Personality: Neku isn't exactly what you would call a social butterfly. By first impression alone, he is aloof, spiteful and withdrawn. Watching him walk through Shibuya, he's the epitome of seclusion - head down, headphones on and blasting, hands buried in his pockets. There's no contact with anyone around him; he's completely shut off and in his own little world.
At least, that's how Neku is before he's quite literally caught in the crossfire and thrown into the Reaper's Game.
At the beginning of the game, Neku is still this way. He had gone out of his way to keep his social attachments to a minimum, and as a result, he isn't canonly known to have many friends, if any at all. Other people only drag you down and friends only end up hurting you, so why even bother? People only seem to be there to push their values on him, but he was perfectly content with his own world. He didn't need outside influence. The world beyond his headphones and his music could just stay where it is.
His first week - his week with Shiki - proves to have the most drastic changes in his personality. At the beginning of the week, he is much as we see him in the intro: the cold, aloof, antisocial youth with no interest in spending time with other people. He calls Shiki a stalker, and tries his hardest to avoid interacting much at all with her except what's necessary to win, and only seems to talk to her when she prattles on long enough to annoy him. In fact, early on in the week he's given the chance to kill her in exchange for escaping the Game - a trick, considering the way of escaping was being erased due to not having a partner - and he takes it in a heartbeat, but thankfully gets stopped by Hanekoma before he can actually go through with it. But Shiki is forever stubborn, and through her constant picking and pushing and attempts to understand Neku, she manages to break through to him and actually make him care for someone else. When she is taken as his entry fee for the subsequent week, he feels horribly guilty for someone else's existence being on the line because of him, and works even harder than before to ensure he succeeds. The change between who he was at the beginning of the week and who he is at the end of the week is like night and day, and through connecting with others through the rest of the weeks, he changes even more, to the person we see him as post-game.
Overall, Neku develops into being a strong hero. The Game forces him to develop compassion, empathy, and courage to do what's right and stand up for other people, whether he knows them well or not. He's still a bit sarcastic, but it's much more lighthearted and joking because he actually cares. The Game turns him into, basically, an egg. A hard shell on the outside, but a goopy mess on the inside. And the shell isn't very hard to crack. Especially seen in the ending scene of the game, he's internally monologuing to Joshua about how the city isn't so bad after all, and the lilt in his voice when he mentions having friends just shows how much he really cares and has changed. At the beginning of the game, there's no way he would have shown feelings that way. He even goes so far as to invite Joshua, the one that had tricked and manipulated him, to hang out with them. Despite Joshua hurting him, he still felt a connection with Joshua during their week together, and still considers him a friend. "I can't forgive you, but I trust you."
During the game, Neku is shown to be incredibly sharp and intelligent. This, of course, never changes, even though his personality does a complete 180 in the span of 21 days. He's able to rattle off square roots and the periodic symbol for gold, and (with your help and probably some strong google-fu) can answer Joshua's inane trivia questions perfectly. He also has a strong creative side. At the beginning of the game, Shiki points out how odd it is that he can use pins that she can't - and in reality, Neku is the only one that can use nearly all of the pins in the game, save for each partner's character-specific pin. This is due to having a high amount of Imagination, or creative potential, and is what targeted him as Joshua's pawn. He has a strong eye for art, and idolizes CAT, a local artist with a penchant for graffiti.
A large part of his defensiveness and isolation at the beginning is to avoid getting hurt by others. Different people have different headcanons, whether it be in part of a close friend dying or something happening with his parents or various other theories, but no one puts up walls the way he did without going through something incredibly emotionally painful. It's why he was so reluctant to trust others and only wanted to trust himself. But his new friends broke those walls down, and while they could still go up if hurt again, there's not a strong chance of it. Especially with the people he's come to call friends. Except maybe you, Joshua.
At the end of it all, Neku came away from the Game with a completely different perspective on the people and world around him. No longer does he think of other people as annoying and in his face - having someone to reach out to, to spend time with and get to know... it makes him happy. Happier than he'd ever been by himself. And expanding his horizons, extending his world out beyond himself... wasn't so bad. And having friends definitely wasn't so bad.
Revisions! Hopefully a bit better?
At least, that's how Neku is before he's quite literally caught in the crossfire and thrown into the Reaper's Game.
At the beginning of the game, Neku is still this way. He had gone out of his way to keep his social attachments to a minimum, and as a result, he isn't canonly known to have many friends, if any at all. Other people only drag you down and friends only end up hurting you, so why even bother? People only seem to be there to push their values on him, but he was perfectly content with his own world. He didn't need outside influence. The world beyond his headphones and his music could just stay where it is.
His first week - his week with Shiki - proves to have the most drastic changes in his personality. At the beginning of the week, he is much as we see him in the intro: the cold, aloof, antisocial youth with no interest in spending time with other people. He calls Shiki a stalker, and tries his hardest to avoid interacting much at all with her except what's necessary to win, and only seems to talk to her when she prattles on long enough to annoy him. In fact, early on in the week he's given the chance to kill her in exchange for escaping the Game - a trick, considering the way of escaping was being erased due to not having a partner - and he takes it in a heartbeat, but thankfully gets stopped by Hanekoma before he can actually go through with it. But Shiki is forever stubborn, and through her constant picking and pushing and attempts to understand Neku, she manages to break through to him and actually make him care for someone else. When she is taken as his entry fee for the subsequent week, he feels horribly guilty for someone else's existence being on the line because of him, and works even harder than before to ensure he succeeds. The change between who he was at the beginning of the week and who he is at the end of the week is like night and day, and through connecting with others through the rest of the weeks, he changes even more, to the person we see him as post-game.
Overall, Neku develops into being a strong hero. The Game forces him to develop compassion, empathy, and courage to do what's right and stand up for other people, whether he knows them well or not. He's still a bit sarcastic, but it's much more lighthearted and joking because he actually cares. The Game turns him into, basically, an egg. A hard shell on the outside, but a goopy mess on the inside. And the shell isn't very hard to crack. Especially seen in the ending scene of the game, he's internally monologuing to Joshua about how the city isn't so bad after all, and the lilt in his voice when he mentions having friends just shows how much he really cares and has changed. At the beginning of the game, there's no way he would have shown feelings that way. He even goes so far as to invite Joshua, the one that had tricked and manipulated him, to hang out with them. Despite Joshua hurting him, he still felt a connection with Joshua during their week together, and still considers him a friend. "I can't forgive you, but I trust you."
During the game, Neku is shown to be incredibly sharp and intelligent. This, of course, never changes, even though his personality does a complete 180 in the span of 21 days. He's able to rattle off square roots and the periodic symbol for gold, and (with your help and probably some strong google-fu) can answer Joshua's inane trivia questions perfectly. He also has a strong creative side. At the beginning of the game, Shiki points out how odd it is that he can use pins that she can't - and in reality, Neku is the only one that can use nearly all of the pins in the game, save for each partner's character-specific pin. This is due to having a high amount of Imagination, or creative potential, and is what targeted him as Joshua's pawn. He has a strong eye for art, and idolizes CAT, a local artist with a penchant for graffiti.
A large part of his defensiveness and isolation at the beginning is to avoid getting hurt by others. Different people have different headcanons, whether it be in part of a close friend dying or something happening with his parents or various other theories, but no one puts up walls the way he did without going through something incredibly emotionally painful. It's why he was so reluctant to trust others and only wanted to trust himself. But his new friends broke those walls down, and while they could still go up if hurt again, there's not a strong chance of it. Especially with the people he's come to call friends.
Except maybe you, Joshua.At the end of it all, Neku came away from the Game with a completely different perspective on the people and world around him. No longer does he think of other people as annoying and in his face - having someone to reach out to, to spend time with and get to know... it makes him happy. Happier than he'd ever been by himself. And expanding his horizons, extending his world out beyond himself... wasn't so bad. And having friends definitely wasn't so bad.
RP Sample: Network thread from A Facility!