Publisher Square Enix has just announced that their action RPG title The World Ends With You will be getting an anime adaptation that will air in 2021. Titled The World Ends With You The Animation, the news was unveiled during Anime Expo Lite 2020 held on July 3.
The World Ends With You was originally launched in July 2007 for the Nintendo DS. Set in a fictional version of the Shibuya shopping district in Tokyo, the world is divided into the UG and RG, which stands for Underground and Realground. The Realground is where the humdrum of daily life occurs. On the other hand, the Underground is where dead people reside. The UG is also home the Reapers’ Game, a competition between dead people and reapers wherein if the humans win, they are given a chance to be brought back to life or ascend onto a higher plane of existence. If they lose, they then serve as the next Reapers for the upcoming games. The competitors are chosen at random and are given a chance to offer a prized possession to compete in the games.
Players assume the role of Neku Sakuraba, an anti-social teenage boy who wakes up in the Underground with no knowledge of where he is and how he died. It is here where his adventure starts, following the three weeks that he plays the Reapers' Game. For each week, he will be partnered with an assortment of characters, (Shiki, Joshua, and Beat), each with their own unique skills, strengths, and motivations for winning the Game.
The World Ends With You’s gameplay mainly revolves around careful storytelling, the exploration of Shibuya, and a combat system that is built around strategic usage of skills and performing indicated actions on the screen. It has since been hailed as classic in the genre and one of the best titles for the Nintendo DS, with critics praising its storytelling and gameplay, as well as its deviation from its RPG inspirations in Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts.
Trailers for The World Ends With You The Animation are now available on the official Square Enix YouTube channel. The anime is set to air in 2021.
