Date A Live: Rinne Utopia (Game)

Posted by : jennifer Wednesday, April 9, 2014

"Date A Live: Rinne Utopia" (デート・ア・ライブ　凜祢ユートピア Dēto A Raibu Rinne Yūtopia) is a game produced by Compile Heart and Sting Entertainmentand was released on June 27, 2013 (Japan). The game features a new original character named Rinne Sonogami (園神凜祢 Sonogami Rinne).

Date A Live: Rinne Utopia
Developer	Compile Heart, Sting
Publisher	Compile Heart
Genre	Adventure
Platform	PlayStation 3
Released	· ^JP June 27, 2013

Characters

Shido Itsuka (五河士道 Itsuka Shidō )

The protagonist of the story, he possesses a strange power that allows him to seal the powers of a Spirit in his body with a kiss; however, the seal will only work if the Spirit holds enough trust or affection toward him to allow it. Although considering trust and affection is a two-way street he probably needs to have a certain amount of affection too, or at least genuinely want to help the spirit from the bottom of his heart which he usually does even before seeking out a spirit. This ability to seal and contain 99% of a spirit's power might have been given to him by Phantom soon after it turned Kotori into the spirit Efreet. After sealing a Spirit's powers, there will be an invisible link connecting him and the Spirit, through which a portion of the sealed power will flow back to the Spirit if said Spirit's mental state becomes unstable, and back to Shido once the Spirit's mental state restabilizes. So the more angry/distraught/unhappy a spirit is the more power she takes back temporarily while conversely the happier/content/joyful a spirit the more her power level doesn't rise from the minimum level of 1%. He also has the ability to recover from severe injuries which would normally be fatal. This ability is revealed in volume 4 to be due to his having sealed Kotori's power five years prior to the start of the story, and him using her healing ability each time he gets injured. Although this only works on severe or life threatening injuries, minor injuries like scratches and bruises that would heal naturally will heal at a normal human level unless a severe injury triggers the healing flames. Later in volume 5, he discovers he can also use the powers of the Spirits (other than Efreet's) that he has sealed but he can only use the powers in a limited fashion for a short time as even doing one strong attack drained his energy to the point where he almost passed out.

Abandoned by his birth mother, he lives with his foster sister Kotori. He has blue hair and brown eyes, and is in his second year in Raizen High School, class 2-4. He was in despair for a time after being abandoned and subsequently adopted, which made him sensitive to similar feelings from others and wanting to bring them out of it, fuelling his desire to save the Spirits. He meets his real sister Mana Takamiya later in volume 3. In volume 7 Westcott briefly addresses him as Takamiya before switching back to Itsuka.

Tohka Yatogami (夜刀神十香 Yatogami Tōka )

She is the first Spirit saved by Shido. She transfers into his class at the end of the first volume. Shido named her for the date of their first meeting, the 10th (though one kanji is different, the tenth day of a month is pronounced as Tohka). Reine later added the Yatogami surname for her. She has long dark purple hair and purple eyes. She is ignorant of the ways of the world, but nevertheless has a normal sense of embarrassment. She seems to have strong feelings for Shido, which she is shown to be unable to understand when she gets jealous after seeing Shido accidentally kiss Yoshino. However on learning that Yoshino is a Spirit like herself she decides to support Shido in his cause to save the other Spirits such as Kurumi, even actively participating in battles at times.

She gets captured by DEM Industries at the end of volume 6, then in volume 7 on seeing Shido ambushed and is about to be killed by Ellen, she is filled with such despair that she transforms and goes on a rampage, attacking everyone in sight including Shido. However he manages to kiss her to bring her back. Westcott calls her transformed state the Demon King, adding that this transformed state is the actual form of Spirits like her in the bordering dimension that they come from before manifesting in this world.

Her Angel is Sandalphon, which takes the form of a a broadsword, usually with a throne that doubles as the scabbard, although at times it seems as though she can do just as much damage with or without it, using her hands to project dark energy spheres or bolts in order to slice through inanimate objects with ease. Her Astral Dress, Adonai Melek, consists of a purple ballgown. At full power she shatters the throne (volume 1) and combines the pieces with the sword turning the blade into Halvanhelev (the Last Sword) lengthening the blade several meters long, dramatically increasing her powers and can be charged to unleash an ultimate blow. Fortunately, the one time she used Halvanhelev charged up Shido was able to stop and seal her before the energy was unleashed. When she goes completely berserk (volume 7) her Angel changes to Nehemah, a stronger version of Sandalphon, and her Astral Dress becomes darker in colour and more revealing, in this state, Isaac referred her as "Demon King" (魔王 Maō). Her AST and Ratatoskr codename is Princess.

Origami Tobiichi (鳶一折紙 Tobiichi Origami)

A highly intelligent classmate of Shido who is athletic, "beautiful", and the most famous person in Shido's school. She is often described as doll-like in appearance. She has short white hair and blue-grey eyes. She is the only human "girlfriend" of Shido, and out of all the other girls who like him, she is the most aggressive in her pursuit of him showing no bounds in her attempts to learn more about him, get closer to him, or even on trying to get more intimate with him. If not obsessive it borderlines as she does some weird things such as knowing Shido's exact measurements, and dressed up as a maid when he visited her after overhearing he likes maids. Her dating preparations include an energy drink where one drop will increase his energy a hundredfold, chloroform for emergencies, and a pair of handcuffs with masking tape in case she needs to use them. She knew Shido from when they were children living in the same apartment building and him doing something that had a profound impact on her.

Her hatred of Spirits stems from a Spirit who killed her parents five years prior when it blasted her parents after they managed to escape their burning home. Due to this, she joined the AST, in which she holds the rank of Master Sergeant, in an attempt to find the Spirit responsible for the fire codenamed "Efreet" and kill her, as she believed that "Efreet" was the culprit. However "Efreet" who turns out to be Kotori was not the Spirit responsible. She reluctantly believes Shido when he tells her that while Kotori unintentionally started the fire, she did not kill Origami's parents and that there was another spirit there (later named Phantom.) Although whether Phantom killed her parents, or another spirit was there and was the one who killed Origami's parents is unknown. However, considering Phantom went to great lengths concealing its identity such as not having a clear image or voice whenever meeting anybody in addition to wiping Shido's and Kotori's memories 5 years ago its unlikely that it was the girl Origami saw mocking her parents death. This singular aim of revenge has enough drive within her to overcome her calm, calculating, and composed personality for her to go to the extent of disregarding orders and hysteria, getting her into trouble on more than one occasion. Notably, she was about to be discharged from the AST in volume 5 until Westcott intervened, after which her punishment was reduced to two months of not being allowed to use Realizers.

In volume 10, she was turned into a spirit by Phantom.

Kotori Itsuka (五河琴里 Itsuka Kotori)

Shido's foster sister who was a human that gained the power of a Spirit five years prior to the start of the main story and thus, saved by Shido at that time. There is no record of how she obtained her Spirit powers, and she herself cannot remember; she does not know why both Shido's and her own memories are vague or missing at that crucial point, though she suspects someone may have tried to erase those memories. However, she isn't able to handle her Spirit powers for long before she loses control and is overcome by a powerful need to destroy and kill. When her Spirit powers overwhelm her, she retains almost no memories of any events that transpire during that time. She temporarily takes back her powers from Shido to save him from Kurumi with her power being sealed by Shido once more later on. The reason another sealing was needed was because she took all 100% of her power back breaking the Spirit Link between them that would cause her powers to return to Shido when she calmed down. During this state Shido has none of Efreet's powers and thus is completely and mortally human which will stay dead when killed. At the second sealing, she and Shido both regain their lost memories of the first sealing: an entity called "Phantom" granted her her Spirit powers when she was left alone at home and crying (with which she destroyed everything around her and nearly killed Shido), told her to kiss Shido if she wanted him to live (which was how Kotori knew about the method to seal a Spirit's powers, and also the ability to heal from serious injuries that Shido got from her), and afterwards stripped them of their memories of its existence, as well as Shido's memories of the entire incident. This memory also disproves Origami's belief that Kotori was the one who killed her parents, and that it was another Spirit that did it. Considering how Phantom went to great lengths to conceal its existence it seems likely that a third spirit was present and the one who Origami saw murdering her parents. Especially since Phantom never shows itself with a definable appearance or voice while the figure Origami saw was definitely a girl who apparently wanted to be seen.

She has red hair, often in twin ponytails, and her eyes are red. She is almost always shown with a Chupa Chups lollipop in her mouth. She displays two very different characters, bordering on split personality. When she wears white ribbons in her hair, she is completely relaxed and peaceful and shows an immature, spoiled character that's always clinging to her brother. When on the Fraxinus or dealing with major situations, she switches to black ribbons taking on an arrogant, superior attitude to everyone including Shido, but nevertheless still cares deeply for him as shown on many occasions. This difference in character is revealed in volume 4 to be due to Shido giving her black ribbons as a present for her ninth birthday after sealing her powers, and telling her to be strong as long as she wears them. However she is extremely weak to horror-related things, and reacts strongly to them regardless of character. She also shows evidence of concealed romantic interest, such as when she declared to Mana that a foster sister is better than a full sister because full siblings can't marry, then gets flustered when she realizes she said it in front of everyone else.

Her Angel is Camael, a halberd with a flame edge that is capable of changing shape to a cannon that extends to her right elbow. The cannon takes a little time to charge up and absorb Kotori's flames but has a devastating attack that almost killed Kurumi and blew a hole clean through her angel. Kotori with her powers has the ability to recover from severe injuries, which Shido is able to use unconsciously while her powers are sealed inside him. Its represented by healing flames coming out of the wounds. How much of this effect remains when her powers are sealed is unknown. Her Astral Dress, Elohim Gibor (meaning "God Hero" in Hebrew and as par with anime-naming, does not mean a thing), is a kimono which mainly consists of the colors pink and cream. In her Spirit form she also has horns growing on her head, with her black ribbons tied on them. Her AST and Ratatoskr codename is Efreet.

Yoshino (四糸乃 Yoshino)

The Second Spirit saved by Shido. She has the appearance of a young girl around Kotori's age, with long blue hair and matching eyes. She has a very shy personality, depending on her puppet in her left hand, Yoshinon, most of the time for communication. She is a very docile Spirit, and does not attack the AST when they attack her, not even summoning her Angel, reasoning that if she does not like being hurt, they would also not like it. However when she loses [Yoshinon] she will be at a loss, and when attacked will summon her Angel, but only to defend herself.

Her Angel is Zadkiel, a giant rabbit puppet that she summons and controls with her right hand. It is capable of breathing out freezing air that freezes the AST members along with their territory. Other than her Angel, she is also capable of manipulating the three states of water, but is usually seen manipulating ice, however there is a tiny amount of Spirit Energy in each drop of the rain that appears whenever she manifests herself in this world. Her Astral Dress, El, consists of a green rabbit suit and a white petticoat. Her AST codename is Hermit.

Yoshinon (よしのん Yoshinon)

A split personality that was born out of Yoshino's wish to not be alone and not to have her powers hurt others. It is Yoshino's ideal self, as well as her friend. Unlike Yoshino, it speaks out with confidence, but is prone to offending others. It acts as Yoshino's pillar of support, allowing her to keep calm enough to not attack others. It usually does the speaking for Yoshino, appearing to speak through ventriloquism by her doing, but their thoughts are independent of each other, and she has no control over what it says. Yoshinon's personality only comes out while Yoshino is wearing the puppet and both personalities consider the puppet to be Yoshinon. Yoshino is always the human shaped spirit Yoshino, Yoshinon is always the puppet so there are never any cases where Yoshinon takes over Yoshino's body, other than the arm holding the puppet, and Yoshino never becomes the puppet.

Kurumi Tokisaki (時崎狂三 Tokisaki Kurumi)

The third Spirit that appears in the series, and the most brutal. Her Astral Dress, Elohim, is made out of crimson and black frills, giving her the appearance of a Gothic Lolita. While in her Astral Dress, she wears her black hair in twin ponytails, with the hair on her left side longer than her right. While not in her Astral Dress, her hair is tied up slightly differently, with both sides being of the same length except for the fringe covering her left eye, showing only her red right eye. Her left eye is an inorganic clock face, representing her remaining time (essentially measuring how much life she has left.) Although she is prone to killing people without a second thought, she has so far only killed humans who are doing bad things such as surrounding and hassling her when she wanted to be left alone. She cares for animals a lot, such as when she killed four guys who were shooting a kitten with air guns by making them the targets for her guns. She transfers into Shido's class in volume 3 and even announces that she is a Spirit. She is attracted to Shido from the very start, gaining the ire of Tohka and Origami. She is very aggressive in her actions, causing Shido to be bewildered during his mission on making her fall in love with him. However she reveals to Shido that she transferred to Raizen High School in order to eat him, or specifically the power that he has within him, to gain a large amount of life. She has a history with Mana, as Mana has been repeatedly killing Kurumi, but fails due to the fact that Kurumi keeps reappearing through the use of her clones. She manages to easily defeat the combined forces of Tohka, Origami and Mana at the end of volume 3, but was defeated at the beginning of volume 4 by Kotori. She managed to flee after Shido got in between them to stop Kotori from killing her. In the volume's epilogue she is seen regaining her time using her shadow powers to absorb the life of people within a building just enough to knock them out for a bit, but without killing them to 'avoid attracting attention'. She seems to have taken a liking to Shido as she appears in several side stories forcing him to do something with her for fun, but without trying to 'eat' or kill him. Such as going on a date or having him comment on several cosplay outfits she tries on for him.

She reappears at the end of volume 6 to help Shido rescue Tohka who has been captured by DEM Industries, as well as to use Shido as a distraction to find something else in the possession of DEM Industries. It is revealed at the end of volume 7 that she had been looking for and had failed to find the Second Spirit, who was captured by DEM Industries and held somewhere, and was the only one who knew the location and identity of the First Spirit, the one that caused the spacequake 30 years ago. As of volume 7 her powers have yet to be sealed by Shido.

Her Angel is Zafkiel, which takes the form of a massive clock face with an old fashioned rifle and a handgun of intricate designs taking the place of the minute and hour hands of the clock, and which allows her to control time. She is able to summon her past selves to fight or take her place as they are essentially Kurumi herself. This not only allows her to cheat death by summoning herself from before her death, but also makes it more difficult for Shido to reach her; such as when Shido was able to persuade Kurumi on top of the school but was interrupted when another self (original?) killed her (clone?) for showing weakness, circumventing any emotional persuasions the same way as physical injuries. Although which memories are kept and which die with the one killed is unknown along with how Kurumi uses her clones to evade death. One possibility is that when the current Kurumi dies the clone created from the most recent time becomes the dominant Kurumi or when about to be 'killed' again the original somehow switches places with a clone in her 'shadow'. Although all clones have the same memories as her up to the moment in time they were copied from, but whether they build on those memories by watching from her 'shadow' where she stores all her clones when not in use or some other method hasn't been shown yet, but they almost always obey the original. Only know exception is the clone created from the moment on the school roof who ran off to have a date with Shidou before being pulled back into the shadow and 'dying'. From within the shadow they can reach out their arms and grab people to hold them or to drag them into the shadow which somehow ends up with the person seeming to have exploded when the area is shown later. Can come out of the shadow and use the same clothes and guns as the original but not the powers of the Angel directly.

The twelve Roman numerals on the clock has different powers that only the original Kurumi can use. She has twelve different abilities she can use, which are named after the first twelve Hebrew numerals. The abilities she has shown so far include First Bullet: Aleph (which speeds up time, allowing the target to move faster), Second Bullet: Bet(which slows down time and causes the target to move slower), Fourth Bullet: Dalet (which reverses time and which can undo injuries the target sustains), Seventh Bullet: Zayin (which stops time, freezing the target and preventing it from moving), Eighth Bullet: Het (which makes clones of the target, these clones being cloned from a past form of the target, and this ability being the secret behind her past selves and why she keeps reappearing after being killed), and Tenth Bullet: Yud (which allows her to see the past experiences of the target). Her power causes her life to be eaten away, the clock hands on her eye rapidly turning in the clockwise direction each time she uses Zafkiel's power. This forces her to obtain 'time' from outside sources, specifically from either killing other humans using her shadows, or using the City of Devouring Time to weaken those caught in her shadows to strengthen herself. In addition, the real reason she wants to gather a large amount of time is to not only be able to use Twelfth Bullet: Yud Bet to go back 30 years in time to kill the First Spirit, but also to have enough left over to do the deed. Her AST and Ratatoskr codename is Nightmare.

Reine Murasame (村雨令音 Murasame Reine)

Head analyst onboard Fraxinus, she is a non-certified medic who can perform simple first aid tasks. On the second day of the semester, she transfers into Shido's school as his assistant homeroom teacher. She is soft spoken, often speaking in a nonchalant manner who seems to have a physically weak stature and always seems to be tired. She even claims to have not slept for thirty years.

Rinne Sonogami (園神凜祢 Sonogami Rinne)

Rinne Sonogami is Shidou Itsuka's childhood friend, she and her family lives right besides the Itsuka's family home, their parents have known each other for a long time and because of this, Rinne and Shidou naturally grows close together ever since they were children. Rinne often comes to the Itsuka residence to wakes Shidou in the morning and do housechores for Shidou, she seems to be very close to Kotori and the other spirits as they often have a meal together.

But the truth is, Rinne (or Ruler) was never Shidou's childhood friend nor was a human, she was born as a result of a large amount of spirit energy suddenly forming a consciousness on it's own. One day, Shidou's massive amount of stress caused by his dangerous life made the power of the sealed spirits return to their owners, and on the school's rooftop Tohka's power went berserk and accidentally killed Shidou, at this moment Rinne activated Eden in order to save him. Her Eden engulfed the entire Tengu City and Rinne slipped inside Shidou's life as his childhood friend, her objective was to continue this Eden forever and hopes that Shidou will never discover the truth of Eden and have a happy life with his chosen partner.

Unfortunately, as a result of her inability to fully control Eden, Shidou starts noticing the oddity around him and Kotori and her crew were able to identify Eden's effect, each time Kotori (or Rinne in Kotori's route) tried to call Shidou to warn him about this, a choice pops up either to pick the call or choose to stays with his chosen girl. If Shidou were to choose to answer the call, he and his chosen girl will try to dissolve Eden by destroying the vital point of Eden, but Rinne and her guardian shows up and disarm the girl and kill Shidou to reset Eden again and time will return to the moment Eden started. This chain of events keeps repeating until Rinne can no longer erase Shidou and the girls memories completely, this causes Ratatosk to notice the field earlier and the other heroines to be able to notice the world's oddity and eventually Ruler's existence as well. In desperate, she concludes that this was the result of her mind turning instable over time, and so she choose to date Shido to stable her mind once again, but not only it ended in failure it also causes Shidou to starts developing feelings for Rinne. As a final resort she decided to give up pursuing an happy ending in this loop and tries to forcefully reset Eden by killing Shido once again, but she was stopped by the spirits and Origami. Eden's memory manipulation has been dissolved and Shidou destroyed Eden's vital points and guardians with the help of Tohka and the others. Shidou faced Ruler who shows herself to be Rinne and once again she tried to kill Shidou, she used Paradise Lost to disarm the other spirits and Origami only Shidou was able to resist it's effect due to his strong will. Finally accepting her defeat, Rinne asked Shidou to seal her by kissing her, Rinne kissed him and her power was sealed putting an end to Eden and her utopia, but because Rinne doesn't posses a physical vessel, the loss of her power means the very end of her existence, she tearfully say goodbye to Shidou after confessing her love to him. After this, Shidou and the others lose all of their memories regarding Rinne and Eden.

After the credit, inside an unknown space Rinne was shown talking with herself until Phantom appears before her, Phantom thanks her for her hard work and she should take a good sleep, Rinne disappears completely. On the "If" scenario unlocked after the ending, Rinne is shown transferring to Shidou's school, Shidou who miraculously remembers Rinne welcome her back and Rinne replies with "I'm back, Shidou.", ending the game with the words "to be continued" rather than "Fin".Rinne does not possess any Astral Dress or Angel, this is because she is a being that is close to a Spirit but isn't one, but this doesn't mean her power is inferior to the Spirits. In fact, probably because of her abnormal origin, Rinne possesses a power that far outclasses Tohka and the other Spirits, easily defeating them all together at once.

Rinne possesses 2 powers that are given names:

1. Eden, her first power, is probably her primary ability. Eden's power as summarized by Reine is "the power to redo the world until the user gain the desired result", using this power Rinne can create a large field where all the events inside the field can be manipulated and also can be redone many times as Rinne desires, this is the power that Rinne used to hide the tree that functions as the core of the Eden by manipulating the residents of the Tengu City into believing it to be the city's new monument New Tengu Tower, Rinne also used this power to make herself be Shidou's kind childhood friend that was always with him ever since they were kids, according to Reine this ability could be seen as an Angel but with a scale that far surpasses one.

2. Paradise Lost allows her to control the roots of the tree that is the core of Eden to attack her enemies. Rather than hurting the enemies physically, the roots took their consciousness. Rinne used this power to defeat Shido and the spirits.

3. Other than the two powers above, Rinne also possesses many other unnamed powers such as summoning Guardians to act under her will and firing powerful beams and fireballs that could defeat a Spirit easily.

Kotori also made a comment that Rinne's mana density is second only to the First Spirit and if she would lose control of her power, it would cause a spacequake so powerful that could destroy Japan.