Neku Sakuraba

"Yeah, sounds great. Whatever."

—Neku to Sora

Neku Sakuraba is a character who appears in Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance. He appears in Traverse Town.

Development

Neku is one of the first characters to appear in the Kingdom Hearts series who originated from something other than Disney, Final Fantasy, or Kingdom Hearts fiction, although he is from another game that is property of Square Enix, as well as being designed by Tetsuya Nomura.

Nomura has stated that in the Realm of Sleep, Neku and his friends will tutor Sora and Riku on the nature of their journey, similar to the role Leon and the Final Fantasy characters play in the first game.

Appearance

Neku is a rather lanky teenager. He has distinctive spiky orange hair and blue eyes. Neku wears a pair of purple colored headphones, with the tube-shaped white audio player hung around his neck. Neku wears a sleeveless, purple-gray shirt with a high collar that has a purple stripe going down the middle, with the stripe outlined in yellow. He wears white shorts, held up by a loose-fitting black belt. The shorts have two large pockets with purple stripes on top, the stripes also outlining a pair of yellow buttons on each pocket. His shoes match the design of his shirt, purple-gray with a purple stripe outlined by yellow. The shoes have four yellow buttons with white straps that replace shoelaces. Neku sports a yellow sweatband on his left wrist.

Neku's render mimics his official artwork from The World Ends with You.

Other appearances

Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance

File:Neku Timer KH3D.png

Neku showing Sora the timer on his palm

While looking for Riku, Sora stumbles across Neku, who is hanging off of a nearby roof. Neku jumps down from the roof, asking Sora if he will help him in "the Game", but after looking at Sora's palm, he realizes that Sora is not part of the Game. He shows Sora his own palm, which is marked with his remaining time in the Game—just over forty-three minutes. Sora offers to help Neku win the Game, and though he comments that he was looking for a partner, Neku refuses, saying that they've just met and can't be considered friends yet. Neku leaves to continue the Game, and Sora chases after him.

When Sora catches up, the pair is attacked by Dream Eaters. Sora at first, mistook Neku shouting "Dream Eaters!" as Neku shouting to him his name and comments that it sounds cute. Neku corrects him with, "I'm talking about THEM, not ME!" and summons his Dream Eater: a Spirit Neko Cat. He reluctantly tells Sora his real name to which Sora now comments, "Neku Sakuraba... That's a pretty interesting name.". Seeing Sora being so energetic and ready to deal with the Dream Eaters, Neku smiles a little before following his Neko Cat to another location. After Sora finds him again, Neku tells Sora to stay away, prompting Sora to feel confused. When a man in a black coat appears, Sora shouts at him and prepares to attack, thinking that the man was a survivor of Organization XIII. Neku then states, "Hey! This wasn't part of the deal!" before pouncing at the man as he descends. When Sora regains conciousness, Neku and the man are gone.

Later Sora, after meeting Rhyme, finds Neku inside the Coliseum where Neku apologizes to Sora. It seems that he had made a deal with the man and in order for the man to help him (reason not known yet), he had to give up Sora to him. Sora forgives Neku and says that he still came because he thinks as the both of them as friends, making Neku smile at him. When Sora asks him if Rhyme is his partner, Neku declines and Rhyme disappears in front of the two boys, shocking them and making them realize that the Rhyme Sora met was fake. The Nightmare gorilla monster appears before them and Neku rushed forward to attack it but is swatted away, leaving Sora to deal with it. After the monster's defeat, Sora and Neku meet the real Rhyme and Joshua, who explains to Sora the works of Traverse Town being actually split in half. Neku sees an image of Shiki while Rhyme sees her brother Beat and Sora starts to worry about Riku.

Origin

Neku Sakuraba is the main protagonist of The World Ends with You. Born and raised in Shibuya, Neku is an ardent fan of graffiti art. He hates people and makes every effort to seal himself off from the outside world, even wearing headphones wherever he goes.

Neku's life takes a turn when he wakes up lying facedown in the middle of Shibuya's Scramble Crossing, with no memories of anything but his name. He discovers he must participate in the "Reaper's Game", in which he and a partner must complete daily tasks within a certain time limit for 7 days, or else they will be "erased". During the missions, he combats Noise, demons summoned by the Reapers, as well as the Reapers themselves. As he is forced to complete 3 weeks of the game, Neku slowly opens up to the outside world, learning new things about other people and himself.

Trivia

• When Sora meets Neku, a remix of the song "Twister" plays, a recurring theme from The World Ends with You that appears in multiple arrangements throughout the game.