Zuke

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## Biographical information

### Affiliation

Bunk Bed Junction (Current)Eve's Band (Formerly)

### Relationships

Mayday (Band mate and mutual friend)DK West (Older Brother)
 Eve (Ex-Bandmate; implied former lover)

## Physical Description

### Voiced By

Steven Bones (EN)
Donald Reignoux (FR)
Sébastien Baulain (EU-SP)
Jun Fukuyama (JP)

**Zuke** is the drummer of Bunk Bed Junction and one of the two protagonists of *No Straight Roads*.

## Appearance

Zuke has lime green skin, red eyes and long blue hair with turquoise ends. It is usually let down, while his sideburns extend down his chin in the shape of facial hair.

His clothing consists of a bright green shirt that shows part of his chest near the top, a thin black necklace with a gold pendant, ankle-length teal pants with light blue patterns, purple loafers with white soles and an open black jacket with three gold buttons. He also wears a black glove on his right hand, in contrast to Mayday who wears a black fingerless glove on her left hand.

In his apperance in one of Eve's videos, he is shown with much shorter hair that is tied into a ponytail of sorts. His hair also lacks the turquoise ends, suggesting that he dyes the ends of his hair turquoise. He also lacks facial hair.

## Personality

In contrast to Mayday's optimism and hot-blooded character, Zuke is usually cool-headed and mindful of others. He is tactful compared to her and thinks more rationally. It takes a lot to make him lose his cool, and even his most angry moment in the game is quite mild.

He also seems to be good with technology, as he is a technical engineer for his and Mayday's instruments for combat, according to the Upgrade section outside of Vinyl City.

Zuke's attitude changes in his battles against his older brother, DK West. During the first two encounters, he is very aggressive towards him, acting uncharacteristically angry. In the final encounter, however, Zuke reveals that he actually admires his older brother a lot and that he’s the reason he got into music. After this, the brothers reconcile and become close again.

## Gameplay

Zuke is a combo-focused character. His attacks do less damage than Mayday's, but they're faster and with a longer combo that gets even longer with skills. If you are fast enough to do all 9 combos, Zuke can deal major damage and one shot most bosses. His transformations are more support focused and are usually based on the mechanics of the boss, like absorbing notes and converting them to ammo when fighting Yinu, or granting a speed boost against DJ Subatomic Supernova.

The main way to execute his combo is repeatedly pressing the attack button, and then finishing it off with either a mod attack, heal, or by pressing the transformable activator button to deal extra damage. The number of times the attack button needs to be pressed varies depending on how high Zuke's combo skill is upgraded. It ranges from 2-8.

Zuke's Skill Tree grants him different abilities, including:

* Extending the length of his full combo to 5/7/9, and granting him a finisher by pressing the transformation button.
	+ Another skill has the 9-hit finisher fire projectiles.
* Restoring his health with melee hits.
* Increasing melee damage with each consecutive hit.
* Restoring his health with parries.
* Doubling parry damage.
* Increasing ranged hits with each consecutive hit.
* Taking less time to complete transformations.
* Granting ammo after a successful transformation.
* Granting health after a successful transformation.
* Not flinching when being attacked while transforming.

## Relationships

### Mayday

He has become a band-mate and friend of Mayday since they founded Bunk Bed Junction. He is the voice of reasoning to Mayday's "act first, think later" attitude. Zuke is protective of her and dislikes when she becomes distracted by her infatuation with the NSR artists such as with Sayu and especially 1010, horrified that they "swayed her heart so easily".

### NSR

Zuke has a much mellower outlook on NSR compared to Mayday, reasoning that they must have their own "unimaginably high standards when picking their candidates" and voted them off with fair judgement from the Lights Up Audition. He even admits that they might be being too harsh on NSR, complimenting their running of the city and how much power they give. In just a few moments, both a blimp broadcasting Tatiana's banning of rock and the power going out prove him wrong in an ironic twist. He still tries to reason that Tatiana's ban has a rational explanation, but when he sees that the backup power is supplied only to NSR elites, he joins in on Mayday's call for change, although with a bit of reluctance.

His drumsticks are also NSR-branded, which Mayday doesn't approve of (even breaking them at one point, though he fixes them). He says he uses them due to them being quality instruments.

#### DJ Subatomic Supernova

During their initial encounter with DJ Subatomic Supernova, he does not have any visible feelings toward the egotistical DJ. When DJ Subatomic compares them to Pluto, saying that they're no longer needed, Zuke responds to Mayday's question on what Pluto is, saying that it isn't necessarily an insult but gets cut off soon after.

#### Sayu

After Sayu called him and Mayday a couple he stutters in surprise. As Sayu makes conversation with him about love, Zuke immediately starts considering the factors needed for a romantic relationship before Mayday cuts him off, starting the battle sequence.

#### Yinu

At first, Zuke is reluctant to fight Yinu because of her age, but he changes his mind once Kliff convinces him of how powerful she is. At the end of their battle, Zuke appears to feel guilty for breaking her piano. He also seems to hold respect for Yinu's skills, admitting that the duo had just been shown up by a kid.

#### 1010

Zuke has a clear dislike for 1010, especially with how easily they made Mayday fawn over them. He spends much of the fight trying to tell May that she shouldn't be distracted like this during a fight, growing frustrated when she doesn't snap out of it.

#### Eve

Zuke was originally a member of Eve's band, which they started in their college days. It could be seen that they were in a romantic relationship as well due to the heart-shaped art installation that they made together in one of Eve‘s hand mirror recordings. The relationship ended when Eve set Zuke's hair on fire, causing him to run away and ghost her. The heart shaped artwork can be found in game, now split apart. While battling Eve, Mayday and Zuke are split into two rooms, with Zuke’s colored white. This is the side of herself Eve favors more, shown by how she rarely attacks Zuke while battling, focusing mainly on Mayday. She feels that Zuke is ungrateful towards her, saying that she "made him the man he is today". After the fight, he talks to her, telling her that she doesn't need someone else to complete her, and apologizing for not being the person she wanted him to be.

### Kliff

Zuke seems skeptical of Kliff, asking Mayday how he got her phone number. He seems to mellow out once they meet, seeing how determined he is to help them defeat NSR, without even questioning how Kliff knows where they live. He does doubt Kliff's morals, though, asking if they should really be fighting a child. When Kliff turns out to want to destroy NSR tower, Mayday turns on him and Zuke follows suit.

### DK West

*"You're disrupting our music revolution, man! We've got tons of things to do, and I don't have time to play around with you, you understand?!"*
―Zuke, to DK West

DK West is Zuke's older brother. While Zuke is usually calm, his demeanor changes as his brother taunts him for always being angry. While his brother speaks largely in Malay (colloquial Bahasa Malaysia), Zuke only speaks it when irritated with West. The two have more tension between them when it comes to Nadia, who DK West was infatuated with. During their second encounter, Zuke goes as far as disowning DK West as his sibling, to which West seemed hurt.

In their last encounter, Zuke reveals that he actually admires his brother a lot and that he’s what inspired him to get into music. After this, the brothers reconcile and part ways on good terms. West mentions that he will uphold his promise to stay in contact with Zuke.

### Mother

During the Yinu battle, Mother says that she should “teach you brats some lessons in music", to which Zuke states that he actually has a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts and Music, before being cut off by Mother telling him to shut up.

### Neon J.

After their fight, Zuke seems to be neutral towards Neon J., even being curious about how his body works and how he's able to cough. When he begins ranting about his war stories, he and Mayday promptly leave.

## Story

### Past

According to DK West, Zuke was a loner kid whose only friends were DK West's pals in school. In college, Zuke exceeded his brother's popularity, and he became bandmates (and most likely romantic partners) with Eve back when she was known as Nadia. The two even worked on art projects together, which they recorded and posted online. Zuke graduated from college with a Master's Degree in Fine Arts and Music. For unknown reasons besides Eve lighting his hair on fire during a performance, Zuke left Eve's band and met Mayday shortly after, leading the two to form Bunk Bed Junction.

### Lights Up Auditions

Zuke and Mayday once participated in the Lights Up Audition held by NSR. The judges, which were Tatiana and the other EDM artists, dismissed them as rock was an outdated musical genre; henceforth, EDM became popular in Vinyl City. Once Tatiana prohibited rock for further auditions, Zuke reluctantly agrees to support Mayday in starting a Music Revolution against Tatiana and the empire of NSR.

###  Vs. DJ Subatomic Supernova

The duo heads towards Club Planetarium for their first step of the Music Revolution, where DJ Subatomic Supernova prepares for his concert. They tried to consult him that everyone in Vinyl City deserves to respect rock as a normal medium, but DJSS ignores their comment and attempted to rat them out. Zuke, along with Mayday, finally defeated DJSS, whose "head" uncontrollably releases a black hole.

### Meeting Kliff

Zuke wonders how Kliff got Mayday's number, and later dismissing the fact once he meets him. He looks mostly positive towards Kliff as the game progresses.

### Vs. Sayu

Zuke and Mayday enter the streaming hub, seemingly fascinated by how it looks. Zuke tells Mayday not to talk about whether or not Sayu was real, to which she replies by outright telling him that she doesn't exist. Sayu replies by saying she's "as real as their love for each other", to which Zuke is caught off guard and begins sputtering. During the fight, he points out to May that she is being sidetracked by how cute Sayu is, although he doesn't seem too bothered. After the fight, he suggests they jump in Sayu's control room to see the people behind her.

### Vs. DK West

In the initial battle, both brothers hit each other pretty lightly as far as insults go. West points out that Zuke was simply trying to copy his style, and that without him he is nothing. Zuke retorts that West only thinks he's greater than he is and is blind to his many faults. West ends the battle saying he simply allowed Zuke to win.

The second battle is where things get more real. Though it was implied through the dialogue before the first battle, DK West begins gaslighting Zuke into making him think that all of his problems and issues between the two brothers are entirely on him, where Zuke becomes furious and denounces West, saying that he no longer considers DK West to be his brother. Hurt by this, West retreats, and Mayday mentions that she feels their battle went too far.

The third battle has Mayday initiating the battle instead of Zuke. However, instead of instigating conflict, Mayday instead tries to bring the brothers back together, even going so far as to telling West that his brother looks up to him. Zuke and West, now realizing how much they mean to each other as brothers, close the battle on mutual terms with one another. Their relationship rekindled, West sets off to "meditate" elsewhere, while Zuke thanks Mayday, even complimenting his friend's rapping style.

### Vs. Yinu

In Yinu's concert at Natura Concert Hall, they inadvertently angered her Mother, after they crashed her performance and directly targeted her with their weapons. Zuke and Mayday are reluctant to fight a child at first, although they change their mind once they see her skills are nothing to sneeze at. Zuke is seemingly looking forward to a fight involving classical music due to his masters' degree.

### Vs. 1010

At first, Zuke was pretty neutral towards 1010, although he was a bit weirded out by how strangely May was reacting to their picture. When they begin to complement May to win her over, Zuke is confident that she wouldn't fall for them, until he notices she feel silent. He is then horrified that she fell for them, and proceeds the fight by being annoyed with May's date fantasies about them. Once Neon J. shows up, Zuke is determined to destroy his flying factory. After the fight, Neon J. tells them to "finish the job", to which both Mayday and Zuke reply with confusion. They begin walking away as he rants about a war story. After May asks Neon J. for a 1010-autographed poster, they leave.

### Vs. Eve

The battle begins with Eve insulting Mayday repeatedly, wondering why Zuke would ever have chosen her over herself as she sees Mayday as "pedestrian" in intellect and artistic views. Her feelings for Zuke are still present in the fight, as when she splits the pair up in strange rooms, Zuke's rooms are abundantly easier to maneuver in and predict, while Mayday is put through a real gauntlet. The two continue to survive because of their friendship, and Eve grows angrier and angrier, not believing their bond could be this tight, even believing that they have a strong bond due to them "hating" her.

After the battle is seemingly over, Eve retreats into a white void where Zuke goes to comfort/confront her alone. He tells her that, while he did have feelings for her, it was apparent that the two would always think differently from each other, and that he wishes he could see the world as she does. He tells her that she might have to just learn to be satisfied with the idea that she might never meet someone who thinks in her same view, but that she is strong enough to survive on her own. He ends the conversation by defending Mayday, saying that if Eve truly knew Mayday, she wouldn't consider her to be pedestrian.

## Trivia

* Before the 23-minute preview video of *No Straight Roads* gameplay was released, Zuke's in-game model from the demos and early promos used to have red blush marks on his nose and on the top of his ears. As of the game’s recent update, Zuke lacks the red blush.
* Zuke's jacket comes from a suit that he and Mayday split between themselves, giving Mayday the pants.
* A line spoken by Zuke in the Level Up 2019 English trailer is "Calm down, we gotta win this!", during the early boss fight against 1010. This voice line never made it to the final cut, but it can be found inside the Sayu boss battle audio folder, mined from the game itself.
* Zuke's Japanese voice actor, Jun Fukuyama, is famous for voicing the nameless Joker from Persona 5.
* "Zuke" is another word for zucchini.
* When feeding Ellie, there is a small chance he looks around and eats the fish.
* If you look closely to the model of Zuke's drumsticks, Mayday didn't completely snap them, but she did snap one of them.
* He enjoys collecting toilet seats. as seen in a minimalist drawing in the end credits.
* He appears to be self-conscious in front of cameras. Examples being that he forgets his lines during the Lights Up Audition, stops eating and in a panic wipes his mouth when the reporter questions why they defeated Sayu, and appears nervous while recording in one of Eve's old videos.
* He knows Morse code, as shown when he discovers someone is pulling prank calls over a radio.
* Zuke and DK West were assumed to grew up poor. As he was looking at 1010's limbo he stated he "couldn't even afford a wagon while growing up".

## References

1. ↑ MyGameOn article revealing English voice cast for Mayday and Zuke
2. ↑ Gematsu article revealing original English dub cast
3. ↑ Jeux Video article revealing NSR's French cast (French)
4. ↑ NSR's Spanish dub reveal in Rock Rebellion trailer (Desconsolados, Spanish)
5. ↑ Gamasutra article revealing NSR's Japanese cast
6. ↑ https://www.twitch.tv/videos/773999889