Clash of Desires

Finally, the end of Week 2! Time to head off to Pork City, beat the GM, and then witness some of the best video game dialogue ever:

Sho Minamimoto reciting the digits of pi. This takes up two entire dialogue boxes.

The ending of this day is also Joshua's exit as Neku's partner. Despite spending the whole week with him, he remains almost as much of an enigma as before. Even with my postgame hindsight, it's still difficult to figure out what he's really thinking. Which is, of course, kind of the point of this week! As Joshua points out several times, it's impossible to truly understand other people. Everyone has their own perspective, values, and internal world. Neku's arc this week is about accepting this...but also deciding that it doesn't make trying to connect with others pointless. So even if Neku and I still don't totally get Joshua, that doesn't mean we got nothing out of this week.

Neku talking to Joshua: Expanding your world means making it bigger. I finally get that.

Neku: You've gotta...gotta reach out to other people.

I really do feel like I "enjoyed every moment" during this week, too. Without many missions, most of the week was just spent hanging out with Joshua. And while Joshua is technically pursuing a mission of his own, he doesn't seem to mind taking detours. I really, really enjoyed just wandering around Shibuya with him, shopping, playing Tin Pin, eating ramen, and investigating missing microphones. I think one of my favorite moments from this week was when he ordered the extremely suspicious-looking "Big Catch" bowl from Ramen Don for both him and Neku, just because it made me laugh. It was fun! And maybe somewhere in all that nonsense, Neku's world expanded a bit.

Since it's the end of another week, it's time to take another look at my completion %s! I'm now ESP'er Rank B, and have filled out 84.3% of the Noise Report, hit 64.1% Pin Mastery (that's a whole 195 types mastered, btw), and completed 93.6% of the Item Collection. Some of this is from taking a break to play through most of Another Day, which was also super fun. I finished the Tin Pin storyline, but I've yet to make it to the top of Pork City.

That's all for Week 2! Here's today's secret report:

The final day's mission came from the Conductor: eliminate Minamimoto.

Unexpected as it was, tension ran high, but the Composer's quick thinking saved the day. In the end, all went according to his plan, and he successfully guided the proxy on to the next Game.

His solution entailed first defeating Minamimoto, thereby ensuring the proxy's victory. Secondly, the Composer pretended to be erased by Minamimoto while shielding the proxy.

To accomplish this, he fled to a parallel world just before Minamimoto's final attack connected.

The proxy survived the Game alone, but was again unable to elect reincarnation, due to the Composer's illegal participation in the Game.

For better or worse, the Game between the Composer and Conductor concludes in one week's time.

The Conductor's strategy may end in failure, but we will see. I need to keep a close eye on his future actions.

All I can do is wait for the Composer to inform me of which parallel world he escaped to.