#def march

The thing that did him in was lung cancer. The lollipop's a replacement cigarette, in much the same way people recommend chewing on hard candy if you're trying to quite smoking. Why did he decide to quit after he died, and he no longer had anything to worry about? Listen the Game's all about growth, and Kariya is possibly the strongest because he is so capable of change, of going with the flow, and learning from his mistakes.

Like every ex-Player, he had a partner when he won his game, and I don't have a whole lot of headcanons for them except 1) they chose to return to life, and 2) Uzuki reminds him of them a lot.

Mitsuki was a woman working her ass off to try and make it in male-led office, until she literally worked herself to death. As you might expect, this royally pissed her off. She was desperate to return to life, but unfortunately, her entry fee came as a pair. What her partner, a simple farmwoman from out of town, valued most was the ability to go unnoticed and unremarked on, while Mitsuki deeply coveted every scrap and morsel of recognition she could get.

So their partnership was cursed so no matter what they did, people's eyes would skate over Mitsuki, dismiss her, and Mitsuki's partner would be lauded with the credit. Mitsuki became almost invisible, while her partner was forced to step up and do most of the talking.

This led her partner feeling more comfortable with being seen, with taking up space, so when the chance came to return to life, she took it with grace. Mitsuki, on the other hand, came to realize she liked working from the shadows. And besides, she could have more power as a reaper than anything a stupid company of the living could offer her...

Higashizawa is pretty simple, both in the game and in my headcanons. He's a cook. Maybe an army cook, but the point is he values food as a part of life, and had to cope with entry fee in the game being unable to eat, despite all the other players, including his partner, being able to.

I picture his partner on the younger side, maybe a cadet, maybe not. They had a very sweet dynamic, very paternal. Even though he couldn't eat, Higashizawa would break into restaurants that didn't have a reaper decal, and "commandeer" their kitchens to make dishes, which, despite only one of them eating them, saved them enough yen and gave enough stat boosts for them to win the game. And led to a spiked increase in reports in "haunted kitchens" for the week they were playing.

Kitanji is TRANS. I know this for a fact. Mr. Square Enix himself told me.

"Megumi" is technically a unisex name but much more commonly a feminine one, something that is actually brought up in the manga, when my dumb cat son tries to nickname Kitanji and Kitanji snaps back that he's very sensitive about his name and was bullied as a kid. This is a trans guy.

He ran a record store in life that unfortunately fell victim to an armed robbery, and Kitanji was killed. His most important thing, his name, was taken from him as his entry fee. This further parallels him to Neku, who woke up in the game knowing nothing but his name. It could also explain why he's so distrusting of Shibuya and thinks the world would simply be better if everyone conformed; after being on the end of transphobic bullying in life, the idea of standing out and embracing the chaos of being a unique soul terrifies him.

MINAMIMOTO is my dumb stupid goth catboy son and I am INSUFFERABLE about him. I have SO many headcanons it's insane.

First off, he died of general exposure, as he was homeless for most of his life. This nicely ties into his habit of collecting garbage, making trash into something brash and artistic, and his general attitude of making himself heard and assertive, while still being so in tune with the flow of the city and people that he has powers unseen in any other reaper. Minamimoto was ignored by the city in life so in death HE IS GOING TO KILL GOD AND TAKE HIS PLACE. WHILE BEING EXTREMELY LOUD ABOUT IT.

So it stands to reason that his entry fee, upon entering the game, was his voice. For the entire game, he was completely mute.

(One of the first things he did as a reaper, was get his megaphone.)

His partner was a diver from the coast who's entry fee was her memories of her home. She knew she had one, she just couldn't remember where, and who was waiting for her in the living world. They developed a series of hand signs for Sho to communicate with, both having a rough grasp of JSL, Sho from some fellow homeless people who were deaf and her from her experience as a diver.

My other big, big headcanon for him is, about 3/4s of the way through the week, she died. Sho, knowing about the seven minutes rule because he picks things up quickly, knew he didn't have long to live if he let her soul energy dissipate and that she would never find out where he home was, but it was MOSTLY about his own survival, shut up, collected up her soul data and tried balancing her equation and a bunch of other Minamimoto nonsense I am not smart enough to write. x = acos(t) and y = asin(t) over root 2 and all that.

He turned her into a noise.

After all, transformation is kinda his thing, and he's notably skilled at manipulating Soul and giving it new forms. He was the one who discovered the loophole that Beat would use to save his sister in week 1. It's what originally put him on Hanekoma's radar as someone to keep an eye on. Hanekoma also made note of the process in case he ever needed it.

After that, Minamimoto went on to win the game, have his partner restored to life, and was now far too curious about studying Soul and Noise to even think of doing anything else but staying in the UG.

His noise form, while originally a boar, he managed to by complete force of will shape into a lion, just because he wanted to be a lion.

He had a short tenure as a wall reaper, where he would ask impossibly long math questions of the "A train leaves Philadelphia at 8:00am traveling 90 mph" variety. This caused him to be promoted to an Officer just to stop him from being a Harrier, and some rules to be laid down regarding what can and can't be a viable quiz for the wall questions.

Def March was a real band before they died, probably in some hilarious way, that killed all three of them. Being Shibuya's only instance of a rare three person pact, their collective entry fee was their memories of knowing each other in life, but they decided to stick together anyways despite having no idea who these random two other guys they woke up in the afterlife with were. Cue clown music as they proceed to become best friends and vow to start a band together once they win the game.

They decided to stay as reapers once they won because none of them could think of anything cooler than a metal band that was actually dead.

Although still very passionate about music, most of their memories of being a band getting erased meant they had some space to explore new hobbies. BJ and Tenho decided to combine their newfound loves of bar trivia and local history into a new method of Harrying, known as the Reaper Review.

Coco wasn't able to see much of the city when she was alive, being hospital bound for most of her life before losing the fight to a chronic illness at a young age. So she took to being a reaper with gusto, diving in to the local trends and culture like she was starving for it. Her entry fee might be considered a paltry thing to most, the ability to see color, but it truly was the thing about herself she valued most. After a life of drab grey walls and sterile surfaces, color was deeply important to her, none moreso than the colors she chose for herself.

She's also the most adventurous of the Shibuya reapers, being the one to actually leave the district and travel to other places in the city, which is how she and Tsugumi became friends.

Uzuki is the second newest reaper, having died recently of a heart attack (see the sprites where she clutches her chest when taken off guard) Like Mitsuki, she was originally deeply annoyed by her life being cut short, but adapted quickly to the new structure of the reapers and is aiming high after realizing how much more being a reaper can offer her. I genuinely have no idea what her entry fee might have been so I am currently in the market for a good headcanon there.

Joshua is the most recent addition to the Shibuya reapers

Okay, hear me out.

First off, I am obsessed with the fanon that Joshua and Fret knew each other in life. Joshua is heavily implied in the first game to have taken his own life, while Fret speaks in the second about losing a friend to what is heavily implied to be suicide. The idea that the loss that set Fret down the path of repression and insincerity was Joshua scratches my brain in such a satisfying way.

Second, he's a prodigy in all things UG related, but has the general attitude and personality of someone actually the age he appears to be. Boy is chronically 15. I think it's much more likely he died a little more than a year or two ago before the start of twewy and rose through the ranks quickly, rather than being some eternally 15 twerp whose been around for years.

It is mentioned he knew Hanekoma in life, and would visit CAT street frequently to talk about the UG, which is something he could see even before he died. He killed himself knowing where he would go, and how he was special.

So I think his entry fee is he got to the UG and couldn't see anything.

No noise, no reapers, no players. Hanekoma was waiting for him, being just enough of a non-game-related entity to at least give him a heads up and see he got a Pact. Joshua himself doesn't know much about his partner, being unable to see them for the entire game. But he did rely on them. Trust your partner. In Josh's case, he had to.

In General:

As far as anime adaptations of video games go, this is definitely a good one in so many ways. I have a few issues that I’ll get into, but this was obviously made with talent, passion, creativity and a good love of the source material.

One big flaw which is squarely the fault of how much the makers of the show had to work with is the pacing. 12 episodes is barely enough to do this game justice and it isn’t enough to get so much of what makes this game and these characters great come across. You’re squeezing a week’s worth of missions into 3 episodes with the first week alone, when the missions have their greatest relevance. The day-to-day struggle of going through the game and taking the time to get the missions right and getting to know each other is something that feels like a process, which is what the Reaper’s Game is meant to be. But that doesn’t come across too well because of how crammed the pacing is. It makes moments like Shiki thinking over the impact of the game feel cheap because it’s barely been that much time for us. So there’s a big risk of me just making this list tons of nit-picks of omissions, but I’ll try to avoid that. At the end of the day, things had to be cut and rearranged to make this show work, so it’s better to raise issue where there were more avoidable problems. The bottom line is that while I’m ultimately more glad to have this show than to not have it, it needs to be said right off the bat that it deserved better and would have benefitted from being able to stretch out its story by even just a few more episodes.

There’s lots of great little references to little aspects of the game throughout the show, like billboards, pins and even people once or twice. Love a good reference, I do.

It’s hardly new or surprising to say that the animation is fantastic. That OP intro is the sickest thing! The action especially is really fun, flashy and fluid.

That said, they do take the easy way out a bit by having Neku default to fire attacks all the time with occasional dips into other psych abilities, without ever really getting into the pins that his psychs are sourced from. He has so much more range, one of the cool things about playing as him. I miss that versatility.

On top of that, a lot of the fights are pretty formulaic. The tough battles, however flashy and cool they are, just boil down to [Neku and Partner exchange blows with enemy] -> [Enemy gets them on the ropes] -> [Neku and Partner unleash fusion attack and defeat enemy]. It’s the same routine and as cool as it is, it makes battles predictable.

I generally really like the art style of the anime. Everyone looks very much like themselves, even if not as stylised. They’re still stylised in a different way for the show, which makes it distinct but close and I like that.

Having said that, it does make everybody look a bit more cute-sy. This largely doesn’t bother me, but we did lose two good men out there. Well, I say ‘good’... What I’m saying is that Joshua and Kariya are the biggest casualties here. Joshua’s sly eyes that are always mocking you just aren’t there and is he even really Joshua without those?? Same kinda goes for Kariya, who wore experience all over him along with his lackadaisical attitude at almost all times. You nearly never saw him without some kind of grin and it was so incredibly weird to see him almost never so much as smirking, or looking like a plush toy when he finally did.

This issue extends a bit into characterisation too. Kariya accompanies Uzuki when she tries to get Neku to kill Shiki and just watches. I feel like Kariya would pull a Hanekoma and reel Uzuki in here. He’s lazy but not a rebel to the rules. He just seems way too detached by being there as a spectator. In general, he doesn’t have anything close to the same dynamic with Uzuki. They don’t bicker or debate like an old married couple, they don’t make bets for ramen like siblings and in general they don’t talk like they’re best friends nearly as much and it’s disappointing because their friendship was one of the really fun and interesting parts of the Reapers as a group. Take it away and they’re just kind of boring.

I’ll say right now that I’m not a fan of unnecessary changes. I can see some weird changes that I’m not a fan of but I understand them because they serve a purpose in the altered narrative, usually altered to fit the story into a more episodic format. I can get a few rearrangements and things, but things like scanning being a more intimate process of touching people individually is visually kinda cool and nothing else. It’s an alteration of the lore that nettles me more than you’d think because of the theme. Noise. Music. Cacaphony. Scanning is meant to be like having the radio turned on at every station at once that you need to focus through. It’s meant to be overwhelming but a display of Shibuya’s diversity and conflict. It’s a feeling that gets changed in Week 3 when you only receive one signal from all people. You can see how it’s a minor thing that doesn’t matter in the big picture, but it’s a thematic visualisation of society and how they’re affected that gets lost here.

Also not sure what I think of the noise possessing people in the UG. It’s something that actually got theorised about in the secret reports of the game, but here it just happens regularly because of “negative emotion” which is a trope that I feel always comes across as playing with fire. Emotions are a complex thing and simplifying it to “Very angry=bad” and such always feels cheap. In general, there’s a similar kind of cheapness across the show of its themes, big and small. An inevitable part of the adaptation process, but a sad one to see.

On that note, Neku’s character development. I have to be fair and acknowledge that a game like TWEWY with its length, depth and length of depth was never going to get the kind of nuanced growth that Neku got in the games, especially in the aforementioned 12 episodes. So with that in mind, the show does a decent job. Even so, some of the choices with him are... choices. It really downplays his anti-social behaviour at the start of the game, which is pretty critical. You don’t get to see his utter dismissal and complete distrust of other people. He’s way too tolerant of Shiki at the start and as such, it’s harder to accept that he’s someone in need of redemption. His character development is good given the circumstances that it’s in, but I get the sense that the challenge was lessened for the sake of ease here. It’s one of the major things that really deserved better, but I do appreciate that they tried.

The noise were really done justice here! They look so cool, they have tons of variance and whether they fight the same as they do in the game or not, they’re an intimidating challenge that Neku and the gang have to earn victories from. I never realised how much I like the noise until watching this, actually.

The anime lets us see many more random Players outside of Neku’s circles, which is great. It’s cool to see the Game as a much bigger thing with lots of lives at stake that you can actually see. We originally only got a simple display of that in an early cutscene of the game. Also lets us witness the noise being a lot more menacing as they literally have cannon fodder to wipe out.

There’s also more variance to the designs of the other Reaper randos, which is such a blessing to not see the same red hooded guy and black hooded guy everywhere Neku goes.

Megumi kind of defaulted to smiling in all but one of his sprites, so it’s really weird to not only not see him smile in the first place, but for him to smile so rarely during meetings and things. I miss seeing his regular good humoured manner, even while giving serious instructions. It just feels like I’m watching a different character... With a drinking problem... He got done dirty by this show.

I’ll be honest and admit I’m bad at paying attention to this kind of thing my first time through unless it really stands out, but the soundtrack is great from what I’ve noticed. Good cameos from the original game but also some cool music of its own. Thumbs up on that front!

Week 1 (Episodes 1-3):

I kind of like Shiki telling Neku about the UG rather than Hanekoma. You’d think info like that would be commonplace among the players, except for Neku, of course.

In spite of the decent job the show does with Neku’s growth, it takes away Neku’s choice in trying to kill Shiki by making him possessed by the noise instead of naturally distrustful of her. It’s less of a failure on his part to trust others and more a failure of his ability to control his emotions, which has almost nothing to do with his anti-social personality. The growth is less “Trust your partner” and more “Do what you want, just don’t be so mad, bro”.

I do like that he’s more apologetic for almost killing her though.

Also, I’d wondered this before, but it does make much more sense for Megumi to issue the order for all players to get erased after they’ve done the mission that enacts his red skull trend that was crucial to his month long broader game. Then again, I guess if that’d happened, he’d still have beaten the Composer’s proxy and won the game that way, assuming that was valid in the face of his “Fix Shibuya” win-requirement. So it’s pretty smart of him to issue his big gambit plan with the survivors of that mission, ensuring the best players handle his big plan since it’s possible that they won’t get erased as easily as he’d like. Mind blown! Right here! Anyway, yeah, it’s cool that the show gives us that with two birds in one stone.

I don’t like the anguis hax sky lasers after the red skull mission. Part of what sets Higashizawa up as a character and sets Week 1 apart as a week of the game is that there are no shenanigans screwing up what’s normally a legal process and we get to witness that firsthand for a full week before everything goes off-rails. Higashizawa doesn’t need to cheat the players because he’s just a clever and efficient GM (proxy) who comes up with a gambit that screws everyone over. Here, he just cheats and apocalypses everyone. It’s kinda weak.

Shiki’s arc is a mixed bag. They did her well but it was also really rushed. I went on for ages about Day 6 in the game liveblog, so you know my passion for that day and Shiki’s arc there if you’ve seen that. Here, her issues are downplayed a bit as is her way of getting over it. Neku’s first encouragement to her happen a little too easily and fix things a little too quickly, when the original game had that comment be more of a precursor to her healing - a first step. It was also a dramatic line to hear from Neku, whereas anime Neku isn’t super nice, but you don’t get the sense that praising someone else is out of the ordinary for him, so that feeling of surprise growth from him isn’t really there. As for Shiki, she just kind of wallows a bit but doesn’t really shut down as much as she did in the game, partly due to not having our Week 1 antagonist throw it in her face. I do love the way we see her and Eri breaking down over each other, but that then kind of muddles in the reveal that everyone in the UG is dead and I think I’d be a bit lost if this was my first time through the story. It’s a bit overwhelming, but I can understand this is largely another issue that’s caused by the pacing. I basically don’t want to reproach too much of this because what is properly given time is pretty good, but it could have used more set up and development.

Neku referencing specific moments from the game to show her strengths to her is neat. I do miss his more general Neku-advice about being you, but this is an effective way of demonstrating a similar point about self-acceptance.

Oof. That shot that showed Sota and Nao’s accident that gets them into the game. I take it back, no more references please!

OH MY GOODNESS the brutality of Rhyme’s death is WAY worse than it was in the game! That was a sucker punch!

It looks a bit like Rhyme was Uzuki’s kill but I feel like it’s implied that Kariya was the one who killed Rhyme in the game, though it’s a bit of a moot point. It’s a weird thing for me to fixate on. I’m more sad that Kariya doesn’t rationally blame Beat for her demise more as that was one of the harder hitting aspects of her loss. He just kind of behaves like the cartoon villain the show has kind of made him into. I miss his nuance.

That final fight against Higashizawa was AWESOME! Could have used more giant Mr Mew though. Underused hero of the story here!

Yodai doesn’t congratulate Shiki on the win, but then he didn’t have a pre-existing enemy relationship with her here, so there’d be less point if they did. Alas poor chef.

I see the anime isn’t doing the whole “Throw the audience into the next game and flashback to explain what happened later” thing. It’s not an issue for me, but ironically I think that approach would have been better served in an episodic setting like this.

Neku and Shiki don’t see Beat become a Reaper here, which is a good idea. Builds up the suspense of what happened to him and makes it more of a reveal when he shows up as a Reaper. It was a bit funny that Neku seemed so surprised by that in the original game.

They don’t bother mentioning the points system here, which is probably a good call. It was weirdly complicated and underexplained when you think about it in the original game, which I called up before. Here, Megumi’s just like “This game is different and Shiki, you’re the only one because you had the best character development” and dang, that’s a simplification that actually kind of makes a lot of sense? Like it’s a more believable excuse than the “Composer says so because points” one he gives in the game.

“Neku went through a much bigger change” Mmm, did he though, Shiki? In the game, definitely. Here, it’s not that noticable. Kinda plays to the anime’s favour, actually.

So Shiki getting taken as Neku’s entry fee hurts her. It’s another mixed bag for me because it kind of makes the Reaper’s look more evil, which they’re not meant to generally be, plus we’re basically watching our girl get tortured. But it does amp up the drama and seeing Neku so concerned for her to her face is quite touching.

Week 2 (Episodes 4-7):

I don’t know they did it, but they really found a way to make Sho even more extra (or, extra extra, if you will)

The scan-via-touch thing hits an inconsistancy pretty quickly when Neku literally falls into Joshua’s arms when he meets him but doesn’t sense anything, but then when it’s convenient for the narrative, he gets those flashes when he touches Joshua’s shoulder.

Now Sho too? Why does the show have to make the GM’s seem desperate to kill players by breaking the rules so much? It gave us a cool moment of Neku trying to rally everyone to trust their partners, but still...

I always figured the trash heaps were in the UG. Hard to know for sure how physical objects in the UG work and all, but if those towers of trash were in the RG, I’d have thought they’d draw too much attention to the Reapers. Then again, the game did have Konishi ordering a couple of Reaper mooks to clear those piles up, so maybe that’s exactly the case. Either way, Sho is more of a loose cannon than I knew.

That scene with Neku and Eri in the flower shop was so sweet. When the anime takes its time, you get really good scenes out of it! I like seeing more of Eri and her grief for Shiki as well as how Neku in his own grief starts thinking more about who he is.

Ooh! I love that Neku has his talks with Hanekoma and Joshua openly while all three are sitting together. You get to see Mr H is clearly gunning to change Neku’s mind and Joshua is aware of it and has a different take. It’s like a friendly game of chess is happening between them as they talk that Neku isn’t aware of. That’s a cool detail.

We see them very briefly, but I love how Tenho and BJ get the classic Reaper mook designs as their own. Good for them.

This is such a simple detail that I doubt most people will care about, but I love the fact that the time travel camera only works a couple of times a day because it drains the battery. That’s way more believable and logical than an arbitrary 3 shot limit. (Though I do still like Neku and Josh both being joint annoyed at Hanekoma for the arbitrary limit). I swear, they made it a video camera here just so they could include that line “This mic is zetta sexy!” didn’t they? Good for them.

Sota and Nao get their time in the sun! And it is glorious! The anime seriously found a way to make them even bigger sweethearts than they already were. I love them so much! It was kinda cool how the show spaced out their talk with Neku, giving them more time to think over their perspective and bond with him over a couple of days instead of one nice meeting. They were done so well. Their deaths were sadly a bit rushed though.

Did, uh... Did Tenho and BJ die? I made a point about them having the OG basic Reaper designs and then we saw those designs bite the dust. I think it was the same voices too. Even if that wasn’t them, seeing that makes me major sad. I’m very attached to all those guys.

That detail of the actual map from the game being used as Joshua describes the path of Route 5 was sooo slick!

I like Uzuki and Kariya helping out Neku to pay him back for helping them. I notice Neku helping them has no vindictive reasoning this time around, but given how none of the other events from that day were as present, it was kind of the only opportunity to show Neku helping people.

They also just come right out and say that Beat is totally screwing around with his mission to take them out and is even low-key protecting them here. I do like that; that’s pretty cool.

Getting to see Neku and Josh drop the freaking moon on Minamimoto was pretty awesome, but now I feel cheated out of Mr Mewzilla.

JOSHUA THREW NEKU OFF THE BUILDING!! It’s just what I wanted for Christmas! I always imagined Joshua doing that to Neku and it’s great to see that’s what was meant to be.

Week 3 (Episodes 8-12)

Aww, Rhyme helping Beat out in the battle to save Neku is a really nice touch.

I’m a little gutted that there’s no Uzuki-Beat banter. We were so close to the thin ice line... Plus, she’s just not as rage-happy as she was in the game.

Dang, Beat’s just coming right out of the gate with the Rhyme reveal. Honestly, it’s a fairly easy twist to call, so I think it flows better here.

Also, the anime’s confirming Mr H gave Beat a LOT of information. It’s like it’s implying that Hanekoma planted the idea in Beat’s head that he needs to become the Composer. I’m fairly sure info like that was at least unconfirmed, if not outright just a different source.

Considering how erasing people was something we never outright saw Neku and Beat do, even regularly seeing them not erase people, did they just erase that rando Reaper who attacked them and then not even comment on it? They just moved right along, huh? Brutal.

Oh my goodness, we DID see BJ and Tenho die! Awww noooooooo!! 777 was wearing their hoodies! It’s bad enough that they’re left behind in the original game, now 777 is the one left behind here, before Konishi shows up to wipe out Def March. That’s so SAD! 777 refusing to wear an O-pin is also a nice touch.

Oh no, we actually get to see the moment Beat and Rhyme died! I’m not really a fan of how they did that to be honest. The original story according to Beat had Beat literally running away across the road and Rhyme chasing after him in such a hurry that she ran into the path of an oncoming car. Sure, Rhyme was pursuing Beat here but the car going out of control was a freak accident heading off the road, after Rhyme had stopped moving, no less. It’s less a case of Rhyme’s route taking her to the car and more the car’s route taking it to her. The fact that Rhyme went after Beat being a direct correlation to her death is still here, but I think it’s less strong.

It seems like they just combined all of the Beat and Rhyme conversations into one here. I’m not really against that, because if I’m honest, those Week 3 conversations did feel a bit like one big long talk split into three for the sake of pacing, which works fine, but here it seems like we’re losing out on the whole dream stuff, even though Beat set up for it earlier when he said he wanted to be the greatest skateboarder. Yeah, he brings it up later, but it gets morphed into sounding like being the greatest skateboarder really is his dream, rather than an excuse made to comfort Rhyme, which was the whole point of the dream thing in the first place as well as setting up what Rhyme’s actual entry fee was. It’s one less emotional punch to the story as well.

I do like how they’re kind of self-aware about how Neku’s “you’re an idiot” pep talk is so backhanded. That’s a fun thing to acknowledge.

Since Kariya and Uzuki don’t have a presence at this point, I like the implication that starting at the Underpass where Beat died looks more like it was Konishi’s doing than Kariya’s. Wasn’t totally out of character for Kariya, but it did seem a bit mean for him.

Beat gets to be a bit more big-brain here since the anime doesn’t have the time to have him figure things out slowly. Good for him! But having said that, it does mean we see less of his personality. I miss his childlike attitude as he wrestled to figure things out, got excited when he thought he had it and was disappointed when he was shot down. We’re only really getting to see his serious deduction work and we’re losing out on some of the fun that Beat is to be around.

That added scene with Beat and Neku helping Eri was really nice! I’m glad Eri gets to have a bigger presence in the anime. She just kinda disappeared after her role in the story. Plus, the Lv2 Fusion attack was awesome!

It’s cool how Week 3 has the sky being an ominous red colour as more and more of the city falls to the red skull pins. It’s a great atmosphere.

The fight against Kariya and Uzuki was as fun and frantic as it should have been. Really good action and good use of our villains duo!

Oh snap, Lv2 and Lv3 fusion in one episode? It’s only episode 9! How do you go up from that?

Kariya and Uzuki’s confrontation about promotion is decent, but again it feels watered down a bit. There could have been more pauses or something because it feels like we just suddenly get into it and that it doesn’t seem like as big of a deal as it should be if Kariya is just casually getting into it. It’s interesting to hear him be more sincere and less sarcastic about enjoying spending his time with Uzuki.

Seeing Konishi actively gathering data at the expense of Kariya and Uzuki, as well as Hanekoma clearly bringing back Sho was honestly really cool to see!

It took me a while to realise that the whole “5 days to live” thing that Beat got for leaving the Reapers wasn’t here, which is honestly for the best. It never really went anywhere in the game anyway. I am sad to lose Beat’s freakouts, of course.

Interesting choice to have Neku and Beat on the events of Day 7 by Day 6, a whole day ahead of schedule.

Neku and Beat channelling power into the Rhyme noise so that she can go through a Pokemon evolution and fight Konishi herself for a devastating victory was immensely satisfying!

Extending Neku and Shiki’s conversation about her being his entry fee a little was really cute. It did trail off a bit abruptly in the original game, I felt.

Combining the first two battles against Megumi into one was a decent move, actually. It saves a little time and looks pretty good. We may not have gotten the giant Mr Mew, but the Mr Mew legion is a solid substitute!

That said, while it’s a flashy battle, Draco Cantus is done before the opening title of the last episode and Neku fights it the same way the game had us fighting the second Megumi battle. I can see how it condenses the story quite effectively, but it’s a bit less climactic.

A shorter monologue of his plan, no personal appeal to Neku, no questioning of Neku’s journey, no attempt to imprint on Neku and subsequent reveal of the second player pin, no farewell to Joshua, no well wishes to Neku, gets erased before his timer even runs out with less than 2 minutes left, half of his plan gets explained by Josh and Hanekoma later and not even so much as a smile throughout the entire anime. Megumi got done SO dirty by this show and honestly, that really gets to me. It’s probably the thing I’m most annoyed about.

I prefer the Room of Reckoning, but I do like the show making more use of the corridor with all the CAT graffiti. It’s a good spot for a final confrontation.

Dat effect when Joshua summoned the guns. That was so cool.

Joshua mentioning needing to punish Hanekoma is weird to me. I feel like it’s better that how much he knows about Mr H’s involvement and how he feels about it is more ambiguous. Plus, I always saw their roles as close to equal, so it’s weird to see him specifically talk down about Hanekoma.

Oh flipping heck.

No.

That is so bad.

Gosh freaking darn it.

Are you kidding?

“I’ll trust you”???

Screw this.

SERIOUSLY!?

They BUTCHERED that scene!

Neku having those thoughts and taking inventory while we get those clear shots of him thinking things through right before he throws his gun down to the floor and warmly declares that he’s going to trust Joshua just RIPS away all the ambiguity, the emotion, the panic, the pain, the confusion, the risk, the uncertainty and turns this dramatic and jaw-dropping moment into a freaking Disney movie. And I’m talking direct-to-DVD Disney sequel here. That is just awful. It strips the gravitas away from the moment, it strips the complexity away from Neku and it strips the tension away from the audience. That. Sucked.

The RG people being in full colour the moment Neku is brought back to life fully was awesome! It’s so weird how used to their discoloured effect I was and I was only really aware of it when it was gone, so that was actually really well done! I don’t know if they were always around, but I immediately started recognising shopkeepers in the background like the Mus Rattus and Wild Boar girls, as well as Shooter and Yammer. Really nice detail.

Oh my gosh, the reunion was such a cute scene. The way we saw Shiki without seeing her was really good. The way parts of it paralleled the game’s ending shot-for-shot and NEKU TAKING OFF HIS HEADPHONES RIGHT THEN AND THERE!! That was awesome!

Joshua and Hanekoma’s secret ending moment getting an extension to go over some secret reports info for anime audiences is a good move and quite an interesting one. That said, the differences are really weird. They make Megumi sound like a total crook even though everything he did was fair game for the sake of enacting his plan to play against the Composer in their wager. Then they go on to just declare that Joshua went one further than simply giving Neku a spare Player Pin as a precaution and Hanekoma also gave Neku powers beyond what he was supposed to be capable of. In other words, both Joshua and Mr H cheated the game. THAT. ROYALLY. SUCKS. No honour, no real foresight, no faith in Neku and no respect for Kitaniji. What the heck. This game that was such a grandiose gathering of gambits as well as growth in skill in the original game just got reduced to a set of loaded dice.

And them just outright explaining why Joshua didn’t destroy Shibuya is so lame, again stripping the ending of all ambiguity or at least leaving the audience with the freedom to use their heads. But I do get that one. We were shown the reasons why plain as day throughout the game. The anime had to shorten everything so badly that it didn’t really get that luxury.

SOTA AND NAO ARE ALIVE AAAAAAHHHHHHH YYYEEEEESSSSSS AND THEY’RE FRIENDS WITH NEKU AND CO

777 AND DEF MARCH ARE ALIVE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH

Never mind, this is the best ending ever.

Genuinely though, the way we get to see Neku and everyone heading over to check out some CAT graffiti while montaging through other characters carrying on enjoying life is really lovely. It’s a good ending to the anime and the graffiti of Neku’s headphones was a nice touch. We don’t get Neku’s final monologue unfortunately, nor his big freaked out “What the hell!?” when he’s brough back to life, but since the duel between him and Joshua got utterly ruined, I honestly don’t care much at this point. I’m just glad the ending is an overall happy experience.

Closing Thoughts

I think my favourite adaptation of a video game’s story to another medium remains the Persona 4 anime followed closely by the Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days manga. This wasn’t bad, but it should have been better and falls short of the kind of quality other attempts have achieved. At their best, adaptations like this can do justice to the original story, retell events in creative ways and even potentially expand on the characters if it’s willing to take the time to do so.

I don’t know the reasons behind the choices of this anime. I don’t know why it was only 12 episodes and I’m happy to hear the answer to that if someone knows it. All I know is that the final result shows that decision to be a very flawed one. Some episodes, particularly some of the later episodes, were actually well paced, but it came at the expense of pacing for earlier episodes. You can see good ideas here and it’s obvious that if this show had had the time, it could have not only done justice to at least most of the stories and characters in the original game, it could even have given us fun new takes on them. As it stands, those ideas are rushed or implemented in a crammed way. Emotionally powerful moments from the original pack the punch of a teddy bear and the gradual growth of our main character, the centrepiece of this story, happens in leaps rather than the steady pace that felt so natural in the game.

But like I said, it’s not bad. Sure, certain critical moments were destroyed, characters like Joshua and Kariya felt pretty off and poor sweet Megumi was completely massacred, but the show is a visual and audial feast, the intro is sick, the noise are really cool, some of the new ideas do get to shine pretty well and some depictions of old scenes are at least decently well done.

Overall, it’s difficult to get my bearings on how I feel about it and I might need more time, because it’s one of those things that I really want to like and there is good stuff in it, but the disappointment of the few specific things that really bug me will always hold it back massively. I certainly don’t hate it but I can’t love it either. I just like it and even then, I don’t how much I like the whole, though I know there are a bunch of individual parts that I really like.