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mageknight14 · 5 months

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What It Means to be Friends: The Differences between Neku/Beat and Rindo/Fret

I’m feeling in the mood for another TWEWY analysis post and for today’s topic of discussion, this will be centered around Beat and Neku’s friendship in comparison to Rindo and Fret’s own and how they contrast in very interesting ways that are reflective of their respective game's writing styles.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Neku and Beat didn’t exactly get off to the best start in the beginning of their relationship in the original. Hell, if anything, they flat out disliked each other. Beat saw Neku as nothing more than an emotionally distant asshole who made his little sister feel bad for trying to help him out and Neku saw Beat as nothing more than an overly emotional idiot who’s way too energetic for his own good and initially wants nothing to do with him.

There are little cracks that start to form in the walls between them, however, where their respective duos start coming together to help each other out in the Game and they start to form a little friendly rivalry between them. Mostly on Beat’s side since Neku could care less. However, that bit of bonding gets interrupted by a cruel twist of fate: Rhyme’s sacrifice and subsequent erasure. In which Beat, in a mix of grief and desperation to save his little sister, begs to and subsequently joins the Reapers, much to Neku and Shiki’s shock.

And then, Kitaniji asks Beat to do one task to show his dedication to the Reaper cause: kill Neku! (and Joshua). Initially, Beat tries to draw upon his dislike of Neku from the start of the game to motivate himself into completing his task but he just can’t go through with it no matter what, a feeling that only gets worse when Neku gives him Rhyme’s pendant that he dropped, thus invalidating Beat's previous resentment towards him. Seeing Neku go out of his way to return something precious to Beat even after he had antagonized him throughout the week causes Beat to drop his animosity completely and the next time we see him, he’s rescuing Neku from a unwinnable scenario by becoming his partner in Week 3.

From then on, we see Neku and Beat’s dynamic start to become more whole, opening up to each other more and helping the other through their struggles and ultimately culminating with them becoming genuine friends by the end. By the time W3 starts, they’re the only actual Players left in the Game, in the middle of a life-or-death situation, AND have the entirety of the UG after them due to Kitaniji activating Emergency Call. With circumstances like those, it’s no wonder they become as thick as thieves. Beat relies on Neku to help keep his head on straight and set him on the right path so that his temper and rash personality doesn’t end up screwing them over when things get rough, something Beat can't afford whatsoever when it comes to his mission of trying to save Rhyme.

Likewise, Neku relies on Beat to help keep his feet moving instead of allowing him to wallow in his own head when aspects such as Hanekoma potentially becoming the Composer becomes emotionally and be strong enough to catch him when he stumbles and falls. On top of that, he also trusts Beat’s emotional intelligence and honesty in matters such as when Beat convinces him to spare Uzuki and Kariya.

You see this dynamic persist in NEO as well even after all of the time they spent separated, in which Beat is heavily implied to have physically searched for Neku throughout all of Shibuya (remind you of anything?) and even take up some of his aspects, like the headphones, to honor his friend. And considering how Neku has helped him save his little sister and supported him when the chips were down, it's honestly no wonder.

Beat even flat out admits to Nagi that he was in some measure putting up a front to mask his fears and doubts and is quite calmer when Neku is around compared to NEO’s weeks 1-2. Not that his hot-blooded energy is gone but he notably isn’t as prone towards picking fights or shouting. Meanwhile, Neku is out of the loop after having been away for three years but Beat is again there to pick him up where he falters and help guide him around. The two of them are best friends through and through.

By contrast, we have Rindo and Fret, whose dynamic is quite different from Neku and Beat’s but is nonetheless just as well-written. I think the start of the game does an excellent job at setting up their relationship, where their early dynamic is fully on display in which Fret drags Rindo around and Rindo just casually goes with it despite internally bitching and moaning along the way. Like Beat and Neku, their friendship is mutually beneficial towards the other but in a much more casual and "shallow" way that’s very interesting.

They both want to be around one another in order to cover up for each other’s faults and their flaws feed into a loop that prevents the friendship advancing so that they don’t have to try but when it actually comes under serious strain, the flaws are exposed. Rindo being closed-off and content with just letting things stay on the surface level is perfect for Fret since he doesn't need to address his true feelings whatsoever and also fulfills his desire for someone to talk to because Fret is a pretty social guy and the class clown, letting him ignore his own problems. For Rindo, Fret allows him to also fulfill his desire for social companionship while not digging too deep and delude himself into thinking he’s autonomous and avoid the hurdles that comes with decision-making, which Fret is aware of and fine with because he’s more of a follower. The restaurant choice at the beginning of the game is a perfect example of this. At first glance, you think it’s just Rindo making a choice until you realize that it’s mainly Fret narrowing down the choices for Rindo without his input and he’s perfectly okay with that.

You also see this pop up again when Fret makes Rindo the leader of the group ALSO without his input so that he doesn’t have to get emotionally invested in the role and put the spotlight on himself. And initially, both are content with this and continue this dynamic throughout the first week of the Game, that is until shit hits the fan in Week 2. With the stakes becoming far more apparent and serious than they initially thought, and having to start another Game after getting cheated out of their victory, along with Sho just flat out ditching them and leaving the team to fend for themselves, tensions start to rise high between Rindo and Fret, which this ends up putting a strain on their relationship and we see the flaws in the friendship get exposed.

They start becoming more casually dismissive of each other’s interests whereas before they were just cool with whatever with Rindo not giving any regard to Fret’s interest in fashion and Fret mocking Rindo’s friendship with Swallow out of frustration, where Fret is pushing for Rindo to do anything regarding them considering Swallow's obvious involvement in the Game, and Rindo doesn’t want them to get upset so he pushes the issue away for later. Whereas Rindo is getting frustrated with Fret's self-defeatist attitude while not doing anything to help out with the situation that they're in, thus having them go back-and-forth and arguing with one another.

What makes this hit harder in hindsight is that this aspect was always apparent when you look back at the beginning. They bicker, like, a lot and the most noticeable example in W1 is the Nagi argument, where Rindo doesn’t see how she can help, worried about being held down by strangers, while Fret pushes for recruiting her, worried about having to handle a tougher burden on his own.

The part where they were in the ramen shop at the start of the game also does a good job at setting up this kind of relationship. Fret didn't know that Rindo played FanGO or was friends with Swallow, which heavily implies that they don't know that much about each other before entering the Game and later on, you see how Rindo constantly keeps Fret at arm’s length and opens up mainly to Swallow while Fret didn’t even talk to Rindo about his best friend that committed suicide. And in Week 2, these aspects become far more pronounced and the two become far more prone to taking passive-aggressive shots towards one another, culminating in their argument at the end of W2D4. I think what Rindo says to Fret in particular here is pretty telling of how he doesn't think that Fret is taking the situation seriously in spite of him actually showing otherwise what with his constant prodding. It's also hilariously indicative of Rindo's hypocrisy considering how he's constantly relying on others' input before making any actual decisions on his own, such as with Swallow in the very next scene and the day after.

However, despite all of this, they still do genuinely care for each other. Rindo’s first use of Replay was spurred on via wanting to save Fret from getting flattened by a truck and Fret is always pushing Rindo towards becoming more and more decisive in small ways. Most notably, when everyone except for Rindo gets erased by Soul Pulvis and he’s the only one to make it back to the UG, who’s the first one he calls out and tries to look for? Fret.

I’ve seen some people complain about how Rindo and Fret’s friendship doesn’t feel especially deep when compared to some of the other relationships in the series when I’d argue that’s the entire point. They’re not childhood friends who know every single thing about each other from the start unlike some JRPGs out there or a duo who starts off hating one another before gradually becoming closer to one another due to the stakes of the situation they’re in. They’re really casual school friends who keep each other at arms’ length out of an attempt to keep themselves protected. Their relationship is interesting to analyze because it's layered, much like a real friendship would be, due to them dealing with their own personal issues. And yet it never feels like one can just call it shallow or deep and have either be a definite despcriptor, just a well developed bond. Fret is still reeling from his previous best friend’s suicide and Rindo has social anxiety out the ass so their bond makes perfect sense.

And on top of that, they do gradually become closer to one another. Fret starts taking Rindo’s interests more seriously, even becoming disgusted at Motoi on Rindo’s behalf and sad for him as well as showing understanding to him concerning his Swallow situation.

And Rindo starts taking Fret more seriously as a person, with W3D3 being a prime example. He brings up the possibility that Kanon is acting strangely and might be possessed, brings up calm, rational points that the others have no choice but to agree to and doesn’t try to force Fret to keep his feelings for her down, rationalizing that there might just be another way to save her and assuring him that it’s ultimately Fret’s choice because he respects his input. And when Fret shows up anyway to try and save Kanon, he doesn't hesitate to support his buddy in his endeavors and does his damndest to help. On top of that, he becomes far more supportive towards Fret’s interests, particularly with EleStra, and is happy for him.

I think that shift from the ingenuine to genuine is what NEO excels at with its character relationships and by the end, you can really see Rindo and Fret really coming together as friends that genuinely respect and trust one another.

Neku and Beat’s friendship is much more bombastic and in-your-face while Rindo’s and Fret’s friendship relies on the more little details and I think both work well for their respective game and themes. You have the story of a distant and hostile kid having developed into a more personable young man using his lessons to relate with a seemingly gruff and bullheaded guy only to find a shockingly self aware young man who hates himself and lost his only support become more sure of himself vs. the story of two seemingly close friends grinding against each other due to their underlying issues surfacing, deepening their bond through their honesty and growing self-awareness. The first is more conventionally written while the second is a bit more subtle and requires deeper inspection in order to get the full picture.

#twewy #the world ends with you #neo twewy #ntwewy #rindo kanade #neku sakuraba #daisukenojo bito #beat bito #tosai furesawa #fret furesawa #analysis post

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