Talking sharp looks with the team behind the distinctive characters

Style and fashion are important themes in Neo: The World Ends With You, with its striking character designs among the many facets that distinguish it from other RPGs. We talk to creative producer and character designer Tetsuya Nomura along with character designer Gen Kobayashi to discuss how they defined the game’s unique look.

How do you go about creating new characters for the followup to a game from 2007, while keeping the game’s style as fresh and relevant as the original was?

Tetsuya Nomura The challenge really was more about the character rather than the fashion to me, personally. Obviously, for 14 years The World Ends With You has kind of been represented by the character of Neku, and so his impact has been really quite strong there. So when I was designing Rindo I really had to think about, ‘How can I create a character that will live up to and perhaps be even better than this image and design of Neku that’s been around since the first game? How can I come up with a new protagonist that will sort of live up to that ideal?’ I couldn’t really find a good idea for those whole 14 years. Once the deadline for making this sequel had passed, the idea for Rindo just suddenly appeared and I knew that this was the main character that could live up to Neku.