Video Game / The Caligula Effect

The Caligula Effect (known simply as Caligula in Japan) is an RPG for the PlayStation Vita, developed by Aquria and published by FuRyu. It was released in Japan on June 23, 2016, in North America on May 2, 2017, and in Europe on May 9, 2017. It was localized by Atlus.

The vocal software known as μ has enabled people to escape from the despair of reality by listening to her song; those who are "saved" by listening to her are granted their every wish through Mobius. In the virtual world of Mobius, everyone is an ideal high school student at Kishimai High School in the idyllic Miyabi City, repeatedly reliving high school days, blissfully unaware that they are not in reality. A small group of men and women figure out that Mobius is not the real world, and form the "Go-Home Club" in order to find a way back to reality. Each one of them has violated certain taboos, and each one has dark secrets...

However, their desire to escape does not go unnoticed. The Ostinato Musicians, eight composers who provide music for μ (the music itself being composed by actual musicians popular on websites like Nico Nico Douga), oppose the Going-Home Club for disrupting the order.

Each member of the Going-Home Club fights using the "Catharsis Effect", a black mass that erupts out of them and forms into weapons and accessories that represent each member's true self; it also seems to cause parts of their personality that are normally repressed to come to the surface.

But perhaps the game's biggest claim to fame is that it is written by Tadashi Satomi, the father of the Persona series.

A spin-off novel titled Caligula EPISODE: Marie Mizuguchi ~Kanojo no mita Sekai~ ^note The World She Saw was released on October 15, 2016. It's written by Ryouko Seki, of Trillion: God of Destruction fame.

Trailer 1, Trailer 2

An Updated Re-release, The Caligula Effect: Overdose, was announced for a May 17, 2018 release on the PlayStation 4 in Japan, featuring an expanded story, new allies and enemies, a selectable female protagonist, and the ability to side with the Ostinato Musicians, developed by Historia instead of Aquria. Overdose was announced to be coming to not only PS4 in America, but also to the Nintendo Switch and PC (on both Steam and GOG.com), localized by NIS America, slated for release in March 2019 (the 12th in North America, and the 15th in Europe). A Playstation 5 port/upgrade of the game released on May 30, 2023.

A 12-Episode Anime adaptation by Satelight aired in the Spring 2018 season.

A sequel title, The Caligula Effect 2 released in Japan on June 24, 2021, in North America on October 19, 2021, and on October 22, 2021, in Europe for Playstation 4 and Nintendo Switch, and in June 22, 2022 for Steam.

Overdose trailer 1, trailer 2

1st anime PV, 2nd anime PV

Caligula 2 announcement trailer

Not to be confused with The Caligula or the emperor, film, or comic book of the same name.

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This game contains examples of:

• Absurdly High Level Cap: Whatever the level cap is, it hasn't been hit yet. In the original Vita release, it's higher than 227, yet the final boss is only level 30 ^note or 50 in Overdose. In Overdose, the level cap is 200.
• Adaptation Expansion: The anime expands the protagonist's days before the start of the game and hints to why he entered Mobius in the first place.
• All There in the Manual: Some details about the characters can only be found on the game's website.
• Ambiguous Situation: The game never showed what happened to the characters' bodies after they entered Mobius, nor the reaction of the world of people suddenly entering a datascape world. The anime and Overdose clears up this confusion by showing that people who entered Mobius are in a comatose state, dubbed "Astral Syndrome," after listening to μ's music.
• Anti-Grinding: In the vanilla version, grinding was incredibly tedious to the point where you'd be forgiven for just going straight through the dungeon and chase after the bosses or stronger enemies that may or may not kill you depending on how strong they are and what equipment you have. On New Game Plus, players can freely adjust the levels of enemies and make it easier to grind experience. Overdose removes most of the frustration of grinding.
• Attack Drone: Naruko's Catharsis Effect takes the form of a pair of these. In the vanilla version, the drones could also be commanded separately.
• Beef Gate: Quite a few sidequest objectives and chests are guarded by (or are) very powerful enemies; it's possible to get around some of them, but most of the time the chests they guard are locked anyway.
• Beneath the Mask: Each character's Catharsis Effect takes the form of a weapon representative of their true self, while also causing repressed traits of the user's personality to surface.
• Berserk Button:
  • Each of the Ostinato Musicians have one, mostly revolving around their private lives. Ike-P and Sweet-P in particular become livid when their real-life identities are exposed.
    • Shonen-Doll becomes incensed whenever someone dares intrude on his sanctuary or when somebody attempts to force him to interact with other people.
    • Mirei can get ragingly pissed when she's called ugly or when things don't go her way. Kotone pushes the first when she calls Mirei a variety of names that really set her off.
    • It isn't so much of a button as it is a person, but to say that Kuchinashi despises Eiji Biwasaka would be a massive understatement.
    • Shadow Knife cannot, nor will he ever stand for bullies, regardless of who they are.
  • The Go-Home Club has a few of their own.
    • It's relatively minor, but Kotaro really doesn't like it whenever someone, mainly Aria, calls him short.
    • For Overdose, there's Eiji Biwasaka, who can get very violent should he become trapped in a small space. Case in point, when Kuchinashi traps them in a cage at the end of the Sun Temple dungeon.
• BFG: Shogo's Catharsis Effect takes the form of a revolver the length of his lower body.
• BFS: Kensuke's Catharsis Effect is a massive sword about half his height, with a blade wider than he is.
• Bizarrchitecture: Mobius is a world based on peoples' hopes and desires, so to that end it's also based off their ideas of what certain locations look like. This leads to things like the third and fourth floors of Kishimai High having such jumbled hallways, or Papico being a four-story mall where the buildings seem to be on top of each other.
• Blackout Basement: The school has one. Justified in that apparently μ and Aria didn't have much data on schools with basements, so they used video games as inspiration when designing the school.
• Bland-Name Product: The social network "Gossiper" is very clearly supposed to be representative of Twitter. Sweet-P also mentions an Instagram analogue named "Inprogram". Characters also use WIRE (as opposed to LINE), and one character has a myPhone.
• Bloodless Carnage: Nobody sheds blood in Mobius; when an enemy is defeated in the game, they just turn into static and disappear. Taken to a rather disturbing extent in the anime, where after one of Wicked's bombs are used against her and her legs get blown off, they appear to be flickering in and out of existence.
• Body Horror: A mild example, but the Catharsis Effect causes alterations to parts of the user's body, along with a stake rupturing through the chest from which flowers grow. The Digiheads aren't any better, as the anime depicts the black armor on their bodies growing straight out from them.
• Boss Bonanza: The Grand Guignol is home to every single boss fought in the game with the exceptions of Kagi-P and Shadow Knife. Ramped up in Overdose, which has you fighting Stork, Mirei and Wicked together, and Kuchinashi in rapid succession right before the Final Boss.
• Brainwashed and Crazy:
  • The Digiheads are this, as they are people under the influence of μ and hearing her music makes them go into a rampage and attack those aware of Mobius being fake ("Rogues").
  • In the final dungeon, Sweet-P, Ike-P, Shonen-Doll, and Stork are brainwashed by Thorn for their refusal to go along with Thorn's plan of killing the Go-Home Club, as well as the fact that they also wish to return to reality on account of the Go-Home Club ridding them of their negative build-up and Lucid's influence.
• Brutal Bonus Level: All the World Reward dungeons. Good luck unlocking them, though.
  • Exclusive to the original Vita version is Echoing Obsession. Unlike every other dungeon in the game, you're not allowed to return to the entrance or even save, so you need to beat the whole thing in one sitting.
• Chained by Fashion: Shogo has a pair of broken handcuffs shackled to his wrists while in Catharsis Effect. Mirei has a small ball and chain attached to her right ankle.
• Checkpoint Starvation: Save points in dungeons were initially few and far between (about one per floor), but an update made it so that there are about three per area.
• Coat Cape: Izuru, Kensuke, and Kagi-P wear their coats in this manner.
• Color Motif: White and pink are two of the game's most used colors. In Overdose, it's white and gold instead.
• Compressed Adaptation: While the anime expands on the main character's backstory, its 12 episode length means that the other characters' backstories were either glossed over or only hinted at for the most part, as the cast is still pretty massive.
• Cool Mask/Two-Faced: While in Catharsis Effect, Izuru wears a mask covering the left half of his face.
• Cool Sword: Izuru's Catharsis Effect is this; Shadow Knife uses a similar sword.
• Defeat Means Friendship: A few Ostinato Musicians develop a friendly rapport with members of the Go-Home Club upon their defeat, due to the Catharsis Effect purging the built-up negative emotions affecting them from all the concerts they hold. Kensuke in particular joins the club in the hopes of finding something meaningful to achieve. In Overdose, thanks to the Musicians' Character Scenarios, their relationship with the Go-Home Club has become less hostile and more along the lines of two groups with differing ideologies clashing heads.
• Developer's Foresight: For Overdose.
  • In Kuchinashi's Character Scenario, she looks up the news article that Eiji was reading. Assuming players did Eiji and Ayana's Character Scenarios, Lucid will know that the article was about Tadokoro who Eiji defended seven years prior. Kuchinashi will express surprise they know about the case.
  • In Thorn's Character Scenario where you're hanging out in the burger joint, Thorn (acting out a memory from his time with Shogo and Ichika) remarks about how a person's identity is like layers. When making a decision, choosing the first two options will have Thorn grow irritated and tell them what they're supposed to say. If you choose the third option, however, Thorn will be shocked and question if Lucid actually knows about her past.
• Disney Villain Death: This happens to Shadow Knife after fighting him on top of the Landmark Tower, and also Thorn after her defeat in the final dungeon.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune:
  • "Idolatry", sung by Emi Nitta (Sweet-P), Eriko Nakamura (Mirei), and Yuka Ootsubo (Thorn) under the alias RePLiCA.
  • Overdose has "Cradle", composed by kemu and sung by RePLiCA; this time, they've picked up a fourth member in Himika Akaneya (Kuchinashi).
  • The anime adaptation has the opening song "Paradigm Box", sung by Chiharu Sawashiro (Ritsu) and Shunsuke Takeuchi (Shogo), and the ending song "HYPNO", sung by Rie Murakawa (Kotono), Rie Takahashi (Mifue), Minami Tanaka (Suzuna), and Ari Ozawa (Naruko).
• Dual Boss:
  • On the Go-Home Club route, Mirei and Wicked are fought together in the final dungeon.
  • The Musician route in Overdose has you fighting Go-Home Club members two at a time. In order, you fight Mifue and Ayana, Suzuna and Naruko, Kotono and Eiji, Shogo and Izuru, and Kensuke and, depending on your choices, either Kotaro or Eiji again.
• Dysfunction Junction: Every single character has their own issues. In fact in order to use one's Catharsis Effect, one has to be messed up in some way.
• Earn Your Bad Ending: It's a last second choice ending, but to achieve the Downer Ending, the protagonist must side with Thorn and defeat the Go-Home Club and Aria. After this, Thorn's dream of destroying the real world comes to fruition as Mu begins to cause havoc in the real world before the chaos eventually begins to kill off the denizens of Mobius before the protagonist is the sole person left by the time she comes to her senses.
• Empty Shell: Anyone created by μ who didn't enter Mobius themselves (like Suzuna's classmates) are soulless husks. They have some degree of emotion, but nothing complex.
• Evil Counterpart: Several of the Musicians are this to members of the Going-Home Club: Mirei for Kotono, Ike-P for Izuru, and Shadow Knife for Kotaro.
• Energy Bow: Kotono and Sweet-P both wield one, having obtained them from Aria and Mu respectively.
• Face–Heel Turn: The protagonist can do this in Overdose, causing them to become the Ostinato Musician known as Lucid. How much of a face-heel it is depends on their actions towards the end of the game.
• Faceless Goons: While they aren't technically faceless, the Digiheads who you fight are more or less servants of the Ostinato Musicians who want to stay in Mobius and are hostile to anyone who isn't like them. In the Forbidden Musician Route, you also fight Laggards — individuals who realize Mobius is fake but lack the potential to develop a Catharsis Effect, relying instead on Digihead-like powers.
• Foil:
  • μ and Aria. μ is beautiful and a perfectionist, where Aria is cheerful and casual.
  • Kensuke and Lucid. While Kensuke left the Musicians to find his own purpose in life, Lucid joins them in order to understand the lives of those who cannot live in the real world at all.
  • Kensuke and Naruko. Both of them have a lot of raw talent for writing (poetry and songs for Kensuke, fiction for Naruko), but while Kensuke has a hard time believing the praise he receives (because he thinks it's fake), Naruko gets very little praise and does her best to pick it out from the sea of negativity.
  • Shogo and Ayana. Both of them have issues dealing with the opposite sex due to traumatic events from their past. However, where Shogo is just generally awkward around women, Ayana is violent towards men.
• Flower Motifs: All around with the protagonist and the going-home club members when they activate their catharsis effects.
• Game-Breaking Bug: The Version 1.03 patch of the Vita version introduced a catastrophic glitch where saving on a certain floor of the Landmark Tower — frustratingly, one right before the last boss fight — causes all your saved files to be erased. It has yet to be fixed.
• Gilded Cage: Mobius. Everything there is great, you don't need to pay for anything, everyone gets along for the most part... but you can never leave and you're probably there to escape from something horrible in real life.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: Both the Go-Home Club and the Musicians have very good reasons to fight for what they do; the Go-Home Club wants to return to reality and face their traumas head-on while the Musicians have issues that may not necessarily be solvable in real life, and to that point want to keep Mobius around. The Go-Home Club was the lighter shade, and then Eiji and Kuchinashi came along.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: Everyone in Mobius is continually reliving the same three years of high school.
• Guns Akimbo: The protagonist's Catharsis Effect gives him a set of dual pistols, each as big as his lower arm. Ike-P fights with a pair of sub-machine guns.
• Hot Springs Episode: Stork's dungeon takes place at a hot springs facility. If you play as a girl, you get to go into the hot springs with the rest of the female Club members to enjoy the hot springs... only to find Sweet-P and then Stork there as well.
• Idiot Ball: The Go-Home Club holds it in the Forbidden Musician Route of Overdose. Whenever they use the ambush strategy, the president is always left alone. It never crosses their minds that, maybe, the protagonist is acting against them under their Lucid persona, despite the fact that the above mentioned absence and that they wield the same weapon. The last one can be forgiven, though, as excluding the Mobius denizens who develop a Catharsis Effect thanks to Aria tuning their hearts, only Thorn, Sweet-P, Mirei, Stork, Shadow Knife, Ike-P and Kuchinashi wield similar weapons to the Go-Home Club. The only odds one out are Kensuke, Shogo and Kotaro.
• I Never Told You My Name: When Marie comes to free the Go-Home Club from their room, she refers to the main character as "President", which she shouldn't know. This is what ultimately gives them away
• In the Hood: Shonen Doll's face is hidden by his cloak.
• Interface Spoiler: For a short time at the beginning of the game, Naruko follows you around. If you open up the submenu when facing her (this can only be done on the Vita version), you can see a character episode progress bar... which only playable characters have.
  • Also any savvy player that happens to check the causality link profiles will notice that every recruitable party member is listed as a member of the go-home club even before you have met them including Kagi-p/Kensuke foreshadowing his heel-face turn
• The Leader: Shogo is this to the Going-Home Club at first, but he passes his role onto the protagonist. Thorn is this to the Ostinato Musicians.
• Leitmotif: Each of the Ostinato Musicians has a song that sung by μ, that they wrote themselves and represent their characters.
• Limit Break: Two variants. Overdose adds the Overdose Skills, which allow characters to unleash a powerful finishing move that deals some severe damage. Both the Go-Home Club and the Musicians can use them. In the Forbidden Musician Route, however, Aria demonstrates another Limit Break in the form of the Catharsis Effect Overdose, which increases the user's power, at the cost of putting the user through some serious strain. Stork even says that if the Catharsis Effect is the mean in which one weaponizes their powerful feelings, the Overdose is letting those feelings run wild. The strain is also why Aria limits their power to Overdose Skills, so the Go-Home Club doesn't end up burning themselves out.
• Loners Are Freaks: Shonen Doll despises companionship, and actively looks down on anyone who leads any sort of social life.
• Lost in Translation: One of the possible WIRE questions you can ask is "Do you know what 'asparagus' is?" with asparagus in kanji ^note 竜髭菜 instead of the usual katakana. However, the English translation is a direct translation of that line, not taking the kanji into account, so it ends up looking like most people you ask have somehow never heard of asparagus.
• Mad Bomber: When her features are revealed, Wicked turns out to be this.
• Meaningful Name:
  • "Ostinato" is a musical term referring to a continually repeated rhythm; fitting for a setting with a time loop.
  • Caligula itself refers not to Caligula the Roman emperor, but to a term (the Caligula effect) that describes a desire to see/do things one is not normally allowed to see/do.
• Mind-Control Music: μ's music triggers the Digiheads into going into a rampage. It's harmless if you only listen to it for a short while, but anyone who listens to the music for too long will become influenced by the song and become a Digihead.
• Modesty Towel: The female Go-Home Club members (and the Player Character if female) have to go to the female hot springs facility to confront Sweet-P. Kotono nonchalantly strips down and dresses in a modesty towel, which all the other girls consider as "bold" and are embarrassed at the prospect, but Kotono insists they can't go inside the hot springs wearing their clothes. Even Aria gets to wears one, while hiding inside Kotono's towel cleavage.
• Multiple Endings: Not in the original game, but in Overdose. While the Go-Home Club route has only one ending, the Forbidden Musician route has multiple outcomes, depending on your choices in the story.
  • Downer Ending: Arguably the worst and most difficult to get, as you have to fight the Go-Home Club in five different battles with no rest in between fights, ending with a climatic battle between the protagonist and Aria. All by yourself! Oh, and everyone except for μ dies. Doubles as a Nice Job Breaking It, Hero to the protagonist, who had a hand in causing this to happen and helping Thorn's wish come true. Thankfully, this is only a Last-Second Ending Choice and you can opt for the Standard Ending below.
  • Standard Ending: The normal ending from the original game, though it can be accessed at the end of the Forbidden Musician Route if the protagonist decides to stay true to his original plan. Is also one of the requirements to net the best ending.
  • Golden Ending: In the Forbidden Musician Route, if you complete all the Character Episodes of both the Ostinato Musicians and Go-Home Club. Choosing the Standard Ending ends the same, but the post-credits scenes show both groups back in reality, changed from their experiences in Mobius.
• Mutually Exclusive Party Members: In Overdose, Kotaro and Eiji become this. If Eiji's Character Episode isn't finished (read: he's already left the party) by the time the party fights Shadow Knife, Kotaro will save Shadow Knife from falling to his death but end up falling off the Landmark Tower instead. If you complete Eiji's Character Episode, he will be absent from the rest of the game Since he gets ousted by the protagonist. Shadow Knife also survives in the Forbidden Musician Route, due to a glass ceiling breaking his fall and being healed by μ and Eiji dies instead.
• Never Trust a Trailer:
  • Eiji's personality and demeanor, as you will soon find out if you pursue his Character Episode and later on in the game, is completely different than what trailers and early screenshots would have you believe. Not only is he a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, he also arranged for Kouki to burn down Kuchinashi's home and kill her family.
  • To a lesser extent, the pre-release information for Stork and Kuchinashi paint different pictures of who they are compared to how they actually are in the game. Stork is said to treat the other Musicians badly, when the reverse is actually true, and Kuchinashi is said to keep to herself even with the other Musicians, when in reality she invites them all to her birthday party and several of the Musicians say that she's easy to talk to.
• New Game Plus:
  • Version 1.06 added this, giving players the ability to go back through the game with their levels, skills and Causality Link progress intact (except for Character Episodes), and also (optionally) increase the levels of enemies.
  • Overdose adds a non-canon game mode The Dream of the Songstress where you can put characters from both the Go-Home Club and the Ostinato Musicians into one team if you meet the requirements. Even better, your modified crew can even have conversations.
• No Communities Were Harmed: Mobius/Miyabi City is heavily based on the real city of Yokohama, with landmarks such as Sea Paradise (Sea Paraiso in game) and the Landmark Tower (albeit still under construction) as explorable areas. The Grand Guignol is a bit more inexplicable, given it's a landmark from Paris, though it's probably there as a reminder to Thorn of something Ichika would have liked.
• No Name Given: Because players can name him themselves, the protagonist has no canon name, and is simply referred to as "Hero" in the trailers. The other Going-Home Club members only refer to him in conversation as "President", as he is the club's leader.
• No OSHA Compliance: The Landmark Tower is a 67-story tall building currently under construction, and yet people are just walking around freely inside. The real Landmark Tower probably doesn't have this problem as its construction is complete; the Landmark Tower in Mobius is as it appears the day Ichika committed suicide.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Suzuna dlivers such a speech to Shonen Doll before and after the battle against him, stating that she understands what he's actually aiming for, and offers to eat lunch with him when they return to the real world.
• Older Than They Look:
  • On the Go-Home Club side, Eiji (34), Shogo (30), Ayana (27), Kotono (23), Kensuke (19) and Mifue (17).
  • On the Musician side, everyone except Wicked is this. For specifics, Sweet-P (31), Thorn (30), Mirei (28), Stork (27), Ike-P (24), Shonen-Doll and Kuchinashi (both 20), and Shadow Knife (19).
• Ominous Multiple Screens: Thorn uses such a set-up to communicate with the other Ostinato Musicians simultaneously and display information on the Going-Home Club members.
• The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: The Ostinato Musicians are initially portrayed as this, with all of them, except Thorn, being shrouded in shadows until they are formally met in-person by the Going-Home Club.
• One Degree of Separation: All of the new characters in Overdose are connected to each other. Ayana was a member of Uzume-tai with Himari and witnessed the assault that would cause her to commit suicide, which was carried out by Kouki. Eiji was his lawyer, and defended Kouki by convincing him to plead insanity. Kuchinashi's parents were involved with Eiji, and are killed when an arsonist (also Kouki, who Eiji blackmailed) burns down their home. Stork was a police officer who had gone to the home to do what he does best, only to run into Kouki right before he started the fire; he attempted to arrest him, but he escaped.
• Parental Abandonment: Poor Takkun was abandoned by both of his parents in his infancy. He never meets his father, and Kotono leaves when he's just two years old.
• Power Fist: Kotaro’s Catharsis Effect, which takes the form of huge gauntlets on both arms.
• Promoted to Playable: In Overdose, the Ostinato Musicians become this if players choose to side with them.
• Real-Time with Pause: Simultaneous Turn Resolution: The combat encounter mechanic. Choose from three attacks or moves, view the movement prediction, and execute the attack.
• Sequential Boss:
  • The Go-Home Club route's final battle is a three-part fight; you face Thorn and then μ, who has two forms.
  • The Musician route's Downer Ending gets a five-part final fight, putting Lucid against Kotono, Kotaro/Eiji, and Naruko; Mifue, Suzuna and Ayana; Izuru and Kensuke; Shogo; and finally, Aria.
• Shout-Out:
  • Shadow Knife's appearance and mannerisms are references to an anime popular in the real world; while this is referring to an in-universe anime, his appearance nonetheless brings Tokyo Ghoul to mind.
  • Ayana and Kuchinashi's WIRE icons ended up being character designs in a later Furyu game, Heroland, making them a sort of retroactive shout-out.
  • At one point, characters talk openly about The Lord of the Rings and the fate of Sméagol.
• Spooky Silent Library: Shonen Doll resides in one of these.
• Sinister Silhouettes: Unlike the other Ostinato Musicians, Wicked's features are constantly shadowed, even in the trailers and the official website. Only once their identity is revealed to the party do they get identifying features.
• Status Quo Is God: The Ostinato Musicians want people to remain the way they are in Mobius and to that end view the Going-Home Club as a threat.
• Suicide Pact: Shogo and Ichika made a promise to jump off the Landmark Tower together thirteen years before the events of the game, but Shogo backed out at the last possible second, leaving Ichika to die alone.
• Synthetic Voice Actor: In-Universe, μ and Aria, who are essentially Vocaloids in all but name.
• Temple of Doom: The Sun Temple, a tourist attraction at Sea Paraiso that serves as an escape game (and Kuchinashi's dungeon).
• Trailers Always Spoil:
  • Before the game's release, several fans guessed correctly that Kensuke and Kagi-P were the same person, as this trailer revealed that they both looked identical and were voiced by Shouta Aoi. Additionally, Kagi-P was both excluded from the group shot of the Ostinato Musicians in the trailer and lacked an entry on the official website, further fueling that theory. The Japanese and English websites for Overdose put Kensuke in the Go-Home Club and don't have Kagi-P listed anywhere, so at this point, it's a Late-Arrival Spoiler.
  • The English trailer for Overdose gives away Eiji's true nature almost immediately, whereas the Japanese trailers intentionally misled players by using scenes that made him seem more self-loathing.
• Triumphant Reprise: ????????/Veritas, which plays while fighting Aria. Subverted, as afterwards it leads to a bad ending.
• Unknown Rival:
  • Mirei is obsessively fixated on being the most popular musician in Mobius, and as such, views μ as a threat towards attaining that goal. μ herself is oblivious to this.
  • Overdose has Kuchinashi to Eiji, who claims to have no idea who she is or what she has against him specifically. He's actually telling the truth at first, that is until he lashes out and causes a fire, which pushes Kuchinashi's Trauma Button and clues him in on who she is.
• Unstoppable Rage: If the protagonist refuses to return to reality and reveal themselves as Lucid, the party, horrified and outraged, go into a Catharsis Effect Overdose that pushes them to the limit, which Thorn questions whether or not they will be able to recover from. It doesn't work, unfortunately, as Lucid trounces them easily.
• Variable Mix: The first time through any dungeon, the soundtrack is instrumental but with a vocal version of the track that fades in when an encounter starts. This goes away after beating the dungeon in the Vita version.
• Vigilante Man: Shadow Knife is known for executing traitors in Mobius and serves as μ's bodyguard.
• Villainous Friendship: Thorn provides most of μ's music, and they have a relationship of mutual trust.
• We Cannot Go On Without You: The protagonist falling in battle means Game Over. This, however, only applies to the Vita port - Overdose averts this, as the rest of the party can continue fighting even if the Protagonist bites it.
• Wham Shot: Episode 10 of the anime has one at the very end. We see Ritsu waking up on a couch in what looks like an office, nowhere like any place seen in Mobius... and then there's a second Wham Shot in the credits. Ritsu's name is absent, and Chiharu Sawashiro is instead credited as playing "Shingo Tachibana". Episode 11 then follows up on who Shingo is, as well as who Ritsu really is.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Thorn, leader of the Ostinato Musicians, intends to destroy the world to avenge her deceased friend. Formerly Asuka Natsume, Thorn saw how her two friends agree to commit joint suicide before one of them backed off. Someone that had denied it's own identity long ago yet still carrying a eternal grudge against a former friend. Thorn was unable to move from the past.
• You All Look Familiar: A particularly bad case. All of the non-Going Home Club members and Musicians, with the exception of Marie, have just one base character model per gender, with the only differences being hair color and their Catharsis Effects.
• You Bastard!: Let's just say that the Go-Home Club has some choice words for the protagonist when they reveal themselves as Lucid. They never considered killing someone until you went and spat in their faces by joining the Ostinato Musicians. It's even worse if you completed their Character Episodes, which will have the maxed out member of the club give you a What the Hell, Hero? speech before attempting to murder your ass.
• You Can Keep Her!: Mirei threatens Kotono by kidnapping her (ex-)boyfriend Ryosuke and putting his life in danger, but it turns out to not work as a threat because not only are they not dating, Kotono hates Ryosuke. Ultimately averted, though.
• Younger Than They Look: Kotaro (14).