Santa Destroy

The Santa Destroy skyline in No More Heroes.

Santa Destroy is a fictional town in both installments of the No More Heroes video game series, as well as being mentioned in Diabolical Pitch. It was based on small American towns, occasionally known for their seediness, lack of care for education, and menial population, as well as the setting of the 1971 film Dirty Harry. In an interview with SUDA51, he stated that the city is located between Los Angeles and San Francisco, but its western oceanfront, eastern Mexican border, and general atmosphere and architecture all suggest it is located in the far tip of Southern California; the town is also similar in some accounts to Modesto, California, the hometown of George Lucas. Some comments by the manager of Job Center suggest that Santa Destroy is an anarchy. When the town is revisited in No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle, it has been renovated into a tourist hotspot funded by the Pizza Bat corporation.

Landmarks

Important landmarks in Santa Destroy include the Atomic Drop Ward, Body Slam Beach, Destroy Stadium, Iron Claw Point and the Big Flag, which is masted over the local motel.

Culture

The flag of Santa Destroy.

Well-known shopping areas throughout the town are AREA 51 and its Japantown, Gold Town. There are also two employment agencies in Santa Destroy, the Job Center and K-Entertainment, a corrupt advertising agency; the latter will not allow employment to those who are without introduction tickets, which can only be obtained through first working for the Job Center. This is because as a corrupt advertising agency, K-Entertainment entrusts the employment of carrying out assassinations for large sums of money. The town is also known to have hosted a Santa Destroy Eight Hour Stamina Meat Festival and yearly baiting Cat Fight.

Media

There are at least seven known newspapers in the area which can be seen distributed through sidewalk newspaper dispensers, five publications of which are free of cost. Apart from the Santa Destroy Times, which prominently ran baseball pitcher Nigel McAllister's career-ending shoulder injury as a cover story, it is unknown what type of newspapers they are, daily or weekly, or what their features include (although the front page of one depicts a car, possibly appearing to be an automobile magazine). The publications' names are also difficult to decipher. Bear Hug Studios is a local film studio known for filming the Destroyman series and giving out tours.

By the events of Desperate Struggle, the UAA's activities have become an emerging blood sport and are regularly televised.

Santa Destroy also has one known radio station, WGHM 86.6 FM.

Sports

Santa Destroy is the known home of two baseball teams. The Santa Destroy Warriors are implied by the Santa Destroy Guide to be one of the less popular professional teams in the sport by stating, "The only thing they lead the league in is violence towards fans." The Santa Destroy Red Tigers are another team based in the city, however it is unclear if they play alongside the Warriors or if unpopular opinion towards the Warriors' behavior necessitated the Red Tigers as a replacement. The Red Tigers are seen as much more competent; achieving "one of the most amazing winning streaks in baseball history," their star pitcher Nigel McAllister takes the Red Tigers to the World Series championship, albeit at the cost of a debilitating shoulder injury. Santa Destroy's home field is located at Destroy Stadium.

Desperate Struggle shows Santa Destroy gaining popularity over its broadcasting of UAA Ranking Battles as a spectator sport, thanks to the Pizza Bat corporation. While this brings an enormous amount of popularity to the town and sweeps all over the nation as a new media sensation, this is likely seen by many to be an extremely controversial sport, due to its need for the contestants to kill each other for ranking.

Economy

A map of Santa Destroy which appears in the Santa Destroy Guide.

Perhaps most notably of the town's economic system, despite Santa Destroy being set in California, its currency is not the American dollar but rather the "LB dollar." This is given no explanation, nor has it been officially confirmed as to what "LB" abbreviates, although it may possibly be a joking word play with the units of currency and mass, the pound.

Overall, Santa Destroy projects to be an unfavorable place for working. The recognized businesses and companies in Santa Destroy are "45" Liquor, A Stroke of Genius, AAA Service, Angelica autobila, Architectural Salvage, AREA 51, Army Surplus Store, Art Materials, bar plastic model, Bear Hug Studio, Beef Head, Blue Face Jeans Co., Buck Wild Sports Bar, Burger Suplex, Cafe Gaetano, Carpal Motors, Casey's Diner, Conway's Auto Store, Crazy Ted's TV HiFi PC & Car Stereo, Death Match Bar, Destroy Bank, Destroy Restaurant, Destroyer Antiques, Don't tell my mama, Door to Door, the Egbert theatre, Freak Momma, G.G. Hey's, Gloomy Cafe, Gram-"Paw" Ferguson's Famous Dog Food Burritos, Grasshopper, Greets!, Hardware, the Job Center, K-Entertainment, Key Holl Beer, Keynote, King Tut, Lobster Lovers, Luchaco, Madril Tattoo, Mattress Discount, Meat Market Produce, Moai Financial, Motel "NO MORE HEROES", Naomi's Lab, Never Mind the Botox, New & Used Books, Noir Café, No Pity for the Majority, Orient Express, Orpheus Pharmacy, Perishable foods, Piledriver Realty, Pirates & Ninjas, Puppy Market, Posh Cat, Public Parking, Rolling Cradle Highway Bus Stop, Samantha's Soap Shop, Seaside Bueger, Stan & Olivia's Dry Cleaning & Tailoring, Steak Shack, Stinkin' Beer, Suplex Pizza, Tag Team Taco Twins, Three Star Freight Shipper, Thunder Ryu Bldg. (home to the Evolution Gym), Tiki Bar, Toyland, Tyrannomarket Rex and Way to Go. A Japanese advertisement of No More Heroes features an airplane overhead, though a local airport is not officially recognized in the game. There is also a record label based in Santa Destroy called Star Records.

In the game's sequel, Desperate Struggle, the corporation Pizza Butt, since rechristened Pizza Bat, succeeds to open a restaurant chain in Santa Destroy, in addition to renovating the town into a tourist hotspot thanks to its spectator blood sport show sensation.

Since then, there exists the businesses Airport 51, Beef Head, Chasing Tile, DEAD, Eat My Beef, Supermarket Guan's, Luchaco, Marco's Tube Jobs, Motel "NO MORE HEROES", Naomi's Lab, Ryan Yamazaki's Ultimate Workout Gym, Santa Destroy Bank, the Santa Destroy Junction Mall, Santa Destroy Resort, and Star Chores.

A 1.8 billion tax funded program was funded to dispose of the large amounts of waste generated by tourists and the town by launching it into space, this eventually proved to be extremely ecologically and catastrophically dangerous.

Despite the increase of Santa Destroy's real estate, commercial, and economic value, the owner of DEAD stated that there was a shortage of workers thanks to the appeal of the United Assassin's Association. Yet after the death of Jasper Batt, Jr., it is likely the town is freed from the hold of the Pizza Bat corporation.

Crime and safety

Santa Destroy does not experience significant crime rates, bar the organized United Assassins Association Ranking Battles and K-Entertainment's contractual Assassination Gigs which take place at locations within Santa Destroy or its surrounding area. However, during Travis Touchdown's time ranked sixth, countless bloodstains blemish the concrete streets of Santa Destroy, which lead to the bloodied body of an unidentified girl in the barren Atomic Drop Ward, next to the entrance to the Senton Splash Tunnel. When Travis returns to the town upon ranking fifth in the UAA, the streets have been cleansed of the blood, and the body of the girl has since removed. This occurrence is the town's only recognized rise in crime, excluding those which have been organized privately by the UAA and K-Entertainment.

The D Police serve as Santa Destroy's law enforcement. For a while under the influence of Pizza Bat, they are bribed to excuse Ranking Battles, UAA related crime and crimes committed by Pizza Bat's henchmen.

In Desperate Struggle, the death of Georgy Bishop was likely a notable event in the town, signifying the town's great increase in crime and drop in morality as authorities did nothing to investigate his murder.

Education

Santa Destroy High School is the only institution which appears in No More Heroes. It is suggested that the school does not offer students a proper education, possibly due to faulty teachers and staff, or because of students themselves. It is uncertain how children obtain their elementary education, though it is most likely that there is either an elementary school in Santa Destroy that isn't recognized in the game, or children are simply transported to a nearby, surrounding community with one. The school also hosts its own fencing team. On the site is also an abandoned and decrepit schoolhouse, possibly where instruction occurred before the construction of Santa Destroy High School.

In Desperate Struggle, secondary education becomes available through the opening of Destroy University. Nonetheless, it is likely that the quality of education remains to be the same as it was before, due to a lack of base academic culture and inexperience with the influences and impacts of having a large scale academic institution, especially one constructed and established within a short period of time.

Transportation

The Rounding Body Press Station and Bow and Arrow Station operate an extensive system of subway lines across Santa Destroy. A number of bus stops can also be seen in various places, although no buses ever seem to service them. The town's bus system, Rolling Cradle Highway Bus Stop, also provides transportation out of the town via the Santa Destroy Junction.

Trivia

• The Grasshopper Manufacture logo can be found in several parts of Santa Destroy, namely on the sides of newspaper dispensers and on the WGHM 86.6 FM billboard (a radio station which itself references Grasshopper's three-letter abbreviation, GHM).

See also

• Santa Destroy Guide