Sho Minamimoto
From The World Ends With You
| |
| Name | Sho Minamimoto |
| Age | 18 |
| Noise form | Leo Cantus |
| Classification | High-ranking Officer, Game Master in Joshua's Chapter |
| Nicknames | Pi-Face, The Grim Heaper, Tabooty, Dr. Pin (In Another Day chapter), Junior (In "Another Day" chapter) |
| Voice Actor | Japanese: 藤本隆行 (Fujimoto Takayuki)
English: Andy Hirsch |
Sho Minamimoto (南師 猩 Minamimoto Shō?) is a character in The World Ends with You and is an officer of the Reapers.
Contents |
[edit] Main Information
Sho Minamimoto is the youngest Game Master of the Reapers in Shibuya at 18, and the second Game Master Neku battles. More a mathematician than a brawler, it is revealed he excels in all areas of leadership except one -- he will not cooperate with others. Given his obsession with mathematics, he loves to speak in mathematical terms with other people.
[edit] Personality
Sho Minamimoto cannot refrain from making a calculation or from telling a math joke during conversation. Arrogant, he ceaselessly tries to prove his value and his strength. He has a strange habit of gathering together junk heaps when playing the part of game master, claiming that they are a precisely calculated form of art; this can be viewed as performance art reflecting his views that "The world is garbage" and lacks any beauty.
Some of his quotes explained:
- So zetta slow!
- ("Zetta-" is a prefix used for metric (SI) measurements, and is equivalent to 1021, or one sextillion.)
- Factoring hectopascals!
- (Pascal is a SI unit for pressure and thus, cannot be factored.)
- (It's a mnemonic for the order of operations; Parenthesis; Exponentials; Multiplication; Division; Addition; Subtraction)
- SOH-CAH-TOA! ("Some Old Horses Can Always Hear Their Owner Approach" or "Slabs of Ham, Celery And Horseradish, Tons Of Asparagus")
- (It's a mnemonic for trigonometric functions: Sine = Opposite / Hypotenuse; Cosine = Adjacent / Hypotenuse; Tangent = Opposite / Adjacent)
- (Also, it's a play on the japanese slang "sou ka" for the phrase "sou desu ka". Its meaning is "really...?" or "I see...")
- Attention, all yoctograms!
- ("Yocto-" is a metric (SI) prefix that is equivalent to 10-24, or one septillionth.)
- FOIL; First outer inner last!
- (FOIL is an acronym for expanding quadratic equations in their factorised form: (x+a)(x+b).)
His attack against Joshua at the end of week 2 is referred to as a Level i Flare.
- the i is in italics, referring to imaginary unit i. In Final Fantasy games, there is a spell called Level x Flare (x is a natural number which changes from game to game) which casts a specific spell on characters with a level at a multiple of x. A Level i Flare would work on 2 factors, where the RG body of the victim is and if they are in an imaginary number world. The first condition, should the player not be dead will be hit in the UG and RG. The second condition, if active, would annihilate the victim in all planes, possibly being able to hurt the Composer.
The Regular "Flare" Spell is generally one of the strongest spells in the games it appears in, inflicting huge amounts of non-elemental damage to the target
[edit] Story
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
Sho Minamimoto is selected as Game Master for Week 2, though he has little regard for the rules of the Game. For most of Week 2, he does not issue missions or report to the Conductor. He also begins creating Taboo Noise, erasing Reapers and Players alike. He personally meets Neku and Joshua on several occasions, mostly in order to insult them. Each time Sho approaches, Neku receives a severe headache for reasons unknown.
After Minamimoto is defeated by Neku and Joshua, he releases a powerful Leveli Flare psych, which apparently erases both himself and Joshua, though Joshua escapes to an alternate reality and Minamimoto returns in Week 3, emerging from a Taboo Noise refinery sigil in a new body with far greater powers.
Later in Week Three, he makes his way to the Shibuya river to challenge the Composer. After a brief encounter with Neku and Beat, he is sent along by Mitsuki Konishi. After Neku and Beat defeat the GM, they find Minamimoto further along the tunnel crushed under a car and a soda machine, apparently dead. Later it is revealed that in the RG before the game even started, it was in fact Joshua who killed Neku in search of a Proxy, and that Minamimoto's target had been Joshua, the Composer, the whole time.
Joshua explains that Minamimoto was obsessed with taking over his job as Composer and had somehow discovered what his RG self looked like even though he'd suppressed his vibe. Joshua also comments that the only reason he kept Minamimoto around was because he 'really knew how to heat up a Game' but had to 'retire him early'. However, all previously seen Players, Reapers, and Noise disappear entirely upon being "killed" (erased), whereas Sho's physical body remained, thus leading to the conclusion that he was just knocked out.
In the alternate universe of "Another Day", Sho is known as "Dr. Pin", and seems to be the apprentice of ramen chef and former Tin Pin founder Ken Doi. This Sho appears much less malicious than his counterpart, and freely gives advice to Shooter, Neku and company. Though the pins he develops are rather lacking, he does create a new Launcher for Shooter, taking on the appearance of his Taboo form in the process, giving him a more wreaked appearance (noting that he must have had some difficulty while creating the Omega Launcher).
It is also revealed in the secret reports after the game is completed that Minamimoto's Taboo Noise experiments were actually aided secretly by Hanekoma himself.
[edit] Abilities
Minamimoto is able to summon Taboo Noise. Hanekoma states in early Secret Reports that Minamimoto was taught the techniques to summon Taboo Noise by a "Fallen Angel." It is later revealed that the "Fallen Angel" was in fact Hanekoma himself. Minamimoto uses his abilities at the beginning of his battle against Neku and Joshua. When he enters the battle himself, he transforms into Leo Cantus (レオカンタス Reo Kantasu?, Latin for "singing lion"), his Noise form. Leo Cantus is an anthropomorphic (humanoid) lion. Unlike most Reapers in Noise form, Minamimoto transforms by absorbing Taboo Noise and is treated as one - he exists on only one screen, leaving the other partner to deal with the Taboo Noise he absorbed. Destroying all of the Taboo Noise causes him to revert to normal for a few seconds before he switches screens and repeats the process. Also unlike most Reapers who enter Noise form, Minamimoto's wings shatter prior to the fight with him, suggesting that he is no longer a Reaper. Also of interest; most Reapers only have two wings, while Minamimoto had six, a possible reference to seraphim, or the Satan portrayed in Dante's Inferno.
After his defeat, Minamimoto is revived through his Taboo Noise refinery sigil, becoming a corrupted version of his former self. The corrupted portions of his skin, especially around his midsection, bears some resemblance to the Leo Noise symbol upon closer inspection. The Leo Noise symbol can also be seen as his belt buckle, similar to Higashizawa. Though he no longer summons Taboo Noise, he is vastly more powerful in this second form and recovers some HP upon time. In both forms, he attacks primarily using energy bursts (with a cry of "Infinity!") and has the frequently-used ability to teleport to evade attacks.
[edit] Trivia
Sho is called "Pi-Face" by Neku on several occasions. Strangely enough, Sho's HP in his regular form is 3141 (the first four digits of Pi). Adding on to that, his Week 3 form has 5926 (the next four digits of Pi).
Sho also appears as "Dr. Pin" in Another Day. His alternate self is thought to be an expert "pin-fiddler", but the pin that he reveals in Another Day can only perform one powerful attack before breaking.
[edit] Name
The kanji for Minami-moto Shō translate literally to: South, expert, orangutan.
