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Neku Sakuraba (swapped with Joshua)

Remeber how shitty he was in week one? Imagine that but for the whole game. Whatever experiences Neku had before he became composer made him quite cold hearted and self centered. Neku's shibuya is less superficial, he doesn't feel any need to hide the fact that he doesn't care about other people. Only through chosing Joshua as his proxy to play a game out of sheer boredom, does his heart soften a little more. Edgy emo 15 year old but it's so serious now. I'd say he's a bit more grouchy and self centered.

His relationship with Joshua is about the same, but he is disconnected from the others in the hachiko gang since he won't interact with them as much here. Like I mentioned in Josh's post, their character arcs are parallels anyways so there wouldn't be many changes plot wise. The interesting stuff comes from the other characters (I'm cooking I swear just wait for my shiki and beat posts....)

I'm no game dev but I think the mechanics would be pretty different if neku was the composer instead. For one thing, he doesn't care about clothing so why would he let the dead people shop? I'm not really sure how I would do it, but I think the game would be more music-centric to reflect his character.

In this au, Minamimoto plays the role of Hanekoma. In this case, he's Neku's connection (and also an angel). Their dynamic would be like bickering siblings... older bro Minamimoto... kind of similar to his character in NEO. Sometime in the future, I'll probably make a post dedicated to him as well.

Design Notes:

I've read Nomura's notes on Joshua's design, and he said that his design is deliberately simpler than the rest of the cast, with baggier clothes that might not fit him right, to suggest that there may be something more to his character. I wanted to include those elements while still making sure he's readable as Neku, since his color palette and headphones are just too iconic to change. I'm not really sure if I've achieved that at all, but for now I'm fine with it! I'm not gonna stress over it anymore!!! Still wanted him to be in a kind of sportswear loo, and and I wanted his hair to be less sq enix protagonisty so I made it downturned instead. Both my Neku and Josh designs have the two little hair spikes to match each other :)

ain't that cute

Yoshiya "Joshua" Kiryu (swapped with neku)

If you haven't seen my other post, the premise of the swap au is that each character keeps their personality and entry fees (with small changes) but they have swapped what roles they play in the story.

In this case, Joshua is no longer the composer, but the proxy of the composer neku. His personality is about the same, but because he gets the chance to interact with more characters and develop a bit more than in the game, he's ultimately a bit more like how he is in dream drop distance; the same guy just a lot less malicious and a lot more helpful.

Since Josh doesn't have any entry fees in og TWEWY he simply has Neku's fees instead. Because Beat & Shiki swap weeks as well, Beat is Josh's entry fee for week two rather than Shiki. His cause of death is also the same as Neku, but with Neku being the perp instead. Much like Neku, Josh also has 2 player pins and is able to use multiple psychs.

In TWEWY, Josh and Neku are parallels anyways, so their character arcs are pretty similar; closed off with their own ideals, getting dragged into forming relationships with people, realizing life ain't so bad, etc. Swap Joshua will essentially have the exact same character arc as Neku. The other characters will be a bit different, and I will detail Josh's relationship with them in their own posts respectively.

Design Notes:

Joshua's original design is pretty simplistic as a way to contrast with the other characters. Now that he's the protagonist, I figured I'd give him a little bit more detail. I slightly changed his hair, added a belt, a necklace (choker), and a wrist cuff much like what Neku has in his og design. His belt and his shoes match cuz why not I, love checkerboard stuff so it was a bit self indulgent lol. The stars on his sweater are a reference to his NEO design.