Okay, first of all, can I just say what an upgrade it is for this amazing girl to go from spending most of the last game as either a hostage or a Pokemon to being a mysterious supporting background force throughout this game that culminates in her masterminding an incredible plan that brings all our heroes together and allows for the possibility of a complete and total victory that simultaneously defeats the undefeatable apocalypse beasts and undoes a crippling mental health plague across the entire city!? Really puts into perspective how unwise we were to neglect her before now, but better late than flippin’ never!
Seeing her here being a beacon of hope that’s assembling this plan and this team with such love and passion makes me feel such a wave of second-hand pride. Rhyme is awesome!
Secondly, I LOVE THIS PLAN! This is so cool! We really are making use of (almost) everybody’s gifts in a creative combination that makes sense to us players and solves the problem as laid out before us with all the gifts as demonstrated up until this point!
Not only that, but it’s a plan that thematically answers Haz’s earlier question: “What makes this city so special?” Rindo’s answer to that question relied on the presence of his friends, so when he lost them - even when the city was cured of its plague - he couldn’t find anything to like about it. Now they’re going to save the city together by getting everyone in Shibuya to answer that question in their own way and in doing so cure that same plague on their own! Shibuya is practically saving itself, proving its own worth in the process!
It took us a while to get here, but if this plan goes off half as beautifully as it sounds, it was time well spent!
Looking over this, I’m noticing Rhyme responds directly to Neku at the start there, even though it was established earlier that she can’t see or hear him. Is that a goof? It’s not like it’s a big deal, heck, I’ll gladly write it off as someone passing his question on off-screen or something. Just noticed it though.
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In which I speak a bit more on (NEO) TWEWY, Shinjuku's Reapers, and JP workplaces
So to add on a little bit more to some thoughts I had in relation to Challenges in Localization And Cultural Nuance and mageknight14's good analysis on Shoka Not Having Had The Best Family Life, both of which touch on Japanese businesses and how they're run, I'd like to expound a bit more on how the whole Shinjuku Reaper situation really is a series of two separate (and yet, as it turns out, somewhat related) cultural contexts.
One of these is that Shinjuku, particularly Kabuchi-cho (which if/when we see the strongly hinted Shinjuku Interquel I fully expect to see that localized as "Kabuki Backstreets" or "Kabuki Alley" or something similar), has had a historical rep as a "red-light" district, and as a fairly major spot for Yakuza and similar organized crime activity. (And there are entire franchises that focus on THIS aspect of Shinjuku, as well.)
The other context, which is probably not as familiar to Americans (who are more likely to have played one of the Yakuza games), is that Shinjuku is one of the areas that is a major business hub within Tokyo metro proper. (Square Enix actually moved their headquarters to Shinjuku around 2012 or so after having moved from Yayoi--a part of Shibuya we've never seen in a TWEWY game--and is ironically moving back to Shibuya next year in the Sakuragaoka area just south of Mark City.)
And as it turns out, the Shinjuku Reapers and their situation are a MASSIVE parody of how Japanese businesses are run (particularly how certain trends culturally can result in a business--or a Game--becoming highly dysfunctional).
So. Japanese businesses have (in comparison to US businesses) a lot of stratification and (although this is changing somewhat) there's still kind of the ideal that if you get into an actual business (versus, say, working at the Lawson or the Family Mart or 7-Eleven) where you're wearing a suit and tie, you're essentially set for Life as long as you don't rock the boat.
Historically, this even extended to your prospects of a Forever Job being tied to what college and even what high school you attended (hence why there has been such an incredible pressure with kids being sent to cram schools to get into a good high school, and then get into a good college, as good employers tended to hire directly out of specific colleges).
And there's not really the Layoff Culture there is in the US, and generally the main reason someone leaves a business in Japan involves retirement, involves (especially in creative fields) some irreconcilable differences with the board of directors, or some kind of a Scandal where one has seriously hecked up and been Removed.
(Again, this is changing some, especially for younger folks, and in part the NEET culture (Not in Education, Employment or Training) is kind of a rebellion against this social pressure, but right now I'm focusing on how typical businesses are run once you manage to get into a suit-and-tie occupation in Japan.)
So once you do get IN a company, there's a LOT of societal pressure to really devote everything to company success--not just in terms of working late/working OT, but even societal obligations of going to Company Dinners where you go drinking with your boss/supervisor, social events, morning exercise with the company, etc. that honestly has had a history of lending itself to abuse (karoshi, or literally working yourself to death, IS a phenomena in Japan to the point there have been workplace laws to try to reduce the abuse).
Aggretsuko is actually another bit of popular media that explicitly calls out a lot of the more abusive practices like power harassment and the demands a company places on workers, etc. Cells At Work! Code BLACK actually depicts someone dying of an abusive workplace...as the stereotypical abusive "black company", the Japanese slang term for a particularly abusive corporate sweatshop.
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Wings: Reapers, Pig Noise and Soul Pulvis
While playing around with ideas for my AU, I came across some interesting similarities between Reaper Wings and Soul Pulvis Wings.
We've seen both in the TWEWY and in the Animation that Minamimoto has had quite interesting wings. He has multiple pairs of wings. They can shatter or can gain a purple Taboo haze depending on the media. They're messed up in some way.
Even though Minamimoto isn't a Reaper in NEO, could our Chaotic Math Man have a new type of messed up wings as he continues to absorb dangerous birds?
Let's dive into that and see where that leads.
Shibuya Reaper Wings
First, let's take a look at a couple of Reaper Wings. We see some variations with the Shibuya Reapers.
Since they are similar to bat wings, I'm going to try and use the same terminology where I can.
Generally speaking, we have the Arm leading up to a central point called the Wrist where the Thumb(s) and Fingers can extend from. One outer Finger forms the outside edge of the wing and then multiple inner Fingers extend out from the Wrist and along the Arm. The Reaper wings also have a smaller extrusion right by the Thumb too, which can either be a second Thumb or another Finger. The Fingers extending downwards are connected by an Arc, which connects back to the Arm.
Coco's wings are smaller and more curvy while Kariya's are larger and sharper. Uzuki's are even larger, very rigid, and the inner Fingers don't all extend out from the Wrist, but along the Arm.
For the extra piece by the big Thumb, I'm leaning towards it being another Thumb, for theory crafting reasons way below. But if sticking with bat terminology, it would be another Finger I think.
Shinjuku Reapers
We kinda get to see Shinjuku Reaper Wings. I did some Level Correction to see some of their wings better. (Mourn the variety. It's hoodies only in Shibuya, if you're not good enough, or something.)
Anyways, they generally follow Kariya's wing style.
Pig Noise
In TWEWY, Pig Butoh (along with Polka and Tango, blue and red colour palette swaps) have Reaper like wings. In NEO, we have Pig Mambo (light) and Pig Bolero (dark). It's a little hard to tell but they appear to have the same wing shape as they do in TWEWY, just that they curl around in front. The overlap might make it look like it creates a "gap" like the wings like for the Pig Mambo (light).
Both the Reaper and Pig wings have a connecting Arc across the Fingers. However, the Pig Noise has an extra piece where the Arm connects to the body, not like the little Thumb or extra Finger by the big Thumb for Reaper Wings, and there is a circular cut or hole removed from the Thumb.
But in general, we can see that Reapers and Pig Noise have a similar structure to their wings.
Now let's get theory crafting!
Soul Pulvis
So how are Soul Pulvis wings and Reaper wings related?
I stumbled on this by trying to make a Reaper Wing look a little more like a Soul Pulvis wing, and then made a Soul Pulvis wing look a little like a Reaper Wing. Added an additional step, modified the other stages and I got something like this:
With that, we can see that the Soul Pulvis has a similar wing structure to the Reaper Wings:
The fully connected inner Fingers in the Reaper Wing gets separated from the Wrist. One Finger moves down to where it would connect to the body, kinda like the Pig Noise or maybe like Uzuki's Wings. A star "eye" symbol appears in the gap between the Arm, outer Finger and Arc. The Arm and Thumb have shrunk. The second Thumb or other Finger by the old big Thumb has grown and now is curving in the opposite direction, away from the Thumb. We could say that the central Star Eye is part of the Fingers or is an entirely new thing.
So what does this mean?
Well, if we were able to see Minamimoto's Reaper wings during NEO (say if, an Angel could still see them), I think they could be at various stages of the above transformation. Maybe they would not reach the same design as the Soul Pulvis wings, but I think they would at least have gotten influenced by his bird snacking.
But that's not all.
There is something else that is similar to the Soul Pulvis and is linked to some Minamimoto:
The open floating eyes that Felidae Cantus, Minamimoto from NEO's Another Day's Noise form, has. And it can be hard to tell, but there are Soul Pulvis flying circling around the fight, in addition to the mathematical formulas.
Keeping the Soul Pulvis and the open floating eyes that Felidae Cantus has in mind, we can see similarities. Let's do another transformation to make it clearer:
Most of the transformation occurs on the side closest to the body. There is a question of how the body side of the wing either grows another Finger or if the innermost Finger strengthens its attachment back to the other inner Fingers. But really they're not that different. And there are some similarities to the Reaper wings too. The tips of the Fingers are closer to the pointy Reaper wing spikes instead of the Soul Pulvis curves.
If the floating Eyes are not something separate, they could be Soul Pulvis wings that separated from their body.
This is why if we continue to use the same wing structure terminology, the Soul Pulvis and the floating Eyes that the extra bit near the Thumb, might be a second Thumb. Although, it could be that for Reaper-like wings that it would be a Finger, even though it's pointing in a different direction and isn't connected by an Arc.
So what does all of this mean?
Super theory crafting time! Let's consider everything so far:
Reaper Wings and Pig Noise Wings share similar wing structures.
Minamimoto in TWEWY and the Animation can have 2 additional pairs of wings compared to regular Reapers.
We've seen from TWEWY and the Animation that his (totally 100% normal) six wings can get messed up by shattering (TWEWY) or get a purple Taboo haze surround them (Animation). The Animation makes it clear that the haze is Taboo haze, which he gains once he gets very Taboo-ified.
Minamimoto has been consuming Soul Pulvis in NEO, so it may mess up his wings again.
There is a possible transformation from a Reaper Wing to a Soul Pulvis Wing.
Felidae Cantus has Soul Pulvis circling around their fight.
Soul Pulvis wings are very similar to the floating open Eyes that Felidae Cantus has.
Therefore, it is possible that our mainline NEO Minamimoto has messed up wings by absorbing the Soul Pulvis, and if Another Day Minamimoto is an even further Soul Pulvis infused Minamimoto - and if those floating Eyes are not something separate or a transformed/part of a Soul Pulvis - there is a possibility that the floating Eyes are his wings.
Now there are only 3 in the fight, which is not 2 or 6. But this is a different Minamimoto. Maybe his wing growth is in progress. Maybe he's learning and can't convert all his Wings into Eyes. Maybe he wants the fight to be fair(-ish). I dunno! But let's consider a Minamimoto who grew so skilled that he could turn his wings...Into weapons!
Anyways this was mostly an exercise in seeing how I could potentially mess up Minamimoto's Reaper wings and this is where it got me. If there is cool fan media of this or someone makes cool stuff based on this, feel free to send it my way cause I'd love to see it!
(Master Post of TWEWY Series Analysis)
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