P-chan
P-chan (ピちゃん) is the romantic partner of Ame-chan, serving as her constant guide throughout the course of the game. They are represented by the player themself, given freedom by Ame to dictate her day-to-day activities, aiding in her long-term goal of reaching 1,000,000 followers. They live with Ame in her apartment, often communicating with her through the JINE tab. Ame gives them their nickname, "P-chan," in the introductory sequence of the game, explaining that the 'P' stands for them being 'perfect' for her, and that they are her 'producer.'
Their gender, age and appearance are left up to interpretation, given that P-chan has never been explicitly seen in the game. Ame expresses an interest in both men and women, suggesting that P-chan may be of either gender.
Misinterpretation with identity
Although the pink cat with a pleading face, the pleading emoji cat, or the pien cat, is often interpreted as "P-chan," amongst the community of Needy Streamer Overload, the two are not the same.
The pien cat was created by Ame-chan and is used as her mascot for her streaming career.[1] Given that P-chan has no canonical physical appearance, the pien cat serves as the stand-in/placeholder for P-chan, rather than a real physical depiction of the character. This is so that P-chan can be presented in the game, while leaving their real identity ambiguous.
The pien cat may have briefly represented Ame, particularly in some tutorial tooltips,[2] at least in the English version of the game.[3]
Personality
Not much of P-chan's personality is known. Partially owing to the fact that they are represented by the player, P-chan does not have much dialogue, only able to directly express themselves when they are given a dialogue option in Ame's JINE tab. Their responses are usually brief, and almost always cold in tone. They will usually type with proper capitalization and grammar, in contrast to Ame's more loose style of typing. Though they are able to express loving sentiments to Ame, she herself acknowledges that they are often mean and curt, owing this trait of their personality to be something that she actively enjoys and allows. Much of their personality can only be inferred through Ame's secondhand accounts, through which she may express that P-chan performed a thoughtful act of love for her, or that they acted careless and worried her. The heights of P-chan's uncaring demeanor can be seen when they instruct Ame to go through incredibly stressful in-game events, allowing for scenarios in which Ame herself questions why they aren't acting as a more responsible and loving partner.
Comment te dire adieu
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SPOILER WARNING
This article or section contains spoilers of NEEDY STREAMER OVERLOAD. |
In Comment te dire adieu, it is revealed that P-chan is Ame's imaginary partner, formed to help her through her obstacles. This reveal explains why Ame texts P-chan, despite the two of them living together and being present in the same room at almost all times; JINE was the only method through which she could pretend to talk to P-chan. Since P-chan is imaginary, their personality is, by extension, formed by Ame's own personality. This explains the cold, uncaring nature of P-chan, which is further supported by the notes contained in secret.txt, which divulge that Ame does not want a romantic partner who is only nice to her.
Trivia
- In-game, P-chan's name is only given two possible meanings as stated by Ame on Day 1: 'perfect' and 'producer.' However, there are additional possible interpretations of their name.
- In Idol media, it is common for the Producer to be nicknamed P, with honorifics like chan or sama.
- In Japanese, the "pi" character (ぴ) is an honorific similar to "chan," but is mostly used to refer to small pets; some may call their pets "pi-chan" outright.[4] This may suggest that P-chan's name has no particular meaning, and is only meant to be a cutesy nickname, in the same way one would call their pets "pi-chan" regardless of the pet's actual name. Additionally, P-chan can use stickers which often feature a pink cat in them, which may further lend credence to this interpretation.
- A few popular fan meanings have provided suggestions to the possibility of the meaning behind "P-chan." Some include:
- Player-chan
- PC/Personal-Computer (This fan suggestion is derived from putting together the "P" and the "C" in their name: "P-C(han).")
- In the spinoff manga Run With My Sick, P-chan makes a true, physical appearance in this manga, where they are depicted as a middle-aged blonde male businessman wearing glasses and a tuxedo. This contradicts the ambiguity of P-chan's appearance in the game.
- However, since this manga was not written by Nyalra but happened to be produced by WSS playground anyway, it is not considered canon.
Notes and references
- ↑ Q44 in Ame's Profile
- ↑ For instance, when the player hovers their cursor on the stats of the Task Manager, the tooltips are depicted as speech bubbles coming from the pien cat. In a case like this, they indicate what Ame would be saying in first person. For example, when the player hovers their cursor on the Stress icon, the speech bubble says "this shows you how much pressure im feeling.", which indicates that, in these brief moments, it would be Ame talking to the player in this case while being briefly represented as the pien cat.
- ↑ The note above may not be reflected in all languages. For example, in Japanese, the pien cat refers to Ame as "the girl," rather than speaking in first person as if it was Ame speaking.
- ↑ http://yabai.com/p/2486
