Tarot Draw: Neku Sakuraba

Okay, screw it. As much as I love MLP, I don't want to just do ponies on this blog. There's tons of other franchises out there, and I want to branch out. Thanks to a new follower, I've got The World Ends With You (TWEWY) on the brain, so I want to do a drawing of the game's protagonist, Neku Sakuraba.

Let me say this right now: Neku's Arcana changes by the end of the game. I might add an addendum post if I figure out what it changes to, but for now, I'm just going to base this reading on Neku's character prior to the Reaper's Game, and during the first in-game week. During that period of time, he's shown to have taken several steps to isolate himself from the world. He's always wearing a large set of headphones to drown out the noise of Shibuya, and he outright dismisses everyone around him. This ends up being a roadblock when expressing his own feelings, however. When an innocent girl dies halfway through the first week, his inner lamentation of her death is twisted into a hurtful and monstrous monologue when he tries to put it to words, along the lines of, "This is what I get for opening up."

Given all of this information, I'd say that Neku represents the Jester Arcana at the beginning of the game, for the exact same reasons as pre-reveal Adachi. The Jester, according to Persona, represents many of the same traits as its counterpart, the Fool, but represents avoidance of friendship rather than the formation of bonds. Both Neku and Adachi seem to loathe human contact, and actively try to avoid it, believing they can truly live alone. That said, despite their similarities, I don't think the a person has to be at quite this extreme to represent the Jester...

...because, to a lesser extent, I feel I also represent the Jester. You see, I don't really have friends, and most of my acquaintances I know through this site. What makes me the Jester is that I'm perfectly fine with this...yet nothing about the situation is intentional. It's more like I'm perfectly content by myself, so I've never felt a need to reach out and make friends. As a result, I connected to Neku, but didn't agree with everything he did (see twisted lamentation of death), nor did I ever identify with the psychopath Adachi (any comparisons between us will be nuked.). Here's hoping I don't end up in the Reaper's Game if I die.