joichiro nishi. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
katastrophe) wrote2014-10-30 01:39 pm
katastrophe) wrote2014-10-30 01:39 pm
(no subject)
〈 PLAYER INFO 〉
NAME: China.
AGE: 21.
JOURNAL:frottage
IM / EMAIL: skirtflip on aim.
PLURK:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
liquidate
RETURNING: No.
〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Joichiro Nishi.
CHARACTER AGE: 14.
SERIES: Gantz.
CHRONOLOGY: End of series.
CLASS: Mass murdering psychopath catkiller.
HOUSING: Heropa residence #006.
BACKGROUND:
How “GANTZ” came to be is shrouded in mystery. Where it came from, how it got there, who named it; these are all questions without an answer, with only one thing for certain: once you’ve been chosen by GANTZ, there are only two ways you can ever, ever escape:
You can fight. Fight and fight and fight, and maybe you’ll get lucky.
Or.
You can die. Regain your freedom by giving up. Those are the only two options.
Nishi’s story predates that of Gantz, the series, and first begins in a novel known as Gantz/Minus, set a year before the story of Gantz begins. His introduction is short and sweet, begins with him walking home with a test he did extraordinarily well on, eager for his mother to praise him and smile, and ends with him finding her hanging by her neck from the ceiling.
It’s debatable what exactly happened to him after that, but it is 100% confirmed that Joichiro Nishi definitely killed himself. Later in the novel he mentions in the narrative that the last thing he remembers is jumping from the rooftop of his building to his death. In his mother’s suicide letter to him, she says the words “see you soon”, and it’s not a far stretch to say that that’s likely the reason why he did it, but he doesn’t mention those words.
He doesn’t stay dead, of course. He wakes up in a room of men and women of all ages, wearing bizarre fetish-like pvc suits and holding guns, standing around a smooth, black ball almost as tall as he is. The ball is known as GANTZ, but nobody knows who named it that, and nobody knows how it got there, or how long its been around. Nishi gets a quick debriefing by another person in the room, by the name of Akari, and he’s told that they’ve all been revived from death to “hunt” for “aliens”, the species of which changes every time.
For each alien that’s killed, the hunter is awarded points, and 100 points gives a reward—one of which is to leave GANTZ with no memories, never to return. Until that point, they are forced every few weeks to return to GANTZ over and over, to hunt aliens and face potential death against their wills.
Nishi spends a lot of his first few runs in GANTZ running away and crying, but he eventually falls into the swing of the game, picks up a few tricks with the provided weapons, and works at diligently killing enough aliens to be able to leave. As the last and the least talented of the group to arrive, eventually each and every member of the original team he met left one by one, until only Nishi remained.
Cue when Gantz officially begins, with the “tragic” “deaths” of Kurono and Katou, two new players brought in to the GANTZ hunt.
The rest of the main series has been sufficiently summarised, bar from a special chapter missing from the list.
The chapter in question is called GANTZ/NISHI, and begins long before the end of Gantz. It follows a classmate of Nishi’s, discussing the rumours about him with her friends. Apparently, he kills cats for fun (he does), and he killed his whole family when he was only in grade school (didn’t, but he won’t deny it)! It’s obvious from the way they speak that Nishi is one of the least liked students in the school, and the classmate proceeds to follow him around to try take photos of him doing something gross. He eventually busts her, and to get away she hastily confesses her “feelings” to him, to which he responds “I don’t care”, and the chapter comes to a close. It just offers a closer look into the school life of someone incredibly bitter and jaded.
PERSONALITY:
Nishi doesn’t believe in teamwork. He’s called a lone wolf by some, and “jerk” by others, but if there is anything that can be proven just by him having lived so long, it’s that his methods work. He believes teamwork is weak, and is the first step towards failure. During the beginning of every mission, he tends to sit by himself in a corner while the rest of the new recruits freak out and question every aspect of the game, keeping his knowledge to himself. Not once does he ever debrief a team out of the goodness of his heart, and when he’s questioned on it, all he says is that a bunch of slack-jawed morons make for the best distractions. An alien will always let down its guard when its about to kill a person. He has absolutely no regard for any human life that isn’t his own.
So it isn’t a far stretch to say he is incredibly selfish. And by ‘not a far stretch’ I mean you literally do not even have to move, because his regard for his own life could be seen from space without a telescope. He doesn’t believe in teamwork, because he doesn’t believe anyone is as qualified to watch his back as he is, and he doesn’t care if the peons get killed time and again, because that’s what they’re there for.
Because he has such poor regard for other humans, he gets incredibly excited when he thinks he’s found someone he refers to as a “kindred spirit”, and it’s kind of evident that even with all his hundred layers of anti-teamwork coating that he’s just waiting for someone to come along who understands him. After the Onion Alien mission, he tells Kurono that he thinks they’re kindred spirits, because he believes that Kurono wants to see someone die just as badly as he does. He’s disappointed when he’s told he’s wrong, however, and loses all respect for Kurono in an instant.
And if there is one thing he cannot stand, it is when people don’t have any respect for him. He doesn’t tolerate anyone looking down on him or putting him in harm’s way, even a little. Before the Tanaka Alien mission, a new hunter accidentally shoots him in the face with one of the X-Guns made available by GANTZ, and Nishi’s immediate response is to blow the head of the offender clean off. He can’t stand being underestimated, and having people think that he’ll let them do what they please around him isn’t what he’s about.
His blatant disregard for human life leaves him pretty ostracised, but he really couldn’t care any less. He is under no illusions that he’s anything less than unlikeable and despicable. Prior to the Osaka arc, Nishi is revived by Kurono, and not for a single second does he believe that it’s out of a moral obligation or because they formed some kind of bond; right away he calls out Kurono for his ulterior motive, and isn’t shocked to hear that he’s completely right. It makes far more sense to him that he’s called when he can be used, rather than because someone enjoys his company.
Friendship or the concept of a team are things that Nishi really doesn’t seem to understand. Kurono and his team are all very close, and when they say their goodbyes to him before he is released from GANTZ permanently, Nishi just seems irritated and uncomfortable with all the fond words being thrown around.
The idea of being responsible for another human being disgusts him, and when Kurono’s former team suggest that Nishi should be their leader, he laughs in their faces, mocking them for their poor and hilarious decision.
He tends to keep people at an arm’s length, and because of it, seems almost impervious to emotional hurt, and even when one of his former teammates returns to GANTZ having forgotten him completely, Nishi seems to bounce back from the knowledge instantly, after only a single moment of thought. Though it is possible learning that he’d been forgotten dwelled on him, as he ended up asking the same question at a later date, he never makes any kind of indication towards it.
But even if it did bother him and he was eager to get that relationship back, he sure doesn’t act like it. He will never put himself in danger to save another person—ever. Even when he’s in the right place at the right time, he would rather save himself. During a fight on a train with Izumi where only Izumi is being targeted, the only time Nishi intervenes is to get himself out of danger, and the second he’s out of the line of fire he tells Izumi: “if they’re after you, you can deal with them”.
Even when a “friend” is in danger, if there is nothing in it for Nishi to gain, he won’t bother to assist them. However, it is possible that somewhere inside him he does care; for example, after being attacked on the train with Izumi, his first instinct is to contact Sakurai and let him know about the attack, assuming that he will help him instead so Nishi doesn’t have to. When he’s asked why, he says “it doesn’t give me any points”, and hangs up.
His moral compass is either non-existent or definitely broken. During the very first on-screen mission, he doesn’t understand why Kurono doesn’t just kill the alien trapped in front of them. He regards killing a person or killing an alien in the same way—as livestock. They are nothing more than cattle waiting for their slaughter, and aren’t worth losing sleep over.
He is under no illusions that somewhere deep inside him he’s a good guy; he knows he isn’t, and he isn’t insecure about the fact, and won’t act any different in order to cover it up. He never tries to paint himself as a good guy. Even when asked to tell the truth, his response is “we’ll see”, making no indication that he’ll walk the straight edge.
Really, all this adds up to is just how little he cares what people think of him, and how he doesn’t let their thoughts influence him in any form. He doesn’t act like a good person for publicity or karma; even at school where rumours fly wildly about him and the kind of person he is, he doesn’t bother to try and save his reputation. He isn’t ashamed of the person he turned out to be, even if he’s nobody’s idea of a good person.
Being the socially acceptable idea of a “good person” doesn’t interest him in the slightest; he has no fond feelings toward the world as its known, and the most memorable time he expresses genuine excitement is when he gets to talk to the rest of the hunters about the end of the world.
He believes that the world is wrong, and the way its structured is foolish and pointless. He believes in power and respects the strong. Not the heroic, but the powerful, and strongly believes that only people who are strong should be in a position of power, which is why he’s so ready for the world to end and to be built again.
Both his favourite and least favourite things about the world are the ignorant, weak, and stupid people inhabiting it. He thinks ignorant humans are funny, and will motivate them with lies and promises, often with fake names and easy to swallow lies, like during the Onion Alien mission where he straight-out lies to the team about there being a cash prize for the first person to kill the alien. He does this because he’s seen enough GANTZ missions to know that people are selfish and need motivation, but also because while they are ignorant and stupid, they’re very, very good distractions.
He also does not respect those same teammates or see them as any kind of value, and will actively snipe targets from them during a hunt. He will also not hesitate to shoot through them if a target just happens to be behind them, and during the Osaka arc, he almost crushes Anzu and Kato both to destroy an alien.
He doesn’t have any kind of regard for serious situations or feels any kind of moral obligation to comfort the terrified—after the first GANTZ mission on screen he actively antagonizes the new participants, making jokes about how he’s going to kill all of them and how he was the real alien all along.
In the PS2 game version of GANTZ which features a kind of dating sim/social link aspect, the only way you can get Nishi’s attention or win his affection is by going off on your own and denying any offers by the team to help you.
Despite thoroughly enjoying watching his “teammates” go off and get killed because they believed in his stories, in the game version he gets very disappointed in you when you believe in him.
And as much as the idea of teamwork is stupid to him, and as much as he believes he’s capable and strong, there are points where he will demand, not ask, for help, despite been as pleasant to be around as tear gas. He is not fond of hero-type characters, but won’t hesitate to actively rely on them when he’s getting his ass kicked, expecting to be saved every time because it’s the morally right thing to do.
He is a bit of a coward, too, and it shows in his fighting style. Rather than putting himself in danger in the center of the fray, he utilises his GANTZ suit and changes the frequency to make himself invisible and protecting him from harm. He also uses the other hunters as his body shields, and will only attack when he’s sure it won’t lead to harm on him.
He likes to feel powerful, which is why he loves GANTZ so much, and enjoys it when people are begging him for knowledge and information. When he is the all important center of attention is when he feels most comfortable, and he likes to mock people for relying on him before he gives them tiny slivers of useful information in unhelpful volumes.
He finds there's nothing powerful in saving the weak and being a good person, however, there are times where he's gone against his own morals and own policies in order to save a life. When GANTZ is hacked by invading aliens wired tight with explosives, Nishi doesn't even think twice about escaping--taking his teammate with him as he leaves. It's the most iconic good deed he's ever performed, and Takeshi (whom he saves) follows him afterwards telling him he knew he was good, to which Nishi just tells him to shut up over and over.
To his own heroism, he seems to have a crisis in identity, not understanding why he did the thing that he did when all he's ever done is think of himself, and being called a good person gets so far under his skin it's a wonder he doesn't snap and kill Takeshi himself to right his mistake.
NAME: China.
AGE: 21.
JOURNAL:
frottageIM / EMAIL: skirtflip on aim.
PLURK:
RETURNING: No.
〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Joichiro Nishi.
CHARACTER AGE: 14.
SERIES: Gantz.
CHRONOLOGY: End of series.
CLASS: Mass murdering psychopath catkiller.
HOUSING: Heropa residence #006.
BACKGROUND:
How “GANTZ” came to be is shrouded in mystery. Where it came from, how it got there, who named it; these are all questions without an answer, with only one thing for certain: once you’ve been chosen by GANTZ, there are only two ways you can ever, ever escape:
You can fight. Fight and fight and fight, and maybe you’ll get lucky.
Or.
You can die. Regain your freedom by giving up. Those are the only two options.
Nishi’s story predates that of Gantz, the series, and first begins in a novel known as Gantz/Minus, set a year before the story of Gantz begins. His introduction is short and sweet, begins with him walking home with a test he did extraordinarily well on, eager for his mother to praise him and smile, and ends with him finding her hanging by her neck from the ceiling.
It’s debatable what exactly happened to him after that, but it is 100% confirmed that Joichiro Nishi definitely killed himself. Later in the novel he mentions in the narrative that the last thing he remembers is jumping from the rooftop of his building to his death. In his mother’s suicide letter to him, she says the words “see you soon”, and it’s not a far stretch to say that that’s likely the reason why he did it, but he doesn’t mention those words.
He doesn’t stay dead, of course. He wakes up in a room of men and women of all ages, wearing bizarre fetish-like pvc suits and holding guns, standing around a smooth, black ball almost as tall as he is. The ball is known as GANTZ, but nobody knows who named it that, and nobody knows how it got there, or how long its been around. Nishi gets a quick debriefing by another person in the room, by the name of Akari, and he’s told that they’ve all been revived from death to “hunt” for “aliens”, the species of which changes every time.
For each alien that’s killed, the hunter is awarded points, and 100 points gives a reward—one of which is to leave GANTZ with no memories, never to return. Until that point, they are forced every few weeks to return to GANTZ over and over, to hunt aliens and face potential death against their wills.
Nishi spends a lot of his first few runs in GANTZ running away and crying, but he eventually falls into the swing of the game, picks up a few tricks with the provided weapons, and works at diligently killing enough aliens to be able to leave. As the last and the least talented of the group to arrive, eventually each and every member of the original team he met left one by one, until only Nishi remained.
Cue when Gantz officially begins, with the “tragic” “deaths” of Kurono and Katou, two new players brought in to the GANTZ hunt.
The rest of the main series has been sufficiently summarised, bar from a special chapter missing from the list.
The chapter in question is called GANTZ/NISHI, and begins long before the end of Gantz. It follows a classmate of Nishi’s, discussing the rumours about him with her friends. Apparently, he kills cats for fun (he does), and he killed his whole family when he was only in grade school (didn’t, but he won’t deny it)! It’s obvious from the way they speak that Nishi is one of the least liked students in the school, and the classmate proceeds to follow him around to try take photos of him doing something gross. He eventually busts her, and to get away she hastily confesses her “feelings” to him, to which he responds “I don’t care”, and the chapter comes to a close. It just offers a closer look into the school life of someone incredibly bitter and jaded.
PERSONALITY:
”it’s none of my business whether people live or die.”Joichiro Nishi, known as the middle school veteran by peers and noobs, is one of the longest soul surviving GANTZ hunters. For over a year he’d been participating actively in hunts, and had managed to collect 90 points towards his freedom where every other participant failed, and looking at the way he plays the game, it’s very, very easy to see why.
Nishi doesn’t believe in teamwork. He’s called a lone wolf by some, and “jerk” by others, but if there is anything that can be proven just by him having lived so long, it’s that his methods work. He believes teamwork is weak, and is the first step towards failure. During the beginning of every mission, he tends to sit by himself in a corner while the rest of the new recruits freak out and question every aspect of the game, keeping his knowledge to himself. Not once does he ever debrief a team out of the goodness of his heart, and when he’s questioned on it, all he says is that a bunch of slack-jawed morons make for the best distractions. An alien will always let down its guard when its about to kill a person. He has absolutely no regard for any human life that isn’t his own.
So it isn’t a far stretch to say he is incredibly selfish. And by ‘not a far stretch’ I mean you literally do not even have to move, because his regard for his own life could be seen from space without a telescope. He doesn’t believe in teamwork, because he doesn’t believe anyone is as qualified to watch his back as he is, and he doesn’t care if the peons get killed time and again, because that’s what they’re there for.
Because he has such poor regard for other humans, he gets incredibly excited when he thinks he’s found someone he refers to as a “kindred spirit”, and it’s kind of evident that even with all his hundred layers of anti-teamwork coating that he’s just waiting for someone to come along who understands him. After the Onion Alien mission, he tells Kurono that he thinks they’re kindred spirits, because he believes that Kurono wants to see someone die just as badly as he does. He’s disappointed when he’s told he’s wrong, however, and loses all respect for Kurono in an instant.
And if there is one thing he cannot stand, it is when people don’t have any respect for him. He doesn’t tolerate anyone looking down on him or putting him in harm’s way, even a little. Before the Tanaka Alien mission, a new hunter accidentally shoots him in the face with one of the X-Guns made available by GANTZ, and Nishi’s immediate response is to blow the head of the offender clean off. He can’t stand being underestimated, and having people think that he’ll let them do what they please around him isn’t what he’s about.
His blatant disregard for human life leaves him pretty ostracised, but he really couldn’t care any less. He is under no illusions that he’s anything less than unlikeable and despicable. Prior to the Osaka arc, Nishi is revived by Kurono, and not for a single second does he believe that it’s out of a moral obligation or because they formed some kind of bond; right away he calls out Kurono for his ulterior motive, and isn’t shocked to hear that he’s completely right. It makes far more sense to him that he’s called when he can be used, rather than because someone enjoys his company.
Friendship or the concept of a team are things that Nishi really doesn’t seem to understand. Kurono and his team are all very close, and when they say their goodbyes to him before he is released from GANTZ permanently, Nishi just seems irritated and uncomfortable with all the fond words being thrown around.
The idea of being responsible for another human being disgusts him, and when Kurono’s former team suggest that Nishi should be their leader, he laughs in their faces, mocking them for their poor and hilarious decision.
He tends to keep people at an arm’s length, and because of it, seems almost impervious to emotional hurt, and even when one of his former teammates returns to GANTZ having forgotten him completely, Nishi seems to bounce back from the knowledge instantly, after only a single moment of thought. Though it is possible learning that he’d been forgotten dwelled on him, as he ended up asking the same question at a later date, he never makes any kind of indication towards it.
But even if it did bother him and he was eager to get that relationship back, he sure doesn’t act like it. He will never put himself in danger to save another person—ever. Even when he’s in the right place at the right time, he would rather save himself. During a fight on a train with Izumi where only Izumi is being targeted, the only time Nishi intervenes is to get himself out of danger, and the second he’s out of the line of fire he tells Izumi: “if they’re after you, you can deal with them”.
Even when a “friend” is in danger, if there is nothing in it for Nishi to gain, he won’t bother to assist them. However, it is possible that somewhere inside him he does care; for example, after being attacked on the train with Izumi, his first instinct is to contact Sakurai and let him know about the attack, assuming that he will help him instead so Nishi doesn’t have to. When he’s asked why, he says “it doesn’t give me any points”, and hangs up.
His moral compass is either non-existent or definitely broken. During the very first on-screen mission, he doesn’t understand why Kurono doesn’t just kill the alien trapped in front of them. He regards killing a person or killing an alien in the same way—as livestock. They are nothing more than cattle waiting for their slaughter, and aren’t worth losing sleep over.
He is under no illusions that somewhere deep inside him he’s a good guy; he knows he isn’t, and he isn’t insecure about the fact, and won’t act any different in order to cover it up. He never tries to paint himself as a good guy. Even when asked to tell the truth, his response is “we’ll see”, making no indication that he’ll walk the straight edge.
Really, all this adds up to is just how little he cares what people think of him, and how he doesn’t let their thoughts influence him in any form. He doesn’t act like a good person for publicity or karma; even at school where rumours fly wildly about him and the kind of person he is, he doesn’t bother to try and save his reputation. He isn’t ashamed of the person he turned out to be, even if he’s nobody’s idea of a good person.
Being the socially acceptable idea of a “good person” doesn’t interest him in the slightest; he has no fond feelings toward the world as its known, and the most memorable time he expresses genuine excitement is when he gets to talk to the rest of the hunters about the end of the world.
He believes that the world is wrong, and the way its structured is foolish and pointless. He believes in power and respects the strong. Not the heroic, but the powerful, and strongly believes that only people who are strong should be in a position of power, which is why he’s so ready for the world to end and to be built again.
Both his favourite and least favourite things about the world are the ignorant, weak, and stupid people inhabiting it. He thinks ignorant humans are funny, and will motivate them with lies and promises, often with fake names and easy to swallow lies, like during the Onion Alien mission where he straight-out lies to the team about there being a cash prize for the first person to kill the alien. He does this because he’s seen enough GANTZ missions to know that people are selfish and need motivation, but also because while they are ignorant and stupid, they’re very, very good distractions.
He also does not respect those same teammates or see them as any kind of value, and will actively snipe targets from them during a hunt. He will also not hesitate to shoot through them if a target just happens to be behind them, and during the Osaka arc, he almost crushes Anzu and Kato both to destroy an alien.
He doesn’t have any kind of regard for serious situations or feels any kind of moral obligation to comfort the terrified—after the first GANTZ mission on screen he actively antagonizes the new participants, making jokes about how he’s going to kill all of them and how he was the real alien all along.
In the PS2 game version of GANTZ which features a kind of dating sim/social link aspect, the only way you can get Nishi’s attention or win his affection is by going off on your own and denying any offers by the team to help you.
Despite thoroughly enjoying watching his “teammates” go off and get killed because they believed in his stories, in the game version he gets very disappointed in you when you believe in him.
And as much as the idea of teamwork is stupid to him, and as much as he believes he’s capable and strong, there are points where he will demand, not ask, for help, despite been as pleasant to be around as tear gas. He is not fond of hero-type characters, but won’t hesitate to actively rely on them when he’s getting his ass kicked, expecting to be saved every time because it’s the morally right thing to do.
He is a bit of a coward, too, and it shows in his fighting style. Rather than putting himself in danger in the center of the fray, he utilises his GANTZ suit and changes the frequency to make himself invisible and protecting him from harm. He also uses the other hunters as his body shields, and will only attack when he’s sure it won’t lead to harm on him.
He likes to feel powerful, which is why he loves GANTZ so much, and enjoys it when people are begging him for knowledge and information. When he is the all important center of attention is when he feels most comfortable, and he likes to mock people for relying on him before he gives them tiny slivers of useful information in unhelpful volumes.
He finds there's nothing powerful in saving the weak and being a good person, however, there are times where he's gone against his own morals and own policies in order to save a life. When GANTZ is hacked by invading aliens wired tight with explosives, Nishi doesn't even think twice about escaping--taking his teammate with him as he leaves. It's the most iconic good deed he's ever performed, and Takeshi (whom he saves) follows him afterwards telling him he knew he was good, to which Nishi just tells him to shut up over and over.
To his own heroism, he seems to have a crisis in identity, not understanding why he did the thing that he did when all he's ever done is think of himself, and being called a good person gets so far under his skin it's a wonder he doesn't snap and kill Takeshi himself to right his mistake.