Sayu

* Original/1st Phase
* 2nd Phase
* 3rd Phase
* 3rd Phase (Dark)
* Final Phase

*"LOVE LOVE Sayu, pyuu~n!"*
―Sayu

Sayu is a digital idol, one of the megastars in NSR, and the charter of Akusuka District who is the representative of **cutecore**. She is created, programmed, designed, and animated by a group of four adolescents, named Remi (main animator and designer), Tila (voice actress), Dodo (motion capture), and Sofa (video editing). Sayu is the 2nd boss in *No Straight Roads*.

## Overview

Sayu is a character in the form of a singing Mermaid. Due to her cute and bubbly personality, she is highly popular, especially with kids (according to Zuke).

## Appearance

### Original Design

Sayu has pale, pink-skin, cyan, heart-shaped eyes, and dotted eyebrows. She has short and wavy platinum white hair with pink and yellow streaks, and cyan pearls floating at the ends.

Her tube top and wrist bands have cyan highlights. Her tail has cyan, fuchsia, and yellow scales. Her fin at the end of her tail is pink with two smaller fins beside her hips. One of her prominent features is her ahoge, which is shared by her lead artist, Remi. Another feature is her lack of a nose.

Her torso, fins and tail are not connected, with her tail tapering to a point and her upper body floating just above it. This is more prominent in her third transformation. In her reverse mermaid figure, her head and torso are replaced with a titanic head and small fins of a pink fish, but her heart-shaped eyes and her ahoge remain. Her tail is removed by her human legs with short ankle cuffs that share the color palette of her handcuffs.

In the second phase of her battle, Sayu has been remodeled by her artist, Remi. She has fuchsia, heart-shaped irises outlined with cyan with white pupils in the center. Her eyebrows are replaced with two cyan dots, with another set under her eyes. Her hair has more volume and her streaks are now magenta and cyan. She has one wavy strand that is yellow at the roots and grades to cyan. Her tube top has a magenta-periwinkle gradient, and her wrist bands are slightly longer with cyan and periwinkle gradients. Her tail has a gradient from cyan to magenta. Her Pyun Pyun Trident is lemon yellow with one of each prongs ending with a magenta sphere, a cyan pyramid, and a white cube, meant to resemble the USB symbol. The body of the trident is long, tapers to the head, fades from white to gold starting at the bottom, and ends with an orb and golden ring at the bottom.

Her third iteration is her most visually overwhelming. She is even bigger and taller. Her hair is nearly waist length, with cyan, yellow, and pink streaks. Her face becomes slightly longer, featuring yellow dots, two above and below each of her eyes. She also wears a headband around her forehead with three cyan decorations, with the center one being bigger than the other two. Seven pale yellow orbs float around her head. Her torso is slimmer and her tail forms from a spiral, now more disconnected from her torso. Her wrist bands are blue and yellow, while her top is predominantly magenta with cyan and yellow accents. Her tail grades from cyan to yellow to pink, adorned with a scale pattern. Her side fins become pink and now have small orbs around it, while her tail is split into six large ribbon fins with a marbled pattern of cyan, yellow, and pink. Her fins become largely exaggerated and are disconnected from the body.

Her deep sea version is similar to her third stage, albeit with dripping makeup and glowing chip wires. Her colour scheme has more pink and navy blues.

Sayu's theme is the ocean and the digital world. Her battle stage is a digitalized format of the ocean. Sayu's malfunctions and her final form, a reverse mermaid, is a visualization of a team of young artists clashing against each other.

### Early Concept Designs

Sayu's first viewable early design has long, velvety fuchsia hair, while the rest of her clothes and tail are mainly white. She has a large crown on top of her head.

It's hard to see what her early in-game model looks like in the Welcome to Vinyl City trailer, but Sayu's hair has a cyan fore-tuff, fleshy-pink skin, and pink eyes. The entirety of her clothing is just tints and intensities of pink. According to Sayu's old U1 icon, (revealed in the Welcome to Vinyl City trailer, and the prerelease 80 minute gameplay preview), it matches the previous description we have received. In addition, she bore colorful floating pearls: the pearl from the end of her front hair is magenta pink, the back pearl is cyan, and the rest are white. Sayu was missing a yellow streak on her hair.

## Personality

Sayu is bubbly, friendly, and cheerful. She peppers references to the ocean, fish, and water in her speech and in her singing, and she frequently repeats the catchphrase "Love Love Sayu Pyun!", as well as the onomatopoeia "Pyun". She has a strong belief in the power of love. After she starts to glitch, Sayu begins to develop a split personality becoming more hostile and unpredictable.

According to Zuke, Sayu is famous for younger audiences, presumably in a range from children to adolescents.

 Relationships

### NSR

NSR gave the 4 creators of Sayu a chance to perform and show their talents to a wider audience than one they had on their normal online spaces. It's made clear by Mayday following their fight that they're not actively aware of the power situation or the overall attitudes against NSR, though they are certainly thankful for the opportunities the company has given them and show that by defending them.

### Bunk Bed Junction

Until they battle her and make her creators panic, Sayu doesn't seem to have any actual hostility towards Bunk Bed Junction outside of rejecting them as NSR artists and trying to make them submit to NSR's domination of Vinyl City. She believes that Zuke and Mayday have romantic feelings for each other, a sentiment which they both deny. While Zuke seems more neutral to Sayu, Mayday's feelings about her are at opposite extremes: while she has no compunctions about calling Sayu "not real" and mocking her as a fictional character at the start of the fight, Mayday also calls Sayu cute with hearts in her eyes when she turns into her second phase form, and is visibly and vocally disgusted when Sayu becomes a human-legged fish, scolding her creators and telling them to "never turn Sayu into that thing ever again".

## Possessions

* **Suka Pop Centre** - A Pop Music Center.
* **Digital Idol Aquarium** - Aquarium.
* **Kura Kura Stream Hub** - Signature place of concert.
* **Wai Wai Wondersea(?)** - Unknown company.
* **Cash River Arcade** - An arcade area with a crab icon.
* **Grand Sea Cinema(?)**- Cinema.
* **Sukidenki** - An electricity company for unknown purposes.
* **Shellfish** - A brand of noodle snack.

## Boss Battle

*"Why hate when we can love? Love is the most powerful power in the world!"*
―Sayu, to Mayday

### Strategy Info

*"Sayu is remotely controlled by her creators. Each member handles a specific portion of Sayu, giving her unique abilities based on their specialties. The only way to contest her is to cut the connection between Sayu and her creators. Only then will you have the fighting chance to beat the Digital Idol."*

DISCLAIMER: Metronome names are not official; just placeholders.

WARNING: In multiplayer mode, **please activate one rail at a time, and only have one person activate it.** Activating multiple rails simultaneously or having multiple people activate the same rail will cause both of you to fall. Metronomik is currently investigating this issue.

### Phase 1

Once you reach Sayu (in her original design), she will alter her appearance and swim away from platform to platform. The player will have to chase her around the platforms while avoiding electrical eels to reach her. The eels rise from the wireframe parts of the floor when a synth part plays.

### Phase 2

After the first phase is cleared, Sayu summons her Pyun Pyun trident. She will fire redfish arrows from above if you, the player, attempt to generate a rail. She goes platform-hopping each time a music rail is brought up. The platform from the left is Sayu's vocal performance (which controls a set of sliding obstacles), while the right is her motion capture (which controls the aforementioned attacks) . Destroy both of its barrier chips that are shielding the character design chip then destroy it to move onto the third phase.

### Phase 3

Phase 3 will have Sayu changing her appearance again, but more overwhelming than her previous designs. Use the music rail Generator to go deeper into the arena. During this phase, Sofa's mouse cursor will try to slash at the player. The platform on the right next to the vocal performance is Sayu's video editing, which controls the mouse cursor.

### Phase 4

After destroying the character design barrier, Sayu's creators will start to panic as she'll start to glitch out and become angry. The player must retrace their steps through the arena and head up to the platforms from the beginning of the battle.

### Final Phase

Sayu's creators will start to combine all of their skills together and transform her into a reverse mermaid. Sayu will slam her legs, which will create a tidal wave, kick a pink pixalated orb at the player, and fire 3 beams at them. The player must use note ammo and fire at the 3 barrier chips in order to destroy the final chip. Once her health is completely empty, Mayday and Zuke will use "Showstopper" to finally defeat Sayu.

## Story

### Past

There's little information about Sayu's origin, other than being the original creation from a video game called *Doki Doki Mermaid Club*. Tila, who is a fan of the game (if not, the character) created a fanart of Sayu as a human and the generic protagonist.

With her passion for singing, Tila created a music video with character artwork as its placeholder, which looks unsurprisingly similar to Sayu. Unbeknownst to her, the original illustration belongs to Remi, who was working on a collaboration project called *Digital Idol Cyberspace*. Tila is quick to apologize to Remi on the comment, before showing him her video, which amazes him.

One day, NSR inspires Tila and Remi to join in a contract, alongside Dodo and Sofa. With the group together, they brought Sayu to life.

### Lights Up Auditions

Sayu is one of the NSR artists who are judges for Mayday and Zuke, who are dismissed for their performance of rock music. She was the third judge to vote off the rock duo.

### Sayu Vs. Bunk Bed Junction

Sayu taunts Zuke and Mayday by suggesting supposed feelings for each other after Mayday criticizes her for not being real, with both characters sliding in with excuses. She recognizes that the two are a threat, but doesn't seem to actively be intimidated by them until her creators begin to panic.

Once the fight ends, Bunk Bed Junction enter her control room, and Mayday pulls the plug. She recognizes that they are incredibly talented to have made it this far on their own, but explains to them that they're involved in things they're too young to be messing with.

### Aftermath

As Bunk Bed Junction made a truce to Tatiana to stop the satellite from crashing towards Vinyl City, they return Sayu's Platinum Disc. Sayu cheers for them as a token of gratitude. She, along with Tatiana and the rest of the NSR megastars, aid Mayday and Zuke to terminate the satellite by using the Grand Qwasa to turn the NSR tower into a metronome.

## Trivia

* Each character has an underlying trope that corresponds with their music genre. Similar to Tatiana's conflict, Sayu's creators arguing and fighting for control during her fourth phase can be seen as a band falling apart due to stress or conflicting ideas, or people in a fanbase turning against each other.
* Based on the digital idol concept, it's believed that she was inspired by Hatsune Miku, a vocal synthesizer software personified as a digital idol.
* Sayu is the first character to have her biography shown in-game, as of the near end of the French dub promotional trailer.
	+ This fact re-appears in the final release.
* Sayu and DK West are the only bosses to have their songs with lyrics.
	+ DJ Subatomic Supernova also has background lyrics in his EDM version.
* The names of her creators are based off of the Solfege scales being Dodo (do), Remi (re-mi), Sofa (fa-so), and Tila (la-ti).
	+ "Sofá" also means "Couch" in Spanish. This is perhaps a reference to how informatic editors spend a lot of their time in front of their computers and working from home, similar to Sofa.
* Sayu's designer Remi, also has an ahoge like her, though he did not originally create her.
* Sayu's quote, "In the name of love, I'll punish you," is a nod to Sailor Moon's famous quote "In the name of the moon, I'll punish you."
* Sayu's final phase form is based off of a reverse mermaid. (A mythical creature, woman from the waist down, fish from the waist up.)
* As the fight against Sayu progresses, increasing amounts of microphone feedback can be heard in her voice, to the point that her speech grates on the ears during the deep sea phase. This probably owes itself to the growing panic of her voice actor, Tila, as Bunk Bed Junction continues to disrupt her connection to her programmers.
* Sayu was originally planned to be a generic digital idol. However, in further concept artwork, she is created as a mermaid by Ellie Yong, who is most noticeable for her mermaid illustrations.
	+ The early concept designs for "human" Sayu can be seen on the wall inside the quartet's base, albeit heavily shadowed.
* While fighting Sayu with Japanese audio, the lyrics are sung in Japanese. All other audio languages have the English lyrics sung during the fight.
* The website “Lukisanart“ is a direct reference to the art sharing website DeviantArt; the word Lukisan being Malay for ”Drawing”.
	+ The page even shows changes and updates over time in the captures, at first showing green color palettes while the last one shows darker colors. This has also happened with DeviantArt, especially with the new and current DeviantArt Eclipse.
* Sayu's original appearance, *Doki Doki Mermaid Club* is based off the game *Doki Doki Literature Club*.
* Her name means "Pretty" or "Plain hot water" in Japanese.
* The tip of Sayu's Pyun Pyun Trident looks exactly like the USB icon, which was also inspired by Neptune's trident, the god of the sea.
	+ There is a scene where Sayu will try to insert the trident into a slot just like a USB, although failing the first two times, even turning it over and over again to try different positions. This is a reference to the common mistake that is made when trying to insert a USB from different angles until finding the right position.
* Sayu's "pyun" is Japanese for "bounce", and is used like the sound that rabbit make. This could be a reference to how her earliest beta designs were a rabbit girl.
* The end credits sketches of Sayu show that she has a nose, unlike the actual appearance in both her original 3D models and 2D appearances.
* The developers of No Straight Roads claimed that Sayu was written to destroy parts of the platform in phase four, leaving large debris for the playable characters to hop one to another. This did not make it into the final product, because of the limited resources the developers worked on.
* According to Daim Dzauddin, the creative producer of No Straight Roads, Sayu is the most difficult to design, color wise and background wise.
* Sayu's stage transition in connection to her character design alteration, from the lighter side of the sea to the deep sea, is a metaphor of the internet, from the common worldwide web to the deep web.
* The achievements gotten by defeating Sayu and doing so without getting knocked out - "Real Human Being" and "Mermaider" respectively - are references to songs "A Real Hero" by College & Electric Youth and "Murmaider" by a fictional metal band Dethklok.

## References

1. ↑ Gematsu article revealing original English dub cast
2. ↑ Jeux Video article revealing NSR's French cast (French)
3. ↑ NSR's Spanish dub reveal in Rock Rebellion trailer (Desconsolados, Spanish)
4. ↑ Ai Yamamoto voices Sayu in the Japanese dub (Twitter, Japanese)