- Io never states that she feels like Hibiki and Daichi are familiar, so the anime is possibly one of the first time loops for the universe.
- However, Hibiki can summon Byakko and is hinted to have lots of Macca, meaning this is possibly built up from a previous 'loop', so it's not the first loop.
- Keita dies so this eliminates the 'Triumphant' Ending from technically being possible in the anime.
So judging from the above points, I'm guessing the anime is possibly set around the second 'loop'. In the first loop Hibiki got enough points to carry over Byakko and his Macca. He fails to achieve the Triumphant Ending again, however, and has to reboot the universe to try again. This brings us to the games beginning. The characters now have enough built up memories from the loops to start feeling Deja Vu about the events, and things go differently this time.
- Adding on to this WMG, the the anime will probably either lead to a hook for a compilation movie that will cover the Triumphant ending or encourage the viewers to buy Overlocked so they can get a more satisfying ending.
- Or alternatively and in more general, it acts as a Downer Beginning Stealth Prequel for the game in general.
If it's just another few episodes, then it'll be a quick rehash covering at which points the team makes the right decisions instead of the wrong ones. If another season/series, then all the considerable unused plot material from the game will be added in to pad it out with the addition of the extra characters and plots supposedly added to the upcoming 3DS remake—this is why the plot so far is relatively spare on character interaction. They will also add in the game's element of the summoners actually fighting alongside the devils to show that they've Took a Level in Badass. It will also be continuously awesome.
- One reason this may be likely is the difference in tone between the anime and the game in general. While the game certainly can be sad, it's ultimately a very positive and empowering plot. The anime...less so, short of an Ass Pull that would be egregious by the standards of the game. Presumably whoever is in charge would like to reconcile the two in some way.
- As an extension of that, and possibly a YMMV thing, the way the anime is written doesn't seem so deceptive/depressive as to get away with what's happened so far, reading a little bit like typical shonen, but as said above has the precedent of the game to suggest it won't have a generic ending. Therefore, this suggests a kind of balance (making perfect sense given the philosophy of the game series) in tone that, to avoid either extreme depressiveness or extreme happy-go-luckiness ( which, again, would be an asspull given the deaths of several main characters and millions of bystanders), suggests in turn that the producers have something up their sleeve.
- If this is indeed the second timeline (or more), then Yamato might have already lost Hibiki due to bad decisions. This stems from how cold he is in the anime compared to his game counterpart. Hibiki might have chosen Daichi's route or Rolando's and probably died fighting Polaris. If Hibiki had a good relationship with Yamato in the previous time lines, then jumping to a different timeline would make sense.
- Yamato is shown to have an injury for using the Dragon Stream. This never happened in the game where he would bleed if he used his powers. If repeating multiple timelines injures him then he would be risking his life.
- Yamato gets a death clip of Hibiki despite the fact he hasn't known Hibiki long enough to grow any emotional attachment (and with Hibiki going Leeroy Jenkins in the previous episode, he has no reason to think of him as nothing but a nuisance.) This explains why he freaks out. If he has gone through multiple timelines, then this hasn't happened before thus he risks his life to save Hibiki.
- This is also supported by Alcor telling Hibiki that Yamato rushed over to take out Phecda to save his life. Yamato does not deny it and calls Alcor a "blabbermouth" instead. This would also mean that Alcor is aware of the time loops and/or is involved with throwing him into the timelines in the first place.
- Yamato is overpowered. Yes he is overpowered in the game, but in the anime Yamato can easily one shot the Septentriones on his own. He only needs one high level demon with him but he can also use two demons at once. This might not be good evidence but he can use Baal which is obtained after maxing out Yamato's FATE route. For me I would see this as huge evidence in the anime because Hinako states that she uses Berserker in remembrance of Keita. Wouldn't stop Yamato from doing the same thing especially if Hibiki and Yamato were close in the original timeline.
- Actually, this isn't bad evidence; Hibiki also starts with the high-leveled overpowered Byakko, so there's some consistency there.
- This also extend to the characters particularly Hibiki. If this is a new timeline then similar to Madoka, I would think Hibiki maintains the power in the previous timeline and gets stronger. I also think it works in reverse as well. Let's say Hibiki took Daichi's route and was killed. If Yamato could manipulate the timeline, he might have deliberately made Daichi weaker so Hibiki would not consider taking Daichi's route given how Daichi cannot pull his own weight. This also applies to Rolando. Yamato can't even remember who Rolando is in the game despite Rolando opposing him the entire game. In the anime, he knows him almost immediately. I wouldn't be surprised if he put Rolando in that situation so that would remove any chance of Hibiki taking his route and getting killed by Polaris.
- Judging by the game, actually affecting a new timeline like that is difficult. Memory also doesn't carry over, but strong feelings do, and Yamato could have been acting on them; this would also explain the below main-point.
- Yamato is just outright cruel to the group as a whole in this timeline and it seems to effect him. An easily missed moment in episode 9 is when Airi is yelling at him, he seems to flinch at her words before Hibiki questions him about "shouldering the burden". The entire banquet scene comes off as mean for Yamato. In the game, Yamato gave everyone the choice on who they wanted to side with. In the anime, he flat out tells them that if they can't think of anything, then they have no choice but to join him. Yamato also constantly states he's shouldering the burden of everyone. What happens if he wasn't referring to those that died but if he was referring to multiple timelines? If he has seen everyone die particularly Hibiki of course he would refer himself as shouldering the burden. He also states that feeling sadness and anger is a waste of time. This takes the elevator scene in a different light. Yamato says he doesn't care if Hibiki sees him as the enemy, he wants Hibiki by his side. He demands that Hibiki submit to him and when that doesn't work, Yamato tells him that if he's a sin, then Hibiki should pass judgement on him. (Also to be noted that the scowl on his face disappears when he calls Hibiki naive. Well if Hibiki chose the other routes and died because of it, then yes he's naive. And another thing is he tells Hibiki that he's the one shouldering everything (but Hibiki seems to think Yamato is referring to himself and says shouldering everything and accepting are two different things).
- Yamato deals with the enemies way faster than in the game with Alioth being the main example. Because the time loop already happened, all he had to do was summon Hinako and Airi to do their roles and have many J Ps on standby to capture Kama and prevent him from running away when requested to move in front of Shiva. Yamato makes sure that Kama is captured immediately and hoisted in the direction of Alioth (who by the way is still in space meaning it doesn't have time to poison entire areas). Yamato also does this IN THE MORNING when Alioth hasn't made its moved and destroys it before it has a chance to attack. He sacrifices Sapparo because he already knows that people are dead and doesn't reveal it to everyone this time around because he feels like its useless despite the fact he revealed this before the plan in the original timeline and that worked better. The same applies to Mizar. He already knows Io is the only one that can channel Lugh's essence and gets her ready in the morning instead of waiting until the late afternoon to handle Mizar when Mizar has yet to reproduce itself. He doesn't tell everyone again because he feels like its useless and the reason why its changed from Io might not surviving to no chance of survivor because Io had no chance to talk to be comforted by the group like in the game where Yamato gave her time to cool off before the mission started.
- Suzaku does infact get summoned by him in episode 5, so it's a safe bet to say that yes, he'll have all of them by the end (and maybe Kohryu as well).
- Jossed. He only gets Byakko and Suzaku, before getting the demons of the others via SDTP in the last episode and fusing them all into Lucifer.
- Jossed. None of them die during the cycle. They did die during the previous-cycle, as the Triangulum Arc takes place in a third cycle.
In the lead-up to his own route, Naoya states that humanity was created by God, which wouldn't jive with the All Myths Are True nature of Devil Survivor, where multiple mythologies co-exist, which brings me to my next theory, that God isn't actually the Judeo-Christian God, but the persona the Anguished One takes in the world he created. Remiel serves a similar purpose to the Anguished One, guiding chosen humans down the path of self determination. Is it unreasonable to believe that Al would leave somebody who filled his own role back when he helped the cast of Devil Survivor 2?
So why the ordeals after promising to let humanity decide its own fate? Because he's pissed off that, after all the sacrifice the cast of Devil Survivor 2 went through, humanity clings to the voice of one King (in this case, Nimrod during the ordeal of the Tower of Babel), and abuses the powers of the demons when they should be forging the world on their own terms. He's testing humanity to see if they deserve the ability to choose that Hibiki and his friends fought so hard for.
Furthermore in Overclocked, if you complete Naoya's 8th Day and choose to protect humanity with the power of Bel and drive away the angels, God respectfully moves the war between the forces of Heaven and Hell to the outer planes so that humanity, the people he so loved, won't be dragged into the conflict anymore. It's not unlikely that The Anguished One saw Hibiki in the young King of Bel (in that he's doing the same thing), and remembered his promise to let humanity do its own thing.
- Makes a lot more sense than randomly making millions of munnies off screen. Or getting money out of nowhere for being freaked out.
- Also, power levels are mentioned frequently but currency is never referred to at all.
- We never actually see these characters die. All we have is Take Our Word for It. It all seems to be leading up to this.
- Since the world is completely erased, it'll have to be rebuilt from scratch now. And as the last two remaining humans, Yamato and Hibiki will reincarnate there as Abel and Cain. Or alternatively, Adam and Eve.
- For extra Mind Screw, that in turn will lead to DS2 game once the protagonist conquers heaven after Naoya's 8th Day and decides to redo their first failed run. Explaining why game Hibiki is far more nonchalant and easy going in the face of crisis and also Yamato's affability compared to his stiffer anime counterpart.
- In one of the endings of the original DS 2, Polaris states the names of those who have sat in the Heavenly Throne before him, and his successor will be Errai. In DS 2: BR, if Restorer is canon, he either takes over the throne and decides to test humanity once more, or if Kingmaker is canon, takes it back from Alcor and punishes humanity for their involvement.
- Keita's fate events will either never involve Jungo, or will allow the protagonist to tell Jungo to stop trying to befriend him.
- If Makoto's Fate is high enough, she will not be a member of Yamato's faction in the endgame if the player chooses another one. Instead, she will be recruitable from the start of Saturday.
- If Ronaldo's fate is high enough, Makoto will never get a death clip. It will be replaced by Fumi's, as Ronaldo takes revenge for the generic Office Lady she kills at the start of the battle. If Fumi does die here, a generic JPs member will give the characters her exposition, and Trumpeter will be a boss.
- Premise 1: Death clips are sent to friends of the victim.
- Premise 2: Ronaldo and Makoto have a healthy serving of tension in their scenes together.
- Conclusion 1: Ronaldo received the Death clip for Makoto, which depicted him killing her.
- Contributing factor: Jips redshirts are much more ruthless in dealing with the rioters. While their civilian helpers simply destroy their ability to fight, Jips soldiers have been inflicting heavy casualties on them offscreen (as noted in Ronaldo's Fate Link).
- Conclusion 2: Ronaldo had been debating whether or not to use lethal force. Receiving the death clip led to his decision to go through with it. (If Keita has died, the party's attitude is subtly different enough that he is influenced to not follow through, since on some level he already knows that Yamato's forces are sufficiently weakened.)
- Actually, there's another thing that gives credence to this theory (that De Su 2 is the prequel of De Su). In fact, there is a mild possibility that De Su 2 is the prequel to ALL SMT timeline, thanks to Meaningful Name. See, according to Polaris, the Heavenly Throne (and thus the Akashic Record) that she rules over will be handed over to Eli the next time. Eli is one name given to God (who has also been called YHVH, among other things). That may mean that the YHVH whom we see in the usual SMT universe may actually be this Eli who inherited the Heavenly Throne from Polaris (assuming the endings where she gets killed doesn't take place). As such, this YHVH is not the all-omnigod from the Christianity, but just an Akashic Record admin, explaining why, nigh-omnipotent as he may be, he's not above getting smacked by some of our SMT heroes.
On the flip-side, though, apparently the names of the Heavenly Throne successors seem to have been re-translated in DeSu 2: RB; The name Eli may have been a misnomer now, but who knows.
2) Desu 1 hero has gone full overlord, and after beating Yaweh, becomes equally tyrannical. He learns of other worlds, and decides to conquer them as well, starting with the Desu 2 world. Just to twist the knife, he uses his overlord awesomeness to brainwash those who had previously turned against him into fighting with him, with the exception of Atsuro, who still stays loyal even now, in hopes of bringing his buddy back to his old self.
3) No explanation. The old heroes show up, and the two groups just fight it out.
Also, who you fight will be determined by who you have in your party at the time. If you have Io and Daichi, then Yuzu and Atsuro will be there. If you have Otome, then Mari will show up. each member of your party will be matched by their closest Desu 1 counterpart.
- Characters who would likely have been better suited would be Fumi, Otome, and Yamato. Yamato obviously needs to run the ritual, even if he was willing to risk his own death. Fumi and Otome have niches in the organization besides battle, - Computer Science and Medicine - while also outclassing Io in combat abilities, which from JPs point of view is all Io has (On the other hand, Otome might have died already). Even if Yamato wasn't sore about the spoilered event, he'd still see Io as being more disposable than the other magic users.
Shortly before confronting Polaris, Hibiki checks his phone to see how he managed to create Lucifer, sees his system email, realizes what an idiot he's been, then cracks Victory Cry from one of Polaris' guardians and beats it down.
- It begins with Daichi's Restorer ending - but not the triumphant variant. Polaris immediately begins the ordeal again.
- Next is the Golden ending Record Breaker shows. Wistful Amnesia allows the protagonist to befriend everyone more quickly and pull all 14 characters onto the same team. Polaris is killed off for real, and Alcor takes the Heaveanly throne.
- The Triangulum steal the Heavenly Throne out from under Alcor, and he goes to earth to warn everyone. The first thing the Triangulum do with the Akashic Record is remove the protagonist from it. In his absence, Yamato leads everyone against the Triangulum, but Arcturus delivers a Total Party Kill. Before Yamato succumbs to his injuries, Alcor devises a plan and sneaks Yamato into the Akashic Stratum through a backdoor to add the protagonist back into reality.
- The protagonist regains consciousness partway through the transfer. Tico refreshes his memory, but lets him believe this is the third timeline instead of the fourth. Yamato is not presently part of reality, so in his absence, Miyako leads Jps. However, the Protagonist's existence is not fully stabilized: whenever the Triangulum realize he exists, they try to write him out of reality again.
Being the mind of the universe, it's impossible to kill him even if you do get around the Factors. It's just that, upon having been defeated, he suffered a massive glitch and underwent a backup procedure that is effectively "you win some, you lose some"-he was reborn into a form that accepted "Humanity is worthy of existence, along with the potential alternate universe that they created for themselves" as part of the Akashic Record, thus saving the Record itself by changing it to fit an unfixable problem. In effect, he redefined humanity from "bug" to "feature". Mostly because I have a hard time believing there is no previous sapient species that hasn't pulled off that trick, if only because of raw probability.
Ronaldo's path in the Triangulum Arc involves everyone holding a portion of the administrative authority over the world. If he killed everyone and took the authority himself, as he has shown himself willing to cross the Moral Event Horizon, and said that he would be willing to kill anyone who opposed his world of equality, he could become equivalent to an Administrator. Since he is obsessed with justice, fighting admins forever and alone could drive him insane to think he is God and has the right to judge and control everyone, which would explain why YHVH diverges from the biblical idea of God supporting free will. He may not have created his world of equality yet because the war against the Administrators isn't over yet, so every SMT game might be another world shaped by Ronaldo / YHVH to fight another admin who doesn't show up during that game. Also, Yamato seems to be a more honest, reasonable version of Lucifer, so Lucifer could have been Ronaldo turning the idea of Yamato, who he hates, into a strawman who is even named Lucifer to reflect Ronaldo's absolute hatred, and who YHVH is eventually deluded into thinking is actually the devil.
