English Dub Season Review: The World Ends With You: The Animation Season One

Based on the cult classic 2007 Nintendo DS game of the same name that saw a port to mobile, and later Nintendo Switch. The story follows our lead protagonist Neku Sakuraba who in some random twist of fate, finds himself holding two black pins that enable him to read the minds of people around him. However, these pins also give him the ability to see the “Noise,” hostile creatures capable of “erasing” people from existence. After discovering that he is trapped within the confines of the city, Neku receives a message regarding a mission that will nevertheless erase him should he fail.

While trying to fend off a noise attack, Neku meets a girl named Shiki Misaki who asks him to form a partnership pact with her to fight against the monsters. Shiki explains that she and Neku have become “Players” participating in the “Reaper’s Game”—an event spanning over seven days, each featuring a different mission. As Neku and Shiki both strive to survive each day that passes, they begin to meet other Players and Reapers alike, battle stronger Noise and learn the truth behind the mystery that this game is shrouded in.

The anime series was directed by Kazuya Ichikawa with a screenplay adapted from the game by Midori Gotō. Tetsuya Nomura and Gen Kobayashi designed the characters. Reportedly, they even went as far as to get Takeharu Ishimoto who also composed the game’s music with many songs from the original game, while the opening theme “Twister -Animation OP ver.-” was performed by MJR, while the ending theme is “Carpe Diem” was performed by ASCA. The animation is pretty decent. The first few episodes had some great CG-blending techniques to the stylized art style given that the aforementioned artists also worked on the game which is passable even if the character designs feel like an amalgamation of Digimon and Kingdom Hearts with its unusual body proportions for the human characters in combination with the colorful scenery of Shibuya having an edgy graffiti-inspired aesthetic.

As for the story itself, it remains unchanged from the game it’s supposed to be based on, as the protagonist, Neku, suddenly wakes up in the middle of the scramble crossing, in Shibuya and soon discovers he’s in the middle of a deadly game and has to complete the orders received by an unknown entity in order not to be “erased”, while he has also to defeat enemies, especially the ones called “noise”. Although I have not played the game, or known about its existence until covering this show, I can’t really tell what new music was actually added outside of the game’s original soundtrack (which I’m sure is serviceable for fans). And sometimes when a fight scene ends, it’s just character exposition with background noises and barely any music. In terms of character development, some episodes are devoted to one specific character’s backstory, while later episodes make the proceedings feel rushed which is apparent when so many characters would pop in and out or were just introduced all at once to possibly fit the show’s 12 episode story-structure. But at least the pacing did eventually slow down in later episodes…

Even if this anime was only made as an obligatory cash grab to advertise a recently released Nintendo Switch sequel that came out called “NEO: The World Ends with You”(or to remind people the game existed), it mostly feels like this show was written as an abridged jumping-on point. Whether you’re a fan of the original game or not, I believe the positives overshadow the negatives.