The anime adaptation of Square Enix’s The World Ends With You (or TWEWY since the full title is a bit of a mouthful) released its first teaser trailer earlier this week, along with some more details about what fans of the original Nintendo DS game can expect from this new interpretation. The first trailer stays very close to the game’s original artstyle and it looks amazing so far, apparently it’s going to follow the plot of the original source material very closely.
The official description from the teaser trailer’s youtube page is this:
“The main character Neku wakes up in the middle of a busy Shibuya Crossing Intersection unaware of how he got there. He’s in an alternate plane of existence called the Underground (UG). Unknowingly forced to participate in the “Reaper’s Game”, Neku must partner with Shiki, a teenage girl player whom he meets. Neku must fight to survive by completing the missions thrown at him and defeating the creatures called “Noise.” By doing so, he will confront the “Reaper’s Game” along with the truth buried deep inside his memory. “The only way to survive is to trust your partner” Will they survive the “Reaper’s Game”…?”
The Reaper's Game is about to begin…
The World Ends with You The Animation is coming to Funimation in 2021!
Learn more: https://t.co/GFXUuu3PNb pic.twitter.com/pjyAVSNzNS
— Funimation (@Funimation) July 4, 2020
The World Ends with You: The Animation is going to be directed by Domerica’s Kazuya Ichikawa and produced by Domerica x Shin-EI Animation. Final Fantasy VII and Kingdom Hearts’ Tetsuya Nomura is also working on the project, and he was responsible for the main character designs in the original DS game. This is going to be big for fans of The World Ends With You, as the most recent update in the franchise was just a port to the Nintendo Switch, hopefully the animated series is going to hold up. Maybe it will even bring in some new fans, who knows.
Funimation has reported that The World Ends with You: The Animation will arrive in 2021.