On the outside, Joshua is an incredibly enigmatic individual. He's evasive, overtly flamboyant and prissy, incredibly arrogant and a seeming know-it-all. Right from day one, he's already irritating Neku to no end with his teasing, avoidance of topics and pretentious nature, as well as his surprising amount of knowledge of the Game. By no means is his intelligence unwarranted, but for how much he knows, it does mark him as suspicious. After all, Players are usually oblivious as to the workings of the Game when they first begin to play.
It's very difficult at any given time to tell exactly what he's thinking, or even to determine if he's telling the full truth. His typical reaction to questions is to either dodge it entirely, or give bits and pieces of the answer, making it to where the person asking the question has to figure out the answer for themselves. Joshua is more than willing to make people work for their answers, rather than give it to them straight. Even so, he does tend to give quite a bit of advice and several positive thoughts, frequently telling Neku to expand his horizons and open up. Despite this, he rarely follows any of his own advice, keeping his own thoughts to himself and largely commenting on everything else instead.
Although outwardly friendly and willing to talk to any type of person, Joshua is a very self-centered, antisocial individual, preferring to do things his own way. Manipulative is his middle name. He knows what he wants to accomplish, and he knows exactly what to do or say to get it done. His true intentions are kept strictly to himself. This is partly due to the fact that in reality, he is the Game's Composer, and cannot let his identity be known.
Being the Composer means that he is the head of the Reaper's Game. It also means that he is the figurative God of Shibuya, where his word is law. He can create and destroy what he wishes, as he wishes it. The fact that he was willing to destroy all of Shibuya simply because he couldn't see any potential for change in it is scary enough. He has that little faith in people in general - which makes him surprisingly like Neku at the beginning of the game. It's this quality that helps them to bond and somewhat befriend each other. Fortunately for Shibuya, Neku had other partners to help him open up, and this change in Neku spawned an optimistic turn in Joshua regarding Shibuya, causing him to decide to give it a chance. Shibuya was also directly impacted - positively - by this change in Joshua, according to Mr. Hanekoma, showing just how connected Joshua is to the city.
On the inside, however, Joshua is simply incredibly lonely. Mr. Hanekoma says it himself, in that Joshua has been alone most of his life and never had very many friends at all. It makes sense, considering that the Composer stays hidden, only speaking to the Conductor or the Producer, and also in the fact that his position alone makes others either fear his power or want to kill him to obtain it themselves. Mr. Hanekoma even points out Joshua's loneliness to him at the end of the game, where they are seen on the top of Shibuya's 104 building, looking down on Neku and friends as they reunite. Joshua almost seems like he refuses to acknowledge this, as he leaves without a word, interrupting Mr. Hanekoma's sentence.
Yoshiya "Joshua" Kiryuu | The World Ends With You | Reserved
On the outside, Joshua is an incredibly enigmatic individual. He's evasive, overtly flamboyant and prissy, incredibly arrogant and a seeming know-it-all. Right from day one, he's already irritating Neku to no end with his teasing, avoidance of topics and pretentious nature, as well as his surprising amount of knowledge of the Game. By no means is his intelligence unwarranted, but for how much he knows, it does mark him as suspicious. After all, Players are usually oblivious as to the workings of the Game when they first begin to play.
It's very difficult at any given time to tell exactly what he's thinking, or even to determine if he's telling the full truth. His typical reaction to questions is to either dodge it entirely, or give bits and pieces of the answer, making it to where the person asking the question has to figure out the answer for themselves. Joshua is more than willing to make people work for their answers, rather than give it to them straight. Even so, he does tend to give quite a bit of advice and several positive thoughts, frequently telling Neku to expand his horizons and open up. Despite this, he rarely follows any of his own advice, keeping his own thoughts to himself and largely commenting on everything else instead.
Although outwardly friendly and willing to talk to any type of person, Joshua is a very self-centered, antisocial individual, preferring to do things his own way. Manipulative is his middle name. He knows what he wants to accomplish, and he knows exactly what to do or say to get it done. His true intentions are kept strictly to himself. This is partly due to the fact that in reality, he is the Game's Composer, and cannot let his identity be known.
Being the Composer means that he is the head of the Reaper's Game. It also means that he is the figurative God of Shibuya, where his word is law. He can create and destroy what he wishes, as he wishes it. The fact that he was willing to destroy all of Shibuya simply because he couldn't see any potential for change in it is scary enough. He has that little faith in people in general - which makes him surprisingly like Neku at the beginning of the game. It's this quality that helps them to bond and somewhat befriend each other. Fortunately for Shibuya, Neku had other partners to help him open up, and this change in Neku spawned an optimistic turn in Joshua regarding Shibuya, causing him to decide to give it a chance. Shibuya was also directly impacted - positively - by this change in Joshua, according to Mr. Hanekoma, showing just how connected Joshua is to the city.
On the inside, however, Joshua is simply incredibly lonely. Mr. Hanekoma says it himself, in that Joshua has been alone most of his life and never had very many friends at all. It makes sense, considering that the Composer stays hidden, only speaking to the Conductor or the Producer, and also in the fact that his position alone makes others either fear his power or want to kill him to obtain it themselves. Mr. Hanekoma even points out Joshua's loneliness to him at the end of the game, where they are seen on the top of Shibuya's 104 building, looking down on Neku and friends as they reunite. Joshua almost seems like he refuses to acknowledge this, as he leaves without a word, interrupting Mr. Hanekoma's sentence.