Reviews for The World Ends with You The Animation

Minor spoilers I guess. When something exists in our lives as raw goated swag peak fiction, all we want to do is talk up and down about why thing good so that everyone else can understand exactly how we feel. Unfortunately, reality is cruel and says that we’re not allowed to do this, because other people have feelings for some reason. We don’t have all day--well, THEY don’t, rather--to hear a 25-hour lecture on why thing good, so you condense and paraphrase it as much as possible to get to the heart of it, but only kind of making your point so that peopleget it but not really. That’s what The World Ends With You’s anime is like for me.

To say that Twoo-Wee has had a major impact on my life would be like saying the invention of oxygen wasn’t necessary for the survival of humans, cats, and trees alike. Without this game, I may as well have never been born, and I would probably be doing something meaningful with my life instead of writing stupid anime reviews for weirdos on the internet. This is my raw goated swag peak fiction, my ultimate “thing good.” Evidently, the anime has a lot to live up to.

And it doesn’t. Because this isn’t the same thing. A good video game tells its story beyond character dialogue and actions. It immerses you in a setting, a culture, a window into a world. Roaming the streets of Shibuya while listening to SICK JAMS, swapping clothes and buying 300 Big Macs until the girl at the counter has a crush on you, peering into NPCs’ nonsensical thoughts and catching up on all the small talk with your partner. These are just a few examples of how TWEWY functions as a great game, and how it’s sustained a cult following after more than a decade. In other words, it ReALlY mAKeS YoU FEeL liKE YOu’rE iN ShiBUyA\\\\\\

T. UwU E has a great story because it uses every element of the game to tell it. As a result, the anime falls flat even before I could point out the things it changed or outright removed (which I won’t do because we don’t have time). Watching this felt like an adaptation of a Wikipedia article explaining the basic plot of the game. Ultimately, you’ll know the story. You’ll know what you need to know about Nekky Sockramen and the Reapy Creepy; you’ll get the cool plot twists and the character arcs, but you’ll just get the plot.. . . . . of the plot. . . . .. . . does that make sense?

In other words, this anime exists to get newcomers up to speed so they can play the sequel game that comes out in a month. That’s really what this is all about. There’s a new game coming and it could probably be played standalone, but it probably helps to know what happened in the original game, but that costs like $60 because Nintendo sucks and that’s not even talking about the ORIGINAL original game which is a DS game that came out in 2007 or something so have fun trying to get that one because emulating the thing sucks. So they made this as a cheat sheet instead.

Trying to shove twenty hours of content into a five-hour TV series is difficult and generally not recommended, and it shows here. TWEWY’s anime presents the story and pretty much nothing else. All of the dialogue and every small event is tied to the narrative, which is a really dumb and obvious thing to point out without context, but it’s true. When watching TWEWY TA, I can’t help but feel how serious, tense, and, frankly, dull the tone is. It’s like a business being run.

The original game is lively and fun and often witty and charming. Characters small-talk and joke around or argue sarcastically with each other frequently. Their personalities are flashy and over-the-top like another reassurance that you can enjoy yourself and not take everything too seriously while watching dead emos try to reclaim their own existence in the world. Was that a spoiler? Whatever, it’s revealed pretty early on anyway.

The Animation has a muted tone to it, almost outright neutering the game’s own narrative. Neku’s cynical and sarcastic personality was toned down, but as a result he comes off as completely lifeless. . . . Well, I mean he IS lifeless but shut up. His character arc of learning to trust and value others is significantly less earned, to the point where has to practically scream what he learned over the course of the series. The fan-favorited Joshua was also punished here, as his hateably-endearing, charming, smug piece-of-shitness was almost totally removed in favor of someone who. . . isn’t that.

These might seem like gripes, but if something seems off in or about the anime, understand that it’s an anime-exclusive issue. While I don’t think it’s a completely butchered adaptation, the main takeaway is that the game is just a lot better. As an anime, I do still think it has a pretty cool story with the Reaper’s Game and the rules that dictate it. It’s just missing a lot of the bells and whistles that set it further apart.

For what it’s worth, there are some good moments that the adaptation nails. Beat’s character is handled pretty well, Shiki and Neku have some good scenes together, and the best character of all time, motherfucking Sho Minamimoto, was carried over pretty much 1:1 in this, making him as brilliant here as he is in the game. The adaptation is far from perfect, but it does have its high points that can make diehard fans happy.

Even among all of that, the most controversial element of this adaptation was probably the way it was presented visually. 3DCG is that thing that anime fans just won’t get over, and for many, you’re either Berserk 2016 or you’re Studio Orange. Personally, I would say the anime actually looks pretty good, and not just by narrowing the field down to CG anime only. To be more specific, it’s a mix of 2D and 3D, often for the sake of blending the game’s unique artstyle into animation. This is probably the biggest W this adaptation has, as I genuinely love that the anime staff was able to translate the explosive character designs into a movable format. The animation and set pieces generally look good, but the fully 3D Noise (monsters) are where things get a little rough.

Finally, the anime brought back the game’s composer (no pun intended), and he fulfilled his task of bringing in some SICK JAMS to the anime. A few old tracks pop up with some new ones, and it’s all of the fun pop and punk rock and hip-hop from before. It doesn’t disappoint. But a lot of the time, the anime feels eerily quiet, and probably not in a way that was intended. Like there just wasn’t enough of a soundtrack made. It’s very weird. The OP is Twister Remix #210582 and frankly it’s not a very good one, at least compared to others. But this is less of the anime’s fault and more of The Drummer From ALI Who Is A Fucking Moron’s fault for having the OP replaced literally one day before it came out. The ED is a hard rock banger that would fit perfectly with the game’s soundtrack, and it has some cool art by that Russian artist Ilya or whatever his name is. So that’s nice.

All in all, TWEWY TA wasn’t terrible. As a fan, I enjoyed it. But I would also hesitate to recommend it, unless you just REALLY want to know what this is about without playing the game. If you want my recommendation on the game, here’s my list of reasons on why you should get out your old DS and buy this game second-hand off Ebay *unravels a long scroll that rolls out of the room*

Thing good

Story: 6/10

Art: 6/10

Sound: 6/10

Character: 5/10

Enjoyment: 7/10

Speed: Zetta Slow/10

Overall: Low 6, ranging anywhere between a low 5 and a high 6

Like a bolt from the blue, here comes Fario-P's Reaper Review... and I need to be honest here. There might be potential game spoilers for anime-onlies, but I will otherwise do my best to express my feelings in my very first anime review as spoiler-free as possible. Please Excuse My Dolefully Angry Statements in advance. "Wake up, shaken up, plastered on asphalt Phones can't block the voices of the masses Seven days left between you and Death Better race, place, Reapers won't give up the chase" This is what's written on the back of the American box art for the best Nintendo DS game of all time. No, we're not countingports like the Ace Attorney Trilogy and Chrono Trigger (literally the best version to play other than the original SNES version btw) for this achievement, and yes, I do believe it beats remakes like the fantastic Kirby Super Star Ultra and the heartfelt, soulfully made Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver Versions. (Sorry not sorry for the pun.)

So I bet you can imagine that I had fairly high expectations for Subarashiki Kono Sekai The Animation, regardless of how many people had tried to warn me about the usual nature of video game adaptations... and I honestly should've completely taken my headphones off at the time. It really was THAT zetta disappointing. I am sorry.

I suppose it's best to start off with the aspect that I have the least amount of problems with—the SOUND.

It was certainly a pleasant surprise to hear that the original composer and nearly all the voice actors from the original game would be returning for this adaptation, especially Anna Hachimine as she had never voice acted for an anime before. Though there weren't many amazing performances to note, the voice acting in The Animation was decent and I didn't really have any problem with it, other than a minor gripe I had with some dialogue pacing... more on that later. As for the sound directing, it was... passable. I dunno, it was just fine and I didn't find myself thinking much of it while watching the show. Probably the only thing I really remember about it were the extremely loud sounds that played whenever a Badge (Pin for English-version Players) showed up just before the main character attacks... more on Badges later.

Now the music... OH, the music. One of the most highly acclaimed things about Subarashiki Kono Sekai that you will never see any diehard fans shut up about—including myself—is its Official Sound Track. Most video game soundtracks are usually comprised of voiceless background music, which is usually all fine and good, especially in Nintendo games other than this former Nintendo exclusive. But the original SubaSeka had some of that IN ADDITION TO mostly original insert songs with a variety of artists and song types... and it is ALL just so zetta good. There is legitimately NOT a SINGLE song from the original game, whether it's BGM or an insert song, that I even REMOTELY dislike.

So you can imagine the excitement that many fans had when they heard that Takeharu Ishimoto was returning to compose music for The Animation. I was excited too, but I had also sorta expected that it was going to be mostly new background tracks and not mostly inserts like before... and for better or worse, I was right.

The background music that was made exclusively for The Animation seems to be mostly made up of somewhat ambient, mysterious-sounding noise (heh heh). I'm actually listening to some of it while typing this part of the review up, and while the synths and stuff does at least sound like they fit for this plot, nothing actually stands out all that much as anime OST I'd go out of my way to listen to every now and then. I might remember the more somber-sounding tracks, but overall The Animation's BGM sounds fine but not really memorable; though I guess there's the new insert song "Disconnect Me", which had a brief sample released to the public before The Animation aired and was initially known as "Walls" within the SubaSeka community. That song was pretty neat and I kinda wish that there were more tracks in The Animation's OST like it.

Added alongside these exclusive tunes are a few of the original game's tracks, though in slightly remixed forms. The first of these you will hear is "It's So Wonderful", which was originally the main menu theme. It's a pretty good remix of the track, but it is used the most out of these select few old tracks (iirc at least four times?) and The Animation honestly doesn't know how to use this piece well AT ALL. The second you will hear is "Calling", one of the most recognizable songs from SubaSeka that is also one of my absolute favorites. It is used ONLY TWO times iirc and first plays as the opening for the first episode, where it honestly doesn't quite fit... though that may be because The Animation's opening was originally supposed to be a song called "Teenage City Riot" by the now-defunct band ALI. Because of a certain factoring hectopascal, the opening had to be replaced altogether by this remix of "Calling" and, from the second episode onwards, a "new" remix of "Twister". This song is another returning track from the original game, this time being the original opening song, and it has gotten so many zetta remixes that the SubaSeka community is honestly kinda tired of it (hahaha). I'm calling The Animation's remix "new" with quotation marks because this remix is literally just the vocals from "Twister Gang Mix" (one of SubaSeka's many in-battle insert songs) plastered with the instrumentals from "Twister Kingdom Mix", which was originally an exclusive remix made for another Square Enix title, Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance. I am not kidding. Seriously, look these remixes up and listen to them if you don't believe me. I normally would be thrilled to hear old songs again, but... eh, "Twister (Animation ver.)" is just an "okay" remix for an "okay" anime OST.

At least the new end credits theme, "Carpe Diem" by ASCA, is kind of a highlight. Love the new illustrations for it too.

Next is the ART and overall visual presentation.

I've gotta say, for all the things I have to say about this anime, I cannot deny that the main art style for the characters is spot-on. The Animation's main visual presentation is what you get if you took the urban, street-art-like approach of SubaSeka's art style, used less black and similar dark colors, made the characters less anorexic-looking, and cranked up the brightness, contrast, and saturation levels a notch. While it took a while to get used to the more vibrant color scheme, I do have to admit that there may be some genuine angels over there at the staff behind The Animation. They even kept the original shading style and thick outlines for the characters, which I imagine was not easy to animate...... but alas, here come some more problems.

I do like The Animation's recreation of Gen Kobayashi's art style, I really do. But the overall execution in the actual show can get a bit... iffy. I can't quite put my finger on it. On one hand, there are some genuinely great-looking images of the characters and even some cute visual homages to SubaSeka through location title cards and even character sprites... and on the other... well, it's not as jarringly derpy like the timeless "Meduka Meguca" meme, but some parts of The Animation still looks odd at times. There are some shots, especially perspective ones, that look somewhat off-model and I don't mean it in a stylish or even good way. It's so noticeable that I recall some people making fun of stuff like with the main character's arms and legs in some shots and even turned a few of these shots into stuff like emoticons for the lulz while the show was still airing. The backgrounds for The Animation are passable; the iconic CAT graffiti on Udagawa-cho as well as pretty much any other graffiti shown in this show looks great, but I don't really remember the rest of Shibuya standing out in the same way. Maybe that one nice sunset setting was nice, but I don't remember much else especially since it's not shown for very long... oh well, at least some areas tried to match SubaSeka's backgrounds. As for shot composition—the storyboarding—well, there's not really much to note here either. As I've mentioned before, some of the original sprite poses as well as cutscene imagery were actually somewhat retained, though whether The Animation's version of these are better or not are more of a subjective thing in my opinion.

It sounds like I'm being fairly generous about this aspect of The Animation so far, but that's because the aesthetic's not even the real issue that I and many others have about the visuals. The actual biggest issue about it is the actual quality of the animation itself. Everyone likes to jump on the giant elephant Noise in the room here that is the CGI—and don't get me wrong, I do prefer anime to be hand-drawn 2D and I would have liked it if they didn't have to use CG. But I don't think that the CGI was the problem for me. Sure, it was noticeable, especially the Noise models, but I felt like there were a few times where the staff was honestly trying to make some battle scenes look interesting with the 3D human character models (which didn't even look that bad btw) and camera angles. No, I personally think the problem here was more about the FEEL of the general motion. Maybe it's because SubaSeka's art style is just that hard to replicate, but the actual animation often looks SO ZETTA CHOPPY. It was almost like I was watching an anime in 0.5 speed or something, because there were many times where I felt I could practically see all the individual keyframes without even pausing—including a few times within the OPENING, which is generally supposed to be where an anime looks the best it possibly can. Dunno about everyone else, but when there isn't really a consistent animation quality/frame rate throughout the intro music video that's meant to sell others on the show, it kinda says something to me... as if part of it should be a red flag that the rest of the show might appear as a bit of a noticeable downgrade. And it indeed was a red flag, as you could easily tell that simple dialogue scenes were made to be done with as little work as possible just from watching them. It even feels like that for a few battle scene shots, which is kind of a big deal for some looking for an action show like The Animation is supposed to be (which I'll talk more about in a moment).

It's fine for some crucial moments to be somewhat slowed down for dramatic effect, but when nearly the whole show's animation feels like this, you can practically tell that The Animation wasn't given that much of a budget. (Kinda ironic, isn't it...)

Oh, and speaking of budget... *sigh* it's time for the STORY and CHARACTERS.

When a beloved 25+ hour long RPG gets an TV show that only lasts 12 half-hour episodes (roughly 5 hours) with this kind of animation, you can REAAAAALLY tell that making said RPG into an anime was probably not very high on Square Enix's production priorities. I recall seeing some fans here and there in the past who said that SubaSeka could theoretically work as a single cour anime, but I've always disagreed with that idea. I really didn't want to feel kinda smug saying this, but I'm admittedly quite amused that The Animation actually proved me right.

The main conflict of SubaSeka is the Shinigami's Game—aka the Reaper's Game for English-version Players. Random people around the area are selected to be moved from the visible plane of existence known as the "Realground" (RG) to an alternate plane known as the "Underground" (UG). These people will be made "Players" who participate in the Game and are given a Player Badge, which gives proof of their Player status and will let them scan for not just the thoughts of those in the RG, but also "Noise", enemies that will try and erase them from existence. Along with Noise are the Missions that Players will receive from the Shinigami each day on their phone, and failure to complete them can also spell erasure for Players. Players will have to find a Partner to pact with and survive from erasure for seven days, which means a lot of teamwork throughout Noise fights and Mission clearing is required to win the invaluable, vital prize that the Shinigami's Game holds. Top this off with an uncooperative spicy tuna roll for a main character and you've got yourself a recipe for an interesting premise... and yet, The Animation still somehow found a way to make it a recipe for disaster.

Though I guess "recipe for BOREDOM" is probably a better descriptor here, because this show is somehow not all that interesting to watch. The Missions that the Shinigami gives Players comes with a blood-colored timer literally imprinted onto their hand, but despite the literal clock ticking their lives away, it doesn't feel like there's really much tension within either the Players or much of the entirety of The Animation. There's no sign that these characters are nearly running out of time nor is there much worry—or if they actually did worry, I wouldn't remember because this anime barely bothered to emphasize this. Maybe the voice actors tried, but there's no fast-paced/ominous "oh SHIT!" music and no shaky terror-filled shots to convey danger towards the audience... or at least when it comes to the Mission completion parts, anyway. This uneventful-feeling execution of the Shinigami's Game Missions only continues to feel uneventful with the main objective of these Missions—the show's concern of putting as much action scenes as possible. It gets to the point where some interesting concepts get underutilized in favor of these action scenes; for example, there's a thing called Imprinting where Players can take Key Words (Memes for English-version Players... yeah that aged well) and put them into the thoughts of those in the RG. Imprinting Key Words shows up in just one episode in ONLY one scene with a certain side character. That's it. No, seriously.

I may be more of a shoujo/magical girl fan than a battle shounen fan like most of the anime community, but I normally don't have a problem against action scenes. I do in fact love some well-filmed movie violence, as seen with my 10/10 scores for Puella Magi Madoka Magica and its sequel The Rebellion Story. But The Animation's battle scenes just somehow fall flat, no matter how hard the staff behind this tried. It took me a while to reverse-engineer a calculation into words, but I think I have a feeling as to why it feels flat—and no, I don't think it's just because of CGI. It's probably because The Animation has more of a Steven Universe problem. As beloved as that show was, the actual fight scenes are probably the least talked about aspect of SU and I personally believe the YouTuber Robobuddies did an amazing job at tackling that in their old video "The Steven Universe Rant"; basically, they felt that a good fight scene should have "Weight, Environment, Composition, and Character", but SU's fight scenes often lacked in these elements, especially the proper "feel" of the attacks and keeping track of what abilities characters actually have. And I feel like The Animation has a similar problem, especially with that latter point there—character abilities. Here is where I come back to the topic of Badges: once two Players make a pact, they can face the Noise by essentially channeling the energy of the Badges they collect and attach onto their clothes. But you wouldn't know this unless you played the original game first, because iirc The Animation doesn't EVER explain this very crucial plotpoint to an audience full of anime-onlies. All this anime does with Badges is flash a brief image of a random Badge the main character is about to use (which serves as fanservice for those who played SubaSeka) and blasts the aforementioned loudass sound before he executes it. The show never explains where on earth he gets all these cool attack Badges, never shows him putting them on, or really anything. The characters don't even question how the main character essentially gets to be a jack of all trades while everyone else can really only use one Badge—another crucial plotpoint The Animation doesn't bother to include. There could have been some interesting story ideas where the characters decide on which Badges to use, maybe even a side-conflict where the main character doesn't want to bother trusting his partner's battle strategy suggestions, but NOPE! We don't have time for all that, just gotta shove in a bunch of action scenes and other important scenes that happen just because they're supposed to happen!! Don't bother to make the characters' victories actually feel victorious, just halfass the illusion that they might lose before they unleash their super duper Limi—oops, I mean—Fusion attack, and it'll ALL be okay!!!!!

Combine this lack of significant information along with the nonexistent "feel" of these scenes, unnoteworthy shot composition, barely any epic battle music, and constant reliance of Fusion spamming, and you've got yourself a whole bunch of unmemorable "filler" fight scenes. The worst part is that EVEN THE BOSS/MAIN ANTAGONIST fight scenes are like this. It really sucks because I kinda feel like the staff was honestly trying in a few occasions: the few times where a 3D camera spins all around the characters were short-lived but neat, the very first fight scene in the first episode felt like it had the most impact imo, and... maybe the last few fights towards the END. Too little too late though; to quote an infamous IGN review, "by the time [The Animation] starts to do interesting things, it's over."

And when the whole show is THIS dedicated to "inconsequential" fight scenes, there's barely any time for the characters to shine.

The Shinigami's Game is a lot more mysterious and surprisingly dire than at first appearance, so naturally there are some huge revelations the plot brings to not just the audience, but the characters themselves as well. But The Animation's pacing not only screwed over the fight scenes, but the character development and these emotional scenes too. The first thing everyone who watched this show immediately noticed is the SO ZETTA FAST pacing of the first episode; the pacing does thankfully calm down a bit after that episode, but it's still quite inconsistent throughout the whole runtime, which gives you a good idea of how the rest of the show's scenes will be paced.

Some emotional scenes are done well, but they're more like a drop of water within a huge wave of rushed nothingness; a tidal wave large enough that you could practically surf on it and feel more emotion from doing that than watching this anime. A lot of things happens to these characters, some side characters, and even the extras in the RG, but these moments hardly have any weight because The Animation doesn't really give these potentially fun characters time to be themselves beforehand. Not even the main character feels like he had time to be himself; fellow SubaSeka Players had a complaint with the main character that I'll briefly get to later, but the complaint that I PERSONALLY had was that his development from being a brutal loner to a more trusting person felt unnatural and extremely rushed. The scenes where The Animation "tries" to convey his development to the audience are more like they're insisting to you that he's changed instead of actually showing that, and the execution often varies from "yeah right" to downright laughable. There are even a few anime-original scenes added in to try and develop some characters AFTER THE FACT, and all I thought after seeing most of these added scenes was "cute but unnecessary".

And oh man, speaking of unnecessary... the script can get really frickin' unsubtle and even downright cheesy at times. This is saying something from someone who's read TokyoPop's mutiliated English release of Tokyo Mew Mew and watched ALL 200 episodes of Sailor Moon WITHOUT skipping any filler at least TWICE in their life. Let me give you a non-spoiler example: there is unironically a scene at the very beginning where the main character is in front of a moving truck that doesn't see him and thinks he is going to die. That is not a joke or even an exaggeration. Yes, frickin' TRUCK-KUN appears in a modern NON-ISEKAI anime. If you are a current seasonal anime fan who watched this scene and DIDN'T LAUGH out of the lack of self-awareness of this anime-original scene, then I honestly do not believe you. That's not the only meme on spotlight either—there are unironic multiple shots of the main character's clenched fist like it's frickin' Arthur's Big Hit (lmao). Not joking about this either. And I said MULTIPLE too; I even made sure to mention it in my personal notes the first several times this shot showed up while watching.

Anyway, other than those moments of peak anime fiction, there's hardly any funny or even cute quirks to note, because all I can remember is how much the show is just replacing all this character time with a ton of "meh" battle scenes, jostled into a FAIRLY CHARACTER-DRIVEN PLOT for the sake of a very specific irl purpose that I'll touch on at the very end of this review. But most unnecessary of all, even more than the added cheese, are the reliance on flashbacks. Like with action scenes, there's technically nothing wrong with using flashback sequences, especially since this was a weekly airing show and some people are bound to forget some things. But I really do mean to use the word "reliance". If you didn't believe me when I said the show had a tiny budget when talking about the animation and episode count, then you definitely will once you see just how many flashback scenes show up after the first three episodes.

Honestly... *sigh* it's no wonder that this show's MAL average score was fairly low while and sometime after it finished airing. Most of The Animation seems like an average to "meh" anime that felt like it was wasting your time with a whole bunch of "meh" budget action scenes, a "meh" budget script, and a half-hearted summary of a 14-year-old video game that most people might not even care about—and probably still won't because the show doesn't do a good job of convincing people otherwise.

Finally, we arrive at... ENJOYMENT.

...I'll be real and get straight to the point here. I am so zetta salty about how The Animation turned out. I've already expressed multiple gripes all throughout my review, but... please allow me to mention just a few more.

Okay, I tried my best to not compare this anime to its source material (unless it was absolutely necessary, such as Badges) up to this point, but my enjoyment is so highly connected to how bad of an adaptation this anime was that I feel the need to point out some missed opportunities. I'll even use just English names for this section, just to make it easier for me to write and for fellow Players to read.

I'm not going to make this section solely about how wonderful The World Ends With You is and what exactly makes it so wonderful. I could go on all day about all the things that The Animation decided to remove, such as Reaper Creeper, a certain sport, Ramen Don, Tin Pin Slammer, PANTS (if you know, you know), et cetera... but please, just bear with me, I promise I won't spoil anything and there's a good reason for delving into the game for this. TWEWY is a tale of Neku Sakuraba, a 15-year-old lonesome misanthrope waking up in the middle of not just Shibuya Crossing, but also the Reaper's Game. The Animation does indeed recognize this, but it also fails to TRULY realize that TWEWY is also a tale of Neku waking up to both the world and the people around him. The Animation is so focused on chugging a bland Soylent-esque version of the game's story (seasoned with some dry-tasting fight scenes) quickly through your throat that it forgot to add something to the concoction.

And that something is so important that it's literally part of the very title—the world.

Whether it's through the literal setting or all the people, the world plays a key part throughout the whole story and it disappoints me to no end that The Animation ironically doesn't want to bother with it. I've never been to Japan so I'm not going to claim I'm an expert or anything, but Shibuya is quite known for being one of the most fashionable and commercial areas in Japan. There are several stores and little attractions all over the place, and whoever was behind the new Twitter account for TWEWY clearly knows this as there were several posts showing real life photos compared to stylized backgrounds of the same areas, made just for The Animation. And yet I feel the actual show hardly utilizes these settings and the type of culture that goes about there.

Which only adds to my frustration because the original TWEWY had actually tried doing all this and it all works there. The fashion element of Shibuya is all over the gameplay to the point where you literally cannot erase it without losing a part of the game's overall charm. Not only do multiple NPCs wear and think about various trendy things (or at least they were trendy at the time lol), but the player is actually able to influence the trending fashion based on the brand of clothes and pins they wear as they fight. The commercial nature of the area is also shown through all the stores the player can go to, and several of Shibuya's main attractions are not only featured but also straight-out DISCUSSED about in-game. Sure, The Animation kinda tries with its backgrounds, but mainly on the visual end and doesn't seem to care about what's particularly notable about some of these areas. Does no one else realize how odd it feels to watch a show about an amnesiac who constantly passes through the Statue of Hachiko, a VERY notable part of Shibuya that's become a bit of a tourist's spot, and doesn't ONCE ask what on earth it is or why there's so many people around it? What's the point of even setting this story in Shibuya when the setting is so barely utilized to the point where you could have set it in literally any other city?

Earlier I mentioned Neku waking up to not just the world, but also the people around him. When I said that, I didn't mean just Shiki, Beat, Rhyme, Joshua, and all the other people he meets in the UG—I'm talking about people in the RG too. Several minor RG characters with their own distinct designs and even the slightest hint of personality showed up here and there throughout TWEWY. And I feel that removing most of these moments and relegating most of these minor characters to very brief cameos the way The Animation did is a huge problem. The reason why the main characters feel kinda underdeveloped in this anime is because they didn't really get a lot of time to be themselves in between all those key story moments... and most of the time where they actually got to do that in TWEWY came through helping these seemingly unimportant RG folks. Helping these side characters were NOT filler, as these moments helped pace the story, character development, and contributed to the amazing humor present throughout the game. Removing these characters is another way of removing the world, which lessens the enjoyment and investment I could have gotten from the show and makes the lesson Neku learns a bit less effective without these subtle examples... what's the point of literally naming your show "It's A Wonderful World" if you're not gonna... you know, SHOW the world and how wonderful it can be?

...Erasing the "world" aspect is probably the main "adaptation comparison" I wanted to mention here, but I'm not done yet. OHHH yes, The Animation has done more than just that to ruin my enjoyment. It's the little things that got me to care about TWEWY, and it's the little things that gets me somewhat annoyed for The Animation. While the anime does follow the story, it's not an exact T as there are weird RETCONS here and there. Not getting into specifics since it requires spoiling, but some of them do not make much sense to me, and if you played TWEWY, you might be able to understand how I feel. And changing parts of the story without doing so meaningfully are not the only inconsistencies this show makes as an adaptation. It's really weird to see Neku mainly deal his pin attacks with direct punches, including the Pyrokinesis pin, which originally wasn't even a physical pin that added fire to your punches, but instead an INDIRECT way of sending flames far away from the user using psychic energy. And speaking of Neku, Players complained that he wasn't more abrasive like he is in the English version of the game, and after hearing of his somewhat calmer nature in the original Japanese version, I shrugged it off at first... until I did a bit of digging and found a Tumblr blog detailing dialogue changes between SubaSeka and TWEWY, and found that there's still more to him than The Animation shows, like his snarkiness. And I didn't even realize this until typing up this review, but there is one scene where Joshua is eating some ice cream cones despite it being CANON in the game that he doesn't even like eating those particular foods. Okay, SERIOUSLY, what on earth is going on here??

All in all, The Animation likes to go through quickly and so it quickly felt boring to keep up with after a while. The battle scenes didn't excite me, the story couldn't get to me even though it did that and so much more before, the characters were robbed of a lot of their fun, and the world didn't really add to the entertainment. It felt so much like a chore after a while that I started noticing yet another thing that ate away at my enjoyment—now is the time to finally get to dialogue pacing. I couldn't help but notice the dialogue pacing found within several episodes after a while, and my goodness, did it quickly get distracting for me or what? There are many, many times where there is a distractingly long pause in between dialogue lines, and I feel like it adds to the slog in the same way that Pokémon Diamond and Pearl's many little lags between simple actions like menu navigation does for some people. It got to the point where dialogue scenes started feeling like Kingdom Hearts's dialogue scenes, and I do not mean that in a good way. A long and "meh" recap with much of the "fluff" removed... wow, it's almost like The Animation is like the 358/2 Days and Re:Coded HD compiliation movies for TWEWY! Crazy how I only NOW realized this (lol).

...*sigh*

Before I conclude this review, I just want to say this: if you bothered to actually read all of this, you deserve a certified "F it to high heaven!" for lending some of your precious time to reading a wall of text from a pitiful, heartless nobody like me. I really mean it, especially since writing this review was difficult (especially without spoiling the crap out of everything), as I had to spend at least a week writing and revising it all.

...I really wanted to love Subarashiki Kono Sekai The Animation. I really did. After all, I felt like the original Subarashiki Kono Sekai game was just ASKING to be a 2-cour anime ever since the moment I picked it up, with its heartfelt characters, surprisingly abundant charm, that GOD TIER soundtrack, and... that story, oh, what a story.

But, no matter how much I tried to be optimistic, (ironically) trying my best to trust it, The Animation unfortunately did not deliver in my opinion. When a 2-chapter promotional one-shot manga reviled by a considerable portion of (at least the Western side of) SubaSeka's fanbase is MORE FUNNIER than a reportedly "faithful" and complete adaptation, you've gotta realize that's how disappointing this anime was. And, after witnessing Square Enix announce a sequel to the original SubaSeka months after this anime was announced, I could not help but realize that this rushed, 1-cour recap only exists just to be an advertisement for the new game. It tries to sell anime-onlies onto the upcoming game by giving them a half-assed plot summary of the first game with a bunch of diluted characters and unmemorable action scenes, all made within a (clearly) limited amount of time and money; and I feel that this will all repeat again for that recently announced Legend of Mana anime adaptation.

Look, I don't necessarily have a problem with bad adaptations. The 2002 TV anime of the soon-to-be-20-year-old shoujo manga Full Moon wo Sagashite hardly follows its source material after episode 1, but it still manages to understand what made the source material popular; it still kept several main plotpoints and maintains the kind of charm, comedic timing, and feels with similar but anime-original content, with some of this new content honestly being great. Studio Ghibli's adaptation of Howl's Moving Castle hardly follows Diana Wynne Jones's original novel aside from most characters and significant plot points, yet it's still considered by many to be a great film even among those who actually read the book (myself included). So loose adaptations still have the potential to be good... and it's a shame that I can't even consider The Animation as one of those types of adaptations. It's sadly yet another video game adaptation to add to the sorry pile of disappointing video game anime/film adaptations.

It really just goes without saying that the original Subarashiki Kono Sekai, especially the original Nintendo DS version, is more worth your time. Even just watching a Let's Play online will give you a better experience than watching The Animation.

Sorry On Hoping Carelessly And Heaving Tirelessly On Adaptation.

Oh boy. This was disappointing. “The World Ends With You” is my favourite Nintendo DS game, so I was stoked when I heard that there would be an anime adaptation. The game oozes style, brims with uniqueness, and tells a touching story about human vulnerability. But considering that adaptations of video game stories have the tendency to be underwhelming, I did my best to lower my expectations...but damn, I should have lowered them further. The pacing of the show is all over the place. The narrative burns through instances of potential character development and stubbornly lingers on moments of meandering. Shiki and Rhyme are really only inabout 3 episodes, leaving very little time to grow attached to them. However, far too much time is dedicated to showing Neku, Joshua, and Beat wander around aimlessly for episodes on end. The storytelling priorities are so out of whack; the anime completely fails to capture the spirit of the original game, and worse, fails to be a compelling, stand-alone narrative.

Worst of all, though, is the animation and sound. Take any still frame of this show and it looks decent enough, but the illusion of quality crumbles the second it’s put into motion. TWEWY The Animation frequently resembles a lagging video game, looking choppy and stilted regardless of whether 2D or 3D animation is being used. The action scenes are ridiculously hard to follow due to jarring camera movements and poor framing; the screen is often just a cluttered mess of colours and shapes.

The music and sound effects are mediocre too, save for the recycled tracks from the game. There’s even a moment about 6 minutes into episode 10 where Beat whacks his skateboard against an enemy and there’s NO accompanying sound effect AT ALL. The enemy just gets launched away in complete silence. It’s all so...sloppy.

So yeah, this is an extremely low-quality adaptation that completely lacks the heart and soul of the original game’s story. Whether you’re a fan of the original game or not, I don’t recommend this anime. In fact, I would advise against wasting your time with it.

Please...if you want to spend your time meaningfully, just play the game or watch playthroughs online. This anime is not worth your time.

This is my first ever review. I'm writing this review as of 4 episodes in. The reason why I decided to write this review is simply because im a big fan of the original DS game. I loved the story, the characters, the soundtrack etc.. This anime though has failed to live up to the game in many ways. STORY: The story, while still interesting in its premise, has a way of making itself to be not interesting. There is no real tension, one thing happens then it immediately jumps to the next without making us care first. The reason why we don't care is because thedialogue of the characters is buttcheek so thats why im talking about that next.

CHARACTER:

THE CHARACTERS SAY EVERYTHING ON THEIR MIND AND ITS DRIVING ME NUTS.

In the original game, the main character, Neku was an edgy little amnesia boy who barely talked, but through his actions you gained part of his character. In here though he just blurts it all out and constantly monologues out loud treating the viewer like an infant. And it's not just him, that's EVERY character in this show. The show is trying soo hard to make sure that were following the story it just becomes unpleasant and annoying.

ART:

The art is stunning....until... well, it is until the cgi pops up. The cgi is serviceable, the monsters look ok, they just lose all the weight behind their attacks due to them feeling like parade balloons. It really makes us care about the tension a lot less, which this show already had issues with so... ouch. Besides that the 2d animation keeps the amazing artstyle of the ds game and it looks sleek and great. The ending as well has a series of beautiful illustrations by the russian illustrator Ilya Kuvshinov in which im a big fan of so that makes me extremely happy. If the cgi was replaced by traditional animation, the art of this show could have been something.

SOUND:

OH BOY

The original DS game had some of the best music of any DS game out there, it was so unique and followed its own style. Now, the show uses the songs from the game in crisp new quality which is great, but it fails on giving it its own soundtrack. You know when you watch a movie or a good anime characters have their own scores and themes? YEAH THEYRES NONE OF THAT HERE. Oh boy a battle!!! *plays the good ds music* Then the battle ends and its just character exposition with background noises and barely any music. There is like no original scoring in this besides the ed and op. Truly blasphemous for a game praised for its sound.

ENJOYMENT/OVERALL:

Overall, if you want to actually enjoy this story then play the game or don't even bother at all.

If you are a fan like me though, you will probably still be somewhat happy to see these characters illustrated in a great crisp artstyle with some remastered DS songs over it. That's just about all the enjoyment I can get out of it.

I know this is only 4 episodes in and I might get flack for that, but these are issues that have to do with the show as a whole, I dont think they're going to start using an actual soundtrack and stop using cgi and improve the whole method of storytelling by episode 6 or whatever, and if they do i'll be really shocked.

We always get the answer "Just consume (play, read, or watch) the source material instead" when asked if a certain adaptation is good or not. So that means it's bad, right? Well, most of the time, the adaptation will have a hard time living up to the original, due to various limitations, but it doesn't always mean that adaptation=bad. And that is the case in The World Ends With You: The Animation. Anime-only watchers might feel detached about the story and the characters, because they'll be introduced to us on one episode and then we get to see them go after two to three eps. Theyhad to fit an entire 25-hour game (according to howlongtobeat.com) into a 12-episode anime, so there really is no space for character development and proper storytelling. Video-game Neku is this snobby, unthoughtful loner who's rude to all of his partners because of his contempt for humanity, but they had to simplify his personality in the anime into this kid who just doesn't talk that much and gets along with others faster. The story's pacing is rushed and a bit off as well, but I'm surprised they included most of the subplot/subquests in the anime. Among other things, the Reaper Creeper and Tin Pin Slammer arcs were cut off in the adaptation, but there's not much of a use of that here, because the original purpose of that subplot is to introduce the minigame. So, for me, the adjustments and cuts they made are reasonable enough.

Another thing that may probably feel off for those who haven't played the game is the battles. I personally am not a fan of the constant shounen battles, that don't feel different from one another, because they feel empty and repetitive. Then they try to add emotion to these by making the heroes about to lose, but will be saved by the Power of Friendship, or something that anime like Pokemon use as their typical formula on how an episode goes. And the same formula seems to be used here as well, which could've been better if they at least give names to the moves, or show that some of these moves can evolve after a certain time, just like in the game.

"But wait, all of these criticisms, but you didn't rank this anime subpar?" Now let me geek out about the things I like about this show. When I watched the first episode, I'm not gonna lie, I was blown away by how they executed this adaptation. The art direction isn't far from Tetsuya Nomura's original art style of TWEWY (everyone is just not as skinny as they were in the game lmao), and the 3DCG looks just as good and doesn't feel off compared to some anime that use 3D. Even seeing the psych pins' moves, like Pyrokinesis and Piercing Pillar, made me smile, especially when they're battling in an anime version of Shibuya. Then, I got the chills when music from the game's OST, like Calling, Twister, and Underground, started playing, and when I heard some of my favorite seiyuu play as the characters of this anime. I also appreciate additional stuff that wasn't originally in the game, like how they added a scene of Eri buying flowers for her friend.

I may be rating this higher than most people because of nostalgia and my love for the game, but I honestly think The World Ends With You: The Animation is not that bad.

So, is it okay to watch this anime without playing the game first? Go for it if you have the time. Should you play the game? DEFINITELY, especially if you have more free time. It's one of the best video games out there and I'm not even exaggerating, because the game mechanics are very well-thought and the OST is just superb, especially if you're into Japanese rock and hip hop. If you could get your hands to a Nintendo DS or 3DS, play the original DS game for full immersion, but you can play that via Switch too, since that one's more accessible these days.

Before I begin this review, it's only fair that I make a brief reference to the game this anime is based of. Every once in a while I used to try and play it but for whatever reason I never enjoyed it. Despite this, I was pretty excited when this anime was announced because it meant I would get a chance at getting to know the story. Animation: I was really into the visuals up until CGI got introduced. I'm very against CGI usage in animes and this one didn't change my mind about it. It looks awful and breaks immersion. Sound: 1) The soundtrack isokay

2) Many of the seiyuus cast have a vast experience and some of them have worked together on many other shows. Although the game was voiced, Hachimine Anna (Shiki) was the only one reprising her role. You can definetely tell it was her 1st anime appearance and hopefully she'll get more roles and improve with experience. Even if she didn't perform as well as her fellow colleagues, I appreciate the continuity they were going for with her character and would've liked to see the same with the rest of the original cast.

3) there were a few instances where the dialog and animation were out of sync and that's something that will always have an impact on the overall enjoyment

4) Sometimes you'll notice the soundtrack and sound effects will be much louder than dialog

Story and characters:

I was into the story up until the 5th episode where I felt the plot and action were getting dull and boring. The characters felt a bit too empty for me to truly care after a certain point. It needed a bit more character development and more substance over the course of the story and the plot twists. It had a promising start for me but as it kept moving towards the end, it kept losing its charm.

The battles were incredibly repetitive with no new moves or strategies and adding CGI to them, it was the worst part of the anime for me.

If you enjoyed playing the game or the first few episodes intrigue you, you'll probably want to watch this and not regret it. However, if you find the start of this anime a bit dull, you can drop it because in my opinion, it does not get better. It's a 6/10 for me. It's fine to watch it on a weekly basis but definetely forgettable.

What a shame. I had high expectations from this anime although I already knew from the first episode that it would flop hard because I know it's going too fast. And hold and behold, the fast pacing and non-existent character development ruined this anime. Even though it had the potential to be good. It just needed at least 20 episodes in order to fix a lot of the main problems this anime had. The story is definitely there. It had some decent mystery (who the MC is, who the composer, what the f*ck is happening, etch.) but because of the fast pace of this anime, the revealof these mysteries are kinda lackluster and definitely not as good as I was hoping for.

The characters are all underdeveloped and basically cardboards. I just hate the cast because of how one-dimensional they are. They made stupid choices that shows how much of a cardboard the characters are. And that's partly because of the pacing's fault. If the pacing was more normal, the characters would have more time to monologue or does something that would show the audience how they feel in certain moments because the problem in this anime is that things happen just because. There's no breathing moment that would allow the audience to bond with the characters. Instead, by the time we would remember the character's names, they'd either die or be forgotten. It's a real shame because the characters have some quirks and some good designs that I'd probably like them if they were develop.

The animation is pretty decent. The first few episodes had some great CG-blending techniques to the stylized art style. It's great to look at. It's fluid and there's no boring fight scenes because of how great it is... until the latter episodes happened. By that time, the direction completely became sh*t because of how uninspired it is, and the 60fps before became like 5fps. Also, the great CG became really jarring to look at, that even I had to look-away when a fight is happening in the screen. It just got worst.

The music is pretty meh. I didn't like any of the tracks nor the opening. But the ed is somewhat decent so I had to give ponts to that.

Overall, just an anime with high potential but was ruined by how garbage the pacing is.

I will make it short, this is a pretty mid adaptation It feels really rushed compared to the game, and the ending is different and disappointing compared to the game's However the animation is really good, the artstyle fits the characters well and the english dub, while not having the original VAs is still very good It's an anime you'd watch for the animation, not for the plot as it's overall not a really good adaptation It's still some great fanservice for fans of the game like me Would recommend if you played the game and want to see some sick moves

overall score: -solid five- This show was hyped up because it was an adaptation of a old game that apparently was really popular at it's age. i mean what can i say, i can see it could be a really good game just from the character design and how unique each character is. But the problem is Subarashiki Kono Sekai The Animation is literally promised neverland s2 incognito mode, NO ONE thought that this anime is: 1. The story was hella rushed 2. neku is going everywhere with different reason every time and is currently (ep.7) progressing NOWHERE near his goal. 3. the fight scene was mediocre but could'vebeen better. it's not bad but not good at the same time.

also they kept on throwing this random TWIST AND TURN and later the next second just dismissed the fact or just come to a conclusion that doesn't CONCLUDE or give a good reasoning to anything which is really stupid at some part. This show is indeed a wasted potential.

Many video game adaptations are really bad, but this is a rare exception. It's been a while since I've played the game and I barely remember most of the story, but I do remember having lots of fun playing it. So this is my biased review of this show, as a nostalgic boomer who plays old video games. Often times if an anime has a video game source, you don't really get to feel any of the gameplay elements or even remotely grasp the atmosphere of the game. And it's to be expected as adapting the interactive parts of a game is difficult when you're turningit into a show, where you can't just ask your audience to flick the stylus or do something, this isn't Dora the Explorer.

How do you actually adapt the flicking of a stylus or the pressing of a button into an anime? Well they managed to pull it of, and that to me just by itself is impressive. The animation for game actions like "Psych" or "Scan" is actually really well thought out, and gives you something you don't get to fully see or understand in the original game.

This game was also among the earliest works to use Shibuya as a full setting. You can actually go and visit the game locations in real life. Of course since then, many other shows and games have also used it, as it is a famous place, but it was memorable to me as it felt like I could visit Shibuya without even leaving the comforts of my home. Unfortunately, you can't explore and search the areas like you did in the game and they do skip some of the iconic areas, but they do well to adapt most of the important locations.

The artstyle and soundtrack are really great. The game has always been praised for its unique artstyle and soundtrack and the show follows suit. I absolutely love the THICK outlines. It breaks the conventional style most anime have and goes for something different. The fight scenes are also really smooth and fluid, well-choreographed. Some would criticize this show for use of 3DCGI but those people are idiots. The use of 3DCGI is actually among the best I've seen in any anime. It's actually amazing how they can use it without breaking the unique artstyle the show has.

If there was anything lacking in the original game, it was that many of the story elements were left to text and it was up to the player's imagination to picture the scenes in their head. With the anime adaptation, we finally get to see many of the pivotal scenes that was just bland text on the screen in the game. That by itself is more than enough reason to watch the show even if you've already played the game.

We're 4 episodes in and so far I'm really enjoying the show. But then again, I'm watching this from my biased nostalgia perspective. So take this with a grain of salt as to me, I see absolutely nothing wrong with the show apart from it being too good of an adaptation for a video game.

Sigh. So, TWEWY is my favorite game of all time, and as many fans, I was super hyped (and worried) to see it animated after over a decade - I guess nobody in the fandom had had many hopes. I would like to review a good adaptation of my favorite game; sadly, I'll end up reviewing a mediocre transmedia attempt. Keep in mind that my opinions take the game into account, so there might be minor spoilers for anime-only viewers. I'll try my best to refrain from spoilers, though. The core of the story itself remains unchanged: the protagonist, Neku Sakuraba, suddenly wakes up in the middle ofthe Scramble Crossing, in Shibuya. He soon found out he is in the middle of a 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". We will get more into it later.

The element they nail the most is the music. There are many songs from the original game, well-adapted versions of them, and new music that fits with the entire vibe of the franchise. Sure, rest in peace ALI's opening, but all in all, this part is well-handled.

All the other factors come with a lot of "buts"; some are nice, some are not, could have been done better, or are simply unnecessary. Let's start with the art and animation: I like most of it. Of course, I won't deny that it took me a bit of time to get used to the new character design, but it was a change for the best, in my opinion. The transition of places and the showing of pins were a tiny gift for an avid fan of the game. However, I completely disliked the CGI noise and it ruined part of the experience to me. The design itself is alright; the problem is the flow. The scenes are not dynamic. It looks as if the noise are moving in so zetta slow motion. Because of that, most - if not all of the fight scenes seemed unexciting. Oh, and talking about fights, the pacing of the show is so ridiculous that some important boss battles ended up less than five minutes (in some cases, taking less time than "minor" battles, which is a serious issue).

Back to the story, in order to complete the "main storyline" in just twelve episodes, they had to both cut some scenes and reorder others. More "fillerish" missions go completely unmentioned and side games do not exist. So, yes, no Tin Pin, no Noodle Shop, no tag, No reaper creeper, no Going-To-Towa-Records-To-Buy-All-The-CDs-With-The-Soundtrack. Actually, you don't even know the shopkeepers which are part of the immersive experience of the game, which I find quite sad.

The scene cutting and reordering also affect the character development. Is it good? Well... it depends on whom you ask. Some characters were benefited, some not. Both major and minor characters. Let's get the protagonist, Neku, which I believed was affected negatively - the game starts with an inner monologue, which, for some reason, was cut off of the anime. I don't understand why, even with the pacing issue, as it was not a long scene. That scene is what leads to his character development throughout the story, so it was a bad move to do this. And the "filler" missions help to slowly see the growth of all characters. Without those, some emotional moments ended up emotionless.

The pacing of the show slowly improves (from drastic to bad) in some moments. The first three episodes are the worst ones in terms of pacing, so no wonder it would leave a bad impression on many viewers. The middle of the show (from around episode 5 to 10) has the best pacing, despite any other problems.

In the end, a game being adapted into a 1-cour anime is the root of most - if not all of these issues. It's obvious that the anime was just done to promote the new sequel. What saddens me is that it could have been done in a better way so that it would please both fans and newcomers, and what was needed was airtime.

And now for the cliche part of the review: if you enjoyed anything about the show, play the game if you have the chance to. If you are not able to, you can watch story-only gameplays online that will give you a much better grasp of the situation. Maybe 5 is too high given my disappointment (IT'S MY FAVORITE GAME!!!!!!!!!!), but I have too much affection for the franchise I couldn't give it anything lower. I've seen worse game adaptations, but it doesn't lower my sadness here.

Repeating once again: sigh.

Just Play the game imo.. was fine if what you are expecting is mid level animation to match the older game style it was emulating. VA's were pretty dang good for real though and the music was killer. but thats about all hse wrote in my opinion. story kinda unique i gues... also kinda mids the style fit in a way so i approve there. i feel like if you havent played the game then... its not what you will be looking for most likely nothing really stood out as amazing... and honestly im trying to review something on hete and it keeps saying i need to add more...my review will be aimed more at MAL now not always does it have to be a long in depth review...sometimes you just want to gwt to the point. which is what i would like to do but being intruded upon by you. such a shame... again lower mid tier anime... possibly just BAD

While i am writing this review,i do it as someone who has not played the game, So the plot is exactly as the sypnosis mentioned,its repeated but its done with variations in events as not to get repetitive even though the basics of the plot structure remain the same,althought even though i have not played the game i can tell some events are rushed to fit the 12 episode structure. The character designs are unique and the art was great,i searched to see how the game designs look and they did very good in being accurate and looking good.There is quite a lot of CGIbut its done very well and it fits very well with the rest of the animation,which is also good.

The VAs fit the characters very well and the music matched the style of the show and the opening/ending song was on the good side as well.

The main cast is fleshed out really well,moreso the main character Neku,although the villains are on the weak side as they were not fleshed out enough despite having motivations and enough presense.

Overall even as someone who has not played the game i can tell that a lot of things were rushed as you may have guesed from my review but as a standalone i believe the positives outweigh the negatives.

Some video games just aren't meant to be anime, and this is one of them. The World Ends With You (TWEWY) is one of my personal favorite games from my DS days. When it was released, the game was ahead of its time, combining amazing gameplay, appealing art styles, and a killer soundtrack. Unfortunately, none of what made TWEWY special translated properly into the anime. The pacing was awful, the soundtrack appeared in scenes that didn't fit, and the switch between 2D animation and 3D CGI is not pretty. The characters that I love so much didn't get a chance to shine and I honestly feel a littlerobbed.

The World Ends With You, or Subarashiki Kono Sekai, it's a great idea with the lack of proper pacing. Now, a word of warning, this anime is based on the videogame for the Nintendo DS with the same name. However, to make it as subjective as possible, I'll not make a comparison on the two, but focus solely on the animation, making the less possible parallelism on the two. Without further to say, let's jump into the review. Story: 7 Waking up in an unknown world, without any memories and greeted by enemies known as 'noise'. In order to 'win' the game, you must survive 7 days,completing tasks each of the days. What will happen in the course of this story? Basically, the plot in a nutshell. Itself, the story is original and very well made. However, two major factors are what holds me from giving it a higher rate: fights and pacing.

The fights are, to put in a way, the same for the most part. By this I don't mean it's like One Punch Man where every battle ends with the enemy being punched in the face -which is, in fact, good as long as there's something else to this. The battles in TWEWY are mostly "let's synchronize so we can end this fight asap". It even repeats the same animations with a different enemy on the center, so basically if you watch a fight you now known how every other is going to be like.

As for the pace, I can't say for sure if the story is rushed to the point where it could've been better to have more episodes or if 12 episodes are way too long. As for the game, for the most part you are fighting instead of getting cutscenes, so it's natural there isn't that many parts to put on the scene. However, there are key parts that have been completly skipped -as for example, the first fight in the game requires an strategy in order to bait the enemy and make him vulnerable, but for the adaptation they went and said "alright we are going to punch this thing until it dies", missing even the event that should had happen afterwards.

Art: 8

For the characters, there's a comic-like artstyle, not really common in the anime. The animation, mostly for the fights as there's where it requires the most movement, is pretty solid and fluid for the most part. For the enemies, there's an use of CGI instead of hand-drawed frames. This may be a bad choice, as both 2D and 3D animations tends to be bad when mixed. However, in my point of view, this decision made the enemies look way more dangerous, as they look as if they were from another world. The animation on the them probably isn't the best, as they lack proper animations. However, it's decent enough to let that slip.

Sound: 6

As someone who enjoyed the game's soundtrack, I feel as if this adaptation lacks most of the good themes from the original source. I'm not saying that the sound choices are bad, but they could've been a lot better. As for example, the ending theme, Carpe Diem, would have worked better for a boss fight or the last episode ending.

Character: 4

Oh boy, this is really what breaks me the most. Besides the MC and a few more, every other character is 'time-limited'. That means that their screen time will be, at most, for 4 episodes. This wouldn't be bad if we didn't count the bad pacing of the show and how they want you to like a character in just 2 episodes. In a personal note, I love most of the characters, but damn it really feels empty when it gives them around 40 minutes to meet you just to disappear afterwards. The character spits their backstory, a few fights in the middle because if not the show wouldn't hit 12 eps, and then they just say "Sayounara".

Enjoyment: 5

I started this as I really liked the game. It's not that I hated it -in fact, I also liked it. However, with all the negative points it has, it's almost impossible for me to enjoy it. It's good to rewatch the story and refresh your memory, but if someone who haven't played the game asked me if he or she should try this, my answer would be 'no'.

Overall: 6

Are videogame adaptations just bad? No. In all honesty, TWEWY animation had a lot of potential. Maybe because it was meant to 'promote' the game it ended up having a rushed script, but every other aspect of it is decent.

Should you watch TWEWY animation? As I said on the enjoyment part, if you played the game or have a knowledge of how's the story and characters, then yes. It could be good to remember the story and all of that. However, if you have no idea of the original source, then I'm sorry but I wouldn't suggest watching this anime. Thus, I'd give it a 6/10 if you know the source, and a 3/10 if you don't (as I can't give 2 different ratings, I'll stuck with the higher because, as I mentioned, it had the potential to become a better show).

If you watched the game you would enjoy this anime a bit. It has fan service which is gun and voiced and stuff. The CGI is dogshit and it hurts my eyes those parts were actual trash. I LOVE JOSHUA. HIS VOICE IN THE ANIME IS PERFECT I WISH WE GOT MORE OF HIM. the dialogue was very cute. shiki was there. THE PACING WAS SHIT. The hand drawn animation was pretty but again the cgi was shit. There was a lot of telling and spouting exposition but other than that it was pretty enjoyable but like the danganronpa anime and persona 5 anime itwas shit and you should just play the game.

nfortunately, though the anime has its strong points, it's badly hampered by the speed at which it rushes through its own story. It seems likely that, rather than being given the chance to stand on its own, the anime is meant to promote the upcoming game NEO: The World Ends With You.The anime is only slated for 12 episodes as of now, and it's looking like the studio intends to cover the entire story in that tiny amount of time. The original game follows Neku Sakuraba as he plays through three weeks of the deadly "Reaper's Game" in an attempt to win resurrection -- since,as it turns out, all the players are dead people hoping to win a second chance at life. Each day that passes in the game is treated as its own sort of episode, with a mission Neku and his partner have to complete, as well as secret bonus missions players can unlock after they've finished the game once.

In order to squeeze those three weeks of story into 12 episodes, the anime speeds through events at a breakneck pace. It eliminates many of the character interactions that give the game its charm and doesn't take the time to properly develop the personalities of its cast. Episode 1 covered three days' worth of game content, which could have easily taken up three episodes by themselves. Episode 2 is barely any better, covering the next two days of Neku's struggle to survive the Reaper's Game. The anime has succeeded in staying on track to finish in 12 episodes, but it's come at a cost.

If you ever wanted Sonic the Hedgehog the Animation, you have got it. A blank slate protagonist, emphasized with his total loss of memory which kinda should excuse a total lack of a background, goes through the levels, beating shit out of 8-bit animated monsters. Of course, from the start MC gets a pretty and helpful sidekick girl who cannot survive without him but apparently survived long enough to know a shit ton more about the rules of the new world. On their way they get some other players to demonstrate that teamwork rulez because it is easier to survive together. It is a big surprise for everyone. Maincharacter trait of the blank slate protagonist is that he always gets enraged and rushes in the midst of the swarm of the enemies, leaving the team behind. He gets saved but is meathead enough to not to learn.

Angry MC is a cliche edgelord.

Also, there are the other players, who do not care about surviving and just go on with their more important stuff.

Aside of extremely boring 8-bit fights there is a lot of other BS like:

* MC uses a stream of flame like a flamethrower but for no reason restricts his fighting style to a fistfight. With the streams of fire, yeah.

* The main team uses luck, good dead and connections to get into the location. The other team just walks in.

Art is on the level of first generation of Sonic.

Sound, the same.

Characters, there are no characters, 0.5 dimensional is not a character.

Who would probably like this anime... perhaps target audience would be the players of the original game since the anime itself has a little value. Age group is definitely "shounen", although, if you have seen Naruto, this one will be already not interesting.

Subarashiki Kono Sekai or The World Ends with You the Animation is based on the cult classic 2007 Nintendo DS game of the same name that saw a port to mobile, and later Nintendo Switch. The game developed and published by Square Enix was a master class JRPG with a really unique art style (Provided by Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasies Tetsuya Nomura) a gripping and emotional story about breaking out of your insecurities, meeting other people and expanding your horizons, after all; your world ends with you. After its release in 2007, The World Ends with You garnered critical acclaim and regarded as oneof the best JRPG's on the Nintendo DS. Which stands to reason? Why is it not that remembered or talked about? Despite critical acclaim, the game didnt do so well in Japan or worldwide for that matter because of its really polarising but unique combat system that requires FULL use of the DS's touch capabilities as well as controlling two characters using each screen. Besides the mobile port in th early 2010s and cameos in Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance, The World Ends with You became a dormant franchise until the Nintendo Switch Port in 2018 and now after 13 YEARS a Sequel was announced as well as an Anime Adaptation of the first game, something fans have been clamouring for since the series inception. Now that Anime has finally arrived, so lets take a look at it :)

I have followed the development of the Anime Adaptation since its announcement, the project has been overseen by the original executive staff of the game and Tetsuya Nomura. There has been a lot of love put into this adaptation, all of the original voice cast has returned after all these years, the original composer of the video game has returned to score the anime too. Unfortunately, like most Anime Adaptations of Video Games, the show has only been given the standard single cour (12 Episodes) of run time as its just there to promote the video games. Which for a JRPG is usually not good. Looking at you Persona 5 The Animation and Danganronpa The Animation...

However, it is clear to me that this adaptation is different. There is clear love behind it, attention to detail and a solid attempt at trying to make the best possible adaptation under budget and episode count constraints.

STORY OVERVIEW (Spoiler Free as possible)

The World Ends with You follows a 15 Year old boy, Neku Sakuraba in the Tokyo district of Shibuya. Neku wakes up one day in the middle of Shibuya's Scramble Crossing with no knowledge of who he is or why he is here. Neku wakes with a black skull pin with him signifying he is a player in the twisted Reapers Game. Soon after waking, he realises nobody can see him, he is trapped at Scramble Crossing/Statue of Hachiko; surrounded by forcefield like walls at every exit. He receives a text message on his phone,

Get to 104, you have 60 Minutes

Fail and Face Erasure

-The Reapers

A timer imprints onto Neku's hand, counting down till the expiration of the allotted mission time.

Neku soon gets attacked by frog like monsters that he cannot fight back against until a strange girl runs into him telling him he needs to forge a player pact with her to be able to fight back against the Noise. The story follows Neku and his game partner through the 7 days of the Reapers Game, completing missions, battling the Noise and the Reapers, and discovering the true nature of why they have been chosen to participate in the Reapers Game.

I know this doesn’t sound like a particularly original premise, and it’s not. There are plenty of anime and games since 2007 that have used the 'Death Game' format; but there is a lot more depth and complex themes The World Ends with You tackles as it goes on that are not apparent at the beginning of the story.

STORY (Anime Adaptation)

Lets address the elephant in the room, the pacing. Hooo boy this is a doozy. Of course, 12 episodes means that things will be rushed, it is a given. However, I have minimal issues with the pacing thus far, is it a little jarring? Yes, absolutely. The entire first 1/3 of the game is covered in 3 episodes. While the first 1/3 of the game is shorter than everything that comes after, there is a lot of missing context and nuances that are unfortunately missing; however, in my opinion, that does not make this show outright bad by any stretch. The structure of the story has undergone some significant changes to make the story better flow within an anime format and for the most part, I think it succeeds.

Obviously, like with pretty much all video game adaptations into any other medium, the original source is the way to go if you want to experience the full story with all the detail and nuance. The way the anime has been handled so far I think has been pretty good, especially considering the constraints. It does a good job of making the story make sense while also providing all the key plot details for any newcomer to get a solid understanding for if they decide to jump into the new game coming this Summer.

As of Episode 4 the pacing has become MUCH better. Really the only terribly affected episodes of weird pacing are the first 3 that comprise of the first arc of the anime. This arc in the game was largely a tutorial and significantly easier as such, this was the arc to receive the most edits or cuts to give more time for the complex stuff later on. Episodes 4-8 have been pretty smooth and the final arc from 9-12 has been pretty good too.

ART/ANIMATION

The art style of the video game is highly celebrated for its unique art style that has not yet been truly replicated. The unique art was a number one concern by fans on if they would be able to translate it to anime and I am SUPER HAPPY to report that they have done a phenomenal job in replicating the art style. The anime is super colourful, each characters design is really distinct, locations have been brought to life and the characters retain their signature bold black outlines that make them stand out. The 2D animation looks fantastic, but the main concern is the amount of 3D CGI used.

CGI is used A LOOOT in this show and it’s easy to understand why, the unique and detailed character designs don’t lend themselves well to being drawn in chaotic battles in a timely manner for a TV Anime budget, as such for battles heavy used of 3D Character models are used as well as the Noise Monsters being completely 3D CGI.

Personally, I think the CGI for the most part is great, the CGI used for the human characters is phenomenally done, they still look like their 2D drawn counterparts and retain their great detailed designs. The Noise are creatures not from this world, they are meant to look weird and uncanny, and the CGI portrays that really well. Does it suck they are not drawn? Yes. But they could look a whole lot worse than they do and with how well the games style has been replicated I don’t have a problem with the CGI. It looks pretty good and the dynamic camera movements during battles also help to disguise any potential shortcomings of the 3D models or the animation itself.

SOUND

The World Ends with You has a PHENOMENAL soundtrack, anybody who has heard it will agree, it has so many bangers that still hold up over a decade later. The soundtrack was designed to reflect the current musical trends of Japanese Teenagers and Young Adults in and around Shibuya in the late 2000's and it shows even in the Anime. The original composer for the games has returned to score new tracks and remix old game tracks for the anime adaption. We have heard the tracks 'Its a Wonderful World' and 'Calling' (For the new OP in episode 1) used from the game. (I have a Archive Thread for what happened to the original opening 'Teenage City Riot' you can go read). With Twister taking the position of OP from episode 2 onwards. The opening is absolutely stunning in my opinion. It oozes the essence and style of The World Ends with You with every frame and despite this being another version of Twister to go along with almost 20 other versions, it is still welcome and as said before, its super befitting of The World Ends with You.

The music still holds up albeit sometimes not fitting but for reasons I mentioned in my archive thread thought that’s not really the fault of staff under the circumstances. Also the anime original tracks except maybe 'Walls' leave a lot to be desired compared to the games. There is an over reliance on a few tracks that becomes very noticable, I would name drop those tracks but the OST hasnt released yet. None of them are bad and they fit very well, but compared to tracks from the game like, Twister, Someday, Transformation, SHIBUYA, Detonation etc. They dont really hold a candle.

CHARACTER

For those asking why Neku doesnt come across as more assertive and dickish in this adaptation at the beginning? It is because in Japan, Neku is a lot more reserved than the english localised version. So far though, the anime is struggling with character moments. We are missing Neku's internal monologues which have so far made Neku come across as really boring and completely disinterested, like he was a person cast for the main character of a show despite his complete lack of interest in acting. This is purely because of the lack of time, Neku will improve as the show goes on, but his character is clearly going to seem a lot more disjointed in this adaptation. However, I understand why they have gone this route with Neku. Because Neku in the game is so shut off and disconnected it would not make sense with the runtime of the Anime for him to be as he was in the game to the same degree. It would be major whiplash for Neku to undergo such character change meant for 8-10 hours of game time plus, to be squashed into 1hr of Anime time. It would seem like majorly poor writing and unnatural character progression. Instead in the anime, Neku starts off more in the middle of his growth from the game, which while it makes sense for reasons mentioned, it still dilutes his character from the early 3-episode portion as he does not really have much room to grow or change, because he's already where he should be (Day 7 in game) just from Day 1 Episode 1.

Neku definitely becomes better as the show goes on but character is definitely not the forefront of this adaptation, thats not its goal. The goal is to tell the story for people going onto NEO who dont have access to the full game, remember, the anime is NOT replacing the game.

Shiki was great, the attention to detail with her was great, they directly used poses from her game sprites in her animation and it was wonderful to see. Shiki is her normal cheerful and bubbly self; her minor hero tendencies still show through. However again due to time, her character tick of always being in her mobile phone/deep in thought or just generally protective of her phone has been lost. The anime has handled Shiki's story as well as it could have imo and in some ways really improving on the emotion simply because unlike the game, we can experience all of these events in motion.

Beat and Rhyme are pretty good, their personalities have come shone through really well as well as the supporting cast of Reapers from what little we have seen so far. Episode 2 and 3 really helped showcase Beat and Rhyme in ways the game could not which was really nice to see and in particular Rhyme. Anyone who has played the game (or seen up to episode 3) knows what I mean with Rhyme, and my god the Anime has done such a wonderful job with her. Beat really gets to shine in later episodes and his personality is nailed, he's such a joy to watch.

Everyone's character designs are absolutely on point and are near perfect adaptions of their game counterparts.

ANIME ORIGINAL CONTENT

So far the anime has had several different scenes that did not appear in the game to ANY extent. Unlike a lot of other adaptations, in my opinion these all have been extremely welcome and fit the world of the anime adaptation very well. Bonus scenes with Uzuki and Kariya on what they do in their downtime or seeing Eri’s reactions to events I wont spoil. Even Minamimoto got a FANTASTIC anime original scene as his entrance to the Reapers Game as well as his battle being an absolute visually stunning sequence with a great mix of 2D and 3D Combat sequences. The anime original content featured has been some of the highlights of this adaptation as it builds off of things touched upon or not delved deep enough into with the game. Loving it so far.

OVERALL

This show is CLEARLY plagued by time contraints, like most game anime adaptations. If this is your first experience of The World Ends with You, it will do you well enough to use as a catch up for the main story beats leading up to the Sequel, NEO The World Ends With You this summer. However, if you are even remotely interested in this show and have not played the games? I IMPLORE you with all my heart to go play it if you can and give this series a proper chance. The series has a small but super dedicated fanbase and its taken us over a decade for it to truly come back and its too unique of a series to see go dormant again for yet another Final Fantasy or yet another Kingdom Hearts. (Development of the sequel was halted several times because staff were pulled to work on other FF and KH titles). BTW the demo for Neo The World Ends with You is OUT NOW for FREE on Nintendo Switch and PS4. It gives a good 2hrs with the game and fantastically introduces you to the character and style the games offer that the anime lacks. Its 100% worth your time and its free! Please give it a go if you can!

So far the anime is super solid and most of everything fans have wanted thus far, it hurts to see it rated so low because given the circumstances this is probably the best possible adaptation we could have ever gotten and there is clearly so much love with trying to translate the unique look and sound of the game to animation despite low episode count or budget constraints. It hurts seeing people compare this show to the likes of Danganronpa The Animation and the Ace Attorney adaptation because as a fan of all these series, its clear to see that Subarashiki Kono Sekai is a step above all of those adaptations and even still its rated lower than all of them.

I think fans of The World Ends with You in particular have set themselves up for disappointment because for an attempt at squeezing the game into 12 episodes, this has done a really great job at making it work so far. Were people really expecting a 12-episode Anime to showcase Reaper Creeper? Were you all really expecting it to show the memes scene when the whole shtick of the Anime is to bring the story out of the mid 2000s and into the modern day? Some people were seriously expecting information from the Secret Reports to be covered also? Like really? What were you all expecting? Even Tin Pin would have been a boring recreation of Beyblade, It works in game, not in the animation. The moment this was revealed to be 12 episodes, expectations should be in check. This adaptation could be a heck of a lot worse, and you all know it. Its jam packed with fanservice and even seeing all of these moments animated has been such a pleasure. Could it have been better? Absolutely! But I dont think a (currently) 5.96/10 is fair for the effort that went into adapting this as well as it did. This show deserves at LEAST a 7/10 in my eyes.

Anyways. Thank you for reading. Verdict so far...

With my TWEWY Bias 9/10

Without my TWEWY Bias 8/10

The World Ends With You is an anime adaptation of the video game of the same name. The story follows Neku who wakes up in the middle of Shibuya Crossing, with no recollection of how he ended up there. It turns out that he is caught in the “Reapers Game” and he has only 7 days to survive in order to make it through the end. The only way he can survive in the Underground Shibuya is to partner up with someone, which is extremely challenging for Neku as he is very anti-social. There were some callbacks to the original game like syncing and fusionattacks. Like in the game you could also see the scene transitions with the location names being written in graffiti style. Also, episodes ended in the same graffiti style chapters ended in the original game. You can see they also borrowed the sprites from the game and implemented in the anime as another nice visual callback.

The missions are the same as is in the original game where players have to reach certain area in a limited amount of time or else they would get erased. Like in the game, players use pins to fight “noise” which are the enemies and the anime includes much of the pins from the original game which is a nice touch. Something that wasn’t in the game was bigger noise feeding off smaller noise to become more powerful so that could also be seen in Neo The World Ends With You.

The edgy graffiti inspired artstyle as well as the character designs were superb. Shibuya looks much more modernized as times have changed since the game came out, but it still feels and looks familiar. Smartphones have replaced flip phones like back in the late 2000s. All of the locations and names of the game still remain the same. The glitchy visuals was nice new touch to the anime.

The same composer from the game returns to make the music in the anime. Twister was used as the opening just like in the original game but it would have been really nice to see Teenage City Riot, the original opening be used in the anime. The anime did not utilizeother songs from the game like “Someday” or “Deja Vu”. The atmosphere of Shibuya is just the same as the game.

Unlike the game, the anime does add moments of blood which is pretty unique. The anime also introduces a player vs player scenario where they must fight each other to survive and this concept is going to be used in Neo The World Ends With You. The anime had a day and night cycle and weather cycle which provided some variance. The anime has its downsides.

The humor from the game was missing in the anime and this was a big negative for me. The anime missed the chance to use the infamous “pants off scene” from the game. The video game was dark but it had some comedy while this anime is darker than the original game with blood and on screen deaths of other players. While the anime added a couple of new noise like Spiders and Fish, many other noises were neglected from being added to the adaptation due to time constraints.

There were some things missing from the game in the anime. Because of the fast pace, characters were not fully defined and the chemistry between them was not the same. Characters that had some interaction in the game were missing in the anime. Neku’s monologue in the intro wasn’t in the anime which was very much a wasted opportunity. Neku was also much more polite, outgoing and more trusting in the anime. (Also in the Japanese version of the game as well) “Tin Pin Slammer” a mini game that was like Bey-Blade from the game is completely absent.

The dialogue was more modernized to reflect millennial terminology. This may result in the anime not aging well. There were some references from the original game used in the dialogue though which was a nice touch. The character development is really rushed and so many characters often pop in and out and were just introduced all at once due to the short length.

The story was very rushed and instead of having the days in just one episode, they’ve just crammed in as many as possible. The pacing did eventually slowdown in later episodes. The animation was really stiff and the cgi was very obvious especially with the noise. The action wasn’t really good either and it was very predictable.

Be warned to those who have motion sickness as the camera will move around quite a lot in the anime. Overall, the anime was a decent adaptation of the game.