NEO: Uzuki and The Composer

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From this Tumblr post.

Issue: W2 Uzuki (not) mentioning the Composer and why Rindo doesn’t react [21-11-04]

Uzuki brings up the Composer during W2 in NEO and no one comments on it even though a certain someone probably should have.

But in the Japanese version, Uzuki never brings up the Composer in the first place. Details below, contains spoilers for NEO mid and end game, and a bit from TWEWY A New Day.

Analysis

W2D4, when the Wicked Twisters tell Uzuki they don’t remember dying, in English, she says:

This is above even the Game Master’s pay grade… Only the Composer could deal with a royal mess like this.

A possible reason why Beat doesn’t say anything here is because Uzuki in Japanese says:

どういうこと？
What do you mean?

こんなの指揮者…ゲームマスター以上が取り扱う案件じゃない
For this Conductor…Game Master, this is a task handled by someone more than that.

I’m not sure exactly how to translate the part about the Conductor (指揮者). I think she’s just correcting herself, but regardless, there is a very important difference compared to the EN version.

She does not bring up the Composer, which is written in Japanese as コンポーザー.

This answers some questions. Partially one, why Beat doesn’t say a thing about the Composer. But even knowing that Uzuki didn’t say the Composer specifically, she’s still talking about someone above the GM/Conductor. Beat…should know/remember who that could be, right?

Even if there isn’t a point to bringing up the Composer or finding him or whatever. Kinda like in TWEWY A New Day:

Beat
How we s'posed to find him, though? Ain’t he long gone by now?
Neku
Maybe. But if these visions are his doing, then maybe he’s come back.

Moving on, another question, is why Rindo didn’t say anything on W3D5 when Tsugumi talks about them coming to the UG without dying:

Tsugumi
You came to the UG without dying.
But neither a Player nor a Reaper could have made that happen. That’s Dissonance.

Rindo
(But if not a Player or a Reaper…then who?)

Then Rindo recalls the conversation with Uzuki which does mention the Composer in EN:

This is above even the Game Master’s pay grade… Only the Composer could deal with a royal mess like this.

It would have been a good time to say something like “Oh maybe this Composer person I heard about is behind this”.

Here are the two lines he recalls in Japanese, and neither one talks about the Composer as discussed above.

While it’s not incorrect to bring up the Composer in EN, it’s difficult to have characters react to this information when the original text did not. As mentioned above, Beat would have probably said something. Rindo, at this point, I feel would have definitely said something since they’re trying to figure out who’s behind this. But since it’s not in the original text, having Rindo bring that up in EN and make it work would have been even more of a mess.

I would have loved to see how that would have played out, provided that it was there in the first place, but oh well.

A final point, but now that we know that Uzuki did not bring up the Composer originally in Japanese, then as far as I know there isn’t any other time before Joshua introduces himself as the Composer that Rindo hears about the title. That’s also the point when Rindo looks up the word “Composer”, like he does when he’s uncertain about what something means.

Some mysteries solved!