DJMAX Characters and Lore

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DJMAX is a Korean rhythm game franchise that’s been around since 2004. Over the years, DJMAX has accumulated plenty of characters/mascots, as a long-running franchise usually does, the stories of which are usually told through BGAs - in-game videos (the ones you turn off to focus on your SC pattern). Neowiz has been telling the story of the franchise’s characters ever since RESPECT, with one of the in-game videos featuring someone praying to the franchise’s first mascot for the series to come back from the dead. But a few seasons ago, Neowiz became even more assertive about this angle of the game, heavily featuring even the (arguably) minor characters in promotional art and bringing back characters that have been missing for over 15 years. With the release of Expansion V, the developers have clearly expressed that they're certainly interested in adding at least some narrative elements to RESPECT. As time went on, the team decided to tackle new ways to tell the game's story: during the announcement stream for Verse 2, DumpingLIFE said that he feels like there are things that are difficult to express through BGA and skins alone, hence the addition of a new "Story" feature. Doubtless, while reading a new season announcement or watching the update PV, you have many times wondered to yourself: okay, I know the blonde girl and the white girl, but who the hell is everyone else, what do they do, and where do they even come from? Personally familiarizing yourself with the subject matter would require going back decades (not literally though) to play the old DJMAX games (some of which you can’t even play anymore). While that is very noble, I doubt many people are willing to go to such extremes. Hence, this guide, the task of which is to provide general information on the characters appearing in DJMAX RESPECT. I am by no means a trailblazer here: this guide wouldn't exist without posts or comments from other fans in places such as YouTube or Reddit, and if it were not for the Korean community, we would likely know nothing at all. Massive spoilers for expansions after Liberty 3 start almost immediately in the next section. If you want to find out the story on your own, please do so before reading this guide or simply read carefully as none of the spoilers are marked. Scrolling down means you consent to getting slurped. Enjoy the guide. El/E.L./Elle (엘) is the first proper character of the DJMAX franchise and its first mascot. She first appeared in the game that started it all, DJMAX Online (2005), in the track “ Ask to Wind ~Live ver.~ ” (바람에게 부탁해 Live Mix). There’s not much lore about her besides what you’re perfectly capable of understanding yourself: she’s a musician, she sings in a group called called Yellow Bear Band (apparently born from wordplay based on the name of one of the song’s creators - sorry I’m not Korean and I can’t personally check this). El also appears in “Your Own Miracle”, the opening theme for DJMAX Portable 2, along with everyone else, except she’s the only one who got to keep her actual name as E.L. in the BGA sequence where they’re all named. It didn’t take much time for El to become the mascot of the series. Portable came out for the PSP in 2006, featuring El on the cover. It was the same thing for Portable 2, released in 2007, except there, she's depicted as she appears in “Your Own Miracle”. Unfortunately for El, she started disappearing from DJMAX cover art after that. While regional re-releases like DJMAX Portable: Hot Tunes still saw her on the cover, Black Square (2008) and Portable 3 (2010) featured entirely different characters. The series “died” along with El soon after Portable 3 came out. In pre-release statements, RESPECT was described as a new page in the franchise’s history as they aim to reboot it after 7 years, with developers promising that the new entry will allow the series to “take off again”. It only makes sense, then, that El appears again in the two BGA that kick off RESPECT’s story and revives the franchise by sacrificing herself. Play (플레이) is a character whose role in the franchise is difficult to describe. She is not the second character, nor the second mascot, and she doesn’t even appear in the DJMAX games until RESPECT. The circumstances of her creation and the role she ends up playing in RESPECT, however, are enough to make me feel like it’s important to discuss her second. Her first appearance in DJMAX is in RESPECT’s " Glory Day "/" BlackCat " BGA. She visits the Game Graveyard and carries out a ritual at El’s grave with the goal of most likely resurrecting the franchise. It does seem like (at least initially) Neowiz had a slightly bigger role for Play in mind. Korean fans who acquired the DRIVE Compilation Album Universe ID Card Pack reported that Play’s fictional ID has March 10th 2005 as her date of birth - indeed, that is when DJMAX Online left beta and released officially. She also plays a fairly major role in defeating Diein while saving the lives of her friends, like a true MC. With these things in mind, it seems plausible to me that Play is a mascot symbolizing the franchise’s history and the player as part of said history in equal measure. We are Play, constantly hanging out with Clear and Fail as we play, and we can only hope there’s as little Fail as possible. Those who keep up with DJMAX Seasons, and their UI Themes in particular, know that most conversations unfolding on the different screens take place from Play's point of view, only proving the fact that Play is the player's stand-in. As of Liberty 3, Play is an incredibly important character, serving as something similar to an energy source that powers all the worlds that exist within the universe of DJMAX. Clear/클리어 and Fail/페일 (or El Clear and El Fail, to be more precise) are the main mascots of RESPECT. They are absolutely everywhere - on the game’s cover in Steam, on most of the decals and customizable UI elements. Their story is directly related to El’s. When Play visits the location ominously called “Game Graveyard” and arranges a small ritual to start praying for the franchise to come back, lightning strikes, cracks run through the statue adorning El’s grave and she comes alive… as a zombie. She is, however, saved, after which, two mutually exclusive things happen: in “ Glory Day ”, El turns into the blonde girl known as Clear (El Clear/ to be precise). Her left arm is partially zombified, though. In “ BlackCat ”, El turns into Fail (El Fail). Clear and Fail’s chemistry in a nutshell is the manzai duo. When Fail the dummy does something stupid or bad, Clear is always there to clear it up as the “straight man”. Symbolically, they represent your two main companions on the road to a max combo. Sometimes you Clear, sometimes… More importantly, they’re supposed to represent good and bad. Clear’s character profile on the now inaccessible Neowiz MUCA website even explained that her zombified hand is a representation of the little bad parts that still remain in RESPECT, like glitches and bugs. This, of course, partially foreshadows how the story will develop in Extension V. Clear’s main gimmick is her cross-shaped sword of light and her zombified arm that has something really messed up inside as the “ Boom! ” BGA shows us. While I described Fail as representing evil (or the evil side of… something, DJMAX?), I most certainly don’t mean to sound like she’s the villain. She sometimes is, but the scale she operates on is too small. She’s more like the idiot who likes to cause trouble and inadvertently causes the kind of trouble that threatens the world. Her main gimmick is, as you might expect, the cross-shaped (more of an X, though, in line with her symbolism) sword of darkness and the possessed eye that lets her either fire a huge laser or partially transform into an evil creature similar to the creature from “ Boom! ”, as shown in “ Daydream ”. As of Liberty 3, the many instances of Clear and Fail are kno