as a wise man once said, "of course, being a visual novel is not a sin. i can't criticise this game for [...] being a visual novel. i can, however, criticise it for being a pretentious visual novel."

it's hard to review something as well-known as Doki Doki Literature Club now is. i mean, it's DDLC. everyone knows about DDLC. it went extremely viral a decade ago and it hasnt really died down much since - almost the opposite has happened in the way it's clearly impacted the entire genre. take a browse in a psychological horror tag on any site from steam to itch.io to ao3, and you'll surely find something whose aesthetics bring DDLC to mind - even if there isn't direct inspiration, which there often is, there are things that are simply mainstream in the genre that previously weren't. it's been 9 years. what could i possibly find to say about DDLC that hasn't already been discussed to death?

a lot, actually.

the issue with reviewing a game as famous and influential as DDLC isn't a lack of things to say - it's the point at which a review inevitably becomes a refutation. it's impossible to disentangle the mess of what DDLC actually was, or what it theoretically would have been if it never went viral, and the legacy it got after the fact and the thing its fandom turned it into - especially when DDLC has always leaned into its legacy, always acknowledged what the fans think it is. to simply state my opinions on the game would require ignoring the elephant of the room; it becomes necessary to not just review the game but to refute a thousand commonly-held misconceptions about the game simply to explain myself

all this to say: if one more person tries to tell me this game has amazing characters and groundbreakingly realistic depictions of mental health issues, i am going to shoot the hostages.

i need to make this incredibly clear before i move onto some choice words that may cause the fandom to crucify me: i do like this game. i've been in the fandom for nearly a decade. i've downloaded it dozens of times, played it repeatedly, i've paid for the paid version despite the game being free. heck, i can probably trace my lifelong fascination with psychological horror, and by extension a lot of my own creative work, back to DDLC. i'm not saying the game isn't good. i think the problem might actually be that the game is good.

there's a recurring problem with viral horror media: people consistently confuse "this game is good, and it depicts these subjects" with "this game is good at depicting these subjects". whenever an indie horror project goes viral, it reaches an audience that doesn't usually engage with horror and thus, isn't familiar with the sort of tropes, themes, and subjects that are frequently present in the genre. this leads to people seeing things that they've rarely or never seen before in fiction, and finding that it resonates with them, and perceiving it as a genuinely groundbreaking depiction - but often, the "groundbreaking" aspect to these people is simply the fact of the subject being depicted at all, and frankly, that ground has definitely already been broken

DDLC's depictions of mental health, often revered as "groundbreaking" by fans, vary from mediocre to actively ableist. sayori's depression is taken seriously throughout act 1, and it was just fine, in my opinion. it seemed like the goal was for it to educate rather than to resonate - that is, everything was written to explain things to the clueless MC more than to actually delve into sayori's experiences. starting in act 2, though, the "serious issues" that the game is often praised for tackling - natsuki's abuse at home, yuri's self-harm, and even the suicide that acted as the culmination to sayori's depression arc - are consistently bought up briefly for shock value and then abandoned without proper explanation, to the point that 10 years later there's still debate in the fandom as to the degree to which these issues were even real or whether they were the result of in-universe game tampering trying to drive the players away from the girls (and let's not bother unpacking the implication that simply Giving The Girls Issues would make them less attractive partners to the player).

this is fairly standard for the horror genre, unfortunately. mental health depictions are a mixed bag and sometimes mentally ill people are exploited for cheap scares. i would be more willing to let this go - brush it off as "it's ableist, but everything is ableist" - if DDLC wasn't so pretentious about it. even ignoring the constant fandom glazing, between the almost educational tone of sayori's explanation of her depression, the act 3 quotes from monika about how to support a mentally ill person, and the marketing of the game itself, it really feels like Dan Salvato felt very smug about being Good At Depicting Serious Topics, which leaves a bad taste in my mouth when i think about how badly the girls' issues are actually depicted.

it really feels like Dan Salvato felt very smug about this game in general. the other non-horror aspect of DDLC that gets the most praise is the characterisation, and this is heavily linked to the trope subversion and "love-hate relationship with anime" that underlies the whole concept of the game. all of the characters are initially presented as one-note anime tropes - Sayori is the energetic Girl Next Door, Yuri is the Shy Girl, Natsuki is the Tsundere, and Monika is The Girl Who Is Reasonable And Also Good At Everything - but eventually, the game reveals there's more to them, showing other facets of their characters and offering explanations for their over-the-top mannerisms and behavior. in this way, DDLC deconstructs its own character tropes... tropes that I doubt actually exist.

i don't actually watch a lot of anime, honestly. the thing is, i question if Dan Salvato does either. does his love-hate relationship come from only watching bad anime? i don't actually believe it's a particularly impressive trope subversion to, for example, explain that the shy girl is shy because she's worried about being judged for her interests. you're not subverting or deconstructing her being shy, just offering a bit of explanation behind it. i'm sure that's a common depiction of shy girls. the existence of character tropes doesn't mean the character is just the trope - it means that several multifaceted, fleshed-out characters across various media can have enough things in common for it to be a recurring theme in the genre, while the characters are still different due to them being different characters

DDLC seems obsessed with this idea of shallow, one-dimensional anime characters with zero personality beyond their tropes. i don't think this is actually a norm in anime, because i don't think it makes sense to assume this is a norm in any media. again, maybe he's just watching bad anime? the game's whole characterisation seems to be based around being more than these one-dimensional tropes, and the way dan does this is generally by adding exactly one extra facet to their character - one detail that is hidden at first but slowly revealed, that allows previous lighthearted moments to develop darker implications, and offers explanation for the tropey and over-the-top way the girl acts.

natsuki is by far the worst example of this, so i'll talk about her. i related to natsuki heavily when i first played the game, in her mannerisms and speech patterns. my interpretation of her character was always that the things she goes through, her implied abuse at home (and the toxic friends revealed in the DLC), has made her defensive, left her with a constant need to cut others down so she can feel like they're the stupid ones and she's not. i'm sure this is a common way for the tsundere trope to be explained and fleshed out. it's a far cry from the canonical explanation, which is that she looks and acts immature because her father starved her to the point of delaying her puberty.

if i sound unreasonably personally insulted by this, it's because i am. first of all, there's a part of me that feels like this whole "i know she looks like a middle schooler, but thats actually because she's being starved" thing is just a weird attempt to justify one scene sexualising her, a scene that still grosses me out no matter how much you slap on disclaimers that she's over 18. second of all, if the point of natsuki's arc was supposed to be that she seems childish but is genuinely 18, it would have had so much more meaning if the moral ended up being "you can like childish things, and also be short, without that making you any less of an adult" rather than "she likes childish things because she's being starved and her growth is stunted". third, why oh why did dan go for the roundabout vague explanation of natsuki's tropey, cartoonish behavior being from malnutrition from abuse, rather than the obvious explanation of the abuse itself making her a constantly scared and defensive person? well, at least there's an explanation for that: monika in act 3, essentially breaking the fourth wall and acting as a mouthpiece for dan's own anime opinions, goes ahead and tells us that natsuki's defensive behavior is unrealistic and nobody acts like that

there's another thing that bothers me. did you notice how i described natsuki's behavior as cartoonish? DDLC seems to have this fixation on specifically anime tropes - the anime art style, the pseudo-japanese school setting, the characters being parodies of the shallow one dimensional anime characters. it's as though he thought only anime could spawn such ridiculous stories. i suppose dan has a point about the girls' behavior being over-the-top and the exact details being unrealistic, but my brother, that isn't an anime thing - that's fiction. sure, the specifics are different in anime conventions vs western cartoon conventions, but the anime tropes that dan seems to have beef with are frequently only marginally different to the western media equivalent trope - and that's because these tropes come from somewhere, usually either a plot device that makes writing easier or a very real experience that writers wish to represent.

the idea that the tsundere trope is like, some highly unrealistic anime specific trope, and not just a stylized depiction of a character being defensive, is very odd to me. even the specific mannerisms associated with tsunderes are shown in western cartoons, they're just not called tsunderes as often. the whole narrative drips with condescension at the idea of anime as this shallow world of one dimensional characters, illogical one-note tropes that only the brave american Dan Salvato is brave enough to think deeply about. i honestly assumed most anime thought deeply about their tsundere characters? at least if its good. i don't know what to make of this, but it bothers me.

the other issue with the characterisation is that, despite all attempts to show each character as being more than their Assigned Shallow Trope, it's obvious that each character has one Assigned Issue. this is a mistake i most often see in fanfiction, not published beloved games: each character has exactly one Problem, their arc revolves around their Problem, no character can have more Problem than the others and there must be no overlap in characters' assigned Problems.

monika's Problem is her fourth wall awareness in the main game, and perfectionism in the DLC side stories with no fourth wall breaks. it's even more simple for the other girls: self-harm for yuri, abuse for natsuki, depression for sayori. of course, in real life, these problems frequently coexist - abuse leads to depression, depression leads to self-harm. this makes it all the more obvious that dan was actively trying to avoid overlap, probably for the sake of keeping all the girls unique and avoiding one having "worse" problems that would necessitate more screentime, and it weakens all of his characterisation.

this is probably part of the problem with how natsuki is depicted. it would have made sense if natsuki's abuse was causing a deterioration in her mental health, causing more defensive behavior - but mental health issues are already sayori's thing, so instead natsuki has to be seemingly just fine emotionally while dan finds a weird & convoluted way to tie her tsundere-ness directly to the trope with no mental health middle man. yuri's self-harm is even more obvious - self-harm is so associated with depression that it's rare for anyone to even see it as a separate issue, but depression is already sayori's thing, so instead it's primarily used for shock value and the only explanation offered is that it might be a fetish thing (by the way: um, what?).

you can argue till the cows freeze over as to whether and to what degree the shallow characters are the point. i think it's possible to simeltaneously acknowledge something as a choice that makes sense in the story you're trying to tell and criticise it as a weak point in the writing. but i suppose in the end - you're not here for the characterisation. or at least you wouldn't be if the game hadn't gone unexpectedly viral among non-horror fans. you're here for the scares.

DDLC wasn't the first game to do the "psychological horror game that briefly pretends to be a cute, non-horror game" trick, but it was the one that bought the trope into the mainstream. the trope's becoming discredited now, but looking back, there are actually many factors that allowed DDLC to pull this off better than all its descendants. part of it is, of course, the seinfeld problem - you look back at some old revered work of art and you feel like everything it does is just lame and overdone, but the only reason those things were ever overdone is because this did it first and made it popular.

now that "cute anime girl psychological horror that hides the horror at first" is its own trope or subgenre, nobody blinks when they see the "this game is not suitable for children" warning on their innocent looking dating sim, or when they see cute anime faces in the psychological horror tag on steam. you just say "oh, one of those games", and you move on. but before this was mainstream, it was intriguing. the game didn't hide its status as a psychological horror as such, but it stayed (for lack of a better word) "in character" as an innocent dating sim enough to make you doubt yourself when you see the early signs of horror - is that just a mistagging? what could this cute game possibly need a warning for?

the apprehension and self-doubt continue in the game proper, because unlike its many descendants in the genre, DDLC spends hours in the truly innocent filler before showing the horror aspects, and then hours more in an uncanny-valley zone that shows you horror but doesnt acknowledge it as what it is, no explanations on offer as the situation before you escalates further and further. your world is falling apart and you don't know why, and yes, when you don't see it coming it is scary. heck, some scenes freaked me out even when i knew they were coming, especially the hidden scares. the cute aesthetics only make the game more unnerving and make you doubt yourself more.

maybe you just couldnt do that today, now that the trope is popular, but it would help if someone actually tried. these days it's easy to get the sense that the "innocent" part of the "horror game that pretends to be an innocent, non-horror game" trope is just a token effort, shoved in to copy DDLC or to check off the "includes a plot twist" box or to try and make the scares more shocking. the first scares in DDLC actually are more shocking, because it puts in the time and effort to actually lull you into a false sense of security. it isn't just a coat of cute paint on a scary game, it's a full experience in another genre. even to the modern player who has most certainly gotten the gist that DDLC is a horror game, it's enough to make you almost forget what you know, get immersed in this innocent world before you're shocked with the horrors underneath - and you've got to keep in mind, dan surely didn't know the game would go viral. the presumed intended experience, which i suppose is essentially impossible now, is to spend act 1 genuinely not knowing if this was horror or not, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

one thing to note on this game and its disguised horror is that the "warnings", at least originally, were hidden advertisements. the warning you see at the start of the game is not informative enough to actually, well, warn people; people who can be harmed by the themes in this game will be just as harmed despite the warning. because the point of the warning isn't to keep people safe - it's the deliberate version of like, that guy who put an 18+ warning on a cooking lecture because he wanted to make some raunchy jokes and then had a bunch of people attend purely in an attempt to find out how the fuck a cooking tutorial could be for adults only. the warning is there so that horror fans will know the game is for them, and so that non-horror fans will download the game just to find out what the hell it needs a warning for. and all the while, it's staying "in-character" - you're not breaking the facade of innocence to advertise your game as horror, you're adding a trigger warning to keep people safe, and of course you have to do that, and isn't it clearly a good thing that you care more about keeping people safe than keeping up the facade?

this is another thing that was interesting and innovative until DDLC inspired everyone else to do it. i would have probably been vaguely uncomfortable with the idea of "pretending you're Keeping People Safe by Adding A Trigger Warning but we all know the point of the warning is to advertise what your game is about" even if it hadnt been thoughtlessly copied by dozens of other games. at this point i'm just sick of the "tee-hee, obviously i dont WANT to break the facade so that the intended audience of my game can find it, i just HAVE to be honest because the warnings are a place for honesty, which is why the information in them is vague to the point of unhelpful if not outright misinformation" song and dance. the genre isn't uncharted territory anymore and you don't have to pretend you're only breaking the facade to warn people. if you want trigger warnings in your game then actually put in the trigger warnings, and if you don't want to, just use some other way to make it clear that this is one of the horror games that pretends not to be a horror game. it's usually not a secret anymore - it's basically a whole genre in the post-DDLC era

it's easy to shit on the trope in general, with how the "psychological horror disguised as non-horror" genre currently looks - most examples of it at least somewhat owe their existence to a specific VN from 2017 that is riddled with problems, and most of them are fairly shallow imitations. but i do like the trope. i like it for a lot of reasons - the way it allows you to tell a horror story without being constrained to a specific, spooky aesthetic. the way it blurs the line between horror and other genres. because, of course, real horrors aren't neatly restricted to their designated genre. they come out when you feel safe, or they spread and they infect everything.

Here we are. The second episode and man have I been holding it in for a while. But since it aired on TV, I can talk about it all I want.

You know the drill. 5 point system and here

this poison heart by kalynn bayron

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free audiobook in exchange for an honest review! this has not affected my review in any way, all opinions are mine.

4/5 stars

bri has a green thumb. maybe too literally. even dead plants flourish under her fingertips, with an immunity to poisonous plants, an inhereted estate in a small town, and strange happenings, bri tries to figure out exactly how she fits into the picture.

this book was breathtaking. while it's a little too slow for me in the first half, the second half is a ride that i didn't want to get off of. i had no idea where this book was going and it kept me on the edge of my seat guessing. i cannot wait for the sequel because my head is spinning and i immediately need more

As the popular DS game “The world ends with you” got its own animation this year, it’s just about time to write another Anime review about the famous game that was firstly released on April 18th 2008 in Europe and April 22nd in the US and Canada.

Despite that the game got many remakes, it was announced that the animation would air in 2021 by both Domerica and Shin-Ei-Animation while Square Enix provided character design and still operated as the publisher.

A total of 12 Episodes with the japanese title “Subarashiki kono Sekai”adapted from the game were released from April 2021 forwards.

Now the anime has ended and it’s just time to see how well the adapted version of the videogame did and if the meaningful message of the game was properly conveyed.

Here it comes, the full review on The world ends with you, if you dive any deeper into this blogpost then be aware that it contains major spoilers and also discusses the end of both the game and anime.

Setting

The anime takes place in a fictional version of Shibuya in Tokyo as there are actually two versions in the game: the Realground and the Underground. The latter is where most of the story takes place for our main cast and serves as a playground for the so-called Reapers’ game in which the players have to complete daily missions without getting erased. If a player gets erased it leads to death. People from the Realground and Underground cannot interact with each other, yet the players can scan the thoughts of the Realground inhabitants only and also imprint thoughts on them to direct them for their missions.

This Shibuya is close to the traditional one, having the same streets and spots such as Hachiko, it is also mentioned that it was remodeled after the real Shibuya in Tokyo with some of the streets renamed.

Despite the serious setting in which the players fight for their lives there are many fashion and food shops in which the characters are seen to buy food or clothes as some spots are connected to the Realground and allows some areas to see the players which is usually not the case, besides Reapers are both able to interact in the Realground and Underground, while they do not have their wings in the Realground and also are restrained in some ways.

In the anime Neku’s first “starting point” in week one (or game one) is the Scramble Crossing, while in his other runs of the Reapers’ game for example game two he awake at the statue of Hachiko.

Plot

With no memories, Neku Sakuraba wakes up lying on the street of the scramble crossing. When he suddenly realizes that he cannot touch anyone nor talk to them, a timer is set on his hand and a message that welcomes him to the so-called Reapers’ game. While he cannot even remember his own name he soon encounters Shiki, a young girl with a cat plush who in a dire situation asks him to become his partner in order for him and her to use their psychic powers and destroy the monsters called “Noises”. A player with no partner cannot use powers and that concludes not being able to participate in the game.

The story sticks close to the game, yet the game has many little extra side stories that could not fit in a 12 Episode- anime.

We can see that Shiki and Neku, the latter who is firstly very distant and antisocial towards everybody, not wanting to interact with anybody, play through the first week and encounter other players. On the second day Neku gets tricked by one of the Reapers and almost chokes Shiki to death if not for Mr.Hanekoma who helps them, later on the Reaper who made a deal with him actually tells him that she lied and he would have been erased anyways. Neku who thought Shiki would not forgive him is taken aback when she tells him she understands why he did that and trusts him.Everything seems to go neatly. Shiki’s backstory, which we will discuss later in the post, also plays a crucial role as a guide and intel for Neku who has no recollection of his past. He played the game because he was forced to yet through Shiki towards the end of the week Neku gets to know the shocking truth: Everyone who is invited to the Reapers’ game is already dead and pays an entry fee in order to get a chance to be revived again.

With Shiki having lost her appearance as her entry fee, taking the one of her friend Eri which she is jealous of, Neku helps her to overcome her jealousy and see her friend Eri getting to know her true thoughts about Shiki. Also there are Beat and Rhyme to players they have met and befriended over the course of the first week, yet Neku sees how troublesome the emotions are that come with interactions, as Rhyme’s erasure on day 4.

This new motivation to make up with Eri and give their best for those who left made Neku and Shiki hopeful as they also were able to clear the first game in which Higashizawa was the first Game master.

An interesting lore point which pointed out that it was not a single-event of players being gathered but a cycle in which game after game must have been conducted from that point on. As the anime depicted the nice atmosphere of the game which we could not always imagine through the heavy dialogue based game with some cutscenes, the anime filled all the little holes but also rushed many things, such a Neku turning suspicious from time to time and his feelings changing as he meets more people which seems at the beginning very troublesome. But in the anime it is depicted as if he is constantly making only positive changes, on week one in the game he was more inclined to get pessimistic over small inconveniences and stayed much more in his anti-social manners until week one was completed.

The story progresses a tad rushed yet with amazing transitions from one arc to the other, as when Shiki and Neku cleared the game and met Kitanji the Conductor of the game. Yet there is a little twist that destroys the happiness in a second: Only one is allowed to return to the Realground and it was chosen that Shiki is that one person.

Neku happily accepts and tells Shiki she should go ahead while he is allowed to enter another game which costs him another entry fee.

Unexpectedly Shiki who was supposed to enter the Realground becomes Neku’s new entry fee and is collected in front of his eyes, vanishing as the thing that is currently the most important treasure of his.

Here it shows an interesting twist in the story: firstly Neku connecting deeply to a person to an extent that that very person becomes his next entry fee and secondly the occurrence of another game right away which Neku starts with a whole different cause and attitude.

We again see Neku awakening but with most of his memories being returned as his new entry fee was Shiki and his old one being returned. Yet his death stays a mystery until he meets his new partner Joshua, a mysterious boy with an overly clever and sly attitude. Forced to become his partner without knowing him Neku’s second week starts a whole lot different than the one before as his new partner seems to know eerily much about the Game, the Underground, the Realground and much more.

Mr.Hanekoma who has acted as an guide up until now also seems to be acquainted very well with Joshua and while in anime Neku is suspicious of Joshua up until the end of week two, in the game it seemed much more hostile and mistrusting towards Joshua, even calling him rude nicknames unlike in the anime. Still the Neku in the second game seems a lot more willing to interact with people and give even more effort as he has Shiki on his mind. Meanwhile his friend Beat became a Reaper which also was a shocking revelation.

As a player can choose to become a Reaper, it gave off a certain feeling of betrayal and instability due to Rhyme’s death which had impacted him a lot. Not only that but Joshua’s personality which also sticks close to the game is a lot more pushy here and things almost go a bit too fast compared to the game.

Due to Joshua’s intellect which makes him stand out next to his peers, they are able to not only finish the daily missions but get a little bit of free time to research, as Joshua tells Neku that he has been looking for the Composer. Later on it is revealed when Joshua uses odd abilities that are seemingly too strong and unique for a player that he is actually still alive yet playing the Reapers’ game, finding a loophole to enter the Underground from the Realground. An illegal act and the reason why Neku was able to scan him despite being a player, revealing the memory of Neku’s death caused by Joshua.

After holding that grudge against Joshua and not trusting him unlike his partner before, the new game master Minamoto Sho causes chaos in his reign in the Reapers’ game filling it with Taboo noises who cannot be beat the normal way, the main reason why Joshua was forced to use his odd abilities in the first place. After they arrive at the end of week two and facing Minamoto Sho head on, Neku regrets his suspicious behaviour when Joshua saves him from a lethal attack while sacrificing himself, later on revealing that Minamoto Sho was the one who apparently shot Neku causing his death and not Joshua.

In front of Kitaniji again, Neku is full of sorrow. He made it to the end of his second game yet the face of Joshua who sacrificed himself and he did not want to trust hurt him very much. On top of that, Shiki was not given back to him and due to Joshua being his partner and entering the game through illegal means, Neku has to shoulder the penalty by entering his last game, and therefore last chance.

The entry fee: All players, including Shiki,

Here is another wonderful point that was emphasized and showed Neku’s immense growth, After he realized that Joshua, which by all means he had a reason to be suspicious of, he didn’t leave him behind yet that he did not trust him caused him guilt which shows a big contrast to Neku from day one week one.

Also the other players he met and helped out because he taught of Shiki while helping them showed that he didn’t keep his view and values to himself anymore but sincerely cared for those around him step by step.

As again the game gives more time to get to know each character more and more, Neku’s reactions are a bit dull and simple in the anime, as his thought process and suspicion was far bigger in the game but also the regret and disappointment of himself after Joshua’s sacrifice, as Neku blames himself for not trusting him much more.

With his last game starting, Shibuya already looks quite different and becomes a homogen mass, scanning the people has no use anymore since everyone thinks the same. Something the conductor wanted in order to make a “perfect” Shibuya.

Mitsuki Konishi who acts as the third game master also plays by unfair means and uses the Reapers to target Neku who wakes up alone with no other player around him to partner up with. Until Beat finds him he chooses to give up his role as Reaper and become Neku’s final partner, also noticing Neku’s growth in comparison to week one.

Beat who secretly helped Neku while being a Reaper pretending he would challenge him every time, becomes Neku’s drive to go on and as they both reach the last stage overcoming the taboo Minamoto who came back due to Mr.Hanekoma finishing the taboo refinery that Minamoto made on week two. Yet Minamoto in the anime died by light spears while in the game he was crushed by a soda machine.

After defeating Konishi and advancing forwards the true battle begins between Kitaniji who conducted the game from the very start and also reveals that he and the composer made a bet about Shibuya.

Kitaniji unlike in the game, brainwashes Shiki and makes her fight Neku and Beat. He also doesn’t absorb his partners unlike in the game but immediately turns into a monster, after Neku stops the brainwashing on her.

Defeating Kitaniji with the help of Mr.Hanekoma’s pin he left for him before he vanished, Neku puts an end to the game with Beat’s and Shiki’s help.

Kitaniji realizes that Neku was the chosen one, the proxy of the composer who would be his rival in the bet he made.

And here comes the biggest twist in the story, that Joshua is the composer and actually killed Neku in order to make him his proxy in the bet between him and Kitaniji. His main agenda was to destroy and eradicate Shibuya due to negativity and bad things that kept happening in it.

Joshua constrains both Beat and Shiki, handing Neku a gun and making him play one last game that both of them would shoot at the same time in order to determine a winner.

Neku, who doesn’t want Shibuya to disappear and finally learned how to connect with others, expanding his world by letting their values and opinions in as well, takes the gun.

Yet when Joshua counts, Neku tells him by the end that he would trust him, his final regret of never having trusted Joshua being left behind and lowering his gun. Joshua, who stares at him, simply shoots him and causes an end to Shibuya.

In the end all the effort and growth Neku put in went into the final decision of trusting Joshua and accepting him, to end up shot by the one person he trusted.

Joshua as well saw that growth and was surprised, he was Neku’s second partner and therefore tried to get him back to his old ways which didn’t work, and the most surprising outcome was that Neku’s killer and the composer who wanted to destroy Shibuya earned the trust of the one who was only by himself and secluded in the beginning.

The end shows that Shibuya was restored to a new and better place, with all the players who had died being back in the Realground. Neku is seen with Rhyme and Beat waiting for someone. Shiki in her true appearance only known due to Mr.Mew in her hands joins the group and Neku is seen to put down his headphones he always kept on in order to avoid people.

A meaningful end and metaphor to show the change that those characters went through.

Relationships

Neku-Shiki

While in the anime we don’t see the truthful dynamic of those two, it’s actually a very meaningful relationship that gives Neku the important first push into his character development.

Shiki who is a total stranger and quite annoying for Neku in the beginning becomes source of trust and hope as he sees how much Shiki cares about those around her.

She doesn’t abandon people in need even though she is not obligated to help and while it was something that Neku found bothering at first, it was the side he came to like about Shiki.

Despite that he doesn’t know Shiki’s true appearance due to Neku’s bold and straight-forward behaviour he tells her she is fine the way she is and that the Shiki he got to know is someone he admires and finds interesting.

With that Neku was able to make Shiki overcome her jealousy for her friend Eri and also made Neku more aware about the people around him which was the first step to connect to people. Even though Shiki was one of the few he trusted, she was as well the main source that kept letting Neku play the game and saw it through to the end.

Acceptance and awareness is something that this dynamic taught, a start into a more vast world for Neku and a much more comfortable one in which Shiki could be herself once again.

Neku-Joshua

Joshua was his second partner and kept Neku on his toes with suspicion and trust. As Joshua proved to be more on the intellectual side and did things that went beyond the usual daily missions, Neku still tried his best to trust but couldn’t bring himself to do so. Especially after seeing himself getting killed by Joshua, which was refuted later on by a memory that showed Minamoto killing him, Neku felt extreme remorse and regret for not trusting him.

He played the game in order to free Shiki and after Joshua’s sacrifice he came to understand that there is much more that he needed to understand and value about people.

Joshua acted as the one who tried to bring Neku back to his old ways as he kept telling him to simply care about himself or that him helping the other players is not like Neku at all, a little trial that showed despite Neku’s suspicion towards him didn’t cause him to forget which impact Shiki had on him.

Next to his bold and straight-forward but serious attitude, Joshua as his partner showed a more flamboyant and carefree side quite the opposite of Neku which also irritated and confused him. It also showed that Neku took his responsibility to bring Shiki back seriously and after having seen Rhyme’s erasure he didn’t want to let that happen again.

In the end we get to see Joshua’s true face and intentions, as he was the true killer of Neku in order to make him his proxy in his bet. For Joshua’s cause he needed someone who was the worst, who wouldn’t mingle with people and keep to himself and Neku was just that.

The composer Joshua is much more strict and not as lenient as the one who was his partner. Wanting to destroy Shibuya and not shying away from killing Neku twice, but it’s seen that he was relieved and impressed by Neku’s growth, showing him that people can change for the better.

Neku was Joshua’s proxy and played his role so well that Joshua himself didn’t see his change coming, proving that with enough effort and the right people one can become a whole new self like the Shibuya that was shown at the end

Neku-Beat

Beat as his last partner was also an interesting contrast between the Neku from the first week to the Neku towards the end. Beat himself stated that he was surprised by Neku reaching out to him and also willingly partnered up.

Not only that but Beat who is much more simple-minded and hot-headed, as well as driven by an immense willpower proved to be very helpful as Neku stated that he found him annoying in the beginning with his loud attitude but that Beat’s idiocy is something he admired as it was the last fuel when they were about to give up.

From someone he found unbearable to a well-appreciated friend that cheered him up, Neku learned to take his fearless and reckless behaviour in order to save his friends while leaving behind hopelessness and negative thoughts that obstructed his main goal to rescue both Shiki and Rhyme with Beat.

This dynamic that was unpairable at the beginning was a refreshing change of pace as Neku was the one who took more of a lead, unlike his other two partners who were dragging him along at the beginning.

Beat-Rhyme

The bond of siblings.

Beat who is eager to save his sister since she was the most important to him in the Realground and Rhyme who didn’t even remember Beat being her brother yet sacrificed herself reversing what happened in the Realground.

After being erased because she saved Beat in the Underground, Beat blames himself even more for not being able to protect his sister another time. The car accident that caused them to enter the Reapers’ game felt like his responsibility. Despite the fact that he tried to save his sister because of his own selfishness, they still ended up dying.

Rhyme and Beat are complete opposites, she who dreamed of having a dream and him who wanted to become the best skater, the brother who was selfish and caused trouble for his parents and sister, and the sister who selflessly cared about her brother and tried to calm him down when things heated up.

Their relationship shows how genuinely they cared for each other and that at times one appreciates the other when it is already too late.

Despite that Rhyme didn’t remember Beat being her brother she still went all the way to save him and risked her own life for it, as well as Beat wanting to take on the composer no matter what in order to get Rhyme back.

Because a life without his sibling would have been the same as being dead...

Eri-Shiki

Why did I take this relationship in this post?

Eri and Shiki are both best friends who share one dream together, yet they had obvious communication problems and also jealousy played a big role.

Shiki who was jealous of Eri even took her appearance in the Underground while later on we get to know that Eri played down Shiki’s talent because she feared that Shiki would be well off without her. In the first place Eri felt like she could only design while Shiki could both design and make the designs become real clothes.

Yet Shiki never knew that until Eri talked about Shiki’s death in the Realground, regretting the things she said to her and wanting to give up the dream because it was one they had to do together.

Shiki, surprised by her friend’s thoughts which she was afraid to hear, wants to return and reconcile with her, as Shiki always thought that she was a nobody next to Eri and admired her friend who seemed to be well-liked by everyone.

This dynamic is important since it shows that thoughts if not spoken out can never be perceived by another person and that sometimes matters seem much more different than one’s own perception.

Voices

Another set of amazing voice actors in this anime as well starting off with our protagonist Neku Sakuaraba whose matching aloof and cold attitude was voiced by none other than Uchiyama Koki known for his roles Shigaraki Tomura(BNHA), Tsukishima Kei(Haikyuu) and Toge Inumaki(Jujutsu Kaisen).

Surprisingly Anna Hachimine who voiced Shiki Misaki, voiced only Shiki in both the games and the anime, as it was her first and only role, up until this day. Her voice may not sound professional compared to her fellow voice actors, yet it is perfectly fitting for Shiki who seems a little bit clumsy but also lovable despite her lack of self-confidence.

Next up is none other than Ryohei Kimura being known for his eccentric characters which he voiced this time he lent his voice to Yoshiya “Joshua” Kiryu, a sly and clever young man with a twisted personality yet prince-like looks. He voiced Childe(Genshin Impact), Bokuto Koutarou(Haikyuu) and Jo Jojima(Re:Main).

Daisukenojo “Beat” Bito was voiced by Subaru Kimura, the deep and strong voice that matched Beat’s up-beat and strong personality. He is known for his roles Satori Tendou(Haikyuu) and Aoi Todo(Jujutsu Kaisen).

His sister Raimu “Rhyme” Bito (in the game) and the game master of the last game Mitsuki Konishi are both voiced by the same voice actress which is Hitomi Nabatame, showing us both a calculating and cunning as well as an adorable and selfless character. Rhyme in the animation is voiced by Ayana Taketatsu mainly known for her roles Leafa (SAO) and Kotori Itsuka( Date a live).

Animation

The animation stuck close to the game’s design, there was a slight thing that bothered me personally but I got a bit used to it later on: the switch from the weird CG (3D animation) when fights occur to 2D when the characters were interacting normally or the normal course of events went on.

The colors matched the slight urban-city vibe of the anime which were highlighted by the soundtrack as well.

Also the switch from the colour-pallete of Shibuya in week one and two to the one in week three in which Shibuya had a more reddish and black tone, emphasizing the ominous change and unified thoughts that made Shibuya a simple and homogen mass of people. The contrast of the change was clear and the atmosphere which was interesting as I really felt the change not only through the story but also the colours making them “two separate” Shibuyas who have nothing to so with each other as the one we knew from the beginning was full of individual and unique thoughts.

Also the colour of red emitted the danger both players as well as the people from the Realground were in, making the viewer alerted through visuals alone.

Conclusion

While the animation was almost akin to the game there were still little changes visible to the people who prior played it.

Still it was enjoyable seeing everything being animated instead of only dialogue and some cutscenes, as everything transited well from one scene and arc to the other.

With the voices being constantly hearable and design of the characters being exactly like in the games it felt like the game itself was animated which made it nostalgic, additionally the soundtracks from the game were also mostly included as remixes or remastered versions, for example Twister which was used as the opening.

But there was a slight problem: With only 12 Episodes it is hard to follow what is exactly happening as you get a lot of input about the world, lore and characters at once. The latter is even held short with Shiki only covering three episodes which I personally thought didn’t cover their whole relationship and the depth of her character, same goes with the others.

Extra events and some side stories which also were slightly important to the already heavy plot also were missing and towards the end there were a lot more changes for example with Minamoto’s death and Kitaniji’s fight.

Despite that like the Persona 5 animation, especially people who played the game would be delighted to see the game animated as they know most of the story yet they can fill the little visual and auditory holes though the animation.

It’s also interesting how close the style of both fights, characters and color palettes stayed to the game and I hope that despite the CG also people who are new to the franchise enjoyed the animation just as much.

Especially the meaning of the title was again conveyed in this anime: the world ends with you, if you choose to shut people out of your life your view and world becomes restricted. Your world becomes small, but if you try to understand each other, trust people and make the best effort to see their values your world will also expand, so it is for you to decide where your world ends, because it ends with you.

Since NEO, the sequel of the game came out recently on July 27th 2021 let’s hope for more content and maybe also a sequel for the animation.

Until then let me try this new pin for my tea cup,

the movie works a lot better aka is more enjoyable the second time. we know what’s happening and i could relax and enjoy even the dumb moments and allow myself to feel, to be washed into the music and just feel my good feelings towards the finale.

the plot is still dumb as rocks, with the new old villain, resurrected. who not only is back but is giving our heroes a chance to find him before all shit breaks loose. why is the emperor so fucking arrogant?? why did TROS/JJ keep arguably the worst plot from TLL namely the race against a certain but exact time to do something to save the day?

the rey as palpatine still makes no sense. why did the jedi (in particular obi wan) call to her when she has the first force vision back on takodana if rey’s a palp?? JJ truly pisses on his very own movie isn’t he? and the emperor himself, he wants rey dead, twice he tells this verbatim to KR and then comments the rey killing plot was foiled to commander pryde...but then he actually welcomes her with open arms? or did he foresee his new death by rey should she reach exogol still alive? why should this death stick? ugghghgh.

the movie moves at record pace, no time to grieve, no time to catch your breath. the falcon/poe does impossible feats. the trio is united only to trail rey, finn in particular acting like a puppy. the only scene with finn that had any weight and developed his character was the scene with jannah when they’re fixing the falcon. BUT even then...i thought it was fine for the Force to guide finn out of his servitude. but maybe let the other former stormtroopers have some fuxking free will. not the force guiding them. there were so many moments when finn could’ve inspired former fellow stormtroopers to put down their weapons, but no. the spy could’ve been a stormtrooper, not the ridiculous hux doing things out of spite...

the worst scene in the movie? rey going on a fucking stroll on pasaana to meet kylo ren’s ship...and before that, the knights of ren literally posturing on a rock. i laughed out loud in the cinema it was so utterly ridiculous.

it’s all fucking plains, the fucking audience could see rey advancing through ochi’s ship screens. but somehow chewbacca gets captured and there’s a second transporter. the whole scene plays just so we can set up rey’s sith lightning abilities..?? fucking hell.

c3po’s sacrifice works for me. it’s the first moment of the rewatch where i got truly emotional and shed actual tears. and it’s not really cheapened by his memory being restored, since Finn actually mentions r2 might have a backup which 3po dismisses in his usual fashion. so 3po actually believed he was going to be fully erased. and that’s what matters. i found the 3po humour almost on par with the OT, although sometimes poe’s wayyy too aggressive with him. (i mean, poe loves droids, or at least his droid bb8, but is awfully dismissive of both 3po and D-O, just to fill in the han role i guess? it’s overdone)

the fight on the destroyer/kimiji is ok, again rey with the aggressive stance and the reveal is....nothing. rey has NO fucking reaction. she like scrunches her nose a little. she was just told the JJ equivalent to luke finding out vader’s his dad and rey’s just like. oh okay. bummer.

she should’ve fucking jumped like luke did. and maybe be retrieved on the falcon somehow. she should’ve expressed some pain. but no. rey’s just as calm as before. maybe even calmer, now that she knows the whole truth.

the death star sequence. dumb as hell to imagine the dagger has coordinates to the fucking wreckage of DS2??!??! who made it and when??!?!??! but let’s not overthink this. you get force powered rey making the ride with the skimmer and finding herself attacked by dark!rey..and then kylo come by and apparently knows this? because he tells her that now she’s tainted and can’t go back to leia either??!

WHAT THE FUCKKKK does JJ not know how the fucking force works??? i mean was it a fucking inside joke when han says that’s not how the force works in TFA??? uughghghgh. i know TROS is trying its best to almost completely retcon TLJ, but the way the Force was described there, like a balance, decay from where new life spawns, THAT WAS A GOOD THING FFS!!!!

no, JJ thinks that jedi are all pure beings and sith are dark brooding monsters and if a jedi or equivalent has even the faintest connection to the dark side, they’re fucking done!!!!!! (when the FUCKING OT SAYS THE FUCKING OPPOSITE, even a shred of goodness can help you get back to the light)

and if that was SUPPOSED to be KR’s way of getting rey to join him on his fieldtrip to exogol...my god he’s fucking dumb as hell. rey’s resisted his offer every fucking time (altho during the force call on pasaana he tells her he will turn her and she says we’ll see. she didn’t say no lmao), why would she fucking say yeah sure now? just because she had a fucking vision of dark herself??!?!?

still, dark!rey is fucking hot and i will probably cosplay her sometimes soon.

then comes the kylo - rey fight on the death star wreckage, where she attacks him, she’s aggressive, and is bested. and he’s about to kill her (even though he told her he has other plans, LOL) and then leia calls. or her call to her son finally reaches him (no more voicemail) and he falters, drops the saber and is impaled by rey.......who also senses leia’s passing.

and we have ben again and the scene with han solo plays and it’s pretty fucking emotional. but i wish he had said father and not dad. dad feels unearned. father would’ve worked best, especially for such a serious, stoic char like ben, dad is far too playful. i would’ve wanted a moment more of ben mourning his mother too, but the movie’s gotta be done in 30 mins so we have no time for allowing emotional moments to sink in. note: finn & poe are in such a rush to get to leia they don’t even have time to wait a sec to be told properly that she’s fucking dead. fuck you movie.

the scenes with luke are good. of course, luke backtracks all of his development in TLJ (because fuck you that’s why) and apparently everyone knew she was a palpatine but they still trained her because fuck logic? this is just like the PT where they end up training anakin because they made a promise to a dead guy. lmao. and how convenient is that there’s another lightsaber, otherwise how would rey make an x at the end to (presumably) end palpatine?? hmmm. i said the jedi leia scene/flashback worked for me the first time i saw it, but in hindsight, the scene and motivation really takes a steaming dump on leia’s character, a mother afraid of her son and unwilling to help him. fuck you JJ. we never needed leia wielding a lightsaber. we only wanted leia using the force in some way that felt organic to her character. (sidestep: up until attack of the clones? when yoda first uses a lightsaber, i assumed he was enlightened and didn’t need actual weapons to wield the force. well, i hoped leia could be like that enlightened master yoda. but like all bad things in the SW universe, she ended up being as awful as puppet yoda with a toothpick lightsaber, cause how would we know she’s a jedi otherwise????)

so. because she refused kylo, and ended up alone on exogol and with the resistance trapped there, she’s actually considering palpatine’s offer??! and realises she has maybe another option when she senses ben’s there too??! then why the fuck didn’t they go together??!?! oh wait. i forgot she wanted to exile herself on ach-to LMAO.

and still. the whole palpatine plot train-wreck could’ve still worked had they actually used the pretty cool concept of Force Dyad for something good. i mean, KR tells this to rey on the destroyer. but apparently palp can’t do the math and is surprised when he takes a sip of their life essences??! like what the actual fuck, why isn’t palpatine aware of this?? if he (+plagueis) made vader and then he conceived his son. and then vader had leia and leia had ben and palp’s son had rey........why is KR able to put this together and not the FREAKING MASTER PUPPETEER of the whole fucking galaxy??!?!

anyway. back to the force dyad. we have awsome ben solo and rey reunited. ready to fight palps. but no. he freezes them and sucks the life force out of them. maybe the power of the force dyad of light users could be harmful to a sith?!??! maybe the power of a force dyad would help ben & rey resist palp?! maybe the power of a force dyad could be used to defeat palp?

but no. we get ben solo thrown into a pit so that palp and rey could reenact whitney houston’s hit

or, even worse, the year’s most anticipated battle of one liners: endgame. yeah, it was cool to hear all the jedi clamouring for rey, but this could’ve still worked as the jedi finally supporting ben skywalker organa solo for fucking once in the guy’s lifetime.

but no. JJ said fuck ben solo. he’s only good to give the life back to rey, then he can fuck off. i am not a reylo and i am not too bothered by ben’s death, as much as i am by his misuse. i mean, in such movies, we never really have to deal with reformed bad guys making amends. vader died, and so in a way, ben dying too and not having to be courtmartialled is actually convenient.

i have read some analysis where ben & rey being happy together is the undoing of anakin’s sad demise and brings peace to the skywalker line rather than pain and despair and that’s a valid premise, but realistically, ben’s death makes sense. they’d never be happy together in a hut somewhere, because ben still has to pay for a lot of damage. BUT his death is nothing but the crippling of the skywalker line, after a palp had defeated the palps. his death has little meaning in the story. them being a force dyad has little meaning, apart from powering palps back to his rots appearance. lmao

and finally, the death of ben is never mourned, never acknowledged. no-one is even told on screen about his return to the light (maybe maz felt it, when leia’s body vanished...) and his deeds. that kinda sucks. because luke took a moment to have a ceremony for vader, the force ghosts came through. here...we get nothing.

and then rey buries the anakin saber and leia’s saber on tatooine in sand no less (we need a sketch of anakin loudly complaining to rey about this)... and instead of finally accepting herself as being sufficient, she tacks on the legacy name. well done JJ.

(that was me when the credits rolled).

now, i love the OT more than life itself and the films give us meta to fill libraries. they are not perfect movies, but they are good, they tell a wonderful story with amazing characters and i will never stop loving them.

then the PT is made of really bad movies that now, in the light of TROS, surprisingly still come together as a trilogy far better than the ST lmao.

i still believe that the PT undermines and ruins Vader’s redemption in ROTS, because now you know exactly what he did (reminder: killed 30 children) and it’s hard to swallow. in the end, he dies to save his son and takes down the big bad so we can accept that he gains redemption in luke’s eyes alone and not necessarily in the audience’s. but ben solo didn’t even get that. he got thrown into a pit and crawled out only to give rey life lol.

anyway, TFA was okay at first, but i always had a huge gripe, aka the misuse of Leia and the complete silence on her being a Force user. like don’t even need ligthsaber fights from her, just gimme something explicit of her using the Force. she could’ve at the very fucking least sensed KR when he swoops in and abducts Rey on Takodana. but no. JJ fridged Leia from the get go, because he had no clue what to do with her. and then he fucked her character completely with what he believed was the flashback the fans wanted....UFHGHGHGH

JJ also and truly fridged Luke, because he had no idea what to do with Luke and the whole Force legacy either. he wanted to write a fun Han Solo adventure and by gods he did.

so, Luke. the guy vanishes the opening crawl tells us. he wasn’t abducted, so he must’ve exiled himself. people hating TLJ’s so called character assassination when it comes to Luke should point fingers at the real culprit, JJ. how could Luke do such a thing and run away (like JJ wrote him do) if he hadn’t done something significantly wrong?? it had to be FUCKING HORRIBLE. and so it is. because what Luke did was horrible and it set up for the fall to the dark side of poor, conflicted, manipulated and unloved Ben Solo. but had it not been THIS awful, then Luke’s self imposed exile, shame and guilt wouldn’t have made any fucking sense. so, TLJ haters, think again WHO was the person who wrote Luke running away for 10 years and allowing all that shit to happen?? it wasn’t Rian Johnson, that’s for sure. he merely justified the absence in a way that made sense plot-wise and actually character-wise too.

on repeated viewing, TFA isn’t that good, it’s a rehash of ANH and the stakes are never as good as the original movies. we all kinda know the heroes will save the day

TLJ, i liked, but the canto bight plot really falls flat. this is where RJ did some char assassinations: Poe. Poe is the cocky pilot who singlehandedly destroys the Resistance’s arsenal LMAO. and next scene he turns into sexist macho asshole trope itself, with his immediate and unfounded disdain of Holdo and her plans to keep our heroes safe. so he concocts a harebrained plan that doesn’t work. maybe it was intended as a refreshing look over this trope of barely a plan of the heroes always coming to fruition at the very last second, but the way it’s presented, it somehow really undermines all the characters involved, including newcomer Rose. at the start a breath of fresh air in the age of mindless heroics, the voice of reason,  soon enough she too is pulled apart and becomes a sudden love interest...?? she is then reduced to a side’s side char in TROS, but she has space buns, so that’s cool right? that’s what SW is all about, women in space buns. fuck!

and yet, TLJ handled Luke, Leia, KR and Rey wonderfully and laid down some great ideas, Rey having no lineage, the Force Bond between her and KR, the catalyst for KR’s fall to the dark side, the little good in him, as sensed by both Leia and Rey...and set up a finale where, i believed and hoped, KR would be the main villain.

with the trailer spelling the probable return of palpatine, i kinda lost faith in TROS before it even hit the theaters. in fact, my faith in the movie was shot the moment JJ was brought on board.

we had a new villain, another race against time to save the day, and our heroes tell us again and again that it’s fine to share the burden, that they are not alone, that there are more good guys than bad - and when the ARMY OF PEOPLE came to exogol, it’s a wonderful scene. it works for me and it did both times. i know it’s awful that no-one came to leia’s call on crait, but here lando picks up (when lando says hello there, it’s not only panties that drop) half the galaxy, but somehow it still made me well up.

but, despite this very explicit message, our heroine fights alone. she faces palps alone and almost makes a bad decision, is alone in her final battle, is alone at the end. how truly horrible. instead of having ben and rey defeat palps together, rey has to do it alone, out of faux-feminism. it’s sickening. it’s stupid. and that’s not star wars and the star wars message. luke was not alone at the end, he was with friends, with family.

Honor Play Full Review - Play Fast and Pay Less