place and the mental breakdown he’s currently having while Kanon doesn’t have a whole lot yet she has her head on her shoulders and the social skills needed to be an effective leader, hence why she and her team are able to survive relatively comfortably in the middle. Just having high Imagination or high qualities won’t be enough on its own if you’re unable to work together and balance out your respective strengths The Wicked Twisters end up being the best example of this ideal since they’re able to work together and clash thoughtfully as a team and support one another in times of needs, with the final day in particular running entirely on this concept. If just a single piece was out of place, the entire thing would’ve fallen apart.

Ultimately, Rindo’s growth is a response to OG TWEWY in that you don’t need high Imagination or some other equivalent to be able to enact change and that there are other methods to do so, especially if you use your own unique strengths for them.

Then we must compare how the respective Games are operated. The Shibuya Reaper missions (other than the one assigned by Kitaniji) tended to be pretty simple: go here, defeat Noise, etc. The other stuff such as the need to fix 777’s lighting seemed less about intentionally giving a mission and more incidental. They additionally have harrier Reapers, who more or less fit as the game’s RNG element with their job being to actively hunt down Players like animals. With this and giving the Players simple missions with little structure to go on but letting them have to figure out any resultant complications, the Shibuya Game is a lot more chaotic. By contrast, the Shinjuku Reapers are a lot more involved and administrative, which is fitting considering their business aesthetic. You have them being around to answer questions (unless you’re Shoka but she’s had to do this repeating structure for ages without a shake-up of things so it makes sense that she would be sick of it), preventing unfair interference, providing help, and generally ‘administering’ the missions. You have ordered events like the Scramble Slams, with the commentator actively, well, commentating, more involved missions like decals being set up ahead of time, spot-the-difference missions, a pig treasure hunt, etc…

Of course, there are certainly chaotic elements as well (bribing Reapers for more points, having to act on the whims of the Game Masters, teams forming alliances with one another, etc) but for the most part, it’s a much more controlled structure and it really fits in well when you consider the individuality vs sociality mindset of Shibuya and Shinjuku respectively and shows why Hanekoma, an Angel infatuated with Shibuya, would look down on the Shinjuku games in comparison. In his mind, Shibuya’s more emergent mechanics and interactions allow for more Imagination to be cultivated and to him, Imagination is the sole important thing to focus on. But Rindo’s growth disproves that mentality quite a bit and shows that, like many things, there’s room for compromise between both sides. It may also reflect the devs' changing opinions as culture has changed. In 2007 Nomura and company may have focused more on individual talent under the idea of the spirited sole artist, but by 2018, they realized that leadership and followership, and the ability to work in teams, also really fucking matters. Individuality is still important at the end of the day, hence why Rindo needed to get his shit together and not just become a follower like he was before in order to achieve better things for himself and others, but accepting and learning to balance different viewpoints in order to achieve a desired solution is also extremely important.

At the end of the day, Rindo’s growth is a response to OG TWEWY in that you don’t need high Imagination or some other equivalent to be able to enact change and that there are other methods to do so, especially if you use your own unique strengths for them and even Hanekoma himself seems to realize this when he praises Rindo’s ultimate decision and the courage he had to have to make that choice and sincerely hopes to meet him someday.

I like to think abt Neku reopening wildkat after ntwewy and nagi fret working for him :)

There Was A Time When...

Some of them who know what I am occasionally try to contact me, but I cannot respond.

My old café on Cat Streetーthe one that served as my base three years agoーis always open to them. I hear that some drop by on occasion.

Inspired by the above NEO Secret Report with an appearance of the everchanging library and scenes from the fic Signal, Noise and Distortion as a bonus.

Soft Felines.