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Narrative
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Yume Nikki
TRIGGER WARNING
Madotsuki was raped sometime before the events of the game took place.
It's come up before, and it seems to be prevalent, so let's look at the evidence.
Madotsuki achieves a happy ending
After fighting through her inner demons, and collecting her thoughts, Madotsuki realizes that she's still trapped - the "dream diary" is a dream diary indeed, and she never really was awake. In order to confront her own fear of the outside world, she has to symbolically destroy her old self, and end the dream in a suitably cathartic way. She doesn't die, she just wakes up in the real world, untrammeled by her psychological issues and ready for the outside world.
Something even worse than the dreams is going on in the real world
The evidence is Madotsuki's reaction if you try to open the door in the real world - she shakes her head. It seems that she has no trouble with any of the creepy inhabitants of her dreams, but she doesn't want to face whatever's going on in the real world.
Building off the After The End theory; The world has ended and Madotsuki is the last person on Earth. But she has a mission to complete.
More specifically, she's The Messiah. With the destruction of the world, a new world has begun to appear; a world ruled by demons and manifestations of fear, evil, primal emotions and memories, etc. However this world doesn't technically exist yet, it resides inside Madotsuki's head, since she's The Chosen One. She must enter this world and conquer it by facing these manifestations and collecting the Effects, which are whatever she wants them to be, because she's a God-in-Training. What's most important though is what she does with them in the Hub, or the Center of the "New World", at the end... She places the effects in the Center of the New World and they become Eggs. Now finally Madotsuki goes back to the Old World one last time... to leap off her building. By doing this she leaves the Old World behind, and Ascends To A Higher Plane Of Existence as the God of the New World. The Eggs hatch, banishing all the demons and horrible things in the New World and purifying it so life can begin again. The blood stain left behind doesn't represent Madotsuki dying, but instead the death of the Old World, which no longer exists.
Madotsuki doesn't want to be a female
The phallic symbolism in her dreams is her penis envy, the uteruses in the forest leading to a man lying in blood symbolizes her masculine self dead in a pool of menstruation (her becoming a woman physically), and she has no problem using the men's portable toilet in the block world. She tries to force herself to be a girl mentally but she can't, which is why she leaves her gained effects in her mind (her charades) and commits suicide.
Madotsuki is a male to female transsexual
The phallic multi-colored creature followed by a disturbing image is her rejection of her masculine side. She can barely interact with any of the female characters, and those who can be interacted with seem to be rejecting of her. The piano man seems to be trapped on a space ship with no control over it, and is overall a lonely looking person. When the ship crash lands on the strange planet, he seems sadder and reacts in surprise beforehand when the sirens are going off. This can indicate a masculine part of Madotsuki she is trying to send away. The orifices and uterus-like symbolism are her womb envy. This all can indicate that she is a male-to-female transsexual who has given up on trying to live in a world that would have trouble understanding her.
Madotsuki was Dead All Along
She's a ghost trapped in the room she was raped and murdered in. The things in her mind are trying to help her forget her violent, untimely death, but only by accepting it and leaving the toys/effects they gave her behind does her gateway to the afterlife appear, manifesting as the stairs on the balcony.
Madotsuki is a lucid dreamer
Madotsuki is actually exploring her broken, twisted dream world for a source of amusement. After finding herself in her room, an obvious dream sign occurs, her video game console is gone. When turning on the TV, she can find another dream sign; an eye or unusual pattern appears. Finally, she does something that she normally wouldn't do in real life; she walks out the door. The door room may be willed every time, and when she enters a door she takes a few moments to visualize the world she is entering. Inside the dream world, she seeks out as many fun abilities as possible that she can use. None of this would be normal behavior in a usual dream, as people generally behave as they would in an everyday environment, and Madotsuki would never decide to walk out of her apartment.
Madotsuki is a lonely, latchkey, "normal", depressed girl on the cusp of puberty
Rape, rape, rape rape, rape. No woman who has never been raped can be depressed, can they? Madotsuki is just depressed in a society that is kind of in love with suicide. All the phallic and menstural imagery could simply be a child afraid of growing up and going through puberty. She is probably a Hikkikomori or an autistic girl who only seems to be able to live in her dream world. Once she has seen all there is to see in her dreams, she feels that her life is over. So she ends her life. I do not know what the creatures at the end are supposed to mean. I think the creator of this game just wanted to creep people out and has not really established a solid narrative for this game.
Madotsuki is/was a budding serial killer
Either that, or she's not as sympathetic as everyone's making her out to be. A few of her abilities are pretty manipulative. (The knife...well, it kills things. And the cat ability makes others come towards her, and the stoplight makes things stop.)
Madotsuki's a girl who's been bullied and wishes for revenge, but she's gone a bit insane, and therefore became a Hikikomori, and realizes she has a world that's in her control; her dream world. She then dedicates her life to discovering how much power she can have over her dream world, and at the end when she realizes that she's found everything she can and can't control anything further, she, well...you know.
I'm sorry if this is a stupid theory, I'm just tired of people characterizing Madotsuki as The Woobie. The kid's messed up. And not in a sympathetic way, in my opinion.
Madotsuki is living in the Dennou Coil universe
She's somehow getting pulled into the Coil domain when she sleeps (a similar thing happens in the show). Observe the similarities between the world behind purple door and the abandoned space in Dennou coil [1] ◊ . The effects? Metabugs!
This
 is what really happens in the ending. Uboa looks like Che Guevara
Compare this to this . He does. (Hey, if WALL-E can have a WMG just saying he looks like E.T...)
Madotsuki has severe hypertropia
Hypertropia is, essentially, googly eyesin real life. (Not, as you might imagine, a condition forcing obsessive additions to this wiki.) Due to the way Japanese society works, her eye problems would draw a lot of attention and probably discrimination, leaving her a Hikiko Mori and always keeping her eyes closed so it's not noticeable. The googly eyes that are more or less everywhere (including the place where Uboa appears) are her psyche reminding her of the fact. The black-and-white areas, which seem to represent her younger years judging by their art syle, have occasional googly eyes in them as well. Masada, the most obvious example of googly eyes, is usually determined to be some part of Madotsuki's mind that she's trying to send off - in this case, her hypertropia and possible other mental problems (see: autism; autistic people do not interact with other people very well, and are often precocious in areas such as piano-playing). In fact, there are eyes everywhere, googly or no; the unsettling sequence in the refugee town where Madotsuki walks past a long row of shack with eyes on them, staring at her, might represent her issues about eyes, or maybe feeling like she's being put on a pedestal to be examined and ultimately judged.
Why can she see fine, despite her eyes not pointing in the right direction? It's a dream, that's why.
Madotsuki is actually one of Itoshiki Nozomu's students
I mean, just think about it; the Meaningful Name, the fact that she has a rather quirky personality + a bunch of psychological problems, just like all of Itoshiki's students (except, of course, for "normal girl" Nami Hitō), and just compare Monoko and Monoe with the girls in Itoshiki's class - the resemblance is uncanny.
In fact, the presence of Monoko and Monoe in Madotsuki's dreams could very well be the result of memories of her classmates resurfacing in her dreams.
Madotsuki's mind is the second Matrix
Confounded by the fact that humanity couldn't accept a truly perfect world, the creators of the Matrix created a world based on the deepest insecurities, fears, hatreds and pains of a young girl with some kind of trauma in her past. However, the result wasn't pretty- only the original girl could deal with the traumatic world around her. The rest became mindless denizens of various parts of her mind, so traumatised by fear and sadness that they can now hardly think, let alone move, or became desperate to end their world by forcing her to wake up. Scattered throughout this new Matrix are beings who can impart some small bit of knowledge to her- the ability to change her form, bring death to others, and otherwise alter the world around her in small, significant ways. Only through the collection and rejection of these abilities- and symbolically, the rejection world they came from- can humanity be free again.
Masada is also from the white desert
I'm not really going on anything other than his lack of color. But when you think about it, doesn't it seem likely that he's the same "race" as Monoe and Monoko? Looking at things from a psychological point of view, perhaps he lived in that area of Madotsuki's mind before something made her want to send him off.
Uboa is Nyarlathotep
I know this is a current joke in the Wild Mass Guessing, but is make sense.
One of Nyarly's avatar (The Haunter in the Dark) can possess people, but it reveal his real form in the darkness. To put it simple, Poniko is possessed by Nyarlathotep.
Poniko is an Arrancar.
Most of the time she looks fairly normal, but if you piss her off too much she turns into a huge monster. Since said monster looks like a really messed up black-and-white face, there's a certain resemblance to a Hollow mask.
Uboa is the Devil's Machine.
The Devil's Machine is an eyeball with Ness's face on it, and it teleports you to a nightmarish realm with red horrors in the background. Sound familiar? Furthermore, the game is full of Earthbound shout outs, and what better honor than to include the game's iconic final boss?
Madotsuki needs to get laid
She's too hikikomori to do anything in real life. In dreams, of course, it's not a problem. Cat effect? Drawing things toward her? That's just suspicious. Uboa represents a penis. KyuKyu-kun is a giant dick. Masada? Attractive male with a dick, of course. Knife? Phallic imagery!
Madotsuki, after committing suicide, is reborn as sinbound Haibane.
Madotsuki lives in a crazy, mixed-up Fantasy World.
The room is her dream. In her dreams, the door fills her with fear, of things that have happened in her nightmares. Nothing in the real world can do anything worse than knock her out, and safety measures mean that anyone who is unconscious is immediately transported to their home, so they can be not-lost and fed or watered as necessary. Madotsuki is taking advantage of that by using some sort of Vulcan Death Grip Pinch to knock herself out and save the effort of going home under her own power. Some things scare her enough that she faints, instead of waking up as players assume. The end of the game is her trying to find a way to escape the room in her recurring dream without having to go through the door.
Masada and Uboa used to be the same.
Twins, Separated At Birth, two aspects of the same being, maybe even Comedy and Tragedy. They look sort of similar, the face scheme anyway, but act in different but possibly related ways. Uboa stands there and never does anything to harm the player; all he does is transport you to a nightmare realm you can't escape without waking, and his happysad expression falls and becomes completely sad if you touch him and get transported there. He could just want a hug, but is too afraid to hug Madotsuki in case he transports her to the other realm like he does everyone else, and can't do otherwise. Masada runs from you if you have the knife equipped, but other than that he seems to be a nice, if shy person. It's difficult to tell with the lack of dialog. Uboa doesn't seem to be much different, except that his mask (if it is a mask) covers his whole body (perhaps in hopes that it can keep people from being transported if they only touch the mask?) The differences could be that Uboa is used to hurting (or at least inconveniencing) anyone who gets close, and Masada may be used to being hurt, or, after being separated from Uboa, having his one defense taken away (even if it did stop anyone getting close). (Oh, yeah, this also goes with the perfectly sane and not at all wild guess that Uboa isn't evil. This Troper just sees sad, and never would have guessed that Uboa was thought to be malevolent if not for TV Tropes.)
Poniko isn't a character.
That girl? That's just Uboa wearing a "skin".
Uboa is hips.
As one user on Uboachan painstakingly pointed out, Uboa looks very similar to the ... curve of hips and thighs...
Madotsuki is a sleepwalker
The first place Madotsuki visits whenever she goes into her dreamworld is a replica of her apartment(minus the famicom). The Nexus is the area immediately surrounding her building, and the other areas she visits are real places, albeit heavily distorted since she views them through the lens of her subconscious mind. The Effects are(mostly) real objects she picks up and uses when necessary.
Madotsuki is insane.
Everything in this game is a vision of her own insanity, including her death which could represent that she completely lost her mind, everything that she obtains during the game could represent the phases of her life, the bike could represent riding through the park, the fat could represent her being overweight at some point, at some point, she probably could not handle life when she tried to keep up with everyone, and the knife could represent her going over the edge to make sure she doesn't have to keep up with them, only staying in front of them, placing her in mental care, with the room representing the only safe place in her mind, with the people waiting at the door being the reason she won't open her door, and when she goes asleep, they leave her alone, letting her leave the room to find parts of her life that she knows, and at the end, she simply accepts it's all hopeless, and just dies, her sanity along with it.
In addition to Che Guevara, a Time Lord, Nyarlathotep, the Devil's Machine, Masada, and "hips", Uboa is also a Kernelsprite from Homestuck.
This is discussed over on Homestuck's WMG page.
Madotsuki is depressed because she accidentally killed someone, possibly Poniko.
One of the biggest clues that she had killed someone is where you get the stoplight itself; on the path, there's a messy crime scene in the street, with the splattered remains of a man all over the road. While this may hint that the dead person is perhaps Masada or the proposed rapist in some of the entries, there's also hints with Poniko/Uboa herself, who's trapped in a room that outlooks a snowy land, and randomly turns into a horror who pulls Madotsuki into a hellscape when she turns out the lights.
She blames herself for the death (by knocking her into traffic or causing some other similar accident on the road). Most, if not all, of the items that Madotsuki ends up finding pertains to something that was involved in the incident.
All of the dream world is based on Madotsuki's memories
My first thought came when I was reading a thread about Yume Nikki mass guessing on the forums where someone mentioned that area in the Number World with the calm Toriningen, the beds, and the closets. If anyone can recall that certain room that's guarded by a green.. monster, I guess, that's in the upper left corner of the Number World (if I even remember correctly), it is filled with a bunch of those purple-ish monsters that have a single eye on them. Connecting this with AC's theory about that room with the Toriningen being like an orphanage, the "Killing Room" I'll call it, might have been connected to her childhood as well. If I can recall, the room was guarded by a green thing and the inside consisted of only the purple, moving things along with that one blue face on the floor. As far as my imagination go and piecing together some other ideas in my mind; that could have been the site of a rape and/or mass murder area, similar to the Wineville Chicken Coop Murders. The blue face on the floor was most likely the rapist/murderer, whom was defeated by Madotsuki stealing his weapon and using it against him in her own defense. She could have been afraid of the other victims or just plain whacked up already because by the time she realized what was going on, Madotsuki has stabbed and killed all of the people in that room. Soon she fled the area, looking around and killing people she got overly close to(Poniko, Masada, etc.) but then accidentally slipped up and got caught by the police after the incident represented by the dead (male) corpse that you get the stoplight effect from. This then explains why she was running from the Toriningens and why they locked her up in an inescapable place which is similar to a jail cell. She grew older while spending most of her life running, but finally found shelter in a small apartment room, probably in the middle of no where. It is a clear explanation to why she refuses to go outside, since she doesn't want to be caught by the police and questioned of the murders, possibly to the point of receiving beatings.
But hey, it's just Wild Mass Guessing, right?
All the dream worlds are distorted representations of places and things she knows in her real life.
The Forest World is a road she usually travels by bus, the Block World is her school, the White Desert is the first complex dream-world she ever developed and is based on her childhood doodles and pen-drawings (white paper, black ink, nothing else), the Neon World is a video arcade, the numbers world is a train or subway station, and so on. (I haven't played it in awhile, that's all I remember immediately.)
Yume Nikki is but one of Kikiyama's dream
My theory is that the guy was once depressed and had this really scary dream, and he couldn't explain any of the stuff that happened in the dream, so he wrote it all in his diary before he forgot it. People gave him different intrepetations to his dreams, which he didn't like completelly. He kept getting other meaningless dreams, which he also compiled in a twisted storyline with no base.
He turned his dreams into a game, in hopes that an extremelly savvy bunch once joined forces to unravell the meanings of it all, if there ever was one.
Yume Nikki is but one of Kikiyama's trap
Alternately to the other above, Kikiyama never got any speciific reason to do the game. He just wanted to mess with the minds of people by making a game with no background storyline, and full of different details that could be intrepeted differently by people that suffered different traumas (Like blood. People always maake a big fuss around blood, but not all the same way). As long as no answer was good enough, he'd be happy to know the game was scaring people enough while leaving them clueless.
This page shows that people are trying to unravell a mistery that never existed, thus, being proof that they got severely affected by the game and want to know the reasoning behind several points in it. If you agreed even in the slightest to any of the above theories, then you have fallen for his trap too.
NASU is a metaphor for Just One More Level, turned Up To Eleven like many of the other things in Yume Nikki.
Because some versions of the game have a glitch that makes it impossible to leave NASU without exiting Yume Nikki, but it's also an Interface Screw because it's so freakin' addictive for such a simple game-within-a-game.
Uboa is the father of Arakune.
Compare this to this ◊.
She's suffering an existential crisis due to a recent trauma so she's trying to find herself via lucid dreaming or something. The aztec monkey that shows up in the background of a few areas is her spirit animal, and the creatures and worlds are all other aspects of her psyche; the 'graffiti world' is her artistic side, whereas the 'number world' is her mathematical side (since the number world seems to have more doors than the other worlds, this might mean that she's better at logic and math).
The trauma might have been seeing someone she loved getting hit by a car (the dead body on the road), a rape (or alternatively, being raped and becoming pregnant), or having a fight with her friend that ended in her being attacked by that friend (Poniko turning into Uboa).
At the end she doesn't like what she finds, so she commits suicide.
Madotsuki is Lain
After the events of Serial Experiments Lain, something corrupted her, causing erratic effects on the world. Determined to settle the issue, Lain changed her name to match a fake ID and locked herself in a rented room while she sorted things out. her dream world is an interpretation of the corrupted connections to the wired that requires fixing. When they were all fixed, she tested for proper connection by synthesizing a staircase on the balcony, which she used to initiate the changes (sort of like rebooting a computer.) and cease the erratic behavior in the real world. The true ending of the game is Madotsuki paying a months rent, and going on her way.
Yume Nikki actually takes place in a Sugar Bowl in disguise.
Sure it looks creepy and weird to us, but it's not as bad as it looks. There's never any real danger, just some strange scenery and teleportation. Many of the residents, from Masada-sensei to those people in the desert town make happy little noises when you talk to them - the Neon World in particular is even a perpetual party! Masada-sensei looks alone, but he has two chairs set at the table, like he's expecting a guest. Even when he crash lands, UF Os can be summoned - probably his friends to rescue him. The Toriningen? Just playing tag with Madotsuki, sending her to "base" when she gets tagged. Monoe and Kyukuy-kun smile at seeing you, and Monoko dances and spins when you talk to her in her true form. Even Uboa always has a smile on her face (though she looks bemused when you run into her, for good reason) and never tries to hurt Madotsuki; if not that, then Uboa could be Poniko with a costume to give Madotsuki a safe scare. Of course, Madotsuki could be something of a Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant because of the bloodier aspects, but Nightmare Fuel is in the eye of the beholder, right?.
Madotsuki is Haruhi if Kyon had died at the hands of Ryoko
N-Now hear me out before dismissing this as another OMG HARUHI WMG...
In an alternate continuity or somesuch, Ryoko actually manages to kill Kyon, and Haruhi becomes depressed and slightly insane. The dream-characters are her trying to reunite with her friends in a world where everything is "all right" again, but slowly her depression twists things around.
Almost all the characters are friends/acquaintances of Madotsuki. (And she also had a really crappy childhood.)
Building upon some of the other WM Gs above, and said elsewhere...
Madotsuki met The Grinch at some point, and cracked when he gave her a First Class Grinching. She relives the experience in her nightmares.
Because that one Mind Screw Surreal Horror scene from Halloween Is Grinch Night looks a lot like what would have happened if all the artwork in Yume Nikki was drawn by Dr. Seuss.
Poniko is a revolucionary.
Inspired by the awfulness of Madotsuki's dream world, and not even her No-face pajamas bringing her emotional comfort, she decides to steal one of the TARDIS beds, come to the "real" world to get her medical license, and help the tormented souls, such as a hand-ectomy for Monoko that would not require bringing her to the shovel-beam. However, the rampant poverty inspired her to use a Latex Perfection mask or Magic Plastic Surgery to revolutionize oppressed and third-world companies, starting with Cuba.
Madotsuki is a serial killer.
She's not a hikkikomori. She's under house arrest. The dream characters and places represent her victims or aspects of her insanity.
Madotsuki cannot control her dreams.
But she remembers every detail; wandering through places that are twisted and wrong, an overwhelming sense of dread, every seemingly friendly face turning twisted and frightening for no reason; and, worst of all, that she frequently just isn't herself. She just gets worse and worse each night. By the time the game starts, she's to terrified, and her sense of what's real is so damaged, she won't leave her room. In the end, she takes the only route she can to escape her dreams.
Madotsuki is an E.V.O.
The effects you gather are her E.V.O abilities. The effects you haven't collected yet are actually abilities she possesses, but can't yet control. Need more proof? Look at Breach ◊ and Monoko ◊.
Madotsuki is a Narcoleptic
Narcolepsy is a disorder where the sufferer randomly falls asleep and is unable to control it. Another symptom is vivid hallucinations. Narcopleptics are often unable to lead normal lives because their sleep pattern interferes with regular activities like attending lessons and hanging out with friends because there's a chance they'll pass out and injure themselves. Madotsuki became a hikkomori (and eventually became depressed) because she was frustrated with her condition. This also explains why the city looks so empty when you stand on your balcony. It's the middle of the day and all the 'normal' people are at work or school.
Mars-San is the Last Of His Kind.
Some sort of an apocalypse took place on his planet and only he survived by taking shelter in the boiler room. He's crying because he misses his friends and family.
Uboa is indeed female.
Uboa's face seems to be a extremely warped noh mask. Noh is a type of traditional, musical theater in Japan and the mask is usually worn for a female role. (It can represent a youngster, old men, or nonhuman characters. Although the third option is the most likely case here.) Since the house Uboa appears in is inhabited by a woman (Poniko), it might mean Uboa is female.
Uboa looks like a melted Buzz Lightyear head
The light switch in Poniko's house is an eversion point.
Well, it makes as much sense as anything else. Something perfectly innocent gets turned nightmarish by pressing a button in an otherwise innocent place... ... yeah, I got nothing.
Madotsuki is actually obsessed with Earthbound
The NASU game is her only other game, which came from the system. She is currently grounded because she played Earthbound too much, and that is why she won't leave the room ("I can't, or the game will be kept from me for another week!"). Eventually, this, let's say, month long grounding with nothing but NASU to play drives her insane, and she commits suicide. Her parents, of course, are shocked, and start convincing people to boycott Earthbound. Word of the boycott and the reason behind it reaches the states, and No A decides that such an addictive game should never come to North America. The end result? We get stuck without an export because Madotsuki is an addict.
Yume Nikki is linked to the recent movie Inception
Many concepts from Inception, including dream/subconscious exploration and reality confusion, are comparable to directly assumable theories made about Yume Nikki. For example, Cobb's dream, with the different floors of an elevator leading to different parts of his memory and subconscious is parallel to Madotsuki's dream world, with the different doors. In addition, Mal's confused thoughts on reality that caused her to commit suicide by jumping out a window could be similar to the end of the game when Madotsuki too commits suicide by jumping off her balcony, assuming Madotsuki had similar intentions. That last event in Yume Nikki can also be compared to when Ariadne and Fischer Jr. had to jump off of the building in limbo in order to awaken in the last level. The scenery on Madotsuki's balcony is also very similar to the eroded city in "Inception"'s limbo aswell.
Every single theory is true and interconnected, but with a slight twist...
Well, this is quite obviously going to get a bit crazy, but just hear me out. So, Madotsuki is an insane, depressed young tranny (tomboy / intersexed individual / insert unusual gender-related issue-thing here) dealing with being raped while suffering through puberty in a post-apocalyptic world.
...No, wait! Come back! I swear it gets better!
Alright, so she (he? For the sake of argument, we'll stick with she) is going through life as usual (y'know, the whole "not gonna go outside" thing, the dreaming, bemoaning her terrible life) when she comes to the conclusion that the only way to "fix" everything is to go back in time and alter her future by both killing her rapist and acting as a new friend for herself so younger Madotsuki won't be so depressingly lonely. She realizes, however, that she probably cannot allow her younger self to know who she is, she decides to disguise herself as an attractive young blonde woman under the name "Poniko", believing that if she disguises herself as someone she would find attractive (yes, she's a lesbian), she'd be more likely to form a friendship with her.
She goes back in time to her old school, only to see herself from a year or so (perhaps a few months) ago socializing with Monoe and her younger sister Monoko, two girls she suddenly remembers from her childhood. Recalling the tragic chain of events leading up Monoko's death at the hands of a speeding driver, causing Monoe to run away, never being found, Madotsuki (A.K.A. "Poniko") rushes over and introduces herself to the trio, hoping to befriend them all and hopefully prevent Monoko from getting killed. They all become close friends, hanging out all the time and sharing some of their best moments together. They even enroll in a piano class together, the four of them becoming very fond of their teacher, a sentimental young man named Komuro "Michael" (as his pale skin, hair and ability to moonwalk flawlessly reminded many of Michael Jackson) Sakamoto Dada Sensei, often called Masada-Sensei. He cared for the girls as if he was their older brother, becoming an honorary fifth member of their "clique". Other than the girls, his biggest pleasure (not like that you pervs D:<) in life was the piano. That and drugs, of course. One day, he crashed, leading to him getting fired, causing him to fall into a deep depression. He withdrew himself, shutting himself in his house and locking out all outside life. Madotsuki and "Poniko", wanting to cheer up their friend and teacher, tried to go to his place and do something for him. Unfortunely, they ended up getting lost in a dark forest near his house, where they encountered and seemingly friendly man offering them colorful candy if they let him "rub" them. After their refusual, he turned violent (as indicated by the menacing and somewhat phallic expression on his face), attacking and raping Madotsuki. "Poniko" tried helping before the man pulled out a knife and slashed at her, creating a deep wound on her abdomen (which she covered up with heavy turtleneck sweaters from that day forth). Madotsuki managed to yell out "Run Poniko, save yourself!" before the man slit her throat and left her in the forest to die.
Frantic, "Poniko" found the man's car, with the key still in the ignition, and drove off, going as fast as possible, eventually losing him but driving on out of fear and guilt. Accidentally running a red light, she doesn't notice Monoe and Monoko speaking with Masada-Sensei and his gay lover, the girls (and his lover) somehow having managed to get Masada out of his house. Poniko plows through Monoko and Masada's lover, freaking out Monoe and Masada-Sensei. Jumping out of the car, "Poniko" notices the body, taking in the bones sticking out of Monoko's arms, the pool of blood and brain matter around her head, the trail of drool hanging out of her mouth and the single tear gliding down her pale face. Looking to her friends, her heart sinks as Monoe's ever-present smile fades as she runs off (disappears). Masada locks himself up in his house once more, the once tenacious, outgoing man becoming silent and gloomy. "Poniko", now harboring an intense hatred for herself, goes home and kills herself.
Madotsuki, barely alive, manages to go home and treat her wounds, healing completely but still emotionally and mentally disturbed from both the even and the news of Monoko's death, Monoe's disappearance and Masada's self-induced seclusion. She decides to go to "Poniko's" house for support. Noticing how, for whatever reason, "Poniko's" house looked especially peaceful that day, Mado enters using the key she had made, only to discover her friend half dead on the floor, smiling intently at Mado, who responds by recoiling in terror. "Poniko", who had failed in killing herself... somehow... shuffles over to Madotsuki and begins babbling incoherently about Cuban revolutionaries before confessing her love to Madotsuki and asking her to "join her", saying it will "ease the pain". Madotsuki admits to loving "Poniko" back, but states that she is confused as to what joining her would entail. Without warning, "Poniko" attacks Mado, who manages to escape the other girl's violence before watching her fall to the floor and die, her blood and vomit contrasting with the upbeat, girly interior of her home. The sun sets, giving the scene an eerie quality that sends Mado running home, where she pulls a Masada-Sensei and locks herself in her room, never leaving. After a while, she begins having odd dreams representing the events of her life, before finally choosing to end it all by jumping off of the balcony to commit suicide. Unfortunately for her, she finds out that she was still dreaming (although the events prior, as in Monoko's death and it's causes were real) and decides to take action, going back in time both to clear her mind (and dreams) and to right the wrongs caused by the well meaning "Poniko", all while dressed as her so it as if she is correcting her own wrongs.
Madotsuki and Ness from Earthbound are somehow related
Giygas and Uboa are the same entity
Madotsuki is much more intelligent then the average teenager
Certain things Madotsuki finds in her dreams aren't native of her mindworld.
This explains the Mesoamerican-looking entities' presence in her dreams despite Madotsuki being a Japanese hikikomori (it is unlikely she knows much about Mesoamerican cultures unless she has Internet or a bookshelf, but we don't see these in her room). Those entities are spirits and demons that found it confortable inside her disturbed psyche and are responsible for some of her problems. These demons are so powerful that Madotsuki´s censors are unable to kick them out from her system, only managing to imprison them in dark corners of her mind (the Aztec Rave Monkey for instance is trapped inside a small box and can only be seen when Madotsuki takes a peek in it, though parts of it are sealed in the background, along with the other Mayincatec invaders). Over time, these entities would break free and materialize in physical form thanks to their nourishment of negative emotions (which Madotsuki offers in heaping amounts) and prove a great threat towards the world. Madotsuki doesn't know this, but her room has actually been perfectly replicated inside a containment facility at the SCP Foundation in case these demons manage to escape.
Madotsuki is an Angsty Surviving Twin.
Some people have speculated that twins form a strong bond with each other in the womb, and that when one of the twins dies early on (miscarriage, stillbirth, etc.) the survivor may experience a kind of non-specific grief throughout their life, often saying that they're searching for "something" that they've lost but can't quite name or describe. Assuming there is some truth to this notion, it seems to me that many aspects of the game and the above theories suggest that Madotsuki was conceived as a twin, but born alone.
Most of the gameplay consists of wandering around an unsettlingly empty dreamscape, alone and hopelessly lost, without any clearly-defined goals other than looking for "effects," whatever THOSE are; the instructions provided in the intro screen are decidedly vague and unhelpful. In addition to all the obvious womb imagery, notice that the effects appear as eggs- symbols of fertility and gestation- when dropped in the Nexus. Perhaps the effects are nothing more than decoys; they only vaguely resemble the true object of Madotsuki's wanderings, but in the end, she discovers they can never be a suitable replacement for what she ultimately longs for. After finding (and rejecting) some two dozen bogus womb-mates, she finally breaks under the sheer weight of her own loneliness and turns to the only option left to her.
The much-discussed gender ambiguity could indicate that Madotsuki's twin would have been a boy, so she feels that her "other half" is male. On the other hand, there's Poniko, who is probably the most obvious and likely candidate to fill this role. She lives alone in a shrine-like structure that Madotsuki's subconscious has clearly decided is a Very Important Place; the interior somewhat resembles Madotsuki's room, suggesting (as someone else pointed out) that Poniko and her room may have originated as an early draft of Madotsuki and hers; Poniko does not respond to Madotsuki's presence in any way (Knife and Cat notwithstanding), perhaps because unbeknownst to the latter, she's already passed away; and when Madotsuki attempts to get her sister's attention by repeatedly flicking the lights on and off, Poniko finally does respond- in a rather nightmarish and traumatizing way. Insert your own joke involving Che Guevara and dead fetuses here.
Madotsuki is an Assassin.
Madotsuki is an assassin in training that Aspergo kidnapped for information regarding a Mayan Piece of Eden, but they find out too late that she is for some reason incompatable with the device. As a result of this, all her ancestor's memories overlap and mutate when she uses the machine. The Templars decide to let her continue to use the machine in the hope that they may still be able to gain some hint as to the artifact's location despite the incompatability. At the end of the game, she finally manages to gain enough knowledge from the bleeding effect to know how to do a leap of faith from the top of the building, landing in a bale of hay and walking away unharmed.
The game was never meant to be this cryptic or subject to interpretation.
The current release of the game is 0.10, meaning it's not even close to finished (and at this point, likely won't ever be). It's possible Kikiyama originally planned to add context, backstory, dialogue, etc. that would have Jossed 99% of this page, but only got as far as a very elaborate tech demo before abandoning the project. YMMV on whether or not this is for the best.
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