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Well, it was the specific means of the suicide I was thinking about. Sayaka commits suicide by letting her soulgem get fully corrupted, not knowing that it would turn her into a witch. Vanille is intentionally just running around, waiting for her l'cie brand to fill out so she would turn into a cieth rather than fulfill her focus and destroy Coccoon. I wasn't thinking about Sazh, or rather I was at first until I realized your point and remembered what Vanille's plan was for the first half of the game.

And, yes, many of the details are different as are central story elements. Homura's time traveling is a very obvious example, as is the importance of the military as the main antagonists in FF XIII. Still, they do have a fair amount of similarities.

As for what these means, I can think of at least one cynical explanation, which is that PMMM ripped it straight from FF XIII, but I have serious doubts that is it. Another possibly explanation, though one that would need far more works of entertainment studied, is that it is a manifestation of a wider cultural trend. Japanese art has frequently dealt with a sense of crushing determinism in the last decade or so, possibly due to a stagnant economy and political paralysis. Both these stories deal with it on a less immediate social level, but both also say that you should never give in and that change is possible if you persevere. Arguably, they do have thematic similarities with shows such as Eden of the East in this regard, though that is a much more tenuous connection. You could even see them as being in line with Phoenix Wright's satire of Japanese judicial norms here, those games are about rising against the seemingly inevitable conviction of a suspect no matter how poor the case against them are. The theme of not giving up and fighting on no matter how bleak it gets is central in The World Ends With You as well.

I'm not really convinced this is it, but it is a far more satisfactory and fruitful line of inquiry than just thinking one ripped off the other. Especially with the genuine differences there are between PMMM and FF XIII. It is, however, an interesting topic that more fruitful discussion and analysis could possible come from in the future.


And about the battle system in FF XIII, I loved it. It's my favorite battle system in any JRPG ever, so you're not alone in liking it 0Megabyte.