Neku

Neku Sakuraba is the protagonist of The World Ends With You. He was born and raised in Shibuya, Japan. When he wakes up in the Scramble Crossing, he can't recall anything besides his name, due to his entry fee of the Reapers' Game.

Neku Sakuraba

"At fifteen, Neku is an ardent fan of graffiti, but far less enthusiastic about forging relationships with other people. When The Reapers' Game throws him into contact with other players, he has two choices: open up...or get picked off."

The kanji of Ne-ku Saku-raba literally translate to: sound, manipulation, cherry, garden. This is likely to be a reference to the idea of Neku closing out the outside world with his headphones, ignoring the wonderful world ("cherry garden") around him, and his astonishing skill with psychs.

Neku is able to use many different pins that he finds to perform quite a variety of attacks. Other characters comment on his mastery of psychs, indicating that this ability is unusual. Although he cannot use every pin in battle (Pins 246 through 261 being the most obvious exceptions), the wide selection of attacks adds to his unpredictability and therefore to his value in the Game.

Neku's personality is rather unsociable. He has a lot of difficulty understanding people, so he always keeps to himself. Unfortunately, this results in his dislike of dealing with other people. His opinion of others is so low that he tends to see people only for their use. Neku refuses company, as he feels that friends only drag him down, cause him pain when they fail him and make him feel like "unnecessary baggage" to them. To him, society is simply an annoyance that forces their values on him, pester him and expect him to do things he doesn't want to do. As such, he admires the designer CAT for his/her "do what you want, when you want, where you want" motto.

Though at first his negative world view keeps his friends alienated despite their best efforts, Neku slowly softens as he listens to the advice of everybody around him. He becomes more open and trustful of others as he gets to know people like Shiki, Joshua, Beat, Rhyme, Hanekoma and others. As time passes, he begins to understand more about others and believes in his friends.

In the parallel universe of "Another Day", Neku did have one friend, a classmate of his. However, this friend was killed in a car accident en route to meet Neku at Udagawa. Neku blamed himself for his friend's death, as he was the one who asked to meet. While it is not stated that the "main" Neku had this experience, the Secret Report for Week 2, Day 5 notes that Neku has had some sort of "trauma" in his past. Additionally, when Rhyme is erased, Neku says,"I feel like crap. This is just like that time.", supporting the notion that he has experienced the death of someone close to him. He constantly feels that he's becoming emotionally injured in this chapter.

Shiki is Neku's first partner in the Reapers' Game. At first, Neku dislikes Shiki and only stays with her to survive. He also calls her "Stalker" because she follows him around. When Shiki talks, Neku generally keeps to himself, only responding when he becomes irritated by her chatting. Early on, he seems to show little regard for her, as he is even willing to kill her when the Reaper Uzuki Yashiro offered him a way out of the Game in exchange for doing so. Despite the incident, Shiki continues to treat him the same, and does her best to understand him and try to teach him to open up. As time progresses, the two develop a bond of trust and friendship as they become close and open up to each other. When they spot Eri, Shiki's best friend in the RG who strangely looks exactly like her, Shiki starts to run from Neku, but he stops her and gets her to tell the truth about her past. When Neku learns that she wasn't happy with who she was, and always felt jealous of Eri, he states that he likes her the way she is, giving her the confidence and personal strength she needed to win the game. After they defeat Higashizawa, the week's Game Master, Neku uses her name for the first time, which Shiki notices right away.

Through this experience, Shiki and Neku grow closer, and the two promise to meet up with each other after the Game is over. When they learn that only Shiki will move on to the RG, and that Neku must play the Game again, Shiki states that she will wait in front of Hachiko everyday until Neku returns.

There is some amount of irony at the beginning of the second week when Shiki is taken as Neku's entry fee. While this is a bluff on the part of the Conductor --since only the Composer can restore life to Players-- Neku finds the entry fee credible enough to stake all of his efforts on Week 2 on getting Shiki back, strengthening his feelings for Shiki. Shiki is highly embarrassed when she finds this out at the end of Week 3.

Neku first encounters Beat in Week 1 Day 2, where they get off to a rocky start. They meet again the next day, where Beat is reluctant to give them advice. However, at the end of the day, Beat and Rhyme appear and save Neku and Shiki by completing the mission. Afterwards, they seem to be on good terms, and agree to work together for the rest of the week.

When Rhyme is erased the next day, Neku, Shiki and Hanekoma talk him out of fighting the shark Noise that attacked Rhyme. As he leaves with Hanekoma, Neku and Shiki agree to avenge Rhyme in Beat's place. He joins the Reapers at the end of Day 7, surprising both Neku and Shiki.

During Week 2, Beat is assigned by Megumi Kitaniji to defeat Neku and Joshua. He attacks and overpowers them a number of times, but never brings himself to erase them. Despite their misgivings, in one encounter Neku is compassionate enough to return Rhyme's pendant (which Beat had dropped the previous day) to him.

At the start of the third week, Beat chooses to leave the Reapers to become Neku's partner and save him from certain demise. (Being the only Player, Neku could not form a pact) As partners, the two become closer, and work together to survive the week, save Rhyme and attempt to dethrone the Composer. During their time together, Neku learns more about Beat's background, why he is in the Reapers' Game. In the final battle, Beat states that he no longer sees Neku as a partner- but a friend. Together, along with Shiki, they defeat Kitaniji in both his Noise forms.

Neku first encounters Rhyme in Week 1 Day 2 along with her partner Beat, where they get off to a rocky start due to Neku's anti-social attitude. They meet again the following day, where Shiki asks them about the mission. Beat finds the situation with Neku awkward and leaves, with Rhyme tagging along behind him. Later that day, Neku and Shiki fail to complete the mission, and just as all hope is lost and with seconds to spare, Beat and Rhyme complete the task. Week 1 Day 4 Rhyme jumps out and saves Beat from Noise, sacrificing herself. Neku acts coldly and isn't upset by the event, telling Shiki it is why he doesn't rely on anybody or want to forge relationships. Rhyme appears later in the form of a squirrel Noise as a Pin that Neku can use to fight the Noise. Despite the two not being shown together much, the two are shown interacting well in the game's final scene.

Neku finds Joshua especially irritating, as he often teases him and his snobby attitude tends to get on Neku's nerves. However, Neku, motivated by his desire to bring Shiki back to life, does everything he can to put up with him for the week. Despite their many disagreements, Neku finds that he can- in a number of ways- relate to Joshua. They have similar views of society and the world, which often come up in their conversations. This does gradually change however, as Neku's philosophy changes greatly over the course of their week together.

During the few days where no missions are issued, they make frequent visits to Hanekoma and his cafe WildKat, where it is revealed that Joshua and Hanekoma have a long history with each other. Joshua claims to be searching for a way into the Shibuya River so that he can take on the Composer and "jack Shibuya"- or in other words, gain complete control over it.

Neku eventually becomes incredibly distressed when he scans Joshua and sees flashbacks of him dying in front of the mural in Udagawa, leading him to accuse Joshua of being his killer. Joshua neither confirms nor denies this throughout the week, and there is a great deal of tension between the two for the remainder of time they have together.

On the seventh day, when they battle the Game Master, Sho Minamimoto, Neku sees another flashback which leads him to believe that it was actually Minamimoto who had murdered him. After defeating him, Minamimoto unleashes a level i flare, and Joshua pushes Neku out of harm's way and takes the brunt of the attack, seemingly erasing both Minamimoto and himself.

Neku deeply regrets that he never got to apologize to Joshua for accusing him of murdering him, and feels guilty for his death. Allowed to play the Game one more time, Neku vows not to waste this chance which Joshua had managed to give him.