OOC INFORMATION
Name: Rona
Contact: ochrona
Other Characters: Nepeta Leijon | Homestuck | manticore - I don't mind the same thing twice!

CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Sanae Hanekoma
Age: Physically 30ish; presumed to be much older mentally, as he's dead/immortal.
Canon: The World Ends With You
Canon Point: Post-game
Character Information: Wiki

Personality:

Let's start with the surface.

At first glance, Hanekoma is a friendly, laid-back café owner. He tries to be hip; he's certainly talkative, if only about pointless personal trivia; his eccentricities seem limited to chattiness and an addiction to coffee beans. He will make you pay for that coffee, no matter how casually it was offered, and brush off anything in the way of complaints or negativity.

In any not-quite-dire situation, Hanekoma's an upbeat presence—he'll give you a stupid nickname, unwanted advice re: your personal growth, and his pep talks tend towards "enjoy every moment" optimism. He's full of phrases like "expand your horizons" and "open up your world," and seems to believe quite strongly in being present in and appreciative of your life, regardless of how well it happens to be going. He's aggressively interested in imparting this advice to the teenage population of Shibuya.

That is, the dead teenage population of Shibuya. Hanekoma is involved with the Reaper's Game: survive seven days to win your life back, fight the stylized-tattoo monsters called Noise, the tattoo-winged Reapers siccing them on you. The Game takes place in the "Underground" or UG, a plane invisible to the living but overlaid on their lives—yet a place Hanekoma moves about freely, interrupting cheating attempts and calling himself a guardian of the rules and Players. He'll step in to rescue kids from bad situations: stop Neku from killing his partner, try to see their relationship patched with some answers and a gift; bind the Soul of Beat's lost sister into another form, so he has a second chance at survival and something to fight for. When he interferes, it's never just to buy a Player time or shield them from danger—he finds people with potential and keeps them moving forward.

This is because Hanekoma values two things profoundly: personal growth and imagination. Creativity and Imagination—capitalized because it determines one's psychic power in the UG, and much of one's potential for greatness in the real world—are, apparently, key to the success of a civilization. Shibuya would not flourish if it lacked dynamic, high-Imagination people to keep the culture and attitudes from stagnating. Part and parcel of this is a willingness to embrace and take an interest in others—to influence and be influenced, not to live a closed-off life. Much of the Game's purpose is the refinement of Imagination and changing of attitudes through conflict: dead kids grow by leaps and bounds when forced to fight with psychic powers. If they get wiped out, those scraps of Soul are recycled back into the city.

This all comes according to the Secret Reports, written by Hanekoma in a tone jarringly serious compared to his casual demeanor with the Players—and meant for the Angels, beings which oversee the Game from an even more distant plane of existence. Hanekoma is the Producer, an emissary of the Angels meant to aid the Composer in running the Game. He crafts impossible items (apps which take pictures through time, mind-controlling pins…) and creates artwork viewable in the Realground, imprinted with psychic messages not consciously recognized (namely, "enjoy the moment" and "gather," meant to draw those with enough Imagination to sense the call).

His artwork in the Realground is done anonymously, under the alias CAT—with which he's achieved fame and a following in Tokyo and beyond. CAT designs clothing and creates artwork of all kinds, most notably his sprawling and highly stylized graffiti murals.

So: artist, barista, secret Angel watching over dead kids trying to become better people (or get wiped out trying). Really into personal growth, creativity, and being open to experiences. BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE.

By the end of the game, Hanekoma has another title: Fallen Angel, a traitor. The plot of TWEWY centers around not only the Game, but a second, private game being played: one between the Conductor, Megumi Kitaniji, and his superior, the Composer—Joshua, with whom Hanekoma is on fond and friendly terms. Shibuya was to be saved or razed depending on Kitaniji's performance, and Neku's. Hanekoma, deeply passionate about the value of the city and its people, stepped outside the bounds of his position to ensure the city's safety.

He intervened to help the players, became far too hands-on when he was only meant to observe, and he gave a weapon to a would-be assassin: Minamimoto wanted to usurp the Composer, and Hanekoma considered him a backup plan for the city's safety. He shared the secret of creating "Taboo Noise," which, as implied by the name, he was not supposed to do: Minamimoto got a small army of fiercer-than-usual monsters, along with a new body and powers.

Still, Hanekoma kept up a cheerful appearance with Joshua, and rescued him from the parallel world where he'd become stuck—despite Hanekoma's concern that if he met his own AU double, AU-him would turn him in as a traitor. He wrote that he thought his rebellion fully justified and was unbothered by the punishment—that he hoped his perspective would be seen as sensible by the other Angels.

That parallel world features one other scene of note: the opportunity to—playing as an AU Neku with no knowledge of the Game—fight Hanekoma. It's implied to be for the sake of purifying a less-emotionally-progressed Neku, but Hanekoma doesn't seem to mind challenging the kid to the hardest boss fight in the game without explanation. Like Reapers, he has a Noise form: he shifts into two lion and winged-tiger monsters, existing simultaneously and with different methods of attack.

From all of this we learn three things: that Hanekoma will do whatever he has to in the name of protecting something he thinks valuable—on a grand scale—or influential; that his cheerful demeanor can be faked or manipulative; that he's unapologetic, fiercer than he looks, and doesn't feel the need to share or be backed up on his thoughts or plans (at least until after the fact).

5-10 Key Character Traits:

- Manipulative > Hanekoma isn't what he seems, and conversations with him tend to be 90% half-truths and answers to every question but the one you asked. He nudges people about like chess pieces, guiding their decisions and orchestrating situations from the background—though it's not meant maliciously.

+ Creative > Imagination and creativity are A Big Deal in TWEWY, and to Hanekoma particularly. He's a multi-talented artist, and as an Angel can perceive the Imaginations (and Souls) of humans he encounters.

- Secretive > He's the most powerful character in the game, the secret bonus boss, and the protag's anonymous idol—but is content to present himself as a laid-back coffeeshop owner and pull strings from the sidelines.

+ Passionate > Violation of his role, betrayal of a friend, defying Heaven: everything he did was for the well-being of Shibuya, or, on a smaller scale—gifts and advice given to the other characters—in the hopes of preserving the potential he could see.

- Ruthless > He has no temper that we know of, only an immense amount of power and an end-justifies-the-means, it's-for-the-greater-good mindset. Given something he had to protect, Hanekoma didn't hesitate to break the Angels' rules, betray his friend, and arm a would-be assassin with forbidden power.

+ Amiable > Friendly, chatty, casual. He legitimately likes people as a whole and enjoys the company of others, especially when he watches people grow and change from the sidelines.

- Gambler > Hanekoma is not cautious, tentative, or uncertain in his plays: he admits to being something of a gambler, and plainly he's unbothered by high stakes and predicting the choices of every piece on the board—wherein frantic dead teenagers are pawns.

Would you prefer a monster that FITS your character’s personality, CONFLICTS with it, or EITHER? Fits!
Opt-Outs: Arachne / Nymph / Vampire / Naga / Faerie

Roleplay Sample: