Pinned

This day actually starts with Neku and Joshua playing Tin Pin in the middle of the crossing. Apparently, Neku has been practicing his slamming in secret. I'm beginning to think that the universe of Another Day might not actually be so different from the one of the main game...

Speaking of Another Day, while I've been replaying the chapters in order so far (aside from occasional backtracking), I cheated a bit and hopped over to the postgame chapter in order to grab some Orichalcum pins. Then I used those (and the last of my Scarletite, rip) to get the Hollow Leg, Ultimate Difficulty, and 16-Chain Battle stickers. Now I won't be able to unlock Joshua's extra fusion attacks anytime soon, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for the sake of the grind, since I have become seriously obsessed with mastering pins. Unreasonably so, considering TWEWY has a lot of fucking pins to master. So far, I've managed to master over 100, which is still only around 35%. Why am I doing this to myself?! I literally turned on my old DS just to give myself more Mingle PP. Luckily, Mingle Mode also randomly spawns "alien" encounters if you just leave the game on for a while, so I'm not totally reliant on manually mingling with myself. The descriptions for the aliens are also pretty interesting: I've run into myself in 20 years, a nagging feeling, another me, a psycho hose beast, and...

[This probably isn't an intentional reference but it still jumpscared me.]

Okay, now back to the actual game. I really like the segment where you help out 777's band! It's very silly and fun! Even Joshua seems to be enjoying playing detective. It's nice how the game starts to put more time into fleshing out supporting characters during week 2 (for instance, we also officially meet Sota and Nao during this day! They're so sweet?!). It makes Shibuya start to feel a lot more alive. Maybe Neku is starting to expand his world after all?

As an aside, during my first playthrough I totally missed the fact that the girl BJ called from the "phone booth of love" is actually Uzuki! If you run into her during Day 3, she gets a weird phone call in the middle of talking to Neku, assumes it's a prank call, and hangs up. Thus breaking BJs heart... anyway, it was cool to finally put the pieces together and realize those events are connected! Again, Shibuya is really starting to come to life.

Onto Udagawa, where Joshua and Neku have yet another conversation about how they don't need friends and hate talking to other people. Unfortunately(?) for Joshua, Neku seems to be having second thoughts about his "I hate everyone" life philosophy. If you want a boy to validate your worldview, it's probably best to not lead with shooting him in the street...