Yinu's Mother

*"How could you? HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO HER?!"*
―Yinu's Mother, to Bunk Bed Junction

**Yinu's Mother** is the true 3rd boss in *No Straight Roads*. She represents **dubstep** to combine Yinu's representation of classical music, even though she is not an official NSR artist.

## Appearance

The Mother is a giant red-skinned woman with yellow eyes and a heart for a nose. Her long, red hair is a scattered set of branches, making her silhouette the theme of a tree. Her only clothing we see is her black dress with a rose pattern and a ring.

When angered, her eyes become pure white, her teeth become malformed, and the heart on her forehead cracks in half down the ridge of her nose. When completely enraged from seeing Yinu harmed, she transforms into a cage, with her hair forming the cage and her head in the middle.

When calm or comforted, she shrinks down to a reasonable (but still tall) height and her hair straightens out into a very large lock of sorts.

The Mother lacks ears in any of her forms.

## Personality

In connection to Yinu's character motif of nature, the Mother represents the tree, and she also provides the theme of security and safety for her daughter. In additional words, the thorn-studded gate with a heart-shaped lock appears in the first phase. As the Mother becomes more infuriated towards Mayday and Zuke for crashing her daughter's concert, the environment around Natura Concert Hall transforms into a creepy, red-tinted forest, compared to the tranquil side of the nature theme of Yinu.

She's Yinu's mother, so she's very protective of Yinu to a fault and will get in the way of Yinu's ambitions. She's extremely temperamental, getting progressively angrier the more injured Yinu becomes. However, she genuinely cares for Yinu through thick and thin. Despite her anger, she does have a softer side, seen when the somber notes Yinu plays at the end of the fight calms her down to her normal self as if all transgressions have disappeared.

## Relationships

### Yinu

From their interactions, it's clear that Yinu's mother deeply loves and cares about her daughter, but has a severely controlling and overprotective side; she can be harsh and comforting in equal turns to Yinu, and Yinu likewise looks up to her mother when the woman is in a good mood, but is frightened when she is angry.

### Bunk Bed Junction

***Mother:** I should teach you brats some lessons in music!*

***Zuke:** But I have a master's degree in Fine Arts and Music!*

***Mother:** SHUT UP!*

Yinu's mother viciously dislikes Mayday and Zuke and has a low opinion of their rock music. She regards them as threats to her daughter who are making a fool out of her piano skills, and ignores Zuke's attempt at a rebuttal when he mentions his MD in Fine Arts and Music.

## Possessions

* **Natura Concert Hall** - The central place of concert Yinu and her mother are located.
* **Natura Botanical Gardens** - A line of gardens.

## Boss Fight

DISCLAIMER: Metronome names are not official; just placeholders.

### Phase 1

The mother hides within the curtain of the concert hall. She creates a gate with a gold lock in front of the player, who must destroy the lock while avoiding a bomb that will fall from above. Once the gate is destroyed and you enter the stage, The Mother will pull Yinu and her piano up by the strings. Yinu rapidly shoots out the Eighth Notes.

### Phase 2

She'll summon an eighth note which her mother will smack down creating a shockwave, you will receive small ammo notes to hit the piano wires that are attached in Yinu's piano, causing the Mother to wrap her arms around Yinu which is a way to hit her.

### Phase 3

Once you deplete enough of the Mother's health, she wrecks Natura Concert Hall and grows larger while lifting up the ground with her red vines. She and Yinu will do the same thing as Phase 1 and 2, but during the chorus, she'll randomly alternate between the shockwaves or summoning four pieces of ground to crush the player.

### Phase 4

After you deplete half of the Mother's health and destroy all 5 strings hanging on to Yinu's piano, the mother will snap and transform into a giant cage in the center of the arena, trapping Mayday and Zuke inside her. She'll summon whole notes and use golden piano hammers covered in red vines to attack the player. At some point, the Mother will headbutt onto the center of the arena, creating red shockwaves.

### Phase 5

After being beaten and left at the mercy of a Showstopper, Yinu springs out from the golden rose Mayday and Zuke are standing on, interrupting the Showstopper. Relieved, Mother asks Yinu to finish Mayday and Zuke off. Yinu becomes enraged, saying she hates everyone present, to Mother's dismay. The last phase consists of Mayday and Zuke racing up the stem to the flower Yinu is on top of, dodging incoming notes along the way. Mayday and Zuke cannot jump and must strafe side to side to avoid the notes.

## Story

### Past

Nothing is known about her past prior to meeting her now-late husband and having her daughter. Through Yinu's collectables, it's shown that her husband, who taught Yinu to play the piano, fell ill when she was very young and passed away before she won the first of her six BAKAT Awards

### Yinu vs. Bunk Bed Junction

Realizing that her daughter's performance has been interrupted by Mayday and Zuke, the mother takes action by shielding her and attempting to obliterate the duo for crashing her concert. As Yinu is directly hit for the final time by Bunk Bed Junction, the mother ultimately becomes angry and launches herself to smack the duo out, distraught by her daughter being hurt.

## Trivia

* She's the only boss that wasn't an EDM Artist of NSR, unlike her daughter, at least for the grand majority of the fight.
* Whenever she moves in her larger form, her body makes noises similar to a tree moving, such as creaking.
* Unlike (somewhat) her final design of the game, the mother is shown to have glowing white eyes in previous test demos and some visual key art.
	+ Her current design, however, keeps this white eyes when she becomes angered.
* A very early concept design of the mother is more eerie than her final design. This piece of early concept shows her in a wifebeater dress, and yet this didn't make it into the final game, because of a few concerns.

## References

1. ↑ Gematsu article revealing original English dub cast
2. ↑ Keiko Kobayashi's character revealed to be Yinu's Mother (Twitter, Japanese)