Characters / The World Ends With You-The Reapers

The people in charge of the Reaper’s Game and its many machinations, the Reapers are the ones who deal out the missions for the Players to complete.

Go here for the main character page.

---

Reapers as a whole

• Adaptational Heroism: At least half of the named Reapers in Another Day are merely civilians and don't play any sort of antagonistic role. The other half make up a gang called "The Black Skullers" and are still antagonists, but with the game focusing around playing Tin Pin Slammer and retrieving stolen Pins as opposed to fighting for a chance to undo one's own death and save all of Shibuya from some sinister plan, the stakes are far lower as are the repercussions and they generally come across as far less morally reprehensible in comparison.
• Affably Evil: Many Reapers are pretty friendly for people who regularly erase the souls of the dead from existence.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: How most Reapers get recruited and what some of their goals are. Players who do exceptionally well are offered the chance to become Reapers, and Reapers who do exceptionally well can be promoted to Officers, giving them a chance to become Composer and/or even Angels.
• Bigger Is Better: Inverted; the stronger Reapers have smaller wings than their weaker compatriots. Compare Uzuki (who is gunning for a promotion and has hip-length wings) to Kariya (whose wings barely extend past his shoulders), for example.
• Cats Are Mean: It's likely little coincidence that the two Reapers with feline Noise forms happen to be the most scheming and nefarious of the group.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Needless to say, there is very little trust among the Reapers. Sho plans to take out the Composer to become the next one in place, Konishi, when handed the opportunity, schemes to take out Kitaniji in order to secure a spot as Conductor, and Kitaniji himself brainwashes the Reapers under his command to further his goals of complete mind control.
• Dark Is Evil: The vast majority of Reapers prefer darker, muted colors on their clothing and they all have those elaborate black wings. Minamimoto and Kitaniji add in some red accessories as well.
• Death In All Directions: Some particular Reapers have the ability to spray the battlefield with a bombardment of energy projectiles to chase after you. Uzuki, Sho, and Kitaniji are the most frequent offenders when it comes to this.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: The three Game Masters are a villainous example. Higashizawa/Ovis Cantus is the Fighter, being a Stone Wall with an absolutely massive HP pool hampered by his inability to move in battle. Minamimoto/Leo Cantus is the Mage, who employs Summon Magic and Teleport Spam to make up for his lower HP (outside of Taboo form) in comparison to the others. Konishi/Tigris Cantus is the Thief, being somewhere between the two in regards to HP and having the lowest raw attack power, but relies on stealth through shadow walking in combat.
• Freudian Trio: The Game Masters
  • Id: Higashizawa — Most overtly violent and only really cares about food, hence all of his food puns.
  • Ego: Konishi — Sadistic, and gets more emotional on her final day once you actually face her, but is shown to be extremely logical and calculating before that.
  • Superego: Minamimoto — Intelligent to such a degree that it only comes out as insanely complicated math equations and piles of trash. He seems to have trouble making sense to most other people because of this.
• Good Wings, Evil Wings: Reapers have black, angular wings. However, rather than being bat wings, they're hard-edged and have no feathers or webbing whatsoever, looking more like a wing skeleton made out of iron.
• Halfhearted Henchman: Some of the Support Reapers are lazy, incompetent slackers. For one of them, this is a good thing, as he ends up the only NPC in all of Shibuya who escapes the Assimilation Plot just because he ditched work one day.
• In the Hood: The lower-ranked Reapers are often seen sporting hoods throughout the game, with the Reapers in question never letting them down.
• Last-Name Basis: Unlike the Shinjuku Reapers from the sequel, most Shibuya Reapers use surnames. Uzuki is the only one who's regularly called by her first name, but Konishi addresses her as "Yashiro".
• Older Than They Look: The guidebook for Neo implied that Reapers either do not age, have slower aging process or stop aging after a certain point. Coco for example is said to be 19 years old in Neo but appears to have grown taller, suggesting that she still ages, albeit slower than living humans.
• One-Winged Angel: High-ranking Reapers have the ability to transform into a Noise form for combat. Higashizawa becomes a giant ram, Minamimoto a lion (though unlike the others he alternates between his Noise and Reaper forms during the battle), Konishi a tigress, and Kitaniji a snake. The latter truly takes the cake, though, as he then pulls a One-Winged Angel of his One-Winged Angel form, fusing with Joshua — who was doing a Cruficied Hero Shot — to become a five-headed dragon that takes up the majority of both screens.
• Power Floats: Most of them hover above the ground when fighting, even the ones that don't expose their wings.
• Power Gives You Wings: It's explained that a Reaper's supernatural power is contained in their wings. When they shift over to the RG, their wings vanish, making them essentially normal humans until they return to the UG. Interestingly, Support Reapers (the ones who create walls) don't have any wings at all, while all Harriers (who create Noise and occasionally attack Players personally) do, suggesting that Support Reapers are stuck on wall duty because they don't have any other powers.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Most of the rank and file Reapers are nice guys, and the protagonists even make friends with some of them. They are just doing their job, which just happens to be erasing people from existence. If they fail at it, they get erased. So there's some motivation there. Reapers were once players themselves, who were granted the option of becoming Reapers due to their powers of Imagination. It's one career option in the afterlife.
• Self-Duplication: Many of the Reapers have the ability to project their Shadow onto the alternate plane to help take down Noise (or groups of Players) by themselves if they have to.
• Shinigami: The Reapers were called "Shinigami" in the original Japanese. They forgo Psychopomp work in lieu of setting up elaborate games that give dead people a second chance at life.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: In direct contrast to Neku and his partners, who gradually learn to trust one another and backup each other, most of the high-ranking Reapers are constantly at each other’s throats, and, if the opportunity arises, won’t hesitate to backstab one another if it means their goals can be reached quicker.
• Trapped in Villainy: The Reapers are mostly Punch-Clock Villains, but they do point out that if they don't erase players, then they get erased instead.
• Two Girls to a Team: In the original version of the game, Uzuki and Konishi were the only two female Reapers.
• Would Hurt a Child: Considering how most of the participants in the Reaper’s Game consists of a large majority of teenagers and they have next to no problem with exerting deadly force against them when their job requires them to, they definitely quality as this.

Koki Kariya and Uzuki Yashiro

"That is so whatever!"

^{Click here to see Uzuki as she appears in the anime}

^{Click here to see her appearance in NEO: The World Ends with You.}

"Alright. Game on".

^{Click here to see Kariya as he appears in the anime}

^{Click here to see his appearance in NEO: The World Ends with You.}

Kariya is voiced by Anri Katsu (JP) and Andrew Kishino (EN)

Uzuki is voiced by Satomi Arai (JP) and Kate Higgins (Video Game), Jessica Peterson (Anime) (EN)

A Harrier Reaper duo who do a lot of the ground work during the Game. Kariya is always laid-back and relishes his job, making a game out of everything with Uzuki, who is almost constantly on edge.

---

• Adaptational Jerkass: In the anime, Kariya is present when Uzuki attempts to trick Neku into killing Shiki and does nothing to stop her. He also bluntly tells Beat its his fault that Rhyme was erased, whereas in the game he states the only reason it happened was because Beat got careless.
• Affably Evil: Kariya is a pretty cool guy so long as he isn't being forced to do his job. Uzuki isn't so bad herself when she's less on edge.
• Alliterative Name: Koki Kariya.
• Almighty Janitor:
  • Kariya is actually one of the most powerful Reapers around. To the point even Beat is insecure about fighting him at first. Although he's only an Almighty Janitor because he wants to hang out with Uzuki.
  • Played with in regards to Uzuki. On the 3rd day of the 3rd week, Uzuki is told by Konishi that she was far above the average Harrier Reaper and that she will be deservedly promoted if she plays the role of a substitute Game Master, even being given Beat's entry fee, Rhyme's Noise pin. While admittedly her stats and fighting abilities support this claim, it becomes clear later on after they learn that the pin they were given was fake, that she's just being manipulated into merely stalling the heroes while Konishi continues hiding.
• Alpha Bitch: Uzuki has massive shades of this, being incredibly prone to mocking and insulting the Players.
• Anime Hair: Kariya. It's... hard to describe; it's like he combed and styled the front of his hair and then left the back of it a mess. Visually, it seems to be a combination of a slicked-back style and an afro.
• Anti-Villain: Certainly Kariya, who's laid back, on friendly terms with the heroes, and even helps them out on occasion. When Neku prepares to erase Kariya and Uzuki after their possession, Beat stops him on the grounds that neither of them seem like fundamentally bad people.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Uzuki is seen sporting this look in trailers for NEO.
• Big Bad: Uzuki in Another Day. She was being used by Higashizawa the whole time, though.
• Bizarre and Improbable Ballistics: Uzuki can fire pink flower-shaped bullets from her gun that, after the initial hit, split up into multiple bullets and then merge again to do high damage to Players and also shoot a light blue flower-shaped bullet which swirls around and cuts the defense of the target upon contact. Says bullet can also follow you around like a guided missile to boot.
• Blank White Eyes: Uzuki gains these when she's significantly pissed off.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: The two of them get hit with this as Week 3 progresses due to the effects of the Red Skull pin and you’re forced to fight them yet again. They’re somehow even more tougher than when you first fought them, to the point that they’re even able to activate their own Fusion attack.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Kariya has refused several promotions because he prefers working on the field and is considered to be a lazy slacker for doing so, only for it to turn out that he’s actually one of the most powerful and intelligent Reapers around, as well as the implication that he’s just as powerful as Neku in his own right due to the attacks he uses throughout his boss fight. Beat is rightfully afraid of fighting him.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Kariya is very aware of the role he's meant to play in the Reaper's Game. See the quote under Punch-Clock Villain.
• Cool Shades: Kariya wears a cool-looking pair of orange-tinted shades.
• Can't Catch Up: After Uzuki's defeat, she reveals that the reason she's so desperate to go up on the ranks is because she feels guilty for Kariya refusing his own promotion just so he could keep hanging out with her. In her own words:
  Uzuki: I don't wanna be your freakin' ball and chain!!!
• Combat Stilettos: Uzuki wears a pair of knee-high white combat boots with stilettos on the bottom.
• Cute and Psycho: Uzuki has shades of this, being very fond of smiling and giggling as she’s handing your ass to you on a silver platter.
• Deadpan Snarker: They can be seen constantly quipping on the various strange circumstances happening in the game and on the other characters. They even engage in Snark-to-Snark Combat with each other.
• Declining Promotion: Kariya is more powerful than his rank suggests, and it is revealed that he has been doing this for a while.
• Dismotivation: Kariya intentionally avoids a promotion so he can relax and hang out with Uzuki. Which does NOT mean that he isn't any good at his job.
• Dual Boss: You eventually end up fighting both of them at the same time.
• Easily Forgiven: Neku, and Beat (in fact, especially Beat, who insisted they be spared) never really call out Kariya and Uzuki on erasing Rhyme, or even hold a grudge against them after the fact. Though they were Affably Evil Graceful Losers shortly before and willing to hand over the Rhyme pin. Justified by the fact that it's their job (they were ordered to set a trap for Players) and it's what keeps them alive. Otherwise, they're Punch Clock Villains.
• Enigmatic Minion: Kariya is a Brilliant, but Lazy example of this trope. He frequently turns down promotions within the Reapers, prefers to spend time in the fields instead of lounging around in the Dead God’s Pad unlike the head Reapers, and will even go out of his way to provide helpful information and items to Players. Suffice to say, this frustrates the hell out of Uzuki.
• Even Evil Has Standards: They're both appalled when Konishi gives them the false Rhyme pin. Kariya in particular is disgusted and gives Neku and Beat a sincere apology for not having seen through the deception himself, then gives them his own Reaper pin in spite of the punishment this might incur. Even Uzuki says sorry for having screwed with them the previous day, since it was all for nothing.
• Evil Counterpart: All of Kariya's attacks are supercharged versions of Neku's psychs.
• Evil Laugh: Uzuki is very prone to doing this, especially when it comes to messing with the Players.
• Exact Words: Uzuki promises to let Neku out of the game if he kills Shiki, and doesn't mention that losing his partner would result in his erasure. When called on it, she says that he would be let out of the game if he got erased.
• Friendly Enemy: Kariya, especially during Beat's rough week. Beat actually worries that Kariya's helpfulness might cause his erasure, as the higher ups do not tolerate treason.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Like the heroes, Kariya and Uzuki share a light puck when they're fighting together; this lets them put up a fight against Taboo Noise.
• Giggling Villain: Again, Uzuki.
• Go-Getter Girl: Uzuki is relentlessly ambitious and hungers to rise through the Reapers' ranks.
• Graceful Loser: More in regards to Kariya, but Uzuki will follow if she must. When Neku and Beat defeated them, they were willing to hand over what the Players wanted, before it turned out to be fake, which not even the Harriers knew.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Uzuki uses her trusty pistol by her side in order to dish out damage. In contrast, Kariya tends to rely on his bare hands in order to shoot energy blasts.
  Beat: Whatchu want, Pinky?
  Uzuki: Hey, leave my hair out of this.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Uzuki gets angry very easily, but her biggest triggers involve anything that may cost her chances at a promotion.
• Have a Nice Death: If you lose to them during their boss fight:
  Kariya: So Uzuki, how 'bout that ramen?
  Uzuki: I smell a promotion!
• Hidden Depths:
  • While Uzuki presents herself as nothing but an Alpha Bitch Jerkass who wants to do nothing but get promoted up through the ranks of the Reapers, it is eventually revealed that she wants to move up in order to bring Kariya up through the ranks with her, not wanting to feel like she’s dragging him down to her level. She’s also shown to genuinely care about Shibuya as well and even vows to change the Reaper’s Game from the inside in order to provide a better work environment for the Reapers involved after learning about the corruption in the higher ranks.
  • Likewise, while Kariya presents himself as nothing but a lazy, good-for-nothing slacker at first, he is shown to be highly intelligent and surprisingly philosophical at times, wanting to enjoy the little things at life as well as enjoy time with Uzuki. He’s also shown to have some morals as well, as seen with his complete and utter disgust at Konishi’s actions as well as providing Beat with a means of helping to track her down.
• Hipster: Uzuki, in Another Day, just like Shiki, funnily enough.
  Uzuki: I'm off to listen to bands you kids have never heard of, and when they go major I'll be there to complain about how much they've sold out!
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Uzuki is shown throughout the game to think quite highly of herself at times as well being incredibly condescending to other people, but it’s later revealed that she’s well aware of her own failings as a Reaper and wants to move up through the ranks in order to not drag Kariya down with her.
• Jerkass: Uzuki towards the players; she's a bit of a suck-up towards her superiors and is only genuinely friendly with Kariya. She lampshades this herself.
  Uzuki: I'm not shooting for any Miss Nice awards!
• Last-Name Basis: Everyone calls Kariya by his last name.
• Lazy Bum: Kariya is this to a T, to the point that he isn’t above trying to bribe Neku with ramen just to avoid battling him in Tin Pin Slammers in Another Day.
• Laughably Evil: Their interactions together are often quite funny.
• Leitmotif: "Rush Hour" accompanies most of their appearances in Solo Remix.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: By themselves, the two aren’t too much trouble and can be taken care of relatively easily. Until they decide to pair up, that is.
• Likable Villain: Despite being villains the pair manage to be quite likable thanks to their various interactions with one another and Neku and his companions, as well as their Hidden Depths and Affably Evil personalities.
• Like an Old Married Couple: Despite their constant teasing and prodding of one another, they genuinely care for each other and work very well both off and on the field.
• Limit Break: Like the player, the two have a Light Puck that gets sent back and forth, and once it's been passed enough, they have their own Fusion attack, complete with a portrait cut in and everything. The two wail away at Neku and Beat and their finishing blow has them do a powerful strike while a giant Reaper's symbol appears and Audible Sharpness is heard.
• Mage Marksman: Uzuki mostly fights by shooting enemies with magic from her handgun though she's also capable of just using her hands to blast enemies away.
• Mellow Fellow: Kariya isn't fazed by much, and remains upbeat and mellow throughout most of the game.
• Mirror Boss: The pair have a fusion attack and a light puck and have attacks that mimic some of the ones you can get from pins.
• Nice Guy: In contrast to Uzuki, Kariya is an overall friendly, upbeat guy who will even go out of his way to provide helpful information and items to the Players.
• Oblivious to Love: Uzuki doesn’t seem too aware of BJ’s, one of 777’s band members, crush on her, much to his dismay. When he tries to confess this to her using Molco’s Phone Booth of Love, he stammers throughout the entire call, causing her to dismiss him as a crank call and hang up on him.
• Of Corsets Sexy: An odd example with Uzuki, considering it's over a turtleneck. She later upgrades it to wearing it over a white blouse in NEO.
• Opposites Attract: Despite their opposite personalities, they're very close friends with a bit of Ship Tease. The Noise Report describes them as operating like "two halves of a whole".
• Oral Fixation: Kariya's dango, to the point he is referred to as Lollipop by Beat.
• Orbiting Particle Shield: Much like Neku, Kariya can summon an orb of electricity that circles around him and can counter and stun any foe that comes near him, which can made close-ranged combat rather tricky for the player.
• Out-of-Character Alert: In "A New Day", seeing Uzuki complain about work while Kariya is gunning for a promotion is the first sign that Shibuya's layout isn't the only thing that's gotten scrambled.
• Pet the Dog: When push comes to shove, the pair show that they can be genuinely decent people. Not only are they disgusted with the revelation that Konishi gave them a fake Rhyme pin, but Kariya actually goes out of his way to provide Neku and Beat with his own key pin to make up for not noticing the deception, and Uzuki legitimately apologizes to them for leading them on a wild goose chase the day beforehand.
• Playing with Fire: In the anime, Kariya is shown to be able to use flame Psychs just like Neku can, such as when he saves Uzuki from a Taboo Noise.
• The Power of Friendship: Interestingly similar to Neku and his partners in this regard, they have the ability to utilize the light puck and Fusion as well, showing off just how strong their relationship is as partners.
• Professional Butt-Kisser: Uzuki becomes a lot more polite and determined to prove herself when Konishi is in charge, at least until realizing that Konishi lied to and used her and Kariya.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Both of them are just doing their job and for treat it as such. They even called out how screwed up the Reaper's Game had become once it gets extended.
  Beat: Quit screwin' with us!
  Kariya: Um, villain? Screwin' with you is my job.
• Recurring Boss: They're fought several times, both singularly and as a duo.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Kariya's the blue (calm and laid back, also very affable), Uzuki's the red (easily excitable and easily angered). In "A New Day", Kariya ends up red while Uzuki turns blue.
• Save the Villain: Neku and Joshua can step in to save Kariya and Uzuki from a losing battle again errant Noise. The former is grateful and gives the heroes his sincerest thanks; the latter, well, does not. After their final defeat towards the end of the game, Neku and Beat make the decision to spare them both.
• Screaming Warrior: Under the influence of the Red Skull Pins, all their usual Boss Banter is replaced by rampant roaring and screaming.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Three years later after the events of the first game, Uzuki is shown to be wearing a very nice business suit in NEO that accentuates her attractiveness quite well.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: Kariya. Serves as a possible indication as to how strong he really is.
• Tsundere: Uzuki, mildly, towards Kariya. It's heavily implied that part of the reason she wants to advance her career is so she wouldn't have to hold Kariya back, who's implied to have declined his promotion because he wanted to stay at her level.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Uzuki complains if Neku saves her from Taboo noise, while Kariya is relatively appreciative.
• Unholy Matrimony: They don't get married, but one of the later conversations reveals that the reason Kariya doesn't advance through the ranks isn't just laziness, it's also so he can be with Uzuki. Her reaction hints this isn't unwelcome. Although she still strives to advance herself so that then Kariya could advance with her, and she wouldn't feel like she's dragging him down.
• Villainous Friendship: Despite their conflicting work ethics, they are both willing to cede a good point made by the other and are almost always seen hanging out together. They're also very much in sync with each other during battle.
• Villains Out Shopping:
  • During Week 2, they can be seen out in Shibuya playing Tin Pin Slammer together while Minamimoto has them on standby.
  • In the anime, the two of them are shown to be casually ordering food at Mexican Hot Dog before Beat barges in on them.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: They seem at odds with each other at first (more on Uzuki's part, who's flustered by her partner's mellow attitude, than Kariya), but it's eventually revealed that they're pretty good friends.

Yodai Higashizawa

"Welcome to my kitchen!"

^{Click here to see Higashizawa as he appears in the anime}

^{Click here to see Ovis Cantus}

Voiced by Kenji Takahashi (JP) and Travis Willingham (EN)

Acting as a proxy Game Master for Kitaniji on the first week (Shiki's chapter). He chooses to hide himself from the players until the 7th day and attempts to pound them to pieces with his immense strength.

---

• Battle in the Rain: What his boss fight takes place in, complete with Dramatic Thunder and everything.
• Big Bad: The REAL Big Bad of Another Day, having used Uzuki and the Black Skullers to "purify" Tin Pin.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Has some shades of this, especially during his boss fight.
• The Brute: The most straight-forward of the Game Masters, who relies on his size and strength to see him through battle.
• Determinator: The winning condition for the final day of the first week allows him to be able to give up without being erased, but he chooses to fight to the death instead.
• Disc-One Final Boss: He's the Game Master for the first week and the final opponent Neku and Shiki must defeat to win the right to return to life, but not only does the game continue for two more weeks, Higashizawa is relatively minor in the grand scheme of things.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Has glowing eyes for some reason. His food puns added in with his interest in Shiki don't help alleviate the creep factor.
• Energy Absorption: Can regain health if players attack him at the wrong time.
• Evil Laugh: He’ll let out a laugh at times before attempting to tenderize you into a bloody pulp.
• Evil Tastes Good: He loves making food-based puns.
• Final Boss: Of Another Day, ironically enough, with Shooter and Shinji Hashimoto as the True Final Bosses.
• Genius Bruiser: As Konishi herself states, Higashizawa excels at tactics, intel, willpower, decisiveness, performance, and his Player Erasure rate, to the point that only three Players are left by the end of Week 1. He’s also very adept at emotional and psychological manipulation, as shown when he exploits Shiki’s Entry Fee to make her fall into a Heroic BSoD.
• Graceful Loser: Since it's possible he was unaware of the scheme Kitaniji was concocting, he treats his defeat by Neku and Shiki with a great amount of respect and dignity, unlike the other Game Masters that take up the mantle after him.
• Hannibal Lecture: To Shiki regarding her jealousy issues.
• Have a Nice Death: "Another fine entrée".
• The Heavy: He does most of the Black Skullers' work in Another Day. He did this so he would end up with the pins in the end, wishing to take them from everyone in Shibuya.
• Large and in Charge: The largest of the Game Masters and the only one besides the final boss whose Cantus form takes up both screens simultaneously in the DS version (the Noise forms of the other GMs simply take up one screen and use shadows of themselves to take up the other screen if they have to).
• Large Ham: When fighting.
  Higashizawa: WELCOME TO MY KITCHEN!
• Mighty Glacier: His physical attacks hit hard and can cover a large range but they also have very obvious tells and he can take forever to actually unleash an attack on Neku and Shiki.
• Monochromatic Eyes: Has pure white eyes, which tends to just make him a little unsettling to behold.
• Mr. Exposition: Only in Another Day.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives Shiki a brutal one calling her out on her jealousy and claiming that she'll never change.
• Rhymes on a Dime: Only in Another Day.
• Shock and Awe: Can summon orbs of electricity that damage players on contact and call forth lightning bolts from above that can stun you if you’re not careful.
• Sinister Shades: To play up his intimidating appearance and contrast his pure white eyes.
• The Starscream: In Another Day. He wanted to purify Tin Pin as one of the three original masters.
  • Seems to be completely averted in the main story though.
• Stone Wall: Doesn’t budge an inch from his spot in his boss fight but don’t think that this doesn’t make him any less dangerous. His very high defenses and durability mean that stunlocking and brute-forcing him will not work nearly as well compared to other foes.
• Team Chef: Is revealed to be this for the Black Skullers in Another Day and a pretty damn good one at that.
• Token Good Teammate: Downplayed since he evidently enjoys seeing Shiki struggle with her jealousy issues, but he's the only Officer Reaper and GM with no plans of betraying his superiors. Instead he seems to show the utmost loyalty and respect towards Kitaniji.
• Vocal Dissonance: He apparently sounds like a booth babe in Another Day, or at least Neku confuses him for one before actually seeing Higashizawa in person. His speaking with notes and hearts is done to exacerbate this.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: He's the first boss who can't be safely overwhelmed with brute force. Instead, you have to make sure to dodge his attacks when fighting him, or else you'll end up another fine entrée.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: His motives in Another Day. See The Starscream entry above. He sees the error of his ways once he's beaten, though.
• Wham Line: "You're dead. Don't you know?"
• Younger Than They Look: He is apparently 20 years old. The somewhat "youthful" design of his shoes gives this away via implication, but the lower half of his body is rarely seen in the game itself.

Sho Minamimoto

"This is my Game. And I only allow two things. Flawless calculations... and beauty!"

^{Click here to see Sho as he appears in the anime}

^{Click here to see Leo Cantus}

^{Click here for spoilers}

^{Click here to see his appearance in NEO: The World Ends with You.}

Voiced by Takayuki Fujimoto (JP) and Andy Hirsch (EN)

The Game Master of Week 2 (Joshua's chapter). An eccentric and enigmatic character with an adoration of math (and math puns), he is nevertheless (begrudgingly) held in high regard among his Reaper peers due to his unusual methods and high Erasure effectiveness. Despite this, he very rarely works with others and prefers to play by his own rules. He seems to hold a particular fascination with Neku and Joshua, and it soon becomes apparent that his role as a renegade extends far beyond his own ambitions.

In NEO, Sho, reborn as a Player (and playable character), returns to the Reaper's Game, where he allies himself with Rindo's team, the Wicked Twisters. For tropes about his appearance in that game, see that character page.

---

• The Ace: According to Konishi, he's the youngest Reaper on record and his track record is second only to Kitaniji's, flat out calling him a genius.
• Adaptational Heroism: In Another Day, he's batting for your team this time.
• Ambiguously Related: In Another Day he's said to be Ken Doi's son, but it's not clear if this also applies to the regular version of Sho as well.
• Ambition Is Evil: Wants to become the Composer by any means and is perfectly willing to utterly mess up the sanctity and structure of the UG in order to accomplish that goal, regardless of who gets hurt in the process.
• Animal Motifs: The lion. Incredibly apathetic to others around him, has whisker-like facial markings, wants to become the Composer i.e the king of the Underground, and even transforms into a lion Noise for his One-Winged Angel form.
• Ash Face: Perhaps the most stylish example of this in fiction yet. At the tail end of Another Day, he shows up in Taboo form but explains his torn clothing and black markings as merely the result of an explosion while he was building the Slammer Omega Tin Pin launcher.
• Attention Whore: Loves to be the center of attention and will often get annoyed when people don’t acknowledge him on sight. In fact, on Week 3 Day 6, when you see Taboo Sho for the first time, it's possible to try walking around him. Once you're past him, however, he chides you for ignoring him when he's right there and will try to engage in a fight with you normally.
• Back for the Finale: Comes back both at the tail end of the final week, and in the Epilogue in Final Remix.
• Back from the Dead:
  • After he is erased at the end of week 2, he sets up a Taboo refinery to bring himself back as a Taboo Noise.
  • At the end of "A New Day", he is resurrected again by Coco, evidently to serve as Neku's partner.
• Bad Boss: While he is an incredibly effective Game Master when it comes to erasing Players, Sho is a pretty terrible leader in just about everything else. It even gets to the point that several Reapers die to the Taboo Noise that HE created, not that he particularly cares.
• Badass Boast: Searching some of his junk piles will reveal notes that have him boasting about, among other things, being more awesome than gravity and air.
• Badass Bookworm: The dude trash talks people with math and kicks everyone's asses for the fun of it.
• Badass Longcoat: Is shown wearing a long, ankle-length grey checked coat in NEO and is still a force to be reckoned with even after three years.
• The Battle Didn't Count: For his Taboo form boss fight. Even if you land a significant number of hits (or manage to defeat him in New Game+), Neku and Beat will be gasping and mocked for being too weak to be worth fighting.
• Beauty Is Bad: A very handsome young man who is nonetheless one of the most dangerous forces within the game.
• Berserk Button: Sho has never gotten angry in the main story. However in Another Day he's generally angry and drops his usual speech pattern when Ken Doi humiliates him in front of Shooter and the others in regards to Tin Pin. He storms off claiming he's better than Ken Doi. Really odd given how crazy he is in the main story.
• Beware the Silly Ones: He’s a hammy math fetishist with a penchant for leaving random junk as huge trash heaps in the middle of the street and claiming them to be works of art. Needless to say, he’s treated as a weirdo by both the Reapers and Players alike. However, he is also regarded as a top-class Reaper with one of the highest Player erasure streaks in the game and is also responsible for the creation of the Taboo Noise, who turn out to be a major threat and causes the deaths of several Reapers and Players due to this.
• Big Bad Wannabe: He's genuinely a major threat, being responsible for the Taboo Noise and having designs on the Composer's job, but when they come into conflict it quickly becomes apparent he's no match for them.
• Big Damn Heroes: In Another Day, when Shooter's Tin Pin launcher breaks before the last match against Higashizawa, Minamimoto arrives just in time with his newly created Slammer Omega Tin Pin launcher.
• Bishōnen Line: Let's just say that Minamimoto is even more good looking as a Taboo.
• Black Magic: His making of Taboo Noise is considered this by Reapers. Not only are they incredibly dangerous to the people around them, which includes both Player and Reaper alike, but creating them also requires a high amount of capability, making it impossible for most Reapers to make them.
• Breakout Villain: One of the most popular and well-known of the Reapers in the fanbase and by the end of A New Day in the Updated Re-release it's confirmed that through Coco resurrecting him, he's now the only surviving member of the original high-ranking Officers and set to play a major role as Neku's latest partner, as well as being one of the playable characters in NEO.
• Broken Ace: Konishi describes him as being perfect in all fields except leadership because of his refusal to work with others. He also has to do everything perfectly or get angry when it doesn't go as planned. In Another Day, we see what happens when he fails epically.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Plays by his own rules, attacks both Players and Reapers, and generally causes havoc for everyone in the UG when he's a Game Master. Despite this, he has one of the highest Player erasure records in Shibuya's UG.
• Came Back Strong: After blowing himself up and using a Taboo Noise refinery sigil to reforge a new body for himself, he comes back WAY stronger than before, claiming to have power that exceeds even that of the Composer’s and then proceeds to take on both Neku and Beat without breaking a sweat.
• Catchphrase: "SOHCAHTOA" (this is actually a pun on the Japanese phrase "Sō ka?", meaning "I see", "Is that so?", et cetera), "So zetta slow!" ("zetta" is the prefix for 10^21, or a sextillion) "CRUNCH! I'll add it to the heap"... he's got a lot of these.
• Cat Folk: His Noise form is a huge anthromorphic lion.
• Classic Villain: Embodies the classic villain traits of Greed, Ambition, and Pride.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: The game doesn't tell you this, but Sho reads your touchscreen input and teleports away if you put the cursor on top of him. While this makes him incredibly difficult to hit in close combat, for ranged psychs you just have to touch somewhere in front of or behind him. Since most players don't know about this, he's earned his reputation for Teleport Spam.
• The Dark Arts: His dabbling into refining Taboo Noise can be considered this due to their artificial nature and the fact that they were explicitly made forbidden by the Reapers themselves. Not without reason either as they are shown to attack both Players and Reapers alike with no regard whatsoever.
• Dash Attack: Can suddenly dash at the player in his Noise form for massive damage if they aren't careful enough to dodge it.
• Deadpan Snarker: Has a small moment of snark during Week 1 when meeting Higashizawa for the first time.
  Higashizawa: You do me a great honor, sir. Watch! I will turn this week’s fracas into a fricassee!
  Minamimoto: You planning to erase them, or EAT them?
• Determinator: Not even blowing himself up was enough to stop him from coming back in a stronger form in order to become the Composer once and for all.
• Establishing Character Moment: His showing up late to a meeting and using nicknames on everyone, including his boss, gives some idea of how little regard he has for authority.
• Evil Genius: Uses his prodigious math skills to create the rule-breaking Taboo Noise and give himself a Taboo Noise form.
• Evil Is Hammy: Incredibly so. Almost every time he appears on screen, he’s loudly and enthusiastically shouting for everyone in the vicinity to hear.
• Extremity Extremist: In Noise form, he relies primarily on kicks.
• Face of a Thug: In Another Day, Neku is afraid that he might mug him if he gets too close. He turns out to be a pretty nice guy despite still being an Insufferable Genius, though.
• Facial Markings: His "whiskers".
• The Fighting Narcissist: He’s very obsessed with the concept of beauty and what he perceives it to be, which usually includes his works of “art” or himself.
• Flunky Boss: Sends out several Taboo Noise before attacking directly, and typically has a few out most of the time, usually attacking the partner on the other screen.
• Formulaic Magic: Again, using math to help create the Taboo Noise.
• Fun with Acronyms: "SOHCAHTOA".
• Fragile Speedster: Compared to the other Game Masters, that is. He has the lowest HP of the three, but he still makes the player's life hell with his Teleport Spam ability. Evolves into a Lightning Bruiser as Taboo Minamimoto, as he's even better at teleporting (due to actively dodging the player's cursor), has a higher HP count than Konishi, and still deals a crapload of damage.
• Fun with Homophones: Combines the Reapers' "route" designations with his math fetish to give mission instructions involving (square) roots.
  Neku: Ugh, Pi-Face and his lame jokes.
• Genius Bruiser: Has been described as an absolute prodigy when it comes to his craft and he also packs quite the power in addition to his intelligence.
• Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: Does this in one of his character sprites while holding his megaphone in the other hand.
• A God Am I: After he comes back in his Taboo form, he starts getting a very bad case of this, to the point that he even proclaims to have power equal of that to the Composer. However, Joshua puts a stop to that real quick.
• Godhood Seeker: His ultimate goal is to take the Composer’s title for himself and is also part of the reason of why he’s constantly gunning after Joshua.
• Good with Numbers: A math fetishist with his love of numbers taken up a notch. Everything involving his schemes can be calculated and manipulated by his use of math. To activate his Level i Flare, he recites pi.
• Grapple Move: Can suddenly rush to the player to pick them up and slam them into the ground for massive damage.
• Hates Everyone Equally: Has absolutely zero regard for others and has scored a total of zero in leadership due to his refusal to cooperate with anyone.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: The last story fight with him is set up like this, but like other instances in the game, the only restriction is that you only have a limited amount of time to beat him in. A player who's been eating enough hot dogs to crank up their ATK and has a good deck can easily beat him within that time and score one of his pin drops.
• Humanoid Abomination: Essentially becomes this as the game goes on due to his repeated tampering with Taboo Noise. After reviving himself from a self-inflicted explosion via a Taboo refinery sigil, his entire body has been consumed from becoming Taboo, which in turn gives him even greater power than before.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Its very obvious in Another Day that he has issues with Ken Doi. Besides trying to impress him, he doesn't react well to failure. Of course, a few hints can be seen in the main game where he's such a perfectionist that even a small mistake will get him rather agitated.
• Insufferable Genius: He puts the "pomp" in "psychopomp". And the "psycho", too, for that matter.
• I Shall Taunt You: Constantly insults the player throughout his boss fight, with his favorite insults being "zetta slow" and "you're out of your vector".
• It's All About Me: Sho is incredibly self-centered and obsessive when it comes to his own interests and does not give a damn about anyone else whatsoever, even when it comes to the other Reapers.
• Jerkass: Sho is, to put bluntly, a huge dick. He cares about no one but himself, constantly insults both Reaper and Player alike, and is also the cause of several deaths in the game due to his brewing of Taboo Noise.
• Karmic Death: On the last day of the game, he gets "crunched" and chucked under a junk sculpture rather like the ones he was so fond of making. It's implied that he's not dead, though...
• Kiai: His battle cries. "SINE! COSINE! TANGENT!"
• Kill the God: His ultimate goal is take done the Composer in order to gain his incredible power for himself and reshape the UG in his image.
• Lack of Empathy: Is repeatedly shown to be an uncaring, cold, and ruthless individual, having not the slightest bit of sympathy for anyone but himself. Not only does he ruin several lives in his attempts to assassinate Joshua and take the Composer’s seat for himself, but he doesn’t even care at all, citing anyone who dies as a result of his schemes as garbage.
• Large Ham: Incredibly hammy, especially when he’s talking about his works of art and mathematics.
• Laughably Evil: Minamimoto has no redeeming qualities, good intentions, or an apparent tragic backstory, and causes a great amount of chaos and death throughout the game. But he still manages to be entertaining and likable due to his antics and eccentric quirks.
• Laughing Mad: Befitting his Mad Mathematician persona, he tends to let out a few deranged laughs throughout the game, with his laughter before reciting pi in an attempt to blow both him and Neku and Joshua up with his Level i Flare being one particular example.
• Leitmotif: "Transformation". When he comes back in his Taboo form, this is replaced with "Transformation (Transformed)". Another remix of the theme plays during his introduction in NEO: The World Ends with You.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: He’s so goofy and eccentric that at first it’s hard to take him seriously at a threat. That is until he unleashes the Taboo Noise into the Game, who systematically wipe out almost every remaining Player pair, along with a few Reapers, left, leaving only Neku and Joshua as the sole pair. Then there’s his Level i Flare, which would’ve been enough to flat out wipe out Joshua from existence if it had hit him, prompting him to teleport into a separate alternate world just to avoid getting destroyed.
• Lightning Bruiser: Is able to Flash Step at high speeds as well as deal out large chunks of damage, along with having incredibly durable defenses due to his absorbing of Taboo Noise. His Taboo Form boss fight takes this up a notch, as not only is he is even more powerful and faster than before, but he’s even able to regenerate health as well.
• Loners Are Freaks: Works alone and is generally regarded as such by Konishi and Uzuki.
• Mad Mathematician: It's how he operates and is his Game Master quirk (whereas Higashizawa's quirk was all related to food). He's a prodigy with mathematics. See his other trope descriptors.
• Marked Change: Taboo Minamimoto, who gains more black discoloration on his skin before he reveals this.
• Mark of the Beast: Taboo Minamimoto has this.
• Mook Maker: While technically all of the Reapers can summon Noise through the use of binding Souls to pins and bringing them out, Minamimoto is a special case in that he can directly summon Taboo Noise from his body without the use of a pin. He can even summon them throughout his boss fight and can even absorb them during the battle in order to activate his Noise form.
• Mouthful of Pi: Currently the page picture, at 156 digits. The incantation for a Level i Flare, at that!
• Mr. Fanservice: Tall, dark, muscular, handsome, and even provides a constant Walking Shirtless Scene after coming back as a Taboo Noise.
• Mutual Kill: The aforementioned Level i Flare. As a Final Fantasy Mythology Gag, "Level x" spells hit all targets with a level divisible by x, ally and enemy alike; i is the square root of -1, and so a Level i spell will target everything. Minamimoto uses the psych after he's lost his boss fight, which means his erasure is imminent; Neku only survives because Joshua pushes him off the roof of Pork City before the Flare can go off, and Joshua himself has to hop to Another Day in a parallel world to avoid taking the hit.
• Never Found the Body: A bizarre inversion. Whenever somebody dies in the UG, their body fades away and vanishes. However, while Minamimoto is found lying under one of his own garbage mounds, his body is perfectly intact. Though despite this, he was roughed up enough to need reviving by Coco in A New Day.
• Nice Guy: Surprisingly in Another Day where he's very helpful toward Shooter and the group coming in and pulling a Big Damn Heroes moment by giving Shooter the ultimate Tin Pin he made himself.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In his pursuit of the Composer, he outs Konishi's hiding spot on the final day of her mission. Without him being there, it was possible that Neku and Beat wouldn't have found her and been granted the opportunity to clear their mission.
• Not as You Know Them: He's a straight-up good guy in Another Day.
• Number Obsession: He is absolutely obsessed with numbers, declaring that "the world is made of numbers" and frequently going on about calculations and equations. Even his strongest move is activated by rapid-firing the first 150 digits of pi.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Tells the Reapers to standby and to not lay a hand on the Players and even saves Neku and Joshua from a Taboo Noise’s surprise attack in order to save them for himself to defeat.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: If Sho has to drop his speech pattern then you know something is wrong.
• Panthera Awesome: His Noise form Leo Cantus.
• The Perfectionist: Everyone is based on perfect calculations, especially how fast he'll erase you.
• Promoted to Playable: He's shown as a playable character in the announcement trailer for NEO: The World Ends with You.
• Red Herring: The end of week 2 seems to conclusively establish him as Neku's killer. Then it's revealed at the end of the game that it was really Joshua.
• Red Right Hand: His left hand is completely black, extending halfway up his forearm. It seems to have something to do with his being responsible for the Taboo Noise; when he himself turns Taboo, similar markings cover the rest of him. Notably, his left hand appears to be normal in "NEO: The World Ends with You".
• Shadow Archetype: Can be considered this to both Neku AND Joshua. His single-minded obsession with himself and distaste for cooperation is quite similar to early game Neku’s own attitude in the beginning and his intelligence and overall superiority complex, as well as total disregard for human life when it comes to his plans, is also quite reminiscent of Joshua. However, unlike Neku and Joshua, who both learned to improve themselves for the better and to expand their horizons, Minamimoto has no such revelation and remains a crazy son of a digit right to the end.
• Shooting Superman: Firing a bullet at Joshua in the RG doesn't count, as he didn't know the Composer could still use some of his powers at that vibe. Emptying the rest in his direction, after seeing the first one halt in midair, does.
• Slasher Smile: While he's often smiling, he's capable of some very excited and rather unhinged-looking facial expressions at times, usually while threatening and/or insulting the heroes. This might explain why he seems to intimidate Neku so much in Another Day despite being a much nicer person there.
• Slogan-Yelling Megaphone Guy: Sort of. He tends to yell his catchphrases through a megaphone. Until he swaps it for Def Märch's microphone.
• Sophisticated as Hell: Tends to insult other people around him in various math terms, which can range from simple to incredibly complex.
• Sore Loser: Does not take his defeat at the hands of Neku and Joshua at the end of week 2 well at all and resolves to blow them up, along with himself, with his level i Flare as payback.
• The Starscream: To Joshua, who actually says he enjoys having such a loose cannon around.
• Super Mode: Unlike the other GM's, he doesn't fight exclusively in Noise form but rather alternates between his Reaper form and his Noise form throughout his boss battle. Once he's down to his last health bar, he sticks to his Noise form though.
• Taking You with Me: After his boss fight, he activates his Level i Flare in an attempt to Erase both Neku and Joshua, knowing full well that this will Erase him as well.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: An incredibly handsome young man who even bares his chest after coming back in his Taboo form.
• Teleport Spam: Makes liberal use of this in both his boss fights, to very frustrating effect.
• Too Slow: Altogether now! "Zetta slow!"
• True Art Is Incomprehensible: An In-Universe example. The only one who understands his nonsensical junk piles is himself.
• Unwitting Pawn: The post-game reveals that he was explicitly manipulated by Hanekoma to be his "Plan B", where he would usurp Joshua and take the Composer role in the event that Josh went through with his decision to erase the city. Unfortunately, it didn't quite work out, but since Joshua sides with Neku at the very end Minamimoto wasn't necessary.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: His shirt is torn open after going Taboo, exposing his chest.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: In Another Day, Sho's attitude toward Ken Doi is to get him to acknowledge that he's just as knowledgable about Tin Pin as he is. Given how Another Day pretty much confirms that they're father and son, it would make sense.
• Wild Card: He's not loyal to either the Composer or the Conductor; he's loyal only to himself.

Mitsuki Konishi

"I'll need to work up a new strategy... Adjust for the longer term... Good thing I never make mistakes".

^{Click here to see Konishi as she appears in the anime}

^{Click here to see Tigris Cantus}

Voiced by Hitomi Nabatame (JP) and Lara Cody (EN)

The Game Master on the third and final week (Beat's chapter). She first appears to be utterly loyal to Conductor Kitaniji, but is much more interested in climbing the corporate ladder.

---

• Adaptational Heroism: In Another Day, she's just another random Tin Pin Slammer rival who happens to be one of Beat's teachers. She seems to care for him, and hopes that he and Rhyme will make up.
• Bad Powers, Bad People: One of the most sadistic, callous, and manipulative Reapers of the organization can use the shadows to her will to manipulate and confuse her opponents in order to tear them into shreds.
• The Baroness: Very cold and calculating. The other Reapers nickname her the "Iron Maiden" for a reason.
• Beauty Is Bad: An incredibly beautiful young woman with quite the nasty and sadistic streak hiding behind her good looks.
• Berserk Button: Very intolerant when it comes to idiocy, as shown in her later interactions with Beat. During the final day, she outright explodes when she’s had enough of his dialect.
• Break the Badass: Attempts to do this to Beat through her various manipulations of his brotherly love for Rhyme and trying to insinuate that she never loved him with her last words. However, it ultimately doesn’t take.
• Casting a Shadow: Seems to have some control over this aspect, as shown when she is revealed to have been hiding in Beat’s shadow throughout the entirety of Week 3.
• Catchphrase: "Just as I predicted". Which also becomes her last words later on.
• Cat Girl: Her Cantus form which, unlike the other Game Masters, has an obviously feminine appearance.
• Combat Stilettos: Wears a pair of white high heels.
• Dark Is Evil: Has some form of mastery overshadows and is also one of the most cruelest members of the Reapers.
• Deadpan Snarker: Most of her interactions with Beat have her playing this role, with her getting some truly scathing insults in towards him.
• Didn't See That Coming: For all of her insistence that everything is going according to plan, Beat points out that she sure has to deal with a lot of "unforeseen circumstances".
• Doppleganger Attack: Is able to summon clones of herself to attack and defend against foes, to the point that they can kill you in a rush attack if you’re not careful enough.
• The Dragon: To Kitaniji.
• Dragon with an Agenda: Some quips and lines, not to mention Konishi's own behavior hints that she's been planning on betraying Kitaniji for a long time.
• Enraged by Idiocy: As made apparent by her interactions with Beat, she really doesn’t tolerate stupidity.
• Exact Words: She agrees to stay in a single spot for all of Week 3, resulting in Neku searching all over Shibuya for her. On the final day of the week, it turns out that she was hiding in Beat's shadow, since she never said the spot would be stationary.
• Femme Fatalons: Has long black nails. Hard to notice at first.
• Foil: To Beat, in many ways. Whereas Beat is a loudmouthed Idiot Hero with a penchant for charging into a fray with no plans and being fiercely devoted and protective of the people he cares about, Konishi is a calculating Manipulative Bitch who always tries to plan two steps ahead of everyone else and will backstab just about anyone to achieve her goals.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Unlike most of the other villains, who each have the quirks that prevent them from being seen as irredeemably evil, Konishi lacks any sort of redeemable quality that would dull her villainous edge. She's purely in the business for her own reasons and almost all her actions as a Game Master are extraordinarily calculating and cruel.
• Four Is Death: Her HP is 4444, taking the "Reaper" designation to a logical extreme.
• Giggling Villain: Is very prone to mockingly giggling at you during battle.
• The Glasses Come Off: She takes them off right before getting into fighting mode. It's her eyes that glint menacingly instead.
• Hate Sink: Konishi is completely devoid of sympathetic qualities, and most of her actions in Week 3 end up earning the players' hatred.
• Have a Nice Death: "Just as I projected!"
• Hidden in Plain Sight: Tied to her powers overshadow and illusion. The 2nd mission she issues to Neku and Beat is to find her within 6 days, while she hides in a single location. On the final day, thanks to Minamimoto, it's revealed that she was hiding in Beat's shadow the entire time.
• Hot Teacher: In Another Day, she's one of Beat's teachers.
• Ice Queen: To say she's cold-hearted would be an understatement. She's pretty much the most ruthless character in the game, especially towards Beat. Even her speech bubbles are completely uniform and almost square, compared to the regular, more circular speech bubbles that the other characters use, as if to highlight her cold and calculating nature.
• Impossible Hourglass Figure: Though the majority of the character designs in this game include having thin waistlines, Konishi actually happens to be one of the only characters with enough of a bust to invoke this trope.
• Jerkass: She outwardly shows respect for Kitaniji and shows cold professionalism to her Reaper colleagues, but the truth is that she views everyone else as tools to be used and feels nothing for the terrible things she does.
• Karmic Death: The last phase of her fight amounts to Beat and Rhyme, the people she had been repeatedly tormenting throughout the third week, teaming up to finish her off.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Repeatedly with regards to Beat and Rhyme. She even uses her dying words to imply that Beat may have valued Rhyme above all else, but Rhyme didn't hold him in the same regard, hence why his entry fee was her memories of him, but hers was something else.
  • Days 3 and 4 of her tenure as Game Master are spent chasing Uzuki and Kariya for Rhyme's pin, which Konishi entrusted to them with the promise of a promotion if they kept the Players busy. When it's finally returned to Beat, he determines that it's a counterfeit, leading the Harriers to realize that she was BS-ing them about the promotion.
  • She kills 777 for losing to Neku and Beat, even though said action doesn't really do anything to keep the others in line. In the anime, she comes off as even crueler; 777 calls out Konishi and Kitaniji about not doing anything about the Taboo Noise that killed 777's bandmates and other Reapers, but Konishi ignores him and erases him.
• Knight of Cerebus: While the two other Game Masters weren’t anything to sneeze at, they had plenty of quirks to offset their more menacing attributes. Konishi has no such qualities, being terrifyingly efficient, ruthless, and uncaring when it comes to her goals. While she does have a fixation with planning and predicting outcomes, it merely emphasizes her cold, unfeeling, calculating personality. Even Uzuki and Kariya are visibly unnerved and disgusted by her acts of cruelty.
• Manipulative Bitch: Once she takes charge as a Game Master, she spends the majority of her time manipulating just about everyone that's still in the UG. Her ultimate goal is to become the Conductor and is using everyone - Players, Reapers, even other Game Masters and her superior, Kitaniji - to reach this goal.
• Master of Illusion: She seems to have the power to bend light, and one of her battle backgrounds looks like the game crashed.
• Opportunistic Bastard: For all her plans and predictions, Minamimoto's revival is well outside her calculations, so she takes advantage this anomaly by offering to lift the barrier she set up to guard Kitaniji's pad so long as Minamimoto makes her the new Conductor to his Composer, should his coup prove successful. If he fails, she believes that he will at least have worn down Kitaniji enough for her to dispose of him afterwards and replace him as Shibuya's Conductor anyway.
• Panthera Awesome: Her Noise form Tigris Cantus.
• Personality Powers: Is without a doubt one of the most underhanded and scheming Reapers in the game. Coincidentally, her illusion-based powers fit her quite nicely.
• Puzzle Boss: Unlike the previous Game Masters, you can't just wail on her and hope to win. The game provides a subtle hint towards beating her though.
• Reality Warper: How her illusion powers come off as, changing the battle screens to fit the next phase of her boss fight.
• Sadist: Some of her interactions with Beat paint her in this light, with her outright saying that she will enjoy watching him squirm and struggle in the face of certain death.
• Sexy Secretary: Basically fulfills this role for Kitaniji.
• Smug Snake: Because of her intelligence, arrogance, and pride, she takes a lot of pleasure messing with Beat, only to end up losing to him and Neku.
• The Starscream: To Kitaniji once her true motivations are revealed. See Manipulative Bitch above.
• Witch with a Capital "B": Beat and Neku call her this multiple times throughout the story, and with good reason.
• Wolfpack Boss: In Another Day as an optional Tin Pin Slammer opponent, she can control three different pins simultaneously.
• Xanatos Gambit: She attempts this near the end of the game. She lets Minamimoto pass through the barrier, in exchange for him making her his Conductor if he manages to usurp the Composer's position. If he fails, she hopes that Kitaniji will be injured enough that she can finish him off and take his spot. It fails, since not only does she die fighting Neku and Beat, but Joshua defeats Minamimoto.

Megumi Kitaniji

"Any and all specifics are decided by the Composer. That is His exclusive and incontrovertible right".

^{Click here to see Kitaniji as he appears in the anime}

^{Click here to see Anguis Cantus}

^{Click here for spoilers}

Voiced by Hiroshi Shirokuma (JP) and Shane Johnson (EN)

The Conductor and direct superior of the Reapers. Because the Composer has long been absent, he has asserted control over the Game, and makes sure that everyone, Player and Reaper alike, play by the book. However, it hasn't stopped him from imposing his own "penalties" on Neku for violating the game's rules.

---

• Accidental Truth: He claims that Shiki is most precious to Neku to justify taking her as his entry fee to cover up the fact that he can't bring her back to life. It turns out that Neku had come to care for Shiki.
• Adaptational Heroism: In Another Day. He's just another random Tin Pin Slammer rival, and has no real role in the story. He's actually the mayor in that world, but he's somehow still subordinate to Joshua.
• Affably Evil: Even when confronting Neku and co, he’s genuinely respectful towards them and congratulates Neku on his various victories throughout the game. Even when undergoing Erasure, he is a Graceful Loser all the way through and gives Neku one last congratulations before disappearing.
• Alas, Poor Villain: In the end, you can’t help but feel bad for him once you realize that all he was doing was trying to ensure that Joshua didn’t destroy the city he loved above all else, to the point that he was willing to put his entire existence on the line for it.
• Anti-Villain: His entire scheme was conceived as an alternative to having Joshua erase Shibuya.
• Assimilation Plot: Kitaniji's ultimate plan.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: He’s the Composer’s right hand man as well as head of the Reapers and he has the skills to show it.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Is never seen out of his snake-themed suit and is not one to be messed with when it comes to battles.
• Bad Boss: Is perfectly willing to brainwash the Reapers under his command with no consent in order to achieve his schemes and was perfectly willing to use Neku and Joshua as a means to assassinate Minamimoto via the daily mission mail. Though, in fairness to the latter bit, Minamimoto was causing vast amounts of chaos throughout the UG with his making of Taboo Noise and destructive habits.
• Baritone of Strength: Courtesy of Hiroshi Shirokuma and Shane Johnson.
• Battle Aura: That he's the only Reaper to sport one in battle should tell you just how dangerous he is.
• Big Bad: He's the true culprit behind Neku's continued entrance into the Game, the Games gradually getting more rigged against him, and ultimately the Red Skull pins. This was all done in an effort to stop the Composer, a separate villain in the context of the story, from destroying Shibuya.
• Big "NO!": After losing, more over the fact that since he lost his game, Shibuya will be erased.
• Breath Weapon: In his Noise form, which has him shooting multicolored fireballs at you that can either halve your attack or defense on contact as well as big energy blasts that can take out huge chunks of your health if you’re not careful.
• Cold Ham: At first, he’s quite stoic and icy throughout his interactions with Neku and the other Players while often times making grand gestures but, when the last portion of the game comes around, he becomes much expressive and hammy, delivering dramatic speeches and bursts of emotion as his entire plan begins to unravel.
• Combat Tentacles: In the first fight against him, he can engulf his arms in Noise-esque black and red tendrils for certain attacks though when he actually lashes out with them, they morph into the head of dragon, biting at Neku.
• The Comically Serious: In Another Day and in the manga. In the former, he treats Tin Pin Slammer with the same amount of gravitas and serious emotion as his main game counterpart, which makes for some particularly hilariously bits, and even echoes his voice for dramatic effect. In the latter, he outright sheds a tear when Konishi brings up about how people would make fun of him for his girly name.
• Creepy Good: In Another Day and parodied. He no longer plays an antagonistic role, but he still makes some ominous statements to Neku about how challenging him to Tin Pin Slammer may end up the last game he ever plays... while also throwing his voice to give himself a dramatic echo that Neku finds very impressive. It may also apply to the real Kitaniji, since he's the sinister leader of the Reapers and is behind much of the heroes' problems including the Assimilation Plot affecting Shibuya's RG but everything he's been doing was to ensure Shibuya doesn't get erased.
• Determinator: It takes Neku a total of three times to fully take him down for good and even then he only fully relents when he realizes that his timer is running out.
• Disco Dan: Wears distinctly disco-inspired clothing and has an unhealthy fixation on the past. Solo Remix onwards use a disco remix of "Deja Vu" as his first battle theme.
• The Dragon: The strongest Reaper, and thus second-in-command of the Game after the Composer. Usually. During the events of the story, Kitaniji and the Composer are competing over the fate of Shibuya, thus making both of them competing central villains.
• Dual Boss: A brainwashed Shiki fights alongside him.
  • In Another Day as an optional Tin Pin Slammer Opponent, he can control two different pins simultaneously.
• Energy Ball: Can summon two spherical constructs of destructive energy at his side that will fire out blasts of energy from them in order to fire onto his enemies.
• Energy Weapon: He can trace out a red line across the stage of his battle which acts as a path for a small, but very powerful laser.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Has a very deep and imposing voice in both the Japanese and North American versions of the game.
• Evil Versus Oblivion: The Evil to Joshua’s Oblivion. While brainwashing the population of Shibuya in order to have the residents participate in an Assimilation Plot is noted to be incredibly wrong and dangerous, Kitaniji is only doing so as an alternative to Joshua flat out destroying the city in its entirety.
• Face Death with Dignity: After being defeated, he gracefully accepts his deletion and tells Neku that Shibuya is in his hands.
• Final Boss: Of the game as a whole.
• Fusion Dance: Forcibly absorbs Joshua into himself to make use of his abilities and fuse into a more powerful One Winged Angel Form of his first Noise form.
• Gender-Blender Name: "Megumi" is a unisex but feminine-sounding name. Lampshaded in the manga.
  Konishi: But sir! What if [Minamimoto] dredges up old memories of people teasing you because of your girly name?
  Kitaniji: Konishi... Salt. Wounds. Stop.
• Graceful Loser: After his final defeat at the hands of Neku and his partners, he graciously accepts that he lost to Joshua and congratulates Neku for beating him.
• Hates Everyone Equally: Much like Neku in this regard, he doesn’t particularly have much fondness for other people in general and in fact accuses them of being the reason for Joshua trying to erase Shibuya in the first place, blaming them for their perceived egotism and self-serving ways that would cause even the Composer to ultimately turn his back on him.
• Have a Nice Death:
  • "Game, set, match!"
  • As Draco Cantus it's "Now Shibuya will be saved".
• Headphones Equal Isolation: As a foil to Neku, his are always around his neck. A subtle hint that his plan involves false unity.
• Hidden Depths: The Dragon with a hatred for humanity who seemingly went out of his way to seemingly screw over Neku for no reason whatsoever was actually an Anti-Villain who was trying all he can to save his beloved city from destruction against his own boss.
• Hijacking Cthulhu: Forcibly absorbs Joshua into himself in order to gain more power to defeat Neku and the others one and for all in one last desperate to protect Shibuya from destruction, which results in him becoming Draco Cantus.
• Humans Are Bastards: His views on humanity aren’t exactly charitable, with him outright claiming them to be nothing but self-centered and egotistical, and even trying to suggest to Neku that their tendency for crime, warfare, and other ills within the world is because of The Evils of Free Will.
• I Have Your Wife: After the ending of Week 1, Kitaniji blackmails Neku into continually playing the game by taking Shiki as his Entry Fee, knowing full well how much the boy grew to care for her and denying her second chance at life. It should be noted, however, that it’s possible that he was just doing this in order to hide the fact that due to the Composer’s absence, nobody could be brought back to life so he just needed an excuse for doing so.
• Karmic Death: He ran the Reaper's game as both the Conductor and Composer (in the real Composer's absence) for the entire game. However, he himself was in a game with the Composer complete with his own timer of thirty days. After the final boss, the timer runs out, losing him the game and erasing him.
• Knight Templar: He does love Shibuya, but his method of improving it is a bit extreme, to say the least.
• Leitmotif: In Solo Remix, "Satisfy".
• Loophole Abuse: Particularly when he removes all the other players in an attempt to make Neku unable to win.
• Man of Wealth and Taste: His outfits consists of a rather pimping snake-themed suit that helps to indicate his superiority among the Reapers. Not to mention, his base of operations is the incredibly luxurious Dead God's Pad hidden deep within the Shibuya River, replete with expensive-looking furniture and an aquarium beneath the glass floor.
• Mouth of Sauron: He acts as the second-in-command and spokesperson for the Composer.
• Near-Villain Victory: Kitaniji comes dangerously close to winning his Game with Joshua by the endgame. He successfully brainwashed most of Shibuya’s population and had Neku right in the palm in the hand thanks to his Time Stands Still ability and prepping him to be brainwashed by the Red Skull pin after crushing his Player pin. If it weren’t for Joshua secretly suppling Neku with a second Player pin and Shiki and Beat coming to Neku’s aid, he would’ve ultimately been victorious.
• Oh, Crap!: He's noticeably rattled when things start going wrong, particularly his failure to destroy Neku's pin, Joshua arriving, and his final loss.
• Our Hydras Are Different: After absorbing Joshua (as well as Shiki and Beat) into himself, he transforms into a six-headed draconian beast that loves to spam fireballs and exploding energy blades in order to try and take Neku out.
• Perpetual Smiler: There's not a single sprite of him where he isn't smiling, further contrasting him with the dour, cynical Neku.
• Polite Villains, Rude Heroes: Kitaniji puts on a rather polite and refined front and shows respectfulness to the majority of his associates in contrast to Neku’s rather rude mannerisms and Vitriolic Best Buds attitude with his friends.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: To Neku's Blue. Whereas Neku is much more willing to accept the values of others and the culture of Shibuya around him, resulting in him becoming much more mature in how he interacts with the world at large, Kitaniji is much more passionate about how much he disregards other perspectives and wants to force his own ideals onto everyone.
• Sequential Boss: First fought in his normal form with a brainwashed Shiki before entering his Noise form Anguis Cantus. Immediately after, he uses Joshua to turn into Draco Cantus, the Final Boss.
• Shadow Archetype: Can be seen as this to Neku, what with both of them wearing headphones and having a mutual dislike of other people, seeing them as inherently flawed and worthless. However, whereas Neku learns to fully embrace Shibuya, faults and all, and appreciate other viewpoints and ideologies, Megumi flat out rejects them, instead trying to force his will on others in an attempt to achieve total conformity.
• Shaping Your Attacks: When activating his Combat Tentacles, they take on the form of a dragon head that chomps at Neku for a great amount of damage.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Wears a rather nice snake-themed suit.
• Sinister Shades: A given considering he's the Conductor and the Big Bad.
• Scaled Up: Anguis Cantus and Draco Cantus.
• Snakes Are Sinister: Enjoys clothing from the Hip Snake brand and his Noise transformation is a colossal snake as well. That said, despite turning out to be Neku's primary enemy behind everything that's gone wrong with him and Shibuya, he turns out to have some noble intentions underneath it all.
• Sphere of Destruction: Can trap the player in an bubble of energy that can leave them vulnerable to several of his big wind-up attacks if the player doesn’t break out of them in time.
• Time Stands Still: "Time, be still!"
• Title Drop: A variation of the Japanese version's title (It's a Wonderful World), though not directly. His assimilation plot has everyone under the effects of his pin give a mind-controlled speech, ending it with "What a wonderful world such would be".
• Utopia Justifies the Means: His reasoning on why he employed the Red Skull pins to unite the denizens of Shibuya into a Hive Mind. Considering the alternative of what were to happen if he didn’t attempt this, you can see where he’s coming from.
• Villain Respect: Throughout the game, he repeatedly acknowledges Neku’s various accomplishments throughout the weeks and for his continued persistence as a Player. Before finally succumbing to erasure by timer, he congratulates Neku on his victory one last time and even asks him to protect Shibuya in his stead.
• Villainous Breakdown: When his various plans are shown to go up in smoke around him by the time the end of the game is happening, Kitaniji is shown to be rather unnerved and breaks down quite a bit as more of his schemes start to go awry.
  Kitaniji: NOOOOOO!!! It can't end like this... Who else will protect Shibuya?
• Villainous Valor: Despite the rather insurmountable odds placed against him throughout the game in the form of Joshua and Neku, Kitaniji refuses to give up even under the threat of Erasure. Then there’s the fact that he was willing to go up against what was essentially the god of Shibuya in order to protect his beloved city from destruction.
• Visionary Villain: Due to his and Joshua’s game and his observations of the world around him, Kitaniji wants to conform Shibuya into a Hive Mind that gets rid of concepts such as individuality and free will in order to achieve what he perceives to be a true paradise.
  "Didn't you feel it in Shibuya? Rage. Hate. Misery. Envy. Fear. Self-deprecation. A cacophony of countless selfish wants. As that noise swells, it turns into crime, warfare... All the world's ills can be traced to individuality! By tearing down the differences between us, I can make the world a paradise!"
• We Can Rule Together: Offers this to Neku at the end of the game, asking him to take off the Player Pin preventing him from being brainwashed and embrace total conformity. Neku, however, promptly tells him to shove it.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: He was actually playing his own game with Joshua, the Composer, to determine the fate of Shibuya. And if Joshua wins, Shibuya is destroyed. And guess what? Neku was playing on Joshua's side. Oops!
• Worthy Opponent: Deems Neku this after his first boss fight, and consequently gives him a quick summary of what's been going on in Shibuya since he entered the UG - namely, that the Composer is not "the man [Neku] envisions" and that Kitaniji is responsible for what Neku thought the Composer was doing.

The Composer (Unmarked Spoilers!)

Yoshiya "Joshua" Kiryu

"Hee hee... It was me, Neku. I'm Shibuya's Composer".

^{Click here to see Joshua as he appears in the anime}

^{Click here to see his true form}

^{Click here to see his appearance in NEO: The World Ends with You.}

Voiced by Ryōhei Kimura (JP) and Aaron Spann (EN)

The Composer of Shibuya and the leader of the Reapers. While his identity is treated as a mystery throuought the story, it is revealed that the Composer is none other than Joshua, who killed Neku as part of an elaborate "game" to determine the fate of Shibuya.

For tropes pertaining to his characterization prior to The Reveal, see The World Ends With You-The Players.

---

• Above Good and Evil: What Kitaniji views him as, claiming that his actions are born out of an overflowing love for humanity.
• Actually, I Am Him: Neku spends much of the game looking for The Composer after partnering up with Joshua, who wants to take down the Composer and usurp his position. In the third week, Beat wants to become Composer so that he can end the Reaper's Game and bring Rhyme back to life, so the hunt for the current Composer resumes. After defeating the Final Boss, Neku learns that Joshua was actually The Composer all along, and he'd manipulated Neku into doing his bidding. Cue Neku's Heroic BSoD.
• Affably Evil: Comes to genuinely care for Neku and is shown to be quite respectful and friendly towards others, such as Hanekoma, Kitaniji, and Sota and Nao. He’s also the Big Bad of the game and the Composer.
• All According to Plan: Everything he did in the game during his week with Neku, including supposedly sacrificing himself for him, was all a part of his plan to ultimately destroy Shibuya.
• Almighty Janitor: In "Another Day", he seems to be just a columnist for Pinhead Weekly magazine, but corporate executives and even the mayor look to him for advice. Furthermore, he can fight the Noise just as well as his Alternate Universe counterpart, and even participates in the Boss Rush challenge after casually greeting the Composer. The complete lack of surprise upon meeting his counterpart suggests that even here, he's high enough on the totem pole to be informed of alternate universes, though whether he's still the Composer is unconfirmed.
• Assassin Outclassin': Repeatedly thwarts Sho’s attempts to assassinate him in an attempt to become the Composer with relative ease, with their last encounter being a Curb-Stomp Battle in Joshua’s favor.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: As the Composer, he’s essentially the most powerful force in Shibuya and he makes sure to let Neku know it once it’s revealed, with him taking Shiki and Beat out of battle without lifting a finger.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Joshua, the Composer of Shibuya, had decided that the city had become corrupt, and was planning to destroy it before it infected other regions. Kitaniji's entire plot throughout the game was a challenge for the right to stop him. Thanks to Neku, Joshua beats Kitaniji and has free reign. But also thanks to Neku, Joshua changes his mind about Shibuya needing to be destroyed in the first place. So even though the bad guy won, the good guys didn't lose.
• Bait the Dog: His Heroic Sacrifice to protect Neku from Sho's level i Flare that supposedly showed off how he was actually not that bad of a guy overall? Well, he actually faked it in order to motivate Neku to continue and win the Game for him. It's downplayed, though since while Joshua did ultimately fake it, there was a genuine risk of him dying to Sho's attack and he did ultimately come to genuinely care for Neku.
• Batman Gambit: Pulls off quite a few of these when it comes to the events that unfold in the game. Whether it's counteracting Sho’s plan to assassinate him by stopping all of his bullets with nothing but his mind and forcing him to retreat, leaving Neku with a second Player Pin to counteract Kitaniji’s brainwashing Red Skull pin, and faking his own Heroic Sacrifice in order to successfully guilt trip Neku into completing the Game for him against Kitaniji, Joshua is almost always one step ahead of everyone.
• Beauty Is Bad: The biggest Jerkass and Big Bad out of the main playable male characters is also a Pretty Boy Bishōnen.
• Becoming the Mask: Though he does a good job of hiding it, the quality time he spent with Neku allowed him to grow and to care for him.
• Being God Is Hard: It is heavily implied to be this for him. Considering how he talks about not wanting Shibuya’s complacency to poison the rest of the world and how utterly cynical he is, as well as his apparent inability to interact with others and form genuine connections, evidently Composerhood is not all it’s cracked up to be.
• Biblical Motifs: Where do we even begin? For starters, his name, Joshua, is apparently a more accurate transliteration of Jesus's name, all pronouns relating to him, when said by Kitaniji, are capitalized in the biblical tradition (He, Him) his plan concerning Neku and the state of Shibuya is heavily reminiscent of God’s own situation with Sodom and Gomorrah, his pose during levitation heavily evokes Jesus’s crucified form, etc...
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Fulfills this role along with Kitaniji. Whereas Kitaniji wants to bend Shibuya to his will and turn its populace into brainwashed zombies. Joshua wants to flat out destroy it using Neku as a catalyst to do so. Much of the behind the scenes plot is built around the two trying to outwit the other in order to fulfill their own goals.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Makes up a third of this alongside Sho and Kitaniji, being the ultimate authority of the Reaper's Game who intends to destroy Shibuya outright because of his belief that its people are incapable of change or self-improvement. Thanks to his interactions with Neku, he changes his mind and instead chooses to spare it.
• Big Bad Friend: He killed Neku in order to bring him into the Reaper's Game, then partners with him to set up Kitaniji.
• Boom, Headshot!: During the scene where Neku’s death is fully uncovered, Joshua points his gun directly at Neku and the gun’s line of sight is shown to be pointing at Neku’s head, suggesting that he is how he ends up in the UG.
• Bullet Catch: When Sho tries to shoot at him in the RG, Joshua takes a page from Neo’s book and stops the bullets in mid-air with his mind, showing that even with his Composer abilities diminished, Joshua’s powers are still quite formidable.
• Character Development: The fact that he spares Shibuya in the end shows that he learned people can change, and legitimately grew to care about Neku deeply.
• Chekhov's Gunman: If you look closely, you can see him standing near the Statue of Hachiko early in the first week. He's probably observing his proxy, Neku.
• The Chessmaster: Neku’s accomplishments over the past three weeks and ascending mastery of the Reaper’s Game? All a part of Joshua’s plan.
• Consummate Liar: Not immediately obvious, but he can be scanned as he's playing from the RG, but you're always somehow blocked out of his memory of what really happened until The Reveal.
• The Corrupter: Passively encourages Neku to give in to his hatred of others since that's his justification for destroying Shibuya. This ultimately backfires; not only does he fail to corrupt Neku, but Neku actually purifies him!
• Coup de Grâce: How he ultimately kills Neku as revealed in the full cutscene of his death: he shoots Neku while the poor kid is down on the ground and understandably confused about everything happening around him.
• Cruel to Be Kind: His reasoning behind the Entry Fees as Hanekoma explains in the Secret Reports: it isn’t meant to cause anguish by depriving Players of their most valuable possession, but instead make them question why they valued it and grow to appreciate it and, by extension, life, in order to have them grow and mature.
• Dark Messiah: He has a number of allusions to Jesus Christ, including what is apparently a more accurate transliteration of Jesus's name. He's also the Big Bad and the one who turns out to be in charge of the Reaper’s Game.
• Dead All Along:
  • Inverted. One of the final twists of Week 2 and the technicality that Kitanji uses to justify screwing Neku out of yet another victory is the fact that Joshua has been alive the entire time.
  • Played straight by the end, with the reveal that he's Shibuya's Composer. On top of that, he's the only main character to stay dead.
• Deity of Human Origin: It’s heavily implied by Hanekoma’s Secret Reports that a Player can, if they become a Reaper, eventually become the Composer, which is what probably happened with Joshua. It's also implied that the Composer can also ascend and become an Angel.
• De-power: Joshua, the Composer, seals much of his powers away so he can play the "game" he has going fairly. Several characters try to take advantage of this to kill him... only to discover that even at "baseline human," he can still deflect bullets with his mind.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: As the Composer of Shibuya, he’s easily one of the most powerful forces in the story and could’ve easily blasted away any problem that plagued him and Neku during Week 2. However, due to the nature of his and Kitaniji’s Game and him agreeing to curtail his abilities in order to give his Conductor a fighting chance, he basically has his hands tied. The moment he gets to truly show off his power, however, he makes it perfectly clear just how far above he is compared to everybody else by curbstomping Sho and taking down Shiki and Beat without lifting a finger.
• Easily Forgiven: Subverted to a degree. Neku's ending monologue is addressed to Joshua, accusing him of not understanding how painful those three weeks were for him emotionally, forcing him to trust people through life-or-death situations, and how he basically used him. However, Neku still trusts him and considers him a friend, especially when he notes how, if he didn’t go through those trials in the first place, he never would’ve changed for the better, but he can't forgive him for all that he's done.
• Evil All Along: Turns out Joshua was the Composer all along and is planning to nuke Shibuya into oblivion. Who knew?
• Eviler than Thou: Implied. He's definitely stronger than Minamimoto, and given the fact that Hanekoma was willing to help Minamimoto become the Composer in order to prevent Shibuya's destruction, it's implied that Minamimoto would have done less damage than Joshua was planning to.
• Evil Versus Oblivion: While Joshua believes that Shibuya is beyond saving and wants to destroy it, Kitaniji wants to save it by means of an Assimilation Plot.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: On the surface, Joshua has the appearance of a rather pristine Pretty Boy with a cheerful attitude and a penchant for perpetually smiling. Underneath the facade, however, he’s actually the local Jerkass God of Shibuya and a manipulative schemer with a habit of shooting 15 year olds in the face and using them in his goals in trying to destroy Shibuya.
• Forgotten First Meeting: Deliberately invokes this with Neku, taking away the memory of his death in order to make him forget that he had first met Joshua when the latter killed him, making him more susceptible to partnering up with him.
• Friendly Enemy: Even when he and Kitaniji are competing against one another in their Game to decide the fate of humanity, they still refer to each other in a respectful manner and compliment the other on their accomplishments/goals.
• God in Human Form: As a result of having to forcibly curtail his Composer abilities in order to compete in his and Kitaniji’s game, Joshua is forced to take on a younger, more human form of his true self.
• God Is Flawed: Is shown to be this throughout the game, with his growing misanthropy against humanity and decision to try and destroy it being treated as something that is ultimately a defeatist mindset. Thankfully, his experiences throughout the game and interactions with Neku convince him otherwise and have him change for the better.
• God Was My Co-Pilot: Turns out he's the one in charge of the Reaper's Game as its Composer and is just about regarded as such once this tidbit is revealed.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Of the game as a whole as it was thanks to his Game with Kitaniji and his multiple schemes that the plot of the game even happens in the first place.
• The Grim Reaper: Although the Game does contain the eponymous Reapers, as the Composer, he is ultimately the one who judges people and has the appropriate power to decide whether or not they can be revived or stay dead. Due to his absence thanks to the Game between him and Kitaniji, nobody is able to truly be revived at the end of the week, which Kitaniji desperately tries to hide.
• Good Powers, Bad People: His skillset consists of raining down holy beams of light on his enemies, reviving the dead, and judging said souls of the dead. He’s also the Big Bad and was planning on using his abilities to wipe out everyone in Shibuya before ultimately changing his mind.
• Hidden Depths: As Hanekoma explains (and Joshua confirms independently), Joshua was able to see the entirety of the Reaper's Game while he was alive, and is implied to have been ostracized because of it. These past experiences may have spurred his cynicism and fueled the misanthropy that drove him to decide to erase Shibuya. This is furthered by Hanekoma saying that Joshua has been alone all his life, and in the secret ending, is implied to be quite lonely.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: He ends up growing to care about Neku enough to take the bullet for him.]] But then he is shown to be perfectly fine, though there were actual risks in what he did. Neku was not aware of that last fact, so the sacrifice seemed to be all part of his plan, and him showing up again was another betrayal. But then, he allows Shibuya to continue to exist due to his growing relationship with Neku.
• Hot God: He’s a slender, attractive Pretty Boy with a penchant for flirting with Neku, is canonically referred to as "pretty boy" by many named and unnamed NPCs, and is said to look good in clothing brands geared more towards women. He also happens to be the Composer.
• Humanoid Abomination: What his Composer form looks like: aside from a few facial features and a hazy outline, it is almost entirely featureless and has a blinding white aura around it.
• Humans Are Bastards: What his initial mindset concerning humanity is at first. Joshua sees people as nothing but shallow and self-centered to destructive levels and believes them to be too dull and clouded to realize their own potential, which fuels his growing misanthropic mindset and causes him to try and destroy Shibuya to put what he believes to be the epicenter of its problems out of the world’s misery before his friendship with Neku has him ultimately coming to realize that...
• Humans Are Flawed: Throughout the game, Joshua comes to see through his interactions with Neku and the world around him that while humanity is full of flawed creatures that have the tendency to only be obsessed with themselves, they are also capable of meaningful growth and change and can in fact help each other grow for the better.
• Hypocrite: Interestingly enough, he turns out to be this in regards to Neku as he had chosen Neku to be his proxy due to being what he considered to be the worst of what Shibuya had to offer, when he himself actually shares quite a lot in common with Neku.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Heavily implied in the secret ending, which Hanekoma himself noting how downcast Joshua looks as he watches Neku and the others reunite, apparently wanting to join them as well but being unable to.
• Immortal Immaturity: It’s heavily implied that he is a lot older than he looks as evidenced by his Composer form, although you definitely can’t tell that considering the way he acts, with one of his most notable examples involving him teleporting himself into another dimension in order to play a children’s pin game.
• Interspecies Friendship: Despite being the Composer and Neku being a human, Joshua develops a genuine friendship with the latter and is convinced by their interactions to spare Shibuya from destruction.
• Intrigued by Humanity: Throughout his interactions within the UG, he comes across as quite curious about the daily going of everyday UG life and Neku’s further growth as a person, to the point that he is shown to be surprised by Neku’s actions multiple times. This is most likely due to the fact that he had previously written off Shibuya as nothing but a rotting husk full of people that were unable to change anything about themselves only to find himself being proven wrong on that front.
• It Amused Me: He keeps Minamimoto around because "he knows how to heat up a game".
• It Is Beyond Saving: His initial views on Shibuya and subsequently humanity. Neku helps him grow out of this mindset at the end of the game.
• Jerkass God: He’s the Composer of Shibuya, essentially making him the town’s god, and is also kind of a huge dick to boot.
• Light Is Not Good: Is shown to look rather pristine and clean and can even summon holy beams of light from above to attack his enemies, which even have miniature angels accompanying said beams. He is also a part of the Big Bad Ensemble and is ultimately the one orchestrating the entire game. It then gets revealed that he was actually planning to destroy Shibuya all along.
• Lonely at the Top: Implied in the secret ending and by Hanekoma.
• Manipulative Bastard: He killed Neku and proceeded to use him to help determine Shibuya's fate.
• The Man Behind the Man: Kind of. He's the Composer, making him Kitaniji's boss, but while Kitaniji is extremely loyal, they're respectfully against each other throughout the game. In Another Day, he seems to be just a columnist for Pinhead Weekly magazine, but his political connections go up and up and up, plus he's aware of his Alternate Universe self from the rest of the game.
• Master Actor: A supreme example, considering he was acting like a normal human during his week with Neku, when he was actually the Composer.
• Meaningful Name:
  • "Joshua" is a transliteration of the Hebrew name "יהושע." Transliterate that name to Greek and then to English, and you get Jesus.
  • On top of that, his surname is written with the kanji for "paulownia tree" and "life". Given that the paulownia tree has associations with the phoenix of death and rebirth, that not only adds to the Jesus symbolism but also alludes to the fact that, as the Composer, he has the power to re-form Soul and bring it back to life.
• Meaningless Villain Victory: While he does ultimately win the game that he and Kitaniji set up between themselves to decide Shibuya’s fate, it is rendered moot due to the fact that Joshua’s reasoning for destroying Shibuya (its citizens being unable to readily change) is proven wrong by his proxy Neku’s growth, who he has chosen to represent Shibuya as a whole. Because of this, Joshua decides to give the city, and by extension humanity, a second chance.
• Misanthrope Supreme: Starts off this way before ultimately outgrowing it. He initially believes that Shibuya (and by extension, humanity) has absolutely nothing worthwhile to gain from and entertains the thought of destroying it before Kitaniji convinces to partake in a game with its fate at stake. Agreeing to this, Joshua soon finds himself seeing humanity’s potential value throughout his interactions with Neku and ultimately decides to spare Shibuya as his final decision.
• Misery Builds Character: What his reasoning behind the various rules in the Reaper's Game amounts to. It's to take the souls of the recently deceased, have them partner up with one another, and pit them against soul-destroying monsters in order to enhance their own potential and possibly have them come back to life as emotionally stronger people thanks to the experiences they've had.
• Morality Pet: Neku could be considered this at the end of the game. It’s thanks to him and his growth that Joshua is able re-evaluate his stance on Shibuya and its people and come to a decision to ultimately spare it due to his friendship with Neku.
• Mysterious Backer: More or less what he did as the Composer. He essentially manipulated Neku into stopping the Big Bad's Evil Plan and was even considering destroying everything anyway (although Neku's actions made him change his mind).
• Older Than They Look: His appearance as a partner isn't his true form and it's implied that he's ageless. The other form he's seen in looks like a much older incarnation of his Player appearance.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In "A New Day", Neku has a vision of Joshua shooting him again, this time with a straight-up glare on his face rather than the grin he wore when picking his proxy. At the end of a New Day, when that vision comes to pass, Joshua is shooting at Coco, who has just shot Neku.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Is genuinely invested in saving Ramen Don, and speaks to Ken Doi with a politeness he doesn't usually display, even going so far as to call him "mister".
  • After Sota and Nao get Erased by Taboo Noise, Joshua is shown to be genuinely downcast at this, indicating that he had genuinely come to like them.
  • While his Heroic Sacrifice did turn out to be faked in the long run, there was still a genuine risk of him actually dying from Sho’s attack, and instead of simply teleporting away and leaving Neku to fend for himself, he opted instead to shield him from the blast.
  • Instead of simply destroying Shibuya like he set out to do, thanks to his interactions with Neku, Joshua instead decides to spare it and bring everyone back to life. Even Rhyme, who by all accounts should have stayed Erased after losing the first Game.
• Physical God: As the Composer, Joshua definitely fits the bill. He has ridiculous reality-bending powers (read: the power to create and manipulate laws of nature as well as the Game's rules)... whether in the Underground or the Realground, can revive the dead, travel through dimensions (albeit with some extra liberties due to how volatile the process is), and even possesses Clairvoyance. An observant player may note that the first mention of him uses capitalized pronouns.
• Psychotic Smirk: Pulls a deeply unsettling one of these right before shooting Neku in the head. He gets another one in the endgame when threatening to do it again, though the smile gets softer after he actually does.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Figurative example. While using Neku as the proxy allows him to win the game, the victory becomes completely hollow since Neku develops as a person during the game, which invalidates Joshua's reason for trying to destroy Shibuya in the first place, i.e. Shibuya's people are incapable of change.
• Restored My Faith in Humanity: Neku does this for him.
• Ret-Canon: Joshua is first shown with a pair of wings in his crossover appearance for Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance], which is then canonized for the anime adaptation.
• Sissy Villain: Acts incredibly flamboyant and effeminate and is even noted to pull of crossdressing incredibly. He’s also one of the most powerful forces in the story and the true Big Bad.
• Slasher Smile: When he shoots Neku.
• So Proud of You: Before Neku is fully able to come back to life, he sees both Hanekoma and Joshua looking back at him, with Joshua sporting a genuinely proud smile on his face, showing him coming to realize just how much his proxy’s grown.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Before Shiki and Neku make a pact by the statue of Haichiko, Joshua is shown to be standing right next to Neku, potentially observing how his proxy is handling the circumstances. After the cutscene ends, however, he disappears.
• Stealth Pun: Yoshiya = YHVH = God.
• Stepford Smiler:
  • Can arguably be this, considering the game heavily implies he not only killed himself to enter the UG, but that as the Composer, he essentially IS Shibuya itself. Wanting to destroy it could be considered a form of suicide, given that he'd take himself out with it.]] In addition, certain sprites showing up at different times in a conversation and even the idle animation, if watched long enough, indicate that the constant smirking is not all that it appears to be.
  • Both Solo Remix and Final Remix change his expression from a frown to a smile during the Secret Ending for unspecified reasons. However, Hanekoma still calls him out for seeming down (or outright calls him lonely in the Japanese version), meaning the context of the scene hasn't changed and implying he's merely hiding his negative feelings.
  • In the anime, he gives a sly smile right before shooting Neku during their final confrontation. Just a moment later when his face is shown again, it has dropped to a very serious, hollow expression.
• Took a Level in Kindness: The sequel reveals that the events of the first game gave him hopes for humanity as he indirectly intervenes to prevent Shibuya's erasure by the Executor and allows Shoka to go to the RG so she can join Rindo]].
• Treacherous Advisor: Fulfills this role as Neku’s partner during their time together as partners, educating him further on the inner workings of the Game and how to best survive throughout it, all of the while secretly prepping Neku for his role as Joshua’s proxy in destroying Shibuya.
• The Unfought: Despite fighting alongside Neku during Week 2, Joshua is the only named Reaper in the original game who isn't directly fought.
• Vague Age: The manual says he's 15, but his Composer form looks very much like a grown adult.
• Villain Protagonist: See The Man Behind The Man above and Well-Intentioned Extremist below.
• Walking Spoiler: Its hard to talk about Joshua's role in the story without giving away the twist that he's the real Big Bad.
• Wham Line: At the end of the game, after defeating Kitaniji, the Conductor, Joshua reveals his true identity.
  Joshua: It was me, Neku. I'm Shibuya's Composer.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Joshua is not only pretty and has white hair, but he's also the one who almost UNDOES Neku's Character Development from week one with his prissy and mysterious behavior, and finally turns out to be Neku's killer (twice), the Composer, and the one who wanted to destroy Shibuya in the first place. However, he ends up showing "mercy". All this while spouting cryptic "deep" sayings, and being mysterious and ostensibly metrosexual (he teases and hits on Neku often, and a good number of the items that give him special abilities are womanly in nature).
• Willfully Weak: Averted and justified via Secret Reports. Since he's from a different plane, it causes him to look much younger, lose several of his abilities, and lowers his power output. However, this lets him look like he's a participant in the game, so the Reapers completely ignore him while he makes his own plots.
• Would Hurt a Child: After the truth about him comes out, he most definitely qualifies as this trope. He has no problem with shooting a 15-year-old boy in the face and then using the said boy as his proxy for an extremely dangerous and elaborate death game with the fate of one of Tokyo‘s most famous fashion districts hanging in the balance.
• You Are Too Late: He shows up at the end of "A New Day" just in time to witness Coco shoot Neku dead.

Coco Atarashi

"I've got everything you'll ever need. Seriously, I'm, like, not even lying".

Voiced by Marika Kouno (JP) and Kitana Turnbull (EN)

Also known as the "Cute Reaper". Coco was originally introduced in Solo Remix as the face of the in-app store, allowing players to purchase in-game items with real money, before later becoming a guide in the social app Live Remix. Coco makes her proper debut in the plot in Final Remix.

---

• Almighty Janitor: Coco is a Harrier Reaper, which is the equivalent of mid-level in the Reaper hierarchy but is powerful enough to create a reality-bending Noise and revives Sho after he is erased. Hanekoma states that she is not an ordinary Reaper and the only one he knows with that kind of ability.
• Ascended Extra: In Solo Remix, Coco only serves to sell items that cost real money to the player, before ascending to canon in the Switch port Final Remix.
• Adapted Out: Not Coco herself, but her shop is absent from the Final Remix due to her different role; its wares have been relocated to various other stores in Shibuya. When she first shows up in Final Remix's Another Day, she claims she helped Neku out a bunch of times in the past, whereas he and Beat don't remember her. This may be a reference to her shop being removed in Final Remix; this version of Neku wouldn't know her.
• The Bad Guy Wins: In "A New Day”, Neku is shot dead at Coco's hands, and after attempting and failing to prevent his murder, Joshua callously decides to leave Neku to his fate, declaring Josh doesn't need him anymore. All this is part of Coco's plan to get Neku back into the UG, the first step of a scheme that threatens far more than just Shibuya. The second step? Resurrect Sho Minamimoto. Apparently to act as Neku's "partner ".
• Beware the Silly Ones: On the surface, she appears to be nothing more but an incredibly airheaded and ditzy little girl Reaper who has no idea about what’s going on in the Game and not that much of a threat. That is, until she turns out to be behind the events of "A New Day", summons Dissonance Tapir to attack Neku and Beat, and then proceeds to shoot Neku dead.
• Big Bad: Of "A New Day". She is the one who has created the Shibuya Noise.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: She shows up in Final Remix's "A New Day", tagging along with Beat and Neku and mostly serving as something of a Watson. Then they finally reach WildKat, and Hanekoma reveals that the entire twisted Shibuya is a Noise created by Coco, who immediately drops the friendliness and sets the Dissonance Tapir on them. Subverted slightly come NEO where it's revealed she actually had more benevolent intentions, but her personality is still pretty obnoxious and rotten.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: She borrows Minamoto's use of "zetta" a few times, including when she somehow revives him.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory: Sells special "Gourmet Rice Balls" that provide huge stat boosts, Crafting Material Sets for crafting items, and 100,000 Yen Pins. Aside from those, she mostly sells extra CDs. Averted in Final Remix, where all of the above are found in the main stores during/after "A New Day".
• Cute and Psycho: Initially presents herself as nothing but a cutesy Reaper. However, when her true nature gets revealed, that gets flipped upside down, as shown when she gets a particularly scary expression on her face when she guns down Neku.
• Deadpan Snarker: After her true nature gets revealed, she shows an incredibly spiteful and sarcastic side to her.
• The Dragon: In the Secret Reports, Hanekoma speculates that Coco's power to create a Noise able to resemble Shibuya could only have been made possible if she was given the power by someone else.
• Evil All Along: Turns out she is the one behind "A New Day". Who knew?
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Her cutesy-poo personality evaporates the moment anyone talks back or second-guesses her. Played mostly for laughs as of NEO.
• Hero Killer: In "A New Day", she guns down Neku to have him participate in the next Reaper’s Game as part of her future plans.
• Knight of Cerebus: And how! As soon as her plans get exposed, she then proceeds to shoot Neku dead, presumably to have him act as a part of her plans, and then proceeds to revive none other than Sho Minamimoto himself to act as Neku’s partner. Needless to say, she helps brings forward one hell of a Wham Episode and the game’s Sequel Hook.
• Leet Lingo: She often peppers her dialogue with internet slang.
• Like Is, Like, a Comma: Part of her way of speaking.
• Non-Standard Character Design: She actually fits in with some of the shopkeepers with her appearance, albeit younger looking than almost all of them, but you wouldn't think that she'd be a Reaper if it weren't for the standard black wings.
• The Pollyanna: She is a Reaper, needing points to survive the game, but she cheerfully looks out for every Soul and guides them before the Reaper's Game starts, and even opens up shop to support them (though it is hinted that it's another option for getting points). This is horribly subverted in "A New Day" when Hanekoma outs her as the source of Shibuya's Noise distortion, and it's all downhill from there.
• Scary Teeth: When her cover is blown by Hanekoma, she drops the sweet smiles in favor of cynical smiles showing sharp fangs.
• Token Mini-Moe: Among the rest of the Reapers who are commonly around their twenties, she sure looks young.
• Valley Girl: "I totally have, like, sooo much awesome stuff. So, like, what are you lookin' for?"
• Villainous Breakdown: Getting her cover blown by Hanekoma shows how much of a bitch she really is that she gets a lot of evil-looking portraits to go with it. This is emphasized by her literally kicking Hanekoma aside before unleashing the Dissonance Tapir upon Neku and Beat.
  Coco: Ugh! Don't you, like, ever know when to STFU!? JUST, LIKE, GTFO ALREADY!

---