Subarashiki Kono Sekai The Animation (The World Ends with You The Animation) a.k.a TWEWY is set in Shibuya, a neighbourhood in Tokyo that has long been famous for its fashion. Shibuya has been the centre of Japanese street fashion for years, and has plenty of malls and boutiques that you can spend days browsing through. Shibuya has also been the birthplace of many different styles that are unique to the neighbourhood, such as gyaru, and remains central to many other fashion trends from formal to casual. Because fashion is such an important part of what makes Shibuya tick, it makes sense that the characters in TWEWY are fashionable themselves.
The characters in TWEWY were designed by Tetsuya Nomura (Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy) and Gen Kobayashi. Their outfits were based on real fashions you can see in Shibuya, and also designed to suit the characters’ personalities. While all of their outfits are undeniably cool, we chose four of our favourites that we would love to wear in real life! While we separated them into 2 male and 2 female characters, don’t let that hold you back from dreaming for whichever outfit you like the most!
The Boys
Sho Minamimoto
Sho Minamimoto is a Reaper most memorable for his constant math equations he is rattling off. His style is all black, a mature punk outfit. Minamimoto wears a black double-breasted, short-sleeved jacket with black ripped jeans. He also has black biker boots, and a black hat. Finally, Minamimoto’s outfit finishes with some bracelets and a simple necklace. It's an outfit that looks well put together but is still casual enough to wear on a normal day. Plus, it has just enough edge to be more alternative than an average person’s casual clothes to stand out from the crowd.
Megumi Kitaniji
Megumi Kitaniji is another one of the Reapers running the Reaper’s Game in Shibuya. His style is nothing short of classy. Kitaniji’s clothes are similar to Host-style, a subgenre of gyaru fashion named for the host club workers’ outfits it resembles. Hosts usually wear suits made out of shiny or patterned material, with low cut button-up dress shirts and pointed shoes. Kitaniji’s outfit follows the same trend, with a matching snakeskin jacket and trousers and an unbuttoned, untucked white dress shirt. He also has white, pointed dress shoes and a simple necklace, and the whole look is finished with sunglasses. Kitaniji’s outfit is formal and casual at the same time, and we would love to wear it for a night out.
The Girls
Shiki Misaki
Shiki Misaki is one of the lead characters in TWEWY. Her character is a fashion designer with dreams of having her own brand one day, so she is well dressed herself! Shiki’s style is a little bit cute and a little bit sexy, showing more skin than you would normally see outside of a trendy neighbourhood like Shibuya. She has a tight red crop top, a sleeveless yellow jacket, and an army green miniskirt. She also has knee high brown leather boots and a matching bag that attaches to her waist hands-free. Finally, she completes her look with a simple necklace and bracelet, along with a brown hat decorated by pins. All of the colours are not ones that you would necessarily put together, but Shiki makes them look great, showing her mind for fashion. It's a really fun outfit, especially for hot summer days when you want to stay cool but still look good.
Rhyme
Rhyme is a young girl in TWEWY but her outfit isn’t only for children. Rhyme’s look is inspired by hip-hop style, which has been popular in Shibuya for years amongst young people. She wears an oversized salmon graphic sweatshirt with khaki shorts, yellow trainers, and a black beanie. She also has a huge bell-shaped necklace on, likely for her music-inspired name. Both the beanie and the sweatshirt have a cute skull on them, giving a little edge to an otherwise cute look. Likely this was inspired by creepy-kei, a style from Shibuya’s sub-neighbourhood of Harajuku which combines cute and dark elements into one look. Rhyme’s outfit is definitely the most comfortable one on our list, too, so it's great for any occasion.
Final Thoughts
One of our favourite things about The World Ends with You The Animation is how heavily inspired by Shibuya the style of the anime is. It would just not be right to set an anime in Shibuya and not let its fashion culture shine through. TWEWY definitely does not disappoint, with lots of unique and cool outfits that highlight many of the different styles that you can actually see in Shibuya today. Of course they all have some fantastic elements as well that are pretty hard to replicate (we are looking at some of those shoes, thanks Tetsuya Nomura...) but we can always dream about being as fashionable as an anime character!
Which outfit from The World Ends with You The Animation would you love to have? Is there one that we did not include on our list? Are you feeling more inspired about what to do with your own wardrobe now? Can you think of another anime you would love to wear the fashion from? Drop us a comment below!