mobage_manual | Recommending Characters #8: Rui Kamishiro (Reply)

Welcome to Recommending Characters! In this section of the blog, I’ll be making an overview of a certain character from one of the franchises I’m into once every two weeks, as well as highlighting their best and most important moments in canon, in hopes that it’ll make the readers interested both in the character and in the game itself!

The character I will be tackling in today's entry is Rui Kamishiro, from Project SEKAI! I thought that Gray and Dino (my first and second favorite characters in HeliosR respectively) being also the first characters to be featured in the blog was a fun coincidence, but for two characters of the same game and unit to be featured back-to-back? Now that’s even wilder! Either way, Rui is also one of my favorite characters in Project SEKAi, as well as the rightful winner of this game’s section in the latest poll, so I was looking forward to writing for him!

Rui Kamishiro is one of the members of the theater troupe Wonderlands x Showtime, in charge of the Wonder stage along with his tropemates, Tsukasa, Emu, Nene, as well as their stage director. Before joining the group, however, he’d been putting on shows on the street on his own, using robots of other trinkets, made all by himself, which caught the other members’ attention. However, there was a certain reason why Rui put on shows alone that WxS might not catch on until much later… But that’s all I’ll say for now until we go over his profile!

Profile and General Overview:

"Now then, let us put on the most magnificent of shows!"

Out of the five units in-game, Rui is a member and the stage director of Wonderlands x Showtime, a four-member theater troupe that puts on shows at the Wonder Stage in Phoenix Wonderland, a notorious amusement park. He was born on June 24th, making him a Cancer, and he’s 1,80m tall, the tallest original character of the game. His voice actor is Shunichi Toki, whose other roles in mobage include characters like Rutile (Mahoyaku), Yuki Rurikawa (A3!) or Hokusai Masaki (Paradox Live). As for schooling, he attends Kamiyama High School and is in class 2-B after transferring from another school. Other data in his profile includes a few of his hobbies and specialties (like planning shows or inventing) and a few likes and dislikes (like vegetables, which he mentions quite a few times).

"Now then, it's time to see what kind of a story is waiting for us."

As the story in-game progressed, Wonderlands x Showtime are no longer exclusive to Phoenix Wonderland, and will be putting on more shows elsewhere, independently. Rui also grew to 1,82m, still the tallest of the original male characters, and got placed in class 3-C along with his troupemate Tsukasa. We still have yet to see more details on how the story develops, but for now, nothing else has changed.

All in all, Rui is considered a genius by his peers, and just like most people who’ve ended up labeled as one, this caused him trouble growing up – to having very little friends (thankfully including Nene, which is how the two became acquainted) to being shunned by his interest in putting on shows, this caused him to become slightly detached from others his age, preferring to put on shows alone… That is, until he was recruited by Tsukasa and Emu, which is what I’ll be explaining next in the summary of their Main Story!

Stories:

Main Story Highlight:

Unlike Tsukasa, who I covered in the last entry, Rui’s role in WxS’ Main Story is not as big, but still very important regardless. After Tsukasa and Emu became aware of a certain somebody who liked to put on shows with their robots, they invited him to join their troupe. Rui agreed, but with one condition – to let his childhood friend, Nene, join the troupe as well. They accepted, and started preparing for their first show, now with two more members, but a fight over a malfunctioning Nenerobo (or Robonene, according to the Global server’s translation) between Tsukasa and Nene led Rui to quit the trope… Of course, as you might imagine, he joined later, but spoiling how it happened would ruin the fun! So let’s move on to some other events which let Rui shine a little more.

Events:

Full-Power Wonder Halloween!

“Rui, you feel like you've found a place where you belong.

You finally found a group of friends who let you unleash your full potential. Isn't this how you feel?”

Rui got the honor of being featured as the focus of Wonderlands x Showtime’s first song event, and also one of the very first events of the game overall! Tasked with the production of a Halloween show, Rui brings up various ideas for Tsukasa, the lead role, to carry, but an accident during one of the rehearsals in which Tsukasa is slightly injured leads him to wonder about his worth as WxS’ stage director… Like I said, this is one of the game’s first events, and yet I find a lot of people to present day who still portray Rui as someone not concerned by the safety of his friends during their shows, when this story proves completely otherwise!

Associated song: Becoming potatoes by neru.

Revival my Dream

“Even if there are things that people don’t understand, there are things that you like, and you’re allowed to be open about it

So don’t worry about it. People are people, and you are you!

If you cherish the things you like, you’ll be able to make good friends one day.”

Rui’s second song event came once again in October almost an exact year later! And well, let’s just say it made an impression, for better and for worse… On the one hand, this event shows a very important part of Rui’s past that will be referenced in following events, offering a comforting message to everyone who might have been isolated from their peers during their lives. However, the cards culturally appropriating natives by offering a stereotypical portrayal according to some people, as well as the play WxS perform in-story, have made this the first and only event to be skipped completely in the Global version of the game. Nonetheless, I still recommend it to better understand Rui, albeit with a critical mind, of course.

Associated song: Showtime Ruler by Karasuyasabou.

A Sorrowful Farewell at the Curtain Call

“(I want to keep doing shows with my friends. More than I previously realized...)

(So, for now, I'll keep holding onto both...)

(My desire to make my dream come true and my desire to keep putting on shows with my friends.)

(But it could be possible for us to stay together and make all our dreams come true... I'll try coming up with a way.)”

WxS headed into their third song events with more angsty perspectives and themes, and Rui’s event was no exception. After halting their activities over the country to focus again on Phoenix Wonderland itself, a collaboration between WxS and Arkland, one of the most famous troupes in Tokyo, is planned. However, during rehearsals, Rui receives a heavy proposal from Asahi, Arkland’s lead actor, which leaves him in doubt as he ponders what’s the best option for both his future and WxS’, all between the direction of a very moving play... A wonderful event that was also infamous through the fandom as its trailer forgot to add the “x” in “Wonderlands x Showtime”, leading to many theories about disbandment (that turned out to simply be an error, to the relief of many!).

Associated song: What sort of ending are you wishing for? by TUYU.

Other events

At the time of writing this entry, Rui has also been featured as the banner of two non-song events, curiously all related to school events: Heat Up! Kamiyama High Cheering Squad! and A Once-In-A-Lifetime Pandemonium!?

In Heat Up! Kamiyama High Cheering Squad!, Rui tries to figure out the best way to support his team during the School Festival at his high school, Kamiyama High, after taking an interest in the cheering competition. Supported by his friends, Mizuki and An, as well as their team capitan, will Rui figure out a solution that will grant them a win? Although this event is naturally more relaxed than song events, it follows a similar line to other Rui events, with him having doubts about social interaction, which makes it offer some emotional moments as well! But also shenanigans between the students of Kamiyama High.

In a similar vein, A Once-In-A-Lifetime Pandemonium!? follows another school event, this time a trip to Kyoto, in which Rui isn’t very interested at first, but thanks to Tsukasa, his newly-made class friends, and Shizuku, Airi and Mafuyu also going on their school trip to the same place might make him change his mind, in three days! This time, the shenanigans happen between the (former) Second Years, and there’s a lot going on, which makes this mostly a fun event!

While he’s not featured nor as banner nor an event card, I also wanted to quickly highlight KAMIKOU FESTIVAL!, a story that introduces us to Mizuki and Rui’s friendship since middle school, and how the two of them coped with being lonely by being lonely together, meeting at the school’s rooftop. This friendship is brought up many times (for example, in the Sports event), and while it does more for Mizuki than what it does for Rui, I still find it crucial to understand him and know how he used to be before meeting Wonderlands x Showtime.

Funfacts:

This is something a bit more spread than other details I could mention, but Mizuki made both Rui and Nene’s stage costumes, as revealed in a card story, and was meant to resemble a villain.
He is one of the two characters in Project SEKAI who are canonically fluent in English, the other one being Mafuyu.
Platypuses are likely his favorite animal, with him owning a t-shirt of one as a child.

Closing thoughts:

Rui is a character I’ve come to like more and more over time – both by reading his events and seeing all my friends who love him talk to me about him and his character development. Like I said in Gray’s entry, I think Rui is an easy character to relate to if you have unusual interest or have trouble making friends, but that’s slowly finding people that actually accept him for who he is, and don’t mind his more eccentric behavior, which I think is wonderful! I hope he keeps on making friends in the future, as well as pursuing his dreams of being a better stage director.

And with that, this long entry has come to an end! With Tsukasa’s entry having been posted last week, I didn’t have as much reading to do as I usually have to do with a Project SEKAI entry, but life and university have kept me so busy I ended up writing most of it a few days before the deadline, haha… But there are more entries to come in the following days, including the long awaited second entry for my other series in this blog, My Favorite Seasonal Events!

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