Yoshiya "Joshua" Kiryu

Name: Kat
Personal Journal: nyanface
Contact: aim: nyanface; plurk: nyanface; email: kristonmac@yahoo.com
Other Characters Played: None!
Are you 18 or over? Yes

Canon: The World Ends With You
Character: Another Day's Yoshiya "Joshua" Kiryu (also known as "Pink")
Timeline: At the end of the Tin Pin mission of Another Day

Personality: Pink's personality is overwhelmingly different from Joshua's personality. First I'll touch on what defines the canon Joshua before talking about the similarities and differences between the two of them.

The Joshua of the main storyline was made to be very anti-social. He never really showed his face in public, he vastly preferred being dead to being alive, and he hated society. His character centered around his dislike for people and their selfish thoughts and individuality, and his want to destroy them. Joshua is arrogant and believes himself to be better than everyone else, to the point where he alone can decide who is and isn't suitable to live their lives, or who can be considered a good person. Joshua pushes people away by acting pompous and patronizing to them, and tries his hardest not to get attached. Joshua fears attachments to others, as he feels as though he's leaving himself vulnerable to being hurt by them, and so closes himself off.

Pink is incredibly different in this regard. He actively takes part in society, acquainted with many people throughout Shibuya, especially ones connected to Tin Pin Slammer. While Pink isn't necessarily going to go up to others and instantly befriend them, he finds people interesting and even considers himself a "humanitarian" who "loves people." During Another Day, he not only participates in a Tin Pin Slammer tournament presumably to meet and have fun with others, but happily joins the Kindred Spirits when he and his fellow slammers have their pins stolen. He laughs and jokes with these others, calling them by their silly nicknames. Pink even has a bit of a teasing, flirtatious side, which he used on his world's Neku.

Pink is also rather flamboyant, as could be gathered by his nickname which he insisted upon himself. When offered an assortment of different colored Tin Pin Slammer shooters, he immediately called "dibs on the rainbow", and seems to generally enjoy keeping up a very primped appearance. He shows a bit of an eye for fashion, at least acknowledging Shiki's color coordination and assigning her the color green (like her skirt) after stealing pink from her, as well as assigning Neku to black'n'blue because of his clothing. Another Day!Neku even nicknamed him giggles at one point (albeit in a thought bubble), making fun of how prissy he sometimes sounds.

Just because this Joshua isn't like the main storyline's Joshua, though, doesn't mean they don't share some similarities. Pink considers himself to be very wise and intelligent (almost re-assigning himself to the color 'gold' to denote his kingly wisdom) and tends to flaunt his intelligence, even when it makes little sense to the ones he's talking to. He also tends to speak in the same manner as Joshua, with snark in his voice and demeanor. However, unlike Joshua, Pink doesn't use these characteristics to push others away, and doesn't try to talk down to others. Instead, his teasing is usually meant as a way to get others to lighten up so he can talk to them, and is always done with a certain amount of affection in his tone.

As Composer, Pink tries to keep his world peaceful. It is unclear how he handles the Underground in his world, or whether or not the Reapers' Game exists there, yet he was rather surprised to hear that things were not so peaceful in the world of the main storyline Joshua. Even with a position as powerful as ruler of Shibuya, Joshua still pays his respect to others where it's due, especially to those responsible for Tin Pin Slammer's existance, and those who promote its message of fun and friendship.

Background:
"The tale you are about to experience depicts a world entirely separate from that of the main story."

The main storyline of The World Ends With You is focused upon Neku Sakuraba and his struggle to survive the Reapers' Game for a second chance at life. Little did he know, his three weeks trapped in the Reapers' Game were devised by the Composer of Shibyua and his Conductor, battling over the fate of Shibuya. If Neku was able to survive and defeat the Conductor by the end of 3 weeks, the Composer would win and he would destroy Shibuya (deeming it poisonous to humanity for its selfish and close-minded people.) If the Conductor won, he would assimilate Shibuya, and eventually the entire world, into one hive-mind, which would perhaps save Shibuya, but at the price of all free will and individuality.

During Week 2, the Composer, Yoshiya "Joshua" Kiryu, decided to keep an eye on Neku by disguising himself as a Player and partnering up with him. He was targeted by that week's Game Master, Sho Minamimoto, who figured out his identity and was hell-bent on dethroning him and becoming the new Composer. While the two managed to avoid being killed by Minamimoto for a majority of the week, his final attack at the end of the week, a Level i flare, would have killed Joshua and his partner. Joshua, however, seemingly sacrificed himself to save Neku's life.

In reality, he fled to a parallel universe to escape the attack.

Another Day is that universe.

In this alternate universe, the mini-game Tin Pin Slammer is a major hit in Japan, with a majority of Shibuya's people finding interest in it for one reason or another. The game has its own merchandise, tournaments, and even a TV show called Tin Pin Slammurai. While all of these things existed in the main storyline of The World Ends With You, Tin Pin Slammer was not nearly as popular as it is in Another Day.

The story of Another Day follows Neku, an avid Tin Pin fan, and his adventures as misfortune strikes during a Tin Pin Slammer tournament he signed up for that afternoon. Determined to fight off 'emo urges' bubbling up in him due to traumatizing events involving losing his best friend, Neku decides the best way to do this is to do the one thing that gives his life purpose, Tin Pin Slammer! Entering the slam-off, things quickly turn sour as it seems that the slam-off was a sham-off staged by pin thieves called the Black Skullers to nab some of the best and most powerful pins to sell them online.

Making it out of the phony tournament with his pins still in his posession, Neku runs into Shooter who had his own pins stolen, and is gathering together allies to retrieve them. Dragged into this crazy mess, Neku soon becomes a Kindred Spirit (or a crayon warrior, as he calls them, since they all assign themselves colors) along with Joshua, Shiki, and Beat, meeting together with Shooter as their leader in their "secret ramen base" in Ken Doi's ramen shop. Dr. Pin, Ken Doi's son and Tin Pin extraordinaire, helps the team devise a plan to get their pins back by playing against others in Tin Pin Slammer to draw attention to themselves and draw out the Black Skullers using Neku's pins.

The happy team (and a reluctant Neku) then go exploring Shibuya, challenging and beating any Tin Pin players they come across. During this period, Neku and his friends actually go exploring in the Shibuya River, a sewer underneath the Station Underpass, due to Neku's curiosity. With the reluctance of Shiki and Beat (and the eager face of Joshua) they head inside to see what they can find. To everyone's surprise (except Joshua's), there's an entire living space inside, stocked with a mini bar and couches, a foosball table, a dart board, even CAT's graffiti lining the walls in and out of the Dead God's Pad. Neku's immediate conclusion, of course, is that this has to be CAT's place, and doesn't know what to think of it.

Exploring even further inside, they find the Room of Reckoning, a gigantic, dark room with a throne in the center. This is where Joshua reveals he seems to know more than he's letting on, saying how the very fabric of Shibuya is woven into this room and that the one who rules Shibuya sits on the throne in the center. Before Neku can ask him what in the world he means by that or how he would even know about that, though, they come across a surprising sight. In the back of this room they find what appears to be another Joshua, an exact lookalike of their fellow crayon warrior. This is the Joshua of the main storyline, and he explains that he's waiting for Hanekoma to come and take him back to his own world, saying how it's not exactly peaceful in comparison to this one. He even offers Neku a bit of a challenge to kill some time (a boss rush battle for the actual player of the game.)

Leaving the Shibuya River, the Kindred Spirits continue their quest all the way up to Miyashita Park on the far side of town, where the find Rhyme, Beat's sister (and comedy routine partner.) With her as an addition to their team, she quickly turns out to be a traitor working for the Black Skullers (in order to get her brother to forget about Tin Pin and rejoin her in putting on a legitimate comedy routine) and turns against them. The Black Skullers challenge the Kindred Spirits to several rounds of Tin Pin Slammer, winner getting to keep all of the pins.

In the end, it turns out Higashizawa, the leader of the Black Skullers, was actually the co-father of Tin Pin Slammer, determined to take all of their pins and destroy the game for good, considering the game to be nothing but heartless and commercialized. With the help of Ken Doi (the true father of Tin Pin Slammer) and Dr. Pin's invention of a new Red Kaiser for Shooter, Shooter is able to take down Higashizawa in Tin Pin for good and make him see that the real object of Tin Pin is to have fun with friends and unite people together.

The story ends with Neku learning to really get along with others and find friendship through Tin Pin Slammer, thankful for an awesome day spent with fun people.

As far as Pink's personal backstory goes, as you play through Another Day you discover that Pink is actually a writer for the Tin Pin magazine, Pinhead Weekly. In fact, he writes the most popular column in the magazine, the Pinside Edition, a column that leaks juicy industry secrets and hooks even non-avid Tin Pin fans into reading the magazine weekly. Pink therefore has connections with the editors of Pinhead Weekly and other big Tin Pin names, even going as far to be acquainted with people like the Wizard of Slam (presumably the CEO of Tin Pin Slammer.)

Pink's connections don't end there, however. He even happens to know the mayor of Shibuya, Megumi Kitaniji, as a personal friend, absolutely shocking Neku at how high up his connections go. (Although it's implied that the reason Joshua has these connections is because of his status as Composer of Shibuya.)

While it's not explicitly said that Pink is the Composer, he knows way, way too much about the Shibuya River, the Dead God's Pad, and even the Room of Reckoning to not be its ruler. In fact, the implications are especially heavy when Pink is talking about the ruler of Shibuya that he seems almost proud, if not a bit smug, to be talking about 'the one who sits on the throne.'

Abilities/Additional Notes: While this is a different Joshua than the one of the main storyline, this Joshua is still the Composer of Shibuya. He therefore maintains all of the special powers and abilities for the Composer, including an astonishing amount of psychic energy, the ability to read minds and communicate telepathically, the power to erase memories, the power to levitate/fly and teleport, the power to summon beams of energy to destroy enemies, etc.

What Pink has over the original Joshua, however, is completely superior abilities in Tin Pin Slammer. As an adoring fan of it, Pink almost can not be beat at it.

With him, Pink also has a special set of pins that he uses specifically for Tin Pin Slammer: Tin Pin Bahamut, Tin Pin Golem, Tin Pin Ifrit, Tin Pin Rocker, Tin Pin Devil, and Lefty Cat. While these pins have special psychs of their own and can be used in battle, Pink wouldn't risk damaging these pins since they mean a lot to him. (He spent far too long collecting them and modding them with the perfect Tin Pin specs to waste them in battle.)

Pink also has a special device with him called the Rainbow Kaiser. It's a silly kid's toy painted rainbow color that shoots pins onto the Tin Pin battlefields... but otherwise doesn't do anything. In fact, as a prototype, it almost isn't worth using in Tin Pin Slammer. Pink just likes keeping it around for good luck.

Sample Journal Post:

[As the feed starts up, bright violet eyes stare into the little device, and for a moment that's all that's visible. As their owner leans backwards, however, a thin and young face is revealed, wavy ash-blonde hair pinned up with an assortment of hair clips of all sorts of colors and shapes, even one with a butterfly on it.

The one donning all of the girly accessories, however, is clearly male, despite the feminine attire and rather flamboyant giggle that comes from his lips.]

So? What do you think everyone~? I personally find these accessories absolutely becoming of me~

I think I'll keep putting pins in my hair like this, to avoid any mass confusion that might occur in the future due to the whole "doubles" thing going on with my fellow Joshua~

I'm Pink, by the way, a nickname I will reluctantly adopt as my new permanent nickname to further reduce confusion among you good people.

[When he waves to the camera in greeting, several bracelets on his wrist jingle. He might have gone a little overboard in his efforts to distinguish himself from the other Joshua.]

Sample RP:

Pink sat on one of the broken skyscrapers of the dead city, staring at the pale, overcast sky and thinking. Just, thinking.

This place was miserable. It reeked of death, of chaos and destruction, it likely couldn't support a society for very long... maybe fifty years at this rate, if rations held out, Pink guessed. There simply wasn't enough left to salvage a society, not with this many people, not with more and more people coming as time went on, not with monsters just skirting the edge of this city. And the gloom was really getting to people. The longer people had been here, the more gloom they had, as if the Noise were a perpetual fog in this place. Even his counterpart seemed to be affected by it.

If he wasn't careful, Pink realized, the gloom would get to him and his soul too. No, he decided that wouldn't happen... he wouldnt let that happen, not to him or anyone else. But what was the shining light that could cut through this dark fog, to lead people back to happiness? What could give people hope and meaning again?

Pink had a sudden thought, and reached into his pocket, pulling out a handful of his Tin Pin Slammer pins. He stared at Lefty Cat in particular, a smile spreading across his features.

If Tin Pin Slammer could bring happiness there.... why not here?

Pulling out his his PCD, Pink began to write. The first edition of the "Pinside Edition" was on its way. No... not "Pinside Edition."

"Pinside Paradise."