No More Heroes/WMG

The entire series takes place on future Earth in the Star Wars universe
The supernatural powers of the assassins are all The Force, and Earth eventually realized how to assemble Lightfoils (perhaps after the events of Soul Calibur 4 via some lightsabers being left behind as artifacts, or simply through discovering the force and the inevitability of evolution.). That also explains some characters immunity to pain, as it only seems to happen with characters that have incredible force sensitivity. Travis's force powers came to him so quickly because he uses the force out of anger and fury (notice how his powers are incredibly raw and simple, but powerful, much like Mace Windu, or Darth Vader when he was first awoken as Vader).

The entire game is an extended daydream of
Was I the only one who got a strong St Elsewhere vibe from that last scene? She apparently likes the painting and stood there for a while. So she made up a backstory for Travis, who she really likes. He likes the anime she does and is immature but really cool and adult in a big brother kind of way. He kills tons of people with blood but no guts or gore and he even has  All the other ranked assassins, goons and missions are based off of cool ideas she's had, the stores all play her favorite song, the Rank 01 battle was probably invented after she saw Star Wars. Of course, she created a And then, once she had her self-insert fun and needed an ending to wrap it up, she came up with the Henry/Silvia twist and ended it with her beloved painting. The sequel was her attempt to continue, but she lost heart in it fast.
 * That girl is messed up, then....
 * Jeane's sped-up explanation was sped up because wanted a tragic adult backstory but couldn't come up with one. When she got older, she retconned in the bit that was sped up.
 * The jobs go from coconut collecting and lawn mowing to picking up cats and driving off a ramp because she got more interested in a plot near the end than the side jobs. Also, Rule of Cool built up near the end, especially with Travis and ending speech that made no sense but would sound awesome and profound to a 6 year old.

Bad Girl is Doctor Peace's Daughter
Why the hell was she under that stadium anyway? Simple: To dish out some drunk, drunk revenge on her father's killer.
 * Wait-wait-wait, so he actually... had a dinner in a restaurant with HER? Now I'd like to see THIS.
 * "Oh the food? Tasted like blood."
 * It must have been tough for her to order when the only menu item she could see was "Kill The Whores".
 * Well...we only see her after Dr.Peace dies, so she could've had a breakdown.
 * I never imagined Bad Girl liking rap...

The song, "the virgin child makes her wish without feeling anything" is about Jeane.
The song seems to be about the death of the "virgin child"'s mother, causing the child to lose her body and soul and end up in hell, smiling. Jeane states that her mother committed suicide, and that was her Start of Darkness. The references to her "corpse" are merely metaphorical.

Face it, it's the kind of Mind Screw foreshadowing that Suda 51 is used to.

It also works for Batman if you change a few lyrics.

Margaret changes the lyrics of her song for every person she kills.
Since "Philistine" is a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Travis, it stands to reason that she sings it to her other targets, too. Now, not all of them are vengeful otakus, so she changes the lyrics to fit what she thinks is wrong with them.

Travis is Some Variety of Superhuman.
Timelord, mutant, immortal, meta-human, whatever. It's clear from observation that he possesses some degree of superhuman durability, with similarly heightened reflexes and strength.
 * He's a video game protagonist. Go figure.

Desperate Struggle is an Alternate Universe to NMH-1
Desperate Struggle drops a few hints that it's not on the same continuity as the "Real Ending" from NMH-1. At the end of NMH-1's True Ending, Henry and Travis appear to kill each other as a way to "the exit known as Paradise," which could be interpreted as death and the hereafter respectively. NMH-2 appears to Hand Wave this by having Travis say that Silvia interrupted their fight, but if this was the case in True ending, it would be the second time she'd done it; and Travis says that she stopped the fight, not each other from killing themselves, and whereas the fight in NMH-1's True Ending had already happened, the one after Letz Shake hadn't. Conclusion: NMH-1's True Ending really was that the entire story was either a daydream, or that the painting was made after the fact; and therefore NMH2 is really a sequel to the plain Ending.

Travis Touchdown doesn't care that he was manipulated.
He knew it all along, or at least he eventually caught on. But he made money, he bought more clothes and Otaku stuff, he got to kill people with a beam katana, and he had fun; so, he doesn't really mind. This explains why he didn't bother trying to finish the plot at the end - he was already #1, and there was probably nobody worth fighting... at least until he met the Bonus Boss.
 * The look on his face when Silvia shows up in the latest Desperate Struggle trailer seems to suggest otherwise. It strikes me that he indeed cares he was screwed with, though it doesn't seem that he care much.

The assassins' association does exist, and all indication that things are otherwise were planted by Jeane. It works, too, and drives Travis insane near the end.
Jeane is precisely psycho enough to set this up just so her opponent would be hopeless and confused when the fight rolled around. She knows how gullible Travis is, and she has an exploitative nature. She could have gotten some random French girl to plant the seed of doubt in Travis' mind when he rang the number after fight number 2. She did something similar just before the fight: getting some random dude in a tacky costume to pull Luke, I Am Your Father and then killing him off just to unhinge our protagonist further. She may have been the one leaving the wrestling masks with notes everywhere just so he'd have a greater chance of trying to use them against her (it DOESN'T work if you do). If you think about it, the idea of the Assassins' Association being fake doesn't make sense if you factor in the huge expense of pulling such a scam, the ridiculousness of a sympathetic character insisting on his following through simply so he can "finish what he starts", and some random dude trying to assassinate him to gain his (supposedly nonexistent) rank at the end.

At the game nears its end, her machinations break Travis' feeble Otaku mind, and he starts seeing life as a videogame with the worst kind of Gainax Ending; the player is Through the Eyes of Madness. That's the only reason for the game to suddenly shatter the Fourth Wall like it does and take a turn for the (even more) bizarre.


 * Alternatively, the Association exists, but the rules are radically different than what Sylvia told Travis they were. After all, the assassin who ambushes Travis in the bathroom at the end tells him that he doesn't get any notice or anything because that's not how the fights work.
 * OR the Association exists, but they're not a bunch of crazy ranked fighters; the assassins Travis killed were some kind of rivals, or just murderous psychopaths that the real UAA wanted out of the way, presumably while they dealt with bigger issues...or maybe they just wanted to screw around with him and make some cash. Sylvia is either an agent or their real leader.
 * The sequel confirms that the organization does exist, but the ranked fights don't have an entry fee, Sylvia was just ripping Travis off.
 * Alternatively, the association didn't exist in NMH, but Travis' story circulated in the underworld, and somebody with some power and money (possibly Batt Jr.) thought it was a great idea (and served his ow motives to boot), and funded the organization of a real UAA. The assassins the Sylvia set up were just as fooled as Travis was, probably fed some lie about having their rankings calculated by their record of proper assassinations.

The game takes place in the same universe as, but prior to, the events of Killer 7.
Something is missing from the California skies throughout the game - airplanes. In Killer 7, all air traffic is said to be permanently grounded to reduce the risk of terrorism. You're in the center of what appears to be a large California city (Santa Destroy has its own stadium), but there's no sign of an airport anywhere nearby. Further, all the wrestling masks you find have "M.S." on the notes tucked into them. One of the Smiths was MASK DE Smith, professional wrestler. And finally, Dr. Peace bears a ridiculously close resemblance to Curtis Blackburn - he dies, but in the Killer7 universe, this isn't exactly the end. Presumably, the game takes place some point either before or soon after.
 * So what relation do the Smiths have to the UAA, if any?
 * Rogues. Kun Lan manipulated them into sending Emir to kill them as part of that round of his "games" with Harmon.
 * Supporting evidence: Zaka TV and ISZK Electronics exist in both games. Also, the various assassins' henchmen die in a manner reminiscent to that of the Heaven Smiles, especially the Ulmeyda Smile. Perhaps the henchmen are proto-Smiles?
 * Suda51 was actually asked this in an interview with the magazine NGamer. His response was: No. So, theory busted.
 * With that Jossed, how about an alternative: No More Heroes is an alternate universe of Killer7, perhaps one where their plans went off the rails at some point.
 * Dan Smith could be an alternate Travis or Henry! He's even Irish!
 * Judging by the normal ending this is what I am going with. Travis is parallel to Travis and died "on his first outing" (when he'd stopped with the ranking and tried honest assassination drawing the attention of the Smith Syndicate aka Emir Parkreiner). The break is that in killer7 Travis is background and simply exists to fulfill this role. The events in Killer7 being the abandoned "Heroes" game. T.Touchdown is Travis as canon gary stu in No More Heroes so he avoids the obvious failures and gets to stroll through life living a dream that still punctures holes in his ego but just enough he can survive and recover. With Desperate Struggle the Killer7 future is completely averted though similar forces will be at work.
 * In Heroes Travis likely was just attacking other bad guys in gladitorial events on the black market with experimental weaponry set up by Sylvia and Naomi's parallel. When "peace" broke out he ended up a liability being the survivor of the crucible. The Heroes scam was initially set up to subvert and consolidate the assassins and likely test the paranormal technology of killer7-verse. This lead to the formation of the "modern" Smith Syndicate in its killer7 incarnation and Garcian's "loyalty test" being the slaying of Travis so he wouldn't get out of hand.
 * Henry is likely the chaos butterfly here, ala the twins from Children of Dune. An unexpected twist he alters the history and intention of events by existing. Moving Sylvie to desperate conniving housewife from sugary honeytrap promoter and killing Emir Parkreiner. Off screen he beats his wings or just kills things or pollinates making events going off the rails.
 * The paranormal mythology/background of killer7-verse still exists. Although Kunlan has been killed, hasn't been reincarnated, or has been made irrelevant with the changes brought by Henry the physics and mythical forces still exist just interact differently. Batt Jr would be vulgar but could exist in killer7verse with a change of political landscape. The Gardens of Madness exist in both verses as to other idiosyncrasies. Madness (or mono-focus and sheer belief and perception in defiance of reality) more explicitly in NMHverse can be utilized for temporal effect but its still a source of power in killer7verse. The problem is as Emir and T.Touchdown found out its a traitorous and unreliable power very dependent on it controlling and subverting you more than empowering and enabling you. Actually ALL the assassins have this problem. Walking a path of blood or crazy and finding they've lost something along the way. their names, their pasts, even Death Metal he likely hadn't succumbed suffered the fate of many high ranking criminals of material oppulence and no peace at home or within.

The entire game is Suda51's lovingly satirical parody of Metal Gear Solid 2.
Consider the following, ladies and gentlemen: The main character is a loser, a stain upon humanity, even though he accomplishes some honestly magnificent things. Quenton Flynn (Quenton Raiden Flynn) plays the foil to him, Henry, an incredibly awesome guy. Around the end of the game, the fourth wall explodes and bizarre twists come out. Suda51 took all the basic, hated elements of MGS2, turned them up to eleven, and set them on fire.
 * Given that Suda51 is now working with the Metal Gear creator on a new horror game, this seems pretty damn likely.
 * Harvey Moiseiwitsch Volodarskii bears a striking resemblance to Vamp with his thick accent, flashy movements and fighting style, and ambiguous homosexuality.

Henry killed Master Jacobs.

 * Shinobu was pretty damn sure that someone with a beam katana did the deed. Henry has a beam katana, is extremely good with it, and shares a family resemblance with Travis.
 * Problem is, how do you confuse Henry with Travis?
 * If you take away the sunglasses and change the haircut, Travis and Henry have similar facial features.
 * Perhaps Henry carried out the killing like a proper assassin, utilizing stealth.
 * Shinobu doesn't get startled at Travis' face, though, and in the second game, she even sees Henry. Being that it was likely a beam katana, maybe Thunder Ryu had something to do with it.
 * Why not the guy who posted the Beam Katana sale that Travis bought in an ill-conceived attempt to hide the evidence?

The Assassin's Association is the world's deadliest pyramid scheme
Career killers, Blood Knights, and Psychos For Hire pay large amounts of their own money to participate in deathmatches, being guided by Sylvia and possibly others... the people behind the association are probably the only ones making money from it. Sylvia selects candidates for their personality and willingness to keep paying up to kill their way up the ladder- probably going through plenty of wannabes, which is why she expects Travis not to survive most of his battles but hooks him up with a genuine assassin's org anyway so he could make money to pay for fights. Sylvia's probably spent years setting this up so she can get money and probably kicks from manipulating various suckers.

Jeane is supposed to be a Shout-Out or parody of God Hand
Think about it: the games are similar. Both involve a single guy defeating a ton of enemies, including bizarre bosses who are very hard to fight. The final boss, Jeane, fights almost like the main character of God Hand, who is similarly named "Gene".
 * Perhaps Jeane is Gene's sister- which would mean Travis and (maybe) Henry are also related. Hey, their dad got around...

The No More Heroes universe was constructed by tropers.
Think about it: we have Genre Savvy main characters; the fourth wall keeps getting kicked in the face; and then we have PWLBJ, an anime that combines magical girls, mechs, and space! Along with that, one of the restaurants is named "Pizza Butt." Who else have we referred to as "Pizza Butt"?
 * Easier theory: Suda 51 is a Troper. Yes, you. Love your work.
 * Also, beam katanas are a lot like lightsabers, but since Star Wars doesn't exist in the NMH universe, they had to make their own weapon.
 * There is a poster in both the Beef Head and Travis room of a movie that looks a lot like Star Wars, so maybe some kind of super nerd built a real lightsaber and then everyone wanted one.

Suda51 made this game drunk.
The name of a sake brewery is in the credits.
 * Yes, but don't think Grasshopper would be the only studio that requires a steady supply of sake to keep the programmers going.
 * This makes some sense if the following is true...

Suda51 is ZUN.
NMH is what happens when ZUN decides to make a game while marathoning through a bunch of samurai movies and Star Wars.
 * That would explain PWLBJ....

Travis has literal Cutscene Immortality
Due to being the protagonist of a video game, he cannot be killed unless he is under player control. He's aware of this, which is why he doesn't flinch when he has his heart punched out or a grenade dropped in his lap. This, of course, is a parody of video games in general.
 * He could also have just been in shock when Jeane punched him. And he did freak out when Holly dropped the grenades on him.

All the characters in the game are descended from Kaiju.
From the name of their town and their only superhero, we can surmise that the city's culture views destruction in a positive light. More to the point, in the grass-cutting mini-game, Travis' progress is measured in ACRES. Meaning Travis is about a hundred feet tall if the scale is accurate. This means that some sort of monster apocalypse probably occurred, followed by the children of the giant beasts establishing a new society and evolving into a more human form.

LB Dollars are Crystallized Demon Blood
Possibly crossing over with the last entry, it pours out of enemies along with their regular blood, much like the series crystallized demon blood originated in. Also, you can find it in dumpsters.

Bad Girl is a porn star.
Let's face it, she's so screwed up that it fits; and the alcoholism and that outfit, and the gimps? Travis has probably seen her work before...
 * That theory is entirely too normal for No More Heroes. Instead, I propose that she was a ballerina that was sleeping with the director to get the leading part, and was replaced with another dancer without being warned. Well and truly pissed off, she proceeded to kill everyone related to the production, taking the time to dress the bastard director in a gimp suit and clone him so that she could kill him at will. Which is why she has a seemingly infinite supply of clone gimps.

Travis' incredible resilience is a Power Born of Madness
Travis is a lunatic, very much like Red Mage, whose belief that that he is a Nigh Invulnerable video game hero changes reality to match. It's only a coincidence that he technically is. All of the other bosses have the same, or a similar delusion; Dr Peace thinks he's the Tragic Hero of a Western, for instance, but their delusions all involve their downfalls.
 * So obviously Shinobu believes she's an anime character... and Travis probably spared her because of his respect for anime.
 * More likely, samurai films.
 * Destroyman is a Nineties Anti-Hero, doomed to a spectacularly bloody death.
 * Harvey: The Phantom of the Opera, nuff said.
 * Death Metal is content with his life and believes that the world has nothing more for him. It didn't.
 * Letz Shake believed he was a badass rocker.
 * Holly Summers believed she was a genius in a world full of wreckless assassins.
 * Darkstar believed he was an expy of Darth Vader.
 * Skelter Helter believed himself to be a Final Fantasy style hero.
 * Ryuji thought he was a Silent Protagonist.
 * Jasper Batt Jr.: He's the goddamn Batman.
 * Matt Helms thought he was a horror movie villain.
 * Henry thought he was the cool handsome foil to the main protagonist.
 * Bad Girl thought she was an angry hooker.
 * Nathan Copeland thought he was a rapper.
 * Cloe Walsh thought she was a succubus.
 * Kimmy Howell thought she was a Mary Sue.
 * Charlie Macdonald thought he was a character from Gundam.
 * Dr Letz Shake believed himself to be a living robot. Period.
 * Million Gunman thought he was a Bond villain.
 * Margaret thought she was the Grim Reaper.
 * Captain Vladimir thought he was a russian during the cold war.
 * Alice thought she was a tragic heroine.

Travis is an Other
His Dark Steps are actually him entering the Twilight for a few seconds. He probably isn't entirely aware of this, as he can only do it when his life is in danger.

Travis, Henry, and Jeane are clones
In the trailer for No More Heroes 2, Travis is seen fighting a woman whose hairstyle looks very similar to Jeane's. Jeane died in the last game, but the little girl named Jeane in the secret ending must have grown to replace her. But then how could she be Henry and Travis's half sister? Simple: they're all actually clone supersoldiers manufactured by whatever organization Sylvia REALLY works for. The "half" sister part simply indicates they were made from slightly different genetic stock.
 * Hairstyles aren't genetic.

The plot isn't supposed to make sense.
The entire game is a subvertion of Mind Screw and What Do You Mean It's Not Didactic? - instead of being really weird and symbolic, it's just a lot of random, meaningless stuff with no rhyme or reason. Sylvia strongly implies this at the very very end when she says "I know! Pity there won't be a sequel!" That's right. The plot is intentionally nonsensical.
 * I think you are perfectly correct. Suda51 stated his inspiration for this game was the equally bizarre film El Topo. Which was not supposed to make sense, but had an assassin killing other gunslingers. Fans try to ask him if there is anything more in common with this film, and he says no he just got the idea about assassins. People forget the point of the film and NMH is to make -no- sense.

Travis is adopted. It's possible that Dark Star is his biological father
Travis seems to be American, yet Henry, his twin brother, is clearly Irish. Also, on both of Henry's appearances, Travis starts speaking with an Irish accent. The first time could be viewed as mocking him, but it seems to be sincere on the second occasion. This suggests that Travis originally had an Irish accent which faded due to spending a long time in America, but Henry's appearance brought it back to the surface.

Thus, what most likely happened was that Travis and Henry's parents couldn't afford to keep two children, and so reluctantly decided to give one up for adoption. Jeane's father left her mother to shack up with his new lover, and they adopted Travis. Jeane eventually killed Travis' adoptive parents, sending him on the path to becoming an assassin. It's entirely possible Dark Star is Travis' biological father; Jeane may have known this and killed him just to be a bitch.

The whole plot point about Sylvia being a con artist is a lie.
Think about it. Everything we see prior and after supports the idea of the UAA being real. We even meet two of its reps and the various other assassins make mention of it. The woman who claims to be Sylvia's mother is voiced by the same actress because she IS Sylvia. Sylvia's "Mother" tells Travis to keep going because that's what a "True man" does. The whole thing about it being a lie was a test to see if he would keep going to achieve the goal, even if it seemed like the reward would mean nothing. Sylvia wanted to know if he was worthy of her affections and so decided to give him a test of character. The "Periods of time" when she vanishes that Henry mentioned aren't to do with her being a con artist, he just doesn't know she's with the UAA.
 * Confirmed, at least the part about the UAA being real, as their still around in NMH 2 and Travis has slid down to rank 52 as he's fallen into an Afro Samurai style depression and disinterest after reaching the number one rank.
 * Unless the above WMG about Sylvia using

Travis is qualifying for the Death Watch.
Sylvia plans to sponsor him, and this saves him learning a lot of the rules.

The schoolgirl with the double edged Katana in the NMH2 trailer is the daughter of Dr Peace
She knows all about Travis and refers to him as "Travis the Great" and became an assassin just so she could meet him. Given that Jennifer apparently had a terrible relationship with her father, knew about his work and doubtless heard how he died, I can see her being grateful to Travis for killing Dr Peace. I can also see her trying to KILL him, given that revenge seems to be a trait assassins share, however insane the reasons
 * An interesting idea, though the actual game tells us that her name is Kimmy Howell. It could be a ruse, I suppose, but it seems unlikely.

Shinobu returns with a robotic arm in NMH:DS, making her a cyborg Samurai school teacher.
It would be AWESOME.
 * Haha, and she would teach all her students to use beam katanas to help Travis when he needs it.
 * Hang on, I thought that she was a student. That certainly looked like a uniform that she was wearing.
 * She is a student. She was only a teenager in the first game.
 * She does have a new forearm, so that takes care of "cyborg".

Travis Touchdown is a parallel world version of Afro Samurai.
Think about it. A character obsessed with becoming the "Number One" who lost his parents at a young age, causing him to become a killer? Not one but TWO faces from the past, appearing and seeking his death? A bitter enemy swapping allegiance and saving his life at the very last moment? The inhabitant of a screwed up world where bizarre assassins, thugs and super beings are common? All he's missing is a Ninja Ninja expy.
 * As of NMH 2: Desperate Struggle, we learn Travis lost heart and sunk into depression after reaching the number one rank, until a sudden shocking event forces him out of retirement and he has to climb the path to becoming Number One once again. Sound familiar? :)

No More Heroes is in the Kill the Past universe of Suda51
The Emir Parkreiner/Garcian was not supposed to be the Emir of Killer 7, but the Emir of the Kill the Past universe. Killer 7 was supposed to be part of the kill the past universe but halfway through the games development that idea was scrapped due to Suda51 being too busy. It is stated that Bad Girl's gimp grunts are actually clones in one of the K-Entertainment missions. The Emir that tries to kill Travis in NMH was the one that was originally supposed to appear in the vaguely cannon universe. Sundance Shot from FSR was supposed to appear in Killer 7 according to the beta trailer. The clone bodies are stock bodies for Emir, and possibly Sumio from Flower, Sun and Rain. This all makes sense in context, really.

The UAA is a front for R.E.D.
The fact that the police and/or army never interrupt a match or try to arrest any of the ranked assassins points to it being a government operation. This raises the question of what benefit the government could use to justify the program. If we look at the people RED employs, it's clear that they couldn't have recruited them through normal channels. Since they control the government, they were able to set up the association as a means of indentifying potential recruits. Presumably, Travis failed a psychological evaluation somewhere along the way, so he was kept as fodder for other recruits instead of being offered a position.
 * How do you fail a psychological evaluation from R.E.D.?
 * Not paranoid enough. RED employees regularly shoot each other in case one of them is a spy, whereas Travis was actually willing to shake his opponent's hand.
 * Also, Travis has been reluctant to kill his targets on several occasions. The current team may all be insane, but they can be relied upon to kill efficiently.
 * Worth noting that Travis's VA is the same as the Medic.
 * Alternately: The RED Medic is Travis' father. Same kinked eyebrows, square jawline, hooked nose, penchant for smirking, widow's peak, both assassins, and use charged weapons.
 * Or Medic is Travis's grandfather. After the events of Team Fortress 2 Medic settles down with his family in Ireland, where his daughter marries a local by the name of Touchdown. Believing Travis to be the less talented of her sons, she decides to bring him up as a normal boy in America, while leaving her other son Henry with his grandfather to continue the family tradition as an assassin. Meanwhile BLU Scout opens a pizza joint back home in Boston called Pizza Bat. When he passes away at an early age due to BONK! overdose his son takes over the family business and turns it into a hugely successful chain. The rest becomes history.
 * Looks like he got the position after all.

Speed Buster is The Sniper's mother
She's old enough, and he seems to be on better terms with his mother than with his father (of course, "better" is relative, but that could just be because she's generally antisocial).
 * But she's extremely misandric, yet the Sniper's parents seemingly live together.

Haruhi Suzumiya had nothing to do with making the NMH universe
Because I'm tired of having everything being thought up by her!
 * So it was Kyon then?
 * Let's take this further: Haruhi is the creation of Sylvia. Sylvia is using all of Travis' favourite anime tropes to wring more money out of him with books, dvds, Image Song albums, collectables, and so on. Everyone else just happens to be caught up in the scam, making it her most successful scam to date. Travis found this out, which is why he's pissed at her in the sequel and wants to take her down. BAM.
 * Or even better still: Travis Touchdown created Haruhi Suzumiya! His passion for anime lead him to create the ultimate in Moe, which led to the creation of the five MC's of the show. Haruhi, the one with the most raw otaku loser sex appeal, absorbed so much that she gained godlike powers!

Travis Touchdown is Travis Bell from Killer 7
Notice that Travis Bell makes a reference to being an assassin before Harman killed him. Also notice a similar hairstyle and his frequent changing of T-Shirts.
 * Jossed in one of the earlier interviews.

Major spoilers for Desperate Struggle.
 * Disproportionate Retribution much?
 * Then what was all the blood on the window after they shot him.
 * Disproportionate Retribution much?
 * Then what was all the blood on the window after they shot him.

Margaret is Dr. Peace's daughter and the gate keeper of hell.
She is also a literal psychopomp and probobly related to Travis somehow.

Ryuji trained under Darkstar/viceversa/they shared a master/he romaed his weapon
Their dragons are far to similar to be coincidence.

It isn't that Travis "can't hit a girl", but "can't kill anyone not completely fucked up"
Shinobu, Holly and Kimmy are a great deal less insane that the rest of the ranks
 * Alice seemed to have a good head on her shoulders until Travis chopped it off. Partially reinforced by his bouts with Ryuji and Vladimir though.
 * Speed Buster was also pretty sane herself.
 * Mind you, by that point, she had just . He was probably blind with rage at the time.
 * By the time he fought Kimmy, it was less "can't killa girl" and more "can't kill a kid". Hell, that may have been in play with Shinobu as well.
 * You forgot Ryuji, who he never properly met, and Captain Vladmir, whose fight was just due to Poor Communication Kills.
 * Ryuji was a noble warrior, and was basically Travis with Dragon motifs, and Captain Vlad was so tragic Travis wanted him to die peacefully.

Travis will return in future games as a Pro Wrestler.
Suda51 has confirmed that there will be more NMH games, but Travis won't be the main character. Since he's done with being an assassin, he'll pursue a career in one of the things he's good at. He may give the new protagonist Training From Hell, though.

The Alice and Margaret naming discrepancy comes from the fact that they're sisters, but Alice changed her name when she entered the UAA

 * Alice also likely entered the UAA due to her Son and Husband being murdered by a high ranked Assassin, what with the whole cycle of revenge motif.
 * It's also possible Twilight is the last name of Alice's husband, or that Twilight and Moonlight are assumed names.

Alice and Margaret are/were lovers
Simmilar but different to the above WMG Alice Twilight and Margaret Moonlight were lovers within the UAA. Alice, upon hearing of Margaret's death loses heart which is why she's so depressive and defeatist when Travis finally encounters her and it's why she's burning the pictures and diaries when Travis meets her...she's lost everything and only craves death at this point. This is also why Margaret is more "Detached" from the games, sniping from afar. She's not interested in climbing the ranks, only in keeping any potential challengers away from Alice
 * Well "Boys cannot crack the oyster shell" according to Margaret (Euphemism ahoy)...
 * Hmmm.....Alice's post death credits say "Moonlight". Accident; yes. Similar.to twilight? Yeap. Safe to say jossed; Suda51 isn't THAT crazy.

Jeane (the daughter of Sylvia, not the cat or half-sister of Travis) is actually
It's the only way to explain why she doesn't appear in Desperate Struggle: Don't follow me yet? Let me break it down for you.

We find out in Desperate Struggle that But hey, what do I know?

Cloe Walsh is Speed Buster at a different point in time.
Their theme songs are way too suspiciously similar to be coincidence. Also Cloe's hair is the same color and style as Speed Buster's, and you fight her at an Akashic Point where reality is messed up. Also both Cloe and Speed Buster kiss Travis and clearly are attracted to him.
 * Travis! You can't do that! The future will be changed! You'll create a time paradox!

That Groin Attack he received might have been painful, but given how people in the No More Heroes universe like  have managed to survive much worse, who's to say he didn't just pass out and come to later? No one actually bothers to check on him, and as mentioned in a previous WMG, he may have sent his pupil  to try and deal with Travis while he recovered.
 * Not to mention, when people die in NMH, there is always the parodistical gratuitously violent impalings or mutilations. He just lies there like nobody's buisness.

Everything is related.
I have a wide encompassing WMG that will need to be broken down into several parts for optimum use.


 * Part One: The Long Con
 * Silvia Christel, a high ranking officer in the UAA was approached by the UAA's new Number One Assassin with a business deal, Sylvia would test a man, just a normal guy against the 11th ranked assassin in the world. If the guy lost it was no skin off her back but if the guy won she would have to guide him to the top rank (Robbing him blind along the way). This guy was Travis Touchdown and the Number One Assassin was Jeane. The reason Jeane picked Sylvia as the one to guide Travis to number one was that she was her sister in law.


 * Part Two: The Doctor
 * The Eighth Ranked Assassin in the UAA Dr. Peace, a mafia hit man and dirty cop, was the detective assigned to investigate the circumstances of  As such when he was informed the new Number Nine coming to challenge him was Travis Touchdown he prepared the song he wrote about the above spoilered events. The Virgin Child Makes Her Wish (Without feeling anything). Perhaps as a warning or a cruel joke, either way it went way over Travis' head.

Captain Vladimir's Situation
Simply put, he really didn't have any idea he was a ranked assassin. Once upon a time, Sylvia and/or co. stumbled upon him, probably floating around in circles in the middle of nowhere. They realized that he attacks anyone he sees with his real-Soviet-damage-satellite. After that, they just send out some up-and-coming fighter against him, who he kills for the glory of Mother Russia. Travis was probably not the first to stumble in, with many others facing him under like-wise conditions.
 * And how did he get that way? I'm guessing Alien Abduction. He's possessing technology and abilities that seem suitably impossible and alien, and he's been driven so mad he doesn't realize he's still on Earth. He was trapped in a neverending nightmare... until Travis freed him.
 * Also, considering that he seems to just vanish after you beat and he realizes he's on Earth, he's a ghost, but didn't want to pass onto, where ever the hell dead people go in the NMH universe, until he got back to Earth.
 * Then how did Alice and Batt get above him? I mean, unless the UAA only had two people in it at the time Vladimir was discovered...
 * The initial ratings of the new UAA were based on prexisting assassination "stats". Since Batt Jr. had a hand in making the organization, he was able to alter the records to put himself at the top, and Alice simply started somewhere above Vladimir.

NMH is a self-parody of Suda51 games.
A joking take on the typical postmodern mindscrew thing.

Holly Summers is the granddaughter of Soldier.
Both use rocket launchers. Both use grenades. Both use shovels to attack. The entire lead up to the 6th ranked battle is military-themed despite neither of them being actual soldiers. Granddaddy was obviously a bad influence...
 * Also, she kills herself with a grenade when her health gets too low.
 * Actually, while not an enlisted soldier, she is likely employed by the U.S. government, which would explain why she has the support of soldiers.

Nathan Copeland is related to the Demoman.
Scots/Irish accented guy of African descent. In the media, very rare.

Bad Girl's father was the Scout, and her grandfather was Seargeant Donny Donowitz.
All three of them are extremely gung-ho amoral psychopaths, and well-versed in the ways of the bat. Heck, the bat could even be a family heirloom, assuming the Scout's Sandman is the bat that Donny and Bad Girl use.

Bad Girl is The Witch.
They both lure victims in by going to their knees and sobbing, and if you get close enough then they'll end up killing you extremely quickly with no hope of retaliation.

If Travis took on Million Gunman, he would have lost.
I mean, just think about it-- MG was somewhat of a Get Back Here Boss, and his area was somewhat intricate, with multiple levels. Notice that, gameplay-wise, Travis lacks the ability to jump. Hence, he wouldn't be able to keep up and MG would chip away at him from afar. Shinobu, on the other hand, can jump in-game, and that's how she was able to win the fight. Travis vs. New Destroyman is a bit of a toss-up, but I doubt that a Travis vs. Million Gunman fight would end well for the former.
 * Except that in multiple cutscenes, Travis DOES have the ability to jump.

No More Heroes and Scott Pilgrim take place in the same universe.
Both are heavily video game themed, have a good share of insane characters, include organizations with boss-level eccentrics... They just simply take place so far apart you never hear about each other. The weird universe you're in when you fight Cloe Walsh? Subspace.

Shinobu avenged Master Jacobs before Desperate Struggle. She is using Travis to try and stop herself being so obsessive.
Shinobu eventually killed Jacobs' killer, and found herself, like Inigo Montoya, wondering what she would do with the rest of her life. She found that she couldn't get out of the ultra-seriously-obsessing-over-someone mindset. She chose to obsess over Travis on the basis that she thought he would either use her (thus making it so that she HAD to stop thinking like this), or try to 'fix' her and get her to act like a human again. She rationalised this by telling herself it was because he spared her life, allowing her the time to avenge Master Jacobs. She left Travis when it became clear he would neither exploit her nor make more than a half-assed attempt to fix her.

Travis didn't remember Jeane or the deaths of his parents because he repressed the memories.
He only remembers the specific details beyond "my parents are dead" when he's A: drunk off his ass (like he was when he told Sylvia about it), or B: someone prods really, really hard about it (like Dark Star did). However, his anger still remained, which fueled his desire to become an assassin, even if he thought he joined the business because he thought it was cool.

No More Heroes universe is an alternate time line of Assassin's Creed.
In this timeline, the Assassins manage to wipe out the Templars completely, gathered all the Pieces of Eden on earth and promptly fucked themselves up with them that it made all of their descendants insane killers. Each ranked assassin that you find is suffering from side effects of whatever catastrophe their ancestors suffered from when the misused all the Eden pieces. No this theory has nothing to do with the fact this troper played NMH:DS and AC2 close together.

Kimmy is an alternate universe version of Amy Rose
Both are sweet (or at least Kimmy pretends to be) girls with a fondness for pink. Both have a creepy crush on the main protagonist. Both are surprisingly strong fighters. Both have no problems with physically hurting the one they love. Kimmy's battle theme even sounds like it was ripped from Sonic Adventure. In fact, they could be considered two sides of the same coin; Amy, who has her "sweetness" played up, and Kimmy, who has her "creepiness" played up.

Ryuji is Dark Star in the past.
Akashic points can do some pretty weird stuff, I guess.
 * The problem is, Ryuji isn't fought at an akashic point!

Travis will be the final boss of No More Heroes 3
Suda's stated that Travis won't be the protagonist in any of the future games, but I'll eat my own shoes if he doesn't make an appearance in the next game one way or another. How awesome would it be if he turned out to be a bonus boss of some sort, like Henry in the first game?

"Travis Touchdown" is actually another codename
"Did I ever tell you about the time my buddy Keith bought a laser sword off the internet, left town and became an assassin?"

Henry will be the protagonist of the next game.
I mean come on, how cool would THAT be?

The games are a Worked Shoot

 * Hence the wrestling moves, the gimmicks, the pre- and post-fight posturing, etc. Travis started as a Heel, but garnered so much popularity that his handlers arranged his Heel Face Turn in the second game.
 * Relatedly, this means that nobody actually dies. It's all just very convincing special effects.

The series is a Spiritual Successor of Shadow of the Colossus.
Both series are about "heroes" killing others for petty reasons as a way of calling the player out on their bastardry, and contrast over-the-top boss fights with the mundane journeys to said boss fights.

Every Assassin from both games do assassinations as a side-gig and have regular jobs and lives outside of it.
With a few exceptions of course, given the nature of these people.
 * Death Metal is a tattoo artist entrepreneur, who is also quite successful.
 * Dr. Peace is of course a crooked cop.
 * Shinobu goes to school (obvious).
 * Destroyman is a TV super hero.
 * Wasn't he a postal worker?
 * Yes, but that's his new job. The trading cards in-game say so, and that he's the star of the independent Destroyman films.
 * Holly Summers runs a private weapons manufacturing company.
 * Cards say that she's actually a model.
 * Letz Shake is obviously a punk rock guitarist.
 * Harvey Moiseiwitsch Volodarskii is a famous touring magician.
 * Speed Buster...Fuck, I dunno.
 * Speed Buster is homeless.
 * Bad Girl was a famous ballerina (see above WMG on that).
 * It's not a ballet suit, it's lolita cosplay. She's just a jacked up mess who probably killed everyone in an asylum and escaped. Maybe all those gimps are her prisoners, who used to be psychologists.
 * Dark Star is a nerd who somehow obtained a large amount of money and used it to buy a castle, armor, etc.
 * Nathan Copeland owns his own record company and hotel, and also runs his own religion.
 * Charlie MacDonald goes to school and is star quarterback (Again, obvious).
 * Kimmy Howell plays flute in a classical band. She fashioned the flute into a double lightsaber just in case.
 * Cloe Walsh was a porn star who lost her mind and drank too much.
 * Million Gunman is caretaker of the NMH universe's Fort Knox expy.
 * Ryuji builds motorcycles.
 * Margaret Moonlight is a free sample girl at the local food mart. Her outfit was used to attract customers.
 * Free samples of what? Whenever I see someone in a Victorian dress, I don't suddenly think microwavable pizzas...
 * Alternatively, she's an actual maid. Her master is an ancient vampire who looks like a little girl.
 * Captain Vladimir didn't even know he was a part of the UAA, so he was just a full time cosmonaut.
 * Alice Twilight was already shown to have been a mother, wife, and close friend of Margaret. It's possible she worked at the food mart as well.
 * Jasper Batt Jr. owns a pizza chain, and runs it with an iron fist.

The bosses have no AI.

 * Rather, the bosses are controlled by another player from another dimention, where the boss in question is the main character of the game. When you switch difficulties, the AI isn't getting better, instead it chooses a player with a higher skill level.

Margaret takes an early shot at Travis.

 * When you're moving through what's left of Destroy University to go fight Kimmy, right before you go between the car and Santa Death Parade's arm and those knife guys jump you, a tracer round flies at the back of Travis's head. Could it be Margaret Moonlight taking a potshot at Travis to eliminate him before he could even get to her?

Henry was in on Sylvia's con the entire time.
He seems to imply that he has nothing to do with it in the ending cutscene, since she would "disappear" periodically. However, the voice on Travis' answering machine sounds an awful lot like Henry putting on an American accent, and his Irish accent comes through occasionally. Henry says that his income wasn't enough, so he works with Sylvia to con Travis into paying fees for the UAA.
 * Mother of God...the voices do sound exactly the same. Requesting this be looked into further...
 * Jossed; according to the Wiki, it's actually Weller, the shorter of the two men who clean up the corpses after each ranking fight.
 * I think the wiki is mistaken. He doesn't sound like the voice on the answering machine (listen to him at the end of the Bad Girl fight - he has a very distinct American accent), and from what I can tell, there isn't any reason to believe it's Weller apart from speculation.

UAA is an imitation of Death Watch from MadWorld
The UAA got all their ideas by watching the games from Death Watch, and considering, they picked it up around modern times. Though the only difference is that they have stricter rules than DW and probably want to keep a lower profile than it. For example, there are no traps or hazards enemies can knocked or thrown into. Also you rank up in the UAA by killing the person 1 rank above you. In Death Watch along as the nubmer is higher than your rank, you challenge that opponent. There is also the fact that DW stations its owned private network for the rich and the powerful watch the games.

Speed Buster got her name from destroying Speed City
Fairly self-explanatory. She went into "retirement" as an assassin much like Death Metal did, but she had been much more dangerous and was much more highly Wanted by authorities than Death Metal was, so she couldn't just pick a mansion and settle down. She bought her Wave Motion Gun from the same black-market sources that Letz Shake acquired Dr. Shake from, then destroyed Speed City with it, and the Government just covered it up, declared Speed City a disaster zone, and let her have it, and she acquired her current nickname that way.

Shinobu will be the protagonist of the next game
Considering the heavy dose of What Happened to the Mouse? that she got hit with in Desperate Struggle, and the fact that she's younger than Travis, we could get a game set in the future with her more firmly as an adult where she tracks down her father's real killer or something, or tries to track down Travis himself.

The reason the ranked assassins have nicknames is to protect themselves from being hunted outside their rank
Since the UAA was, Sylvia didn't have the resources to keep outside assassins from cheating by skipping lower ranks so she had the ranked assassins use nicknames to protect them.In NMH 1, only three ranked assassins are using their real name: Holly Summers, Harvey Volodarski, and Travis Touchdown which meant assassins would be able to hunt them down. By NMH 2, most of the assassins begin using their real name because the UAA has enough resources to protect them
 * Holly Summers boss fight was the only one that featured physical traps. She was a professional with traps and purposely used her real name to lure assassins so she can test out her traps.
 * Harvey Volodarski made a living off killing people on-stage. He needs the assassins to go after him so he can have fresh meat.
 * Travis used his real name and because of that, an assassin found out where he lived and tried to kill him.

Alice and Margaret are the same person, only from different plains of existence.
This explains their seemingly familiar relationship.

The ultimate Big Bad of the series will be...
Satan himself. It's explained that Matt Helms, at least as we find him, is the result of a deal with the devil. If Travis wants to stop all the pain and bloodshed, he's gonna have to go straight to the source of evil itself.

Let's be honest, it's far from the strangest thing that's happened in these games.

Bad Girl is Cloe Walsh's sister.
1: they're both ax crazy serial killers 2: Bad Girl says "They're all going to pay." They could possibly be the people who put Cloe away 3: they look really similar apart from the hair and clothing. Also, they could be Dr. Peace's daughters. Cloe could have changed her name to Walsh after he disowned her after she was arrested. Bad Girl/Jennifer could have changed her name to Bad Girl, possibly by deed poll after Cloe was arrested.

Travis spares Ryuji's life because he reminds him of Thunder Ryu.
There is an obvious resemblance between the two, and they're both Japanese, have scars on their faces, have similar names (although Travis may not have known his name) and wear clothes identifying them with Japanese gangs (Ryu is a former yakuza member, and Ryuji wears biker gang clothes). Although Travis says he was a "true warrior", his real reason for not killing him was because he subconsciously saw elements of his former master in Ryuji.