- "The one Reaper who always had Shoka's Interest at heart. Don't get too close or you'll be blown away by the chakram-esque symbols flying around her."
- — Noise Report
Iris Cantus is a boss of Week 3 and Ayano Kamachi's Noise form in NEO:The World Ends with You.
Abilities[]
Iris has three basic abilities.
- Shield: She is surrounded by a shield at the start of the battle and at regular intervals. The shield includes several spinning blades which will damage any character who gets too close. The shield drops if she is Staggered and the blades disappear one-by-one if she takes other damage.
- Skewer Shot: She fires a volley of three darts in a narrow spray.
- Rain of Pain: An area of rain appears on the field which causes ongoing damage to any character who enters it.
She also has a special ability used a limited number of times.
- Punishment: A selected character from the party appears chained to a cross, and Iris appears a short distance away walking towards them. You must destroy the cross without the use of that party member's psych before Iris reaches them, or she will deal substantial damage to them.
Strategy[]
It is recommended to use ranged pins with fire affinity to take her down as she has a damaging shield up at the start of the battle. A good strategy to get within melee range safely is to use a charge pin to knock her off her feet first.
A surprisingly good strategy for Iris is simply to wait. If you do not attack her in melee and do not enter her areas of rain, her only attack is her three-way shot which is easy to dodge and not very damaging. Chip away at her with ranged Psychs whenever they are available, and just wait for them to reboot when they are not. Be careful about characters accidentally entering rain when automatically approaching into range; again, because of her limited range of attacks it is entirely viable to do nothing but dodge when rain is present. Eventually she will drop her shield and fall to the ground, at which point all of your characters can dogpile her until she recovers.
Trivia[]
- Iris refers to iris, the genus and Latin name for the flowering plant. The name translates as "Singing Iris". This references the fifth hanafuda suit, iris or ayame. The characters for the iris suit, 菖蒲, are reflected in the first characters of Ayano's first name, 菖乃, and last name, 蒲池, respectively. Out of the three Japanese irises, ayame (Iris sanguinea), kakitsubata (Iris laevigata), and hanashoubu (Iris ensata), Iris Cantus and its specifically resembles Iris sanguinea or ayame, and the boss's yellow markings most closely resemble those of the ayame, fitting the hanafuda symbolism. However, she likely symbolizes Iris ensata due to it being the symbolic flower of Shibuya: ironic, since Ayano is said to have never adjusted to Shibuya and preferred her native Shinjuku, which has the azalea as its symbolic flower.
- Alternatively, Iris is Latin for Rainbow, so the name can also translate as "Singing Rainbow".
- Alternatively, Iris is the genus of a type of praying mantis.
- When she is faced as part of the story, Iris will almost never choose Shoka Sakurane as the target of Punishment, reflecting that Ayano cares for her. You can take advantage of this by ensuring that Shoka has a high-damage pin equipped.