Back in June, Square Enix announced its much-loved fighting-and-fashion JRPG, The World Ends With You, would be getting the anime treatment, and now, ahead of its launch next year, the show has received a brand-new trailer.
The World Ends With You: The Animation, as the new anime adaptation is known, takes its narrative lead from the original, wonderfully compelling 2007 Nintendo DS game, beginning when protagonist Neku Sakuraba awakens in Tokyo’s fashionable Shibuya district, only to discover that reality has gone decidedly askew.
“Now an unwilling participant in the mysterious ‘Reapers’ Game’,” explains Square Enix’s official synopsis (thanks Gematsu), “Neku must partner up with a girl named Shiki in order to survive. Together, they complete missions and defeat monsters known as ‘Noise’ as they gradually uncover the true nature of this twisted Game.”
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The DS original garnered plenty of praise for its dazzling, dizzying split-screen real-time combat system, but it’s probably best remembered for its wonderful sense of style, which eschewed the usual RPG fantasy tropes in favour of something considerably more modern, incorporating aspects of Japanese youth culture, fashion, and consumerism into its core systems.