Characters / The World Ends With You - Neku Sakuraba

Neku Sakuraba

"All the world needs is me. I've got my values... so you can keep yours, alright?"

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

Voiced by Kōki Uchiyama (JP), Jesse David Corti (EN), Ben Balmaceda (EN, Anime), Marc Winslow (Latin American Spanish)

The main character of the first game. Neku suddenly finds himself in Shibuya's Underground (UG) with little in the way of direction. He loves graffiti and street art, but doesn't like to interact with people.

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# - C

• 11th-Hour Superpower: In the DS version of the game, when fighting the final boss, Neku gains a permanent Light Puck boost from all three of his partners, which dramatically increases his overall attack power.
• Action Hero: Takes down several Reapers, Noise, and Game Masters throughout the weeks with the help of his partners and vast mastery of pins.
• Action Survivor: Starts off this way, being nobody in particular but an angsty, 15 year old boy who finds himself suddenly trapped in a Deadly Game and forced to work with complete strangers in order to survive said game and the deadly Noise that come his way.
• Actually Pretty Funny: When Rhyme starts talking about how Beat was freaking out over not being able to find the golden bat they needed to defeat for their mission, Beat promptly tries to silence her while desperately trying to protect his image. Cue Shiki, Rhyme, and even Neku laughing at his silliness.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: While in the game he had to deal with the revelation that Shiki was made his entry fee to be essentially held hostage, he at the very least had a nice farewell scene with her before he was made aware of this fact. In the anime? The poor guy is forced to watch Shiki slowly disappear in front of him while squirming in pain and calling his name in tears, all the while not being able to do anything to ease her pain or even touch her as she's made his fee.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Downplayed. While Neku is by no means a bad-looking young man, his overall body structure is quite lanky and downright anorexic due to the game’s art direction. In the anime, his appearance is much more realistically proportioned, giving him a much healthier and livelier look.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: While he's still a pretty moody teen in the anime and treats other people pretty harshly from time to time, the fact that there's not a lot of time for the show to dwell on his distaste for others means that he generally treats Shiki fairly well compared to the game. For a good example, his attempt to kill her on the second day is implied to be the result of Noise influencing him, whereas in the game it was because he didn't trust her.
• Affection-Hating Kid: At first. He hates receiving almost any kind of compliment or affection from Shiki and even accuses her of trying to butter him up in his head when she calls him a psych genius. Later on, he outgrows this thanks to his experiences in the game.
• Agonizing Stomach Wound: How he is shown to have died in the anime, complete with his eyes slowing being drained of all life.
• Age-Appropriate Angst: He’s a 15 year old boy who lost his best friend before the events of the game even began, loses his memory and wakes up in a location with no clue of who he is or how he got there, and is forced to compete in a death game and suffers copious amounts of physical, mental, and emotional trauma as a result. As such, it's not too surprising that his personality is quite prickly for a large part of the game.
• All Work vs. All Play: During Week 2, he’s the All Work to Joshua’s All Play, being incredibly devoted towards completing a given mission no matter what in comparison to Joshua’s constant messing around and pursuits of his own goal.
• All Your Powers Combined: How he ultimately takes down the final boss, with his partners channeling all of their energy into him to activate one final attack to completely and utterly annihilate Draco Cantus in one blow.
• Alone in a Crowd: The game has him start out like this, emphasizing his loner nature.
• Aloof Ally: Towards everyone else as a whole, due to his anti-social nature, though he does eventually open up as the weeks go by.
• Always Save the Girl:
  • After the events of the first week and Shiki being taken as his Entry Fee, Neku becomes incredibly devoted towards winning the Game not just for him but for her sake as well, to point that he's even willing to put up with Joshua's antics.
  • Eventually, he takes on this attitude towards Joshua himself. An interview from the 2007 guidebook confirms Neku truly believed Shibuya would be destroyed if he lost their game yet he chose not to shoot Joshua anyway.
• Ambidextrous Sprite: His yellow wristband switches sides depending on which direction his sprite is facing at the time.
• Amnesiac Hero: During the first week, the reason he can't seem to remember anything other than his name is due to the fact that his entry fee to play the Game was his memories. Although he does win back his memories, he still can't remember how he was killed by Joshua to become his proxy.
• Amnesiac Resonance: Even before the events of the game that involve him losing his memory, Neku is shown to be very closed off and disdainful of other people due to the trauma of losing his best friend and this aspect of his is still carried over into Week 1.
• Anime Hair: His hair seems to practically defy the laws of gravity, particularly in how the back strands of it stand up. Another Day pokes fun at this by revealing he got his hairdresser to style it after an in-universe manga character.
• Anti-Hero: Neku starts as an antisocial Jerkass who only cares about himself, and isn't above trying to kill Shiki when he's pushed to it. He only seems to have insults for everyone, and keeps trying not want to go along with the whole "trust your partner", even though it's his only way to survive. Throughout the game, he grows out of this mindset the more he's forced to connect with people.
• The Anti-Nihilist: Eventually grows into this later on in the story, as shown when he notes to Kitaniji that while his plan to brainwash Shibuya would make life easier and make it so that the ills of the world (crime, warfare, envy, self-depreciation, etc) would disappear, it would ultimately stunt the growth of people as a whole, as its thanks to these clashes in ideals and opinions that lead to people learning from one another and becoming better for it, an occurrence that happened to Neku himself. As such, Shibuya in its current state is still something worth fighting for.
• The Atoner: During the majority of Week 2, Neku is shown to feel incredibly guilty for his (supposed) role in Shiki getting taken as his Entry Fee and as such, he takes it upon himself to try and win the Game in order to save her.
• Aura Vision: How the Scan ability of his Player Pin functions, allowing him to read people’s minds, locate and pin point Noise in their various forms, and even locate the secret location of the Composer’s hideout in the Dead God’s Pad.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: A decent practitioner of this trope as he was able to figure out most of the rules of the Game and several missions and puzzles with a combination of good observations and a clear mind. Shiki even admits by the end of the week that Neku was the one who solved most of the puzzles.
• Badass Adorable: Multiple shopkeepers will gush over how cute he looks as their FSG meter increases and his multiple When He Smiles moments and development into a genuinely good person firmly cements him as one. As for the badass part, he's able to use a Superpower Lottery worth of pins, takes on multiple Reapers and Noises as the story progresses, takes on three Game Masters throughout the game and win, and survives the Reaper's Game multiple times.
• Badass Armfold: Tends to do this from time-to-time in one of his sprites.
• Barrier Warrior: Of the Elemental Barrier variety, in the form of fire, water, and darkness. The fire psych protects Neku from foes while damaging anybody that comes near, the water psych shields him while restoring his health at the same time, and the darkness psych does both at the same time, but only when he’s in direct contact with the enemy.
• Bash Brothers: After they both grow as people, he becomes this with Beat. Together, the two of them become an unstoppable pair against the Noise and Reapers.
• Battle Boomerang: Can shoot out giant boomerangs that can strike enemies in succession and even split into two.
• Battle Couple: While he and Shiki don’t officially get together, they are treated as the star couple in all but name. Sure, they had a rocky start, but by the end of their chapter they've become an unofficial Battle Couple, so much so that their separation is a major tearjerker for both of them, while their reunion at the end of the game is all the more heartwarming.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: How he and Beat are able to defeat Konishi, with the two of them using her own illusion and shadow abilities to draw her real form out and fully take her down with Rhyme.
• Beneath the Mask: When looked at underneath his anti-social and stoic personality, he can actually be quite socially awkward, self-conscious, and more thoughtful and empathetic than he likes to admit. Open him up a lot and he turns out to be quite the loyal friend as well, as shown with how utterly devoted he is to saving Shiki and his various interactions with Beat.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: A fairly stoic young man with a penchant for internal monologues revolving around him snarking up a storm when it comes to the various circumstances he finds himself in who just also so happens to one hell of a Person of Mass Destruction and one of the most powerful Players in the Reaper’s Game.
• BFS: The Massive Hit psych allows him to create a large sword made entirely of out of energy to slice down his enemies in a single hit for an incredible amount of damage the more he charges it.
• Big "NO!": Understandably shouts this when he finds out that Shiki was made his next Entry Fee for the upcoming Reaper’s Game.
• Birds of a Feather: Once Neku finally comes around to him, he and Joshua get along rather nicely due to their shared nihilistic worldviews and love of snarking. Neku even admits that he was the first friend that he could ever relate to during the ending. This is proven genuine by the game's end.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Not in the main game but in Another Day, hilariously enough. Despite presenting himself as much more positive and upbeat compared to his original self, he can be surprisingly petty and backhanded towards people, especially towards the other slammers.
  Shiki: There goes my dreams of becoming the champ...
  Neku: The price of sucking, I’m afraid.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: How his Shockwave, Lance Lunge, and Spear Strike psychs are manifested, with a large blade of energy covering his arm for close-ranged combat.
• Blue Is Heroic: Is referred to as Blue in Another Day, has a blue aura around him when he gets whisked away into battle, and gradually grows to become a true hero over the course of the story.
• Book Ends:
  • His time in the UG begins and ends with Joshua shooting him.
  • His opening monologue has him putting on his headphones in an attempt to block people out. At the end of the game, he finally takes them off, ready to expand his world.
• Boring, but Practical: The basic Shockwave pin is this for him, with it being just a fast melee attack. It's also great for racking up long combos, and stunlocks enemies so you can down them fast enough to get the star rating for battles (and the subsequent xp boost).
• Brains and Brawn: The brains to Beat’s brawn, being the calm and analytical of the two in comparison to Beat’s hotheaded and brash nature.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: An interesting example of this. Neku is noted to have a rather large capacity for imaginative and creative thinking, as well as intelligent and quick-minded observations of the situations and issues presented around them. However, due to his issues and past trauma, he initially chooses do nothing with his talents and instead just brood around and stare at graffiti walls all day while lamenting about how much he hates other people. Later on, he outgrows this due to his renewed faith in others and newfound beliefs.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: He’s the sarcastic, cynical, anti-social Brooding Boy with a massive chip on his shoulder against society to Shiki’s energetic, kind-hearted Gentle Girl. Thanks to her influence, he is eventually able to grow past this.
• Broken Ace: He’s reasonably intelligent and creative when it comes to the multiple challenges presented in the Reaper’s Game and his astonishing skill with Psyches very much make him an incredibly versatile and powerful Player. However, his anti-social attitude and deep seated trauma makes him quite difficult to work with, though he does eventually get better about this as the story progresses.
• Broken Bird: At the start of the game, you see him as a bitter, lonely, Survivor's Guilt ridden teen who chooses to reject society and companionship as a whole. Thankfully, he later outgrows this.
• Bromantic Foil: Towards Beat, being the more practical and realistic foil to Beat’s energetic and Hot-Blooded personality.
• Brought Down to Normal: Gets hit with this in the beginning of Week 3. With no one to act as his pact partner due to every other Player being taken as his Entry Fee, he finds himself unable to use any of his Psychs and is forced to run away from Noise just to not get immediately Erased.
• Brutal Honesty: Neku is not one to mince his words, as shown when he flat out calls Beat an idiot for thinking he would have a problem with helping him save Rhyme.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • In the two-part manga, he is regularly subjected to slapstick humor and mockery from his peers.
  • Downplayed in Another Day due to him not being the victim of slapstick, but he is also this in that portion as the game constantly makes fun of him for his Emo Teen attitude and has the other characters treat him accordingly.
• Byronic Hero: Cynical and jaded with a Dark and Troubled Past? Check. Deeply introspective? Check. Intelligent and perceptive? Check. Attractive? Considering how much of a Chick Magnet he is to the shopkeepers, check.
• Cannot Spit It Out: When Neku finds out that Joshua killed him, it takes an entire day before he confronts Joshua about it. Justified in canon, however, as Neku is not entirely certain of his claim, Joshua is his partner, and Neku needs him to win the game and save Shiki. Neku waits until Joshua is at a psychological disadvantage and he has more evidence.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: As Week 2 progresses, Neku finds himself becoming more and more frustrated with Joshua, especially due to the revelation that Joshua might’ve killed him in the first place, and even mentions how he’s tempted to Erase him at this point. However, due to the nature of the Game and repercussions of what were to happen to Shiki if he failed, he ultimately relents.
• Can't Stand Them, Can't Live Without Them: At first, Neku can’t stand listening to Shiki chatter on and on and often wishes for her to either shut up or get away from him. However, when Shiki starts undergoing a Heroic BSoD due to Higashizawa poking and prodding her deepest insecurities and stops speaking at multiple points, Neku actually finds himself missing her chatty nature and even tries to get her to open up to him, with mixed results.
  "(T-talk, dammit!)"
• Car Fu: One of the main things he can use his Psychokinesis Psych for is to chuck SUVs and minivans at the Noise for a great amount of damage.
• Chain Pain: Is able to summon chains along a line that can continually attack foes, making it extremely useful for racking up high combo counters, with Final Remix having him gain two variants that can freeze foes in place or take health away from enemies to add onto Neku’s own HP. In the anime, he can even use them to restrain large foes such as Ovis Cantus to leave them open for attacks.
• Character Development: He starts to warm up to his friends as the story progresses, and soon learns he needs to depend on them. He also becomes more open to other people's viewpoints and learns to embrace individuality as a whole, fully shown when he flat out rejects Megumi's offer of helping him brainwash all of Shibuya. The biggest example of this is shown early on in the game, where he’s not above trying to kill Shiki if it meant only he can survive. Later on, he can’t even bring himself to shoot Joshua in self-defense thanks to him learning to value his relationships.
• Character Tic: Will often jam out to whatever is playing in his headphones when left idle for a while, even when in battle.
• Charged Attack: Several of his Psychs operate in this way, such as Burst Rounds, Massive Hit, and Nexus Ray.
• Chekhov's Gun: Near the very beginning of the game, Neku and Shiki have a conversation and Shiki notices that Neku has two Player Pins. Then, at the very end of the game, just before the Final Boss, Neku manages to avoid being sucked into Megumi's mind control scheme because he has a second one.
• Chick Magnet: A disproportionate number of shopkeepers seem to develop crushes on Neku as their FSG rises, ranging from motherly pharmacists, to cute gothic-lolita girls, shy fast-food cashiers, snobby high-class clerks, etc. Not to mention his Ship Tease with Shiki.
• The Chosen One: An interesting example.
  • Neku is just another Player of the Reapers' Game, among dozens of other dead guys/gals. Later in the game, it's revealed that Neku IS actually the chosen one... And he was chosen by Shibuya's resident Jerkass God just because he was staring at a graffiti wall. However, in the Secret Reports, Hanekoma reveals that Neku has "dense and all-inclusive Soul" and "high Imagination" and was therefore picked by the Composer for his qualities (that are the reason that Neku can use all sorts of pin while his fellow Players cannot). The graffiti wall in the UG attracts people with those qualities, so Josh just knew that Neku was the right person. Which makes Neku a true Chosen One... Or sort of that.
  • The other main reason Joshua chose Neku was because Neku was the biggest example of what Joshua hated about Shibuya's people; people who let their potential go to waste by hiding in their own little worlds. So in this case, being the Chosen One was NOT a compliment. However, Neku surprised Joshua by growing into a better person by learning to let his world grow with others' worlds... meaning he actually saved Shibuya by subverting a main reason he was the "Chosen One" and proving the Chooser wrong.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Thanks to Shiki’s influence, he ends up developing this as the game has him going out of his way to help out random people such as Ken Doi, a nameless Reaper, Sota and Nao, and even Uzuki and Kariya. Though, that last one has him doing so for a different reason.
• Classical Anti-Hero: Initially, he starts off as aloof, asocial, and incredibly arrogant, with hints of self-doubt and insecurity mixed in. As a sign of his Character Development, he later outgrows this later on and becomes more genuinely heroic.
• Closet Geek: Revealed to be one in Another Day in two instances, with one highlighting him actually scrapbooking his favorite Tin Pin Weekly articles and styling his hair after manga. Needless to say, he becomes embarrassed at both instances.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Plays this role when it comes to Beat during their time as partners in Week 3, helping him to stop from running off into situations Leeroy Jenkins style and to actually think about their next course of action.
• Collared by Fashion: His shirt has a massive collar that tends to help with obscuring his face and mouth.
• Colossus Climb: Does this in the anime against Ovis Cantus, in which he runs up the beast's arm to entangle him for the final blow.
• Combat Parkour: Is shown to be very acrobatic in battle, being able to pull off precise maneuvers that help him avoids enemy attacks or backflip in order to recover from them.
• Combat Pragmatist: Some of the Psychs in the game allow for Neku to be played this way. Whether it’s using Invisibility or Teleport for sneak attacks on enemies, using the environment for telekinetic attacks against enemies, using the enemies themselves against one another, trapping foes with boulders or ice to leave them defenseless against his attacks, turning objects into bombs and THEN flinging said objects at enemies, etc...
• Combination Attack: Earn enough Fusion stars during battle and Neku and his partner can perform different types of Fusion Attacks, damaging every enemy on the field at once.
  • His and Shiki’s Level 3 Fusion has Mr. Mew growing to the size of Godzilla and shooting Eye Beams at every enemy on the field.
  • His and Joshua’s Level 3 Fusion has them dropping the MOON on their enemies from outer space, damaging everybody on the field for massive damage. This particular one is so powerful that it can flat out one-shot most bosses.
  • His and Beat’s Level 3 Fusion has them summoning a giant tidal wave to surf on and send crashing down on anyone unfortunate enough to be in the way.
• Combo Platter Powers: Specifically, ALL the powers. Most people get one pin. Neku can use virtually all of them. There are a handful of pins he can't get psychs out of, but it's not clear if they were even designed to have psychs in the first place.
• The Comically Serious: His stoic, Deadpan Snarker personality provides a hilarious contrast when paired up with his partners, most notably Joshua and Beat.
• Coming of Age Story: The entire game is essentially this for him, detailing him growing out of his childish preconceptions of others into becoming a much more mature person.
• The Confidant: After his Character Development, he ends up becoming this for his partners, with them opening up to him about their various issues and struggles, allowing him to provide helpful insights and advice.
• Confusion Fu: What helps give him an edge over the other Players is his ability to use and switch out multiple Psychs at a time, giving him an near insurmountable amount of combat options that can make him incredibly tricky to deal with in battle.
• Cosmic Plaything: Turns out to literally be this as it is revealed that Joshua personally handpicked him to be his Proxy in the upcoming Reaper’s Game. All of the suffering he went through in the game was all a part of Joshua’s plan.
• Crash-Into Hello: How he meets Shooter in both the main game and Another Day, with the kid barreling straight into him from behind his back while in a rush.
• Cultured Badass: A huge lover of graffiti art and music who just so happens to be a Person of Mass Destruction with a Superpower Lottery. This is even invoked by the game itself, with the Secret Reports stating that Neku’s love for the creative arts is what fuels his massive amounts of Imagination.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: Neku force-chokes Shiki using Psychokinesis early on, but you cannot invoke this power in battle later, even against Reapers. You can get Psychokinesis pins that let you grab enemies as well as obstacles, but the first Psychokinesis pin is not one of them, and none of them damage the enemy just by lifting them. Lifting an enemy and shaking it violently, however, is both cathartic and a form of attack.
• The Cynic: Starts off as this, initially seeing society as an annoyance that forces its values on him, pesters him, and expects him to do things he doesn't want. His Character Development has him growing out of this mindset, having him learn to embrace the concept of connecting with others.
• Cynicism Catalyst: It is somewhat implied in the main game and Another Day that the death of his best friend who died in a car accident was this for him, causing Neku to develop massive amounts of Survivor's Guilt and blame himself for what happened, causing him to shut himself off from the rest of the world.
• Cynic–Idealist Duo: Fulfills one half of this trope with Shiki, being the Cynic to her Idealist.

D - N

• Dark Is Not Evil: His most powerful pin set are the Darklit Planets, which has him using what is essentially black-covered versions of some of his other Psychs, including what is essentially Hellfire. Despite this, he still is (or rather, grows into becoming) The Hero of the story.
• Dash Attack: The Velocity Attack and Crash psyches in function as this, allowing the player to drag Neku into a dash and have him smash into his enemies to knock them away.
• David vs. Goliath: Throughout the game, Neku finds himself taking on multiple foes that are several times his own size and easily tower him, such as the Drake Noise, Mammoth Noise, and Higashizawa’s, Sho’s, and Kitaniji’s Noise forms.
• Deadly Lunge: His Lance Lunge and Spear Strike psychs, allowing him to either knock back enemies or mow them down in a path.
• Deadpan Snarker: The majority of his dialogue, especially when he's still cold towards other people. Shiki and Beat tend to get the brunt of it, but Joshua snarks right back at him, to a point where he can't keep up.
• Death from Above: The Grave Marker psych allows him to do this, having him teleport from above to slash down on enemies. He’s able to do this with a variant of the Apport psych, having him be able to drop meteors onto foes.
• Deflector Shields: Can summon barriers of energy that can heal him, attack any enemy that comes by, or do both at once.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Starts off cold and uncaring about people in general. He openly states in the beginning that he doesn’t want to open up to people ever and constantly rejects others’ attempts at getting him to connect with them. Later on, he outgrows this and truly starts to open up to his partners.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Has shades of this in the game, as he himself notes that compared to Shiki, who has her own aspirations to be a talented fashion designer, he himself has nothing to aspire to and when Joshua asks him at one point if he even has anything for him in the Realground, Neku is oddly silent and even sulks.
• Determinator: As the Secret Reports reveal, the psychological strain placed on him by Joshua is so severe that most Players would be unable to continue on entirely. The only reason he hadn’t quit by now is only because of his ties to Shiki
• Die or Fly: How he first activated his Psychs; it was either learn to how to set things on fire or die to soul-destroying graffiti frogs. Thankfully for him, he had the Imagination and then some to be able to accomplish just that.
• The Dragon: To Joshua, albeit without knowing it.
• Dreaming of Things to Come: During the events of A New Day, Neku finds himself having his head be constantly assaulted by visions of future events such as the destruction of Shinjuku, a mysterious young girl walking through the ruins of the destroyed Shinjuku, Rhyme’s third Erasure, and him getting shot again by Joshua which later turned out to be Coco shooting him in the back.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?:
  • At the end of the game, he channels all of his partners’ energies to activate a giant skull attack and wipe out the Conductor, who had previously fused with the Composer, in one blow.
  • Later does it again in Another Day, when he takes on the Fallen Angel Hanekoma. Granted, while it was a practice fight, Hanekoma commends him on his tremendous combat ability and even notes that one day he may call upon Neku for help in certain matters.
  • He then goes on to do it AGAIN in A New Day, in which he takes down the Dissonance Tapir, a Noise powerful enough to house a psuedo-parallel world.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After going through three weeks of constant trauma, betrayals, and general struggle to survive, he finally earns his happy ending with his newfound friends, learning to truly expand his world. And then "A New Day" happens.
• Easily Forgiven:
  • Shiki seems quite easy to forgive Neku for nearly killing her on Day 2. Granted, he was being an idiot, getting himself in a bad situation as well but even so. It's possible this was done intentionally as foreshadowing to Shiki's low self-esteem, since she has no problem calling him out on other occasions.
  • This happens again on Day 4, after Rhyme's death when Neku basically lashes out on the idea of friendship and Shiki calls him out on this, saying he was no different from the Reapers. She later admits that it was kinda harsh. Justified as their situation required cooperation and left no room for bad blood between Partners. Surviving the week took priority over personal feelings. Also, Neku was clearly was hurting from Rhyme's death and wanted to avoid taking responsibility from his inability to save her.
• Elemental Punch:
  • Two of the new pins in Final Remix, METTAZASHI and KATON NO JUTSU, give him the ability to unleash a Playing with Fire variant of this trope.
  • In the anime, he is shown using the Pyrokinesis pin to increase the power of his punches and kicks for extra damage.
• Emo Teen: He starts off this way, being incredibly self-centered and sullen before eventually outgrowing it. It even gets lampshaded in Another Day. "Must... fight... emo urges..."
• Embarrassing Rescue: Joshua's week features a string of people fighting Taboo Noise who Neku can choose to help; a random Support Reaper, Sota, and Kariya & Uzuki. This is his reason for helping Kariya & Uzuki.
  Neku: Let's do it. They'll hate it.
• The Empath: Ironically enough, despite his anti-social personality, he ends up becoming this at the start of the game, thanks to his Player Pin. Later on, he becomes able to empathize with and relate to his partners’ own issues and insecurities and help them to overcome said issues.
• Endearingly Dorky: Has shades of this in the main game, with his social awkwardness and massive fanboyism when it comes to CAT being highlighted. This gets expanded on even more in Another Day, where he is a massive fan of Tin Pin who collects his favorite Tin Pin Weekly issues in an acid-proof scrapbook and also purposely styles his Shonen Hair after manga characters, of all things. This even gets lampshaded by the other characters, who call him a massive geek after learning this.
• Energy Weapon: One of his specialties, being able to create swords and spears out of psychic energy to strike down foes.
• Establishing Character Moment: The very first thing you hear Neku say is, among other things, "I don't get people. Never have, never will." This sets up his initial antisocial behavior, and sets him up to learn The Power of Friendship.
• Even the Guys Want Him:
  • Ignoring the Ho Yay vibes he gets from Joshua for a moment, there's one point in Week 2 where Minamimoto starts following him and Joshua around, and Joshua wonders aloud whether it's because he's taken a fancy to Neku.
  • Also, certain male clerks will start getting a little friendly with him as their FSG rises. One of them in particular will even offer to help Neku strip.
• Everyone Has Standards: Doesn't like lying as he puts it to him, isn't right. This was before his character development kicked in, too.
• Fan Boy: Of artist CAT. When Joshua informs him that Hanekoma is secretly CAT, meaning, that at that point, Neku has already talked to him, he completely geeks out.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: Wears a yellow wristband on his left arm and has his hair styled to have some of his strands stand out to the side from both the front and back in different directions.
• Fiery Redhead: Not usually, but get him riled up enough and he definitely becomes this. This becomes even more apparent in his interactions with Joshua, in which almost everything Joshua says drives Neku almost past the breaking point. On top of that, the very first Psych he gains within the game is Pyrokinesis and he is shown to be very fond of using it for both close-range and longe-range attacks in the anime.
• Fight Magnet: He, along with Beat, basically become this during Week 3 when Kitaniji initiates Emergency Call on the Reaper’s Game, essentially painting a large bounty on their heads for the Reapers to come and collect in order to get themselves promoted.
• Fighting Your Friend: Ends up having to fight Beat and Shiki at different points in the game, which, due to his Character Development, he isn’t exactly pleased about.
• Fireballs: His Flame Core Psych has him be able to shoot fireballs that have the added effect of being Pinball Projectiles that can bounce off of the screen and enemies for additional damage.
• Fire-Forged Friends: At first, Neku couldn’t stand his would-be partners and found himself despising them. He had written off Shiki as an overly chatty and shallow pest, Joshua as an annoying, unhelpful asshole who may or may not have been the one to kill him, and Beat as a complete and total obnoxious moron with an overly enthusiastic personality. However, over the course of the weeks and fighting alongside them, as well as learning about their Hidden Depths, he grows to genuinely care for them and becomes willing to put his life on the line for his newfound companions when the chips are down.
• Fire/Ice Duo: When he and Joshua activate their Level 2 Fusion, he summons a rain of fireballs from his end while Joshua summons a storm of ice meteors on his.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: While the game doesn't play Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors (strictly speaking, at least), nevertheless, it still has fire, ice, and lightning attacks for Neku to use in battle. They don't differ in "element" — and, in fact, all share the same "negative/ranged" element — but instead differ in the way they're used.
• First-Person Smartass: He often has snide insults for the various people and situations he has to deal with, which he keeps to himself a lot of the time.
  Shiki: My name's Shiki Misaki. Call me Shiki.
  Neku: (I call this wack.)
• Flying Weapon: The Irregular Note pin set is basically this, having Neku fly around four separate pins on the screen that can bounce of each other to shoot energy bullets between them for More Dakka.
• Foil: To all three of his partners in varying ways.
• Force and Finesse: The finesse to Beat’s force. Whereas Beat prefers a more heads on approach to both combat and missions, Neku is more focused and cautious in comparison.
• Forgotten First Meeting: Unbeknownst to Neku, he had already met Joshua before the events of the Reaper’s Game, when the latter shot him dead in order to have him participate in the Game as part of his bet with Kitaniji. However, due to Joshua holding pieces of his memory hostage, he doesn’t end up realizing this until the middle and end portions of the game.
• Freudian Excuse: In Another Day, it's suggested that his issues stem from waiting to meet a friend, only to find that his friend had died in a car accident. It's unclear whether this applies to the Neku of the main universe; after Rhyme gets erased, he laments that it's "just like that time", but due to his Laser-Guided Amnesia for all of Week 1, he is unable to elaborate on what "that time" was, and it never comes up again.
• A Friend in Need: Throughout the story, Neku shows himself to put himself on the line quite often for the people he cares about.
  • When Shiki gets taken as his Entry Fee in Week 2, Neku devotes almost everything he can into making sure that he wins the game for her sake, even putting up with Joshua’s rampant assholery and Troll antics while doing so.
  • When Beat opens up about Rhyme and his reasons for his various actions throughout the game, Neku is immediately understanding and even helps Beat to try and save Rhyme from Konishi’s clutches no matter what.
• Friendless Background: At first, he evidently had a best friend that he felt that he can genuinely connect to but due to said friend’s death in a tragic accident while on his way to meet Neku in his favorite spot, Neku takes this incredibly badly and resolved to never get close to anyone else ever again, resulting in his asocial nature and lack of companions at the start of the game.
• Friendship Moment: As a sign to show that he’s opening up to others, he gets this with each of his partners as the game progresses.
• Gameplay-Guided Amnesia: At the beginning of the game, Neku has to be taught the rules of the Reaper's Game by Shiki. This is later justified when it's revealed that his memories were his entry fee to get into the Game in the first place. Given that Kitanji has perfectly good reasons to want Neku erased, said fee including how to play the Game makes perfect sense.
• Gallows Humor: You can expect him to make a sarcastic quip or two when it comes to the fact that he’s dead.
  "Hello, dead kid speaking."
  "Har har, you’re killing me, Josh. Oh, wait..."
• Genius Bruiser: Is capable of solving equations in his head, figuring out the majority of puzzles and challenges in the Game, and kicking ass in equal measure.
• Geometric Magic: In order to activate certain Psychs such as Apport C and Spark Core, the player has to have Neku draw a circle with the stylus to activate the attacks. Fittingly enough, the cursor actually turns into a graffiti spray can while doing so.
• The Gift: He’s the only one in the Game with high Imagination to access almost every single ability/technique associated with the pins that contain them. In contrast, most Players can only activate one or two pins at the most.
• Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing: The Grumpy to Shiki's Gleeful. Whereas Shiki is a bright and seemingly cheerful young lady who tries to keep spirits up, Neku, by contrast, is much more troubled and prone to brooding, at least at first.
• Good Is Not Dumb: He is shown to be incredibly perceptive and creative as the game goes on, especially when it comes to solving certain puzzles and missions in the Game.
• Good is Not Nice: Is initially very nasty to the others in the beginning and still retains some of his rudeness after he develops, though he does become more genuinely heroic over time.
• Good Is Not Soft: As the Reapers, Noise, and Game Masters can attest to, Neku is not one to hold back and will do anything he can to defend himself and his friends.
• Good with Numbers: Surprisingly enough, yes, as shown when he belts out the square root of 3 at a drop of a hat during the second week in order to figure out one of Sho's missions.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: Is capable of inflicting this on enemies with his Psychokinesis pins, allowing him to pick up foes and ram them against one another for additional damage.
• Guilt Complex: Perceptible throughout the game and Another Day. He gets this bad during the second week, with a combination of Shiki becoming his Entry Fee and his failure to save a random Reaper and Sota and Nao from being Erased by Taboo Noise eats at him fierce, to the point that he almost breaks down from the sheer stress of it all. This spurs on his willingness to change even further and ends with him vowing to stop the Reaper's Game for everybody's sake.
• Ham and Deadpan Duo: The Deadpan to Beat's Ham, being the much more sardonic and cool-headed individual in their partnership in contrast to Beat's Hot-Blooded personality and Large Ham moments.
• Hand Behind Head: Often prone to doing this whenever he feels awkward around others, such as when Shiki has a mini freak-out over the revelation that she was his Entry Fee during Week 2.
• Hand Blast: How most of his projectile Psychs manifest themselves as. The bullet and Nexus Ray Psychs are rather notable examples of this trope in effect.
• Hate at First Sight: It doesn’t take long for Neku to talk to Joshua before he already finds himself wanting to throttle the guy. It gets even worse when Neku starts to suspect that Joshua might have had a hand in his death, in which it only snowballs even further. Later on, when reading the Secret Reports, it is said that this was a result of Joshua’s tremendously high vibe, which placed a great deal of physical and psychological strain on Neku.
• Hates Everyone Equally: With the exception of CAT, who he is a fan of, Neku in the beginning treats almost everyone with open contempt and is shown to hate other people in general. As a sign of his Character Development, he learns to outgrow this and to appreciate the values of others in general.
• Hates Small Talk: At first. Being the aloof and standoffish individual he is, Neku hates engaging into conversation he feels is way more than necessary and will either cut the other person off or stay silent. The fact that he’s willing to engage into this more and more as the weeks go on show just how much he’s changed since then.
• Headphones Equal Isolation: Neku keeps his headphones on to block people out. The ending shows a shot of him leaving them behind to signify character development.
• Heal Thyself: He has a variety of different ways to heal himself during combat, whether it’s using soda cans to restore a certain amount of health or using barriers/threads to constantly regenerate HP.
• The Heart: Interestingly enough, he ends up becoming this for his various partners, as it’s thanks to his influence and own growth that they start applying the lessons they’ve learned to themselves and become better people.
  • Shiki started off as someone who hated herself for her own perceived failings as a person and for failing to live to being what she considered to be her best friend Eri’s standard only for Neku to help reassure her that she has her own strong qualities herself and that she isn’t Eri but Shiki and that there’s nothing wrong with that.
  • Joshua hated Shibuya and perceived it to be nothing but a rotting husk full of people who are too caught up in their own little worlds to pay attention to matters beyond themselves only for Neku to prove him wrong by showing how much he’s changed throughout the past few weeks and how there’s capacity for self-growth and positive change in the world, convincing Joshua to help give the city and its people a second chance.
  • Beat perceived himself as nothing but a lazy good-for-nothing who did nothing but get his little sister killed via his own mistakes only for Neku to help him learn to find value in himself as a person and to focus on what’s truly important in order to save Rhyme, while also encouraging Beat to try and achieve the very best for himself instead of just for his parents.
• Here We Go Again!: "A New Day" ends with him getting shot dead so he can be strung along in Coco's plans, again.
• The Hero: Starts out as a Nominal Hero who's only out to survive, but gradually evolves into a true hero over the course of the game.
• The Hero Dies: In "A New Day", the ending sees Coco bust a cap in his ass.
• Heroes' Frontier Step: His inability to shoot Joshua in the end marks this for him. Despite literally everything Joshua had put him through within the Reaper’s Game and all of the trauma and hardships he had to endure, Neku ultimately refuses to shoot who he considers to be a friend. This is what helps Joshua to change his mind about humanity since Neku, in that one instance, has proven him wrong about his belief about the people of Shibuya and their inability to change.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Starts getting a bad case of this as the game goes on, culminating with him calling himself “the worst” after Joshua’s Heroic Sacrifice, after he had spent the entire previous week distrusting him.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: In Week 3, he and Beat get hit with this due to Kitaniji placing a bounty on their heads and placing the UG on Emergency Call, causing almost all of the Reapers to try and hunt them down for their perceived threat to the sanctity of the UG.
• Hey, You!: He never refers to Shiki by name until the last day of Week 1. He generally refers to her as "Stalker", a nickname he coined when he didn't understand why she followed him around (they're partners and have to stick together), but the name stuck for the rest of the week.
• Hidden Depths: On a surface level, he appears to be nothing more than a stereotypical Emo Teen with no real regard for other people and just wants to be left alone to sulk. On the inside? A Broken Bird dealing with a huge amount of Survivor's Guilt due to his apparent involvement in the accident that claimed his best friend’s life, causing him to shut himself off from other people in an attempt to Never Be Hurt Again. He’s also a socially awkward fanboy of resident artist CAT himself, shows himself to be a lot more thoughtful and empathetic than he lets on, and is capable of giving out solid life advice that helps to change his partners for the better.
• Holding Your Shoulder Means Injury: One of his sprites has him doing this whenever he gets hurt in the main story.
• Hot-Blooded: Not normally but get him riled up or near Tin Pin Slammers and he can get surprisingly eager and competitive. In Another Day, his fondness for Tin Pin is cranked up for hilarious results.
• Humble Hero: Surprisingly, in contrast to his anti-social nature, Neku doesn’t really think that much of his astonishing skill with psychs and actually brushes off Shiki’s attempts to compliment him by calling him a psych genius, focusing more so on how the starter pins got into his pocket in the first place.
• Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Serves as this to Shooter in Another Day. While Shooter is ostensibly the leader of their Tin Pin team, it's Neku who does almost all of the team's actual slamming. That said, Shooter is ultimately the one who goes toe-to-toe with the Big Bad.
• Iconic Item: His headphones. The only time he's shown without his headphones on is the start of the game, but that's just to put them on to block out everyone else. Neku even gets the In-Series Nickname "Phones" as a result. This lasts until the very end; after going through Character Development, he removes them as the game's final shot.
• Icy Blue Eyes: His eyes are icy blue to go with his snarky, cold, distant personality at first.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: According to director Tatsuya Kando, Neku actually does feel lonely at times and legitimately longs to connect with others, which only adds onto his similarities to Joshua.
  Kando: Neku is a character that prefers solidarity and isolates himself from the get-go, but feels a twinge of loneliness somewhere in his heart, and maybe was always longing for some kind of interaction.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Turns out to be suffering from this as it is revealed in Another Day that he heavily blames himself for the death of his friend and heavily chatsizes himself for his apparent involvement in his death.
• Improbable Weapon User: Pins! Most Players are limited to a couple, but Neku can use all of them, including Pins that burn, throw things around, cut, shoot mind bullets, and conjure cans of soda that, uh, heal you. And that's just the starter set.
• Immune to Mind Control: Thanks to the effects of the Player Pin he has on him, Neku is immune to attempts made to take control of and read his mind. In the end portion of the game, Kitaniji tries to crush Neku’s Player Pin in order to bring him under the control of the Red Skull Pin only to be blindsided by Neku having a second Player Pin on him, courtesy of Joshua.
• Ineffectual Loner: Enforced example. If Neku doesn't team up with a partner and learn to cooperate with them, he'll get erased.
• Infinity +1 Sword:
  • The Darklit Planet pins. If all six are put in one deck, their attack power triples and they become some of the deadliest pins in the game. However, Hanekoma only sells you one of the six pins, and you have to find the rest either by defeating rare and powerful Noise on the highest difficulty and getting the pins from random drops, or using Mingle shops. Angels help you if you can't find the one that comes off of Panthera Cantus.
  • Final Remix introduces the Crimson Kingdoms set of pins, a miniature version of the Darklit Planets that only double in attack power rather than triple, and are Unbranded so they can't get a trend boost like the Darklit Planets can, but also only take up three pin slots instead of all six.
• Inner Monologue: A large majority of his dialogue revolves around him commenting on the various strange circumstances happening around and to him in his head, which of course makes way for a lot of his First-Person Smartass remarks.
• In-Series Nickname: He has several, but "Phones" is used most often, mostly by Beat and Mr. Hanekoma.
• Instant Runes: Can summon these in the air with some of his pins, ranging from shooting out electric sparks to creating mini explosions in the air.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Develops one with Mr. Hanekoma, which gets even more expanded on in Another Day.
• Interspecies Friendship: With Joshua and Hanekoma. Joshua is the Composer and Hanekoma is a Fallen Angel whereas Neku is a human.
• In the End, You Are on Your Own: At the end of the game, it at first appears that Neku will have to face Kitaniji alone by himself after Shiki and Beat get taken out beforehand. However, Shiki and Beat defy this trope once they come to, even calling out Neku for thinking he would have to fight alone when he has them by his side. Even after they and Joshua get absorbed into Draco Cantus, Neku is only able to defeat him thanks to their combined efforts and Fusion.
• Invincibility Power-Up: When equipping the Holy Field pin deck, Neku becomes invulnerability to all attacks so as long as he has the Light Puck on him, which can be highly useful for when you want to focus on using his partner for the time being. However, this takes up five of his six pin slots, leaving him with only one left for a potential attack.
• Ironic Hell: The Reaper’s Game and its concept as a whole is this for Neku. For one thing, for someone as misanthropic and anti-social as him, getting stuck with the same person for seven days straight and being forced to read other people’s inane thoughts is basically torture to him. Secondly, he has to learn to rely on said person and to open up to others in order to even stand a chance at surviving throughout the game, which just adds another straw to the camel’s back. However, this actually ends up working out for the better in a positive manner since it’s because of these circumstances that Neku is actually able to grow as a person and becomes a more genuinely heroic individual.
• I Shall Taunt You: Tends to call out "You’re good as gone!" at the beginning of a battle or “Any last words?" when gaining the max puck multiplier.
• It's All About Me: He is very selfish and self-centered at the start of the game, to the point that he has no problems (although he does hesitate at first) trying to kill off Shiki in the first week if it means only he can survive. Thankfully, he outgrows this much later on. The best example of this is shown when it's eventually revealed that his Entry Fee was his memories, for, as Kitaniji puts it, memories are the single greatest determinant of a person’s identity, which showed that the thing Neku cared about the most at first was himself.
• It's All My Fault:
  • Suffers from this heavily throughout the game, blaming himself for Shiki getting taken as his Entry Fee, Sota and Nao getting Erased, Joshua’s Heroic Sacrifice, etc.
  • It’s later revealed in Another Day that he also blames himself for the death of his best friend, feeling that if he hadn’t asked him to meet up with Neku by the wall at Udagawa, he wouldn't have been caught up in a car accident and would still be alive today. Suddenly, his attitude in the early portion of the game takes on a whole new meaning...
• I Will Find You: Shiki gets taken as his entry fee for week two, and it carries over to week 3. She could be seen as a probable entry fee, and Megumi needed an excuse to not bring her back to life. At first, during week 2, her being his entry fee is what motivates him to continue on, Josh being a prickly partner for many reasons, someone hard to warm up to (though Neku does relate to Josh more as time goes on)..
• I Work Alone: Initially starts off with this attitude, however, he gets incredibly displeased after finding out that due to how the Reaper’s Game works, he won’t be able to just rely on himself. The entire game then spends the majority of its time having him outgrow this mindset.
• Jade-Colored Glasses: Is incredibly rude, cynical, and jaded at first before eventually outgrowing it as a part of his character arc.
• Jedi Mind Trick: Can do this to some extent with meme imprinting, which can be used to subtly steer people's thinking in a direction of your choice.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Starts out as incredibly cold toward other people and only concerned with himself, but grows into a more caring individual, albeit one with limited patience for Joshua and Beat.
• Jump Physics: In the first episode of the anime, Neku uses the Masamune's Vulcan Uppercut Psych to launch far higher than normal and reach a rooftop to defeat a group of frog Noise.
• Kick The Son Of A Bitch: When coming across Konishi and Sho on the brink of Erasure, he lets out some rather scathing remarks and even an Incredibly Lame Pun when it comes to Sho. While this would come across as cruel, the two Reapers in question have repeatedly shown themselves to be unrepentant and cruel when it comes to their various actions, making Neku’s mockery of them come across as rather cathartic.
• KidAnova: Despite being only 15 years old, Neku is able to attract a surprising number of older women (and men) throughout the game, most notably the shopkeepers.
• The Kirk: Grows into this as the game progresses, learning to keep a steady balance between his pragmatism and growing idealism. Neku will try to help out whatever people he can but maintains that for the most part, survival in the Game is the utmost priority.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Grows into this. Even though he can be snarky as hell, Neku will still go out of his way to help people out and do the right thing more often than not.
• The Lancer: Takes on this role in Another Day to Shooter.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: His memories were his entry fee for the first week.
• Launcher Move: Has several abilities that function in this manner, with Vulcan Uppercut and Piercing Pillar being particular examples.
• Legendary in the Sequel: Neku has made quite a big impact on the UG, with Kariya during the first week of Neo commenting on how Rindo and the others have very big shoes to fill in his stead. The pre-release bonus items even reinforce this, with his clothes giving good stat bonuses and abilities and being as touted once being worn by the legendary Neku.
• Le Parkour: He did this in an early trailer for the game, but not in the final game. It's later used in Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance], due to the mechanics of the Sleeping Worlds.
• Life Drain: Can sap away an enemy’s health and add it onto his own with the use of the Dark Barrier Psych, which has him draining HP when in close contact with foes, and the Papillon Rouge pin, which has you slashing empty space to cause a chain to appear that damages any enemy it touches while also restoring your HP.
• Lightning Bruiser: Can lunge across the entire length of the screen with a single swish of the stylus, and is capable of a massive array of powerful psychokinetic attacks thanks to his ability to use every pin. Some pins grant him the ability to Flash Step, making him even faster. Set him up with the right equipment and he’ll be practically invulnerable too, with some clothing and pin options allowing him to constantly regenerate his health.
• Locked Out of the Loop: During the events of Week 1, he finds himself being the only one unaware of the fact that every Player in the Reaper’s Game is dead and that they’re all fighting for a second chance at life. Justified considering how his Entry Fee was his memories, which also includes the details of his own death.
• Loner-Turned-Friend: Starts the game as a self-centered loner and Jerkass before eventually warming up to his friends and changing for the better.
• Loony Friends Improve Your Personality: Starts off the game as a self-obsessed Jerkass loner before ultimately improving for the better thanks to, in order, a skinwalking fashionista with envy issues, a smug pretty boy with divine powers, and a hammy, Idiot Hero skater-brain.
• Magical Camera: During Week 2, Hanekoma, on Joshua’s request, upgrades Neku’s phone to have its camera be able to take photos of the past up to three times a day. This actually ends up coming in handy in Week 3 and he and Beat use this feature to piece together Hanekoma’s whereabouts when they start to get suspicious of his role within the Game and even uncover a key pin for the Shibuya River.
• Magic Knight: His ability to use any and every pin makes him very versatile. This makes him able to wield "positive" psychs, like Shockwave and Vulcan Uppercut, and "negative" psychs, like Pyrokinesis and Thunderbolt, with equal proficiency. He's also the only one that has this ability; other Players can only ever activate the psych for a single pin.
• Magnetic Hero: After his Character Development, he is shown to be this, with his most notable example being convincing Joshua to ultimately spare Shibuya from being destroyed by his own hand and generally bringing out the best in his allies.
• Mangst: Even with all of the horrible stuff happening around and to him throughout the game, Neku generally tries to keep his feelings and emotional turmoil to himself and keeps on pressing on through to the end.
• Manly Tears: He cries like this twice throughout the game. First: During his duel with Joshua. The truth of how he died, combined with the emotional strain of having to choose shooting a friend or losing Shibuya, reduces him to tears. Second: When he wakes up in the Scramble for the last time and believes that he's still in the Game.
• Master of All: Is by far one of the most powerful Players in the story, possessing great strength, speed, durability, and a vast array of Psychic Powers at his disposal. This is especially more notable when you compare him to other Players, who can only ever use one or two Psychs.
• Meaningful Echo: Of a sorts. The shot of him having his hands on his headphones is used in both the beginning and ending of the game. However, unlike the beginning, which had him putting on his headphones in an attempt to block out others, the ending has Neku taking them off and dropping them to the ground, signifying his growth.
• Meaningful Name: The kanji in his name literally translates to: sound, manipulation, cherry, garden. This is likely to be a reference to the idea of Neku closing out the outside world with his headphones, ignoring the wonderful world ("cherry garden") around him, and his astonishing skill with psychs. Additionally, sound may refer to the music theme in naming the characters.
• Messiah Creep: He starts off as an anti-social Jerkass but then, as the story progresses, he ends up learning to value other people and society as whole, to the point that the price for his Week 3 Entry Fee were all of the other Players, and eventually ends up saving Shibuya from destruction.
• Messianic Archetype: Ironically enough, despite the various religious references found in Joshua, Neku actually fits this the most. He is killed senselessly and put through a variety of trials, thrice sacrificing what he most treasures, but ultimately cleanses Shibuya of the "sins" for which the Composer would have destroyed it and is resurrected. He was hand-picked by the Game's God-figure, and gains at least two disciples (Shiki and Beat) over the course of his time in the UG.
• Mexican Standoff: After the final boss fight, Joshua forces Neku to have one of these with him to decide the fate of Shibuya. Neku falters though, and lets Joshua shoot him, which most likely means that the standoff was nothing but a test.
• Mistaken for Gay: By poor, poor Makoto. Once his Friendship Gauge is maxed out, he assumes Neku is only coming into his shop just to see him.
• Morality Chain: Shiki is essentially this to him, spurring on his development to become a better, more empathic person. It gets to the point that just thinking about her motivates him to hear out other people's problems.
• Morality Pet:
  • Ends up this for Joshua, as it’s thanks to his own development and genuine friendship with him that the latter eventually changed his mind about Shibuya and decided to ultimately spare it and Neku.
  • Likewise, Shiki also ends up being this for him, as it’s due to her actions and influence that he takes genuine strides into becoming a better person and learning to embrace other people as a whole.
• More Dakka: He is able to unleash his own variety of Bullet Hell attacks in the form of pins such as Purity Launcher, Innocence Beam, etc.
• Mouthy Kid: His extremely snarky demeanor and inability to hold back his thoughts and opinions often leads to Neku backtalking and snarking at the various adults he encounters throughout the Reaper’s Game.
• Mr. Vice Guy: Starts off as a loner with a serious chip on his shoulder. He eventually becomes a genuine Nice Guy by the end of the game.
• Multi-Directional Barrage: In Final Remix, Neku gains the ability to shoot swords that burst out from him in all directions to strike foes thanks to his Bullet Sword Psych.
• Mundane Utility:
  • Subverted. On Day 3, Neku tries to use the Pyrokinesis pin for a light, only to find that very few pins work outside of battle.
  • This is, however, played straight with the Psychokinesis pin, which he uses to play Reaper Creeper with the denizens of the UG.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: His arms are essentially twigs and his body size is quite thin but he can still rip apart most Noise and knock back Drakes and Rhinos with the right Psych.
• Must Make Amends: After Shiki gets taken as his Entry Fee due to Kitaniji’s scheming, Neku blames himself for her getting dragged back in due to him and resolves to bring her back to the RG with him no matter what, even if he has to put up with Joshua in order to do so.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Has this reaction at the end of week 2 when he remembers that Joshua, who he had previously accused of his own murder, had actually shot at Minamimoto, who was standing behind him. He spends most of week 3 regretting his treatment of Joshua under this assumption, only for him to be vindicated in the end when it turns out Joshua really did kill him.
  • Has this reaction when he realizes that everything he has accomplish over the weeks only helped further Joshua’s plans to destroy Shibuya and its inhabitants.
• Mysterious Past: Besides Joshua, his past is the only one out of all the main Players that is never fully explored. Justified considering his loss of memories from the outset of the game.
• Never Be Hurt Again: It’s heavily implied in Another Day, due to the death of his friend, Neku took it upon himself to block out society in a misguided attempt to spare himself from even more emotional damage.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Early on in Week 1, he and Shiki are given a mission to make a certain pin (the Red Skull pin) popular by spreading it around the public using Makoto. In the end, that same pin turns out to be the key to Kitaniji's Assimilation Plot.
  • This then happens again by the end of the game when it turns out that everything Neku has accomplished over the weeks was actually helping Joshua come closer to his plan of ultimately destroying Shibuya and that Kitaniji was the only one trying to stop it. Who Neku had just took down. Needless to say, he doesn’t take it very well. Thankfully, it’s thanks to his influence on Joshua that Joshua decides to change his mind and ultimately spare Shibuya.
• The Nicknamer: He nicknames Minamimoto "Pi-face" and "The Grim Heaper," and Konishi gets several names, including "Iron Maiden" and "Ironface."
• Noble Male, Roguish Male: Played with when it comes to him and Joshua. Joshua is incredibly cheery, refined, and dignified and speaks with an often worldly and enlightened vocabulary. By contrast, Neku is much more dour, aloof, and acts in a more aggressive manner, at least in Week 2, often speaking with a blunt and straight to the point attitude. However, whereas Joshua is a huge Jerkass with a penchant for cynical tangents about humanity and outwardly messing with others to get under their skins, Neku is a burgeoning Jerk with a Heart of Gold who gradually begins to open up to others and treat people with respect.
• Nominal Hero: At first, he is a jerkass who is openly rude to his allies and only cares about saving his own skin, to the point that he was even willing to almost kill his own partner if it meant only he can survive. By the time the second and third weeks roll around, he largely outgrows this and becomes much more caring and altruistic towards other people.
• "No More Holding Back" Speech: Delivers a combination of this and Shut Up, Hannibal! when Megumi asks him to help brainwash Shibuya for the supposed greater good.
  "I'll never help you! Maybe living in your Shibuya WOULD be easier. Maybe. Except one problem- it wouldn't be Shibuya! I was never good with people. I covered my ears and blocked them out. But you know what? If I don't clash, I don't change. The world ends at my borders, and the best moments slip away. Shibuya's full of people waiting for those moments, when we clash together and find something new. Here in the UG, I clashed. I changed. And now I know- Shibuya should stay just as it is!"
• No Social Skills: Starts off the game this way, being unable to empathize with other people and appearing coldly dismissive of his would be partners. As the game progresses, he eventually outgrows this.
• Not Quite Flight: In the anime, he uses the Pyrokinesis pin to shoot fire from his palm in order to rocket jump onto a platform and combat some frog Noise.
• Not So Above It All: It’s shown throughout the game that despite his stoicism and snark, Neku can be just as goofy as his companions.
  • He likes to go on about how he doesn’t necessarily care about fashion and trends but is shown to be rather miffed when Shiki and the Prince tend to criticize his sense of wardrobe.
  "(Arrogant snob. I am not...a...a spicy tuna roll!)"
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • He concludes this about himself and Shiki after learning her secret. This realization is what spurs his Character Development.
  • He also admits this to Joshua as well during the game’s ending, with him in particular saying that his relationship with the former felt like he finally had a friend that understood him.

O - Z

• Odd Couple: With every single partner he's ever teamed up with.
  • Shiki is an all-loving Nice Girl who is seemingly outgoing and social whereas Neku is an initially uncaring Jerkass who doesn’t particularly care for social interactions and wants nothing more to be left alone. Despite this, the two end up developing an incredibly strong friendship that leads Neku into going through another week of the Reaper’s Game just so he can save Shiki at any cost.
  • Joshua is an enigmatic, cheery, refined young man with a love for trolling and getting a rise out of others, as well as long-winded monologues concerning his thoughts and feelings on society on a whole. By contrast, Neku is blunt, extremely dour, and is a lot more aggressive in his manner of speaking. Despite this, the two of them eventually end up sharing a special connection as Birds of a Feather due to their similar cynical outlook and mindsets, at least until Neku eventually grows out of said mindset.
  • Neku and Beat on the surface appear to have nothing in common, with Beat being a Hot-Blooded Idiot Hero with a tendency to blurt out whatever is on his mind whereas Neku is a cool-headed Good Is Not Dumb Deadpan Snarker who likes to keep his thoughts to himself for the most part. However, the two of them learn to trust and rely on one another and become a formidable pair of Bash Brothers who end up taking the UG by storm.
• Once More, with Clarity: The game does this three times with the same sequence of Neku's death. First, Neku ends up scanning Joshua's mind, which normally shouldn't be possible, and ends up seeing his dead body in his mind. When he scans Joshua again, we see a sequence where Joshua appears to shoot Neku. Then on the final day, the presence of Joshua and Minamimoto in the same area makes him remember the same sequence of events, only this time, it's revealed that Joshua was aiming for Minamimoto, who was right behind Neku, and it appears that Minamimoto was the one who shot Neku, and then during the ending, Joshua restores the full memory, where it's revealed that Minamimoto was aiming for Joshua, but failed due to Joshua still having some of his powers, causing Minamimoto to flee. Then, Joshua definitely kills Neku and leaves him with his extra Player pin.
• One Hero, Hold the Weaksauce: He can every use every dang pin the UG throws at him, whereas everybody else is lucky if they can use two.
• One-Man Army: Due to the lack of dual screen combat in the Remix versions and the partners being reworked to have them act more like an Assist Character, he more or less becomes this. Throughout the three weeks he finds himself in the game, he has taken down at least hundreds of Noise and Reapers.
• Only Sane Man: Mainly in Another Day. He finds himself constantly at lost when dealing with his companions' various...quirks.
  "Apparently he didn't just name us after crayons, he's been eating them, too."
• Opposites Attract: How his friendship with Shiki functions. Neku is a sarcastic, asocial Jerk with a Heart of Gold with a penchant for being brutally honest and covering up his insecurities and inner turmoil with tons of snark whereas Shiki is a insecure, socially aware Nice Girl who tries to cover up her insecurities and inner turmoil with smiles and laughter. After they go through several trials together, this dynamic actually ends up helping them both grow as people, with Neku helping Shiki to learn to value her true self and Shiki helping Neku to learn how to value other people.
• Orange/Blue Contrast: His overall color scheme, with his blue shirt contrasting quite nicely with his orange hair. He’s even referred to as either Blue and Orangeylocks on two seperate occasions.
• Orbiting Particle Shield: Of the Shock and Awe variety, being able to summon balls of electricity that can circle around him and attack any for that comes near.
• Pals with Jesus: Comes to legitimately befriend Joshua over the course of the game, unaware that the latter is actually the Composer all along. It’s thanks to this friendship that Joshua comes to change his perspective on Shibuya and by extension humanity and decide to give it another chance.
• Perpetual Frowner: Neku's sprites showcase him perpetually frowning, only changing whenever he's surprised or genuinely happy.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Thanks to his ability to wield multiple Psyches, Neku is definitely not someone to be underestimated, as multiple Noise, Reapers, and Game Masters can attest to.
• Pet the Dog: One of the earliest signs that he’s actually a Jerk with a Heart of Gold is shown when he reassures Rhyme and the others that they will survive the Game, no matter what. It later gets shown again when he is the first to step up and Hold the Line for Beat to escape with Hanekoma after Rhyme’s Erasure.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: His aura’s color is blue in contrast to Shiki’s pink.
• Pintsized Powerhouse: According to the official gallery shop for the anime, Neku's height is recorded to be 163 cm, clocking his stature at just 5'3" ft, a below average height for the normal 15 year old boy. Despite this, he's taken on gargantuan monsters and powerful foes with stunning efficiency and is by far one of the most powerful Players in the story.
• Polite Villains, Rude Heroes: When compared to Kitaniji. 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.
• Positive Friend Influence: After his Character Development, he becomes this for his various partners, surprisingly enough, as his own strides into becoming a better person and insights into his partners’ issues helps them overcome their own shortcomings. This is especially evident in Joshua’s case as he starts off wanting to destroy Shibuya due to seeing humanity as inherently worthless into reconsidering his opinion thanks to his interactions with Neku and ends up sparing it in the end.
• Power Floats: He's an extremely versatile player, able to use more pin types than most. He also floats slightly above ground when standing still in battle and when using certain Psychs.
• Power of Trust: In the end, this is what helps him ultimately break out of his shell and convinces Joshua to give Shibuya a second chance. Neku even says in the end that while he may not forgive Joshua for his actions, he does ultimately trust him.
• Pretty Boy: As a Square Enix protagonist, it’s to be expected. His handsome looks are regularly noted on by the various shopkeepers that end up attracted to him.
• Properly Paranoid: When he first meets Joshua, he’s incredibly suspicious of him, especially when later events imply that he was the one who actually killed Neku. Later on, this theory seemingly gets disproven when Joshua sacrifices himself to save Neku and Sho is shown to be the one to kill him...only for Neku to be revealed to be right in his suspicions when it turns out that Joshua really was the one that killed him in the first place.
• Purple Is Powerful: Is easily one of the most powerful Players in the story and coincidentally wears a lot of purple.
• Real Men Wear Pink: The Lace Bonnet is a lolita headdress, and the Dragon Lady is a Qipao. They both give bonuses to Neku only. That has some interesting implications, considering character-specific bonuses are normally from items the characters themselves like.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni:
  • The blue to Shiki's red, acting sullen and snarky while she's energetic and cheerful. His dynamic with Beat is similar, as he's the calm and collected one while Beat is the Hot-Blooded and ferocious one.
  • He's also the Red to Joshua's Blue, if only because Joshua is much more calm and collected than Neku during the second week.
• Restored My Faith in Humanity: His partners do this for him, helping him to break out of his anti-social shell and truly see what a wonderful world he lives in. He in turn ends up doing this for Joshua.
• Reverse Shrapnel: The elemental barrier pins, such as Carcin and Creepy Weepy Barrier, act as this for him, damaging any enemy that gets close.
• Riddle for the Ages: Another Day shows that he used to have a best friend who ended up dying in an accident because Neku had indirectly led him to one when he was invited to Udagawa, which prompted Neku to shut himself off from others. However, this being an alternate universe where things are out of whack (Sho being Ken Doi's son, "Shiki" still using Eri's image and Eri herself being completely absent, Beat being Konishi's student, etc.), it's unclear if this Neku has the same backstory as the main story's Neku.
• Rude Hero, Nice Sidekick: In week 1, he fits this dynamic with Shiki, being the rude, anti-social, and bad mannered hero in contrast to Shiki, who is much more friendly, patient, and polite.
• Sarcasm Failure: Sometimes, even he has his limits.
  Neku: Is that the only reason? I can't afford any surprises in this Game. Why put yourself at jeopardy?
  Beat: What’s a "jeppardy"?
  Neku: ... Huh?
• Save the Villain: Later on in Week 2, he and Joshua come across Uzuki and Kariya struggling against Taboo Noise and, should the player make the choice, Neku chooses to save them, though his reasoning for doing so is not very heroic.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Is the Savvy Guy to Shiki’s Energetic Girl.
• Secret Test of Character: Neku tries to pull this on Joshua in the second week in order to determine his true intentions in the game. Later it is revealed that Joshua chose him, the most misanthropic person in Shibuya besides himself, to be his Proxy in the Long Game. Neku makes it to the end, and Josh gives him the final test, shoot him or let Shibuya be destroyed, and if Neku shot Josh then Joshua's point would be proven, that the people of Shibuya could not change, and therefore the city could not be redeemed. Throughout Joshua's time around Neku, he was likely trying to be the worst person possible, so Neku would have every reason to shoot him.
• Shadow Archetype: Picks up at least three throughout his time in the Reaper’s Game.
  • Joshua can be considered the logical extreme of Neku’s previous mindset, with both of them having trouble being able to understand others, only instead of showing outright disdain like Neku, he opts for a more smug, self-righteous temperament. However, unlike Joshua, who has made this mindset more or less his way of life, Neku finds himself caught between his old worldview and newfound beliefs throughout Week 2 and eventually develops a desire to actually understand people and not give up on them altogether, which comes as a genuine surprise to Joshua.
  • Kitaniji is essentially a look at what a grown up Neku would be like if he had never learned the lessons he did in the game, with both of them wearing headphones, having a passion for the arts, 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, Kitaniji flat out rejects them, instead trying to force his will on others in an attempt to achieve total conformity.
  • Sho Minamimoto is a very big one for Neku. Both are highly talented and motivated Broken Aces with huge amounts of Imagination (Neku is one of the most powerful Players in the game while Sho is regarded as a top-class Reaper with one of the highest erasure streaks in the history of the UG) that Hanekoma takes a personal interest in for their use when it comes to the Reaper’s Game. They both believe that no one can ever truly understand them and share a distaste for cooperation and other people in general, and are mostly in it for themselves. However, whereas Neku learns to let go of his self-centered mindset and to use his talents for the benefits of other people besides himself, Sho never chooses to reflect upon himself and stays a total asshole to the very end.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Happens at least two times regarding him and Shiki, and once with Joshua.
  • When the Cosmic Corner seller mistakes him and Shiki for a couple, he is shown to be very annoyed and even raises his fist angrily at him.
  • In Another Day, when he sees Shiki gushing over 777, Neku is shown to be rather annoyed by this. Seeing this, Joshua tries to insinuate that Neku might be jealous, which he angrily denies.
  • Also in Another Day, Joshua flirtatiously offering to accompany Neku into the Shibuya River leads both Shiki and Beat to assume the two are an item, with Neku getting exasperated over it.
• Shonen Hair: Has spiky orange hair that can obscure his eyes. One of his character portraits even has him playing with one of the spikes on his bangs. According to Sota in Another Day, Neku used to bring some manga to his hairdresser and ask for similar haircuts, making it literal Shonen Hair.
• Shoryuken: With the Vulcan Uppercut psych, he can empower his arms with enough energy to uppercut foes into the air, leaving them open to mid air attacks.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Delivers a combination of this and "No More Holding Back" Speech to Kitaniji during the end portion of the game, when the man tries to lure Neku to his side in support of his scheme to brainwash Shibuya.
• Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers!: Is very often at the receiving end of this throughout the game as multiple people try to get him to step out of his boundaries and truly connect with others.
• Skyward Scream: At the end, after Neku learns that Joshua is the one who killed him, and then waking up at the Scramble Crossing after being shot again by Joshua, he can only cry out a confused: Why... WHAT THE HELL?!?
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: Befitting his abrasive and confrontational personality.
• The Snark Knight: Usually makes snide remarks at pretty much everything, especially when it comes to his comrades and the situations he finds himself in.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: Frequently engages in this with Joshua, though he sometimes finds himself unable to keep up with Joshua’s constant barbs.
• Socially Awkward Hero: Taking down otherworldly monsters and Reapers comes naturally towards him. Forming relationships with others and socializing with them, however? Not so much.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Underneath the surface of his stoic, snarky personality is a Survivor's Guilt ridden young man with emotional issues.
• Spanner in the Works: To an extent. While he plays right into Joshua's hands and completes his plan on paper, his Character Development convinces Joshua to abandon his decision to destroy Shibuya.
• Spin Attack: The Vortex Saber psych, which has him spinning a BFS around him in order to strike foes.
• Spiritual Antithesis: Can be considered this as a protagonist when compared to Sora from Kingdom Hearts, which Tetsuya Nomura was also heavily involved with.
  • Sora is a optimistic and cheerful Nice Guy who initially set out on his universe-saving adventures in order to look for his friends and is incredibly social and outgoing whereas Neku is an anti-social Jerkass loner who’s initially only out to save himself and doesn’t care about anyone else.
  • Sora embraces The Power of Friendship right from the start and is more or less The Pollyanna (save for a few notable exceptions) while Neku flat out rejects it and is The Cynic for a good portion of the story until he gradually begins to open up.
  • Sora is a humble country bumpkin who was raised on Destiny Islands his entire life before his world got sucked into the darkness and found himself exploring fantastical environments beyond which he can ever imagine whereas Neku is a street smart city kid who was born and raised in Shibuya and found himself getting dragged into the Reaper’s Game and diving deeper within the city in order to uncover several dark truths concerning his death and the true purpose of the Game.
  • Sora is shown to have a Friendly Rivalry with Riku in the beginning of the first game until Riku starts letting himself get consumed by darkness, twisting their friendly competition into something much more twisted and complex until Riku eventually snaps out of it. By contrast, Neku despises Joshua at the beginning and only puts up with him in order to try and save Shiki before gradually warming up to him, with Joshua in turn growing more fond of Neku to the point that he spares the city he was planning to destroy thanks to their friendship.
  • Whereas Sora was initially the Unchosen One and was never actually meant to be a Keyblade Wielder, with the Keyblade itself eventually accepting him as its wielder due to his own strength of heart, Neku was handpicked by Joshua himself to act as his proxy and as a representative of what he thought was wrong with Shibuya as a whole until Neku’s own Character Development was able to prove Joshua wrong about what he thought of Shibuya, subverting the reason he was picked as a Chosen One in the first place.
  • Sora starts off the series as a cheerful, always positive-thinking, and rather immature kid and still acting the same way by the time Kingdom Hearts III rolls around. Not that this is a bad thing, as this very trait is what gives him the capacity to act as an independent thinker and foil several of the villains’ schemes, something other protagonists in the series can't necessarily claim (and have suffered for as a result). By contrast, Neku is a Dynamic Character whose experiences within the game have him massively change as a person, detailing him growing from a self-centered loner who was willing to let his own partner die in order to save his own ass into a genuinely altruistic young man who risks life and limb for the people he cares about and can’t even bring himself to shoot the one person responsible for all of his suffering due to him learning to value his relationships (which actually ends up paying off in the long run).
  • Even their toolkits and combat abilities in their respective games contrast one another. Whereas Sora’s abilities emphasize his mastery of weapons, proficiency in both swordplay and magic, and having to usually rely on a Mana Meter in order to activate his long-ranged abilities, Neku relies on a Superpower Lottery of Psychic Powers that he uses to to trip up his foes and fights more like a dedicated spellcaster, with his attacks all relying on Cooldown.
• Status Effects: Depending on the clothing and pins he has equipped, Neku can inflict these on enemies. These range from Immobility and HP Drain to Attack Break and Defense Break.
• Stepford Smiler: Another Day Neku has some shades of this, being very jarringly cheerful and trying to combat his "emo urges." Once you get to Pork City, it's implied that this is just an alternate way of coping with the death of his best friend, in contrast to Main Game Neku's bitter isolation.
• Stepford Snarker: At some points in the game, Neku is shown to respond to the various misfortunes and challenges presented onto him with a degree of sarcasm, as shown when he makes the Gallows Humor joke above when accusing Joshua of being the one who killed him, presumably to keep his emotions in check.
• The Stoic: Starts off very cold and standoffish to the other Players, purposely trying to distance himself from them in order to avoid having to interact with them. Later on, he outgrows this.
• Straight Man: To several characters, but mostly for Beat.
• Strong and Skilled: Quite possibly one of Neku’s most dangerous aspects. Not only is he a Person of Mass Destruction with a massive Superpower Lottery out the ass, but he also has a high amount of creative talent and intelligence to put those two aspects into good use. Due to this, not only does he take down multiple Noise and Reapers throughout the weeks with ascending mastery, but he also ultimately defeats three Game Masters, the Conductor, and even a Fallen Angel in a battle to test his strength.
• Stronger Than They Look: When looked at as a whole, Neku is incredibly scrawny and rather small in stature, making him look rather unintimidating. Yet, despite this, he has a massive Super Power Lottery array of Psychic Powers at his disposal, ranging from Psychokinesis, to Pyrokinesis and more, and is easily the most powerful Player in the story.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Starts out purely icy to other people, even to his own partner, but slowly starts to show more of his sweet side throughout the weeks after his development.
• Summon Magic: Eventually, Neku gains the ability to summon Rhyme’s Noise form to attack, via the Rhyme Pin, starting with the end of the fight with Tigris Cantus. It can be rather Difficult, but Awesome to use in battle due to how you need to aim it right on top of where the enemies are in order to inflict damage but once you do, the Rhyme pin in tandem with the Light Puck unleash an incredible amount of damage.
• Superpower Lottery: He can use nearly every pin. He basically won every power on the board. For example...
  • Elemental Powers: Neku gains a rather large variety of psychic elemental abilities throughout the game.
    • Playing with Fire: Can shoot flaming orbs, summon combustions, set enemies on fire, summon a fire barrier to defend against enemies, and call upon a rain of giant fireballs.
    • Shock and Awe: Can shoot lightning bolts, strike the battlefield with thunderbolts, cause explosions of sparks, and summon orbs of lightning to surround him.
    • An Ice Person: Can summon piercing icicles from the ground or encase the foe's body in ice.
    • Making a Splash: Can summon orbs of water that rebound off of enemies and summon a water barrier to slowly heal himself.
    • Dishing Out Dirt: Can summon rocks and meteors from the sky, cause devastating earthquakes or encase the foe's body in stone.
    • Blow You Away: Can summon hurricanes that pick up foes and slam them down to the ground.
    • Light 'em Up: Can focus light energy on foes to continuously attack them.
    • Casting a Shadow/Gravity Master: Can create black holes to suck enemies or hold them in place as well as shoot dark energy bullets and create energy barriers fueled by dark energy.
  • Mind over Matter: Can control objects and even random Noise and slam them into each other for damage.
  • Blade Spam/Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Can rapidly stab enemies multiple times with close range energy blades.
  • Energy Weapon: Can shoot multiple destructive energy beams.
  • Trick Bullet: Can summon energy bullets of multiple properties, ranging from fragmenting on impact to being able to be controlled in mid-direction.
  • Having a Blast: Can turn objects into bombs and even make energy mines and runes that explode after a short while.
  • Make Me Wanna Shout: Can summon a giant speaker that frees destructive sound waves.
  • Laser Blade: Can summon short close-range energy blades or a giant energy sword.
    • Sword Beam: In Final Remix, he later gains the ability to summon energy shockwaves by spinning an energy blade around him.
  • Storm of Blades: In Final Remix, he can summon a circle of blades around him that launch around him and strike multiple foes. He can also launch them right in front of him for a Flechette Storm of blades to strike an enemy multiple times and even summon them from below.
  • Telepathy: Can read people's minds.
  • Teleporters and Transporters/Flash Step: Can teleport multiple times on the battlefield.
  • Invisibility: Can turn himself invisible while in combat, rendering him immune to enemy attacks.
  • Super-Speed: Can ram into foes at high speeds and continually juggle them in the air while doing so.
• Supporting Protagonist: In Another Day. While he remains the viewpoint character, Shooter drives the plot and has a more personal stake in the conflict this time around, Completely averted if you go to Pork City however where Neku reveals a backstory that is implied to apply to the main games Neku.
• Surrounded by Idiots: Not as an evil character, but he tends to think of everyone around him as such and treat them accordingly. He is a bit more true to this in Another Day, where, despite making genuine efforts to suppress his "emo urges", the sheer ridiculousness of every other character always manages to get under his skin.
• Survivor's Guilt: It's revealed in Another Day that he suffers from this. As it turns out, he once invited a close friend to check out Neku’s favorite tag mural in Udagawa but unfortunately, he died in an accident on his way to meet him. Feeling that if he hadn’t invited his friend to come, he would still be alive, Neku heavily blames himself for his friend’s death.
• Sword over Head: After finding out about Joshua’s betrayal and his role in manipulating the Reaper’s Game in order to try and destroy Shibuya, Neku becomes enraged, picks up the gun Joshua gives him for their final game and gets prepared to shoot him... but finds himself unable to shoot a friend and ultimately lowers it, leaving Joshua a chance to shoot him. Thankfully, this all turned out to be a Secret Testof Character for Neku banking on his decision on whether or not he’d actually shoot Joshua after everything he had done and thanks to his decision not to, Joshua ultimately decides to give both Shibuya and Neku a second chance at life.
• Taking the Bullet: A non-lethal example in the anime as he willingly takes a hit from Higashizawa in his Noise form meant for Shiki in order to protect her.
• Tame His Anger: Neku starts out as an angry, bitter teen with no regard for anyone but himself and comes across as very hostile to others, including his own partner. By the end of the game, after going through several trials and tribulations, he gradually matures and becomes a genuinely good person who comes to love and appreciate his newfound friends.
• Teens Are Monsters: Starts off as a VERY anti-heroic version of this, culminating with him almost killing Shiki for a chance to get out of the Game. However, he gradually changes for the better and comes to outgrow this.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
  • Starts out this way with the others, with him doing everything he can to avoid working together with other people at first. His Character Development has him grow out of this trope.
  • Special mention goes to his partnership with Joshua during the second half of his week. After remembering that Joshua shot at him, Neku's internal monologues make it very clear that he's only putting up with him at this point for Shiki's sake.
• The Call Knows Where You Live: Unlike the other Players, who met their ends through unfortunate circumstances/accidents, Neku was deliberately sought out by Joshua to participate in his Game against Kitaniji as his proxy, prompting Joshua to shoot Neku in Udagawa near his favorite graffiti spot.
• Throw the Mook at Them: Some of his Psychokinesis pins allow him to do this to certain enemies, with him telekinetically picking them up and whacking his foes to oblivion with them.
• To Be a Master: In Another Day, not only does he proclaim that Tin Pin Slammer is his purpose in life, but that he’ll become the greatest slammer that ever lived. It’s just as hilariously absurd as you imagine.
• Took a Level in Badass: He starts off the game as someone who is way over his head and hopelessly outmatched before eventually becoming a Person of Mass Destruction who is able to take on multiple Noise, Reapers, Game Masters, the Conductor, and even a Fallen Angel.
• Took a Level in Idealism: Neku starts off the game as a very closed-minded and cynical individual who saw no value in connecting with others and the world around him before learning to ultimately to accept other people and the values of connections thanks to his experiences in the Game.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Throughout the course of the game, Neku massively changes for the better, turning from a self-absorbed Jerkass who couldn't give two craps about others into a genuine hero who comes to care for other people.
• Tomato in the Mirror: He's been working as the Composer's proxy all along.
• Tornado Move: Can create miniature tornadoes to pick up his foes and slam them into the ground with the help of his Twister Psych.
• Trauma Conga Line: Needless to say, Neku has it rough. To recount, he’s had to:
  • Deal with the death of his best friend before the game even starts, jumpstarting his anti-social personality and deep-seated trauma.
  • Be forced to play through the Reaper’s Game three times.
  • Deal with the revelation that the very first friend he made in the Game (Shiki) is now being held hostage as his Entry Fee, and will be unable to return back to life unless he wins the Game again.
  • Be forced to see multiple people die, including those he’s befriended, and blames himself for this.
  • Get betrayed multiple times (Joshua, Beat, Hanekoma to an extent).
  • Get shot twice.
  • As of A New Day, get pulled into the Reaper’s Game AGAIN.
  • Get shot a THIRD time by a scheming little girl Reaper.
  • Is now going to be forced to play through the Reaper’s Game again with Sho Minamimoto, of all people, as his partner.
• Troubled, but Cute: While the only characters that really remark on his cuteness are the shopkeepers, he does have a lot of internal issues he's forced to work through.
• Troll: In a rather notable scene, he and Joshua happen to stumble upon Uzuki and Kariya getting attacked by Taboo Noise. Should the player will it, Neku can decide to save them but only just so he can piss them off.
• True Companions: Grows into this with all of his partners. Even Joshua.
• Tsundere: Neku is rude to everyone, even his friends. When it comes to his friends though, he does still genuinely care, even if he is not always the best at showing it.
• Unique Protagonist Asset: He’s the only one in the game with high enough Imagination to use almost EVERY pin in the game and the abilities that come with them, giving him one heck of a Superpower Lottery.
• Unrealistic Black Hole: Can summon these in two variations using some of his Psychs; one that can drag in several smaller Noise to wipe them out in an instant and another that can drag them all to a single point to leave them open to attacks.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Aside from the points under Unwitting Pawn, Played for Laughs regarding A New Day and NEO, in a form we'll call "Unwitting Instigator of Accidental Misnaming. He's still in the habit of referring to Mr. Mew as a "piggy" when he gets a vision of Tsugumi holding it, and mentions him as such in front of Beat, who apparently has no idea what Mr. Mew is. Come NEO, Beat is now stubbornly referring to Mr. Mew (who is now a brand mascot) as a pig - not out of malice like Neku (initially) did, but just because that's how he was introduced to it.
• Unwitting Pawn: To Joshua, who killed Neku in order to prove to Joshua whether or not Shibuya was worth saving. Neku's victory as Joshua's proxy enabled Joshua to win and decide Shibuya's fate.
  • He also ends up playing this role for Kitaniji on two occasions; first when spreading Red Skull Pins around Shibuya’s populace, furthering Kitaniji’s Assimilation Plot, and later in Week 2 when Kitaniji uses him and Joshua to take down Sho due to his out-of-control behavior as Game Master. Neku is, understandably, quite pissed when he finds out about this.
• Visual Development: At the beginning of the game, Neku puts on his headphones in an attempt to block out other people around him, signifying his asocial personality and reluctance to open up to others. By the end of the game, he finally takes them off, showcasing his growth as a person and willingness to engage in the world around him.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Once he finally starts to accept Joshua as a partner, they remain incredibly condescending towards each other. He attempts this sort of relationship with almost all of his allies, but this one works best like this and is the most pronounced. He also frequently gets annoyed at Beat's impulsiveness and tendency to act before thinking and tends to snark at him, but he also genuinely cares for him and is willing to help him out whenever he can during Week 3.
• Warrior Therapist: Thanks to his Character Development, he becomes this towards Shiki and Beat, helping them resolve their self-worth issues with his own brand of encouragement. Heck, the Reaper’s Game even has him and his partner literally take on this role to help out the residents of the RG, due to how the Noise function.
• What You Are in the Dark: At the end of the game, Kitaniji offers Neku a chance to join him and help build Shibuya anew with the Red Skull Pin, all of the while trying to convince him that his interactions with other people have only brought him hurt and grief. Despite this and admitting that Kitaniji’s plan would most likely make life a lot easier, Neku ultimately refuses, choosing individuality and personal growth over all else and citing them for reasons as to why Shibuya should continue as its been.
• When He Smiles:
  • In a flashback of the second week, which is quite nice to look at. He also gets more of these the more he opens up to his friends,◊ showing off his gradual development.
  • He is also shown to smile more often at certain points in the anime, most notably around Shiki.
• Whodunnit to Me?: While it's only one of many plot threads, Neku spends most of week 2 trying to figure out how he kicked the bucket. The first part of his memory reveals he was admiring some CAT graffiti in an alley when Joshua showed up and shot at him. The second part reveals he was aiming at Minamimoto, who returned fire. The third and full memory reveals that Joshua drove Minamimoto off, and then executed Neku.
• Wise Beyond His Years: After his character development, he starts to embody this, showing off an incredible amount of maturity and emotional understanding when it comes to the world around him, with his "No More Holding Back" Speech showing this off quite nicely.
• Worthy Opponent: Kitaniji 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.
• Would Hit a Girl: Is more than willing to take on female Reapers such as Uzuki and Konishi. Justified as the circumstances of the Game and how dangerous the two can require him to attack back.
• Wowing Cthulhu: As he develops more and more, he continues to surprise Joshua with his increasing moments of empathy and willingness to change. Especially notable since Joshua had written him off as another one of Shibuya’s citizens; someone unwilling to improve himself for the better.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: After his Character Development, he repeatedly presses Shiki and Beat with this, helping them overcome their insecurities and showing them that they CAN change for the better.
• You Monster!: Angrily calls Joshua this after finding out the truth about his involvement in the Game.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
  • An inversion of this trope. The Composer kills Neku in order to make him useful to him.
  • Played straight at the end of A New Day, after Joshua considers Neku being shot dead by Coco not his problem, because Neku isn't any use to him anymore.