Yoshiya "Joshua" Kiryu

Name	Yoshiya "Joshua" Kiryu
Age	15
Main Attack Style	High & Low (D-Pad or A B X Y Buttons)
Partners	Neku in the second chapter
Classification	Player (illegally), Shibuya's Composer

Main Information

Game Manual Decription

Joshua

"It's quickly evident Joshua is clever beyond his fifteen years—as sly as they come. Unfortunately, his insufferably snotty attitude only serves to widen the gulf between him and Neku...but his knowledge, especially about the Game, does earn him some points."

Personality

Joshua is an extremely intelligent youth. He has a refined taste and knowledge for the world around him. Unfortunately, these traits are often overshadowed by his constant air of arrogance. He prefers to think and act by himself, always keeping his intentions mysterious. Joshua never, ever gets worked up and is always teasing when he is not sharing information. These snobby qualities always make him appear condescending and antagonistic- especially to Neku. Nevertheless, his long history with Hanekoma has ignited a bond of trust between the two. Despite his interpersonal issues, he remains a mature and wise person at heart underneath his attitude.

Battle Style

Joshua attacks by typing in digits on a phone to summon random objects to bombard enemies from above. He has two ways of fighting: ground and levitation. When Neku first forms a pact with him, Joshua will only attack on the ground; after a specific plot point, Joshua will be able to levitate in combat. When Joshua is in the air, every input to his combo tree inflicts damage and he is overall stronger.

Ground

While on the ground, as you progress through his combos he will target enemies. When he finishes the combo, things will fall on each enemy that was targeted, larger things fall that are targeted multiple times. Later on, he gets a camera on his phone that has a chance of bringing targeted enemies to the opposite side and immobilizes them.

• Left/Y while attacking Right/A or vice versa (During a combo): Phone Camera- stuns/switches the position of Noise
• Down/B (When idle): Sidestep- momentary invicibility
• Up/X (When idle): Levitate
• Any button (When knocked in the air): Safe Landing- prevents knockdown damage

Levitate

During Joshua's Levitation, he is immune to almost all ground attacks. However, if he is hit while levitating, he will be knocked down, then returned to the ground (if an attack does zero damage, unless it has a knockback effect, will not knock Joshua back down). When progressing through his combos, each button press causes a beam to attack an enemy. At the end of the combo, a larger beam comes down on one side and hit all enemies on that side twice. If you go through enough branches in the combo, two giant spears come down and deal massive damage on both side three times. To activate this particular effect, you must go through a certain number of branches, which has to be more than the number of opponents locked on on the side you're attacking. It is recommended that a Combo Map Upgrade II effect be used, such as Pi-Face's Jeans, to help guarantee the effect.

• Down/B (When idle): Return to ground

Fusion Stars

The way Joshua gains Fusion Stars is through Highs and Lows. At the end of Joshua's combos, there is a number. That number goes up to the number at the top that the arrow is pointing to. The goal is to get the combo numbers less than, greater than or equal to the number at the top, depending on the symbol in the corner of the top numbers.

• Red arrow pointing up - greater than
• Gray horizontal line - equal
• Blue arrow pointing down - less than

Fusions

• Level 1: Neku and Joshua drop various objects on enemies.
  • Joshua: Follow my lead!
  • Neku: Screw that!

• Level 2: Joshua attacks the field with ice and Neku attacks the field with fire.
  • Joshua: Work for you?
  • Neku: What do you think?

• Level 3: Summons a meteor from outer space, inflecting massive damage to all enemies.
  • Joshua: Another world awaits.
  • Neku: And you're going

Story

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or character details follow.

Yoshiya Kiryu (who states in-game that his parents call him Joshua) is the second partner Neku gains. He is a special player in that he is not dead, yet can see the UG. He seems to have known Neku before he came to the Underground as the flashbacks show (Joshua is running towards Neku with a gun in his hand and it appears that Neku is shot.) However, in the last flashback, it is shown that Joshua was not aiming for Neku, but for the second game master, Sho Minamimoto. Minamimoto shoots at Joshua, however, the shots are stopped in midair. Neku inevitably still dies at the hands of Joshua.

At the end of the "Joshua" Chapter, he is shown to sacrifice himself to protect Neku from a level "i" flare attack. According to the secret reports written by Hanekoma, however, it is revealed that Joshua transported to a parallel universe just before receiving the blow of Minamimoto's attack.

At the end of the third week (Beat's week) Joshua appears in the final fight against the Conductor's final form, a huge five-headed dragon noise. After Neku defeats Kitaniji, Joshua reveals that he himself is the Composer. Also, in addition to not being killed by Minamimoto, Neku was never the Reapers' target. Joshua killed Neku so that Neku could be his proxy in his and Kitaniji's game to see if Shibuya would be destroyed or not. After Kitaniji is erased (due to having failed his mission and the timer running out) Joshua proposes one last “game” to Neku. Both of them have a pistol, and they both shoot on ten, with the survivor becoming the Composer. Neku does not fire a shot, and Joshua remains Composer. However, Joshua unexpectedly chooses to maintain Shibuya, as Neku and three other players (Shiki, Beat and Rhyme) meet in the RG in front of Hachiko in the end. It is revealed in the Secret Reports that this is because Joshua realized that if Neku, the "worst person in Shibuya" could change, then so could Shibuya.

When Neku, Beat, Rhyme, and Shiki meet at Hachiko, Neku wants to know where Joshua is despite their conflicting minds as well as the final conflict they had. He still forgives him.

As a slight Easter egg, Joshua is also seen in Shiki Day 1, before the frog noise show up at Hachiko. He is likely observing Neku, his proxy in the game with the Conductor, from the RG.

Spoiler warning: Spoilers end here.

Name

Joshua may be a reference to the biblical figure Joshua, who created the laws and rules that the people of Israel live by, and liased with God on their behalf (with the role of God, in this context, taken by The Producer). Although this reference might seem blasphemous in a Western context, use of Christian imagery in unusual contexts is not unusual in Japan, where Christianity is an uncommon religion (compare the use of "angels" in Neon Genesis Evangelion).

Joshua may be a reference to Joshua Sehrer. Since 2001 Joshua Sehrer lived very similar experiences in Shibuya, Tokyo. Note the Pacman sign in Dogenzaka in his 2001 journal, Shibuya 109 building in his 2004 journal and experiences at the Hachiko statue.

The kanji of Joshua's Japanese name, Yoshi-ya Ki-ryu, literally translate to justice, increasing, (flower), birth. This may also refer to his role as creator of the Game and suggests impartiality within it (although this is not absolutely established by the plot)