"Thanks to these eyes...I came to understand how cruel and despicable people can be. But that also allowed me to appreciate true beauty. All you have to do is appreciate things from a different perspective. Once I realised the things we take for granted are really miracles, I came to see everything in its precious, ephemeral beauty."
I've been battling depression and anxiety as far as my earliest memories of my life go, from before I even knew what depression and anxiety really were. If someone asked me for how long I'll struggle with them I wouldn't be able to answer either, since my battle with them didn't have a clear cut beginning nor will it likely ever have an ending until maybe my inevitable death. It's something that has taken root inside me, branded itself into my ego, & was akin to a ghost attacking me that I neither knew how to fight off or what it even was. When you're in that state at 10, 12, or 15, there isn't a lot of room for words like "us" or "we" since I could never bring myself to believe that someone else could be suffering from what I'm struggling with & thought it was the height of arrogance for someone to give me vapid sympathy. As such, over time, before I knew it, I had closed myself off, shot down my world to pieces, and ended its horizons at the narrowest point possible to protect myself from its misery. I began developing unhealthy coping mechanisms that follow the mindset mentioned above, like wearing headphones to isolate myself, intentionally drifting myself away from everyone around me, and putting on aggressive, unapproachable facades. All of this culminated in December of 2019, when the horrifying Covid pandemic happened and soon enough so did lockdown, marking the beginning of the 3 year long gruelling, exhausting journey I had to go through where, in the microscopic world I had built, I had to reevaluate who I am, reflect upon who I was, make an honest choice as to who I want to be and work towards how would I change into who I want to be. Full of relapses, huge milestones, and moments in-between where I clung for my life to stay on the uncertain path I chose, the journey I took led me to discovering many things about myself and my surroundings, and as I was expanding my tight world to fit more and more people in it, I ended up finding fictional stories and characters that represented me on a spiritual level and helped validate who I am and pushed me forward, one of them being TWEWY with Neku Sakuraba as the center of that piece.
Reading this, you might have already made the connection of why TWEWY connected with me so deeply, since its themes and main character embody my struggles to their bones, but I think what truly enabled me to connect so much with Neku isn’t just his struggles but the way they’re conveyed, his coping mechanisms, how he ended up finding solace, and how Shibuya, as a setting, was integrated into his character. Neku is an average edgy 15 year old on the surface, he doesn’t exactly have a tragic backstory that makes him the way he is, but a misguided admiration and interpretation of CAT’s artworks that gave his deepest insecurities validation and made him close himself off in ways that felt incredibly real to me. Much like how I do, Neku wears headphones to cut himself off from reality, avoid interactions with those around him, and goes on his own way to enjoy his own world by himself. It’s not a particularly unique trait since other mcs like Makoto Yuki and Ikari Shinji have it too, but it’s the emphasis on it and attention to detail that sets it apart from many displays of self isolation that mcs emit. I’m going to get into why it’s so unique later, but to dig into why I connected so much with Neku’s mindset, it’s because of the reasoning behind why he doesn’t accept the concept of friendships specifically. In week 1, Neku says he looks down on friendships as a concept because its a basic form of conformity where you pretend to agree with others to keep up appearances and lie to each other about disagreements, flaws and sides of yourself in response to Shiki. And the reason why that impacted me so much was because it was reminiscent of how I viewed much of my irl friendships, since much of them were with conservative extremists who had repulsive opinions that I couldn’t stand due to the country we all live in, but I went along well with them anyway and pretended to agree to get along well with them. Realizing this, I began questioning the value of my friendships and that’s why Neku’s arc struck such a deep chord inside me, helping me feel seen.
In my connection with Neku’s character and his journey towards salvation that was strikingly similar to my 3 year long journey, I was able to feel more content about myself and the insecurities that I felt back then and still feel to this day, and the more I progressed in the game, I began seeing more and more of myself in Neku’s way of breaking out of his shell. By engaging with the reapers’ game in Shibuya, hearing people’s thoughts, seeing their day to day life struggles, seeing them doubt themselves, push through their regrets, move forward, open up, and teaming up with Shiki, who helped him see that even someone as positive and bright as Shiki as a dark side to her, Joshua, someone who verbalized his isolationist mindsets, and Beat, someone who Neku was able to guide to the right path the same way Joshua and Shiki did, Neku was able to slowly but surely break out of his own shell and expand his own world as the holder of the chalk to his own blank canvas of a life, accepting the discontent of life and embracing the uncertainty of it all in the process as his greatest asset instead of a handicap.
As I mentioned before, the way Shibuya as a setting is integrated into Neku’s character is what sets him apart from other mcs, since by playing the reapers’ game Neku is forced to read people’s thoughts, and in doing this, Neku realized how small his world, his sacred garden, was compared to others, felt easier about the struggles he goes through since even the brightest souls like Shiki go through that struggle too, and started to feel less scared by the environment around him since it resembled pieces of him and familiarised himself with the mundane nature of Shibuya. By changing his perspective about the concept of betrayal and mistakes and how he views Shibuya, he managed to change how he views his own sacred garden, and in recognizing this, he no longer felt the need to cut himself off, because by opening up his sacred garden to others and seeing other people’s gardens, he might feel envy, jealousy, & self loathing, but he’ll also find more ways to rebuild his garden and make it into an ever most beautiful garden that shines brightly and brims with hope. It’s what makes the ending so poetic and ambiguous, because in failing to kill Joshua, an arguable mistake, Neku managed to pass the final exam, grow the most he ever has, and it reinforced to him the idea that mistakes, betrayals, and all the things we fear, are what will mould us the most and make us stronger.
This part of the game is why the final scene of the game means the world to me, since the headphones that Neku put on to cut himself off the world were no longer needed to conceal his garden, and in doing so Neku found solace in the simple monotonous act of walking by the streets of Shibuya and gazing at the people around him that he grew ever so familiar with. It feels incredibly inspiring and personal to me, since I used to use my headphones as an escapism method and my way of recovering from it was to take walks around my own city and interact with my surroundings in the most arbitrary, simplest ways to remind myself that the people around me are human, much like me, and I have no need to fear them anymore. By expanding his own world and opening up his horizons, Neku reminded me of a personal part of my life, and helped me feel seen and reflect upon who I once was.
Side note: a couple of things inspired this review so i wanna give them a quick mention, those being: Midrule's twewy review & Wentworth Miller's Goalcost speech. Thanks a lot to them I was able to get this review off quick, which probably has some grammer/spacing/spelling mistakes that i'll edit once i wake up.
I've been battling depression and anxiety as far as my earliest memories of my life go, from before I even knew what depression and anxiety really were. If someone asked me for how long I'll struggle with them I wouldn't be able to answer either, since my battle with them didn't have a clear cut beginning nor will it likely ever have an ending until maybe my inevitable death. It's something that has taken root inside me, branded itself into my ego, & was akin to a ghost attacking me that I neither knew how to fight off or what it even was. When you're in that state at 10, 12, or 15, there isn't a lot of room for words like "us" or "we" since I could never bring myself to believe that someone else could be suffering from what I'm struggling with & thought it was the height of arrogance for someone to give me vapid sympathy. As such, over time, before I knew it, I had closed myself off, shot down my world to pieces, and ended its horizons at the narrowest point possible to protect myself from its misery. I began developing unhealthy coping mechanisms that follow the mindset mentioned above, like wearing headphones to isolate myself, intentionally drifting myself away from everyone around me, and putting on aggressive, unapproachable facades. All of this culminated in December of 2019, when the horrifying Covid pandemic happened and soon enough so did lockdown, marking the beginning of the 3 year long gruelling, exhausting journey I had to go through where, in the microscopic world I had built, I had to reevaluate who I am, reflect upon who I was, make an honest choice as to who I want to be and work towards how would I change into who I want to be. Full of relapses, huge milestones, and moments in-between where I clung for my life to stay on the uncertain path I chose, the journey I took led me to discovering many things about myself and my surroundings, and as I was expanding my tight world to fit more and more people in it, I ended up finding fictional stories and characters that represented me on a spiritual level and helped validate who I am and pushed me forward, one of them being TWEWY with Neku Sakuraba as the center of that piece.
Reading this, you might have already made the connection of why TWEWY connected with me so deeply, since its themes and main character embody my struggles to their bones, but I think what truly enabled me to connect so much with Neku isn’t just his struggles but the way they’re conveyed, his coping mechanisms, how he ended up finding solace, and how Shibuya, as a setting, was integrated into his character. Neku is an average edgy 15 year old on the surface, he doesn’t exactly have a tragic backstory that makes him the way he is, but a misguided admiration and interpretation of CAT’s artworks that gave his deepest insecurities validation and made him close himself off in ways that felt incredibly real to me. Much like how I do, Neku wears headphones to cut himself off from reality, avoid interactions with those around him, and goes on his own way to enjoy his own world by himself. It’s not a particularly unique trait since other mcs like Makoto Yuki and Ikari Shinji have it too, but it’s the emphasis on it and attention to detail that sets it apart from many displays of self isolation that mcs emit. I’m going to get into why it’s so unique later, but to dig into why I connected so much with Neku’s mindset, it’s because of the reasoning behind why he doesn’t accept the concept of friendships specifically. In week 1, Neku says he looks down on friendships as a concept because its a basic form of conformity where you pretend to agree with others to keep up appearances and lie to each other about disagreements, flaws and sides of yourself in response to Shiki. And the reason why that impacted me so much was because it was reminiscent of how I viewed much of my irl friendships, since much of them were with conservative extremists who had repulsive opinions that I couldn’t stand due to the country we all live in, but I went along well with them anyway and pretended to agree to get along well with them. Realizing this, I began questioning the value of my friendships and that’s why Neku’s arc struck such a deep chord inside me, helping me feel seen.
In my connection with Neku’s character and his journey towards salvation that was strikingly similar to my 3 year long journey, I was able to feel more content about myself and the insecurities that I felt back then and still feel to this day, and the more I progressed in the game, I began seeing more and more of myself in Neku’s way of breaking out of his shell. By engaging with the reapers’ game in Shibuya, hearing people’s thoughts, seeing their day to day life struggles, seeing them doubt themselves, push through their regrets, move forward, open up, and teaming up with Shiki, who helped him see that even someone as positive and bright as Shiki as a dark side to her, Joshua, someone who verbalized his isolationist mindsets, and Beat, someone who Neku was able to guide to the right path the same way Joshua and Shiki did, Neku was able to slowly but surely break out of his own shell and expand his own world as the holder of the chalk to his own blank canvas of a life, accepting the discontent of life and embracing the uncertainty of it all in the process as his greatest asset instead of a handicap.
As I mentioned before, the way Shibuya as a setting is integrated into Neku’s character is what sets him apart from other mcs, since by playing the reapers’ game Neku is forced to read people’s thoughts, and in doing this, Neku realized how small his world, his sacred garden, was compared to others, felt easier about the struggles he goes through since even the brightest souls like Shiki go through that struggle too, and started to feel less scared by the environment around him since it resembled pieces of him and familiarised himself with the mundane nature of Shibuya. By changing his perspective about the concept of betrayal and mistakes and how he views Shibuya, he managed to change how he views his own sacred garden, and in recognizing this, he no longer felt the need to cut himself off, because by opening up his sacred garden to others and seeing other people’s gardens, he might feel envy, jealousy, & self loathing, but he’ll also find more ways to rebuild his garden and make it into an ever most beautiful garden that shines brightly and brims with hope. It’s what makes the ending so poetic and ambiguous, because in failing to kill Joshua, an arguable mistake, Neku managed to pass the final exam, grow the most he ever has, and it reinforced to him the idea that mistakes, betrayals, and all the things we fear, are what will mould us the most and make us stronger.
This part of the game is why the final scene of the game means the world to me, since the headphones that Neku put on to cut himself off the world were no longer needed to conceal his garden, and in doing so Neku found solace in the simple monotonous act of walking by the streets of Shibuya and gazing at the people around him that he grew ever so familiar with. It feels incredibly inspiring and personal to me, since I used to use my headphones as an escapism method and my way of recovering from it was to take walks around my own city and interact with my surroundings in the most arbitrary, simplest ways to remind myself that the people around me are human, much like me, and I have no need to fear them anymore. By expanding his own world and opening up his horizons, Neku reminded me of a personal part of my life, and helped me feel seen and reflect upon who I once was.
Side note: a couple of things inspired this review so i wanna give them a quick mention, those being: Midrule's twewy review & Wentworth Miller's Goalcost speech. Thanks a lot to them I was able to get this review off quick, which probably has some grammer/spacing/spelling mistakes that i'll edit once i wake up.
theadhdagenda_
3 months ago