The World Ends With You: A Literary Analysis (Part 6 - Conclusion)

[Music] hello I'm the game professor and welcome to the final episode of games as lacroix

no one's literary analysis of the world ends with you wow do I tend to bite off more than I can chew when I do these multi video series but hey at least this time it's about one of my all-time

favorite games last time I did this it was about the Gears of War trilogy anyway let's do this we've been summarizing and analyzing the game as we go over the course of the last five episodes but now this is the

end and it's time to draw our conclusions and summarize our final thoughts on the game I do recommend you start with previous videos if you haven't seen them already because this one's gonna be building on them and obviously it's gonna spoil the world

ends with you so play that if you haven't already so finally let's get into actually you know what one last quick sidetrack I promise it will be short and worth it but we have to talk

about the music [Music] The World Ends With You is a fantastic game from a lot more than just a narrative perspective we haven't talked

a lot about the graffiti anime art style because while I'm not an art critic and honestly don't have much to say about it beyond the fact that I think it's pretty great but I did want to at least touch

on the music you've been hearing it throughout this video series and if you've played the game for yourself it's likely at least a few tracks occupy a permanent spot in your brain I'm sure we could get a lot of meaning out of an

in-depth musical analysis but frankly it's a huge soundtrack and we don't have time for that here but it's worth covering in broad strokes because the lyrics and styles do communicate the game's tone in a number of ways even if

this is unfortunately slightly complicated by the fact that many of these songs are performed in English in the translations aren't always great as

you progress through the game the musical styles grow and evolve throughout week one it's mostly a mix of electronic music and j-rock stylings and the songs largely speak of wonder and improvement you can hear some of it in

one of the most popular tracks calling

[Music] the second week introduces more rap songs and the lyrics take a turn toward

the cynical and

[Music]

the third week continues the genre trend but the lyrics start encompassing more of the story's themes the song that plays during the first battle of we free is called transformation and includes

these lyrics

[Music]

so there's a definite progression along with the story and the styles and lyrics of the music but aside from that the game doesn't do a lot to assign specific songs to specific characters or anything

like that but there are a lot of lyrics that relate to various elements of the story and characters a good few lyrics are exactly the kinds of meditations on the vapid lies of society you'd expect

from a game about angsty teens in the

after others communicate how stifled meku feels in a city of people early in the story

[Music]

one even references anonymous internet

culture and explicitly references to

Chan the Japanese equivalent ultimately

the music of the world ends with you isn't necessary for a better understanding of the game in a way that we could say of something like transistor for instance but it absolutely is part of the games

messaging and tone and you know it's also took really really good with that out of the way it's time to get into the meat of this analysis we've been building up to this for a long time so

let's dive right in starting with how the nature of the Shibuya Underground reflects the games messages [Music]

there is a lot to the inner workings of the ug and if you're really interested in this story I highly recommend reading all of the secret reports but for the purposes of this video series we're

looking at what the world ends with you is saying so I'm not going into this so much to explain everything about how the world works as to understand how the games a supernatural setting relates to

its messages so with that said there are a few things worthy of note first mister Hana coma the author of The Secret reports is what's known as the producer of the game sent from the next plane

after the ug called the plane of angels he's here to oversee the game and make sure it goes smoothly the secret reports explain a lot about how the ug works and how the events of the game transpired behind the scenes so

I'm gonna try and hit some of the highlights the Reapers game exists as a way of judging the worth of the dead and refining them in hopes that they might move up the ranks from player two Reaper

and eventually to whatever mr. Hana coma is of course most don't make it that far and those who are erased in the ug end up fueling an energy called imagination which is what fuels the use of sykes through the pens in case the games use

of creativity as a force of self-expression is inflaton enough yet we now find out that the powers the characters use in the game are literally fueled by imagination channel through pins with art on them we also get this

bit of info upon returning to life the exceptional players creative activities soon make their mark upon society his arts music and other output become a part of culture spreading and persisting through time refining people's

imagination even without personal contact with the player this seems to imply that mr. H once won the game and returned to life himself creating art as Kat and Nick whose obsession with that art lightly played a role in fostering

his potential we also get this bit about Meg whose time with Joshua and week 2 as expected the psychological strain is severe so severe in fact that most players would be unable to continue right now the only thing keeping the

proxy in the game is his entry fee at least his dangerously strained state of mind is acting to heighten his soul I saw no sign of relapse or destabilization rather the return of his memory seems to have yielded only

positives this game really loves to provide literal or magical world building analogs to thematic or personal elements of the story so of course we get an actual

literal magical force that makes Joshua's mere presence a psychological strain on Neku as a companion to the fact that Joshua was a firming neck whose worst ideas and sort of implicitly

challenging him to either relapse back into them or move on from them but there is one weird loose end in all of this minami moto I love the guy but he seems

kind of strange when we zoom out and look at the broad movements of the story he sticks out a lot without seeming to actually mean all that much to the grand narrative turns out that's because he's

actually an emergency back-up plan minami moto is the only one aside from mr. H and the conductor who somehow found out who Joshua was thus his attempts to kill him in the RG and the

way he immediately recognized Joshua and weak to his use of the trigonometrical acronym sohcahtoa was some pretty clever foreshadowing that he recognized his superior some old horses can always hear

their owner approach the secret reports tell us about a fallen angel someone from the same plane as mr. Hanna coma who has been an informant to minami moto and taught him the forbidden art of summoning taboo noise and reviving

himself that fallen angel as it turns out is mr. Hanna coma himself he empowered Minami moto as a back-up plan in hopes that should the composer's plan to destroy Shibuya come to fruition

Minami moto would be able to defeat him and Shibuya would be saved this of course proved both ineffective and unnecessary but mr. Hana comas decision to bring that stigma upon himself to ensure the survival of

Shibuya speaks to the strength of his conviction and indicates that Hana comas off who Joshua's plans for Shibuya had wanted to intervene in whatever ways he could like I said there's a lot more interesting stuff in those reports and if you're really interested in this

story I highly recommend giving all of them are read I'm gonna put a link to one of the wiki's in the description in case you don't have time to go through the game and unlock each of them individually because that can be very

very time-consuming in any case with all that out of the way let's move on from how the ug works and what was going on in the background of this story and work a little bit more on what the ug means

like a lot of things in the world ends with you the ug is best understood not only as a literal setting for the story to take place in but also as a metaphorical tool to illustrate the

game's principles just as the is a hidden plane that is connected to the real world cannot be seen by it but affects it in a variety of ways each person's worldview is a secret internal

world that others can't directly see but that affects the expression of that person and imprints itself on the world around them through their actions as Joshua described it a secret garden unique to everyone and a number of

elements of the ugu relate to this analogy as well in a broad sense the noise represents the thoughts that cloud our heads and make it more difficult to understand and empathize with other people if that simmering jealousy that

makes us mistreat our friends and make assumptions about their intentions it's that frustration with ourselves that paradoxically discourages us from acting on the needs of ourselves and others and of course it is both a product of our

failure to understand other people and a proponent of that failure it's cyclical the noise is both attracted to conflict between people and thrives within conflict inside of people these two

functions are represented narratively and mechanically in the game these thoughts these mental blocks to understanding and positively interacting with others exist inside of us and fester before actively creating more

conflict in our interactions with others the noise is the game's symbol for that process the Yugi also brings the subtext of understanding others into the foreground with mechanics like mind-reading and imprinting these bring

more clarity and focus to the ways we affect each other using the core metaphor of the ug to make concepts like understanding and influencing people a bit less abstract in the game than they are in real life

and it has to be noted how the ug speaks specifically to the teenage experience the messages of the world ends with you are hardly limited to that particular age group but it does relate to them

quite a lot you can't miss all the teen angst in this one to navigate through a confusing time and grow into an adult is often an isolating and confusing experience it can seem like you're living a completely

different life from everyone around you much like you're on another plane of existence one can feel unseen much like the players of the game are literally invisible to the people of vrg and amidst all of this confusion it's

somehow very easy to feel like you already have all the answers and to shut out anyone who tells you different but one of my favorite things about how the ug speaks to the game's messaging is

actually related to the concept of we established that noise is the manifestation of discord that makes it difficult for us to understand ourselves and connect with others in the ug that

noise is capable of directly erasing players removing them from the world entirely considering the symbolism of noise we talked about a bit ago this means that a racer is brought about when one is overpowered by the literal forces

of apathy and judgmentalism we also established in the video about week two that the ultimate result of Neku self-centered worldview is complete removal from society even to the point

where Neku had seriously considered whether the undeath of the ug was preferable to being around other people in the real world and in that same scene cheeky beat and rhyme are all looking at

the people around them lamenting that everyone is completely unaware of their presence rhyme expresses sadness at the fact that they're completely invisible and meaningless to the people around them this brings up the fear of not

mattering of leaving no mark on the world erasure here isn't just an analogue for death it's also a metaphor for isolationism if the world ends with necky

and he keeps entirely to himself he's not just keeping others out of his world he's also keeping himself from theirs it makes him effectively invisible

ineffective ultimately the game is portraying the act of withdrawing from society as an act of self erasure so there's clearly a lot to the way the game uses the ug is a parallel to its

messages and like I said we didn't even touch on all of it here just some of the stuff I thought was most noteworthy if you want to know more I definitely do recommend reading those secret reports but for now I think it's time we got

back to Neku [Music] by the end of the game Neku is of course embodying the way the game believes people should live their lives and interact with others which means that it

is rather important that we understand where Neku ends up and how he expresses his new outlook but as it turns out we've spent five freakin videos already

tracing the trajectory of Necas character development so I'd say by now we already have a pretty good idea of how that turns out Neku starts out as a loner with a toxic worldview that

prioritizes his own experience and ignores all others and ultimately he saves Shibuya by learning to value other people and the diversity of perspective Shibuya has to offer we've gone through all the major character beads read

through all the important quotes so rather than reiterate what we already know I would just like to highlight some of the more notable elements of the climax first is that it brought all Nick who's previous partners back for the ending this wasn't strictly necessary

but it brings a lot more attention to the fuse of teamwork and relationships than if Nick who finished the whole thing alone or just with feet and of course we get the big battle where he works together with them all because as we've seen time and time again this game

loves to use its mechanics to reflect its messages second one of the better touches I think there's a battle with the conductor that ends up leaving beat and shiki out cold and Nick who ventures on alone not because he thinks he's

better off that way but because he commits to seeing this through for his friends that is in and of itself a great improvement over old Neku but the game doesn't even let it stop there if

anything it actually paints this act as the last thread of his old self even if used with more noble intentions his lone heroism is promptly discarded by his friends when they show up and

chastise him for thinking he was still alone it's one small scenario that manages to both show how far Nick who has come and the tree appropriating his loner behavior isn't enough to reflect

his newfound philosophy he's not alone he never has to be again and he's better for it and of course the ultimate proof of mecca's growth his response to Joshua's ultimatum in the final moments

of at a glance this choice seems questionable the consequences if neck who were to lose this deal aren't just

for him it's for all of Shibuya and Joshua isn't looking super trustworthy right now even by his standards but this final standoff was actually set up a

long time ago way earlier in the game when Nick who was faced with a nearly identical situation but made a very different decision Neku is told by an authority figure with

obviously shrouded intentions that he has to kill his partner to save himself from the game and if he fails to do so he will be erased and this first time Nick who falls for it very nearly murdering someone and getting himself

killed and now at the end of the game the situation is playing itself out again except this time Nick who not only has his previous experience to guide him

but the words of mr. Hana coma as well trust your partner Neku chooses trust he decides that putting his life in Joshua's hands is a better option than

violently taking control of his own destiny and he hopes that this act of radical trust will get through to Joshua and in a great touch that again does a

much better job than week 1 of acknowledging trauma alongside trust and teamwork listen to what meku has to say about all this at the end of the game

trust your partner and I do I can't forgive you but I trust you Joshua's deception his

manipulation and his just generally being a jerk aren't erased nor is the trauma he put Neku fool neck who's not doing this blindly he's not magically getting over what

Joshua did to him and in fact straight-up says he hasn't forgiven him and isn't sure if he can but he trusts him and appreciates that his trust wasn't misplaced but the world ends with

you isn't just a game about personal growth in relationships it's actually

much much bigger than that so let's

start off by talking about the title for all this talk about how the phrase The World Ends With You was instrumental to

understanding this story it's actually not even the original Japanese title that original title is also name dropped in the game but in a very different

place and with a very different meaning the Japanese title translates to it's a wonderful world which means that the original title drop isn't in an inspirational speech from the game's

wise mentor figure but in a disturbing monologue taking over the minds of everyone in Shibuya this doesn't change the meaning of the game or anything but the shift in focus is interesting the

English title emphasizes the game's core concept of expanding your world through others well the original Japanese title is more about the idea of a wonderful

world and what makes it so early on niku believes that the answer is a world where everyone Minds their own business and doesn't reach out to others but the game ultimately argues that openness to other people and their ideas is what

creates a wonderful world in other words the English title emphasizes the game's message on a personal level and the Japanese title emphasizes it on a societal one the fact that both titles

work as well as they do is a testament to the game's messaging and how it works on both a small personal scale and a large societal one the game itself takes this personal

story about Neku learning to be a better person and applies it on a much larger apocalyptic level when we see a mirror of Neku Szold cynicism in the

conductor's plan to help everyone understand each other by removing all of their differences if you had asked a young Neku how best to fix the world's

problems oh okay well he probably would have said he didn't care but assuming he did actually try to answer the question he likely would have suggested something

very similar to this just stop people from disagreeing remove conflict it's useless to try and understand others anyways so just skip that step make it

unnecessary just make everyone the same but of course we see him shifting his viewpoint over the course of the game eventually leading him to the complete opposite place he was at the beginning my favorite example is probably when

Joshua suggests that anyone could replicate Cats success by using the player pin to read people's minds thus figuring out what they want and making things that appeal to them but even at this point in week two Nick who

disagrees sure people don't think alike we don't know what's going through the other guy's head but we can't try to find out right expand our worlds through each other maybe that's a better way to

go the real way to enjoy each moment yeah I could try to be cat through this pin but why where's the enjoyment in that and of course by the end Nick who completely rejects the idea that the

world would be better if he didn't need to deal with different people when he tells the conductor may be 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 is 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 in a game full of moments that spell out its message this is one of the more comprehensive examples here the world ends with you is not only arguing

relationships make us stronger but that they do so specifically because of our differences that reaching out to others and taking the time and effort to understand them and learn from them

makes us stronger not only as people but as a society and of course the whole game ends with the ultimate expression of Nick whose ability to understand others and allow himself to be

vulnerable to them throwing away his shot choosing to trust his partner even through his anger and confusion choosing to believe that he had more to gain from his relationship with Joshua than from

hating him which is where we get into Joshua because while Nick who is the key to understanding what this game is saying Joshua is the key to its larger narrative and how the game is applying

its themes on a grand scale [Music] Joshua is the one who set this all in motion we don't know a ton about him really because we have no idea how much truth was in the backstory he gave us in

week two but his frustration with shibuya was the catalyst for this whole thing the explanation we get is that Joshua wanted to destroy the city because well it has much potential the people in it are in his words too dull

and clouded to see them but I suspect there's a bit more to it than that because of all the people in Shibuya that Joshua could have picked to represent him in the game he chose Neku

Neku is kind of a puzzling pic if we assume that Joshua's goal was to win this contest with the conductor early-game Neku seems like just about the worst possible person to choose if

your goal is to win a game that requires working with other people but that I would argue is actually the point because Nick who is a terrible choice if the goal is to win the game but he's an

excellent choice if the goal is to either prove or disprove Joshua's point Joshua was open to the possibility that he could have been wrong about all this so his pick wasn't made with the

intention of winning the game the proving of the point if Nick who failed to get over his issues and work with others it would affirm Joshua's diagnosis of Shibuya and justify its destruction in his mind but if Neku

Sakuraba the most anti-social self-interested person around could learn to consider others and let them be part of his world it would give Joshua good reason to reconsider whether Shibuya really deserved to destruction

the secret reports state outright that Joshua was uncertain whether neck who could break out of what mr. H described as an obsessive self-actualization living and grow as a person it would seem that Joshua chose him for the

specific purpose because otherwise it makes very little sense that he would pick someone who is so ill suited for the rapers gaming interestingly enough Joshua and his whole plot actually have a lot of references to similar biblical

animus the composer is often referred to as a god and one who both watches over our world and runs the afterlife the pronoun he is even capitalized when referencing him a policy used to refer

to God in monotheistic religions the name of Joshua is even related to the name of Jesus by way of the Hebrew name Yeshua and of course there's that bit where he holds his arms out like a cross and

sacrifices himself for Nichkhun but the deeper parallels show up in a few particular stories from the Old Testament in which God is considering wiping out a group of people but is

convinced to alter his plans by a normal person this happens a few times like when Moses comes down from getting the Ten Commandments to see the Israelites created an idol to worship in God's place Orban Jonah was spit up by the

will to change the sinful ways of Nineveh and God was more merciful than Jonah even wanted him to be or when Abraham convinced God to search Sodom for as few as ten righteous people before deciding to purge the city in

each of these God was so frustrated with his creation that he considered wiping the slate clean as he does actually do on a few occasions but was convinced that there was something actually worth saving

even if in Sodom's case it was only a single family point being the game is rather intentional in his comparisons to these stories so there's something to be said for the fact that Joshua not only

allowed an opportunity to change his mind but picked a representative who was more likely to either fail or prove Joshua wrong than to enable his plan this wasn't about winning for him it was

about understanding before he took action The World Ends With You is from Joshua's perspective the story of an angry god looking for a reason to still believe in the goodness of humanity and

by seeing the least likely person to display that goodness overcome his shortcomings and make exactly the kind of change that Joshua had come to believe humanity was

incapable of managing he came to believe that there was actually hope for this we've been spending this whole video series talking about what the world ends with you means on a personal level but

now that we have the whole picture we can see how impressive this game really is in its consistency because this may have turned into a game about a bunch of

teenagers saving the world from God but even that stereotypical JRPG outline is directed at expanding the game's thematic messages from a personal story

to a worldwide one

[Music] on a personal level the world ends with you is about opening up to other people and allowing them to influence your life

and to the world saving plot is about proving that people can improve society by looking outside their own experiences and learning from each other which means that not only do we have a statement about the importance of personal

relationships but also a larger message about how this practice could shape society in positive ways and a warning against a homogeneous culture in other words when we zoom out and see what the

world ends with you is saying about the human condition how best to live as a society as a collection of humans the

game is ultimately about diversity how dare you insert your personal politics into this entirely a political game that

has nothing to say about you hey stop let me explain the World Ends With You is not a subtle game complex asure dense

definitely even nuanced absolutely but it's far from subtle if I wanted to analyze this game from a specific perspective I could do that that's a thing I can look at this game from a

liberal perspective of modernist perspective a Calvinist perspective pretty much anything if I wanted to because that is normal if you've ever taken a high school literature class

you've probably written an essay dissecting of work of literature from some specific worldview or belief system or philosophy because that is an established element of literary

criticism but even so that's not what I'm doing here the fact is that the world ends with you leaves very little up to interpretation there's just not much for us to take in varying ways

certainly different things to focus on like I could have spent more time talking about the games commentary on capitalism or how it handles Shiki from a feminist perspective or any other number of things but there's not a ton

of wiggle room for what the game means overall some of these analyses like transistor and even Halo 2 I've put a ton of time and effort into figuring what I believe the game is saying so I

can present my findings to you but that's not really what this video series has been because in the world ends with you all this stuff is just there plain

and clear for all to see spoken directly and clearly through exposition and monologues all I've really been doing is presenting it in a shorter format that brings the thematic elements into focus

outside of the surrounding narrative there's very little interpretation going on here all that to say this is not me inserting my politics into the world

ends with you the game is blatantly sending a very clear message about a socio-political concept and I'm just trying to pass that message on so just hear me out at least before you go

commenting about how I'm somehow putting politics into this game's explicit social commentary okay the concept of diversity in the sense that it gets thrown around in political and social

justice arenas these days isn't just some arbitrary call to force a bunch of different people in together for no reason it's founded on the idea that we both as individuals and as a society are

better off for the presence of a wide variety of perspectives experiences and ideas about the world if that sounds familiar it's because we've been constantly talking about it for the last

six videos every facet of the world ends with you is all about exploring and validating this idea but it also goes one step further by portraying crowded diverse cities like Shibuya as bastions

of this kind of betterment in most developed nations there's a stereotype of the liberal city densely populated areas tend to be more politically and ideologically liberal than sparsely populated ones and there's a reason for

that a core element of liberalism on a cultural level is giving consideration and equal value to a diverse range of experiences identities and worldviews

rather than fostering and living by one above all others and it's very difficult to live in a densely populated place without exposure to that diverse range of experiences so much to the chagrin of

more rural areas with conservative values those who move to the city have a tendency to come out of the experience with a relatively liberal mindset due to exposure to a wider variety of perspectives

Frances and World News The World Ends With You is portraying this effect by having a character who goes from isolation to opening himself up to all of the people around him but it's not

just a portrayal of this whole liberal city archetype the entire game is basically one long form argument that it's a good thing this bit of the game's

messaging is deeply rooted in Japanese history and culture as the nation has historically had a tendency to fluctuate between being open to the rest of the world and being more nationalistic isolationist and imperialist to this day

there's a pretty big cultural difference between the nation's rural areas and metropolitan ones as Japan's comfortable a lot of isolationist periods throughout history and it wasn't all that long ago that it was incredibly nationalistic and

imperialistic there's a tension between progress and tradition that you can feel as part of the country's evolving identity and this game has a pretty clear position on where that struggle should ultimately land and that's even

before getting into the effects of the Lost Decade or the hiki Komori phenomenon in which hundreds of thousands of Japanese people are secluding themselves and refusing to participate meaningfully in society

which is why I say the game has a clear political stance the story is about the importance of expanding our world by opening ourselves up to other people and their ideas which is why it's almost entirely comprised of Neku learning to

better himself by considering other people and learning to value them and their perspectives it rather explicitly considered cities like Shibuya to be the ideal environment for this positive change to take place it's a battlefield

of ideas a confluence of differing opinions and experiences in which the game believes people can and should learn to listen to one another and allow themselves to change as a result the

entire plot is basically about God judging the city for not doing this well enough and being convinced to spare it because there are still righteous people within it righteousness in the game's eyes being their ability to expand their

worlds through each other The World Ends With You is one big long blatant argument for diversity and openness if anything the games message is even more political in its home country than here

in the states the game isn't entirely perfect in its expression of this theme of course most notably in that it's a game about diversity of ideas and experiences that rather pointedly

doesn't have much diversity of people it's cast it's one of those things where we can call it a product of its time and it's not like this actually harms what the game is trying to say in any major way but that doesn't mean it couldn't

have made its point a little better if it's cast reflect on its message as much as everything else does but what the overarching plot manages to accomplish is taking the personal themes of self-expression and expanding their

world through others and apply them on a larger scale the scale of a friend group the scale of a city the scale of the world the world ends with you wants to make it clear that we influence the

world that our actions and ideas and expression have the ability to sway entire cultures joshua's final decision is the ultimate expression of this theme he is for all intents and purposes a god

and he's been swayed by the actions and conviction of a few teenagers because just like they can influence the trends of a bustling city just like they can nudge a troubled friendship in the right

direction just like they can teach a hateful loner to love so too can they convince a frustrated deity that humanity still has something worth saving and all of these changes happen

through engaging with other people and learning to consider the diverse eclectic often difficult and contradictory but beautiful and significant complexity of their

personhood if the world ends with Neku his friends expanded that world to include their love and partnership if the world ends with Shiki her partner expanded to include her own value and perspective if the world ends with

Joshua Neku and his friends expanded it to include hope for humanity's openness and connection if the world ends with beat neck who expanded it to include grace toward the mistakes of others and

himself and through all this all these struggles and victories and beliefs and ideas and all of this growth the game is giving you a simple call to action

find where your world ends and go make

it bigger sometimes it's easy to forget

the times we we the moment makes a Swedish a my

[Music] the precious days my heart still wants a

some way [Music]

don't you worry baby [Applause] your son [Music]

close to you

[Music]