The World Ends With You/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

** I like to think they give you a free phone when you die, along with you Player Pin, if you don't already have one.

** It's ''Shibuya''. No one over the age of 8 would be caught dead (no pun intended) without their cell phone.

* Why don't any of the kids' parents or friends notice them spontaneously {{spoiler|coming back from the dead}}?

** Maybe {{spoiler|the body of someone in the Game is in the hospital, unconscious, in critical condition for the duration of their Game? If they win, they have a miraculous recovery; if they lose, the doctors give the "we've done all we can, but I'm afraid we've lost them" speech}}.

* Let's say that a person named X dies and his death directly causes someone else's death. For example, that the X death's driven someone to commit suicide, or better yet, that X was piloting a passenger plane when he had a heart attack and caused the plane to crash. If he wins the game and chooses to be ressurrected, and if choosing to be ressurrected means to not have died at all, so all the others will be ressurrected too? But then, their souls were lost in the game, and they were not fixed in a pin or something, not to say that losing the game means that they were not worth of being ressurrected... So they will be people without Imagination? This seems quite troubling since the game isn't held each week, and the consequences can pile up. Imagine that one suicide leds to another weeks later, for example. In fact, it can become a huge problem for the Composer.

* Why doesn't anyone notice Players appear and disappear when they enter and exit shops?

*** It's Japan, which is kind of notorious for staring at, but saying nothing, if something weird happens.

*** It's also Shibuya, which is insanely crowded. Look at all those people running around the streets.

*** There's also that one thought where it's pretty much "what the hell are you doing? Did anyone say you could read my mind?"

*** Another random NPC is a fan of 777 (a Reaper who plays in a band in the RG). She tried to follow him home to see where he lived, but got confused when he appeared to vanish into thin air.

** Actually, I believe Shiki said that Mr. Mew was the only thing that would work with her psychic powers. Neku questions if it's Shiki doing the work or Mr. Mew.

*** Exactly. She tried more conventional household weapons first.

*** Apparently Shiki is a variation of Necromancer called Psychomancer, but instead of bringing the dead to life they bring inanimate objects to life (though the reason she can only use Mr.Mew is probably because a) he's an important figure in her life and/or b) she may only be able to use it on humanoid objects).

** I don't think everyone started the Game at the same time. Or maybe Neku was unconscious for an hour or two when the Game started... Or Shiki was in a previous game... Or- I hereby direct you to [[The World Ends With You/WMG|Wild Mass Guessing]].

*** I always assumed that every Player is given a full explanation of the Game... and then the entry fees are collected. Neku's fee being his memory is rather convenient as an exposition device, no?

*** Except the end monolouge explicitly states that it's the first time {"I have friends now, and we're meeting up for the first time in a week!"). Actually, now that I think on it, maybe they met up that first day and then again a week later. Which would make more sense.

*** But what would be the point of sending Neku through the Game a ''fourth'' time? Joshua'd already gotten the outcome he wanted, what more could be done? I believe they either met up at the beginning of the week and then again a week later, or they just took a week to get used to being alive again. What is there other then the 'What the HELL?' to suggest he went through it again? Like I said, there would be no point.

*** Well, I wouldn't put it past him. But he still invites [even if only in his mind] him to meet with them a Hachiko.

*** Looking at the crowd's feet, they seem to be standing around him, so I assume they can see him and he's therefore no longer in the game.

* On the topic of the ending, during the [[The Stinger]], {{spoiler|why is Joshua sad and/or angry while he's watching Neku and the gang at Hachiko? }}

** The Japanese version of the scene may provide the answer to that: {{spoiler|the word Hanekoma uses for "down" is "samishisou." He says that Josh appears to be ''lonely''. Seems to me that he wants to join Neku & crew}}.

*** {{spoiler|Josh is amused by Sho's efforts to take the rank of Composer, while being very certain that Sho is unable to kill him. I mean, Sho gets a gigantic power-up, becoming part Taboo Noise, and Josh apparently kicked the shit out of him. He doesn't have much to worry about. In fact, this is probably at least Sho's fifth or sixth attempt to steal the title of Composer, which would make a pretty funny revelation in the (hopeful) sequel.}}

** Since there's a drastically smaller Reaper count this time around, one could presume that there would be more winners for the next Game. Just convince a lot of them to join up and start handing out promotions like candy.

** Plus there's the fact that, you know, he could always revive them if really needed.

*** That's true, and might justify a great deal of the plot. As proven after the first week, winning the game doesn't guarantee your return. As proven by {{spoiler|Rhyme}}, losing the game doesn't guarantee your demise. As proven by the ending sequence, {{spoiler|the Composer basically dictates who lives and who dies... including people who are still living}}. So maybe the whole plot's a gregarious version of the [[Stock Aesop]] "it's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game".

* You can have more than one {{spoiler|Rhyme pin}}. In fact, if you go for all the secret reports, you will have two, and to get to the credits sequence a second time to see the full fruits of your efforts, you'll end up with three. And ''that's'' if you save trying for {{spoiler|Beat, Day 7's Boss symbol battle}} until after you've accomplished all the ''other'' requirements. Oh, and you can equip this pin during the second playthrough, as well, which means you might be wearing it when {{spoiler|Rhyme is "alive" (or at least, as alive as any Player is), when Beat is attacking you, and even when you and Beat are chasing and fighting Konishi (and Uzuki, briefly) in order to get the pin back. You can't cash ''any'' of them in, as they're "worth more than all the yen in the world"... but does that mean that Rhyme will be triplets, at least when she's restored to life? Or will the other two or more be kept around as pet ferrets? No matter how you slice it, this has some seriously weird implications}}. On a pragmatic level, the pins are received already mastered, and of course, you can only equip one at a time, so having more than one seems to only exist as a means of counting how many times you've {{spoiler|defeated Konishi}}.

** [[Gameplay and Story Segregation|Uhh...]]

*** Even ''that'' is nothing. You can ''buy'' {{spoiler|Rhyme pins}} at Shadow Ramen. You can ''buy'' them.

*** Well, you can dress Shiki in Pegaso, but she still "wears" D+B.

** Fighting {{spoiler|Reaper Beat}} with the pin is probably one of the most sadistic things you can do, though it's not addressed in the game.

** Maybe {{spoiler|Hanekoma liked the Rhyme pin}}, so he created several more, much like {{spoiler|the fake one given to Uzuki}}. Said pin just happens to be an additional drop for {{spoiler|Konishi, and since Neku has one real one and several fakes that summon a regular old Noise, well... "Sorry, I'd love to restore Rhyme to life, but you sort of threw the pin in a trash can. It's in a junkyard, parts of it smashed into a car. LOL, it's so ironic!" "..." "...no, Rhyme's gone. Sorry. Nice going, Neku."}}

*** This would also explain getting more than one via boss rush - every pin after the first is a replica. Also, if I recall correctly, they're Gatito pins...

*** You recall incorrectly. Rhyme, like all Noise pins, is Unbranded.

** Shiki only claimed to be fashion-conscious, that doesn't necessarily mean she ''is''. She either said that because she was still imitating Eri, or was simply in denial about her lack of fashion sense. Besides, Eri had told her she wasn't cut out to be a designer.

** Perhaps this may be a matter of personal taste, but I found what I saw of Shiki's appearance ''more'' attractive than Eri's.

*** The above troper is right; when {{spoiler|Red Kaiser is smashed in Another Day}}, Shooter is depressed, but admits that he can play without it, as it does ''nothing at all'', just being a training brace; this surprises even Neku, who had previously said that Shooter could play without it.

* Does anyone else find it ironic that Shiki mocks over Neku's modified "Jupiter of the monkey"-outfit, while she herself, in real life, wears a badly assembled mix of "Mus Rattus"(most unpopular brand in Shibuya) and "Natural Puppy" clothes? I actually think, a pure "Natural Puppy" or a "D+B"-look with some "Natural Puppy"-elements would fit her better. Reconsidering it again, why hasn't Eri already desinged her better clothes yet?! The two are supposed to be BFF aren't they?!

* Say, ever think that that the shopkeepers are ex-players themselves. I mean why would they sell "pins" that have better psychs than the starter pins? Or how the clothes they sell act like Armor (and Accessory) for the games? And why no one just cleans up that tag that let the RG see the Player?

** The Reapers send them the stuff to sell. They are clueless about what it does. The Reapers control Shibuya's fashion.

*** It only works if you're not directly interacting with someone or extremely visible.

*** I'm going to go with the most logical response here: What are the actual chances of somebody you know, that knows you're dead, shopping in the same store as you at the exact same second, in a place like Shibuya, which is a ''shopping mecca''?? Astronomically slim, that's what. Just because we only have access to a dozen or so stores in game, that doesn't mean there aren't hundreds of others around for other people to be shopping at, instead of where you are.

* On a more mechanical note, why are cars less durable than bicycles? They always seem to deliver less hits when used with Psychokinesis pins before blinking out. Furthermore, I'm not sure what kind of weirdness censor the RG people have, but I don't think they could miss a car flying through the air and then falling apart inexplicably. {{spoiler|I also don't think objects can have their vibe adjusted in the same way that Players and Reapers can, which means that if a car exists in the Noise Plane it probably exists in the Real Ground too.}}

** My guess is that the cars and such in the Noise Plane are created by people similar to how the Noise are created.

*** It's [[Anti-Poopsocking]], of course. It can go [[Fridge Logic|beyond the realms of logic]].

* What would happen if a Player was killed while shopping?

*** I think he's referring to "what if some random loser robbed one of the stores and attacked a player with lethal results?".

*** But will they have to pay another entry fee?

** Easy, they just switch off.

** UG is on a different frequency of existence - like a different radio station. Plus, the kids are, you know, dead. Why would they body function as a living person's should be? They're Souls that retain human shape and mind, and when they show up at a shop or a fastfood junction, it probably counts as being a very tangible ghost. There's another thing. You know how every food item has a certain amount of bytes, and that you have a certain amount of bytes you can digest per day? And you digest food by fighting. So when you eat and then fight, food bytes slowly become ''your'' own, thus adding a point to whatever stat the food is raising. I think it's kind of like an expansion to the Soul - it gets bigger or more dense the higher your stats is, and you get higher stats by eating food (or wearing items).

*** Or maybe they could [[Laser-Guided Amnesia|forget all about each other]], like Beat did with Rhyme? (The deal with Shiki was entirely a ploy, although a fairly convincing one, as he had come to see her as a friend by the end of the week).

** I defy you to name something that two separate people share as their most important thing.

** I don't think that two people can have a completely identical fee. Even with the child example - do we assume that both parents love their child? And what do they love about their child? Do they want to be there to protect him or her, or be there to see them succeed in life?.. And like the troper above said - the one who won wins it, the one who lost loses it altogether with his life.

** The most logical answer is that, in the same way that you can't buy two $20 admissions with the same twenty-dollar bill, they wouldn't allow two Players to use the same entry fee. In that case, one's fee would be diverted to the second most valuable thing. It wouldn't make sense to handle it otherwise, and it doesn't come up often enough for it to be worth mentioning at times when it doesn't apply.

** Joshua is dead, Kariya simply assumes he's alive because his power level (for lack of a better term) is so high that only the Composer or someone living could have such a high level and since the Composer typically doesn't play the Reaper's game he assumed Joshua must be alive, and Joshua decided to go along with it. Also, Joshua wasn't a Player in his week long game with Neku in any real sense of the word (i.e. he didn't pay an entry fee and lacked a player pin) which is why Neku is considered a cheater.

** Remember, Mr. H, and other Reapers are able to change their frequency to go from the UG to the RG and back. It's safe to say that as the Composer, Joshua can just change his frequency at will as well. Also don't forget when {{spoiler|Sho did the Lvl ''i'' Flare, Joshua jumped to the Another Day dimension, which is a different frequency from the one they are on}}.

** Josh's [[Hand Wave]] was just the long version of "the developers were too lazy to draw extra-sprites".

*** It was probably just to keep her real face secret, not laziness. What would be the point of obscuring the upper half of her face to keep it a mystery, and then revealing her face in sprite-form when you play the bonus chapter two minutes later?

** Considering he {{spoiler|taught Minamimoto how to make a Taboo Noise refinery sigil and sent him out to ''kill the Composer'', created the [[Instrumentality]] pins, and indirectly causing the Erasure of ''at least'' a few dozen Reapers}}, saving one pair of Players seems kind of minor.

** Maybe they bought his "this is okay because it won't affect The Game" (in this obviously-special case, the Game between the Composer and the Conductor, rather than the ordinary Game) excuse? Granted, all Angels would have to be really stupid to accept it, because it had me go, "Suuuure, Mr. H," long before I even reached report #21. Or (taking that thought to its logical conclusion) perhaps he is ''allowed'' to take such actions in a normal Game, particularly if the Player/s involved are particularly nice? It's a Game for judging humanity, after all, and both Beat and Rhyme have self-sacrifice in their favor.

** As the final secret report states, he has gone into hiding because he knows he's screwed if he is found. It seems that people in the higher planes did in fact not approve of what he did, and he can only hope that someday his actions will be proven justified.

*** You don't need hours and hours of inane and tedious grinding to get all the secret reports, except maybe the one for Another Day. I'm thinking more of 100% pin mastery, items, Noise list...

* Okay, did Beat know about Shiki's fee or something? Cause Beat saw Shiki's "Game" appearance, So how come he isn't confused by her "New" appearance?

** I always assumed that Neku told Beat during Week 3, along with some of the other bits of the plot that Beat missed.

** Recall that Neku said he was meeting his friends for the ''first time in a week''. This could mean that they all met each other a week earlier. So if Beat wasn't informed about Shiki new look before, he was then.

* Am I the only one who found it odd that Joshua calls Neku by his name in a cutscene, then a few seconds later, in the same cutscene, he says

{{quote|''Joshua'': I'll ask just for the sake of convenience. Do you have a name?}}

* OK, so Josh {{spoiler|shields Neku from Sho's Level ''i'' Flare}} so that Neku doesn't get harmed. However, the Secret Reports reveal that Josh actually {{spoiler|retreated to the Another Day universe just before the blast hit}}. So if {{spoiler|Josh wasn't actually there to take the hit}}, shouldn't it have kept going and erased Neku?

** Joshua pushed Neku out of the way, and possibly {{spoiler|used his own power to lessen the effects of the ''i'' Flare. Josh used Minamimoto's attack as an excuse to disappear, which is why he allowed himself to 'get hit' by it.}}

*** Of course Neku should be more open and concerned about other people. Small personal sacrifices aren't bad, either. But consider some of the other scenes in the game. Eri was practically thinking of giving up on her fashion design future because she didn't think she could do it without Shiki there to bring her ideas to life... and Shiki had died. Beat beats himself up over trying to motivate Rhyme by talking about his personal (untrue) goals, because he ended up convincing her that he was someone worth dying for, costing her her own future. Do you understand? People should care about each other. People should be willing to trust each other. But you sure as hell shouldn't ''end your own world'' for them, and especially shouldn't be ''expected'' to. ''Live'' for other people, or at least with them. Don't ''die'' for them. (And just in case that wasn't enough, consider this little quirk. {{spoiler|If Neku had given his life for ''anyone'' during the course of the main game, the Conductor would have won. Good thing he was "selfish" for so long, huh?}}

*** I agree; I don't think that people should be expected to be self-sacrificing or that dying for someone is some awesomely heroic thing, but the game doesn't necessarily share my morals. You do have a point, but realize that the only ones who really ''intended'' to die for anyone else could be considered aversions/subversions of the whole [[Heroic Sacrifice]] schtick: {{spoiler|Rhyme}}'s actions weren't explicitly treated as noble by the other characters (IIRC), and they caused {{spoiler|Hanekoma to break the rules, general chaos in the form of her desperate brother, and left her without what she treasured most}}, and {{spoiler|Joshua}}'s sacrifice was played off as noble but {{spoiler|was actually completely fraudulent}}. I believe that for the most part the characters ''were'' living for each other. Even with Beat, who did a lot of sacrificing, we aren't given any indication that he was intentionally trying to give his own life for anyone else's, as opposed to simply trying to protect them without giving thought to the consequences. {{spoiler|Until the very end, Neku never intended to die either--in fact he was quite tenaciously holding onto the prospect of staying alive. He still winds up putting himself into "heroic" or noble situations (like rescuing people from Taboo Noise), but he goes in with the assumption that he'll come out alive. When he finally did sacrifice himself, I interpreted it as more of an act of trust and friendship than him simply dying for someone else's sake.}}

** The part about Neku giving up on himself seemed to be in response to Neku having an [[Oh Crap]] and losing hope in the face of Sho's Level ''i'' Flare. His losing in that case would have meant that Shiki would never return to the real world, and as is later revealed, would have enabled Kitaniji to proceed with [[Instrumentality]] (Neku might have been playing into Joshua's hands all along, but letting Kitaniji get away with that was never an option). In this case, Neku's survival and the survival of others are intertwined, and Neku's [[Character Development]] happens as he starts fighting for others besides himself.

** {{spoiler|He wasn't clever enough to fake sacrifice as he can't be killed by Minamimoto, he was clever to pretend to be erased and go play Tin Pin.}}

*** Well, for the walls, they wouldn't have to be endless - Shibuya could just have a "ceiling" made of the same stuff.

** The only way for a player to use pins is said ingame to be tuned with your partner. Without a partner you're nothing whatever pins you have and be you as greatly talented as jack-of-all-psychs Neku. And with a partner you do get to it only in battles, where Noises take you (though you're choosing to attack, they're flying to you, and conversations assume that Reapers make Noise, and Noise can attack Players, but that would be pretty annoying ingame if all the time...) in some two-frequencies-at-once-world in which you cannot make a way by yourself, as you cannot be both in UG and in RG. The Player Pin is clearly special, as it does some things for you, though it's interesting why you Player should be able to read the minds of people at all like some higher being now, but you can quess it, like to find out a destination or the whole strange imprinting stuff. Or have fun. Or just for the sake of flashbacks.

** This is a very well-known [[Easter Egg]]. I'm not sure what bothers you about it; Joshua's obviously {{spoiler|checking that his proxy made it into the Game}}.

* {{spoiler|Kitaniji's game with Joshua}} lasted 30 days. The Reaper's Game covers 21 days, and Uzuki and Kariya mention that it's unusual for a game to go on that length of time, so we know that there wasn't another game the previous week. What happened during the previous nine days?

*** It doesn't imply that at all. The very same entry opens with a discussion on how it's the same Shibuya "metamorphosed."

*** No reason it can't be both.

** It's revealed in Another Day that {{spoiler|Neku had a friend who died and he feels responsible for it}}. Neku's entire attitude at the beginning of the game is presumably due to his inability to cope with that, and it affected him so powerfully that {{spoiler|Rhyme's erasure}} struck a chord with him even though he couldn't remember it.

** Real Ground. Officially, according to Joshua, Another!Shiki looks like Eri because that's how Neku expects her to look and/or the makers felt creating new graphics for her real body wasn't worth the time. [[The World Ends With You/WMG|Unoffically,]] that is Another!Eri not Shiki. Joshua can challenge Neku to Final Time Attack he's the [[A Wizard Did It|composer]].

* It's mostly a dramatic handwave in the game, but it's hard to believe that using the existence of living persons or Players as an entry fee can qualify as even borderline legality. The message presented by such actions is that your right to fight for your own survival can be revoked through no action of your own, and that individual living people can be removed from existence without even a token act of murder. In that case, why even have a Game?

** In Rhyme's case, what Beat valued most about her was the fact that she never gave up on him, unlike their parents, and he was thus very unpleasantly surprised to find out that she didn't remember him. Neku does value Shiki quite a bit as a person, especially when he notes that she deserves to go back more than he does (especially given her desire to meet with Eri again); perhaps Neku would have suspected something if he wasn't as close to Shiki at the end of the first week.

* What is that thing hanging around Neku's neck? Is it part of his headphones?

* What in blazes was Josh thinking when/if he wanted to erase Shibuya? [[Reality Ensues|Wouldn't the RG realize an entire city just disappeared?]]

** Noticing a whole district of Tokyo being obliterated by the hand of God would actually help to shake people out of their complacency, which was the reason he wanted to scrap it anyway. Not like he had any particular reason to care what the rest of the world thought, though, since his domain is Shibuya and Shibuya only.

* Why does the Producer {{spoiler|help Minamimoto and leave the fate of Shibuya to him, knowing he's just not enough to take down the Composer? Producer's the guy whose job is to report on the Composer, keep an eye on him and talk to him. He's got way back with Josh and he really should know what he's capable of. Seriously... so Joshua, presumably still being in his RG form, as Neku never sees him in some other (yes-yes, it's all in his head and other forms ain't really worth it for developers) and he plays Tin Pin with people, thus maybe still being in some restrainment, as he can't move from the other world himself while it's written like he's gone there himself, and he did make a deal of being downtuned for the game time, returns and just flies by the guy with all his revived power ups, not sweating at all! The party doesn't even hear any sounds of battle or argument within the echoing sewer! Well, they have a confusing battle of their own, okay, and Shiki is released right after Konishi is defeated, so it goes simultaneously... but pretty fast. Joshua doesn't even feel the need to kill him, having fun with his body instead, but he's spaced out good. I assume the Composer should know the difference between dead and not dead, if we are not to speculate the scene was just a show off and he vanishes the second we leave the screen or stays as a sadistic decor. The show off is actually nice not only as a karmic punishment, but how thoughtful you're given a solid hint on who's ahead, because Joshua surely has a way to do them heaps fast. How the hell, is my question, Minamimoto was supposed to win? Maybe if Hanekoma directly assisted him - but he wouldn't do so direct, would he? His power, probably, could manage Joshua, as he's a natural born higher being and needs to give Joshua a ride. And is a frigging ultimate boss, but he goes and picks himself a proxy too. It's a pity we'll never know how powerful Joshua is in his full, and who's stronger, Angel or Composer, though it's possible that their powers just differ and a loss of such battle in spite of presence of all other battles means that no, we can't defeat the Composer, making all this Minamimoto thing even stranger, though Hanekoma too does not fight himself I think, still having a boss noise individual and suitable name, and finds a proxy, so is he more than the Composer in a way the Composer more than the Conductor? But I don't actually think so, as his goal is not a fair play, there ain't one in backstabbing, but keeping Shibuya at any cost and he, I guess by report, have already gone as far off as angel goes, so if he could, wouldn't he try himself istead of dragging some pretty weak Pi-Face only for him to be outright defeated? Anyway. Hanekoma doesn't intervene in any of the ending stuff before Neku gets shot, and I doubt that's 'cause he knew all along Joshua's not going to destroy Shibuya anymore, as Joshua hasn't been watching progress all the last week and probably decided on Shibuya after the stand-off, and Hanekoma writes of hoping for Minamimoto and Neku just before he's getting Joshua back, already after contacting him. So, if Josh after getting rid of Neku starts to destroy Shibuya, Hanekoma refreshes Minamimoto and he saves the day? I can't get it! Is there some easy answer just I can't see if not it all being a videogame? And H's fall is a strange matter too. Any other angel would know his wrongdoing right away, but only by looking him in the face? Then he never now would go talk to any angel anymore and never would go to their realm, but from above or from other cities they won't notice and never come or call him? And why Minamimoto wants to be the Composer, anyway? To escape corporate meetings?}}

 

[[Category:Games/Headscratchers]]

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