#or unknowingly as in. huh i wonder why this is happening (spoiler. it was eating stuff that makes me sick)

[sometimesanequine]

[blookmallow]

goD WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON

im gonna do... multiple smaller posts instead of One Massive One bc i keep. ending up with. a lot. its. its so much. everything is so much 

this one is a Lot of words bc im theorizing everywhere and had way too much to say i am sorry 

(horror / spoilers / Disturbing Shit ahead this one’s pretty tame tho) (i mean im guessing no one’s reading these if u dont already know what happens anyway but)

i was legitimately half worried monika wouldn’t LET me quit the game the last time i closed it. and half concerned she’d be sitting there staring blankly waiting for me when i opened it again

this is such good fuckign EFFECTIVE HORROR i am legitimately scared of what monika’s gonna do lmao

ive never seen anything do this quite this way except like. undertale with flowey and sans but that felt. different

well my “new game” button is back but i REALLY DOUBT i can actually use it 

i didnt try, though

also i dont...remember what the opening screen looked like before so i cant remember if monika was always there or not but im just. noticing how she’s the closest one to you. and is reaching out to you like she wants to pull you in 

yuri’s getting REALLY obsessed with me :’ ) help, 

i can’t tell if. the game is structured specifically to make you inclined to try to date yuri in the “this is a Normal Dating Sim :) about Cute Girls :) and Nothing Else” bit of the intro or if my decisions just really smoothly fit into this narrative 

bc like. i was intentionally doing things meant to get closer to yuri bc i liked her the most (honestly i still do lmao. my wife) and it really, really quickly escalated to “YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE DONE THAT” “why are you doing so many things for yuri...” “you should have talked to monika” “you should have paid attention to sayori” “look at what you’ve done” “you want her to like you, huh. are you sure. are you really sure” “she’ll like you, alright. she likes you so much she wants to spend every moment with you. every. waking. moment. she likes you so much she would do anything for you. she likes you so much she would bleed for you” 

and like. i haven’t had many options so im not sure how much control i ever had in the first place but. did i cause this?? would it have been a different “she’s latched onto you for some reason and you can’t do SHIT about it, whoever you wanted before, she won’t LET YOU” narrative instead if i hadn’t been encouraging her in the first place? 

im not actually asking for answers rn im just Wondering. would love to discuss it after i finish/replay if monika fuCKING LETS ME :’) 

 i do know the game would not let me choose sayori when i was asked who i wanted to work with, i clicked hers and monika was like “oohh actually she’s working with me, so” 

so like. it seems likely that the game might have actually forced you into working with yuri, some other excuse would come up if you clicked the other options until you hAD to choose her, but. seeing as i shrugged it off and clicked yuri voluntarily after that i dont actually know 

oh

i thought “your pen” was a typo or something but it......it Was Not 

yo u can have the pen, yuri, i dont want it anymore 

yuri seems to have...a really. particular obsession with like. exchange/touching/You Becoming Part Of Me/etc i cant think of a word for it but like 

the “intimate exchange” of reading together and turning pages together, feeding her chocolate, taking my pen and falling into a writing frenzy at the euphoria of Writing With Something That Belongs To You/her intense excitement/arousal over touching The Words That I Wrote/me touching her words, im guessing if she is actually cannibalistic/vampiric that’s probably it too, Consuming Something Of You So You’ll Be Part Of Me Too or vice versa. she very much seems like the kind of person who would cut herself to bleed into something and get you to unknowingly eat her blood for some kind of thrill 

im legitimately really impressed with the way this is turning out, i thought it seemed overly.....hitting you in the head with doublemeanings/being really bland and generic at first and was really hoping it’d pay off and turn out to have a shitload more going on under the surface beyond just “it’s a cute dating sim but then it gets Fucked Up” and!!! it is!!!!

it was COMPLETELY ON PURPOSE 

literally everything feels like it means something else entirely/It’s All Connected/etc way more than “you know, sometimes when things like this happen it’s foreshadowing something BAD might happen.....wink wink....nudge.....:)”  

oh. fuck

ok actually, valid 

oh. thank you for.....being so. up front about it, i guess :’) 

i figured,

:’) 

looks like my. interpretations have been pretty spot on so far 

y ea h actually i think we can agree on that one 

for her own good and mine :’) 

i really, really don’t think monika is okay 

it feels like she’s... some kind of. Always Watching You mastermind figure manipulating the environment / removing files (memories, save data, ENTIRE CHARACTERS, ) / basically fucking with anything she doesn’t like but she also seems to be.... trapped? 

she’s fucking everything up but she also seems to be trying to Fix Things even if she’s. selfish and what’s Correct according to her is. highly suspect, it. does seem like she’s. way more. self aware. and wants to get out.

im still terrified of her dONT GET ME WRONG but. i also wanna hear her out 

hhhoooo here we go again

maybe... sayori’s depression Wasn’t Supposed To Be Revealed (according to... what? the in-game script? some omnipotent Creator/Destiny force? monika?) and. monika either. realized “this is going off the scripted path, the game is gonna get fucked up if they keep going this way so Sayori Needs To Go Away” so she. convinced her to kill herself and then erased her from the files / from everyone’s memory, or she like. fucked up sayori’s programming so she Couldn’t feel happy/the Happy Ending path that was scripted in for her was corrupted and unplayable in the hopes that once she was glitched out of the picture you’d go for monika instead, maybe she planned to do this to everyone if she had to 

and i dunno if this is. Intentional or if it was just my personal perception but monika seemed like the least interesting character at first, i paid no fucking attention to her and didnt even really question “hey why doesn’t she have a chibi sprite on this screen” or anything all that much, so her suddenly arising as the Rogue Character fucking the game up was. a really good move bc i didnt even pay attention to her at all until she FORCED me to 

i also really like the subtle lines like this, they stand out NOW but at first i didnt even really notice them, like, this sounds like “we kinda pushed you into this club didn’t we there wasn’t really much room for you to say no” but it also means “you literally did not have a choice, that script path option was never available to you, Not Joining was absolutely not a possibility” and monika KNOWS that 

like i definitely noticed her breaking the fourth wall in the beginning but i thought it was just like. cute/funny like pinkie pie does or w/e so im REALLY digging the “aaannnd suddenly it hits you like a ton of bricks that it was IN NO WAY A JOKE” twist here 

[ichika27]

TWEWY 09

I did not find a good spoiler-free screenshot for the first image so we got this one where they see the aftermath of an awful scene.

Episode 9 already. How time flies! Alright, spoiler warning for the game as always.

Okaaaay... they’re starting with this? They decided that the beginning of the episode is the backstory of Beat and Rhyme? I’m surprised cause wow... what a way to start!

Beat tells Neku how he and Rhyme got to the UG - they were arguing and Beat wasn’t listening to Rhyme who has been trying to get him to stay. Then in the middle of it, an out of control car came and was about to hit Rhyme. Beat tried to save her but he failed and they both got hit. He also reveals to Neku that they’re siblings.

They left out some details though: that Beat got into an argument with their parents and he walked out on them as usual (saying it happens a lot and the reason why which would’ve added a bit more characterization for Beat). Rhyme followed him and then the car came. He tried to save her but couldn’t. They also left out the line where Beat says “But I couldn’t stop a car.” which, to me, feels like it should’ve been added cause that is really sad to hear from a kid. He tried, man. He tried.

They also showed Beat and Rhyme’s “first” meeting in the UG. This was immediately after the death flashback so the part of the convo where Beat says he doesn’t know if Rhyme hates him for what happened because she doesn’t remember him. There was also no mention of him realizing that maybe memories of him were her entry fee and that he fears that even if he successfully brought her back (if he became composer), her memories of him would still be gone.

Beat calls himself an idiot because of what had happened to them. Neku gives Beat some encouraging words along the lines of “Yeah, you’re definitely an idiot if you joined a game with only one other player left. But you still made a pact with me and not many would’ve done that.”

The duo promises they’d win the game so they could get back the ones they lost - Rhyme and Shiki.

The two of them had to hide though cause they’re being hunted by every reaper around. It would hinder them in their search for Konishi.

Imagine if the game version had this part as a gameplay where you have to sneak around. I’d have found that nerve-wracking lol.

They soon notice something strange: they can’t scan people from the RG anymore. Everyone’s literally “No thoughts, head empty.” (hey, they took away the “memes” from the story so I’m putting some here lol) and they’re also wearing the red skull pins. Neku and Beat thinks there’s a connection.

Beat notices that the red skull pins look like the player pins so they must’ve been made by the same person. They also know the red skull pins were made by CAT which means the player pin must be, too.

Neku is worried and is starting to have some doubts. Joshua told him 2 things in Week 2: the composer created the player pins and that CAT is Mr. Hanekoma. The thought of Mr. Hanekoma (someone he looks up to) being the same person as the Composer (who is the one who organized this whole game) is distressing to Neku so he suggested they focus on the mission first.

Kariya and Uzuki are eating together at a fast food place again (they really took away our ramen, huh?) and are talking about the mission Konishi gave Uzuki. She has some qualms but she’s still gonna do her job and get that promotion.

So the two face off against Neku and Beat with Rhyme at stake.

Rhyme isn’t in her pin from here unlike in the game which I questioned at first but later I think it was a good idea (I’ll talk about this again later). The challenge is to outright fight the reaper duo which is different from the game where they instead had to play Reaper Sport 4 which is tag.

Sorry for the very blurry photo. This is the best I could do.

Neku and Beat defeat the reaper duo with this attack that even the reapers think is unusual. (This is the 3rd phase of their fusion, if I remember correctly. So is Neku riding a board there or...?)

As promised, the reapers give back Rhyme... not! The fake Rhyme disintegrates in Beat’s hands which is awful. Unlike the game where Rhyme is in her pin form and Beat just tells them the pin is fake, here, Rhyme is in her noise form so the scene feels a lot worse. She’s “alive” and not just a pin so when she disappears like this (and on her brother’s arm no less), it has more impact.

I might have issues with the anime’s pacing but if there’s one thing they decided to do right is that the dramatic scenes look more intense.

Kariya realizes that Konishi duped them. Uzuki is pissed that the promotion if a fake cause she really wanted it and was willing to work for it. She also mentions that she knew Kariya declined promotion. Kariya explains that he likes working in the field to watch the people and Shibuya cause he really likes this place. Also he enjoys hanging out with Uzuki which he can’t do if he is given a different job. This shuts up Uzuki who is kinda surprised by what she heard.

They took out, if I remember correctly, Uzuki saying she wanted to help change things for the reapers cause she think everyone should be enjoying their work. The two also has this talk within Neku and Beat’s earshot who are kinda getting annoyed with what was happening.

As an apology for the trouble, Kariya gives them another keypin. He says “Sorry.”, too but the scene felt different from the game. Th game version sounded... nicer? I think it’s cause they didn’t seem as agitated and the way Kariya says it felt like he really didn’t like how they unknowingly tricked Neku and Beat. Uzuki apologizes in the game, too but not in the anime.

Beat still gives them the warning about Konishi though (even calling them senpai while saying it haha). Personally, I just think the scene felt friendlier in the game but that’s just me.

The red skull pins are taking effect now incapacitating both Kariya and Uzuki as Konishi appears to observe and figure out what’s going on. The duo gets up later with red eyes.

I wonder if they’re gonna make them say the quote. You know: “To right the countless wrongs of our days...” and all that (I copypasted that from a wiki cause I forgot but I had to reference it here).

Mr. Hanekoma is fixing up Minamimoto’s taboo sigil. Guess who comes out of this?

It’s starting everyone!

---

I noticed they never explained in this episode or the last why Neku was the only player left for Week 3. No mention of the other players becoming Neku’s new entry fees. I dunno what’s more suspicious that would get people to question if this was a rigged game: giving that bs explanation or giving no explanation at all. Or maybe they’d mention it when they finally face Kitaniji. You know, to shock and guilt trip Neku again cause the anime enjoys making things hit worse sometimes.

I wonder if they’re gonna have Neku and Beat visit Wildkat next episode?

Eri shows up again this episode by the way. She was with a crowd trying to get their hands on the red skull pins and she even gets a few lines. I’m glad she shows up here (and Beat sees her and is given an explanation of what Shiki’s entry fee was).

I know many are excited to see Taboo Minamimoto. The guy is one of the popular reapers from the series and I realize by how much when I see he’s got the same kind of merch as the main characters do. Oh and he also becomes playable in the long-awaited sequel game. I hope the anime-onlys who end up liking him, too enjoys seeing him again.

Are they gonna end Week 3 next episode or will there be another one? Cause they gave Week 2 four episodes instead of just three like Week 1 and they’re also gonna have to add stuff for the” A New Day” segment to connect this with the sequel game. There’s not enough episodes in this show.

I’m excited for the 4 people fusion at the end though. I wonder how they’d pull it off with the fusion pin not shown at all in the anime.

I’m excited for next week’s episode. I wonder how they’d handle the ending to the story? It’s sad it won’t end on a good note since if they adapt “A New Day” (which they have to for the sequel), well, you know how it’ll go.

I’m also very excited to see Joshua again. I hope he enjoyed his stay at the other world (if it still has tin pin and ramen then he’s probably good).

Well, til next week! Thanks for reading.