#maybe ill do a little essay once i play neo a second time? sound off in the comments

[scramble-crossing]

While Kariya and Uzuki have never been immensely popular characters when it comes to analyzing the series or its worldbuilding, I think it’s almost criminal how little talk there’s been of the potential in a dynamic between them and Minamimoto. 

Just think about it. These are three characters who are close in age facing the same insane situation, who have all developed their own radically different way of dealing with the strange new world they’ve found themselves in. Uzuki follows the rules. She does her job and she does it well, single-mindedly focused on rising through the ranks and gaining recognition and authority. Kariya is her foil, yin to her yang. With his “smell the concrete roses” and his love for the freedom his Harrier position allows him, he couldn’t care less about the sink-or-swim nature of the Reaper’s Game or its system of power. He’s the stubborn, steadfast rock in the middle of the raging river that’s stringing Uzuki along, and that’s exactly why they have such a fun and interesting dynamic.

And also why Minamimoto is the missing member of their trio, change my mind. 

Minamimoto is a lot like Uzuki in the way that he’s completely and utterly engrossed in the pursuit of “victory”, even to the point of self-destruction (Uzuki to a lesser extent, obviously, but she’s still shown to push her limits to the point where Kariya needs to gently encourage her to admit defeat before she hurts herself). Both characters have a lot of pride, but they vary in how much power they actually have to back it up, not to mention where they choose to focus it. Mina does not care about doing his job well. He guns for top position using his wits and brute strength, tearing the Reaper’s Game apart at the seams in the process. And in doing this, he completely turns Uzuki’s world upside-down. Suddenly, her position doesn’t matter. Her and the players are on equal standing once the taboo noise gets out of hand, something that visibly shakes her. While she clearly doesn’t care for Minamimoto, and she and Kariya have a few back-and-forths over their asshole coworker, the fact that we never get to see them interact and be exposed to their opposing worldviews is honestly disappointing. We get a bit more in Neo, but not much. Uzuki still doesn’t like Mina, and he barely seems to acknowledge her beyond calling her and the other Reapers “garbage”. 

This is especially irritating when you consider that Uzuki’s actually gotten results since the first game, whereas Mina needed the whole of Neo just to get back to where he was after Coco pushed the big, shiny, sigil-shaped reboot button on him. RIP Minamimoto’s sick sleeve tat, you will be missed.

I want so badly for the series to go more in-depth with how these characters view each other. Does Uzuki, deep down, admire or even envy Minamimoto’s brazen disregard for authority, especially during the Shinjuku Reaper’s takeover with all of its political and moral red tape? Does she ever wonder if she might’ve taken a similar path had she developed the physical power to back up her ambitions? Why does she even care about rank in the first place? Is it just survival, or is it something more?

Likewise, I can’t help, but wonder if Minamimoto has ever considered whether or not Uzuki might be useful to him in some way, like Konishi was when she lowered the barrier blocking the path to the Composer. If he’s willing to effectively babysit a bunch of high schoolers for a week just to test a theory, how far would he go if there was a chance that Uzuki could get him closer to Joshua?

And then of course, there’s Kariya. The fact that Minamimoto and Kariya never once have a substantial interaction despite Kariya being one of, if not the only person to ever openly show some kind of admiration for Mina (not somewhat-tolerable Neo Mina, I mean off-the-walls first game Mina) is just not fair. 

As I said before, Kariya is totally different from both Minamimoto and Uzuki in the fact that he has absolutely no interest in gaining power or moving up in the ranks. He’s good at what he does (the first game’s manual even goes so far as to call him “a perfectionist” who “takes great pride in his work”) but he’s perfectly content where he is, even going so far as to actively reject promotions. He prefers the easy, simple life of walking the streets, playing games with Uzuki and having her buy him food when she loses. He couldn’t possibly be any more different from them, and Minamimoto, especially. 

Except for one fact: They all love Shibuya.

No matter their ulterior motives (or lack thereof), these three characters all work together at the end of Neo in order to save the city. In that moment, their goals align. They cooperate with each other. There are few disagreements and no big scuffles, they all know what they have to do and do it without much complaint. 

What I want for a threequel is a similar situation. I want these characters to be forced into a situation where they share a common goal, but for their different personalities, worldviews, and ambitions to drive them apart at every turn. 

I want Uzuki’s hesitation to break the rules and risk her career to have large and entirely avoidable consequences that Kariya does not immediately forgive. I want her to look at Minamimoto and, in a moment of weakness, seriously question the system she’s worked so hard to maintain. If the higher powers could erase them and their city at any time without any provocation, then what’s the point? If the system can be cheated and bent to their will, is complete and utter anarchy the only solution? I want Kariya’s laid-back optimism to turn into complacency. I want him to be somehow culpable in Shibuya’s near-destruction so that spitfire Uzuki has to yank him into action (because lets face it, Kariya has yet to be given a real flaw that makes his relationship with Uzuki equal. He balances her out, but she has yet to really balance him). And more than anything, I want Minamimoto to have to actually rely on other people and his relationships with them! So far, most of his relevant dynamics have been with people who he has some degree of power over (like Neku and the Wicked Twisters). How does a total ego maniac react to being paired up with people who he is (gasp) on an equal level with?

I guess in short, Uzuki and Kariya have a fun dynamic that I hope becomes more relevant as the series progresses. I enjoyed the new cast of Neo a great deal, but going forwards, I hope the twewy team focuses more on fleshing out pre-existing characters rather than adding a whole slew of new ones. If we could get a game that has them clash against each other and Minamimoto, three characters who are extremely different, but surprisingly similar in small and unexpected ways, I think that would make for a fantastic character-driven narrative that gives Kariya and Uzuki a bit more depth, and rounds out Minamimoto’s character, no matter which way the team decides to take his arc.

(TLDR: I think a twewy threequel should explore more of the dynamic between Kariya, Uzuki, and Minamimoto in a way that compares and contrasts their very different worldviews and forces them to change as people. After all, that’s the whole message of the series.)